Intrepid Museum’s Astro Live

Join us live on Facebook, YouTube, or X.

The Intrepid Museum will present a Virtual Astro Live program on December 14 at 3pm ET.

Embark on an extraordinary journey to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon! With thick hazy skies, liquid methane seas, and a frozen surface hiding a possible subsurface ocean, Titan offers tantalizing clues about the chemistry that may have sparked life on our own planet.

NASA’s Dragonfly mission will be the first rotorcraft ever sent to explore another world, bringing science fiction to life. About the size of a small car, this nuclear-powered octocopter will take advantage of Titan’s dense atmosphere to fly across its varied landscapes — from ancient impact craters to organic-rich dunes — all while carrying a sophisticated suite of scientific instruments. Dragonfly will land, sample, and discover as it searches for the building blocks of life and pieces together Titan’s complex history.

Hear from experts at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the team leading this ambitious mission, as we explore how Dragonfly will reveal the secrets of this alien moon and expand our search for life beyond Earth.

The event is hosted and co-produced by John “Das” Galloway, founder of the Kerbal Space Academy.

Participants:

Dr. Elizabeth (Zibi) Turtle is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. She is the Principal Investigator for the Dragonfly New Frontiers mission to Titan and Principal Investigator for the Europa Imaging System (EIS) cameras on the Europa Clipper mission. She also participated in the Galileo, Cassini, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions. Dr. Turtle’s research has focused on combining remote-sensing observations with numerical geophysical models to study geological structures and their implications for planetary surfaces, interiors, and evolution, including tectonics and impact cratering on terrestrial planets and outer planet satellites, the thickness of Europa’s ice shell, the formation of Io’s mountains, and the nature of Titan’s landscape and weather. She earned her PhD in Planetary Sciences from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and her BS in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2021, she was awarded the Claudia J. Alexander Prize by the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences.

Moderator:

Elysia Segal is the Producer of Public Programs at the Intrepid Museum, where she brings science and history to life through creative and educational programming. A NASA Solar System Ambassador and the namesake of main-belt asteroid 17795 Elysiasegal, she co-produces Astro Live for the Museum, and is the host of This Week in Spaceflight for NASASpaceflight.com and the Popular Science Channel. She was the project director of the Museum’s Crossing the Line research & performance residency, and has created and performed engaging, theatrical experiences for audiences across the country.

Host:

John “Das” Galloway is a science outreach communicator who specializes in live, interactive video content. He is the creator of the Kerbal Space Academy, where he uses video games as a tool to start science and engineering conversations with viewers of all ages, and VECTORS Virtual Field Trips, which brings real-time interactive video to museums, events, and historical locations. “Das” also serves as a host and producer for NASASpaceflight.com.

Astro Live is supported through a NASA Cooperative Agreement awarded to the New York Space Grant Consortium. The program is also supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.