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PODCAST

Travelers In The Night

Albert D. Grauer

A real "Science Snack" for anyone who is interested in the extraterrestrial.Dr. Al Grauer is a member of the Catalina Sky Survey which has led the world in near Earth asteroid discoveries for 17 of the past 19 years.The music is "Eternity" by John Lyell.Astronomy Asteroids Space NASA Comets Earth Impact Aliens

science astronomy

All Episodes

2:01

740-Asteroid Billiards(528)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/04/14

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART for short will test methods to make a dangerous asteroid miss Earth

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2:01

229E-241-Could Be Twins

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/04/11

A pair of possibly related comets pass unusually close to Earth.It is hard to have a personal feel for the microgravity of a comet since it is only a few ten thousandths of the pull of gravity we experience on Earth. When a comet comes near Jupiter or perhaps the Earth the tiny gravity which holds it together can be overwhelmed by gravity of the larger object and the comet's structure disrupted.Astronomers have observed comets breaking up into smaller pieces as they orbit the Sun. In a spectacular

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2:01

739-Comet Groller(527)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/04/07

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Hannes Groller was asteroid hunting with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona when he discovered his first comet. After the Sun bakes out all of the frozen gasses, Hannes's Comet, will lose its coma and tail and become indistinguishable from one of the millions of main belt asteroids orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.

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2:01

228E-240-Why

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/04/04

What motivates asteroid hunters?Large dangerous asteroids are still out there to find.

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2:01

738-Tiny Visitor(526)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/31

A tiny space rock passes through the cloud of communications satellites surrounding the Earth.

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2:01

227E-239-Martian Lakes

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/28

We may be able to learn about the possibilities of life on Mars by studying land forms on the Tibetan Plateau here on Earth.

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2:01

737-Collision(525)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/24

I was asteroid hunting with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Steve Larson sent me an email requesting that I obtain some images of the asteroid 6478 Gault. Several days earlier, using mountain top telescopes in the Hawaiian islands , astronomers working with the ATLAS project reported that the perviously normally appearing asteroid 6478 Gault now has a 250,000 mile long straight tail. I added together four 60 second images which revealed a point of

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2:01

226E-238-Now Three

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/21

The Catalina Sky Survey now operates three telescopes, 24 nights per month, in the Catalina mountains north of Tucson, Arizona.The Catalina Sky Survey began with the University of Arizona's 30 inch Schmidt Telescope on Mt. Bigelow. This telescope became the world leader when it was used to discover 148 Earth approaching objects in 2005. It found the most Potentially Hazardous Asteroids for the next three years running. In 2006 the University of Arizona's 60 inch telescope on nearby Mt. Lemmon

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2:01

736-Home Wrecker(524)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/17

The extremely remote chance that a dangerous mountain sized space rock has our number on it is what keeps my team going to our four telescopes in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, Arizona.

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2:01

225E-237-Lost

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/14

The asteroid named for Mildred Shapley Matthews was lost in the solar system for 75 years.In 1916 the 60 inch Hale telescope on Mt. Wilson, California was the largest telescope in the world. Seth Nicholson and Harlow Shapley used it to discover a 2 mile diameter asteroid. They only observed their new asteroid twice on their discovery night. Shapley named the asteroid Mildred for his one year old daughter. Nicholson and Shapley were able to find asteroid Mildred a couple of times during the month

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2:01

735-One Thousand(523)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/10

For the first time in history, an asteroid hunting team, the Catalina Sky Survey, has discovered more than 1,000 Earth approaching asteroids in a single year. They are an interesting part of our environment.

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2:01

224E-236-Enceladus's Ocean

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/07

Pound for pound Saturn's moon Enceladus is the brightest object in our solar system. It is so shiny that it reflects most of the sunlight that strikes it. Since Enceladus absorbs little sunlight it's surface is 330 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Below its icy exterior the story is very different. It appears that Enceladus has an ocean of liquid water. What Next?

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2:01

734-Comets Africano(522)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/03/03

During Comet C/2018 V4 Africano's last visit to the inner solar system humans were erecting the outer ring at Stonehenge. At the rate human's are changing the Earth's climate who can guess what will be happening on Earth when this comet returns in about 6,000 AD.

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2:01

223E-235-Fragment

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/02/28

Millions of years ago two large asteroids collided in the asteroid belt. Pieces were sent flying in all directions. A few of them were put into orbits which rise high above and below the plane of the solar system as they continued to travel around the Sun. A fragment is discovered from a collision long ago as it comes near the Earth. Fortunately this space rock will not strike the Earth anytime soon. It will continue to orbit the Sun in the silent vacuum of space until it has a collision with

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2:01

733-Lunar Space Rock(521)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/02/24

Recently, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Hannes Groller discovered an Earth approaching asteroid which has a speed consistent with it being ejected from the Moon by the impact of an asteroid or comet long ago. 69 hours after Hannes discovered it, this small space rock passed closer than the communication satellites are from us.

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2:01

222E-234-Salty and Cold

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/02/21

There is increasing evidence that Jupiter's moon Europa, Saturn's moon Enceladus, and other bodies in our solar system have oceans of salty liquid water in contact with warm rock layers. We know that on Earth life abounds under these conditions around volcanic vents. Could such biodiversity be happening elsewhere?

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2:01

732-Comet Lemmon(520)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/02/17

Comets Travel Between Stars. An interstellar traveler visits our neighborhood on its tour of the Milky Way. Comet Lemmon will continue on a hyperbolic path into deep space. In 2043 it will be further than the average distance that Pluto is from our Sun. Eons from now comet C/2018 U1 (Lemmon) may enter another solar system and be tracked by intelligent beings as it continues its tour of the Milky Way.

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2:01

221E-233-Tiny Visitor

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/02/14

Asteroids are part of our environment.An SUV sized space rock has spent eons traveling through the silent vacuum of space. In the past 50 years, without humans being aware of its existence, it has made 29 close approaches to planet Earth and 11 visits to the vicinity our sister planet Venus. In the relatively near future asteroid hunters will be able to find more dspace rocks like this one before they impact Earth and thus be able to issue a warning for a space rock which is about to explode over a

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2:01

731-Greg's Comet(519)

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/02/10

The discovery of a Jupiter family comet whose fate is to become a garden variety main belt asteroid.

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2:01

220E-232-Dangerous Aten

Travelers In The Night ·

2023/02/07

Aten asteroids pose a threat as well as an economic opportunity for humans.

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1,271 results

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