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An ode to the sun

A solar flare as photographed at 11:15 p.m. EDT on June 20, 2013. Nine minutes later, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection.
Goddard Space Flight Center
/
NASA
A solar flare as photographed at 11:15 p.m. EDT on June 20, 2013. Nine minutes later, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection.

What can you say about the sun? It sits at the center of our solar system and has, over time, been at the center of religions, scriptures, songs, art, and countless other aspects of our culture.

We’ve relied on its light, heat, and gravity for as long as we’ve been around, and we continue to find ways to harness its energy for our daily needs.

This hour, we look at the place our sun holds kind of literally at the center of all of human history and ask what the future holds for our nearest star.

GUESTS:

  • Christina Agapakis: Creative director at Ginko Bioworks
  • Sarbani Basu: William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Astronomy at Yale University
  • John Grim: Senior lecturer and research scholar teaching in the joint MA program in religion and ecology at Yale University School of the Environment and Yale Divinity School
  • John Perlin: Physicist at UCLA Santa Barbara and the author of Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

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Colin McEnroe, Greg Hill, Betsy Kaplan, Jonathan McNicol, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired August 11, 2016.

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Josh was a producer for WNPR's talk shows. He has produced for Where We Live and was a producer for The Colin McEnroe Show until 2020.