In episode 10 of the GEMMA podcast, GEMMA intern Odysseus Quarles reviews the discovery and naming of Pōniuāʻena, the second-most-distant quasar discovered to date, and the oldest known billion-solar-mass quasar in the universe. Special thanks to the ʻImiloa Astronomy Center, for allowing us to use audio from their interviews with Jason Chu, Kaʻiu …

In episode 9 of the GEMMA podcast, GEMMA intern Odysseus Quarles interviews Michael Wong, a planetary scientist at the University of California Berkeley. Wong is the PI for the recent Jupiter observations done at Gemini North in conjunction with the Hubble Space telescope and the Juno probe. In this episode, we discuss solar system astronomy in a m…

In episode 8 of the GEMMA podcast, GEMMA intern Odysseus Quarles introduces Brian Day’s Journey Through the Universe talk on the past, present, and future of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration programs. Brian Day is the Lead for Citizen Science and Community Development at NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). His talk,…

In episode 7 of the GEMMA Podcast, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews Data Process Developer Chris Simpson. Simpson works in the Science Users Support department at Gemini Observatory of NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory where he helps write Gemini’s new data reduction software package DRAGONS (Data Reduction for Ast…

In episode 6 of the GEMMA Podcast, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews Joshua Chamot, Public Affairs Specialist for the National Science Foundation. They examine how the media landscape for space science has changed from the dot-com boom in the early 2000s to the decline of journalists with a science background around 2008. They also discuss the…

In episode 5 of the GEMMA Podcast, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews Ethan Siegel, a theoretical astrophysicist and author for the blog “Starts With A Bang” which is featured in Forbes and Medium. Starting their conversation by unravelling Olbers' Paradox, they discuss the four predictions the Big Bang model implies, Einstein's "biggest blunde…

In episode 4 of the GEMMA Podcast, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews Ethan Siegel, a theoretical astrophysicist and author of the science blog “Starts With A Bang” featured in Forbes and Medium. In this excerpt from their discussion, they discuss what multi-messenger astronomy is and the GEMMA 2019 Communications Summit that they both attended…

In part III of the 2I/Borisov series, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa astronomer, Dr. Jacqueline Keane. They discuss the first interstellar comet, 2I/Borisov as well as her team’s study of the first interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua.

In part II of our 2I/Borisov series for the GEMMA Podcast, I interview Michał Drahus, a FUGA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Astronomical Observatory of Jagiellonian University in Poland. We discuss the timeline of his team in Poland starting with notification of the comet, how they coordinated observations with Gemini North telescope, and what they’ve …

In this first episode of The GEMMA Podcast, I sit down with Gemini North Science Fellow Thomas Seccull and discuss the recent interstellar visitor (C/2019 Q4) also known as 2I/Borisov and the optical spectroscopic program that he has monitoring the comet. We discuss the timeline of how Gemini North initially responded to this target of opportunity,…