The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away—no climate change, no war, no Twitter—beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea. Space technologies and space business are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home. In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, the Weinersmiths' book A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind.

Event Date: 4 / 2 / 2024

Observations of the total solar eclipse of 1919 famously confirmed Einstein’s prediction that light, like all matter, travels on “straight lines” in curved spacetime. We will first delve into the fascinating story of the prediction and observational confirmation of how light travels in the curved spacetime near massive bodies like our sun. We will then see how, from 1919 to the present, our understanding of this behavior of light (gravitational lensing) has become an invaluable tool in probing the nature of dark matter, and even the environs of supermassive black holes.

Event Date: 3 / 21 / 2024

Space Debris is and will continue to be a wicked problem. We need to put some fresh thinking against it. Joe Guzman explores new models that explain how Active Debris Remediation might work, who will pay for it, and why it makes sense.

Event Date: 2 / 22 / 2024