AstrotalkUK

Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

Episode 100 Sandra Benitez Herrera – ESA Education Outreach

By Leave a Comment

Astrophysicist Sandra Benitez-Herrera  talks about the opportunities for teachers and students made available by the European Space Agency‘s CESAR (Cooperation through Education in Science and Astronomy Research) program. This episode was recorded in Athens in July during Cospar 2022.

If you are a student or a teacher in Europe or beyond, Sandra explains how you make use of CESAR’s resources – optical, solar and radio telescopes, online seminars, face-to-face training and an enormous quantity of space data from ESA and other space agencies. All in one place and with no charge. She starts with an explanation of what CESAR is – in audio and Youtube video below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:08 — 31.2MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

Episode 60: Square Kilometre Array

By 1 Comment

Artists impression – from http://www.skatelescope.org/

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a global science and engineering project to build a revolutionary new radio telescope with extraordinary scientific ambitions.

With funding from ten nations the building of the SKA will start in 2016 and be fully operational in 2024. It will tackle some of the profoundest questions of cosmology associated with organic molecules, gravitational waves,  pulsars orbiting black holes and light from the earliest stars that illuminated the universe. To do this the SKA will require super computers,  innovative new power stations and high speed communication links  that currently do not exist.

This interview with Professor Michael Kramer was recorded in March 2012 at the National Astronomy Meeting in the University Manchester two months prior to the announcement that the Square Kilometre Array will be built in South Africa along with  Australia & New Zealand.

Professor Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany that manages the 100m Effelsberg Radio Telescope  is  a former associate director at Jodrell Bank and still professor  there, talks about the technical, political and economic concerns associated with the SKA project.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.5KB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More