Episode description:
As climate change drives more frequent and intense tropical cyclones and hurricanes, coastal communities desperately need better tools to predict how bad storms will be and when and where they’ll strike—and to assess the damage afterward. From the air and in space, NASA and NOAA collect critical data as storms roll in. But what happens next? Fly directly into the eye of the storm with daring hurricane hunter pilots, meet meteorologists and data scientists building AI models to improve hurricane prediction, and join the disaster response experts helping cities pinpoint their hardest-hit neighborhoods. Plus, learn how NASA is making data open to everyone—including you, with Transform to Open Science.

Introducing NASA’s Curious Universe         

Get curious with NASA. As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity. 

NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter 

Discover more ad-free, original NASA shows at nasa.gov/podcasts 

Find the full NASA’s Curious Universe catalog at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse 

 

HOST JACOB PINTER: Every hurricane season, from June to November, meteorologists keep a close eye on satellite imagery of the Atlantic Ocean… the birthplace of hurricanes.

DEAN LEGIDAKES: These storms will start off the coast of Africa as something, you know, relatively small, just a group of clouds. Then they’ll develop some circulation, and then, you know, just the warm water will create these huge storms.

[Music: Launch Codes Underscore by Hopkins]

JACOB: That’s Dean Legidakes. Every hurricane season, he’s looking at the satellite data too. Because Dean is a Hurricane Hunter pilot. He works for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Once a storm gets close to the U.S., it’s his job to fly directly into it.

DEAN: Yeah, so first off, you get two reactions, like, that’s really cool, or you’re really dumb for doing that right? And then the second question they ask is, so you guys, you fly around the storms? No, I mean, to get the data that we need, we have to fly right through the storm multiple times and multiple flights to collect the actual data that can’t be collected via satellites.

JACOB: Once a hurricane spins up, satellites can’t see through the cloud cover. The only way to measure the storm’s intensity and forecast its path is to get scientific instruments inside the hurricane itself… and that means flying through it.

DEAN: We have two aircraft at NOAA, the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Lakeland, Florida, and we fly into the storm almost 24 hours a day until the storm hits landfall.

[Opening theme music: Curiosity by SYSTEM Sounds]

JACOB: This is NASA’s Curious Universe. Today on the show, we’re riding along with Dean, to see what it’s like to fly inside a hurricane to collect the data that makes forecasting possible.

And once we land, we’ll follow the data NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters collect. We’ll learn how NASA and NOAA share our findings to ensure scientific research on disasters stays freely accessible to everyone, saving lives.

And stick around… because near the end, we’ll talk about how you, yes you! Can get involved in NASA’s open science program.

[NOAA WP-3D Orion flight into the eye of Hurricane Milton: Rumble of plane engines]

DEAN: I would say about 40, 50, 60, miles out from penetrating the eyewall, we do what’s called set five, and that’s just, hey, you know, you’re on American Airlines, and they hit the seat belt light.

[SFX: Seatbelt light ding]

DEAN: That’s like, everybody get in, strap in, you know, you know, we’re about to go through the eye…

JACOB: That’s the eye… of a hurricane. We’re aboard Kermit, one of NOAA’s two P3 Orion turboprop aircraft. This plane and its sister aircraft, named Miss Piggy, are state-of-the-art flying laboratories. They’re full of high-tech instruments and a crew of meteorologists.

[Music: Research and Development Underscore by Harms]

JACOB: Now brace yourself, because we’re about to fly directly into the Ring of Fire… the storm’s eyewall.

DEAN: We call it the Ring of Fire because you’re looking at a radar right at that eye wall, you’re getting what’s called red and pink on the radar, right? And I’m a pilot, right? I don’t know, especially coming to this. I didn’t know a lot about, you know, radar reflectivity, but I knew flying into red on a radar was really bad.

