Universe Today podcasts with Fraser Cain

Episode 547: Spacecraft Gyroscopes And Reaction Wheels. You Can Never Have Enough

August 12th, 2019  |  11 mins 42 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

It’s amazing to think there are telescopes up in space, right now, directing their gaze at distant objects for hours, days and even weeks. Providing a point of view so stable and accurate that we can learn details about galaxies, exoplanets and more.

And then, when the time is up, the spacecraft can shift its gaze in another direction. All without the use of fuel.

It’s all thanks to the technology of reaction wheels and gyroscopes. Let’s talk about how they work, how they’re different, and how their failure has ended missions in the past.

Episode 546: One Year, Almost 1,000 Planetary Candidates. An Update On TESS

August 9th, 2019  |  11 mins 56 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Telescope launched back in April, 2018. After a few months of testing, it was ready to begin mapping the southern sky, searching for planets orbiting stars relatively nearby.

We’re just over a year into the mission now, and on July 18th, TESS has shifted its attention to the Northern Hemisphere, continuing the hunt for planets in the northern skies.

As part of this shift, NASA has announced a handful of fascinating new planets turned up by TESS, including a couple of worlds in categories which have never been seen before.

Episode 544: Q&A 94: Can Solar Sails Explore The Outer Solar System? And More...

August 8th, 2019  |  22 mins 41 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

In this week's questions show, I answer a question about solar sails, what geologists might learn from lunar rocks, if Earth could survive inside Jupiter, could gas giants be closer to the Sun, and more.

Episode 543: What Are Light Echoes? Using Reflections Of Light To See Even Further Back In Time

August 5th, 2019  |  11 mins 37 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

When we look outward into space, we’re looking backwards in time. That’s because light moves, at the speed of light. It takes time for the light to reach us.

But it gets even stranger than that. Light can be absorbed, reflected, and re-emitted by gas and dust, giving us a second look.

They’re called light echoes, and allow astronomers another way to understand the Universe around us.

Episode 545: Q&A 93: When Will The Space Junk Return To Earth? And More...

August 1st, 2019  |  32 mins 44 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

In this week's questions show, I explain how long it'll take for space junk to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, would it be possible to put advertising in space, and why panspermia is appealing as a hypothesis.

Episode 541: Why Is The Moon’s South Pole So Important? It’s All About Water

July 30th, 2019  |  12 mins 49 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

As NASA prepares to return to the Moon by 2024 as part of its Artemis program, the agency is focusing its efforts on exploring the Moon’s polar regions. These are areas of the Moon which seem to have a lot of water mixed in with the regolith.

Some of these craters are permanently in shadow, and might still have large quantities of water, that’s accessible to human and robotic explorers. This is a critical resource, and the Moon might be just the place to help humanity as it pushes out to explore the rest of the Solar System.

But it might also be an illusion. We really won’t know until we look up close.

Episode 539: Q&A 92: Can We Accelerate At 1G Like In The Expanse? Featuring Sophia Gad-Nasr

July 24th, 2019  |  30 mins 45 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

In this week's QA, I tackle constant acceleration. Do we have anything that can accelerate at 1G for long periods of time? Why are there different sized stars? And do the heavier elements come from supernovae or colliding neutron stars?

Episode 538: Searching For The Red Edge. How The Earth's Forests Are Telling The Aliens Where We Live

July 23rd, 2019  |  10 mins 6 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

People are always worried that alien civilizations will detect the transmissions from our old radio shows and television broadcasts, and send in the invasion fleet. But the reality is that life itself has been broadcasting the existence of life on Earth for 500 million years.

Blame it on the plants.

In addition to filling the atmosphere with oxygen, plants give off a very specific wavelength visible in infrared radiation. It’s the kind of signal that other civilizations could search for as they’re scanning the galaxy.

It’s what we’ll be looking for too.

But don’t just blame the plants. Other forms of life have been giving off signals too, signals we can search for as we discover new exoplanets and wonder if they have life there.

Episode 537: Catching The Next Interstellar Asteroid Or Comet. ESA's Comet Interceptor Mission

July 23rd, 2019  |  10 mins 54 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

On October 19th, 2017 astronomers detected the first interstellar asteroid (or maybe comet) passing through the Solar System: Oumuamua. It had a brief encounter with the inner Solar System and then hurtled back out into interstellar space.

Once astronomers noticed it, they directed the world’s telescopes on the object, but it was too far away to reveal anything more than a faint dot.

Until now, we’ve only been able to study objects in our own Solar System. We have no idea what the rest of the Milky Way is like.

But we were too late to catch it, no spacecraft was ready to make a quick intercept.

Well, scientists aren’t going to make that mistake again. The European Space Agency announced their plans to build a comet interceptor. A spacecraft that will lurk out at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, waiting for a long-period comet or interstellar object to pounce on, and give us the first close up view ever.

Episode 535: Fermi Paradox: Where are they? A Debate with John Michael Godier Moderated by Skylias

July 4th, 2019  |  38 mins 3 secs

astronomy, space, space exploration

This past weekend Skylias moderated a debated between John Michael Godier and Fraser Cain over their Fermi paradox theories. If there are aliens where are they? The Fermi paradox theory asks where are the alien civilizations in the galaxy? And in the universe. If they exist. Where are the extraterrestrials?