Transcript: January Week 1

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
This week we're recording live with Cub Scout Troop 33.

The earth reaches its perihelion on the 3rd at two PM.

RACHEL
Perihelion is the point in the earth’s orbit that’s the closest to the sun.

KRIS
That’s a distance of 91 million, 399 thousand miles. That’s equal to more than 30 thousand trips across the United States.

RACHEL
Since today we’re at perihelion, our distance from the sun begins to increase. And our distance from the sun continues to increase until July 7th.

PAUL
A nice meteor shower reaches it peak on the morning of the fourth.

KRIS
This is the Quadrantid meteor shower. Its meteors will appear to originate low in the northeast, just below the Big Dipper’s bowl.

RACHEL
Usually you’ll see an average of 45 Quadrantids every hour. But the shower has been known to produce outbursts that can reach 200 meteors per hour.

KRIS
However Quadrantid meteors do tend to be faint. So you’ll want to watch the shower from a location with dark skies.

RACHEL
So lie back on a lawn chair in your warm sleeping bag and look straight up.

PAUL
Would you like to see Saturn through your telescope?

KRIS
The moon will lead you to the ringed world on the morning of the 6th.

RACHEL
Saturn is the pale yellow star to the moon’s left. The distance between them is three degrees, or six lunar diameters.

KRIS
Point your telescope at Saturn and use a magnification of at least 50 power if you want to see the planet and its rings.

RACHEL
A magnification greater than 100 power is not necessary nor is it recommended with small telescopes.

PAUL
Since you have Saturn in your sights, be sure to look for its largest moon, Titan.

KRIS
Titan will appear as the star to the upper left of Saturn. Titan will be five ring diameters away from Saturn.

RACHEL
Saturn is as wide as nine earths and the distance across its rings is only a little greater than the distance between the earth and moon.

PAUL
The lucida, or brightest star, of Leo the Lion will be one degree from the moon’s upper right on the evening of the 6th.

RACHEL
Do you know the name of that star? If you said Regulus, you’re right.

KRIS
While Regulus and the moon appear close together in the sky, they’re not close in depth.

RACHEL
The light of Regulus left the star 77-1/2 years ago while the light of the moon only left one and quarter seconds ago.

PAUL
Happy birthday Stephen Hawking!

KRIS
Stephen Hawking is 65 years old on the 8th.

RACHEL
Hawking is best known for his work in Cosmology. One of his focuses has been on uniting the Theory of Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.

KRIS
One of Hawking’s discoveries is that black holes may not be black after all.

RACHEL
That’s right. They may actually emit a small amount of radiation and eventually evaporate away.

KRIS
But a black hole with the mass of a star will take longer to evaporate then the age of the universe.

RACHEL
But perhaps there are mini black holes with the mass of a mountain that are evaporating away today.

PAUL
If so, they’re exploding in a burst of gamma radiation.

KRIS
That’s Idaho Skies for the first week of January. Join us next week to hear about Spica and Sergei Korolev.

For Idaho Skies this is Kris

RACHEL
..Rachel..

PAUL
.. and Paul.

Transcript: December Week 4

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
The moon also reaches the perigee of its orbit for the second time this month on the 27th at 8 PM.

KRIS
Its distance this time is a mere 230,108 miles away.

RACHEL
That puts this perigee two thousand seven hundred miles farther away than this month’s first perigee on the 1st, or 27 days ago.

PAUL
Did you know that the moon is not at the same phase today that it was at it’s last perigee?

KRIS
In fact, the moon won’t be in the same phase for another two days.

RACHEL
So it takes the moon 27 days to orbit the earth, but 29 days to go from full moon to full moon.

PAUL
Why this discrepancy?

KRIS
In the 27 days required for the moon to complete one orbit around the earth, the earth has traveled nearly 30 degrees around the sun.

RACHEL
The moon’s phase depends on its relative position with respect to the earth and the sun.

KRIS
So after the moon completes one orbit, it must travel an additional two days to get back into the same alignment with respect to the sun.

PAUL
We celebrate another astronomical birthday this week.

RACHEL
Johannes Kepler was born 435 years ago on the 27th.

KRIS
Born to a mercenary father and quarrelsome mother, Kepler did not enjoy a happy childhood.

RACHEL
As a young boy he spent time at a religious school for Lutheran boys in Tubingen.

KRIS
There he was taught the Lutheran orthodoxy. But Kepler generally felt unworthy and unhappy.

PAUL
He did however find happiness in his love for mathematics.

RACHEL
Kepler was taught astronomy as a part of his mathematics education.

KRIS
In the 16th century, most astronomers didn’t care how the planets actually traveled around the earth. They were more concerned with how to mathematically predict their locations.

RACHEL
Unlike the astronomers of his day, Kepler wanted to know the actual paths of the planets, and not just the mathematics that predicted their position in the sky.

KRIS
While in school, Kepler was introduced to the novel concept that the planets, including the earth, may actually travel around the sun.

RACHEL
After graduating from school, Kepler was sent to teach mathematics to young boys in Graz.

KRIS
He was not very good at this and students eventually stopped signing up to take his class.

