UNIVERSE TODAY

In this week's questions show, Fraser gets excited about the NIAC awards, considers how NASA will deal with a fully operational BFR, and a special guest answer from Professor David Kipping from Columbia University's Cool Worlds lab. Subscribe to Cool Worlds https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGHZpIpAWJQ-Jy_CeCdXhMA Astrobites - https://astrobites.org/ Astro-ph - https://arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph/Astrophysics Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 JanJorre Laurens Hi Fraser, Thanks for all the hard work and great show. I just had a random question and thought of you: Recently, astrophysics discovered that a lot of the really heavy elements (for example gold) are created in neutron star collisions (if memory serves). Could a potential solution to the fermi paradox be that there havent been enough of these collisions for earlier civilisations to have been able to discover / invent space technologies? I.e. gold can be very usefull in electronics. Maybe earlier civilisations didnt have the materials needed to reach the electronic age and are stuck in an earlier age due to a lack of resources / elements on the home planet? Steven Utter The laaava. You say it as if you're about to say Llama. Taner Ali I think it will be awesome if you make a video (or two) about the 2018 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts awards. They are always very interesting and you manage to convey complex information very well, keep up the good work and thanks! Predrag Bubalo If there are open vents and geysers of water breaking through the surface on Europa, why the need to drill through the kilometres of ice? Couldn't the probes gain access to the water through these vents and geysers? Jeffrey Gould Hello Fraser,Since some white dwarfs and neutron stars have been found to spin at incredible speeds, I was wondering if they may come close to flinging anything off their equator, or even cancelling a significant fraction of their own tremendous gravity at the surface. Is this even possible within our laws of physics? Mighty13 Don't know how NASA will respond if an innovative project such as BFR really comes to life. Bryan Blatz Fraser, why the green screen nature background and piped in nature noises? Would an astronomical background be more appropriate? Guybrush Threepwood Hi Fraser, how big was the observable universe before the Big Bang? Lesley B HI Fraser, I like your channel a lot. I have a question. What will happen to Jupiter when it stops being active? Will it loose it's atmosphere? will there be a surface? What will it look like? Greetings Lesley. Locut0s Do you ever feel you live both at the best and worst time in human history in terms of space exploration, and cosmology? I feel we have picked a lot of the low hanging fruit and that despite there still being much more amazement to come, we are now looking at missions, probes, telescopes, and physics experiments that require more and more funding and longer and longer planning. At the speed of progress of other technologies like the advancements in AI, materials science, biology etc, I can only imagine where we will be at the end of my life. But by comparison many missions and new promising probes, telescopes etc, take 20 to 30+ years to come to fruition. This can seem disheartening at times. ferusgratia Hey Fraser! Thanks to all the work you and Youtubers like you do, I feel like I have a much better grasp of space and to some extent Cosmology. That said it's been a bit since I've had my mind blown by some new fact. I think I'm ready to delve into materials that would be hard to cover on Youtube, but I don't think I'm ready for hardcore scientific journals. Do you know of any good "middle ground" resources? Thanks! Alpha581 Love your videos as always.I have an interesting question for you.Assuming that the universe is infinite and you travel far enough will you eventually meet an exact copy of Earth and humans by random coincidence? Norman1951 Norman Fraser QUESTION: What percentage of exoplanetary systems align with earth in such away that their orbital planes pass across their star's disk as seen from earth? I can't imagine that it would be very high. Great show.

We’re now entering the final days for NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. It’s running out of fuel and already crippled by the loss of its reaction wheels. In just a few months NASA will shut it down for good. That is sad, but don’t worry, NASA’s next planet hunting spacecraft, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Telescope is on the launchpad and ready to fly to space to take over where Kepler left off. Finding Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/overview/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/nasa-s-kepler-spacecraft-nearing-the-end-as-fuel-runs-low https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4KjvPIbgMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evHF_mnIdj4 https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-tess/ https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/instrument.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AIbD2WxyN8&t

I bring back the mildly popular live QA stream, where I answer questions live from the audience. In this week's episode, we talked about the TESS Launch delay, books, movies, sci-fi and games I like, and how 2001 freaked me out as a kid.

