Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 215E & 216E: Planet 9 & Alien Contact
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s two stroy:
- Astronomers are searching the solar system for new planets. Calculations based on the orbits of the distant objects out near Pluto suggest the existence of a 10 Earth mass planet twenty times farther from the Sun than the planet Neptune. At its great distance the hypothetical new “Planet 9” would take 20,000 years or so to make a single orbit about the Sun. The search for “Planet 9” has begun. Until we have images of it moving through the night sky it will continue to be a theoretical curiosity.
- Humans are searching the Universe to discover life outside of our Planet. You could wake up any morning to the news that humans have found life beyond our planet. It could be fossils of ancient life on Mars. It could be the discovery of micro organisms in one of the salty oceans on the asteroid Ceres, the moons of Jupiter, Europa and Ganymede, and/or Enceladus the strange little moon of Saturn. It could be the reception of electromagnetic signals from a distant advanced civilization. Lacking hard evidence many of us continue to look into the night sky and wonder what is out there
Bio: Dr. Al Grauer is currently an observing member of the Catalina Sky Survey Team at the University of Arizona. This group has discovered nearly half of the Earth approaching objects known to exist. He received a PhD in Physics in 1971 and has been an observational Astronomer for 43 years. He retired as a University Professor after 39 years of interacting with students. He has conducted research projects using telescopes in Arizona, Chile, Australia, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Georgia with funding from NSF and NASA.
He is noted as Co-discoverer of comet P/2010 TO20 Linear-Grauer, Discoverer of comet C/2009 U5 Grauer and has asteroid 18871 Grauer named for him.
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Transcript:
215E – Planet 9
From the dawn of history, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have been part of human culture. The planet Uranus had been mistaken for a dim star until Sir William Herschel trained his telescope on it in 1781. When astronomers began to observe Uranus they realized that it is a planet and that it’s orbit suggested the presence of an unknown planet further from the Sun.
When astronomers looked for it there it was. The new planet was named Neptune. Fifty years later Percival Lowell maintained that variations in the orbit of Neptune suggested the existence of yet another planet which he named Planet X. Clyde Tombaugh carried out the search for Planet X after Lowell died and in 1930 discovered a distant planetary object. It was named Pluto and reigned as the ninth planet for the next 65 years. By 2005 a number of other Pluto like objects had been found in orbits far from the Sun. None of these were large enough to have cleared the neighborhood around them like the other 8 planets. Pluto and the rest of the new objects were then designated as dwarf planets.
Now astronomers are doing it again. Calculations based on the orbits of the distant objects out near Pluto suggest the existence of a 10 Earth mass planet twenty times farther from the Sun than the planet Neptune. At its great distance the hypothetical new “Planet 9” would take 20,000 years or so to make a single orbit about the Sun. The search for “Planet 9” has begun. Until we have images of it moving through the night sky it will continue to be a theoretical curiosity.
216E- Alien Contact
You could wake up any morning to the news that humans have found life beyond our planet. It could be fossils of ancient life on Mars. It could be the discovery of micro organisms in one of the salty oceans on the asteroid Ceres, the moons of Jupiter, Europa and Ganymede, and/or Enceladus the strange little moon of Saturn. It could be the reception of electromagnetic signals from a distant advanced civilization.
The effect of such a discovery on humanity would depend on the type of alien life discovered and its distance from us. Some have wondered if humanity might be end up second best in a physical interaction with an alien culture as was the case of the Aztecs at the hands of Cortez and his fellow invaders. Others have wondered if information gleaned from alien radio signals would be used for good or evil by the residents of our planet. These arguments have been used to suggest that we avoid communiting with off world civilizations.
Even the discovery of lowly microorganisms outside of our biosphere has great promise and risks.
To prepare for these possibilities scientists are studying life at extreme ocean depths, temperatures, and pressures as well as in the high dry cold desert regions of Antarctica to see how life as we know it has adapted to extreme conditions. Other researchers scan the skies searching for alien signals from distant sources. Additional groups of scientists are planning space missions to continue to search for life in our own solar system.
Lacking hard evidence many of us continue to look into the night sky and wonder what is out there.
For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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