August 29, 2016 8:33 pm

Tuesday, Dr. FunkySpoon, Carter Emmart and Chuck Nice Bring the Universe Down to Earth

Tomorrow night, David Grinspoon takes over the hosting seat for our next StarTalk All-Stars episode, Visualizing the Universe with Dr. FunkySpoon.

As many of you know, it’s not David’s first time hosting a StarTalk show. He sat in for a couple of episodes for Neil deGrasse Tyson when Neil was off filming COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey.

But Tuesday, it’s David’s show, and his guest is his good friend Carter Emmart, the Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History. Chuck Nice, David’s co-host from Cosmic Queries: Human Impact on Earth with Dr. FunkySpoon, is also on hand to help him out with his first All-Stars hosting gig.

The three of them talk about how Carter is able to use 3-D, virtual reality and computer generated graphics to bring the furthest reaches of the universe down to Earth in scientifically accurate and mind-boggling detail. They talk about visualizing black holes, the future of space exploration, mapping Mars, and how David and Carter provided live, interactive coverage of the New Horizons spacecraft’s arrival at Pluto, updating their simulations on the fly.

David even plays a few riffs on his guitar and makes it pretty clear how he got his nickname, Dr. FunkySpoon.

But for me, the most interesting part of the episode was finding out that Carter has his own “holodeck” that he invites friends like David to experience.

Given the quality of Carter’s work at the museum, including the latest Hayden Planetarium Space Show, Dark Universe, that’s not as unbelievable a concept as it might seem coming from someone else.

Please join host David Grinspoon, co-host Chuck Nice and Carter Emmart for Visualizing the Universe with Dr. FunkySpoon on Tuesday, August 30 at 7:00 pm EDT on iTunes Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, TuneIn and right here on our website. (For now, all StarTalk All-Stars episodes will come through the same feeds you’re used to, so there’s no need to subscribe to anything new.)

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons