Big Picture Science

As NASA’s Artemis program promises to take us back to the moon for the first time in fifty years, we consider what it means that as many as 10% of Americans don’t believe we went there in the first place. Why, despite all the evidence, has the faked moon landing conspiracy persisted? We explore why this falsehood has such staying power and what it reveals about our relationship with science and its findings.  

Meanwhile, lunar science continues unabated. Scientists open a lunar soil sample that’s been vacuumed sealed for a half-century and receive a blast of four and a half billion-year-old solar wind. 

Guests:

Peter Knight – professor of American Studies, English and American Studies and conspiracy expert at the University of Manchester, U.K.

Ryan Zeigler – planetary scientist and NASA’s Lunar Sample Curator at Johnson Space Center

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

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Everyone knows that a big rock wiped out the dinosaurs. But the danger from an asteroid hitting Earth is not limited to ancient history. To deal with this threat, scientists recently ran an experiment to deflect a potential “city killer.” We’ll hear the results of that experiment, and about a visit to another asteroid. In the dusty material NASA brought back from the asteroid Bennu, scientists found the chemical building blocks of life, including many of the amino acids that are found in our cells. Could an asteroid have brought the ingredients for life to ancient Earth? In this episode, we look at our paradoxical relationship with the space rocks that taketh way – and may help giveth - life.

Guests:

Scott Sandford - Astrophysicist and Research Scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center

Robin George Andrews - Science journalist, volcanologist, and author of "How to Kill an Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defense"

Descripción en español

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With only a microscope and a collection of birds, taxidermist Roxie Laybourne became the world’s first forensic ornithologist. The “feather detective” was on the case, examining pieces of plumage to solve mysteries. From bird strikes that caused plane accidents to homicide investigations, no case was too big. In the process, Roxie changed the world of aviation safety and crime investigation forever. Even now, feathers are unraveling a new type of mystery, as scientists from the Bird Genoscape Project use them to map the migratory routes of birds.

Guests:

Chris Sweeney – Journalist and author of “The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne”

Kristen Ruegg – Co-Director of the Bird Genoscape Project and Associate Professor of Biology at Colorado State University

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re going back to the Moon. The planned March 2026 launch of Artemis II is the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972. Historic as it is, it isn’t the only lunar event creating a stir at NASA. Two seismometers are to be delivered to Schrödinger’s Crater in a mission called The Farside Seismic Suite, in which the instruments will measure moonquakes and record the possible impact of asteroid 2024 YR4 on lunar surface. Meanwhile, studies of the sun are heating up. The so-called PUNCH mission, a four-satellite constellation that will create an image of the sun’s corona and solar winds, may help us better understand what drives solar storms and how we can protect Earth from their energetic blasts.

Guests: 

Eugene Cernan – Apollo 17 astronaut

Harrison "Jack" Schmitt – Geologist and Apollo 17 astronaut

Andrew Rivkin – Planetary astronomer at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University

Ceri Nunn – Lunar seismologist and planetary scientist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Ryan French – solar physicist, at the Laboratory for Atmospheric & Space Physics, Boulder, Colorado, and author of “Space Hazards: Asteroids, Solar Flares and Cosmic Threats”

Craig DeForest – Heliophysicist, Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator on NASA’s  PUNCH mission

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

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There are benefits to chilling out. When we cool superconductors to 460℉ degrees below zero, they acquire extraordinary properties that help run quantum computers. Can artificially cooling human bodies also provide profound benefit? Some cryonics startup companies say yes, promising “life after death” through cryogenic freezing. While it’s one thing to freeze all the cells in a body, it is another to revive them. What happens, for instance, to memories when brains thaw? While we gauge how low human body temperatures can go, new research suggests another form of life could find home in the cooler temperatures of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Find out how NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will investigate whether that moon could support alien microbes. 

Guests:

Steve Austad – Distinguished Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research

Olivia Lanes – Global Lead for Quantum Content and Education at IBM Quantum

Austin Green – Post doctoral research associate at Virginia Tech University, and former JPL postdoctoral fellow and affiliate scientist on Europa Clipper

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Correction: An editing error caused a mistake in describing how cold affects inflammation. Contrary to popular belief, at least one study found that cold increases inflammation, at least in the short term.

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