September 24, 2015 20:23:00
September 21, 2015 22:01:10
John Kimberley What if the proton does have a half-life? 10 to the 34 years is not that long.
October 2, 2015 12:54:51 · Reply
September 17, 2015 17:53:53
Pete Mancini We can't say we have looked hard at all for SETI signals. No analysis have ever shown that the signal originated near Earth which makes it the only viable candidate we have for a signal from another civilization. Also, with 98% of the sky not having been surveyed we haven't even tried. There are 5 degrees of freedom here. Big Ear hit the big one by being lucky. The spot where the signal appears to original is largely empty. On the one hand you might conclude this proves it was a false signal, or perhaps a glitch in the processing by Big Ear's computers. I was in this boat until I played out several game theory rounds and discovered that the smartest strategy is to negotiate contact off of your home world. Now, being able to create a 2.2 GW signal in interstellar space takes technology we don't have. However we can imagine it. It's not impossible. If that is the case then perhaps the Wow! signal came from a probe or a reflector. In which case it's up to us to scan wider, more constantly and everywhere. To do this I suggest a crowdsourced project where people build small, purpose built radio telescopes and run them. Get enough people and enough data and let SETI@home crunch the numbers. It would greatly increase the coverage of space, produce useful radio telescope science, and be a neat project. It's easy to build one and several people have created web pages and pdf documents dedicated to it.
September 21, 2015 20:33:47 · Reply
September 15, 2015 20:43:17
September 14, 2015 18:50:22
Tin Shark Fountainworks Fraser Cain turning the absurdity knob to ludicrous! :)
September 17, 2015 16:47:10 · Reply
September 11, 2015 19:21:39
September 8, 2015 02:45:13
Patrick Scheible The way things are going, we should be wondering if we can terraform the Earth.
September 11, 2015 06:33:14 · Reply
Fraser Cain No kidding. That sounds like an episode... :-(
September 11, 2015 16:59:25 · Reply
September 7, 2015 19:44:14
Barbara Glenn I am not surprised. I love every episode!
September 9, 2015 00:12:32 · Reply
Tin Shark Fountainworks Great Job Fraser! Go Space!
September 10, 2015 13:48:35 · Reply
David Robert Rasse Way to go Patreon Team! Keep up the exemplary work and furthering the enlightenment and enjoyment of space sciences!
September 11, 2015 12:00:57 · Reply
September 3, 2015 19:30:28
Richard Hayward nice catch!
September 4, 2015 01:59:39 · Reply
James Truck Captain Stumpy what aspect of the big bang do i find most interesting? Eccentrica Gallumbits, Marvin and pretty much everything else that is actual science... just can't get enough of the science...
September 7, 2015 20:12:10 · Reply
September 1, 2015 18:43:02
Kuri the Vegan "Meh." LOL. *I* was still fascinated anyway, haha. Though as a true introvert, I'm easily affected by sound. Loud noises give me physical-like pain, I plug my ears when the Doppler effect is imminent, and space noises (real or fake) always make me a bit happier, even if they creep me out at the same time.
September 2, 2015 17:24:53 · Reply
RIchard Parker so is the suits sound proof?
September 4, 2015 15:15:31 · Reply
Jeannette Iriye I love those metallic sounds on Titan. Not a noise that we would expect here on Earth.
September 28, 2015 22:35:07 · Reply
September 1, 2015 06:59:00
August 31, 2015 18:47:31
August 27, 2015 19:59:10
John Kimberley Let's go back to Uranus and Neptune. Take a good look at Triton. Then maybe let's go see Eris.
October 2, 2015 11:56:37 · Reply
John Kimberley oh yes and while we are looking out, let's look in and go to Venus with a balloon or something, so we can definitely show whether there are active volcanoes on Venus or not.
October 2, 2015 12:47:15 · Reply
August 25, 2015 04:07:42
Howard Amos Martian Dust Storms Dangerous? How could they be? There on Mars, I'm here on earth. Didn't feel a thing.
August 26, 2015 00:09:16 · Reply
Fraser Cain Hmm, that's a good point Howard.
August 27, 2015 14:48:55 · Reply
Rick Bennette Last time I was on Mars, I left before the wind storms hit.
August 27, 2015 20:47:02 · Reply
Fraser Cain And now it turns out you didn't need to worry.
August 28, 2015 00:24:09 · Reply
John Kimberley Telepresence would be a good thing - only problem is a round-trip light time. :-(
October 2, 2015 11:47:51 · Reply
August 24, 2015 16:16:08
August 20, 2015 21:23:20
Ross Trower Imagine being able to look up and see an entire galaxy (or two!) in the night sky. #wow
August 22, 2015 08:55:03 · Reply
Fraser Cain We can already do that with the Milky Way. The closer you get, the more it gets spread out so it remains the same level of brightness.