JACOB: Don’t worry, Dean’s done this hundreds of times. The team takes every precaution to keep themselves and their aircraft safe. But we’re about to experience some next-level turbulence. So, grab a seat… and hey, the light’s still on, so keep that seatbelt fastened…

DEAN: And we’re just going to do the best we can. We’re going to ride the storm, right? Because you really can’t fight it. You have to go with the ups and the downs People say it’s like riding a roller coaster, you know, through a car wash, right?

[NOAA WP-3D Orion flight into the eye of Hurricane Milton: Can you grab my phone real quick? Gotta keep these pockets zipped…]

DEAN: You’re probably getting hit by lightning multiple times flying through a storm. Lots of rain. It’s loud in the flight station, which is something you don’t think about, it’s not deafeningly loud, but it being loud for three or four hours, it just exhausts you. You know, when you hear rain on a tin roof, right? But it’s that times a hundred.

[NOAA WP-3D Orion flight into the eye of Hurricane Milton: Hit the sonde. Holy crap…]

JACOB: Dean tries to keep the plane below about 8,000 feet… much lower than a normal commercial plane. That’s the level where water freezes into ice.

DEAN: You’re looking at a huge wall of water, a lot of precipitation, if that’s hitting the aircraft, it’s not a big deal. But if it’s frozen and it’s hitting the aircraft, it can, it’s bad news.

JACOB: As we pass through the eye, the ride gets even rougher. You can’t see anything outside. The plane can drop thousands of feet in seconds.

DEAN: Can’t see anything, you just like, I’m looking at my attitude gauge and you’re just trying to keep the wings level. That’s when the hair on the back of my neck is like OK, this can stop now, please.

JACOB: Loose equipment flies across the floor. The Kermit the frog doll hanging in the windshield and it’s flying around on its string.

DEAN: We’re breaking through the eye, right? And it’s super bumpy, and what it can have is these, what’s called mezzo vortices in the eyewall, and that is mini tornados. So, we’re trying to avoid those as we go through the eye wall…

[NOAA WP-3D Orion flight into the eye of Hurricane Milton: Whoa buddy…]

DEAN: You’re bouncing around everywhere. You’re trying to maintain the wings level. You can’t see anything. And then you break out, and it’s just like, you know, it’s quite beautiful, right?

[NOAA WP-3D Orion flight into the eye of Hurricane Milton: That is the eye of Hurricane Milton. Holy. This is going to change some lives folks. Change some lives…]

DEAN: Think from, like, you know, the surface to 50,000 feet, you’re getting this wall of clouds, and it looks like you’re sitting inside of a stadium, right?  It is the hand of God, pretty much, if you can imagine looking at that.

JACOB: Now, in the calm eye of the storm, the actual hurricane hunting begins. 

REBECCA WADDINGTON: The term hurricane hunting comes from actually hunting the very center of the storm, looking for that zero wind speed point.

JACOB: This is Rebecca Waddington. She’s another Hurricane Hunter pilot.

REBECCA: A lot of times, when I tell people that we’re Hurricane Hunters, they’re like, aren’t they pretty easy to find. I mean, we’ve got satellites. You can see them. You know where the storm is, but we’re looking for that actual center point, because that’s going to be the initialization of the model, you need to know where it is, to know where it’s going. And a difference of a couple miles can make a huge difference on a five-day forecast.

[Music: How Underscore by Coon]

JACOB: Knowing where the center of the storm is allows meteorologists on the ground at the National Hurricane Center to predict the storm’s path toward land. 

The planes fly through a hurricane multiple times on a given mission. Each time, they also drop these weather instruments through the floor. They’re called dropsondes. You can think of them as weather balloons in reverse. They collect data as they fall down to the sea that helps scientists determine whether the storm is getting worse or calming down.

And while Dean flies into the storm aboard Kermit or Miss Piggy, he’s not alone… Rebecca Waddington is high above him on NOAA’s Gulfstream-IV jet… also named, of course, for a Muppet: Gonzo.

