The 365 Days of Astronomy

Travelers in the Night Eps. 357E & 358E: 40 Years & Tiny Spacecraft

Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus [https://twitter.com/Nmcanopus] ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006. travelersinthenight.org [http://travelersinthenight.org] From October 2025. Today's 2 topics: - Looking at the stars on a clear dark night, far from the artificial air glow humanity creates, have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel in truly deep interstellar space? 40 years after their launches in 1977, your representatives, the twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are in the vast space between the stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Aboard each Voyager is a Golden Record time capsule which is expected to last billions of years. This message from all of humanity is inscribed with greetings from Earth as well as sounds, images, and a decoding key which will enable any intelligent aliens which find a Voyager to discover who made it and where it came from. - To reach the vicinity of the nearest star, 24 trillion miles away, in less than 20 years, an interstellar space probe would have to travel at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. Newton's laws of motion, published 300 years ago, predict that the greater the mass of an object the greater is the force required to increase its velocity. In order to alleviate the need for the virtually unaffordable amount of energy required to accelerate a normal sized spacecraft to a speed of 20% of the speed of light, the Breakthrough Starshot program has funded the creation of 'Sprite' , the world's smallest spacecraft. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy [https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy] and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop [http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop] for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate] This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate]!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu [http://www.psi.edu] Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org [http://365DaysOfAstronomy.org/] or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org [info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org].

NOIRLab - An Extra Long Gamma Ray Burst

Astronomers have observed the longest-ever gamma-ray burst — a powerful, extragalactic explosion that lasted over seven hours. Rapid follow-up observations with the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera and the International Gemini Observatory provided crucial information about the possible origin of this extraordinary event and the galaxy that hosts it. Bios: - Rob Sparks is in the Communications, Education and Engagement group at NSF's NOIRLab in Tucson, Arizona. - Jonathan Carney is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studies time-domain astronomy with a focus on tidal disruption events. His research spans the full pipeline of transient discovery and characterization, from developing machine learning models for the forthcoming Argus Array to conducting follow-up observations with NOIRLab telescopes. https://carneyjo.github.io/ [https://carneyjo.github.io/] We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy [https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy] and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop [http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop] for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate] This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate]!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu [http://www.psi.edu] Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org [http://365DaysOfAstronomy.org/] or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org [info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org].

EVSN - Never Trust a Volcano & Other Geology Tales

From December 3, 2025. The world we live on today has undergone dramatic change since it first formed, and time hasn't necessarily been kind. Earth has gained some weight (and a Moon) after a chance collision. A leaky gut led to some confusing internal structures. Here on the surface, mountains keep finding new ways to pop off and destroy surroundings. But scientists are helping us understand all these factors. Learn how in this episode of EVSN, and also hear about our latest tales from the launch pad. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy [https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy] and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop [http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop] for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate] This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate]!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu [http://www.psi.edu] Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org [http://365DaysOfAstronomy.org/] or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org [info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org].

Guide To Space - NASA Wants To Bring A Chunk Of Comet Back To Earth. Collaboration with Everyday Astronaut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtVKAQMNjY4 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtVKAQMNjY4] Hosted by Fraser Cain & Tim Dodd. From Feb 27, 2018. NASA is going to decide between a comet sample return mission or a helicopter on Titan. Which mission should it be? [Spoiler alert! NASA went with the Dragonfly mission.] Tim's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkS2dP7eiEU [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkS2dP7eiEU] We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy [https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy] and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop [http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop] for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate] This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate]!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu [http://www.psi.edu] Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org [http://365DaysOfAstronomy.org/] or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org [info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org].

Cheap Astronomy - Implausible Engineering, Episode 6: Lasting the Distance

Hosted by Steve Nerlich. Immortality is hard work. Episode 6a: Staying Switched On It's difficult to achieve immortality unless you also achieve invulnerability, since even if you don't age or get sick you can still die from a natural disaster, or a murder, or whatever. Indeed, the longer you live the more likely some unexpected calamity may come your way. So, if your only immortal up until the point that something goes wrong and you die, then you're not really immortal. Episode 6b: Hopping Universes. The day is coming when our Universe starts winding down towards heat death and our by-then close-to- immortal descendants will need to find a fresh young Universe to continue in. After all, here we living in a Universe that apparently popped of nowhere, quite literally, since the whole idea of a Universe is that it contains spacetime, so whatever nothingness that it did pop out of had neither space nor time dimensions. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy [https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy] and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop [http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop] for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate] This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click [http://cosmoquest.org/Donate]!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu [http://www.psi.edu] Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org [http://365DaysOfAstronomy.org/] or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org [info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org].