Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - From Earth to the Edge of the Universe: A New Edition of “The Cosmos”

Episode Date: January 21, 2014

Astronomers Jay Pasachoff and Alex Filippenko join us for a conversation about their newest version of their monumental textbook, "The Cosmos." Emily Lakdawalla helps us say good morning to the just-awakened Rosetta spacecraft, while Bill Nye is fascinated and puzzled by what looks like a jelly doughnut on the Martian surface.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Capturing the entire cosmos in a book, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. Astronomers Alex Filippenko and Jay Pasikoff have just published the fourth edition of the marvelous textbook, The Cosmos. We'll talk with them right after we hear from Emily Lakdawalla and Bill Nye. Later, Bruce Betts will help me give away a copy of the book. Remember when Emily told us that the Rosetta spacecraft's encounter with a comet

would be the biggest planetary science event of 2014. First, though, that European Space Agency probe had to wake up from its long sleep. Well, here's what happened on Monday, January 20th. Emily, the sounds of celebration richly deserved, and I know you want to add your congratulations. Absolutely. My congratulations and huge relief. You know, when you turn off your most expensive, biggest spacecraft, your deep space planetary mission for 31 months, and just set a couple of alarm clocks to tell it to wake up again, it was a terrifying moment for me, just waiting and waiting for that half an hour of silence until finally the celebration that indicated that they

had picked up the signal from the Rosetta spacecraft waking up after 31 months. And what indicated this? I mean, you've got a shot of what just looks like a waveform on a computer display. Yeah, what we're looking at there, it's a little green squiggle on a display, and it was depressingly flat for about a half an hour, this squiggle. But right at the moment of celebration, you see the sudden sharp peak appear in the center of the green squiggle. And what that represents is the carrier signal from Rosetta's high gain radio antenna. It's just a tone, there's no information carried in it. It's

basically the antenna is turned toward Earth and broadcasting a signal at a fixed wavelength, just waiting to receive any commands from Earth. And that's what they did. They returned some commands to the spacecraft asking the spacecraft to tell any commands from Earth. And that's what they did. They returned some commands to the spacecraft, asking the spacecraft to tell Earth about its health. And after the hour-and-a-half two-way light time for that signal to go to the spacecraft and get responded to and come back to Earth, they have since learned that the spacecraft is in good health, responding to commands, and is waiting for further input.

Excellent, excellent. And you can see it for yourself. It's a January 20 entry in Emily's blog at planetary.org. Not only that, but take a look at the video that we just played the excerpt from. But they have to wait. They won't hear anything until how far into this? Until 1.37 into the video, just waiting and waiting. And it was a much longer, more than half an hour for those of us watching their webcast.

That's great. All right. So what is ahead for this mission? How soon does it reach that unpronounceable comet? They reach the comet and they begin taking images of it in May. They plan to go into orbit at the comet in August and they will land the Philae lander on it in November. So much to look forward to. This is, at least in your opinion,

biggest event that we expect for 2014. Still feel that way? Absolutely. Looking forward to it. All right, Emily, we'll talk again soon. In fact, I will talk to you on stage for those who can catch it in time. If not, there will be an archive of our Planetary Radio Live celebration of the rovers, all the Mars rovers. It's happening Thursday the 23rd. We've got a page that will tell you more about it at planetary.org in our little events area. We'll have a good time there with Steve Squires and Bill Nye and a whole bunch of other terrific people. Thanks so much, Emily. Thank you, Matt. Senior editor for the Planetary Society, our planetary evangelist, and a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Bill,

I think perhaps with an honorable mention to the Seattle Seahawks, the NFC champions, you want to talk about jelly donuts. Oh, well, at least one on Mars. And not really a jelly donut. What's the story here? You heard about this from the guy who heads the team that found it. Yeah, Steve Squires, a colleague, receiver of the Cosmos Award from the Planetary Society a few years ago, they have a picture of, we have a picture of the ground, the surface of Mars. And it's a fabulous picture, surface of Mars. There's some rocks, some cracks, some dust. later, Martian days later, this white rock with what looks like a reddish center, which to a geologist whimsically resembles a jelly donut, somehow found its way into the picture.

