Travelers In The Night
1,096 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 21 ratingsA 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
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Episodes
168E-180-An Eternal One
February 15, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutesCatalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski found a faint moving point of light in the night sky. After his discovery observations were posted on the Minor Planet Center's website it was observed by 10 other telescopes around the world and given the name 2013 US10. It has taken additional observations to reveal that Kowalski's object is not an asteroid but rather a comet which came closest to the Sun on November 15, 2015. After that its speed will be so great that it will leave our solar ...
679-Hammer(453)
February 11, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBWhen Asteroid Hunters find a relatively large asteroid on a collision course with planet Earth, the challenge is to change its path to make it miss our home planet.
167E-179-Planets,Billiards,&Alchemy
February 08, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutes"I do not know how I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." "Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things" These are only two of the quotes attributed to Sir Isaac Newton.
678-Greg's Comet(425)
February 04, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBGreg's comet comes into our neighborhood once per human lifetime and spends most of it's time in the lonely space high above or far below the rest of the members of our solar system.
166E-178-Monster Telescope
February 01, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutesImagine a monster telescope that can collect 37 million times more light than can enter your eye. A huge telescope with this capability, planned by the European scientific community, will sit atop a 10,000 foot high mountain in the high dry desert of northern Chile.
677-30 Years of Fireballs
January 28, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBFireballs are meteors which become brighter than the planet Venus and can sometimes be seen in the daytime. If you are lucky to see a fireball send in your report to the American Meteor Society and become a citizen scientist.
165E-177-Flying Peanut
January 25, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutesFor 16 years, since its discovery at Lowell Observatory, humans knew 1999 JD6 only as a strange, spinning, moving point of light in the night sky. It orbits the Sun once every 303 days on a path that brings it relatively close to Mercury, Venus, and Earth. In the far distant future this small world is likely to collide with one of these planets, or the Sun, or be ejected completely from the solar system. A RADAR movie made with a radio telescope reveals 1999 JD6 to be two asteroids in cont...
676-Cloud 7(449)
January 21, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBTo give you an idea of the asteroid traffic in our neighborhood, on a mostly cloudy night, through holes in the clouds, in a space of less than 2 hours, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski posted 7 new close approaching asteroid discoveries on the Minor Planet Center's Near Earth Object Confirmation Page.
164E-176-Weird Life
January 18, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutesOur everyday world is in the thin web of life that surrounds our planet. We see living organisms made possible by solar energy, water, air, and nutrients from the Earth. Maybe all living creatures are not in an environment similar to ours. When looking for life in other places in the Universe we can take some clues from living systems in extreme environments on our own planet.
675-Nuking An Asteroid(447)
January 14, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBTonight, even though the chances are extremely slim, an asteroid hunter could find a sizable asteroid on a collision course with planet Earth. If we have decades warning, the potential impactor's arrival time could be changed by impacting the dangerous object with a high velocity mass or if we have less time we will need to nuke it which will either blow it to bits or give it a rocket like push.
163E-175-One 4 Ukraine
January 11, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutesCurrently the majority of the Earth Approaching objects are found by my team, the Catalina Sky Survey or the Pan STARRs group in Hawaii. Both employ large telescopes, very expensive electronic cameras, and high powered computer systems. However, an expert observer with a small 12 inch telescope and an electronic detector can still make interesting discoveries.
674-Asteroid Homestead(446)
January 07, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBIn the future one can envision a space mining family boarding a descendent of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle for a trip into low Earth orbit. A few hundred miles above the Earth's surface they would rendezvous with their asteroid mining spacecraft which will be their home for the next five years or so.
162E-174-Fascinating Europa
January 04, 2022 16:00 - 2 minutesYou can spot Europa with almost any small telescope as a moving point of light orbiting the planet Jupiter just like Galileo Galilei did 400 years ago. Of the 4 moons which you will see Europa is the one second closest to Jupiter.
673-Christmas Comet(437)
December 31, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBOn December 25, 2017, while searching for Earth approaching asteroids in the constellation of Virgo, the Universe gave my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard a Christmas present in the form of a comet which now bears his name.
161E-173-An Earth Like Planet
December 28, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesSince the dawn of our race, it is likely that humans have looked into the night sky and wondered if they are alone in the Universe on a unique planet. The NASA Kepler spacecraft has discovered more than a thousand planets orbiting distant stars. A newly discovered planet, Kepler-452b has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star. In the 4.5 billion years of the Earth's history the parade of more than 5 billion species has included single cell organisms, various multi cellular l...
672-Meteor Whispers(427)
December 24, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBRecent scientific studies have begun to shed light on the interesting mystery of how the small number of what we now call electrophonic meteors produce simultaneous light and sound. If you are lucky you could hear a meteor's dying whispers and could even be the first person to record these sounds on your cell phone.
