Weekly Space Hangout -- March 8, 2012

By Nancy Atkinson - March 9, 2012 at 1:21 PM UTC | Site News

In this episode of the Weekly Space Hangout, we talk about two different asteroid close passes, the solar storms buffeting the Earth, a recent space exploration conference, and a team of amateur astronomers flashing the space station. The regular team was there, with Phil Plait, Pamela Gay, Emily Lakdawalla, Alan Boyle, Nancy Atkinson and host Fraser Cain.

We were also joined by Ryan Kobrick - Executive Director of

Yuri's Night

to talk about the upcoming festivities on April 12.

Remember, we record this show live every Thursday at 10:00am PST / 1:00 pm EST / 1800 UTC. Join us at

Cosmoquest Hangouts

, or watch

Fraser's Google+ stream

for the show to start.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com