August 24, 2015 18:31:32 · Reply
Ross Trower We can't see the entirety of the galaxy though, I meant seeing the Galaxy from above whilst orbiting a rogue star outside of the Milky Way. xD
August 25, 2015 09:41:10 · Reply
Rick Bennette In answer to your question, what would life be like if we were following a rogue star out of the galaxy, I think the answer would depend upon a number of factors, the main one being would our solar system remain intact, or would all the planets change their orbital distance? I'm not sure if the gravitational center of the Milky Way has as much effect on the orbits of planets around the sun as it does on the orbit of the sun around the center of the Milky Way. Assuming the sun was flung into open space with all the orbits of its planets intact, I don't think we'd notice much more than the gradual shift of the positions of stars in the night sky as we drifted away from The Milky Way. Once we were far enough away from the Milky Way, eventually the night sky would be devoid of most of its stars, and only a few rogue stars and other galaxies would be visible at night. For some time, we'd be treated to an incredible outside view of the Milky Way. Naturally, this also assumes we were not flung into another star on our way into never never land. Thinking about the cause of such a solar fling, it would likely be the result of a high powered, nearby star exploding that would cause this, and such explosion would likely affect the planets and their orbits as well. If the Earth was flung from the sun in the process, the Earth would eventually lose its solar energy supply from the sun, eventually ending all life on our planet. A few people in underground shelters would survive a little longer, but eventually those too would succumb to the cold.
August 24, 2015 18:24:54 · Reply
August 17, 2015 17:05:22
August 14, 2015 17:42:27
August 14, 2015 17:01:05
Fraser Cain This was the first episode of the Guide to Space that we did. I hope we've improved since then.
August 19, 2015 02:50:55 · Reply
August 10, 2015 17:56:01
Ray Bingham Oh darn. I thought you were going to talk about trajectories and catching up and orbiting small near gravity less objects. Maybe you can do that later.
August 12, 2015 20:40:50 · Reply
Fraser Cain Hmm, that's a really good point. I guess that part was less dramatic than the actual landing so we didn't focus on it.
August 19, 2015 02:56:13 · Reply
August 5, 2015 20:40:47
August 3, 2015 19:17:37
Mark Piaskiewicz With a bunch of moons and rocky planets to terraform and asteroids and KBOs to tent or hollow out and spin, why waste the resources available on the gas giants just to get at the cores? Even their high gravities can be used for energy (propulsion or deceleration). Move Mercury into orbit around Venus, move them to L3, spin them and fix their atmospheres if you're looking for a good weekend project.
August 5, 2015 20:35:52 · Reply
August 1, 2015 06:59:00
July 28, 2015 18:02:17
Ross Trower All we need now is that pesky antimatter to build some engines that can constantly accelerate you...
July 28, 2015 19:01:05 · Reply
Cialing Well.. I think it's true that we need mass to make gravity, but in order to create an artificial gravity we need to completely understand about gravity, including the material/power source to produce the right amount of energy that required to make gravity in a place/room
July 31, 2015 08:41:10 · Reply
Hyperfuzzy True with present beliefs. One the speed of light is a propagation constant. not the speed of the wave-front. Check for a better definition of the wave-front using common sense. Place a vertical line in a two space. Allow a wavelet of length Lambda emitted to pass. How much time does it pass? Could be from zero to infinity seconds, i.e. red shift. Of course one may move into the front or the front can move into you, assuming plane waves, others may be defined. Gravity is a result of the field due to the many charges. Just consider superposition; if the charges centers are not at zero, equally then ... Gravity is an EM field over matter. We may create a field to oppose; however, a large and controllable energy source. Possible, TBD! Consider a stable set of charges within this field, may we create a field such that the stability of the body motion is insensitive to acceleration and is stabilize by a mock earth field, can we create an inverted feedback, to what seems to be a stable field?
August 1, 2015 00:08:47 · Reply
July 24, 2015 00:10:56
James Truck Captain Stumpy My first thought about future episodes would be to try and find a mission to Jay's beard to search for life... (my beard is better than your beard - nyeah nyeah)- IMAGINE the wonders that might be found in that bushy forest? LOL But seriously... In all honesty, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede are likely the BEST candidates, but i also think we might have a good chance for finding life on Venus... one might find life in the more manageable temps in the atmosphere, but in all honesty, i am thinking subterranean searches on the planet might be more fruitful. (but what do i know, right? my BEARD might have life in it as well... )
July 24, 2015 16:33:03 · Reply
Kuri the Vegan I'm sure it's on the list, but I vote for a video about the Pluto flyby.
July 25, 2015 04:37:50 · Reply
Richard Hayward A video update on where we are with New Horizons, as well as where the probe might be headed next would be nice and timely.
July 25, 2015 10:35:03 · Reply
James Truck Captain Stumpy the best way i could think of is to pull a "Red" Adair... blow it out with a serious explosion that would interfere with the fusion by interrupting the process and redistributing the plasma ... if that was even capable. of course, it would take something equivalent to a very close supernova likely... but... as long as we are talking dreamworld and discussing magically replacing cores... why not?
September 24, 2015 21:18:39 · Reply
Jamie Rich Don't give the star any coffee in the morning!
September 28, 2015 17:31:12 · Reply
Susannah V Griffin Funny you should ask........I saw a cluster of them burn out earlier today.
September 28, 2015 21:25:04 · Reply