Transcript: May Week 1

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
The moon is new on the 5th.

RACHEL
The moon is new when it passes between the sun and the earth.

KRIS
At that point, the sun’s light shines on the side of the moon turned away from the earth.

PAUL
There is not such thing as the dark side of the moon. Every part of the moon sees daylight for two weeks each month.

RACHEL
However, there is a far side. That’s the side of the moon we can’t see from earth.

KRIS
We can’t see this hemisphere because the moon rotates as fast as it orbits the earth.

RACHEL
As a result, one side, the near side, always faces earth.

PAUL
This month’s new moon is unique for 2008.

KRIS
That’s because the moon also reaches perigee, or its closest distance from earth, on the same night.

RACHEL
At perigee the moon is 222,300 miles away.

KRIS
This month’s new moon combined with perigee produces larger than average tides.

PAUL
We have another astronomical event occurring on the 5th.

RACHEL
That’s right. The Eta Aquarid meteor shower reaches its peak.

KRIS
The meteors from this shower originated in the tail of comet Halley.

RACHEL
The Eta Aquarids will appear to originate low to the south east horizon.

KRIS
The point in the sky where meteors appear to originate is called the meteor shower’s radiant.

RACHEL
However, in the case of the Eta Aquarids, its radiant doesn’t rise until late at night.

KRIS
This means the shower doesn’t reach its best until after midnight.

RACHEL
However, on the plus side, the moon is new. So the shower ought to appear a bit richer with its fainter meteors.

PAUL
It will be easy to locate Mars on the evening of the 9th.

KRIS
That’s because it’s just 5 degrees to the upper left of the crescent moon.

RACHEL
Mars will appear orange and star-like. And both Mars and the moon will fit within the field of view of your binoculars.


PAUL
The moon is very close to a nice star cluster on the evening of the 10th.

KRIS
The star cluster is the Beehive star cluster and it is less than 2 degrees to moon’s left. That’s four times the moon’s diameter.

RACHEL
The Beehive is bright enough to be visible to the unaided eye in dark skies.

KRIS
It appears as a fuzzy spot to the eye, but as a scattering of stars with modest optical aid, like a pair of binoculars.

RACHEL
A telescope can show more stars in this cluster, but has too much magnification to see both the moon and cluster at the same time.

KRIS
So stick to using your binoculars and look for a small scattering of stars nearly twice as large as the moon.

RACHEL
The Beehive is 577 light years away. So the light of the Beehive you see tonight left in 1431, or more than 60 years before Columbus discovered the Americas.

KRIS
The cluster is 16 light years across. So imagine a beam of light taking 16 years to cross the cluster that you see in your binoculars.

PAUL
That’s Idaho skies for the first week of May. Join us next week to hear about America’s first space station, Skylab.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul…

RACHEL
Rachel..

KRIS
.. and Kris.

Transcript: April Week 5

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Gene Shoemaker would have turned 80 years old last week.

KRIS
Before Shoemaker, most geologists believed that the structures we now know are meteor craters were volcanic in origin.

RACHEL
In some cases, geologists referred to them as crypto-volcanic because they couldn’t quite figure out how a volcano could create such a feature.

KRIS
The reason geologists were hesitant to accept meteor impacts as the source of craters is that the science of geology focused on forces that act gently and over long periods of time.

PAUL
In other words, meteor impacts were too catastrophic for a majority of geologists.

RACHEL
Gene’s PhD work convinced geologists that meteor impacts did happen in the past and that they leave evidence we can observe today.

KRIS
Gene then went on to do moon work for NASA, including preparing to be an Apollo astronaut.

RACHEL

Unfortunately, a medical condition kept him from being the first scientist to walk on the moon.

KRIS
One of the last events Gene is known for is his 1993 discovery of a comet ripped apart by Jupiter’s gravity.

PAUL
Gene made that discovery along with his wife Carolyn and friend David Levy

RACHEL
In 1994, the fragments of Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter with the energy of thousands to millions of megatons.