In this week's questions show, Fraser explains how space debris hunting satellites could also be used as weapons, why his green screen is always set to Endor, and ways to find nearby places for stargazing. Check out the Dark Sky Finder http://darksitefinder.com/map/ Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Alpha581 Hi Fraser,we know that the moon's gravity pull on Earth's oceans which causes tides but my question is does the moon also pull on Earth's atmosphere? Christian McCracken Is there a website which will tell me the best area near me for stargazing? Yakov - Bargal Analytical Instruments Hi Fraser. You think that if one country, lets say China, will decide to put huge sattelite with laser to clear LEO from debris, other countries will alow it? It is a game changing weapon after all. Dani Filth Hey Fraser if Hawking could have lived a couple of months again he would have seen what he spent most of his life studying; an actual photograph of a black hole Máté Matolcsy Hi Fraser! Great show, I have a question. What are the most expensive but technically still realistic space missions that have been proposed so far? What could we achieve with today's economy and technology if we fell into an Apollo mindset again? Homu How does long hair act under artificial gravity? Will it hang down or stream backwards? Matthew Ryan did you set your green screen to Endor on purpose? Jim Becker Fraser, what method do you think will be the real reason for mankind's death here on Earth, will it be from our Sun diving and engulfing us in some X number of years from now or will it be because we finally get that big asteroid hitting us like what killed off the dinosaurs, or will it be because someone gets mad at someone and starts a nuclear war or because our magnetic shield decays and allowing in killer redaction, or because our Ozone layer depletes, so on and so on. (to many different ways I can't name them all). framedropfilms Hey Fraser, great channel. My seven year old son Hayden is fascinated by space and wonders how large (in light years) is our galaxy from one end to the other and how long would it take with our current technology to traverse this distance. Thanks and keep up the excellent work. Steve and Hayden

The Moon and Mars will probably be the first places in the Solar System that humanity will try to live after leaving the safety and security of Earth. But those worlds are still incredibly harsh environments, with no protection from radiation, little to no atmosphere, and extreme temperatures. Living on those worlds is going to be hard, it’s going to be dangerous. Fortunately, there are a few pockets on those worlds that’ll make it a tiny little bit easier to get a foothold in the Solar System: lava tubes. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/press-release/possible-lava-tube-skylights-discovered-near-north-pole-moon https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/12jul_rabbithole/ https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2007/21sep_caves https://lightsinthedark.com/2015/03/04/could-humans-set-up-camp-in-martian-lava-tubes/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc-20100617-mare-ingenii.html https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/press-release/possible-lava-tube-skylights-discovered-near-north-pole-moon m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/The_pit-chains_of_Mars_a_possible_place_for_life https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2017/Q4/potential-human-habitat-located-on-the-moon.html https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/caves2011/pdf/8028.pdf https://www.sintef.no/en/latest-news/snake-robots-in-space/ http://blogs.esa.int/caves/2018/03/13/the-bowels-of-earth-in-3d/ https://www.inverse.com/article/36777-mars-moon-human-colony-lava-tubes

In this week's QA, I wonder if we could use the speed of light to see ourselves in the past, how the Mars rovers clean their solar panels, and if aliens would infect us with their bacteria and viruses. Watch the Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Balázs Suhajda Hi Fraser! We use massive cosmic bodies to bend light and magnify distant objects, soon using them to observe exoplanets and their atmospheres as they were long ago. I wonder if it could be possible to find rays of light that have left earth long ago and through the curvature of space end up returning to earth with high enough resolution to allow us to look back into the past. Is it completely out of the question? path finder discovery I want to know who dusts off the solor panels when it gets dusty an it probably does often due to those huge dust storms , hmmmmmm🤔??🙃🤓🤔🙄 ohh👽👾😱😨😍 Schnitzel Vonlichenmenutz Imagine the virus’s and bacteria they may unintentionally bring. Could potentially be the end of all life on earth. Also, I hope they have a good immune system for our planetary virus’s and bacteria Alpha Gusta I notice that in some space launches that the space craft immediately starts to spin into another direction, I know some course correction is needed for different orbital planes and trajectories. But sometimes it seems like they turn 90 degrees. Why dont they just build launch platforms in somewhat the correct direction? Phil Metal When the galaxies merge or slam together, would it be a slow event until things start smashing into each other? Or would some crazy gravity changes rip world's apart and it be a cataclysmic show? In your opinion would it be a galactic reset, would anything survive CODELESS Enjoy your videos and Q & A's : i was wondering, with this Mission of colonizing mars in the future, there are some ideas that the domes could have water in them to shield Radiation. How much water is needed to block radiation as in the thickness or width of water to block radiation. Thanks XXCoder I was wondering if it was possible to make "bed cylinders" that is partitioned into 2 sleeping areas. With some automatic counterbalancing for mass differences, it may be enough for sleeping in gravity for better health? Jim Labbe If super earths are more massive and have greater gravity wells, might that make space travel much more difficult for intelligent life? Put differently, if we could increase the mass of the earth at what point might it create a physical constraint on space travel? Captain Ultimate G'day from Down Under! I am a new subscriber and I am really enjoy your videos Fraser, so thanks for your knowledge and all your hard work. Would there be any point or benefit to launching a telescope into orbit around a planet in the outer solar system like neptune, or even pluto? Or are they too close in regards to current telescopes to really return any befit? Matthew Kramer Hello Fraser, quick question: How do you think our advances in Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning and A.I in general will affect space missions in the near and distant future? Greetings Matthew Jesse Dyball Could you get two BFRs joined by long cables and have them spin? Peter Granzeier Do white dwarves have habitable zones?

