NASA embraces science enthusiasts with its Tweetups.
This past Thursday I had the pleasure of being invited to a tweetup at NASA Ames. For the uninitiated, a tweetup is a meetup, where those interested meet and tweet. NASA has embraced social media with a force, and offers tweetups at its various locations to encourage the public to learn more about NASA initiatives.
For 100 space nerds this was a dream come true. While I've been a fan of NASA all my life, this was a unique opportunity to interact with scientists working on Kepler, SOFIA and aeronautics. Fellow tweetup participant, Chris Hammond posted this fun, fast paced video of how to day unfolded. I've also posted photos of NASA Ames on Flickr.
NASA Ames is at the heart of the Kepler mission, NASA's project devoted to finding habitable planets. As you may have read on the QUEST blog, NASA's Kepler mission discovered its first Earth-size planet in a habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. We heard from Natalie Batalha, deputy science team lead for the NASA Kepler mission who explained the challenges facing Kepler and the huge opportunities we may reap from such a mission.