© 2026
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scam Advisory: We have been made aware that an online entity is posing as Joe Donahue to invite authors and other creatives onto our radio shows. The scammers then attempt to charge guests an appearance fee for exposure/publicity.
Please note: WAMC does not charge guests to appear on the station and any email about appearing on a WAMC program will come from a wamc.org email address.
Strange Universe

Strange Universe: Astounding Fundamentals 1/15/23

By Bob Berman
Published January 16, 2023 at 12:53 PM EST
Solar system with eight planets.
1 of 1  — Solar system illustration
Solar system with eight planets.
Destina - stock.adobe.com / 67617292

This week we’ll study seven basic facts about the universe like how Aristarchus, 18 centuries before Copernicus, declared the earth orbits around the sun.

Tags
Strange Universe Strange Universeplanets
Bob Berman
See stories by Bob Berman
Related Content
  • Strange Universe: Celestial Thanksgiving 11/27/22
    Bob Berman
    The only two disks in our sky, the moon and sun, both appear the same size. This is true nowhere else. It alone creates total solar eclipses. In just a few tens of millions of years, the slowly spiraling-away moon will look too small to cover up the sun. Total solar eclipses are only happening now, when humans are around.
  • Fantastic landscape of another planet. Desert Night with stars and galaxies (Elements of this image furnished by NASA)
    Strange Universe: The Week of Mars 12/4/22
    Bob Berman
    This is the week of Mars. Its opposition – when it’s exactly the opposite the sun in our sky – is this Thursday. Its closest and brightest happened a few days ago. And this Wednesday night, December 7th, it closely meets the Full Moon. We’ll also hear what Mars has been up to.
  • THE SUN SETS OVER THE HIGH DESERT IN WILDFIRE SMOKE, SANTA FE, NM, USA
    Strange Universe: Happy Perihelion 1/8/23
    Bob Berman
    Our current, bright sun makes winters more moderate than they’d otherwise be. In the southern hemisphere, enjoying summer right now, the added boost of having this 7% greater Sun intensity should theoretically make seasons more extreme than ours, with hotter highs and colder lows. It doesn’t happen only because they have far more ocean acreage, and water moderates temperatures so that our planet’s two hemispheres, remarkably, balance out.