We’re now learning that icy worlds seem to be the best places in Solar System where life could be hiding. Worlds like Europa and Enceladus, which have vast oceans of liquid water beneath a shell of water ice. And just in the last year, astrobiologists announced that hardy forms of Earth life should be able to thrive in these oceans, feeding off hydrogen gas emanating from deep sea vents. Clearly we need to explore these worlds, to go deep down beneath the ice to explore the ocean depths. But how do you drill through kilometers of ice to reach it? Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2012_phasei_mccue_europa_tagged.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/content/exploration-of-under-ice-regions-with-ocean-profiling-agents-europa/#.WqrxNugbOUk http://www.apl.washington.edu/project/project.php?id=ice_diver https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gladius-submersible-underwater-drone-technology#/ https://www.princeton.edu/~naomi/theses/jggraver-thesis-4-11-05.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-Glider-Depth_fig1_275311043

In this week's questions show, I wonder if the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to find satellites around other stars, what my favorite sci-fi FTL method is, and why can't we see Mars as a bright object in the sky? Check out Abby's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCabX4I5PLAu0I05gN0ZgrKw Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Disinclined Tostate Hi, Fraser! Love the channel. 🙂 Will the James Webb Telescope be able to see evidence of artificial satellites around exo-planets, should any exist? Would there be a certain size or composition requirement for JWT to spot them? And how awesome would that be?! 🙂 Matt Gibson Fraser, if you could pick any FTL travel method from any show or movie and have it be a reality and give it to humanity, which would you pick? Some examples include Elite Dangerous, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Star Gate... ect... Cherotal Hey Fraser, I have a question about the birth of solar systems. If there is less mass in the gas cloud which collapse to a star system it will form a red or brown dwarf. Is it possible that a gas cloud with very little mass collapse and form a star system where the central body didn't light up? Will these "no-star" systems send out any radiation or light we can measure? Thanks in advance and thanks for all the great video content. Ed Chartrand I’m fascinated by the images depicted in films such as Star Wars where characters look up into space on far off planets where there are multiple moons practically filling the sky or one moon that is massively larger than what our moon appears in reality here on earth. Are these types of visuals actually possible on planets from a physics perspective? Can a moon be so close to a planet that it takes up that much of the sky and yet still have a stable orbit? Michael K I thought the ISS has some micro-meteorite protection and doesn’t just trust in pure luck? Jim Becker Fraser, I was just looking at a photo released by NASA from the Curiosity Rover which "includes Earth as the brightest point of light in the night sky". So why can we seem to be able to see Earth from Mars but can't see Mars from Earth with the same ease ?? DrewLSsix Could a hobby level astronomer benefit from combining two decent smaller telescopes to make an effectively larger binocular telescope? Like two one hundred ish mm combined into an effective two hundred ish unit? I ask because you can buy a pair of the smaller units for a couple hundred.... while a 200+mm scope is many many times more expensive! Flynn Bryant Hey Fraser, my question is, what is the criteria for questions that you answer in the comments compared to those which you select for your videos? Thanks for the tremendous effort you put in! Izuriel Palanayukei Hi Fraser! I've heard you mention books in passing before. Do you have a list of sci-fi books you recommend? Like Seveneves by Neal Stephenson or EON by Greg Bear? Big ole' sci-fi novels with or without aliens! Thanks! - Izu Scot Washburn Why couldn’t we use lasers to push the orbiting debris out of earth orbit? Seth McKay Hey Fraser! Your production schedule looks to be quite full with universe today, guide to space, Q&A, astronomy cast, etc (not to mention spending time with family). How do you organize and stay on schedule? Seems like you have would have to be really organized to stay on schedule as well as not end up working all day. I also have several different hats and need to organize better. Guest Question: Stefán Atli Þorvaldsson how can i become an astronaut if i am not from a big country like the USA, Russia or the EU