REBECCA: Yeah, so the P3s are like Monster Trucks, right? They are hefty, they’re stout, they’re built to take a beating. The G-IV is like a luxury sports car. It is sleek, it is pretty, it is fast, and that’s one of the things I love most about it. Now, if you’re trying to envision it, it’s basically the plane that you see in movies that are flying around celebrities. It is a business jet.

JACOB: But unlike a business jet that’s used for, you know, business, this plane is stripped inside… there’s no fancy couches, just science stations. And it has a huge radar in its nose… hence the name… Gonzo.

REBECCA: So that makes the nose look a little funny. And then in the back we have a tail Doppler radar, so it extends the tail underneath the rudder, so it just looks like we’ve got a little junk in our trunk. But that radar is really important, it acts like an MRI, so you’re getting a full vertical picture of the storm.

JACOB: The G-IV jet flies high above the storm and fast, covering thousands of miles at a time.

REBECCA: So, we’re looking at the storm itself, but we’re also looking at the environment that the storm is moving into, and that’s something that the P3 doesn’t get, because their bread and butter is a storm itself. They fly directly out to the storm, they do their mission in the storm, and then they fly home. We’re out there doing lawn mower patterns, you know, for four hours before we get to the storm or after we leave the storm, because we want to know what the environment is and how it’s going to affect the track.

JACOB: Now, hurricanes love wet air and hate dry conditions. So knowing what lies ahead of the storm is super important to determining if it’ll get stronger or weaker.

[Music: Computer Engineered by Harms]

REBECCA: Essentially, our mission is to collect data in the data-sparse regions over the ocean. That way, we can replace assumptions in forecast models with actual information.

JACOB: And Dean and Rebecca can see the impact of their efforts right away.  If you’re a weather nerd… You may have heard of spaghetti models… these are the initial hurricane forecast models that predict the storm tracks.

Before the planes go out, these plots look like a messy bowl of spaghetti, with noodles predicting the hurricane’s path going out in many different directions.

REBECCA: One of the things we always look forward to is seeing the next iteration of the spaghetti plot, because all those noodles will get closer together, and then we go and fly a second flight, and they get closer together. So that is really cool to see. And we’ve seen that with every storm system that we’ve been in.

JACOB: Taken together, the data from Gonzo, Miss Piggy and Kermit make accurate hurricane forecasts possible. And for the pilots, this work can be personal…

DEAN: We live in Tampa and Lakeland, Florida. So I mean, every storm season, it’s inevitable that that we’re flying into the storm that’s going to hit our you know, where we live.

JACOB: In fact, when Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida in October of 2024, it passed just south of the Hurricane Hunters’ home base… and damaged some of the team member’s homes.

Dean’s mom lives in Pensacola, on the coast of Florida. Hurricanes have damaged her house several times.

DEAN: Yeah, you know, I’ve landed from a storm flight, and my mom called me and said, “Hey, you know, I’m up to my chest in water. Like, yeah, I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” that type of thing. And you’re just like, “Man, okay, well, I’m supposed to fly tomorrow into a storm. Like, what do I do?”

JACOB: Now, Dean’s mom was OK. That time she was evacuated by the National Guard.  But this is why Hurricane Hunters do what they do…. They have their families in mind, and the families of everyone who lives in the path of hurricanes. And they know the difference their work makes.

DEAN: Us flying the storm, 15 to 20% increase in track and forecast accuracy is what we do, right? So, I mean, that’s a difference of not evacuating Pensacola or evacuating Pensacola….

JACOB: They know that meteorologists are counting on them to collect data that they can’t get any other way.

