Ep. 342: Sunsetting Spacecraft

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) Everything dies, including our technology. But when we’ve hurtled a few thousands pounds of robotic instrumentation to another planet, it gets a little difficult to shut it down and clean up. What do we do when a mission has reached the end of its...

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Questions Show: Distance in Space, Changing Earth’s Orbit, and Different Sized Stars

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Ep. 341: 45th Lunar and Planet...

Posted by susie on Apr 11, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) Pamela has a day job, remember? As an astronomer? Recently the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference occurred in the The Woodlands, Texas. Pamela and guest astronomer Sondy Springmann will let us know about the...

Ep. 340: Wernher von Braun

Posted by susie on Apr 7, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) When the United States helped defeat Germany at the end of World War II, they acquired the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. He had already developed the German V2 rocket program, and went on to design all...

Ep. 339: Space Conspiracy Theo...

Posted by susie on Mar 31, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) Yes, we actually landed on the Moon. No, aliens didn’t crash land at Roswell. What is it about space exploration that leads to so many conspiracy theories? We’ll try to get to the bottom of these...

Ep. 338: Copernicus

Posted by susie on Mar 24, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) It’s safe to say that the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus shook up the whole Universe. Well, our understanding of our place in the Universe. It was Copernicus who came up with the heliocentric model,...

Ep. 337: Photometry

Posted by susie on Mar 17, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) There’s a lot you can learn by just staring at an object, watching how it changes in brightness. This is the technique of photometry, and it has helped astronomers discover variable stars, extrasolar planets,...

Ep. 336: Units of Measure

Posted by susie on Mar 10, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) How heavy is a kilogram, how long is a second? How warm is a degree? We measure our Universe is so many different ways, using different units of measurement. But how do scientists come up with measurement tools which...

Ep. 335: Photoelectric Effect

Posted by susie on Feb 24, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) Pop quiz. How did Einstein win his Nobel prize? Was it for relativity? Nope, Einstein won the Nobel Prize in 1921 for the discovery of the photoelectric effect; how electrons are emitted from atoms when they absorb...

Ep. 334: Chelyabinsk

Posted by susie on Feb 17, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) Around this time last year a space rock crashed into the Earth above Chelyabinsk, Russia. It brightened the skies for hundreds of kilometers, broke windows and injured many people. Let’s look back at the event....

Ep. 333: When Worlds Collide

Posted by susie on Feb 10, 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) Just take a look at the surface of the Moon and you can see it experienced a savage beating in the past. Turns out, the whole Solar System is a cosmic shooting gallery, with stuff crashing into other stuff. It sure...

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