Have you ever wondered how those amazing pictures of space are gathered? Which are photographs, which are illustrations, and which are total fakes? Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-goes-high-definition-to-revisit-iconic-pillars-of-creation https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2368.html https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images/?page=0&per_page=25&order=created_at+desc&search=&condition_1=1%3Ais_in_resource_list&category=51&fancybox=true&href_query_params=category%3Dimages https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/new-clues-to-trappist-1-planet-compositions-atmospheres http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/6282-ssc2017-01e-500-Hours-of-Spitzer-Observations-of-TRAPPIST-1 https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1733s/ https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/system/avm_image_sqls/binaries/98/original/gw170817clean.jpg?1508108648 https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1733e/ https://www.nso.edu/current_images.html https://www.nso.edu/sites/www.nso.edu/files/latest_images/gong_current_int.jpg https://www.nso.edu/sites/www.nso.edu/files/latest_images/gong_halpha.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/how-sdo-sees-the-sun/ http://www.stsci.edu/hst/wfc3/ins_performance/ground/components/filters http://bf-astro.com/hubblep.htm http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-05 http://hubblesite.org/image/4107/news_release/2018-05 http://sci.esa.int/cosmic-vision/59039-two-black-holes-merge-into-one/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/black-hole-SagittariusA.html http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2015/03/Galactic_outflow http://m.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2015/03/Galactic_merger_hosting_a_supermassive_black_hole https://eventhorizontelescope.org/ http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/1218-agu17-junocam-science.html https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/26394547288/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/39741528345/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/38870839790/ https://www.uahirise.org/dtm/dtm.php?ID=ESP_039502_1380 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhBw5yaR_SU https://twitter.com/FakeAstropix

In this week's questions show, I explain why I never get to the point, if we'll ever reach interstellar space, and how we'd get down below the ice sheet on Europa. ITunes audio podcast https://itunes.apple.com/ee/podcast/universe-today-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS audio podcast https://www.universetoday.com/audio Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Questions ------------------ Hi There 9 minutes and you've just circled the question. This strategy for presenting info is why i don't watch discovery channel or the history channel. I think its a bad strategy. Ryan Guitard Do you think we’ll ever reach interstellar space? Lucid Moses Hi Fraser, Are there known nebula outside of galaxies. If a rogue star went supernova would we be able to see the supernova remnants if there were no other stars around? indianastan Vancouver Island eh ? I hear there are lots of sightings of sasquatch on Vancouver Is. Have you ever seen or heard them in the woods ? Do you believe in them ? Peter Houle what if you struck a match on Titan? or Venus? Jughead Jones Don't forget Fraser you live in the mildest Winter zone in Canada! I would swap with you any day! ; ) toxikneedle Fraser, if we sent a submarine drone to an icy moon of Saturn or Jupiter. how would the logistics of drilling into the ice work? First how would we be able to keep the insertion hole itself from freezing as I'm assuming the communication back to earth will be done via a cable running from the submarine to the surface of the moon? Also wouldn't this whole operation be insanely hard to sterilize to keep Earth's bacteria from invading the ocean of an alien moon? Jack Kenny Is it possible that we've yet to discover an element that belongs somewhere on the periodic table? Maybe it isn't naturally occurring on earth, but elsewhere in the universe. My inspiration for this question is the marvel universe's metal Vibranium. I appreciate everything you do on your channel and keep up the good work! deisisase Is returning to the Moon even worth it? With the toxic Asbestos-like regolith and low bone-wasting gravity, is it worth setting up a base at all? Or is it simply better to stay for a little while just to know that our rockets work, just as they did in the Apollo era? Colpo Rosso I choose snow! Is there snow on Titan? uuhh, that sweet sweet methane snow Erick Horning Hey Fraser, is there a plausible scenario that could cause Earth to be tossed out of our solar system winstonsmasterplan 2038??? Jeeez what’s the point. Seems like a long time to wait and a highly risky mission for a couple grams of comet dust!

One of the biggest problems of spaceflight is the total lack of gravity. Here are some proposals that could generate artificial gravity through rotating spacecraft. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/28/16549898/scott-kelly-pbs-exclusive-clip-year-in-space-walking-problems-zero-gravity https://nuscimag.com/science-fiction-or-fact-spinning-spacecraft-artificial-gravity-e6e292af2df8 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19710001302.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EHwT33YCAw https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-minimum-size-for-a-ring-shaped-rotating-space-station http://fiso.spiritastro.net/telecon/Engle-Clark_1-24-18/

