[This week's guest blogger is our own solar scientist, Dr. Claire Raftery, regaling us with Ireland's rich astronomical history in honor of St. Patrick's Day.]

Ireland, the Emerald Isle, is a land rich in lore, myths and leprechauns. Superstitions and old wives tales are as revered as the rule of law. Its lush greenery is as a result of the wet climate, and world travelers know that a visit to Ireland requires rain boots and an umbrella. Overcast skies and rain showers help to keep the Green Island so green. However, did you know that Ireland also has been a center of astronomy for many centuries—despite the rain!

[This guest blog post comes in the form of a thank you letter we recently received from the Powerhouse Science Center in Durango, CO following our week-long residency there with our program Native Universe: Indigenous Voice in Science Museums. Thank you, Jen and Sarah, for allowing us share this letter.]

Dear Drs. Peticolas & Maryboy,
We here at the Powerhouse Science Center (PSC) would like to voice our emphatic support of the Native Universe project that we have been a part of over the past years. Located in Southwest Colorado, PSC carries the vision to be a leading science center in the Four Corners region. We work closely with a number of local tribes to provide a variety of STEM programming, including field trips, after school science classes, summer camps, and field trips. Before involvement in the Native Universe project, PSC educators struggled serving youth from local native communities, due to differing learning and teaching styles. Fearful of appearing pushy or offensive, we weren't sure what steps were needed to bridge this cultural divide.

[Today's Multiverse Guest Blogger is one of the teen interns in our NASA NOVAS program. The interns created and sent an experimental balloon to the edge of space! The last blog entry was from Tanesha, describing the launch. This entry is from Brandon, describing the eventful retrieval of our space balloon payload after it safely parachuted down to Earth.]

It was hot out. And very dusty. We had just eaten pizza, (I was still hungry, LOL), and we were all psyched to retrieve the payload. We drove into the Carnegie SVRA (State Vehicular Recreation Area). We had two vehicles. The first vehicle Steve was driving with Leitha and six other interns was stopped at the entrance by four rangers. Steve explained that we had a payload somewhere on their property. He knew that because of his GPS tracker that showed him the location. The rangers took a look and determined exactly where they would need to go to find the payload. One of the guys, (Taylor), was willing to drive to the location on an ATV. But there was a catch...

[Today's Multiverse Guest Blogger is Tanesha, one of the teen interns in our NASA NOVAS program. The interns created and sent an experimental balloon to the edge of space! ]

The balloon launch was held on Sunday, October 26, 2014. It was a fun, exciting, and adventurous experience although we did go through some struggles along the process. We weren’t sure about the exact location of launch because we knew it was somewhere around the Chevron Refinery in Richmond. We kept driving until we reached the end to a private marina called Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor. First, we had to ask permission from the owner, Eric, to launch the balloon at his property. He called the Chevron Refinery and they told him if anything falls into their facility, we could get arrested. There recently was a drone that fell into the Chevron Refinery and everyone who was part of it got arrested. The homeland security were extremely upset. Our entire group got scared but we were keeping our fingers crossed so that everything goes well. Ultimately, Eric had to decide if we could conduct our experiment. Everyone thought he would say no, but he finally agreed and allowed us.

[Today's Multiverse Guest Blogger is Emmanuel Masongsong, a passionate outreach educator with NASA's THEMIS/ARTEMIS mission team at UCLA. Today he talks about the Planeterrella, a miniature Earth model that can simulate the aurora (Northern Lights) and other plasma phenomena, the sight of which causes "children and adults to shriek with delight, 'ooh-ing' and 'aah-ing' at the eerie glow of plasma suspended in a ring before their very eyes."]

I had a pretty strong amateur astronomy background, but when I joined the team in early 2011, heliophysics, near-Earth electromagnetism, and space weather really forced me to expand my perception. Describing the immense electromagnetic phenomena in the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field requires specialized instruments and multiple spacecraft to observe what humans cannot actually see. One of the first things I realized about space weather is that the media and the public's attention are heavily weighted to the visible solar phenomena of flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs)-- thanks to gorgeous images from SDO, SOHO, and STEREO. The news headlines harp on X-flares and devastating clouds of solar material (plasma) hurtling towards Earth, offering overly ambitious predictions of spectacular aurora that are not based on real-time satellite observations (and are thus usually disappointing).

[Today's Multiverse Guest Blogger is Carmen Zheng, one of our former Surfin’ the Solar Wind high school interns, who grew up in Oakland and who is now—to our delight—an astronomy major at Cal. "On hot summer nights, we sat on the roof of my house, pretending we could see Pluto through our little telescope and pretending none of our problems existed."]

 On May 20, 2012, I was sitting in the back of a crowded minivan, basking in the cool breeze of the air conditioning and gazing out the window as the flashing city lights of Reno, Nevada whizzed by. Although glamorous hotels, slot machines, and neat souvenir shops basically surrounded our car, I was not looking at the streets – I was looking at the sky. May 20th was the date of an annular solar eclipse. We were headed to the small town of Nixon, Nevada, about an hour outside of Reno, where we would be directly underneath the passing of the moon between Earth and Sun. 

 

[Today's guest blogger is Meghan Campbell, a third-grade teacher who took our "Energy from the Sun" workshop -- with positive effects in her classroom!]
Meghan: After three days spent participating in the “Energy from the Sun” teacher workshop, I promised myself that I would work science, particularly solar science, into my classroom on a regular basis. I have seen firsthand how easy it is for things to fizzle out or be forgotten, but I did not want that to happen with all of my newly acquired activities that align perfectly with the third grade standards. From the start of the school year, I was sure to schedule science in at least once a week. 

Join us for Cal Day, Saturday, April 12th, from 11am-5pm, the one day each year that UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Lab opens its doors to the public. Shuttles will be transporting the public every 20 minutes from Hearst Mining Circle on campus to SSL.  Activities include walking tours of UC Berkeley’s cutting-edge space science research lab, as well as talks on topics such the upcoming lunar eclipse, a career panel on cool jobs at the lab, and hands-on activities for all ages! 

No, that’s not a grammatical error in the title. B.A.T.S. stands for Bay Area Teen Science, an active and united group of Bay Area youth and youth science program providers that are working together to provide safe, fun, and social science learning and career building events for Bay Area teens. Through a generous grant from the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund, B.A.T.S. is taking flight in 2013 with youth-driven Teen Science Nights, Science Career Fairs, Community Star Parties, Program Exchanges, and Social Media Discussions on a variety of science, technology, and engineering topics.