One of the things NASA takes seriously is the goal of educating people about astronomy. Happily, while everyone takes the goal seriously, they’re not necessarily serious about how to achieve that goal…
Enter IRrelevant Astronomy: a series of educational videos about astronomy, leaning on the infrared aspects of it (because it’s created by folks with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which sees in the IR). These aren’t the bland, dull videos of yesteryear! The videos in this series are really, really funny — I mean laugh-out-loud funny — and frequently feature celebrities like Felicia Day and Sean Astin.
They just released a new one, "Destroyer of Worlds", and I bet you just might recognize the voice of The Physician…
There were many times I was laughing at this video. And not just at Wil Wheaton’s voice acting (though he’s really good at this). It’s got that perfect Warner Brothers cartoon zeitgeist: kids will like the zaniness, and the adults will get the jokes. I’m not sure if my favorite part is the insect-like spaceship near and dear to my heart seen several times, or The Physician’s ship itself. Either way, this is one of the best of the Spitzer videos. And the science, including binary stars disrupting their planets’ orbits, is pretty interesting and handled quite well.
Tip o’ the sonic screwdriver to Wil for blogging about this (and the link lurv).
Related posts:
- Felicia Day collides galaxies
- Robot Wil Wheaton takes over the Universe!
- Warm dusty rings glow around a weird binary star
- When worlds really do collide
December 6th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I noticed a Whitestar from Babylon 5 in the debris, which makes sense since Ed Wasser was on Babylon 5.
December 6th, 2010 at 10:09 am
What’s with the big fireball when the ship explodes? And the sound of the explosion….
December 6th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Great. Fart jokes. Poop jokes. Yup. Just what we need to make science more interesting.
December 6th, 2010 at 10:37 am
10 minutes?! I don’t have that kind of attention span anymore!
December 6th, 2010 at 10:40 am
This is a very interesting series! I’m gonna watch the rest of it!
December 6th, 2010 at 10:41 am
No, no no. Your Time Lord name wouldn’t be “The Physician”.
Perhaps “The Looker”.
Any other ideas?
EDIT: I’m a blinkin’ fool, I am. I had heard Wil’s voice and mistaken it for Phil’s.
The question still stands, though.
What would be the Time Lord names of Messrs. Plait and Whedon?
December 6th, 2010 at 10:44 am
@Grizzly – What’s wrong with fart jokes? I for one literally LOLed when the robot said “braking wind”. I’m pretty sure any graduate student office is chock full of fart, poop, and other biological jokes. Mine was.
December 6th, 2010 at 11:40 am
And Space 1999 Eagle, NX class starship, Imperial Star Destroyer… Do I see a 2001 Monolith in there??
What one letter change from Tardis would be a good name for that little blue ship??
Well done, Spitzer folk!
December 6th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Work was not the best place to watch this. I’m still trying to stifle the laughter.
According to the YouTube comments, there are another 6 recognizable ships in the debris. I’ll have to hunt for them after I get home tonight.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Wonderful video!
To add to the list of ships, the last scene features Serenity and another ship on the right which I cannot identify.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Will is just the latest Star Trek actor to do a fact based program about Astronomy two others include Willam Shatner hosted a Nasa vedio called Universe (this has sold in stores cobined with a documentery hosted by Orsen Wells called Whos out there?) and Nichell Nicoles (Lt Uhra) has been involved with Nasa for years. Off topic I just saw the Will Smith version of the Wild wild west , and there is some bad science in it (of course the show pushed the limits for tec in the 1870s) First a scientist is killed in the begining to witch one of the bad guys make the cheep shot:”and they say you scientists are so smart” but then West and Gordon use a menthed to find out by who killed him by useing a device to look into his eyes for the last image he saw. Well this was a medical theroy that the eyes would record the last image a dead person would see and in fact there was an attemp to id Jack the Ripper this way with out sucess this theroy has since been proven worng , every image you see goes thro your optic nerve to your brain witch sorts it out .
December 6th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Maybe I’m being dense, but I didn’t get the “braking things with magnets–ask George Takei” joke…
December 6th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
@Chris A. – Magnets & George Takei nod to a previous Robot Astronomy Talk Show episode, “Gravity & the Great Attractor”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gU61WHNMZM
December 6th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
@8: TURDIS? ^_^
December 6th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Ed Wasser is of course an expert in wiping out planets. His turbo Ginsu Shadow Cruiser slices, dices, roasts Narns to a crisp golden perfection!
December 6th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
They said only close binaries do the planet destroying. Exactly how close is close?
December 7th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
LOL! Classic.
“Blue ice” though? I don’t get that one.
Also like (#12.) Chris A., I didn’t get the “braking things with magnets–ask George Takei” joke either.
My fave of this series is still the “Bots of Both Worlds” [click the "Robot Wil Wheaton takes over the Universe!" link just above the comments here.] one set in Saturn’s outermost largest “invisible” ring with the wonderful Amy Okuda.
@3. Grizzly Says:
Well it is clearly aimed at kids … Yeah, there’s a lot of toilet humour, yeah, I must confess I laughed.
I think there was also some Morden-t wit there too.
@8. carbonUnit & # 14. GlennS : TURDIS
LOL.
I gotta say that’s one very unfortunate “chamelon circuit failure.”
@15. Childermass Says:
True for a while but then he got carried away and lost his head on Centauri Prime. [Looks up & gives Vir wave.]
December 7th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
@#17 Messier Tidy Upper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(aircraft)
December 8th, 2010 at 5:57 am
@ ^ & #13 Ratings-bot : Thanks for the explanations, much appreciated.
December 8th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Hilarious!!!
,,,and quite informative,,,
Will has a superb voice technique. I wonder if he’s done stand up poetry readings?
Gary 7