I mean, there was nobody up there, as far as we know, tumbling these things down little hills to put it in the picture. The best idea, he said, was that somehow a wheel of the rover kicked it up. But what did it kick up? What did it knock off that has this? If you look at the picture, the white rock just stands out starkly against the dull orange, muted orange background. It's really something. Did anybody speculate that maybe this was from a meteor hit? No, not during the interview. Not during his remarks, I mean.

That's pretty cool. Okay. A meteor went off, landed nearby. I think it would have been detected seismically. I think the accelerometers on board would have made note, of course. What if it's this mythic micrometeor, and so on? Yeah. And the piece I saw that mentioned this said that was probably not very likely. Perhaps even more unlikely, CNET's theory, which is that this actually is a jelly donut left by Elvis in a futile attempt to ask us to send more.

If I may be hilarious, Elvis who? No, I got you. So it's probably not a jelly donut. It's a rock that has an unusually high amount of manganese and magnesium both. And so to a geologist, every rock tells a story. So this is a story that they don't quite understand yet. And so no doubt leads to something significant about the history of the red planet. And it is part of our pursuit for water and signs of life. The discovery of which would, as I so often remark, dare I say it, change the world. Go Seahawks. Change the world, as would a Seahawks win in the Super Bowl, which may be imminent. Bill Nye, he's a big Seahawks fan, as you heard last week.

And this, he's also the CEO of the Planetary Society. When we return, a conversation with Jay Pasachoff and Alex Filipenko about the cosmos. How do you write a book about the entire universe, especially when our knowledge of that universe sometimes seems to be growing exponentially? Jay Pasikoff and Alex Filippenko have somehow managed. Jay is Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College, where he also directs the Hopkins Observatory. In 2003, he received the American Astronomical Society's Education Prize. He currently serves as chair of the Historical Astronomy Division for the AAS. Jay has been president of the Commission on Education and Development for the International

Astronomical Union and has twice chaired the Astronomy Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Last year, he received the Janssen Prize of the Société Astronomique de France. And he's also the author of Peterson's Field Guide to Stars and Planets, a resource I've had on my bookshelf for years. Then there's Alex Filippenko, who is a professor of astronomy and the Goldman Chair in the physical sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been voted best professor a record nine times. In 2006, he was named the U.S. National Professor of the Year.

He received the 2004 Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization, and there's a good chance you've seen him on the History Channel or elsewhere on TV. An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, he is one of the world's most highly cited astronomers and has won numerous awards for his research. Alex has served as a counselor of the American Astronomical Society and is president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Gentlemen, while we have spoken individually in the past for this program, it is a great

pleasure to talk to you together about this book, the fourth edition of which you are both responsible for. And congratulations on this publication of the Cosmos Astronomy in the New Millennium. Thank you. I think it really came out very well. There's all kinds of exciting new stuff, and it was produced by our new publisher, Cambridge University Press,

with very high-quality reproduction of many hundreds of color images, and it really looks great and reads wonderfully. And since this is radio, I'm obligated to say that was Jay Pascoff that you just heard. Alex, I couldn't find a history of this book. I know you were both in on the third edition, but when did the book actually get started? When was the first edition? Well, we got together for the first edition in 2001. And in fact, it won the

2001 Texty Award for the best new book in the physical sciences. So there's been editions one, two, three, and four, and it has evolved nicely. And as Jay said, this last edition has a lot of really great, excellent new stuff. I grabbed this book when I saw it come into the Planetary Society office. First of all, what impresses me is that you guys have to capture the entire universe. It seems a monumental task. How do you even approach this, Jay? Well, fortunately, we're not writing this all at one heap. It has evolved from my original textbook from some decades ago. And at that time, I really started to think that the new exciting things on astronomy, black holes, for example, deserve more time than

they were getting. And so there's been a structure there. And then a dozen years ago, to bring Alex in, who's such an expert on cosmology and supernovas and some other things in astronomy, has just strengthened all that material. So the book keeps evolving, but there is a certain amount of basic material. Now, even with the basic material, Copernicus got exhumed from under the church floor a couple of years ago, and Tycho Brahe was dug up a couple of years ago. We actually have a picture of his bones on an examination table, so even the stuff you think might be very old still can be updated in an interesting way. But we just have to spend a lot of time learning about everything in astronomy. Interestingly, there is a bit of humor here and there in the book as well.