In this week's QA, I compared apples to apples and look at the launch capability of the Falcon Heavy versus the Space Shuttle. The answer may surprise you. We also look at extracting energy from a black hole, and if launching satellites from the Earth's poles will avoid a Kessler Syndrome. Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Douglas Smith It's worth noting that the Space Shuttle, with it's RS-25 engines actually was a more powerful rocket than the Falcon Heavy. It's just that the shuttle was so heavy by itself that there was not much reserve left over for payload. So, the Falcon Heavy has a higher payload capacity in the end. nastropc My plan: If you slingshot a massive spinning mass close to a black hole, say a magnetar, could you ‘spin up’ the black hole, giving it angular momentum and make its event horizon more and more oblate? And with the ‘poles’ of the event horizon closer to the singularity, in more strongly warped space-time, would the Hawking radiation flux from there increase? Assuming Hawking radiation doesn’t carry away angular momentum, maybe we could decrease the time until the black hole evaporates (although I’ve no idea why you’d want to do this; I can’t imagine it being an efficient way to extract energy.) Assume channel Fraser! JerechoNC if kessler syndrome becomes a huge issue and makes launching into orbit nearly impossible, could we launch from the north or south poles as a last result? Terry Russell Is it beneficial for a society that immediately evaluates every technological advancement for possible use as a military weapon to be turned loose into the universe? Mama Llama Weird bunch of questions here: Obviously, protein plays an important part in a human diet, and every human on a long mission would need to provide or grow a protein source. I've only heard of questions about growing plants so far - would beans provide the protein? or is there a possibility of raising some small marine creatures like anchovy or something? I ask this because I have seen examples of aquaponic systems that employ fish as filters as well; I wonder if that could be possible on Mars? Also, what is the relative 'feeling' in water at zero G? would a fish be able to swim in it? Or would they end up just as disoriented as the rest of us? Makes me wonder if a zooplankton protein source is possible, since the water itself provides their sort of 'gravity.' 2 AM questions are the best! Benjamin Ringrose Fraser Cain Thanks for asking! Yes I do, I was curious about how an actual object maintains its position at the Lagrangian point. For instance, the James Webb space telescope, will it sit ON the Lagrangian point? Or will it ORBIT the point? Barnard Rabenold I think the problem with living in space is that you are vulnerable to collisions from small objects. With a planet, the atmosphere eats them, while larger objects can be spotted and planned against ahead of time. DHF F In regards to the Dyson Spheres an infrared heat, what if one solutions is that they are channeling that infrared away through the poles of the sphere and if those poles are not facing us, we wouldn't detect that radiation. Yes? Cristian Bureriu does a blackhole have a size or it's just a point of mass? Werner Heenop 2 days ago (edited) Fraser, if you could meet any famous person (living or dead) that has contributed to astronomy, who would it be? I'm thinking: drink a beer with an Astrophysicist, Rocket Engineer, Inventor, Astronomer etc.... RockawayCCW so... if our solar system takes 230 m years to circle the galaxy... how does that line up with all the mass extinctions in our planet's history? Is there a pattern? Sarthak Gaur Hi Fraser! Great content! Question: You said that as a planet passes in front of a star it dims the light emitted from the star, and that's how we know that a planet is orbiting the star. What if a planet's orbit is inclined in such a way that when observed from Earth it doesn't dim the light from the star. How can we find that planet?

During our Iceland adventure, I had a chance to sit down with Dr. Paul Sutter and talk about the limits of science. Why a better version of the Planck Mission can't tell us anything else about the cosmic microwave background radiation. Will we ever run out of science we can do? Subscribe to Paul's channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBr7XOxxQyBHEwqkhoci7vw Join us on a future adventure: https://astrotours.co Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

In this week's question show, I explain why I'm happy to answer questions, what first telescope people should get, and if we've ever seen a black hole ever. Also, stick around to the end, where Dr. Alan Stern, the principal investigator of New Horizons answers a question about the mission. Follow Alan Stern on Twitter https://twitter.com/AlanStern Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Irritable Jon Syndrome Fraiser, infinite thank you's for answering all of our questions. Holy smokes, i dont know how you do it!! Thank you though. I see some of the questions are just downright ridiculous, some youve already answered, some are EASILY searchable via Google yet you take the time to answer every single one whether theyre patrons or not. I dont think you get told thank you enough for the time you put into answering everyones questions, i hope you know youre sincerely appreciated rui casanova Love your channel , and btw how long does it take to our solar sistem to lap the galaxy? Nicholas Shaski I think the question about dark matter possibly being dyson spheres should be considered more. You said those would produce infrared radiation. While I'm in no way educated about the subject (beyond the minimum), the follow up question seems to be: Can you somehow "hide" infrared radiation? Especially in this context. tuuktuu1 What would a black dwarf be like up close? Like a huge liquid ocean? Could you sail a boat on it? Or would it be cold gas like Jupiter or an exotic degenerate material? What would it look like if you shone light on it and looked at it? Liam.edu Hey Fraser! What home telescope would you recommend for star gazing and I’d rather get one that isn’t to pricey. I know you’ve gotten this question before, but I looked for your answer an couldn’t find it. Thanks! Omegaviews can stellar black holes be quasars to? Mario Avgherino One final thought, we human beings think very highly of ourselves, why not too many centuries ago we thought that the earth was the center of the universe, only to find out that our planet is a wonderful little oasis in this ordinary solar system. It's a great home for us but that's about the only thing that makes it special and since It's the only home we have, I support the Idea of colonizing other planets. But just as we have learned that it's best to preserve the natural order here on Earth, I'm certain we will likewise decide not to pollute or destroy the rest of the solar system and beyond. David Mex I think that the announcement of alien life Will be the greatest news on the history of human life. Moamin Aljaro HAVE WE SEEN A BLACK HOLE EVER? The Grimm How long does it take to become a astro physicist Federico Fuidio Álvarez4 How far into the past/future are the Voyagers due to time dilation? Alpha5814 days ago What would the universe would of looked like when the Cosmic microwave background was in the visible light spectrum? Carlos Basso When New Horizon flybys 2014 MU69 by the end of this year, how good the scientists expect the photos to be? Will the spacecraft pass as close to 2014 MU69 as it did to Pluto? Is there any science that we could squeeze out of N.H. after that?

