space exploration

This week we’ll see the year’s best meteor shower! They are the Geminids, and they deliver a meteor a minute. Tune in to hear what the conditions will be like for those away from the city lights.

Saturn’s Moon Titan is visible through binoculars each evening this week. It's where abundant water exists but only in the form of ice, and where pools of fluid methane add a surrealistic touch.

NASA’s chief scientist, Dr. Jim Garvin, discusses the upcoming DAVINCI mission to Venus and this new exciting era of planetary exploration.

One of the most powerful questions humans ask about the cosmos is: Are we alone? While the science behind this inquiry is fascinating, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a reflection of our values, our fears, and most importantly, our enduring sense of hope.In "The Possibility of Life," acclaimed science journalist Jaime Green traces the history of our understanding, from the days of Galileo and Copernicus to our contemporary quest for exoplanets.

Despite all the media attention focused on various full Moons – like saying it’s the wolf Moon or strawberry Moon or what-have-you, there are really only two officially recognized Full Moons. There’s the Harvest Moon, which is the Full Moon closest to the autumn equinox, and there’s the next Full Moon after that – the Hunters Moon. And That’s what we’re seeing Sunday night, October 9.

Many people are truly imaginative when it comes to thinking of alternatives to established cosmology models. One listener recently asked, “Could the expanding universe be caused by the emptiness on the outside sucking everything in its direction?” Hear countless possibilities offered by alternate universes on the nature of the cosmos.

Hear how Jupiter, now at its very closest to Earth, will be at its brightest until 2034. It will absolutely look great through backyard telescopes when the air is steady, which is the case when stars are not twinkling.

We and Andromeda are approaching each other. With the separation decreasing by 70 miles each second, we'll collide in a few billion years. But no problem. We'll pass through each other without harm, and ultimately merge into an enormous new galaxy that's already been named: Milkomeda.

A neutron star forms when a massive star collapses to send supernova brilliance outward and a tiny remnant core imploding inward. That core — now a 12-mile-wide sun of its own — can spin hundreds of times a second, causing its magnetic field to wrap around itself, intensifying to a strength that be a thousand trillion times greater than Earth’s magnetic field. Such stars are now called magnetars.

This coming Wednesday and Thursday nights, Saturn is the very nearest star to the Moon. And since Saturn reached its annual near point to Earth just three weeks ago, it happens to be as big as possible. We’d usually also say it’s as bright as it gets too, but that’s now changing because its rings are slowly getting oriented more and more sideways.