Alex, I love your photo of the solar eclipse turned into a happy face. Oh, yeah. Well, my wife, Noelle, and I like to do all kinds of fun things during the long, drawn-out, partial phases. And so during that particular eclipse, you know, we were happy at the beginning because the sky was clear, but then things clouded over and we actually turned it into a little upside-down smile, a frown for a while. But, you know, we saw totality and that's what counts. I'm 13 for 13. I think Jay has a really spectacular record with about twice that many. Oh, at least that many more, right, eclipses, Jay?

Well, I've actually seen 58 solar eclipses, 31 totals. Wow. And we've really lucked into good weather in Gabon in Africa a couple of months ago in November for this latest eclipse. Gentlemen, you've both been teaching astronomy for a long time,

two non-science majors as well as future astronomers. How do you strike a balance with a book like this that is primarily intended for the non-science major when, you know, there is so much math, deep math and deep science that stands behind what you write about? Alex? We do create a balance. The book is meant primarily for non-science majors, but there are a lot of science types as well. And indeed, in my class, there are maybe 20% science majors, and

some even turn into astrophysics majors. So we include some of the physics and math in the text, but we also have these optional boxes, these things called figure it out and a closer look. But in particular, the figure it outs allow instructors and students to delve into the material more deeply and see a little bit more of the mathematics. So we try to make it accessible for a broad range of audiences. I also liked other special sections in here, including the lives in science. Actually, wish I'd seen more of those. But you do introduce a lot of the personalities in the history of astronomy. Well, astronomy is a human endeavor. And I think it's

very interesting for the students to see about the people who are doing these things. So we're able to have interviews, and we've updated them for this edition. For example, Carolyn Porco, who's in charge of the imaging of the Cassini spacecraft around Saturn. And she tells her life story and some things about Saturn, too. Gabor Basri, who's a colleague of Alex's at Berkeley, an expert in infrared astronomy, tells about his work and his life. And we just have half a dozen of these, one for each topic, one for each major topic, a planetary, a stellar, a galactic kind of thing. And those are on the web in this new edition, and we're very pleased with how those look. Yeah, I want to talk about those web elements, the online elements of the book, because, you know, even with four editions since just 2001, this is an awfully dynamic field.

I mean, the first line in the book is we are in the golden age of astronomy. How can you even hope to keep up with the textbook? I suppose the answer we've already given is by adding these online elements, Alex. continuously and then of course every few years there's a new edition where major changes are made and incorporated it's difficult of course to include everything that's new and to some degree you don't want to overwhelm the student with every new little discovery that's announced at for example a meeting of the american astronomical society so it's our job every few years to synthesize what has been discovered and take the essential elements, see how they change the fundamentals of what we presented, and maybe add a few little tidbits, interesting tidbits to the textbook itself. But if we were to add everything, it would overwhelm the student and it would make the textbook, you know, a thousand pages long or more.

On the other hand, the book is not at all dumbed down. I hate to even use that term, because there is a great deal of detail here on even the most recent, many of the most recent developments. And some of these are somewhat challenging. Well, I think there's a mosaic. And we try to hit the broad points. As I roamed the hall last week of the American Astronomical Society meeting, I find myself looking for papers that are really significant, that might change the field in some way, and not just things that add a little detail. So there's a lot of the synthesizing going on. But I remember one of our former editors in an earlier version talked about the richness of the tapestry. So we're telling a series of stories, and each chapter is more or less a story, starting with

some history often and going through the development of the field and winding the most modern parts of the field. So we try to have enough detail that a student reading it is interested and is not just memorizing facts, but is really understanding what's going on and seeing how things developed. Astronomers Jay Pasikoff and Alex Filippenko. They'll be back in a minute to tell us more about the fourth edition of their textbook, The Cosmos. This is Planetary Radio. Greetings, Planetary Radio fans. Bill Nye here. Thanks for listening each week.