DEAN: They are relying on our data, right? It’s pretty awesome, because we do a post-flight brief, and the forecasters will send us a message back saying, “Hey, we really appreciate the data. Off of the data that you just gave us we made it a hurricane,” or “We made it a cat five,” or “We know that this thing’s going to swing to the east or the west.” And I think you know that is extremely beneficial to say, “Hey, OK, we flew into this, this environment that’s terrible from two to, you know, six, seven a.m. this morning. I’ve been up since last night. I didn’t get any sleep. But this is why we’re doing it right? It’s a, it’s a big responsibility.

[Music: Science Network Instrumental by Harms]

JACOB: Thanks to NASA’s commitment to open science, once NASA and NOAA satellites and planes collect hurricane data, meteorologists can access it right away. They plug that data into complicated equations that explain the physics of how our atmosphere works, as best as we understand it right now.

Now, it’s complex stuff and requires some serious computing power. And then, those models project atmospheric conditions into the future.

Bit by bit, with each new batch of data, the forecasts get better. And then, communities on the ground get a better sense of how much rainfall and what wind speeds to expect, and whether they’ll be hit by flooding or landslides.

The problem is, our understanding of physics, and of hurricanes, is not complete. Scientists still have big questions about how theyf orm in the first place and the factors that can stop them in their tracks… like, for example, a mysterious layer of Saharan dust that circles the world in the atmosphere.

Not to mention climate change, which is warming the ocean, adding more energy to the system and causing storms to spin up more frequently and quickly than ever before.

So, while NOAA and the National Hurricane Center handle operational forecasts for hurricanes using the tried-and-true traditional methods, it’s NASA’s job to explore new ways to understand storms.

To do that, we’re plugging all of our data into a technology you might have been hearing a lot about in the news… artificial intelligence and neural networks.

RAHUL RAMACHANDRAN: Instead of using physics, basically, you are learning things from the data itself, and you’re hoping that the network can actually learn the underlying physics and things that we even don’t know about well, that, you know, it can do those predictions in the future,

JACOB: That’s Rahul Ramachandran. He leads NASA’s AI work from NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer.

Now, NASA has collected Earth science data for more than 60 years. So, we have a huge archive. We make that data accessible to everyone for free to benefit humanity. Rahul’s job is building tools to make that sharing easier. One is a new AI model, released in fall 2024, that looks for patterns in NASA’s Earth data.

It all started a few years ago. You’ve probably heard about ChatGPT, the generative AI large language model. It’s built around what’s called a foundation model, which is a large-scale base model that can be adapted to chat with you, write computer code, and so on.

RAHUL: So, the base model is the same, but you can adapt it to do different kinds of tasks.

[Music: Inside Science Underscore by Harms]

JACOB: Now, NASA has been experimenting with AI for decades, mainly to schedule missions for our faraway planetary rovers and to sift through images of exoplanets. But these foundation models are a new technology.

So, Rahul teamed up with IBM to start building a language model for NASA to handle the complicated scientific terms researchers here use. Then he said wait a minute… language models look at sequences of words to make sentences. So why wouldn’t the same process work with sequences of measurements of, say, temperature, or pressure? You could make a foundation model that works on NASA data, instead of words.

If you’re like us, you’ve been hearing a lot about AI, recently… but less about how it actually works. So, let’s pull back the curtain a bit and get into it. Language models need to be trained on lots of written text to work well.

To train a language model, you feed it sentences and cover up, or mask, one word in that sentence. The model looks at the context of the sentence and it tries to figure out what the missing word is. You do that over and over with different sentences and missing words, and the model learns how sentence structure works… it basically learns to read and write.

RAHUL: On the science side, it’s very much the same thing. It’s the same approach. But instead of words, what you do is you make patches in your data. So, you black out patches in your data, and it has to learn, you know, the missing patches in your dataset.

JACOB: For example, you might block out some temperature data in a town in Florida, and based on what the AI knows about the surrounding area, it can fill in the missing temperature records. That turns out to be good training for the real world, where there are always big gaps in the data.

RAHUL: That’s how these models are trained, by feeding it large amounts of data, and then it’s going through this process of learning through this process. And once it has learned enough, then you can adapt it for your particular task.

