In this episode the Exocast team talk with Dr Megan (Meg) Schwamb about her work from the solar system to distant exoplanets and citizen science. The show is jam packed with exciting science and enough ice cream analogies to build an Exocast Parlour. We discuss in detail the process of going from a strange looking light curve posted in PlanetHunters Kepler to publication and bonafide planet, how you can track ice formation at Mars’ poles, and take a look to the farthest reaches of our solar system to ask what is out there and what does that mean for our planets formation history. Meg also inducts PH-1b into the Exocast Adopted Planets family.
Meg is a planetary scientist and astronomer working on citizen science projects through the Zooniverse and the detection and classification of small bodies in the solar system through large surveys. Meg Did her undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania, before heading to Caltech for a masters and then PhD in planetary science. She was then a postdoc at Yale for for three years before moving to Taiwan at the Chinese Academy in Taipei. Meg is now a Lecturer at Queens University Belfast where she leads a group in planetary science.
Have you taken part in Citizen Science projects? Let us know what you think and join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter. If you want to support the Exocast Podcast then you can Buy us a Coffee, or get your own merchandise at exocast.threadless.com
Exocast is edited by composer/muscian Fergus Hall (https://fergushallcomposer.com) and supported in part by funding from the University of Bristol via H.Wakeford starter funds.
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