KRIS
The fragments came in a variety of sizes, up to 1-1/2 miles across and crashed into the Jovian atmosphere at a speed of 37 miles per second.

PAUL
Amateur astronomers could see the impact sites on Jupiter with their telescopes.

RACHEL
They appeared as brown spots in Jupiter’s atmosphere that were observable for months after the impacts.

KRIS
Gene passed away in 1996 in a car accident while looking for new meteor craters in Australia.

PAUL
May second is Space Day.

RACHEL
Organized by the aerospace company, Lockheed Martin, Space Day is an educational initiative.

KRIS
Lock Mart wants Space Day to educate the public on the achievements, opportunities, and benefits of space exploration.

RACHEL
Some of the benefits of space exploration include the weather satellite images you see on the nightly news and your GPS receiver.

KRIS
It also includes our increased knowledge of the earth’s formation and history.

RACHEL
You can read about Space Day at its website, www.spaceday.org.

PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the last week of April. Our sound engineer this month was Paul Molinari. Join us next month for the space and astronomy news for Idaho and beyond.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul…

KRIS
..Kris..

RACHEL.. and Rachel.

Transcript: April Week 4

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
On the 23rd, the moon is at apogee or its greatest distance from the earth.

RACHEL
This month the moon’s apogee is at a distance of 252,240 miles.

KRIS
At apogee the moon spans an angle of 0.48 degrees, or 12% smaller than the moon was at perigee on the 7th.

RACHEL
That’s enough of a change to be noticeable in photographs.

KRIS
To photograph the moon only takes a camera tripod and telephoto lens.

PAUL
The next module for the International Space Station is scheduled to leave earth on the 24th.

RACHEL
NASA will launch Kibo onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-124.

KRIS
This will be NASA’s 26th flight to the International Space Station.

RACHEL
There will only be six crew members aboard this Shuttle flight instead of the usual seven. And one will be a Japanese mission specialist.

PAUL
Kibo is 37 feet long and 14 feet in diameter and it was designed by the Japanese Space Exploration Agency.

KRIS
There are four sections to Kibo. The first two are its pressurized section where the astronauts work and a logistics section where their equipment is stored.

RACHEL
Outside Kibo are its last two sections. They are the rack where experiments are exposed to the space environment and a robotic arm for operating and moving experiments.

PAUL
The moon is at last quarter phase on the 28th.

KRIS
The last quarter moon is a nice moon phase to look at, if you don’t mind moon watching after midnight.

RACHEL
You’ll see the greatest number of craters in the lunar south. The rest of the moon contains more lunar maria, or frozen lava seas than the other side of the moon.

KRIS
The lunar maria have been cold for over three billion years. That makes most rocks on the moon far older than any rock on earth.

RACHEL
One reason moon rocks are far older than earth rocks is that there’s no water to cause erosion on the moon.

KRIS
The other factor is that the moon is too small for plate tectonics.

PAUL
You can also see Mars and the star Pollux close together on the night of the 28th.

RACHEL
Mars and Pollux will only be five degrees apart, or close enough to see at the same time in your binoculars.

KRIS
Over the next couple of weeks, Mars will slowly drift past Pollux. So you might want to observe them every few days to see the change.

RACHEL
Although Mars and Pollux have the same magnitude, you can tell Mars from Pollux because Mars has an orange cast to it.

PAUL
Eugene Shoemaker’s birthday is on April 28th.

KRIS
Gene almost single-handedly convinced the science world that craters arise from meteor impacts.

RACHEL
That’s right. Before 1960, most astronomers and geologists believed the craters on the moon were the result of volcanic action.

KRIS
Even the meteor craters on earth, like Barringer Crater in Arizona, were believed to be volcanic in origin.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the fourth week of April. We’ll talk more next week about Gene Shoemaker and the crypto-volcanic structures he studied here and on the moon.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel…

RIS
..Kris..

PAUL.. and Paul.

Transcript: April Week 3

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
The moon is full on the 20th.

KRIS
April full moons are often called the Grass or Egg Moon.

RACHEL
I hope you weren’t planning to observe faint astronomical objects tonight, because the moon’s light will wipe out many of them.

