Michelle Thaller
Assistant Director for Science Communication, NASA
Dr. Michelle Thaller is an astronomer who studies binary stars and the life cycles of stars. She is Assistant Director of Science Communication at NASA. She went to college at Harvard University, completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif. then started working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Spitzer Space Telescope. After a hugely successful mission, she moved on to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in the Washington D.C. area. In her off-hours often puts on about 30lbs of Elizabethan garb and performs intricate Renaissance dances. For more information, visit NASA.
Why is math the universal language? NASA's Michelle Thaller solves that one.
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If the universe is expanding in all directions, why is Andromeda hurtling toward the Milky Way?
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Getting to close to a black hole is a nightmare waiting to happen.
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A NASA astronomer explains how astronauts dispose of their, uh, dark matter.
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If a doomsday asteroid is set to collide with Earth, you're going to know about it – whether you want to or not.
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NASA's Michelle Thaller explains how an accidental discovery led to the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.
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We're finally here! We've been counting down the 10 most popular videos of 2018. This is #1...
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Astronauts will be able to harvest the Moon's natural resources to sustain human life.
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NASA's Michelle Thaller explains why the term 'Big Bang' is misleading, and how to best imagine the shape of the universe.
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Where is God? Michelle Thaller lays out a cosmic view of religion, science, and the human condition.
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Here's the science of black holes, from supermassive monsters to ones the size of ping-pong balls.
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We may not find Klingons, but what we do find will blow our terrestrial minds.
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Around Halloween in 2015, astronomers discovered 'The Goblin'. Now, it's leading us to what some call Planet X.
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The thing that Carl Sagan did better than anybody else was connecting to the science through emotion and stories, says NASA's Michelle Thaller.
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The universe is a huge place, inconceivably vast. And it can make even the most brilliant minds feel very, very small.
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We love citing the big names in science. Einstein. Curie. Sagan. Nye The Science Guy. But does that lower the bar for the rest of the workaday scientists out there?
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What role can art play in science? An unexpectedly important one, says NASA's Michelle Thaller.
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Trash on earth is pretty bad. But space trash is at a whole other level.
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What are the different types of rocket engines and will there be a rocket engine coming in the future that uses very little energy? NASA's Michelle Thaller explains.
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NASA's Michelle Thaller shares her prediction of what it will take to get people to Mars, including what role Elon Musk will play in that effort.
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Can radiation in space limit human exploration? It's a real challenge, explains NASA's Michelle Thaller.
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Michelle Thaller from NASA examines if it's possible to put up a giant disk to block out the sun's rays and cool Earth.
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If we ever discover the true size of the universe, we'll likely have galaxies to thank. The trillions of massive star clusters we've observed are sending light from the early universe back to us.
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With over 100 active science missions, from the Hubble Space Telescope to studying ice shifts on Earth, working at NASA can be a dream come true for any astronomer or astrophysicist.
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Astronauts aren’t floating in space, they’re free falling—and so are you. Here's the amazing science behind so-called zero gravity.
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Stephen Hawking was one of the greatest scientific and analytical minds of our time, says NASA's Michelle Thaller.
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We've known for 2,000 years that the Earth is round. Here are three observable proofs that can instantly debunk flat-Earth theory.
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Ever wanted to ask a NASA astronomer a question? Michelle Thaller is Big Think's resident space pro, and she is taking questions right now!
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NASA's director of science communication explains why success and failure are vague, impractical metrics to give young people.
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