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SYFY WIRE Bad Astronomy

SciShow: The Smallest Star

By Phil Plait
smalleststar_diagram.jpg

Perhaps you’ve heard of Hank Green; he and his brother John make videos on YouTube. Lots of videos, covering a million different topics. They do too many things to adequately describe here; you can get a taste at Hank’s site, and at John’s. Be prepared to give it a few hours, since the Vlog Brothers are something of a juggernaut online.

They put together a great science video series called SciShow, where different hosts talk about various fun and fascinating topics in science. It’s short, simple, and really well done, which is why I was more than happy to do one when Hank asked. It’s called “The Smallest Star in the Universe,” and it's live on the SciShow Space channel:

Nifty! Mind you, I did not write the script; it was penned by Sarah Willis, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics who also does a lot of public outreach. I did a very small amount of editing on the script, but she did all the heavy lifting. If you want more info on this, I wrote about the star J0523 on the blog when it was announced a while back.

I had a lot of fun making this video. It was also terrific to get to know Hank and his team; Hank is precisely as nice as he seems. It’s always truly uplifting to meet people who are firing on all cylinders. I had the same feeling after meeting him and his crew as I do when I leave Comic Con: inspired. Smart, creative people who actually go out and do stuff really motivate me to fire up my brain and start doing things.

As I write this, SciShow has just under 2 million subscribers on YouTube. I bet BABloggees could push that a lot closer to the 2M mark. Go subscribe! You’ll get more science in your life, and that’s always a good thing. And while you’re at it, if you liked it, please give my own video a thumbs up. You can support SciShow at Subbable, too.

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