PAUL
But while there, Kepler believed he found the true orbits of the planets.

RACHEL
Unfortunately his geometric model was wrong.

KRIS
Kepler assumed the problem was with his data of planetary positions, and not his geometric model.

PAUL
In reality, the data was inaccurate and his model was wrong.

RACHEL
To get a handle on the planets’ movements, Kepler needed better positional data on the planets.

KRIS
To get this superior data, he would need to work with the best astronomer of the day, Tycho Brahe.

RACHEL
Luckily for Kepler, Tycho was looking for a mathematical assistant. Kepler got the job.

KRIS
Kepler and Tycho did not get along. Tycho was a loud, brash nobleman.

PAUL
And poor Kepler was a quiet and pious commoner.

RACHEL
When Tycho died a year later, Kepler had to fight with the family of Tycho to get Tycho’s observational data.

KRIS
Finally Kepler got Tycho’s data. With it, Kepler discovered the true orbits of the planets.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the fourth week of December. Join us next week for the space and astronomy news from Idaho and beyond.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel…

KRIS
..Kris..

PAUL
.. and Paul.

Our sound engineer this month was Gwen Sanchirico.

Transcript: December Week 3

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Last week was Tycho Brahe’s 460th birthday.

RACHEL
He’s best known for his measurements of the planets’ positions.

KRIS
When Tycho was a young man, predictions of some astronomical events were very poor. For example, the close alignment between two planets could be in error by several days.

PAUL
Tycho wasn’t happy with this amount of inaccuracy in astronomy.

RACHEL
So he decided he had to build his own instruments and an observatory.

KRIS
The observatory was built on land given to Tycho by Emperor Rudolph the second and named Uraniburg. Uraniburg means castle to the stars.

RACHEL
Tycho’s work was exacting. He constantly recalibrated his instruments and took multiple measurements of each planet’s position in the sky.

KRIS
His measurements were amazingly accurate. Especially when you consider they were made shortly before the invention of the telescope.

RACHEL
Tycho hoped his measurements would ultimately settle the argument over the structure of the universe.

PAUL
Today we would say he wanted to determine the structure of the solar system, but most 16th century astronomers would not have understood the term, solar system.

KRIS
To them, the earth at the center of the universe and everything else orbited around it.

RACHEL
But Tycho believed in a modified version of the geocentric universe that we call the Tychoian System.

KRIS
Tycho believed that the planets orbited the sun, but that the sun orbited the earth.

RACHEL
Remember, to most 16th century astronomers, the earth was not a planet.

KRIS
Tycho was a supreme observational astronomer. But he wasn’t a good enough theorist or mathematician to make sense of his observations.

RACHEL
Tycho needed help and in 1600, he hired just the person he needed.

KRIS
And by coincidence, Kepler celebrates his birthday next week. And next week we’ll have more to say about Kepler.

PAUL
The 21st is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Luna 13.

RACHEL
Luna 13 was another Soviet lunar lander.

PAUL
It flew to the moon on top of a nearly two ton crasher stage.

KRIS
The crasher stage fired its engines to slow Luna 13 down in preparation for landing. The spherical lander was ejected shortly before it crashed on the moon.

RACHEL
Luna 13 hit the lunar surface and rolled to a stop.

KRIS
Then the two foot diameter capsule opened the four petals covering its top and began transmitting images and testing the lunar soil.

PAUL
The winter solstice begins on Dec 21 at 6:22 PM.

RACHEL
That marks the beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere.

KRIS
The first day of winter is the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

RACHEL
If you were to watch the sun set for an entire year you would notice its position on the horizon changes every day.

KRIS
The sunset position drifts to the south every day from the beginning of summer to the beginning of winter.

RACHEL
On the winter solstice the sun’s southward movement comes to a stop. And for a few days, the sun appears to set in the same location.

KRIS
The word solstice means, sun standing still. That’s an appropriate description for what happens at the solstices.

RACHEL
And that’s Idaho Skies for the third week of December. Listen next week as we talk about the moon’s orbit and Johannes Kepler.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel...

PAUL
..Paul..

KRIS
.. and Kris.

Transcript: December week 2

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Did you know amateur radio operators have built their own satellites?

KRIS
That’s right. The first one was named OSCAR and it was launched 45 years ago on the 12th.

RACHEL
OSCAR stood for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio and it only weighed 11 pounds.

KRIS
Instead of using solar cells, OSCAR ran on batteries.

RACHEL
This means its lifetime was limited. So after three weeks its batteries died and OSCAR fell silent.

KRIS
The satellite operated a low power radio transmitter that sent the Morse code symbols for HI HI.

PAUL
Here’s what OSCAR’s radio transmission sounded like.

PLAY OSCAR FILE

RACHEL
To amateur radio operators, HI HI means you’re laughing or smiling.

KRIS
As the temperature of OSCAR changed, so did the speed at which it sent its message.

RACHEL
OSCAR was built for 21 dollars in parts.

KRIS
And it was launched for free.

PAUL
Its ride into orbit was provided by the launch of Discoverer 36.

