Astroblog: The Death of Pluto and the Birth of the Drake Equation

Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Death of Pluto and the Birth of the Drake Equation - Podcats from

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has produced two podcasts that may be of interest to people coming here. I'll just repost their email to me.

The nonprofit Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP)
is pleased to announce two new resources for
educators, outreach professionals, journalists,
and astronomy enthusiasts:

1. Prof. Michael Brown (Caltech) explains "How I
Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming" in a free podcast
in the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series from
Jan. 19th, 2011:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/podcast/index.html

In this wonderfully personal and humorous talk, Dr. Brown
explains exactly what happened and didn't happen when
astronomers reached the controversial new definition of
a planet.

(On that same page, you can find a podcast from November,
in which Natalie Batalha sets the background about the Kepler
mission and explains the search for other Earths in our
cosmic neighborhood.)

2. The latest issue of "The Universe in the Classroom" Newsletter
on Teaching Astronomy celebrates the 50th anniversary of the
Drake Equation -- the formula proposed by Frank Drake that
helps scientists estimate the likelihood of intelligent, communicative
life in the universe:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/77/77.html

In addition to a nice historical summary of the equation and
how it is used, the issues includes resources and classroom
activities on this topic.