Third Pod From The Sun

Hawaii is frequently described as a paradise in the Pacific Ocean, but for some scientists conducting field work, there can be some challenges to overcome. In this special episode, Kate Brauman, the lead scientist at the Global Water Initiative at the University of Minnesota, describes her field work experiences in Kona on the big island of Hawaii. Kate's research into land use and its impact on the ground water supply required her to work in “extremely rocky muck,” fend off cattle, and try to protect sensitive equipment from corrosive "vog." Kate also details working in the fog belt on Hawaii, and how forest canopy vs. pasture land can affect the amount of water flowing through the soil. Through this research in Hawaii, as well as other areas across the globe, Kate recognizes and discusses the importance of water management solutions that take local values and needs into account. This episode was produced by Katie Broendel, Shane M Hanlon, and Liza Lester and mixed by Adell Coleman.

In 1959, the United States built an unusual military base under the surface of the Greenland ice Sheet. Camp Century was a hub for scientific research, but it also doubled as a top-secret site for testing the feasibility of deploying nuclear missiles from the Arctic. When Camp Century was decommissioned in 1967, its infrastructure and waste were abandoned under the assumption they would be forever entombed beneath the colossal sheet of ice. But climate change has warmed the Arctic more than any other region on Earth, and parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet are melting faster than snow can accumulate. What will happen in the coming decades if the melting ice exposes the biological, chemical, and radioactive waste left behind at Camp Century? In this episode, University of Colorado Boulder glaciologist Mike MacFerrin recounts Camp Century’s intriguing history and its role in the Cold War. He discusses the potential hazard Camp Century’s waste poses to the environment and surrounding communities and examines what

Water is the most essential of essentials. We can survive weeks without food but only days without water. And it’s something that many of us take for granted. But water is not as plentiful, available, and clean in all parts of the world. And with climate change, water is going to become (and is already) a limited resource to some. From Arizona to Katmandu, Chris Scott, Research Professor of Water Resources Policy at The University of Arizona, has traversed the globe to learn how we use water, problems populations are facing with contamination and access, and to work with governments, residents, and other stakeholders to ensure that everyone has access to clean, abundant water. In this episode, Chris told us some amazing stories of the places he’s traveled to, the people that he’s met, and the challenges that he’s faced.  

Third Pod from the Sun is all about the scientists and the methods behind the science. And who better to talk to about going the extra mile for results than photographer and star of the film Chasing Ice, James Balog? For three decades, James has broken new conceptual and artistic ground on one of the most important issues of our era: human modification of our planet’s natural systems. He and his Extreme Ice Survey team are featured in the 2012 internationally acclaimed, Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Ice and in the PBS/NOVA special, Extreme Ice. His photos have been extensively published in major magazines, including National Geographic, and exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide. His new film The Human Element, is an innovative—perhaps even revolutionary— look at how humanity interacts with earth, air, fire and water. The film will be released later this year. We were fortunate to be able to sit down with James at AGU’s Fall Meeting in 2018 for a live interview. In this three-part series, we t

  Third Pod from the Sun is all about the scientists and the methods behind the science. And who better to talk to about going the extra mile for results than photographer and star of the film Chasing Ice, James Balog? For three decades, James has broken new conceptual and artistic ground on one of the most important issues of our era: human modification of our planet’s natural systems. He and his Extreme Ice Survey team are featured in the 2012 internationally acclaimed, Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Ice and in the PBS/NOVA special, Extreme Ice. His photos have been extensively published in major magazines, including National Geographic, and exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide. His new film The Human Element, is an innovative—perhaps even revolutionary— look at how humanity interacts with earth, air, fire and water. The film will be released later this year. We were fortunate to be able to sit down with James at AGU’s Fall Meeting in 2018 for a live interview. In this three-part series, we