NASA is going to decide between a comet sample return mission or a helicopter on Titan. Which mission should it be? See Tim's video here: https://youtu.be/JkS2dP7eiEU Then vote! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogrSQkBJn1KF0N9I4oM7eQ/community?lb=UgzkKXIhEDAV-WxBS2R4AaABCQ Subscribe to Tim's Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6uKrU_WqJ1R2HMTY3LIx5Q Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invests-in-concept-development-for-missions-to-comet-saturn-moon-titan http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/spacecraft/caesar-sample-return.html http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/History_of_cometary_missions http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/ http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/58220-philae-found/ https://www.asteroidmission.org/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/070628/squyres.html

In this week's QA, I answer the several related questions about why NASA doesn't just cancel the Space Launch System and give all their money to SpaceX. With special guest answerer Emma Osborne. Follow Emma at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_2MM6tCMKWCj-AnvjIhJtw Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

See Joe's video here: https://youtu.be/0M7VvnaoIVY Subscribe to Joe's Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-2YHgc363EdcusLIBbgxzg All Hail Curiosity! Consider the fact that right now, there’s an SUV-sized rover crawling around the surface of Mars, zapping rocks with its laser, scooping and sampling material, and generally giving us the best view we’ve ever seen from the surface of the Red Planet. NASA’s Curiosity Rover has been on the surface of Mars since 2012, following the story of water. When did it first show up on Mars, and was it there long enough to support the biology of life? In its 5 years and counting of exploration, Curiosity has pushed our understanding of the Red Planet forward, and paved the way for the next generation of gigantic, nuclear powered rovers headed to Mars to search for life itself. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/nasas-opportunity-mars-rover-finishes-marathon-clocks-in-at-just-over-11-years/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-290 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/timeline/prelaunch/landingsiteselection/aboutgalecrater/ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mount-sharp-photobombs-mars-curiosity-rover/ https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/?ImageID=9084 https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/science/results/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4413 https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/16dec_methanespike https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1393

In this Q&A from Iceland, astrophysicist Dr. Paul Sutter steps in to tackle some of the more complicated cosmology and physics based questions from the audience. Did the Big Bang create the matter of the Universe, how close are we do discovering what dark matter is, and more. Follow Paul at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBr7XOxxQyBHEwqkhoci7vw Sign up for my weekly email newsletter at: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

There are few rockets more iconic than the RS-25, also known as the Space Shuttle main engine. Even though it’s been around in some form since the 1970s, it’s been improved and upgraded several times, making it the most efficient liquid fuel rocket engine going today. And now the RS-25 is going to see a new chapter in its history, working to carry NASA’s new Space Launch System back to deep space, beyond Earth orbit. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://io9.gizmodo.com/early-design-specs-show-the-space-shuttle-could-have-be-1528524224 http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2016/20160509-all-the-way-to-orbit.html

In this week's questions show, I talk about being wrong, why I'm such a buzz kill to sci-fi, and what I'd launch on a Falcon Heavy. Subscribe to Fraser's weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

For the longest time, spacecraft operators were puzzled by the Pioneer anomaly, the strange thrust that was slowing spacecraft down as they journeyed through the Solar System. That anomaly was finally solved just a few years ago, but there’s still another glitch in our understanding of spaceflight, and it happens every time a spacecraft does a slingshot around a planet to get a speed boost or course correction. It’s called the flyby anomaly. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.08893.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.7333.pdf

In this week's questions show, Fraser is excited to see the southern hemisphere night sky, considers how the next generation of telescopes will change our understanding of the Big Bang, and suggests what you should look at with a new telescope. Subscribe to Fraser's weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

The supertelescopes are coming, enormous ground and space-based observatories that’ll let us directly observe the atmospheres of distant worlds. We know there’s life on Earth, and our atmosphere tells the tale, so can we do the same thing with extrasolar planets? It turns out, coming up with a single biosignature, a chemical in the atmosphere that tells you that yes, absolutely, there’s life on that world, is really tough. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 References: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/1794-ssc2007-09a1-First-Map-of-an-Exoplanet-Atmosphere http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/news/1950-ssc2017-06--Warm-Neptune-Has-Unexpectedly-Primitive-Atmosphere https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/probing-seven-worlds-with-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1710/1710.03976.pdf I’ve got to admit, I’ve been pretty bad for this in the past. In old episodes of Astronomy Cast and the Weekly Space Hangout, even here in the Guide to Space, I’ve said that if we could just sample the atmosphere of a distant world, we could say with conviction if there’s life there. Just detect ozone in the atmosphere, or methane, or even pollution and you could say, “there’s life there.” Well, future Fraser is here to correct past Fraser. While I admire his naive enthusiasm for the search for aliens, it turns out, as always, things are going to be more difficult than we previously thought. Astrobiologists are actually struggling to figure out a single smoking gun biosignature that could be used to say there’s life out there. And that’s because natural processes seem to have clever ways of fooling us. What are some potential biosignatures, why are they problematic, and what will it take to get that confirmation?