Did you know the show reaches nearly 100,000 space and science enthusiasts? You and your organization can become part of Planetary Radio by becoming an underwriter. Your generosity will be acknowledged on the air each week, as well as on the Planetary Society website. To learn more, visit planetary.org slash underwriting. That's planetary.org slash underwriting. Thanks again for making us your place in space. Hi, this is Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society. We've spent the last year creating an informative, exciting, and beautiful new website. Your place in space is now open for business.

You'll find a whole new look with lots of images, great stories, my popular blog, and new blogs from my colleagues and expert guests. My popular blog and new blogs from my colleagues and expert guests. And as the world becomes more social, we are too, giving you the opportunity to join in through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and much more. It's all at planetary.org. I hope you'll check it out. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. My guests didn't have to write an astronomy textbook to establish themselves among the preeminent astronomers of our age.

But they did. Jay Pascoth and Alex Filippenko have just published the fourth edition of The Cosmos, Astronomy in the New Millennium. All right, I hate to ask, but do you have favorite sections? And, of course, I wouldn't be surprised if those have something to do with your specialties, your individual disciplines in astronomy. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Alex, what were your favorite parts of the book,

if not to write, to read or to learn about? Well, my favorite parts have to do with supernovae, the colossal stellar explosions that sometimes stars can go through. Not our own sun, but other more massive stars can do that. And their implications for the expansion history of the universe. through. Not our own sun, but other more massive stars can do that. And there are implications for the expansion history of the universe. We've discovered that the universe's expansion is accelerating. And indeed, that discovery was honored with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Also, I like black holes a lot. So these kinds of far out topics are among my favorites.

I do note that, but I imagine this was probably in the third edition as well, that the accelerating expansion of the universe certainly is represented here, something you contributed to. Yes, that's right. So that was very exciting both to do as a research project and to write about in this book. I was glad to have a picture of Alex and the people with him in that Nobel Prize winning group in Sweden, standing there right after the prize was conferred. That was kind of fun to put in the book. You bet. That's right. There it is on page, what, 488? Let's see.

I know it's well in here someplace. Yes, yes. Page 488. There it is. Yep, there it is. That's lovely, lovely. And I couldn't be in two places at the same time. So although I was the one person who was a member of both teams, I'm not in the team picture at the bottom there. You were even credited for the photo on the top. Jay, what are your favorite sections in this book? What do you most enjoy writing? Oh, I don't think I could choose among the topics.

I've been involved in all of this so long. It's a lot of fun. I am basically a solar astronomer. So for me, it's painful to keep the solar chapter down to the minimum size that it has to be to fit in with everything else in the book. But I do a lot of planetary work and some other things. It's fun to see how the different fields of my scientific interest fit into different topics as they develop. There are so many wonderful illustrations in this book, and I'm sure that many of them are public domain. But how do you even pull together, I assume with lots of help, permission to use the hundreds and hundreds, possibly thousands

of images in this book? Well, I have a history of dealing with these. Of course, there are about 200 new ones for this edition, but that means there are about 800 old ones. And so for those, we have back files. I do employ an assistant, Madeline Kennedy, who works with me in sending out letters. These days, the Internet is different from sending airmail overseas. I spend a lot of time on permissions, shall we say.

We're very careful to credit people and to get their permission to use the photographs. Some of them are in the public domain, a good number of NASA photos, for example, space photos. But there are a lot of individual photos, and I just deal with people all around the world. It's fun to deal with these people. Yeah, it can be quite a challenge because if you find an old photograph whose specific origin you don't know, but you'd really like to use it, you sometimes can't use it because the whole intellectual property issue is a major one these days. And one has to be very, very careful, as Jay said. Gentlemen, it's only been five months since this edition came out.