  Third Pod from the Sun is all about the scientists and the methods behind the science. And who better to talk to about going the extra mile for results than photographer and star of the film Chasing Ice, James Balog? For three decades, James has broken new conceptual and artistic ground on one of the most important issues of our era: human modification of our planet’s natural systems. He and his Extreme Ice Survey team are featured in the 2012 internationally acclaimed, Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Ice and in the PBS/NOVA special, Extreme Ice. His photos have been extensively published in major magazines, including National Geographic, and exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide. His new film The Human Element, is an innovative—perhaps even revolutionary— look at how humanity interacts with earth, air, fire and water. The film will be released later this year. We were fortunate to be able to sit down with James at AGU’s Fall Meeting in 2018 for a live interview. In this three-part series, we

  Kathy Crane is a true adventurer. As one of the first women in the field of marine geophysics in the 1970s, she hypothesized and then helped discover the existence of hydrothermal vents on the Galápagos Rift along the East Pacific Rise in the mid-1970s and was one the first people to see many of the strange creatures that make their home in this improbable environment. Using a temperature-monitoring system that she developed for a a deep-tow seafloor towing system, she discovered temperature anomalies, as well as seafloor images of volcanic features, which provided strong support for her hypothesis about the existence of hydrothermal vents – cracks in the crust of the deep ocean floor where tectonic plates move away or towards one another, thereby releasing by hot magma that forms vents that heat the surrounding cold seawater. Aboard the submersible Alvin, she also discovered never before seen animal life – mussels, clams, and most beautifully, tube worms – where it was once thought impossible, all of whi

Check out this bonus clip from our most recent episode, Footprints from an Ancient World, where Renata Netto talks about what it's like to be a woman in her field.

  Renata Netto spends a lot of time on beaches. The Brazilian scientist is an ichnologist, a specialist in the traces of ancient animal behaviors preserved in fossilized footprints, trackways, burrows, nests and other impressions. These “trace fossils” do not hold the animal itself, but a kind of geological memory of its presence on Earth, 60,000 or 600,000 or 600 million years ago. Many trace fossils are entombed in cliffs; the fragile fossils cannot come to the lab, so researchers must study them in the field. In this episode, Renata recounts sharing beaches with surfers and bargaining for paving stones full of trace fossils. She describes the lost world of Earth’s first large multicellular life, the enigmatic Ediacaran Biota, which lived 635–542 million years ago, and the beauty of a shrimp burrow.  

In the mid-1980s, scientists uncovered a troubling phenomenon: The ozone layer, which protects all living things on Earth from the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation, was rapidly thinning over Antarctica. The discovery set off a race by scientists to figure out what was causing the ozone hole, and eventually the realization that chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigerators, air conditioners and aerosol cans were reacting in the stratosphere and producing chlorine-containing compounds that were depleting the ozone layer. This work led to the signing of the Montreal Protocol and several key amendments, which banned most ozone-depleting substances and is considered one of the greatest environmental achievements of the 20th century. In this second episode of Third Pod from the Sun’s Centennial Series, hear from two NASA scientists who started their careers just as the ozone hole was discovered, and who have continued working on and monitoring the issue for decades.

  There are lots of weird, dirty jobs out there. Roadkill collector. Deodorant tester. Catfish noodler. Chicken sexer. But what about… whale poop collector? Leigh Torres, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University, collects the feces from these giant mammals to measure levels of stress hormones present in their bodies. The dirty job involves following a whale for some time and scooping the soft stool out of the water with a net. In this episode, Leigh describes the fascinating process of collecting whale waste and discusses what she and her team are learning about how whales respond to stress in the great big ocean.  

Check out this clip that didn't make it into our recent episode, The Oldest Water on Earth, what old water smells like!

  Tensions escalated between the United States and Soviet Union in the wake of World War II as the two countries stockpiled nuclear weapons and detonated hundreds of test bombs in the atmosphere. But this arms race had an unexpected side effect: scientists learned for the first time how air behaves in Earth’s upper atmosphere and how pollution, volcanic ash, and radioactive fallout travel around the globe. In this inaugural episode of Third Pod from the Sun’s Centennial Series, researchers from NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory discuss how scientists’ understanding of Earth’s atmosphere changed as a result of the Cold War. Listen to one meteorologist describe witnessing nuclear bomb tests in on a remote Pacific Island and hear how scientists used their newfound knowledge of the atmosphere to trace radioactivity from Chernobyl, the most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history.  

