It is impossible to overstate how much more we can learn about other worlds when we visit them. Even from Earth’s orbit, where the atmosphere doesn’t interfere with picture quality, we just can’t see the same details. I’m going to put some numbers on this. When the Europa Clipper mission reaches Juno in 2030, it will begin a series of flybys that bring it as close as 25 km from Europa’s surface. From a distance of 100km, a 1km feature on Europa’s surface will be half a degree across and appear as wide as the moon does from Earth. From Earth … that 1km feature appears 400 million times...
Stonehenge Stones More Geographically Diverse Than Originally Thought
Image credit: Stefan Kühn Before we go, I have a new mystery for you. Researchers, with permission, took a small sample from the altar stone at Stonehenge and examined its composition and structure in a new level of detail. This information made it possible to...
A Star’s Death in Three Acts
While monitoring the sky with optical systems, we’ve found some really weird stuff. Back in 2018, the All Sky Automated Survey for Super Novae discovered a brightening galaxy. Follow -up observations in the X-Ray found the kinds of high energy light that signals a...
Plasma Bubbles Surround Sources of Fast Radio Bursts
In 2007, a student discovered a really weird thing in archival radio data. David Narkevic was working for Duncan Lorimer and found a 5-millisecond burst of energy in the Radio that appeared to be of extragalactic origin. In the years since then, over 100 of these...
Dino-Killer Asteroid Came From the Outer Solar System
A shaded relief image of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. NASA/JPL-Caltech. The single messiest day in geologically recorded history was the day the dinosaurs died. On that day, and across the days that would follow, tidal waves wrapped multiple times around our world as...
Missy Elliott’s “The Rain” Gets Beamed to Venus
NASA periodically transmits cultural content into space. From music to a recording of the human heartbeat on Voyager’s golden record, who we are as a planet spanning civilization periodically gets beamed to the stars. And the variety of what is getting sent out just...
Closer Look: Possible Cancellation of NASA’s VIPER Mission
A computer generated concept image of the VIPER rover Throughout this segment, we’re diving into the probable cancellation of NASA’s much anticipated VIPER moon rover. This is an extremely complex topic and a full discussion just isn’t possible given the limited...
When Orbits Go Weird
orbital path of transiting exoplanet TIC 241249530 b As of the day of this recording, Aug 8, 2024, more than 5600 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting more than 4000 alien stars. Within these systems we are regularly finding things our experiences with our own...
JWST Catches Difference in Sunrise and Sunset
an artist's concept of the exoplanet WASP-43b Anyone who likes to exercise outside can tell you the sunrise side of the day is far cooler than the evening twilight. Here on Earth, with our rotating world, this is easy to understand. Throughout the night, our planet...
All the Planets Science Can Design
Before we go, I just want to take a moment to share something beautiful. Image credit: Martin Vargic Out of the blue, I received an email from artist and infographic designer Martin Vargic, and I have to admit, few random email have been quite so pleasing. He just...
Closer Look: Intermediate Mass Black Hole Caught Moving Stars
Image credit: Interstellar/R. Hurt/CALTECH My entire life researchers have been asking, are there blackholes in the hearts of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters? We know they lurk in the centers of large galaxies, and their sizes are proportional to the sizes and...