Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
103E-115-Ballistic Capture
Spacecraft destined for Mars have so far used the Hohmann transfer to achieve an orbit about the red planet. This approach requires the launch from Earth orbit to be in a small window in time which …
Published on 5 years, 1 month ago
614-Rare Atira
The Atira class of Earth approaching asteroids are ones whose orbit is entirely within that of the Earth's path about the Sun. Less than 3 dozen of the approximately 24,000 known near Earth asteroids…
Published on 5 years, 1 month ago
102E-114-Roses First Asteroid
Rose Matheny's third solo night of asteroid hunting, using the University of Arizona Schmidt telescope, on Mt. Bigelow, was one of the longest of the year. She had prepared for this night over the p…
Published on 5 years, 1 month ago
613-Climate Change and Telescopes
Recently, in the journal Nature Astronomy, a team of astronomers led by Dr. Faustine Cantalloube of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy released data from their study of the effects of climate cha…
Published on 5 years, 1 month ago
101E-113-A Dwarf Water Planet In Our Solar System
The dwarf planet Ceres may be a place in our solar system where life could have developed. At 590 miles in diameter it is the largest asteroid and only dwarf planet orbiting the Sun between Mars an…
Published on 5 years, 1 month ago
612-Day and Night
Most life on Earth is synchronized to the regular cycles of day and night. Until about a hundred years ago, the natural night sky was familiar to all humans. Most people could identify a few constell…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
100E-112-A Banner Year For Asteroid Hunters
The goal of the NASA Near Earth Object Program is to discover any objects on a collision course with planet Earth. We now know of more than 90% of objects whose impact could cause global climate cha…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
99E-111-Green Meteors
Recently, my wife and I saw a beautiful, bright, green, meteor fireball streaking across the western New Mexico night sky. Such sightings by some UFO enthusiasts , have been advanced as the best obs…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
611-Aurora Mysteries
Auroral displays have been observed and reported on throughout human history. Data from NASA's 5 Themis (Themm us) satellites analyzed by powerful supercomputers is giving us new insight into how our…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago
610-Atmospheric Gravity Waves
Atmospheric gravity waves can be powerful. In September of 2018 two glider pilots surfed an atmospheric gravity wave created by high speed polar winds as they encounter the Andes mountains. Amazingly…
Published on 5 years, 2 months ago