Transcript: November Week 4

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Mercury makes it best appearance for the year on the morning of the 25th.

KRIS
To find it, look nine degrees above the east-southeast horizon at 7:00 AM.

RACHEL
For a handy reference, your palm is about ten degrees wide when viewed from an outstretched hand.

PAUL
Get it? Handy reference?

KRIS and RACHEL
Shusssh, they get it.

RACHEL
So lay your pinky finger along the horizon and Mercury will appear near the top of your index finger.

KRIS
Mercury will be easier to see if you use a pair of binoculars.

RACHEL
Mercury will be the only bright star in the area.

KRIS
When you look at Mercury, you’re looking at a world that’s only 38% as large as earth.

PAUL
It’s also only 38% as far from the sun.

RACHEL
Mercury has a surface temperature of one thousand three hundred degrees at the equator.

KRIS
But during the night, its surface temperature is one of the lowest in the solar system. In fact it gets so cold that nitrogen gas would freeze into a liquid.

RACHEL
So if the planet had an atmosphere it would rain liquid nitrogen.

PAUL
Two weeks after the United States, the Soviet Union put their own spacecraft into orbit around Mars on November 27th, 1971.

KRIS
But unlike the American Mariner 9, the Soviet Mars 2 spacecraft carried a lander.

RACHEL
The one ton lander separated from the orbiter before the orbiter fired its braking engines to enter into Martian orbit.

PAUL
That way, the orbiter’s braking rocket could be smaller. It didn’t have to slow down both the lander and orbiter.

KRIS
The braking rocket on the lander was smaller still since it primarily used the Martian atmosphere to slow it down.

RACHEL
Although the Soviets weren’t very clear about it, it appears the lander failed to land properly.

KRIS
In other words, it crashed.

SOUND EFFECT OF A CRASH

RACHEL
Somewhere on Mars there is a 35 year old crater filled with Russian scrape metal.

KRIS
That’s Idaho Skies for the fourth week of November. Join us next week to hear about space chimp Enos and the Pleiades.

For Idaho Skies this is Kris…

RACHEL
..Rachel..

PAUL
.. and Paul.

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.

Transcripts: November Week 2

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Don’t forget, Mercury transits the sun on the 8th. This is an event that occurs only 13 times each century.

KRIS
That means we’ll see the silhouette of Mercury pass across the face of the sun.

RACHEL
To see this event, you’ll need a telescope with a safe solar filter.

PAUL
Under no circumstance look at the sun through a telescope if it doesn’t have a safe solar filter!

KRIS
If your telescope doesn’t have a solar filter, then you can project the sun’s image onto a wall where it is safe to look at the reflected image.

RACHEL
A magnification of at least 50 power is all you need to see the transit. Although a magnification of 100 power will be better.

PAUL
The transit becomes visible at around 12:14 PM and lasts until 5:08.

KRIS
Through a telescope, Mercury will enter the sun’s disk at the seven o’clock position and exit at the three o’clock position.

RACHEL
In a telescope you’ll see Mercury as a tiny dot slowly drifting across the solar face.

KRIS
Unlike a sunspot, Mercury will be perfectly round and have sharply defined edges.

PAUL
We celebrate Edmund Halley's 350th birthday on the 8th.

RACHEL
Halley is best known for his discovery that comets return to our skies periodically.

KRIS
Until the early 18th century it was believed that each comet was a one time event. In other words, each one appeared just once and never returned.

RACHEL
While keeping Newton’s laws of motion and gravity in mind as he was looking over the history of bright comets, Halley discovered that one particular comet kept returning every 76 years.

KRIS
He then predicted it would return in 1758 or 1759.

RACHEL
And when the comet reappeared on Christmas Day 1758, it was named after him.

KRIS
By the way, Halley’s last name does not rhyme with Bailey, but sounds more like Hal-ee.

PAUL
Forty years ago on the 12th, Gemini 12, the last Gemini, was launched into earth orbit.

RACHEL
The ten Gemini space missions were designed to develop and test the procedures NASA needed to launch the Apollo mission to the moon.

KRIS
The astronauts onboard Gemini 12 were Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. And both would eventually go to the moon.

PAUL
The moon rises between Saturn and the star Regulus on the morning of the 13th.

RACHEL
This is a good binocular event.

KRIS
In your binoculars you’ll see the planet Saturn as the star to the moon’s upper right

RACHEL
And Regulus, which is the star that represents the lion’s heart, to the moon’s lower right.

KRIS
That’s Idaho Skies for the second week of November. Join us next week to hear about the Mariner 9 and the Leonid meteor shower.

For Idaho Skies this is Kris.

PAUL
..Paul..

RACHEL
.. and Rachel.

Transcripts: 31 Oct - 6 Nov

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Twenty five years ago on the 4th, the Venera 14 spacecraft was launched to Venus.

RACHEL
Venera 14 was a Soviet spacecraft. And its mission was to explore the atmosphere and surface of Venus.

KRIS
To do this, it had to be a two part spacecraft. It consisted of an orbiter and a descent craft.

RACHEL
Venera 14 and its twin, Venera 13, both successfully landed on the surface of Venus. We’ll talk about their discoveries on the anniversary of their landing.

PAUL
Astronomer Fred Whipple was born one hundred years ago on the 5th.

KRIS
One of Whipple’s earliest works involved using two widely spaced cameras to record images of meteors.

RACHEL
By using his cameras to triangulate the positions and trajectories of meteors, Whipple was able to calculate their orbits before they entered earth’s atmosphere.

KRIS
These calculations lead to the conclusion that many meteors we see in the night sky come from comets.

PAUL
Speaking of comets, it was Whipple who developed the modern understanding of their composition.

RACHEL
In 1950 he proposed that they were a mixture of ice and dust. Whipple called them dirty snowballs.

KRIS
However, the Deep Impact spacecraft has modified our definition of comets a bit. Comets actually appear to be icy dirt balls instead.

PAUL
A fantastic day time astronomical event takes place on the 8th.

RACHEL
Tiny and innermost Mercury passes in front of the sun from earth’s perspective.

KRIS
That means we’ll see the silhouette of Mercury pass across the face of the sun.

PAUL
To see this event, you’ll need a telescope with a magnification of at least 50 power, although 100 power will be better.

RACHEL
Not only that, but your telescope also needs a proper solar filter.

KRIS
But if your telescope doesn’t have a solar filter, then project the sun’s image onto a wall. It’s safe to look at the sun’s image if it’s first reflected off a surface like paper or a wall.

RACHEL
However, under no circumstance look at the sun through a telescope if it doesn’t have a safe solar filter!

PAUL
The transit becomes visible at around 12:14 PM and lasts until 5:08 PM

KRIS
Through a telescope, Mercury will enter the sun’s disk at the seven o’clock position and exit at the three o’clock position.

RACHEL
In a telescope Mercury will appear as a tiny dot drifting across the solar face.

KRIS
Unlike a sunspot, Mercury will be perfectly round and have sharply defined edges.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the first week of November. Join us next week when our topic is Edmund Halley’s great comet discovery.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel

PAUL
..Paul..

KRIS
.. and Kris.