KRIS
Astronomers call the apparent brightness of an astronomical object its magnitude.

RACHEL
The Greeks designed our magnitude system when they rated the brightness of the stars on a scale of one to six.

KRIS
The brightest stars were given a magnitude of one while the faintest were given a magnitude of six.

PAUL
So the fainter an object, the higher its magnitude.

RACHEL
Astronomers have further refined the system and use electronic sensors to measure the magnitude of stars and planets.

KRIS
The brightest night time object in the sky, Venus, can reach a magnitude as high as -4.5.

RACHEL
The faintest stars that the average person can see in very dark skies are still around 6th magnitude. Compare that to the faintest star you can see in the Little Dipper which is 2-1/2 times brighter at 5th magnitude.

PAUL
The full moon has a magnitude of around -12.7.

KRIS
And the sun, a brilliant magnitude -26.

PAUL
The Lyrid meteor shower reaches it peak on the night of the 20th and morning of the 21st.

RACHEL
Meteors are bits of cosmic dust entering into earth’s atmosphere.

KRIS
Most originate in the dusty tails of comets. And when the earth passes through the orbit of the comet, we get showered with the comet’s dust.

RACHEL
Most meteors burn up 60 to 80 miles above the ground and only the largest meteors can make it to the surface before they vaporize.

KRIS
The meteors we’ll see in the Lyrids are too small to reach the ground. Meteors that reach the ground originate in asteroids and not comet tails.

RACHEL
Meteors in space, before they burn up in the atmosphere, are called meteoroids. Those that reach the ground without burning up are called meteorites.

PAUL
Some meteorites are so rare that they’re more valuable than gold.

KRIS
As a result, some meteorite dealers have become millionaires.

RACHEL
Meteors from the Lyrid meteor shower have been observed for over 2,000 years, making the Lyrids one of the oldest known showers.

KRIS
You should only expect to see around ten meteors per hour from this shower, so it’s not a particularly strong shower.

RACHEL
However, it’s the first good shower we’ve had since January and it takes places when the weather is finally getting nice.

KRIS
Unfortunately, this year the full moon’s light will make it difficult to see the faintest meteors of the shower.

RACHEL
Meteors from the Lyrids will appear to originate in the low northeast early in the night and from nearly overhead after midnight.

KRIS
If you can’t watch the Lyrids, you’ll want to know that our next meteor shower occurs on the night of May 5th.

RACHEL
And this year that shower, the Eta Aquarids, takes place in the dark skies of the new moon

PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the third week of April. Next week our topics include Kibo and Gene Shoemaker.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul…

KRIS
..Kris..

RACHEL
.. and Rachel.

Transcript: April Week 2

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
On the evening of the 8th, the moon is one lunar diameter above the Pleiades.

RACHEL
The moon is a thin crescent, so its light won’t wash out the entire cluster.

KRIS
In binoculars you’ll see how much smaller the moon is than the Pleiades.

PAUL
Look for the moon late on the night of the 11th as the waxing crescent moon just skims over the top of Mars.

RACHEL
They’ll be closest together around midnight or the morning of the 12th.

KRIS
You can’t miss Mars; it’s the pale orange star just above the moon.

PAUL
The moon reaches first quarter phase on the 12th.

RACHEL
Now that the weather is warmer, plan to spend a little time moon watching tonight.

KRIS
You’ll detect the most numerous craters in the lunar south in a region called the lunar highlands.

RACHEL
Above the lunar equator and surrounding the largest lunar maria is a mountain range called the lunar Apennines.

KRIS
Some of those mountain peaks you’ll see are 12,000 feet tall, or as high as mount Borah.

PAUL
April 12th is Yuri's Night 2008.

RACHEL
It’s a world space party celebrating the first manned launch into space of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

PAUL
Yuri made a single orbit around the world on April 12th, 1961.

KRIS
You can learn more about this celebration and the location of the closest party at its website, www.yurisnight.net.

PAUL
The moon passes close to the Beehive star cluster on the evening of the 13th.

