Weekly Space Hangout – October 28, 2016: Dr. Derrick Pitts of the Fels Planetarium

Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)

Special Guest:
Dr. Derrick Pitts, Chief Astronomer and Director of the Fels Planetarium at The Franklin Institute. He has been a NASA Solar System Ambassador since 2009 and serves as the Astrobiology Ambassador for the NASA/MIRS/UNCF Special Program Corporation’s Astrobiology Partnership Program. Additionally, Derrick was recently appointed to the outreach advisory board for the Thirty-Meter-Telescope at Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Guests:
Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg)
Kimberly Cartier ( KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Nicole Gugliucci (cosmoquest.org / @noisyastronomer)
Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter)

Their stories this week:

Dark energy not real?

Young star system caught breaking apart

Are most “habitable” planets around small stars water worlds?

We use a tool called Trello to submit and vote on stories we would like to see covered each week, and then Fraser will be selecting the stories from there. Here is the link to the Trello WSH page (http://bit.ly/WSHVote), which you can see without logging in. If you’d like to vote, just create a login and help us decide what to cover!

If you would like to join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew, visit their site here and sign up. They’re a great team who can help you join our online discussions!

If you would like to sign up for the AstronomyCast Solar Eclipse Escape, where you can meet Fraser and Pamela, plus WSH Crew and other fans, visit our site linked above and sign up!

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Universe Today, or the Universe Today YouTube page.