Science, education and engagement at the Astrobiology Australasia Meeting 2018
The first international astrobiology conference in New Zealand, AAM2018 was an extraordinary opportunity for engagement. In addition to the main conference, there was an informal ‘no host’ function which saw significant turn out, an astrobiology workshop for teachers held one day in advance and numerous other engagements from Dr Seth Shostak, Dr Mitch Schulte, Dr Lindsay Hays and Dr Angelica Angles.
AAM 2018 – Astrobiology Australasia Meeting
New Zealand’s first international conference in astrobiology took place in Rotorua on the 24th, 25 and 26th of June 2018. Here is a synopsis of the event.
Rosetta
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) 12-year mission finally came to an end last week when the probe landed on the comet it made friends with over a decade ago. Astrobiologist Haritina Mogosanu joined Paul Henry to discuss Rosetta mission.
Citizen scientists at work: Live long and prosper
The scientists, after looking for more than four years with Kepler to a patch in the sky located in between Cygnus and Lyra (we, stargazing nerds know where that is – see featured pic), have discovered an anomaly… a star (KIC 8462852) that exhibits a weird light pattern, or more correctly no pattern at all. Kepler’s team looks for stars that have regular drops in the intensity of the light emitted – that’s normally because a planet, or a few, orbit that star. Bingo!
Not this time!
In fact, it was not the ‘classical’ scientists but the volunteer citizen scientists who figured out something was not quite right… But what is it, really?
On Air – Haritina Mogosanu versus Jack Tame on the Mike Hosking Breakfast to talk aliens.
Water on Mars: why is important for astrobiology
Haritina Mogosanu and Jesse Mulligan from Radio New Zealand are discussing the importance of the discovery of liquid water on Mars. http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201772535/mars-water-haritina-mogosanu https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars
The 100 million dollar question: “Are we alone in the Universe?”
Shifted from the realm of science-fiction to the reality of science, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence got an unexpected boost. On Monday, July the 20th 2015, a group of visionaries endorsed by Professor Stephen Hawking and funded by Internet investor Yuri Milner announced a $100 million, 10-year search for intelligent project.