Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Fiction/Science: Series 2, Log 3.0 - "Nebulous!"


"Hey, kids, send away for your own zombie zapper today!"

FICTION:
Yesterday, we released episode 3.0, "Nebulous!," which you can watch on YouTube or in KoldCast's high-definition player.

Previously, Space Hospital blasted the Draconoids with a force that sent the ship spinning into a dangerous dark nebula.

In action-packed “Nebulous!,” a murderous Dracomorph is loose on the ship and the dark nebula’s power to reanimate dead tissue has resulted in…zombies! Dr. Drake reveals to Nurse Ratknee that he is the Dracomorph (only fueling her attraction to him) while Snead and Lyndsay go zombie-hunting. A headless Lovable Robot leads them to a zombified Maggie Morningstar who was there the fateful day that *someone* aboard Space Hospital ordered the deadly attack on the Lyndsay and Robot Baby’s escape pod. When Zombie Maggie implicates Snead, Lyndsay’s rage incites her bionic powers. But it turns out there’s not one Snead but two – which answers a long-gestating mystery from Season 1.

THE SCIENCE:
To learn about nebulae, Space Hospital sat down with Debra L. Davis, a citizen astronomer who has had her eye on the sky for over 20 years. She encourages women and girls to pursue astronomy as a career and hobby through her website and on Twitter.

SH: Is “dark nebula” a real thing or did Space Hospital just make this up?
DD: Though the folks at Space Hospital are extremely creative, they did not make up dark nebula. And, no, it isn't just another iPhone app either. Dark nebulae are features found in space, clouds of particles so dense that light is obscured. The best known example is the Horsehead Nebula.

SH: Do you know of any current research being done in the area of dark nebulae?
DD: I would think there is quite a bit of current research being done, especially on Bok Globules. In a paper published in 1947 by Bart Bok and E.F. Reilly, it was suggested that small dark nebulae are star forming nurseries. With the many new telescopes coming on line, able to see more of what's out there at varying wavelengths, we'll eventually be able to "see" what dark nebulae are hiding from us.

SH: What  historical figure would you most like to send into a dark nebula for reanimation (recognizing that the person would likely be zombified)?
DD: Haha! Great question! It would definitely be Hypatia [noted 4th century A.D. woman mathematician, philosopher and astronomer who was killed by a Christian mob for causing "religious turmoil]. And if she were zombified, even better. I'd love to see her give some serious zombie butt-kicking for all the wrongs done to her.

SH: If you weren't limited by technicalities like atmosphere and transportation, what spot in the galaxy would you most like to visit?
DD: The one place I'd most like to see up-close and personal would be the Orion Nebula, another star-forming region. Hubble has taken some awesome images of it, but I'd love to be right in the middle of it all.
Image: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

1 comment:

  1. Great interview! It's fun to ponder the possibilities of dark nebulae... Okay, "fun" as long as we're really far away from them. I don't want to have any zombies popping up around me.

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