Happy birthday, National Geographic. The intrepid magazine turns 125-years-old this month. Yesterday, NPR’s Talk of the Nation invited TED speakers Robert Ballard and Sarah Parcak on the air to discuss the notable anniversary.

Robert Ballard on exploring the oceansBallard, who is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, talked about a recent expedition to the Black Sea, where he discovered a very well-preserved shipwreck. Ballard, who gave the TED Talk “On exploring oceans,” told host Neal Conan, “The deep sea is the largest museum in the world. It has more history in it than all the museums of the world combined.”

Ballard also proved that he has a photographic memory for National Geographic issues, telling a caller who described his favorite story that it came out in December 1981.

Sarah Parcak: Archeology from spaceTED Fellow Sarah Parcak, who gave the talk “Archeology from space,” also joined the program to talk about her work as one of National Geographic’s emerging explorers.

“When you think about the scale of human populations all over the world and the fact that there’s so much here, really the only way to be able to visualize that is to pull back in space … It allows us to see hidden temples and tombs and pyramids and even entire settlements,” she says. “What satellites help to show us is we’ve actually only found a fraction of a percent of ancient settlements and sites all over the world. … It’s the most exciting time in history to be an archaeologist.”

Parcak said that, growing up, she kept every National Geographic issue that contained images of Egypt. “It’s both Indiana Jones and National Geographic that inspired me to be an Egyptologist,” she said.

To hear much more about the magazine — like how its second president, Alexander Graham Bell, caused a scandal when he decided to publish pictures — listen to the full interview on NPR’s website » 

TED Fellow Sarah Parcak is a “space archaeologist” who uses infrared technology coupled with satellite imagery to discover previously hidden ancient structures and cities. In this exciting talk from TED2012, she shares how she helped unearth an unknown Ancient Egyptian city through satellite imaging.

Now, Parcak is turning her attention to Ancient Rome in a new special for the BBC, Rome’s Lost Empire, which premieres this Sunday, December 9. For the show, Parcak pairs up with historian and presenter Dan Snow (above) and uses space archaeology technology to excavate secrets from the Roman Empire. Watch the trailer and find showtimes >>

See, this vast Empire stretched far beyond the Pantheon and Colosseum. In the documentary, Parcak pursues lost cities across the deserts of Africa and the Middle East as well as in the mountains and rivers of Europe. Through this adventure, Parcak and Snow give a new view of this once mighty world power.

Parcak has other news, too. She was recently presented with the National Geographic Innovation Challenge Award and will be teaming up with Louise Leakey, who gave the TED Talk, “Digging for humanity’s origins.” Parcak and Leakey connected at TED. Together, they will use the remote sensing to map early hominid sites throughout Kenya, while simultaneously teaching this innovative method to local budding archaeologists at a field school.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Space archeology pioneer and Egyptologist Sarah Parcak zooms out from the moment 90 years ago when Howard Carter peered by candlelight into King Tut’s tomb to a new age of archaeological discovery: seeking ancient civilization by 21st-century candlelight. Sarah uses satellite imagery to find evidence of ancient Egyptian cities. Take the ancient capital of Tanis, for example: When the satellite data was processed with infrared, it revealed streets, houses and even, possibly, palaces, enough information to draw street maps reconstituting an entire city — what Sarah calls “the New York of its time” — four times larger than previously thought and not seen in 3,000 years. But what about the other cities in Egypt’s 5,000-year history? Sarah’s team processed the data and created a new map, which revealed more than 3,100 new sites — which means more than 99 percent of ancient Egypt remains to be uncovered.