Transcript: November Week 3

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies on Radio Boise. This is the third week of November. We’re your hosts, Paul..

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Thirty five years ago the Mariner 9 spacecraft went into orbit around Mars.

RACHEL
That day was November 14th, 1971.

KRIS
Mariner 9 was an American spacecraft. And it was the first to orbit another planet.

PAUL
Before Mainer 9, all spacecraft sent to study the planets Venus and Mars were flyby missions.

RACHEL
Orbital missions are more difficult than flybys because they carry additional fuel and need more accurate trajectories and engine firings.

KRIS
The previous Martian flybys only photographed a small portion of Mars. The images from these flybys were unfortunately of the old boring parts of Mars.

RACHEL
Mariner 9 eventually returned images of huge shield volcanoes, vastly deep canyons, and signs that water flowed on Mars in the past.

KRIS
What a difference Mariner 9 made. Mars had almost been written off as a dead and uninteresting world.

RACHEL
Along with Mars, Mariner 9 also returned images of its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. The moons are named for the Latin words for fear and terror.

KRIS
These Martina satellites were our first views of asteroids.

PAUL
The Leonid meteor shower reaches it peak on the morning of the 18th.

RACHEL
The meteors you’ll see streaking across the sky are small, averaging about the size of a BB.

KRIS
The meteors are solid pieces of dust and rock blown off the nucleus of comet Tempel-Tuttle. The meteors travel very fast.

PAUL
That’s right. They enter the atmosphere about eight times faster than the Space Shuttle orbits the earth.

RACHEL
The Leonids are good at leaving glowing trails. The trails can persist for several seconds to as long as several minutes.

KRIS
As high altitude winds blow the glowing trail around, it changes from a straight line to a curvy one.

PAUL
In dark skies you may see a dozen meteors per hour.

RACHEL
Look for them to streak out of the east after midnight. This year the thin crescent moon will create minimal interference until shortly before sunrise.

KRIS
And that’s Idaho Skies for the third week of November. Next week our topic is the morning appearance of Mercury and the landing of the spacecraft Mars 2.

For Idaho Skies this is Kris...

RACHEL
..Rachel..

PAUL
.. and Paul.