160E-172-Number 1602
December 21, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesThe one thousand six hundred and second potentially hazardous asteroid was discovered by the Pan-STARRS group in Hawaii. Followup observations were made by telescopes in Hawaii, France, Australia, Italy, Germany, and Pennsylvania. The Minor Planet Center used these vital observations to calculate an orbit and gave it the name 2015 OC22.
671-Long Winter Nights(424)
December 17, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBLong Winter nights with good seeing, from start to finish, are those on which the asteroid hunter makes new discoveries while being treated to views of millions of stars, gas clouds, and galaxies which inspire a child like sense of wonder.
159E-171-Planet's Airglow
December 14, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesAt the few remaining natural night sky viewing locations on Earth the horizon has a faint glow in every direction. Near the magnetic poles, this night glow appears to join with the relatively bright higher altitude aurora which covers larger portions of the sky and exhibits beautiful colors including green and red. Green light is the strongest component of the Earth' airglow and comes from oxygen atoms which have become energized by our Sun.
670-Laser Surfing(364)
December 10, 2021 07:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBWhen we find a planet which appears to have the chemical signs of living organisms in its atmosphere, the desire to take a close up look at it will be hard to contain. Laser propelled ultra light space probes could be sent to explore nearby worlds. The cost of investigating our planetary life hosting neighbors is likely to be less than what the US is planning to spend upgrading its nuclear weapons.
158E-170-Encounter with Pluto
December 07, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesAfter 9 years, 3 billion miles, and 18 sleeping periods NASA gave a wake up call to the New Horizons when it was 135 million miles from the Pluto system. After more than 8 hours of waiting, NASA engineers were ecstatic to receive a message from the New Horizons stating that "I am fine and ready to go forward with an encounter with Pluto".
669-Seeds(356)
December 03, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBWhen a fleet of interstellar spaceships leaves our solar system for a planet circling a nearby star the most important of all of the riches that human explorers will carry with them will be libraries of our planet's DNA and the seeds of plants. They are the connection between past life, the inorganic world, and future life.
157E-169-Neighborhood's Edge
November 30, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesConfronted with the deluge of new possible planets, in 2006, The International Astronomical Union voted to categorize Pluto as a Dwarf Planet and not the 9th planet in our solar system as most school children had learned.
668-Dry Sands(420)
November 26, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBIntriguing features which change with the Martian seasons mimic flows of liquid water on the Earth's surface.
156E-168-Invisible Stuff
November 23, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesIn 1933 Fritz Zwicky suggested that the high speeds of galaxies in the relatively distant Coma Cluster are indicative of some type of invisible material which is pulling on them. In the 1970's Dr. Vera Rubin began to measure the speeds of stars in galaxies using the Doppler shift. She expected stars orbiting at different distances from the centers of spiral galaxies to behave like the planets in our solar system since for these giant star systems the luminous mass that we observe is concentra...
667-ET's Cigar(419)
November 19, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBThe first alien object to observed visiting our solar system arrives from truly deep space and leaves us with the mystery of what it is and how it got that way.
155E-167-Night Sky Friendly
November 16, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesBeing night sky friendly means that you only use outdoor lighting fixtures which direct light onto the ground where humans need it and not up into the sky where it obscures the natural wonders of the Universe. Currently more than 2/3 of the US population and more than 1/2 of the those people living in Europe cannot see the Milky Way or a meteor streaking through the night sky because of inappropriate outdoor lighting. Amazingly enough being night sky friendly saves money and is good for busin...
666-Red Dwarf Planets(417)
November 12, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBEarth like planets are being discovered circling the most common type of star in our neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy.
154E-166-Asteroid Diamonds
November 09, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesDid you know that asteroids can bring diamonds to Earth and that asteroids sometimes create diamonds when they collide with our planet?
665-Odd Ball(416)
November 05, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBA small asteroid soars into the lonely space high above and below the plane of our solar system.
153E-165-One Two Punch
November 02, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesAbout 35 million years ago the Earth was impacted by two large asteroids creating the more than 50 mile diameter Popigai [pop a gay i] Crater in Russia and a similar crater in Chesapeake Bay in the USA. Analysis of fragments indicate that the impacting objects were not made of the same material. This finding has led scientists to speculate that there may be an astronomical process which changes conditions in the inner asteroid belt and causes the Earth's orbit to change slightly. This combi...
664-Extraterrestrial Whales(410)
October 29, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBPerhaps the reason that we have not detected alien civilizations on distant worlds is because they exist in oceans covered by miles of radiation absorbing ice and rocks.