Are you looking forward to a fifth? Careful, as Jay said. Gentlemen, it's only been five months since this edition came out. Are you looking forward to a fifth? Well, certainly. But this book is really meant for adoption some this spring, but more next fall. It has a 2014 copyright. You're allowed to bring these out a few months before the actual year. So it is considered a new book for use next September. We do have a website, thecosmos4.com, which goes right to the book. solarcorona.com also goes right to the book. We'll have a couple of years before

we really start thinking about the new edition, but I do collect ideas as things come along, and great new illustrations and important new ideas. The book was a few months delayed just for the publication process, and we benefited from that in that it wound up going to press right after the Planck spacecraft observations were released about the structure of the universe, so we're able to have those in at the last minute.

It's just really good to keep up, and I hope we'll have another chance for a fifth edition in a couple of years. Alex, do you look forward to continuing this collaboration? Yes, certainly so. I mean, you know, the field is changing, the book has evolved. I look forward to the future evolution of the book. You know, one of the interesting ways in which it's evolved is that the field of exoplanets, for example, has literally exploded in the past 12 or 13 years. And so if you look at our first edition, we had very little on exoplanets, and now we have a lot.

Jay mentioned the slight delay in the book. That also allowed us to include a lot more results from the Kepler spacecraft, which has revolutionized the field by finding, you know, over 3,000 exoplanet candidates, 90% of which are probable exoplanets. And, you know, there's just so much that can be done more now with exoplanets than what we discussed back in 2001. We certainly couldn't have had a whole chapter on exoplanets, even just a few years ago, and now it's worth a whole chapter in our book. And we just try to keep the overall structure of the book. That's what you get from a new edition.

Instead of just a few web editions, you're able to affect the structure by promoting exoplanets, for example, to its own chapter. And who knows what chapters are in store for that fifth edition that may be a few years off. Alex J., thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on this publication of the fourth edition of the Cosmos Astronomy in the New Millennium. It is truly monumental, and as comprehensive a look at the universe as I could imagine, fitting into 600 pages. And it is a wonderful, wonderful, fascinating read. Guys, I also want to wish you luck with your ongoing research. Well, thank you very much, Matt.

And thank you for the praise for the book. Jay and I certainly put a huge amount of effort into it. And it's wonderful both to see the finished product and to hear what people think of it. And I agree with everything Alex just said, and I thank you, Matt, and it's really been fun to talk to you, and it's been fun to work on this book and to work with Alex over a number of years. Astronomers and authors Jay Pasikoff and Alex Filippenko. All right, it's tool time, everybody. It's time for Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society,

because we're going to do What's Up? And if you don't get the tool time reference, you will. Oh, you will. Welcome. Thank you. And welcome to you, Matt. So, what's up in the night sky on this birthday celebration day of one of your sons? Indeed it is, and lovely planets coming out. We've got all five of the planets that you can see with the unaided eye are visible again, although a couple of them are tough. So easy is Jupiter dominating the eastern sky in the early evening, looking super bright.

If you flip your head to the other side of the sky, you can look low in the west shortly after sunset and see Mercury for the next couple weeks. You can also check out Mars rising in the east in the middle of the night and Saturn rising in the pre-dawn, a while before pre-dawn. It'll be fairly high up, looking yellowish in the rising in the pre-dawn a while before pre-dawn. It'll be fairly high up looking yellowish in the east in the pre-dawn. And then Venus, which you'll know if you see it because, of course, it's really, really bright, is now a morning object. So it'll be low in the east in the pre-dawn.

We move on to this week in space history. It has been 10 years this week since the Opportunity Rover landed on Mars, and it's still successfully going. Mention again for people that we've got a ton of content on our website celebrating Opportunity and Spirit that you can find at planetary.org slash rover party, including spiffy videos from people like me and that other guy that built something. Yeah, the science whatever. We move on to... Random Space Fact!

