blue marble space institute of science

Oxygen on Mars? Don’t hold your breath.

Sarah Treadwell – BMSIS Science Writer Astrobiology asks three fundamental questions: How does life begin, could there be life beyond Earth and, if so, how can we detect it? For decades, NASA’s sights have been set towards Mars for answers. Previous research presented evidence of an oxygen-rich atmosphere in its ancient past; however a new paper released challenges this. A study from researchers at Washington University suggests that we may need to look for signs of life with a new […]

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Why Space Exploration Matters

By Sarah Treadwell – BMSIS Science Writer Recently, several aerospace companies and billionaires have sent their own rockets up to space. The debates started before lift off… What is the definition of astronaut? What counts as “going to space”? The conversations were fast and furious, with many expressing frustration of billionaires using their money on what seemed as joy rides, rather than spend it on other Earth based causes. With all of the new recent launches, a long standing question […]

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Outreach: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Astronomy

BMSIS Young Scientist Sumeet Kulkami gave a talk at the British Council’s “Cafe Scientifique.” Read his reflections below. I started with a brief history of the development of Artificial intelligence, and highlighted the difference in how a regular computer algorithm works as opposed to a machine learning algorithm, using the popular Towers of Hanoi toy. I also talked about how the development of computing power and AI was best reflected in how they conquered two games: chess and GO respectively. […]

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Outreach: Inspiring the Younger Generation

Blue Marble Space Institute of Science Young Scientist Participants at NASA Ames, Genesis Berlanga and Stephanie Meursing, conducted an outreach workshop with four and five-year-old students at Stanford Madera Grove Childcare Center which was facilitated by their instructor, Vanya Chandra. We spoke about planetary science, geology, our X-ray diffraction work, and spectroscopy work at NASA, in support of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover and the CheMin instrument. The activity included talking about rocks, rover instruments, and passing around various […]

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Outreach: Society lives by faith and develops by science

BMSIS Young Scientist Grishma Gupte led an outreach event at the University of Mumbai, India. The Young Scientist Program (YSP) of BMSIS gave me the opportunity to promote science in the society. On 25th February, 2018 I conducted an outreach event for students of a certificate course in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Mumbai. The topic of my presentation was Astrobiology, and it consisted of various aspects ranging from the basic definition of life to exoplanets. I always […]

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The Ethics of Reproducibility in Computational Research

Sumeet Kulkarni shares his ethics & society case study, which he completed as part of our Young Scientist Program. I was motivated to choose this topic for study since my own BMSIS YSP project involved the computational modelling of bubbles growing in lava. The vesicles they leave behind when the lava solidifies into rock are important proxies in determining the atmospheric pressures at that epoch. This method has already been put into use in field studies of vesicle size distributions in […]

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Afshin Khan & SustainSpace Win Overall Prize at ESA Contest

BMSIS scientist Dr. Afshin Khan, along with her team member Mark Ciotola, was selected as the overall winner for the 2017 Space Exploration Masters competition. The contest was initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA) as well as other government and private space organizations. The team’s project was titled “Plant germination during spaceflight to test for adaptability of crops in long term space missions.” Dr. Khan and colleagues plan to continue developing their idea for improving plant yield through space […]

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Virtual Outreach with New Horizon Elementary School

BMSIS Young Scientist Shaelyn Silverman led an outreach event at New Horizon Elementary School in Irvine, California. On September 29th, 2017 I had the privilege of leading a virtual outreach event for a 3rd grade class of New Horizon Elementary School, located in Irvine, CA. Through FaceTime I gave the students a tour of the Exobiology branch at NASA Ames and showed them the exciting microbial mats in the Microbial Ecology & Biogeochemistry Research Laboratory where I work. We discussed […]

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Young Scientists Shine at ASGSR Meeting

We are proud of our recent Young Scientist Program members who competed in the poster competition at the 33rd annual meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR). Shiyin Lim was awarded 2nd place for the undergraduate poster competition, while BMSIS YSP Meg Cheng-Campbell got 2nd place for the graduate poster competition. Congratulations to Shiyin and Meg! [Learn more about the meeting]

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Outreach: Wikipedia ‘Hackathon’

Omer Markovitch, BMSIS scientist, recently organized a Wikipedia hackathon event and shares his reflections below: “Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia” is a major source of knowledge. As it is often used by both specialists and non-specialists as an initial source of information, we recently held an informal Wikipedia meeting talking about its place in the scientific community and how we can contribute. Members of the Otto’s research group from the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry at the University of Groningen, The Nethelands, […]

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