Why should people care about fundamental questions of existence or try to understand the principles of our universe? Because we may be the only sentient beings in existence who can! At least, that’s what returning guest Dr. Kelsey Johnson, past president of the AAS and the ASP, and author of “Into the Unknown – The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos, tells Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu as our interview resumes.

And then we’re off and running! Kelsey explains where her passion for astrophysics comes from, and why it’s our responsibility to explore the reality in which we live. You’ll hear about how really big our universe is and why we need to get comfortable with the unknown – with an assist from Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters To A Young Poet.”

Our first question comes from Violetta, who asks, “What was the most interesting thing that got you into astrophysics?” Kelsey describes how, long before she knew anything about astronomy, she fell in love with Vega while staring at it from the middle of a giant potato field. She talks about what it’s like to discover something through a telescope that no one on Earth has ever seen before. Charles shares a memory about hunting for – and discovering – quasars around the Hubble Deep Field (North) when he was a post-doc using the MMT Telescope in Arizona. Kelsey talks about seeing the unbelievable night sky while visiting the site of the ALMA Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

We end the episode with Chuck and Kelsey talking about how hard it can be for parents to get their kids to follow in their footsteps, at least when those footsteps lead to a telescope!

If you’d like to know more about Kelsey, you can visit her website and follow her on Twitter (X) and Instagram at @ProfKelsey,

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

• The Hubble Deep Field (north) – NASA, Public Domain


• Inside the MMT observatory – Bill85704 on Flickr, CC BY 2.0


• Two of ALMA’s radio antennae – Iztok Bončina/ESO, CC BY 4.0


• Vega – Stephen Rahn, public domain (CC0)

#TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast  #KelseyJohnson #AAS #ASP #IntotheUnknown #RainerMariaRilke #LettersToAYoungPoet #ALMAObservatory #AtacamaDesert #Vega #MMTObservatory #HubbleDeepField