Hello, everyone, and welcome to Talk Nerdy. Today is Monday, June 23rd, 2025, and I'm the host of the show, Dr. Kara, Santa Maria.

And as always, before we dive into this week's episode, I want to thank those of you who make

Talk Nerdy possible. Remember, Talk Nerdy is and will always be 100% free to download,

and the way we keep it going is by relying on support of individuals just like you.

We didn't lose our government sponsorship.

We never had it, but I'm still going to pull out the NPR PBS hard sell.

You can visit patreon.com slash talk nerdy to learn how you can pledge your support on an episodic

basis.

The top patrons this week, the top patrons every week, get a shout out on the show,

and they include Anu Baravage, Daniel Lang, David J.E. Smith, Joseph Lamore, Mary Neva, Brian Holden,

David Compton, Gabrielle F. Haramillo, Joe Wilkinson, Pasquale Jalati, and Ulrika Hagman. Thank you all so

much. So let's get into it. This week, I had the

opportunity to chat with Dr. Erica Hamden. She's a professor of astrophysics at the University

of Arizona and director of the University of Arizona Space Institute. And she was also recently

appointed as a member of the State of Arizona Space Commission. And she was also recently appointed as a member of the State of Arizona

Space Commission. She has a new book out. It's called Weird Universe, Everything We don't know

about space and why it's important. So without any further ado, here she is Dr. Erica Hamden.

Well, Erica, thank you for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. So we are going to be talking about your new book, Weird Universe,

everything we don't know about space and why it's important. But we're also going to talk about,

I mean, part of this is talking about your work, but before we

dive into what you chose to include in the book, let's talk a bit more about you and your work.

So you are an astrophysics professor. You're also the director of the University of Arizona

...