In this week's questions show, Fraser wonders where you'd have to go in the Universe to minimize your time dilation, how to see Iridium Flares, how interferometry works, and more. Subscribe to Fraser's weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

The internet. It gives us an instant connection to the sum of human knowledge, but it also lets misinformation travel at the speed of light. Everyday I get comments about how people will believe we’ve been to space after I show them evidence of actual spacecraft taken in space and not CGI mock-ups. Challenge accepted. Here come a whole bunch of photos of spacecraft taken in space. Actually, I don’t really care if you believe it or not. I was just so excited about some of the fantastic pictures of spacecraft - taken by spacecraft - that I decided to dedicate a whole episode to it. Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 For starters, I’ve got to address the elephant in the room. Why are there so many illustrations and computer graphic images of spacecraft and not real photos of spacecraft? Here’s the answer. Spacecraft aren’t equipped with selfie sticks. I mean, it would be cool to have the spacecraft take a picture of itself while Saturn photobombs the background, but that weight is better used with additional fuel or scientific payload. Scientists are completely unconcerned about having to prove anything to anyone, and they’d prefer to maximize the science coming back from their spacecraft. So, whenever you see an image of a spacecraft that’s out there in space, all alone, then it’s going to be an artist’s illustration. Here’s the Voyager spacecraft flying through space, except it’s a computer graphic, obviously. Here’s the Pioneer passing Jupiter. I mean, here’s a painting of Pioneer and Jupiter, because there’s no way to actually take a photograph of this moment. NASA and the other space agencies will also create CGI renderings of spacecraft that don’t exist yet, to give us an idea of what it might look like when it gets created. Like the James Webb Space Telescope that hasn’t even been launched yet. Here’s what it really looks like, getting worked on in the lab here on the ground before its launch. I provide you with plenty more examples. But in general, if you see a “photograph” or video of a spacecraft, and you’re not sure if it’s real or not, just ask yourself, who could have taken the picture. Also, if the image looks too good and clean, then it’s probably computer graphics. Episode 338 References: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/voyager20170712.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pioneer10_art.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/16243787784_a0410c775a_k.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/jwst_end_of_cryo_test.jpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA5NCHQlF74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZrq__rkt4s https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/spacesuits/historygallery/gem-jun65.html https://www.nasa.gov/astronautprofiles/mccandless https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts135/launch/sts-135_mission-overview.html https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/572378main_s135e010788_full.jpg https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-28/html/iss028e018221.html https://www.youtube.com/user/spacexchannel/videos https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120806b.html https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/mro/mars-orbiter-spies-curiosity-rover-at-work https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20061204.html https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/lost-2003-mars-lander-found-by-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter/ http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/05/philae-found/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/15349407860/in/set-72157638315605535 https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/latest-selfie-from-nasa-mars-rover-shows-wide-context https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6785 https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/revisited/index.html http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2015/02/ATV-1_reentry http://www.heavens-above.com/ https://transit-finder.com/ http://www.astrophoto.fr/ https://www.facebook.com/szabolcs.nagy.7923

In this week's questions show, Fraser wonders how we're ever going to clear all that space junk orbiting Earth, whether it's better to colonize Mars or Mercury, and can water worlds explain the Fermi Paradox? Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

