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Pamela Gay

Pamela Gay

Spreading astronomy one sidereal day at a time.

I'm an astronomer, writer, and podcaster focused on using new media to engage people in space science & technology. Find me at AstronomyCast.com and CosmoQuest.org.

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astronomer writer & podcaster English Edwardsville Illinois United States Southern Illinois University Edwardsville University of Texas at Austin Person

Ranked: 1st in Illinois Most Engaging This Month (by Engagement)

Ranked: 3rd in Illinois Most Engaging This Month (by Shares)

Ranked: 3rd in Illinois Users (by Followers)

Ranked: 4th in Illinois Most Engaging This Month (by Average Reach)

Ranked: 5th in Illinois Most Engaging This Month (by Total Reach)

Ranked: 5th in Illinois Most Engaging This Week (by Engagement)

Ranked: 5th in Illinois Most Engaging This Month (by +1's)

Ranked: 7th in Illinois Most Engaging This Month (by Comments)

Ranked: 11th in Illinois Most Engaging This Week (by +1's)

Ranked: 12th in Illinois Most Engaging This Week (by Shares)

Ranked: 13th in Illinois Most Engaging This Week (by Average Reach)

Ranked: 13th in Illinois Most Engaging This Week (by Total Reach)

Ranked: 20th in Illinois Most Engaging This Week (by Comments)

Ranked: 35th in Illinois Users (by Follower Growth)

Ranked: 53rd in Illinois Most Engaging This Week (by Number of Posts)

Ranked: 58th in Illinois Most Engaging This Month (by Number of Posts)

Ranked: 103rd in Married Users (by Followers)

Ranked: 182nd in United States Most Engaging This Month (by Shares)

Ranked: 232nd in United States Most Engaging This Month (by Engagement)

Ranked: 249th in United States Most Engaging This Month (by Total Reach)

Ranked: 289th in United States Most Engaging This Month (by Comments)

Ranked: 292nd in United States Most Engaging This Month (by +1's)

Ranked: 310th in United States Most Engaging This Week (by Engagement)

Ranked: 312th in United States Most Engaging This Month (by Average Reach)

Ranked: 363rd in United States Users (by Followers)

Ranked: 380th in Female Users (by Followers)

Ranked: 457th in United States Most Engaging This Week (by Average Reach)

Ranked: 481st in United States Most Engaging This Week (by Shares)

Ranked: 498th in United States Most Engaging This Week (by +1's)

Ranked: 577th in United States Most Engaging This Week (by Total Reach)

Ranked: 617th in Illinois Users (by Following)

Ranked: 631st in English Users (by Followers)

Ranked: 649th in Married Users (by Follower Growth)

Ranked: 759th in English Most Engaging This Month (by Shares)

Ranked: 799th in United States Most Engaging This Week (by Comments)

Ranked: 853rd in English Most Engaging This Month (by Comments)

Ranked: 949th in English Most Engaging This Month (by Total Reach)

Ranked: 1002nd in Users (by Followers)

Ranked: 1038th in English Most Engaging This Month (by Engagement)

Ranked: 1149th in English Most Engaging This Month (by +1's)

Ranked: 1239th in English Most Engaging This Month (by Average Reach)

Ranked: 1259th in Most Engaging This Month (by Shares)

Ranked: 1424th in English Most Engaging This Week (by Engagement)

Ranked: 1466th in United States Users (by Follower Growth)

Ranked: 2929th in Female Users (by Follower Growth)

Ranked: 3082nd in English Users (by Follower Growth)

Date Following Followers Gained
Recent Popular Posts
+638
177 Shares
About 4 weeks ago After a week of rain and heartache the clouds finally parted, and in the evening sun the flowers of spring seemed to glow. Hiding inside, hiding from too much thunder, I'd missed them blossoming. 

No tornadoes touched down here this week. I know not everyone was so lucky.

I wish only quiet rest and love to those who faced all manner of horror in these past days. May your dawn break onto a day of beauty.
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+495
193 Shares
About 2 weeks ago This is wrong.

