Lucasfilm Releases First Episode of 'Science and Star Wars' Webseries

By: Dominic Jones

The first episode of Lucasfilm's newest Star Wars webseries debuted on Facebook today.  The series "Science and Star Wars" is hosted by The Star Wars Show host Anthony Carboni and it looks at the connections between real world science and the science fiction of the Star Wars series. In the first episode, Carboni is joined by Taylor Gray (voice of Ezra Bridger on Star Wars Rebels) as they try to make a real world lightsaber.  Check it out below,

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Scientists Name New Species of Weevil After Chewbacca

By: Dominic Jones

A team of researchers discovered several new species of Trigonopterus Fauvel recently and chose to name one of them after everyone's favorite Wookiee, Chewbacca!  The new weevil's were discovered by scientists Matthew H. Van Dam, Raymond Laufa, Alexander Riedel, after spending ten days on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. 

The explained their decision to name the Weevil after Chewie in their paper announcing the finds, published in ZooKeys last week, saying that,

This epithet is a noun in apposition and based on the likeable fictional character Chewbacca in George Lucas’ Star Wars movies, portrayed primarily by Peter Mayhew. This species has dense scales on the head and the legs, which reminds the authors of Chewbacca’s dense fur."

Though they share the name Chewbacca, the Trigonopterus chewbacca and Wookiees don't have much in common.  For starters, the Trigonopterus chewbacca is only about 2.78 to 3.13 mm long, whereas Peter Mayhew is 2.21 m tall.

This isn't the first time a species has been named after a Star Wars character.  Last March researchers named a new species of cat fish after the bounty hunter Greedo, in 2012 a spider was named after the Sarlacc pit, and in 1996 a species of tree mites were named after Darth Vader.  (If you're interested in more species named after Star Wars characters, Live Science has a fun list here).

Sources: ZooKeys, USA Today

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Video: "BB-8 visits NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Curiosity Mars Rover"

BB-8 Visits the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab

By: Dominic Jones

Disney Movies Anywhere have released a cool new video featuring a visit BB-8 made to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.  The kid friendly video features BB-8 meeting Maggie, the double of the Mars Rover Curiosity used to test operations they will do Mars on a simulated Martian surface on Earth.  A legendary meeting of two droids indeed!  Check out the video below,

Source: Disney Movies Anywhere

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Place Names On Pluto's Moon Inspired By Star Wars & More

Pluto(left) and it's moon Charon(right).

By: Benjamin Hart

Earlier this month NASA captivated the World with photos that their New Horizons satellite took as it flew by Pluto. The images gave us our first ever clear look at the dwarf planet and it's moons. Pluto's largest moon, Charon, features numerous craters, mountains ranges, maculas(dark spots) and chasmas(canyons) on it's surface. Now, in true explorer fashion, the New Horizons team at NASA have taken on the task of naming the various areas on Charon, and they're doing it in a very geeky way. The team actually allowed the public to submit names, which led to a series of craters in "Vulcan Plane" being named after Star Trek characters, such as Kirk, Spock, Sulu and Uhura. The Tardis chasma and the Gallifrey macula are naturally named in honor of the Spaceship and home planet, respectively, of The Doctor in Doctor Who. Serenity Chasma gets it's name from Firefly, Nemo crater is a reference to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Nostromo chasma and Ripley crater come from Alien, and the massive Mordor macula at Charon's north pole is a nod to Lord Of The Rings.

And as for Star Wars, the Skywalker, Leia Organa and Vader craters are named in honor of the Saga. You can check out a map of all the aforementioned formations on Charon below:

Unfortunately these names aren't official... yet. The New Horizons team have submitted the names to the International Astronomical Union, the government agency that is in charge of naming celestial objects. New Horizons' planetary scientist Mark Showalter seems confident the names will be made official, telling Mashable, "we have a decent chance of getting these names approved...The IAU tends to favor names that have been around for a while, but Star Trek is almost 50-years-old now and Star Wars is about 40-years-old."

Source: Mashable

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Species Of Catfish Named After Greedo

By: Benjamin Hart

It's always cool when science fiction influences real science!  Jonathan Armbruster, who is the biological sciences professor and curator of fishes at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History in Alabama, made headlines earlier this week when he decided to name a new species of fish after an iconic character from a Galaxy far, far away. Armbruster has named over 40 different fish species in his career, including this one, and says that there over 800 unique species of suckermouth armored catfish alone. Reportedly, this particular fish was caught in 1998 in the Gurupi River in Brazil, but Armbruster just recently discovered significant differences between it and previously established species, thus warranting a new species to be named. Upon noticing the Fish's familiar facial characteristics, a colleague of Armbruster, arachnologist Chris Hamilton, suggested that it looked like a certain Rodian Bounty Hunter from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Armbruster explains,  "After a little prodding, I realized he was talking about Greedo. We then knew what the name had to be, " Peckoltia greedoi was the name chosen for the Catfish.

Armbruster adds that he is indeed a Star Wars fan himself and considers Greedo to be his favorite character. "He barely had any lines. They were spoken in a foreign language with subtitles and he was killed right away. But he's always been sort of this enigmatic figure and very cool-looking."

You can check out a video below which features Jonathan Armbruster discussing the fish and how it came to garner this unique name in more detail:



Source: Huffington Post

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Planet Deemed "Real-Life" Tatooine

By: Lillian Skye

Planets with twin suns have previously been unheard of outside of a certain Galaxy located far, far away. However, since the planet Kepler-16 was discovered in 2011,  scientists have been fascinated by newly discovered planets that orbit two suns.

A new planet, called Kepler 34(AB)b, which is located more than 4,500 light years away from planet Earth, orbits two sunlike stars at approximately the same distance that Earth orbits the sun.

"Circumbinary planets have captured the imagination of many science-fiction writers and filmmakers,"  Stefan Lines who is studying at the University of Bristol in England said in a statement regarding the planets. Lines is pursuing his PhD in Physics, and specilizes in studying "how planets form P-Type orbits in binary systems (the circumbinary case)." According to Stefan Lines, a "binary is a star system that features two stars, rather than one, orbiting a mutual center of mass."

Regardless of how easily the Tatooine natives may burn under the twin suns of the fictional planet's scorching rays, inhabitants of a planet that has a pair of suns have a lot more to worry about than getting a tan in half the time. In fact, scientists are still trying to understand just how Kepler 34(AB)b still exists. Supposedly, the intense gravitational flux from a pair of binary stars such as the ones that Kepler 34(AB)b orbits could grind any Earth or Tatooine-like planet to dust before the planet even finished forming.

Watch an animated version of the entire process below:

(if you cannot see the video, click this link)

In an attempt to explain the phenomenon that is Kepler 34(AB)b,  scientists have suggested that planets migrate toward the star pairs as opposed to forming near the stars. Whether Kepler 34(AB)b made it's way across the stars to reside near the twin suns or is a tried and true Tatooine-like planet, it is truly a wonder of the galaxy.

Sources: Space, Slate

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