JACOB: NASA released its model, which is officially called the “Prithvi Weather and Climate AI model,” in September 2024. This base foundation model, with all its knowledge from NASA data, can now be adapted to work on entirely different problems with just a few examples to tell it what you’re looking for.  Since the model is open access, anyone can use it, no matter where they are in the world, and participate in NASA science. To test the model, the team chose hurricanes.

RAHUL: How well does the model do in predicting these extreme phenomena, both in terms of track and intensity, right? The nice thing about hurricanes is, you know, it’s very well observed. There’s actually a really good existing dataset where we actually have observations of different hurricanes with this, weather tracks and as well as their intensity with actual observations. So, there’s a really good benchmark, you know, for any model to use that data to test against those observations.

JACOB: And that, of course, is thanks to the hurricane hunters, of course! Their data makes validating this model possible. In the team’s tests, the NASA general-purpose AI model did a better job at forecasting hurricanes than other AI models designed specifically to do forecasts.

AI models aren’t being used to forecast hurricanes at this point… this NASA climate model is just a research tool. But Rahul says in the future, AI could supplement traditional forecasting methods.  After the model is trained, it takes a lot fewer resources to run than physics models, so anybody can use it on their own computer… you don’t need a supercomputer. And these AI models think differently than meteorologists.

[Music: Robotica Instrumental by Harms]

RAHUL: So, I think it is coming. You know, AI models will supplement the physics-based models that we have, right? So, we’ll have data driven models as well as our known physics model. And they will be like, you know, will feed one into each other. And, you know, things that you learn from the physics- based model can be used to improve the AI based model too. It’s going to be yet another tool in the tool belt for scientists and researchers, having both physics-based models and AI models.

JACOB: In a world in which greenhouse gas emissions have changed the climate, warming the oceans so much that they supercharge hurricanes, we need all the tools we can get. And what’s better than one that can think on its own, finding patterns in the data and learning the physics we already know… and maybe even some we’ve missed.

Now once a hurricane has made landfall, there’s one more way NASA’s Earth science data and open science approach come into play… response and recovery. Carrie Roller works for NASA’s disasters program, but she started out as a meteorologist. She was a TV weathercaster, and she even interned with the NOAA hurricane hunters in college.

CARRIE ROLLER: And as somebody who I would not say flying is my favorite thing, I would say that flying into hurricanes is not something that I would jump at to do again, but I’m very glad that I got the experience.

JACOB: If you’re thinking “NASA has a disasters program?” Well, you’re not alone.

CARRIE: A lot of people don’t think of disasters at all when they think of NASA. And being from Florida, I think of rockets. So, I completely understand that perspective. I grew up watching rocket launches and Space Shuttle launches on the Space Coast.

JACOB: Now, that space coast is right in hurricane central. NASA is at the mercy of natural disasters, just like everyone else. The Kennedy Space Center in Florida has weathered its fair share of storms. Most recently, that included Hurricane Milton, which delayed the launch of our Europa Clipper mission.

But we also have unique Earth observations that can help people respond to those disasters. That’s the job of the Disasters Response Coordination System, or DRCS.

CARRIE: So, the DRCs and the Disasters Program works with governments and nonprofit organizations across the globe, and a lot of our focus is on the people aspect. We are looking to help people after disasters, which is their most vulnerable hour, and we want to make sure that we’re getting them the data products that they need when they need it. We are seeking to provide the best possible Earth observation data to people who need it most.

JACOB: So, here’s how it works… when a disaster strikes, like a hurricane, an earthquake, even an oil spill… state governments, federal agencies like FEMA, or nonprofits like the Red Cross can request that NASA activate its disasters response system. Then, the NASA team can provide the data and maps they need.

This happened during Hurricane Beryl, for example, which made landfall in July 2024.

