Episodios

  • 359E-390-One in 100,000

    359E-390-One in 100,000
    Oct 21 2025
    Friday the 13th appears to continue to be a lucky day for the human race. When astronomers first discovered Apophis in 2004 it appeared possible that this 3 million ton, 1,200 foot diameter asteroid traveling at 8 mi/s could impact our planet creating a crater a several miles diameter and more than a half mile deep. Additional observations over the years have eliminated this possibility as Apophis streaks by closer than the communications satellites on that lucky Friday the 13th. Further, current calculations have reduced the chances of Apophis colliding with Earth in the next 100 years to about one in 100,000. However, over the millennia Apophis is likely to strike the Earth as does one it's size once every 100,000 years or so.
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    2 m
  • 871-New Mars Trojan

    871-New Mars Trojan
    Oct 17 2025
    The Lagrange point L4 is 60° ahead of Mars whereas L5 is 60° behind Mars on the red planet’s orbital path about the Sun. An object placed at either of these locations is trapped gravitationally and is likely to remain there indefinitely. The Mars L4 and L5 locations could provide a permanent place for staging and resupply missions to Mars and would give humans a different view of space weather and its effects on our home planet.
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    2 m
  • 358E-389-Tiny Spacecraft

    358E-389-Tiny Spacecraft
    Oct 14 2025
    To reach the vicinity of the nearest star, 24 trillion miles away, in less than 20 years, an interstellar space probe would have to travel at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. Newton's laws of motion, published 300 years ago, predict that the greater the mass of an object the greater is the force required to increase it's velocity. In order to alleviate the need for the virtually unaffordable amount of energy required to accelerate a normal sized spacecraft to a speed of 20% of the speed of light, the Breakthrough Starshot program has funded the creation of 'Sprite' , the world's smallest spacecraft. About the size of a saltine cracker and having a mass of less than 2 dimes, the single-board Sprite spacecraft has all the essentials; solar panels, computing electronics, thermometers, gyroscopes, radio communication equipment and more. Working prototypes have been launched into Earth orbit by the Indian Space Research Organization attached to the Italian Max Valier and Latvian Ventra satellites. One of them has sent back signals which have been received by Cornell University's ground station. Dr. Zac Manchester who started the Sprite Spacecraft program while earning a PhD at Cornell University envisions using tiny spacecraft to explore near Earth Space as well as asteroids and moons in our solar system. In the future, fleets of the decedents of Sprite could be sent to explore intriguing planets in nearby alien solar systems. These tiny explorers will be propelled by high power Earth bound lasers directed at their solar sails and could reach and explore distant planets in a reasonable amount of time.
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    2 m
  • 870-Satellite Ashes

    870-Satellite Ashes
    Oct 10 2025
    50 years ago scientists found that Chlorofluorocarbons or CFC chemicals in widespread use in refrigeration, air conditioning , and hair spray were beginning to damage the ozone layer in the Earth’s stratosphere which blocks harmful Solar UVB radiation from reaching the surface. The world wide response was the Montreal Protocol banning these chemicals from being released into the atmosphere. It saved millions of humans from dying of skin cancer. Satellite ashes are a new threat to the protective ozone layer.
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    2 m
  • 357E-388-40 years

    357E-388-40 years
    Oct 7 2025
    Looking at the stars on a clear dark night, far from the artificial air glow humanity creates, have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel in truly deep interstellar space? 40 years after their launches in 1977, your representatives, the twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are in the vast space between the stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Aboard each Voyager is a Golden Record time capsule which expected to last billions of years. This message from all of humanity is inscribed with greetings from Earth as well as sounds, images, and a decoding key which will enable any intelligent aliens which find a Voyager to discover who made it and where it came from.
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    2 m
  • 869-Taurid Resonant Swarm

    869-Taurid Resonant Swarm
    Oct 3 2025
    The planets, millions of asteroids, tens of thousands of comets, distant icy worlds, and countless other bits and pieces of material orbit the Sun. A group of such co-orbiting objects is called the Taurid complex or swarm. It consists of Comet 2P/Enke, a number of near Earth asteroids, and the meteor stream which produces the Taurid meteor shower every October and November.
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    2 m
  • 356E-386-Interplanetary Sand Traps

    356E-386-Interplanetary Sand Traps
    Sep 30 2025
    When the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa [Hi ya Boo sa] visited the near Earth asteroid Itokawa in 2005 it found this 2000 foot by 800 foot elliptical world to have a variety of surface features. Instead of being a solid object like some asteroids, Itokawa is a rubble pile of boulders and pebbles held together by it's tiny gravity. The total volume of pebbles seems to be comparable to the volume of large rocks and boulders which make up Itokawa , however, the depths of the pebbles or their concentration in the center remains unknown. Given this uncertainty, this asteroid appears to be made up of a million times more small particles than larger ones.
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    2 m
  • 868-Inside Venus

    868-Inside Venus
    Sep 26 2025
    Astronomers have discovered some 1.4 million asteroids. Approximately 35,000 of these space rocks come near Earth. Less than 40 of them are classified as being Atira asteroids whose orbits lie entirely within the Earth’s orbit about the Sun. Only one of these, asteroid number 594913 named 'Ayló'chaxnim (eye-LAW-chax-nim ) has an orbit which is entirely within the orbit of the planet Venus.
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    2 m