RACHEL
As soon as it’s dark, look 4 degrees to moon’s right for the Beehive.

KRIS
Four degrees is roughly half the distance across your binoculars’ field of view.

RACHEL
You’ll know you’ve seen the Beehive when you see a small sprinkle of stars.

PAUL
On the next day, the 14th, the moon, Regulus, and Saturn form a straight line spanning 6 degrees.

KRIS
That’s just close enough together for all three to be seen together in your binoculars.

RACHEL
Regulus is the lucida or brightest star of Leo the Lion and is in the center of the trio. It’s also the largest of the three objects at three million miles across.

PAUL
Regulus is also the most distant of the three objects at 77 light-years away.

KRIS
Saturn is pale yellow in color and on the right. The planet is 74 thousand miles across and only 800 million miles away.

RACHEL
The moon is puny at 2,000 miles across and less than 250 thousand miles away.

KRIS
Regulus is 42 times larger than Saturn and Saturn is 35 times larger than the moon.

RACHEL
That means Regulus is roughly larger than Saturn by the same factor that Saturn is larger than the moon.

PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the second week of April. In next week’s show, we’ll take about how astronomers classify stars by brightness and this month’s meteor shower.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul.

KRIS
..Kris..

RACHEL
.. and Rachel.

Transcript: April Week 1

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Forty-five years ago, on April 2nd, 1963, the Soviet Union launched their first successful flight to earth’s neighbor, the moon.

KRIS
The Soviets made a change to Luna 4’s mission profile, which made the spacecraft more successful than the previous Luna spacecraft. Luna 4 was first placed into earth orbit and then it later rocketed to the moon in what is called a park orbit.

RACHEL
Prior to Luna 4, lunar missions traveled straight to the moon in what is called a direct ascent.

KRIS
If something went slightly wrong in a direct ascent, the spacecraft would miss the moon completely.

RACHEL
Because of the safety of park orbits over direct ascents, the manned Apollo missions to the moon also used them.

PAUL
What was Luna 4’s mission goal?

KRIS
We don’t know; the Soviets kept mum on the subject.

RACHEL
However, based on similar missions, Luna 4 may have been targeted for a hard landing on the moon. However, a failure in its upper stage caused it to pass the moon 5,000 miles above its surface.

PAUL
The moon is new on April 5th.

KRIS
That makes the 5th the perfect night for deep sky observing because the moon’s light won’t interfere with your ability to see faint objects.

RACHEL
It’s even a better night to use your telescope because it’s a Saturday night.

PAUL
The Pioneer 11 spacecraft left earth 35 years ago on the 5th.

KRIS
Pioneer 11 was a near twin of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft.

RACHEL
Together, they were the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt and explore the outer solar system.

PAUL
It’s flyby of Jupiter was the second time a spacecraft had visited this planet.

KRIS
Because Pioneer 10 was successful, Pioneer 11 traveled a trajectory that let Jupiter’s gravity send it to the other side of the solar system to Saturn.

RACHEL
This path over the top of the solar system took nearly five years for Pioneer 11 to complete.

KRIS
However, Pioneer 11 was still the first spacecraft to visit Saturn. It beat Voyager 1 to Saturn by 14 months.

RACHEL
Pioneer 11 has escaped our solar system, but unfortunately, it stopped communicating with earth in 1995.

PAUL
The Russians celebrate another lunar anniversary this week.

KRIS
That’s right. It was 40 years ago on the 7th that they launched Luna 14 into lunar orbit.

RACHEL
Although this spacecraft successfully went into orbit around the moon, it was not designed to return images of its surface.

KRIS
Instead, the spacecraft returned data on the solar and galactic radiation near the moon.

RACHEL
It also collected data on the shape and strength of the moon’s gravitational field and tested radio communications between the earth and moon.

KRIS
That’s Idaho skies for the first week of April. Join us next week to hear how the moon will guide you to several astronomical targets during the week and about Yuri’s Night.

For Idaho Skies this is Kris…

PAUL
Paul..

RACHEL
.. and Rachel.