UPDATE 1: There is a petition started on Change.org: http://chn.ge/16oQoU6

UPDATE 2: A followup news article is here: http://bit.ly/ZWk0nF

TL;DR version: Teen does science, it gets messy, she gets expelled and charged as an adult with a felony. If I was rich, I'd get her a lawyer and a private school education. I'm not rich, but if someone sets up an Indiegogo after reaching out to the girl, I'll gladly give.

editorial
According to the linked news article a curious student was doing random science experiments of the "Mix this and see what happens" variety. What she mixed - toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum - had a smoky reaction that exploded a soda bottle. No damage was caused. No one was hurt... unless you take into consideration the girl's future. She was expelled and according to the story will have to complete her schooling through a program for expelled students. She is also being charged with a felony as an adult.<
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+241
90 Shares
About 13 weeks ago There are two absolutely awesome things you can do with water; mix it with cornstarch to make a non-Newtonian fluid,  and move it around like mercury beads on a hydrophobic surface. I think at some point or another we've all seen one of the standard demos for that non-Newtonian fluid which is typically called Oobleck (there's the one with it dancing on speakers, and all the different ones involving running and then stopping and sinking). What is much more rare is a good demo of moisture being manipulated by a hydrophobic surface.

Until now.

The company Ultra Ever Dry put together this really awesome demonstration video, and I now have this horrible desire (or maybe it's an awesome desire) to paint everything in existence with a hydrophobic coating. And what I really want to do is paint the insides of some speaker cones, and then fill them with a non-Newtonian fluid. In this near frictionless environment, that cornstarch and water will seriously get its groove on.

I
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+113
22 Shares
About 13 weeks ago So, um, sky? Why are you falling so hard today?

In all seriousness, I was finishing up a bit of work before going to bed, and tweeted "Anyone else afraid that if they go to bed interesting stuff will start falling out of the sky again? #NotSuperstitious #DontWantToMissAThing"

What came back to me was a link to a bright event over San Francisco that happened tonight (multiple confirmations in mainstream press).

Now, events like the one in that dash board cam are fairly common (although usually linked with meteor showers), so ... statistically we are merely rolling a yatzee today. Maybe... double yatzee. 

And creepy.

But, at a certain level, as technology becomes more and more saturated throughout our society - with dashboard cams, GoPros, and cell phone cams going everywhere - more of the "Did I just see" moments are going to be captured on camera. For the first time, we'll have solid numbers on how common these "common" t
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+105
80 Shares
About 4 weeks ago I know I have been fairly quiet the past few weeks. I know, based on stats, that you've noticed my silence. My silence has been driven by funding fears and sequestration.

EDIT My blog is coming to a halt under your traffic. In response, I'm copying the entirety of my blog post below.

I have spent the past several weeks trying to figure out how to write this post. Sometimes emotions are so raw that they don’t readily shape themselves into words: They manifest themselves as a face that can’t smile, a head that throbs with a stress migraine, and with an exhaustion driven not by lack of sleep but rather deriving from the emotional exhaustion that just makes a person want to hide in a dark room locked away from the world. My head hurts. I am exhausted. My emotions are raw. I am writing now because there is a very real possibility that the proposed restructuring of the US education system may eliminate the NASA funding I and my staff rely on to pay our salaries. In the worst case, ever
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+100
19 Shares
About 13 weeks ago
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+86
0 Shares
About 7 weeks ago OMG WHILE ON AIR DOING THE WEEKLY SPACE HANGOUT I FOUND OUT I'M GETTING GLASS

no returning to normal voice
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+85
30 Shares
About 13 weeks ago Ok, I admit it, a meteorite just got me out of bed. Luckily, it impacted a factory on the other side of the world.

A moderate (apparently factory destroying, according to one video) impact occurred in the Ural mountains in the early morning local time. Details are scarce, and several astronomers are in the process of trying to find video that will allow direction of origination to be observed.

I have to admit, the text I got, "Get on the internet! Russian meteor news unfolding!" woke me up more effectively than any cup of coffee! But... this is science. It's messy and not always safe.

To find all the videos, follow the hashtag #RussianMeteor  The attached link has the best collection of content I've seen so far.

I also want to say, there is currently no evidence that this object is in anyway associated with the asteroid that will pass near Earth tomorrow. We know that object won't hit. As always, our greatest fear is the object we don't s
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+84
21 Shares
About 14 weeks ago Comet C/2102F6 (Lemmon)
Currently well positioned in the southern constellation of Octans, shining at around magnitude 7 and sporting a tail over a degree in length.
This animation consists of 20 x 60s images, 2x2 binned and taken at 4m intervals
Taken with a 80mm refractor and QSI583 camera

#comet   #astrophotography  
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+80
2 Shares
About 7 weeks ago Sometimes it just feels good to hurl shit

With everything going on this week with NASA sequestration and related chaos it was a pretty crappy week. When I got asked if I could help at the barn it was exactly what I needed. Nothing cures a shitty week quite like being able to throw horse manure.... And horses are really good about saying thank you. When I got my fellow, Ben's stall clean he sniffed the ground looked at me, and then rolled and rolled in his clean bedding. It was a highlight of my week. 
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