RACHEL
The Discoverer series of spacecraft were our first spy satellites.

KRIS
Of course, the Air Force didn’t call them that in public. That’s why they were given the name Discoverer.

RACHEL
The Discoverer satellites were launched on a two stage rocket called the Thor Able.

KRIS
The second stage, the Able, needed ballast, or weight, for balance.

PAUL
Usually dead weight is added to the rocket booster for ballast.

RACHEL
The amateur radio operators who built OSCAR convinced the United States Air Force to carry their 11 pound satellite as part of the Able’s ballast.

KRIS
OSCAR reentered earth’s atmosphere on January 31, 1962 after being in space for 50 days.

RACHEL
If you’d like to learn more about amateur radio satellites, check out the AMSAT organization’s webpage at www.amsat.org.

PAUL
A meteor shower from the constellation Gemini reaches its peak on the evening of the 13th.

KRIS
The Geminid meteor shower is one of those that will be better before midnight.

RACHEL
This will be a nice shower to watch, as the shower has meteors that are brighter on average than most other meteor showers.

KRIS
To watch the shower, find a comfortable reclining chair and look up.

PAUL
But be sure to wear warm clothing, as it is the middle of December.

RACHEL
Geminid meteors will appear to originate from near the star Castor, the fainter of twin stars Castor and Pollux.

KRIS
Castor and Pollux appear as twin stars low in the north-northeast after dark.

PAUL
If he were still alive, Tycho Brahe would be 460 years old on the 14th.

RACHEL
Tycho was the greatest observational astronomer.

KRIS
But perhaps you’ve heard of his golden nose.

RACHEL
While attending the university, he got into an argument with a fellow student over who was the better mathematician.

KRIS
Instead of settling their argument over the chalk board, they settled it over a duel with swords.

RACHEL
Tycho may have been a better mathematician than swordsman. He lost the tip of his nose in the duel.

KRIS
To cover up his disfigurement, Tycho fashioned a gold and silver cover for his nose.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the second week of December. Next week we’ll have more on Tycho Brahe along with Luna 13 and the winter solstice.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel.

KRIS
..Kris..

PAUL
.. and Paul.

Transcript: December Week 1

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Can you believe it, it’s been ten years since Mars Pathfinder was launched to Mars.

RACHEL
Mars Pathfinder was a NASA experiment in building satellites faster, better, and cheaper.

KRIS
Early nineties NASA Administrator Dan Goldin wanted spacecraft that were built and tested faster.

RACHEL
By saving time in their construction and testing, their overall costs would be lower.

PAUL
At least that was the hope.

KRIS
In the case of Mars Pathfinder though, it worked.

RACHEL
Most of our listeners may not remember the Mars Pathfinder lander, but they will remember its more popular passenger, the Sojourner rover.

KRIS
Mars Pathfinder and its passenger left earth on December 4th 1996 for a seven month journey to Valles Ares on the red planet, Mars.

RACHEL
And they became our third landing on Mars and our first rover.

PAUL
Initially, the JPL team responsible for the Mars Pathfinder didn’t want a rover onboard their spacecraft.

KRIS
That’s because they were already dealing with a new air bag landing system while trying to show they could do useful science on Mars on a very limited budget.

RACHEL
But once Mars Pathfinder was on Mars, Sojourner stole the show by analyzing rocks and taking pictures.

PAUL
The mission design called for them to function for 30 days on Mars.

KRIS
But they were built even better. They functioned for close to three months, or almost three times longer.

RACHEL
The cold Martian nights finally took its toll on the lander. One morning it failed to wake up and contact earth.

KRIS
Once the lander failed, JPL had no way to contact Sojourner.

RACHEL
JPL programmed Sojourner to remain close to the lander if she failed to receive instructions.

KRIS
So in all likelihood, Sojourner traveled in circles around the lander while waiting for a command.

RACHEL
But eventually her batteries ran out and she came to a halt.

KRIS
Perhaps one of the scouts listening this evening will be part of the crew that brings Sojourner back to earth.

RACHEL
I know the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum would be delighted to put it on display.

PAUL
The planets Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter form a tight cluster on the morning of the 9th.

KRIS
Unfortunately, they’ll be close to the horizon. So you’ll need a pair of binoculars to see them well.

RACHEL
The three planets will fit within a circle 1-1/4 degree across. Your binoculars probably view an area seven degrees across.

PAUL
So you can see, the three planets will fit within a small circle inside your binoculars.

KRIS
The planetary trio will be six degrees above the southeast horizon at 7:30 AM.

RACHEL
But don’t wait much later than 7:30 to see them, as the sun will begin lighting up the horizon by this time.

KRIS
In your binoculars, the planets form a triangle.

PAUL
Mercury will be the apex, or at the top.

RACHEL
Jupiter will be the lower left corner and Mars the lower right corner.

KRIS
The three planets will remain very close together until the 11th. Watch them daily and you’ll detect their changing relative positions.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the first week of December. Join us next week to hear about the first amateur satellite and the astronomer, Tycho Brahe.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel

PAUL
..Paul..

KRIS
.. and Kris.