Hey, Curious Universe fans! We're super excited to share this bonus episode with you.

Today, the guest in the hot seat is me. I'll share some of my own story, including researching planets, orbiting stars, far from Earth,

and I'll help answer questions sent in by you, the listeners. I just want to let you know that we're trying something new.

For the first time,

there's also a video version of this podcast episode. You can watch it at nassah.gov slash

Curious Universe or find it on NASA's YouTube. And if you'd rather just listen, well, we're not going

anywhere. Thanks and enjoy the show.

Thank you. Thanks and enjoy the show. I'm Jacob Pinner. I'm one of the producers on the Curious Universe team. And today I get the pleasure of grilling Dr. Patty Boyd. Listeners of Curious Universe will recognize Patty.

She's our host with the most. But what you might not know is that hosting this show is a small part of Patty's job.

She's a full-time astrophysicist. She's been researching the cosmos for decades. Basically, she does all her own stunts.

So, Patty, I've got tons of questions for you.

And I think people who listen to this show are really going to enjoy getting to know the

scientist behind the voice. So thank you so much for doing this, for sitting in the hot seat today.

It's going to be fun. I'm happy to do it. And I'm really looking forward to the conversation.

So thank you, Jacob. So you're a scientist.

Why don't you run me through the basics of what you study?

What are you interested in?

I study how light changes and what we can learn from those changes in light.

And so that's called photometry.

This is the technical word for light changing.

And I study changes in light at wavelengths

from x-ray to ultraviolet to optical to near infrared.

...