Advertise on podcast: Travelers In The Night

Unlike other space missions which are conducted out in the open the asteroid mining company AstroForge’s first mission to a potentially valuable nearby rocky M type asteroid is being planned in secret so that some other company doesn’t have the chance to grab it before they do.

In 2015 the Earth was struck by at least 43 meteoroids which created bright fireballs. Their arrival does not seem to be correlated with the position of the Earth in it's orbit about the Sun.Overall a given piece of ground on Mars is several times more likely to be hit by a space rock than is a similar sized area on Earth.

So far asteroid hunters have discovered approximately half of the 5,000 PHAs which are likely to exist. Asteroid hunters will continue to search the sky to discover dangerous asteroids 50 years before impact so that humans can either deflect or pulverize them.

A faint shooting star or meteor streaking across the sky is produced when a tiny bit of rock or dust enters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up some 60 miles above us. NASA scientist Dr. Marc Fries and his collaborators have used Doppler Weather Radar to track twenty meteor's dark trails through the sky. In the past year or so they have used this technique to direct searchers on the ground to the probable location of freshly fallen meteorites.

Centaurs have long puzzled astronomers since they have traits in common with both asteroids and comets.

The history of our spot in the Universe is written in the composition of meteorites and other samples of materials we have obtained from space. Even the smallest speck has a story to tell.

In the past two decades astronomers have discovered that galaxies are not randomly distributed in space but rather occur along filaments of mass with huge empty voids between them. How objects and structures in the early Universe became nearby clusters of galaxies and third generation stars like our Sun is an evolving picture we are beginning to understand.

We don't know much about our Ethiopian ancestor Lucy who walked the Earth some 3 million years ago, however, it is likely that she made her way around at night but the light of the stars, air glow, and the Moon. In modern humans, the Rod receptors in our eyes become amazingly sensitive when they are not exposed to bright light for some 30 to 45 minutes. At this point things look black and white even though your eye's maximum sensitivity is close to the color of the green light given off by atmospheric night airglow.Your visit to a dark sky location like the Coismic Campground IDSS in New Mexico will allow you to experience the age old sense of wonder which happens when a human looks into deep space and thinks about what might be out there.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Aquarius with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona when he discovered his 19th comet. Turns out Greg's new comet is a member of a family of comets orbiting the Sun like a string of cosmic pearls across the vast distances in our solar system.

Scientists have spotted icy plumes coming from below the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus but have yet to witness such events on Ceres. Even so there is significant evidence which points to the possibility of a liquid water ocean layer below Ceres icy crust which could provide an environment suitable for microorganisms.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was being filmed and interviewed by the NASA 360 crew at our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when he discovered a scary space rock moving through the constellation of Aquarius at 13 mi/s.Rest assured that asteroid hunters will carefully keep track of 2023 VS3 to make sure that its orbit does not change to make it a threat in the distant future as it passes near to Earth, Mars, and other asteroids.

The warming that is happening is having a variety of consequences. In the American midwest and northeast extreme heat, heavy rain storms, and flooding will impact agriculture, forestry, infrastructure, and air as well as water quality. In the southwest increased heat, insect outbreaks, and declining water supplies will increase the possibility of wild fires and other threats. Costal regions regions are experiencing sea level rises and storm surges which effect ports, tourism, and the fishing industry. Alaska has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the country and has witnessed sea ice retreating, glaciers receding, and permafrost melting.