Thousands of feet below the surface of the Earth is salty water that hasn’t seen the light of day in millions or even billions of years. Miners working deep underground had encountered and wondered about the origin of this water for decades, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that scientists started to investigate where this water was coming from and what it might contain – giving researchers clues into how life survives in the deepest parts of our planet. In this episode, Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Toronto, describes the process of going deep underground to find and research the origin of this old water, including the discovery of the oldest water on Earth. Barbara also describes how research into the origin of water on our planet and the life potentially contained in these fluids helps scientists understand where life might lurk on other planets, like Mars.    

The ocean floor stores a vast amount of information about Earth and its history. Volcanic rocks that make up most of the seafloor tell scientists about the composition of Earth’s interior, and the sediments lying on top of those rocks document what conditions were like when they were laid down millions of years ago. Scientists access this record of Earth’s past by drilling and extracting cores – long cylindrical samples – of the layers of rock and sediment. To do this, researchers spend weeks aboard a scientific drillship, anchored in place, braving the harsh conditions of the sea. Early in her career, oceanographer Dawn Wright, Chief Scientist at the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), spent several years as a marine technician aboard the drillship JOIDES Resolution, supporting ocean drilling operations all over the world. In this episode, listen to Dawn describe her experiences during the months she spent anchored in the freezing Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica and hear how support ship

Northern fur seals spend more than half their lives at sea. But every summer, they congregate on the rocky, charcoal-colored beaches of Alaska’s Pribilof Islands to mate and give birth to tiny, black-furred pups. Researchers take advantage of the seals’ short time on land to learn more about them and try to understand why their populations have been declining since the mid-1970s. Part of this research involves attaching GPS trackers to the seals’ bodies so satellites can monitor their movements from afar. But it’s not easy walking into a fur seal breeding colony full of aggressive, 500-pound males – not to mention getting close enough to attach a satellite tag. In this episode, Noel Pelland and Jeremy Sterling, researchers at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, describe what it’s like to work with these beautiful yet unpredictable creatures. Listen to Jeremy recount his experience crawling into a fur seal rookery full of cuddly pups with razor-sharp teeth and hear Noel describe what the satelli

Check out this clip that didn't make it into our recent episode, Inside the Boiling Center of the Solar System, with Dan Seaton, about what the sun actually sounds like!    

At the heart of our solar system is an enormous, churning ball of hot plasma. The Sun blows a stream of charged particles over our planet, creating the solar wind. Sometimes the Sun flares bursts of x-rays, or burps bursts of charged particles, which can sweep over Earth and potentially create havoc for power grids, satellites, and GPS networks. There is weather in space, and it has more consequences for civilization than you might think. Solar physicist Dan Seaton studies the Sun at the University of Colorado in Boulder and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, where he is working to understand the Sun’s atmosphere and predict when events on the Sun will affect the near-Earth environment. In this episode, Dan explains how space weather and space weather prediction is analogous to Earth weather—and how it is not—and how what happens on the Sun can affect us here on Earth. Read a new paper by Dan and his colleagues about how solar flares disrupted radio communications during the September 20

Check out this clip that didn't make it into our recent episode, The Dark Sound of the Moon, with Trae Winter about balloons, astronauts. and aliens!  

  On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse swept across the continental United States from Oregon to South Carolina. Millions of people stood looking up at the sky, their mouths agape, as the Sun’s disk was completely covered by the Moon. For many people, the experience of day turning into night and back into day, and the sight of the Sun’s corona streaming out behind the dark circle of the Moon, is a picture they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. But what about people who are visually impaired? How did they experience this celestial event? In this episode, Henry “Trae” Winter III, a solar astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, describes how he and his colleagues designed a new way for people who are blind and visually impaired to experience the 2017 total solar eclipse and his work to design and build tools that make astronomy and astrophysics more accessible to everyone, including people who are blind and visually impaired. Learn more about the app Trae and his colleagu