CARRIE: Hurricane Beryl was a rarity in that it was the earliest category five in the Atlantic basin ever, which is a scary thought. And we were only in early July, to have a huge category five storm, you know, barreling towards coastlines with lots of people. And we were able to activate for this following a request from the Texas Department of Emergency Management.

JACOB: Folks in Texas wanted to know where power outages were after the storm, which turns out to be something NASA satellites can see at night.

[Music: Computer Engineered by Harms]

CARRIE: And this nighttime power product actually shows us where the power is still out. So, we can lay that on top of census data, we can actually pinpoint areas where populations are most vulnerable and target or assist organizations in that area and targeting aid to those specific locations.

JACOB: Carrie and the rest of the team heard the data came in handy…

CARRIE: One of our requesters actually took our data to the commissioner’s office and said, “Look at this. The power companies cannot tell us where the power is out, but NASA can. NASA data can, and we are utilizing this to tell us where we need to send aid,” basically.

Hurricane Beryl also stirred up tornadoes. Carrie’s team provided satellite imagery that helped the National Weather Service in Louisiana study them.

And the Hurricane Hunters team played a role in Beryl too. The data they brought in proved that the hurricane was a Category five. It’s now the earliest category five hurricane ever.  

And although Beryl broke records… it won’t be the last storm to do so. Since April of 2023, global sea surface temperatures have consistently stayed higher than any other time in recorded history. And that means storms that are stronger and happen more frequently.

CARRIE: And we’re very cognizant of the fact that disasters are happening at an increasing rate. We’re seeing stronger hurricanes. We’re seeing earlier stronger hurricanes. Just that increasing rate is really alarming for those of us on the program.

JACOB: When it hit Florida in October of 2024, Hurricane Milton spurred 126 tornado warnings, which is a record for the Florida It was also the quickest ever to intensify to a category five in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the aftermath, NASA’s disasters program sprang into action again, working with FEMA and state emergency management agencies. They used satellite imagery and flew uncrewed aircraft over Florida to detect power outages and map flooding.

As our climate continues to change, NASA’s open science approach will make sure forecasters and local first responders have the data they need to keep people safe.

[SFX: Curious Universe stinger]

JACOB : We have covered a lot of ground in this episode: Hurricane Hunters, weather forecasts, AI models and disaster damage maps. And you might have picked up on a common thread that runs through all of that open science. All of the data NASA collects – from satellites in space to field stations on the ground … it’s available for free to the public.

[Music: Circular Thinking by Jungsten]

JACOB: So let’s dive into the world of open science… and how you can get involved with Kevin Murphy. Kevin is NASA’s chief science data officer. He leads AI and data science efforts for the Science Mission Directorate… and makes sure everyone can access our science. He also leads a program called TOPS, which stands for “Transform to Open Science.” Hey, Kevin!

KEVIN MURPHY: Hey, how are you doing?

JACOB: Great. Well, let’s start at the beginning. What is open science?

KEVIN: Open science is really the principle and the practice of making sure that everybody can participate in science, has access to the publications, the data and the software necessary to do the scientific activities, and generally makes that information more broadly and equitably accessible to a lot of people.

JACOB: So Kevin, on Curious Universe, we’ve talked about citizen science, which is a way that anyone can get involved in NASA science. What’s the difference between citizen science and open science?

KEVIN: When we talk about open science, we talk about four primary pillars which enable things like citizen science to happen and be more effective. The first pillar is that the data that we collect has to be available with no period of exclusive access.  So that means that, you know, we launch a mission, or we do a scientific study, and once that’s concluded, once that data is initially collected, we make a commitment to making that information immediately available to everybody. And that has real world contexts, especially in things like Earth science or space weather, where people can use these data that we collect for a lot of different purposes—everything from you know, hurricane prediction to disaster response to forest fires to, you know, solar storms. The second, really big one is that we commit to making our software open. And that’s really critical to make sure that other people can reuse it without having to do the same work. The third thing is, is that we commit to supporting publications—or scientific publications—without paywalls, so people don’t have to have a subscription to the scientific journal to see the NASA-funded research or the taxpayer-funded research. So no paywalls for scientific publications. And the last one is, we commit to making sure that there is public participation in the scientific process, including the scientific meetings.

