Just Look Up! Comets and the Earth - w/ Pedro Bernardinelli - The Cosmic Companion 8 Feb. 2022

Long considered a portent of disaster, comets offer us on Earth a whole lot more — maybe even life itself.

Hello everyone:

This week on The Cosmic Companion, we learn all about those visitors from the distant reaches of the Solar System, comets! We welcome astronomer Pedro Bernardinelli from the University of Washington back to the show, to talk about these dirty snowballs from space.

The film Don’t Look Up recently captured the eyes of the general public, bringing the story of a massive comet heading to Earth to screens everywhere.

Perhaps less well-known is the recent discovery of a real-life comet racing toward its closest approach to the Sun.

We talk with Pedro Bernardinelli, co-discoverer of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, a comet the size of Mount Everest. We discuss the film Don’t Look Up, science in the media, and look at how making a real-life discovery of a massive comet compares with Hollywood’s vision of science…

VIP Subscribers can read the full scripted transcript below!

We will be on vacation for the next two weeks, but we will be back (from our new modern studio!) on 1 March. Join us then as we celebrate women in science. We will be joined by Clare Fieseler and Gabby Salazar from National Geographic, as well as Kim Macharia from the Space Prize Foundation.

We will see you then!

James

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