Over 10 years, Rosetta, the Rosetta spacecraft, which has just awoken from its long-term space hibernation, Rosetta has the longest spacecraft travel time ever between launch and reaching its primary target at over 10 years. That's a patient, patient bunch. Now, it's also flown past some good stuff along the way, but it'll be over 10 years by the time it goes and snuggles up to Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Oh, thank you for that. I just called it the unpronounceable comet when I talked to Emily. Yeah, I thought of doing that too, but I thought I'd take a wild shot at it. All right, we move on to the trivia contest.

And I asked you, what was the first power tool developed for space? Specifically for space, at least by humans. How'd we do, Matt? Our winner gave us a fairly simple answer, but it's accurate. Joseph Murray in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was a Black & Decker power drill. Close enough, right? Yeah, go with that.

Martin & Company worked with Black & Decker. It was similar in look to a home power tool, but the battery-powered electric minimum reaction space tool had 99.97% less reactive torque than ordinary utility drills. And if you call and order in the next 20 minutes, we'll also throw in... No, no, no, no. We can't do that. This is public radio. Sorry. Oh, all right. Sorry. That's what it was going all the way back to 1964.

They used other tools before then, but not specifically designed in space. In this case, designed to have rotated things in the opposite direction of each other, so you didn't introduce a massive torque every time you turned it on, which could be inconvenient in a zero-g environment. You have a spinning astronaut. You'd look like, hey, another opportunity to mention Sandra Bullock. How long will it be until we're over your Sandra Bullock obsession? Joseph Murray, we're going to send you the year in space wall calendar.

And it is a cool one, as we have been telling you for some weeks. We actually are going to move on this week, even though we'll have one more calendar to give away next week. So please get us started with that. What's the question? Well, let me point out first that if people didn't win a calendar and want a space wall calendar, go to yearinspace.com. But here's your question for next time around. Back to Rosetta, still heading off to the comet. We're very happy it woke up from its hibernation. It'll get to the comet later this year. But what bodies has Rosetta flown by on its way to its common encounter?

What bodies did it fly by out there in space? Go to planetary.org slash radiocontest. Get us your answer to win the fabulous prize that Matt will tell you about now. Matt? Well, first I'll tell you, get us that answer by the 27th, Monday the 27th at 2 p.m. Pacific time, to have a chance to win your own copy of The Cosmos,

Astronomy in the New Millennium, the book, the textbook, this brand new edition that we were just talking about with Jay Pasachoff and Alex Filippenko. The publisher, Cambridge University Press, is going to make this available. And I will tell you, this is not an inexpensive book. You get a lot for your dollar here, folks, or whatever unit of currency you're making use of. Okay, we have one more thing to talk about. Yes, we do.

Hey, ever want to fly to an asteroid? Well, now you can. Just order our power drill for space now free of charge no uh no obligation go to planetary.org slash benu b-e-n-n-u and you can enter your name to fly in space on board the osiris rex mission that planetary society is partnering with the osiris rex project and we'll Society is partnering with the OSIRIS-REx project. And we'll fly you out to the asteroid and bring you back in the sample return capsule to Earth. But you will also have your name on the flyby spacecraft that will stay out in space for eons.

So go for that opportunity. In just a few days, we're already approaching 200,000 names. So join them if you haven't already. Planetary Society members will get on there no matter what. We'll put your name on there. But if you want to enter your friends and relatives and pets or whatever, go to planetary.org slash Benno. And I can't find my certificate. I just had it here.

It's beautiful. It's signed by the science guy. I cannot. I'll find it. I'll find it. And by the head of the mission, Dante Loretta. Yes. You can also reprint your certificate

by going to that same web address and entering your information. It'll spit you a certificate back. Oh, what a relief. I think we're done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky, and think about koala bears.

Thank you, and good night. I wonder if there are any koala bears named Bennu. He's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society, who joins us every week here for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by the Cosmos Spanning Members of the Society. Clear skies..