152E-164-Big Threat or Not
October 26, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesIn February 2013 a space rock about 59 feet in diameter entered the Earth's atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia making a fire ball 30 times brighter than our Sun. It came without warning and nearly 1,500 people were injured primarily by flying glass from broken windows. In the end spending a billion dollars a year on asteroid damage prevention is like purchasing expensive insurance for an extremely unlikely event. However, it has a side benefit that it will employ people and may stimulate sci...
663-Alien Rock?(409)
October 22, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBA rock from another solar system is likely to have streaked by Earth before heading back into interstellar space.
151E-163-Space Junk
October 19, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesThere are more than 20,000 pieces of space junk larger than 4 inches in diameter and millions of tiny ones in orbit around the Earth. At orbital speed a flake of paint carries as much energy as a 550 pound object traveling at 60 miles per hour. Eventually all of this stuff will fall back to Earth. So far no injuries or property damage has been confirmed. Heads up.
662-Earth's Pet Rock(408)
October 15, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBOn it's gravitational leash, Earth's pet space rock, 2016 HO3, accompanies us at a distance of between 38 and 100 times the Moon's distance from Earth as we both travel about the Sun.
150E-162-Icarus Pays A Visit
October 12, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesFor 43 years after its discovery in 1949, the Earth approaching asteroid Icarus, was known as the object which passes closest to our Sun. It is named for a boy in Greek mythology whose wings of feathers and wax melted when he ignored his father's advice and flew too close to the Sun.
661-Roving Venus(400)
October 08, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBTo survive on Venus where the temperature is 864F and the surface air pressure is 90 times that of Earth, NASA and JPL engineers are exploring the concept of avoiding the use of modern temperature sensitive electronics by creating a fully mechanical rover.
149E-161-Half A World Away
October 05, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesUsing the long arm of the internet, astronomers in Russia are observing with a telescope located near Mayhill, New Mexico to discover solar system objects. The New Mexico Skies Observatory, near the village of Mayhill, is located 7,300 feet above sea level and has world class, clear dark skies, ideal for astronomical viewing. In addition to discovering new objects the ISON-NM telescope is being used to determine the size and shape of asteroids by carefully measuring the light they reflect as...
660-Double Comet(403)
October 01, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBWhat at first appeared to be an asteroid turned out to be a double comet.
148E-160-Alma Spots Juno
September 28, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesJuno was found by German astronomer Karl L. Harding in 1804 who noticed that to the human eye it appeared to be a star like moving point of light in the night sky. The light that Juno reflects suggests that it could be the source of stony meteorites called chondrites that we find on Earth.
659-Martian Debris(382)
September 24, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBMartian Trojan asteroids have stable orbits around the Sun, leading and trailing the red planet by 60 degrees, where the Sun's and Mars's gravity are balanced. The impact more than 4 billion years or so ago which blasted loose the Trojan asteroids and gave them the 3mi/s required to escape the red planet gives us an insight into the level of violence which occurred before our solar system came into it's present relatively calm state.
147E-159-Good News
September 21, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesRecently my NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey teammate Carson Fuls discovered an approaching asteroid about the same size as the one whose high altitude disintegration injured nearly 1500 people in Chelyabinsk Russia in February of 2013. Fortunately this new one missed planet Earth. There is more good news. Carson spotted this small space rock about 40 hours before its closest approach to planet Earth. This means that if it had been on a collision path with our home planet we would have had...
658-Fireball II(418)
September 17, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBRecently there were four fireball meteors, brighter than the planet Venus, which exploded over Germany, France, Ohio, and Arizona within the space of only 10 hours. There are likely to be on the order of 1,000 fireball events over the Earth every day.
146E-158-Know A Star
September 14, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutesHow would you like to know more about a particular star than anyone else on Earth?
657-Plant Companionship(407)
September 10, 2021 15:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBOn Earth, human life is enabled by plants which provide us with calories, vitamins, fuel, medicines, and oxygen to breathe. In addition, recent scientific studies indicate that plant cultivation reduces anxiety and depression and has a positive influence on diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and longevity. It is likely that when humans travel to Mars they will continue this practice. The plants that Mars explorers take with them will provide a source of fresh fruits and vegetables , fresh air ...
145E-157-Kissing Frogs
September 07, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesAn asteroid hunter literally has to sort through millions of objects to find an unknown Earth approaching asteroid.
656-Moons of Florence(399)
September 03, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBThe largest asteroid to come near the Earth in 100 years has two moons.
144E-156-Close Ones
August 31, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutesIn the space of less than ten nights, my Catalina Sky Survey teammates discovered 8 new Earth approaching objects. One of them can pass closer to us than our communication satellites.
655-Finding Space Rocks(391)
August 27, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 3.68 MBFinding a meteorite that has traveled billions of miles through space to reach it's present location is exciting. It might even be worth real money.