JACOB: And I know you guys have a curriculum for TOPS to get started. So what can I learn through that curriculum?

[Music: Delicate Movements by Holt]

KEVIN: As people have, you know, begun to use open data and open software more readily, you know, it’s very difficult for them sometimes to figure out what tools are available—so what licenses to use, how to share things effectively, how to get credit for the things that they do to support science, whether it’s develop software, write papers, format data, or even run conferences and challenges. And what the TOPS training does is really gives people the tools necessary to operate in that kind of open science world.

JACOB: And is that something, you know, if I’m not a scientist, say, if I’m a student or someone like that, is there something in there for me that I can learn?

KEVIN: Absolutely. So the first module is called Ethos of Open Science, and that really kind of describes how people work with open science, why it’s important, and how we can do discovery much faster if we do it together, as opposed to alone. Then we have modules that look at how we do open software development, how we do open data publications, how we do some ethics and how we do open collaborations in effective ways.

JACOB: Okay, Kevin, I’ve got one last thing for you. The name of our show is Curious Universe. So I have to ask you the question we ask everybody we interview: what are you still curious about?

KEVIN: Oh I’m curious about a lot of things, so I don’t know if we have enough time left on this podcast to have that discussion. But if I look at work, you know, I’m really interested in how we use a lot of the modern data science techniques to analyze the hundreds of petabytes of data that we have about the Earth, about the Sun, about the universe, and really how we can push the technology forward so that we can make discoveries even from information that we’ve already collected from other missions and instruments. So I’m curious to how we can harness those technologies, how we can broaden the participation in developing the scientific expertise to analyze that information and really bring that out to the public so that they can also be curious in everything that we do.

JACOB: Yeah, it’s important work. Kevin, thanks so much.

KEVIN: Thank you very much for having me.

JACOB: If you want to learn more about NASA’s open science… and get involved yourself… search online for “Open Science at NASA”. Or head to science.nasa.gov/open-science.

[Closing theme music: Curiosity by SYSTEM Sounds]

This is NASA’s Curious Universe. This episode was written and produced by Christian Elliott. Our executive producer is Katie Konans. The Curious Universe team also includes me, Jacob Pinter, Maddie Olson, Micheala Sosby, and of course Padi Boyd. Krystofer Kim is our show artist.

Our theme song was composed by Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida of SYSTEM Sounds. 

Special thanks to Scott Braun at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for helping us understand hurricane science. If you want to check out NASA’s disaster maps for yourself, go to maps.disasters.nasa.gov.

And if you’re curious about the AI model Rahul talked about, its full name is the NASA and IBM Prithvi Weather and Climate Foundation Model. So type that into your search bar.

As always, if you enjoyed this episode of NASA’s Curious Universe, please let us know. Leave us a review. Share the show with a friend. And remember, you can “follow” NASA’s Curious Universe in your favorite podcast app to get a notification each time we post a new episode.

DEAN: You know, it looks like a seatbelt light from the late ‘70s, right? And it makes a “ding” sound when you hit it, right?

[SFX: Seatbelt light dings]

DEAN: It’s funny, most of the flight we’re searching for times when we can take it off. Cuz, you know, eight hours, people have to go to the bathroom, or they want to get a cup of coffee, or you just want to stretch your legs. So, you’ll think this isn’t that bad and you’ll turn it off.

[SFX: Seatbelt light dings]

DEAN: And then you’ll hit something big, and you turn it right back on and people are like, “Aw jeez.”

[SFX: Seatbelt light dings, tools clatter around airplane cabin, people laugh]

[SFX: Curious Universe stinger]