Forget rocky worlds like Earth and Mars. New discoveries about icy worlds like Europa and Enceladus make them the ideal candidates for the search for life in the Universe. In fact there could be hundreds, or even thousands of times more worlds out there with ability to support life. Of course, there’s a problem, how do we search for life when it’s hidden beneath kilometers of ice? Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Decades ago, Mars seemed like the most viable place to search for life in the Solar System. The Red Planet is cold, dry and airless today, but it certainly seemed to have liquid water there in the ancient past. Of course, wherever we find liquid water here on Earth, we find life. At the bottom of the ocean, where the crushing pressures would kill us in a moment. In steaming volcanic vents. Beneath glaciers, deep underground, even huddled in nuclear reactor cooling tanks. NASA’s Mars exploration program has been following the story of water. Opportunity and Spirit discovered evidence that Mars had liquid water in the ancient past. And the Curiosity Rover doubled down on that, finding minerals that indicate there was water on the surface of Mars for a long time. But then, long ago, the conditions changed, Mars lost its atmosphere, became cold, dry and inhospitable to life. It’s possible that life could still be there on Mars, huddled underground in salty reserves that prevent the water from freezing or evaporating. But so far, scientists haven’t found it yet. This shows that life on rocky worlds is tenuous at best. Too close to the star, or too far. Not a thick enough atmosphere, or too thick, creates a world that’s inhospitable to life. And even if a world was, briefly a place worth calling home, main sequence stars are constantly putting out more radiation, shifting the habitable zone farther out. Think about how long Earth will be habitable. Life crawled out from the oceans 430 million years ago, and planetary scientists estimate we’ve only got another 500 million to a billion years before the Sun gets too hot and boils the oceans dry. But now we’re discovering there are other places in the Solar System to look for life - water worlds. In fact, the number of these places, and the amount of liquid water on them is difficult to wrap your brain around. The Earth is a desert compared to the amount of liquid water that’s out there in the Solar System. Europa alone has 2-3 times as much water on Earth. And this life could be safe and sound, protected from radiation, meteor impacts and nearby supernovae for billions of years. Long after the Sun has burned out and faded away.

We try to avoid thinking about it, but spacecraft are machines that break down and eventually fail. Some can last for years, others decades, but in the end they’ll be gone forever. Space agencies do consider how these missions will end, and put plans in place to wrap them up when the time comes. But sometimes they have no choice, and dead spacecraft return to Earth with no way of controlling when and where it’s going to happen. Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 It’s fun to think about new projects, but not so much fun to think about how those projects are going to end. Space agencies do what they can to limit the impact of their dead spacecraft, but space is a hostile and unpredictable place. Mechanical problems, micrometeorite impacts, and software failures can cause even fully functional spacecraft to go dark. For the spacecraft out in deep space, it’s not that huge a problem. One day you’re depending on it for pictures of Earth, or climate data, or a deeper view into the Universe, and the next day that trusty spacecraft is offline, never to be heard from again. Time to launch a replacement. There are amazing stories of spacecraft brought back from the brink of failure (mental note, I should totally do an episode on that), but there are also examples of spacecraft that just went silent. In 2009, for example, two satellites actually smashed into each other. The communications satellite Iridium 33 and the already deactivated Russian Cosmos-2251 just collided at a speed of 11 km/s at an altitude of 789 kilometers. Obviously neither satellite survived, and about a quarter of the debris had burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere by 2016.

In this QA episode, Fraser wonders when the Big Rip might happen, could there be binary galaxies, what it would be like to live in higher gravity. Get your Year in Space 2018 Calendar http://www.yearinspace.com Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

Mars is in the spotlight now, as both SpaceX and NASA are preparing their long range plans to send humans to the Red Planet. But Mars is an inhospitable environment, especially because of its tenuous and poisonous atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Did Mars have a better atmosphere in the past? How did it get destroyed, and what can we do to replenish it to make the planet more habitable in the future? Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 If you were to travel to the surface of Mars right now, without a proper spacesuit, your life would become immediately, uh, unpleasant. With a dramatically lower atmospheric pressure, all the air in your lungs would come rushing out. And without the oxygen in your blood stream, you’d pass out within seconds, and asphyxiate within a couple of minutes. Mars, sucks. And the biggest reason is that Mars is so hostile is because of its terrible atmosphere. Here on Earth, you’re experiencing a column of air, pressing down on you, enabling all that breathing that you seem to like to do. The atmosphere on Mars, on the other hand, is only 1% the pressure we have here on Earth. Furthermore, it’s made almost entirely of carbon dioxide, which I’m sure you know is poisonous to breathe. The lack of a thick atmosphere means that Mars is cold, so cold all the water on the planet is locked up in eternal polar ice caps. So cold that carbon dioxide freezes out of the atmosphere and falls as snow in the north pole. Just in case you weren’t aware, temperatures need to be -78.5 degrees C for carbon dioxide to freeze. Was Mars always this way? What changed to make the planet so terrible, and what could we do to bring it back?

In this week’s question show, Fraser explains why almost everything in the Solar System is spinning in the same direction, is there a limit to how massive black holes can get, and do galaxies have an escape velocity? In this week’s question show, Fraser explains how astronomers measure the spin rate of black holes, other uses of gravitational slingshots, and why everyone is talking about Patreon. Check out Terry Virts View From Above https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/books/books/photography/view-from-above Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 On October 25, 2017, astronomers from NASA’s Minor Planet Center sent out an announcement that they needed help confirming the trajectory of an interesting object. Known as C/2017 U1 PANSTARRS, the object was moving quickly through the Solar System, on a path that would take it out into deep space. Astronomers were happy to oblige, providing dozens of observations within a few days, confirming that yes indeed, we were looking at the first asteroid that had come from interstellar space. Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: https://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 It turns out that C/2017 U1 PANSTARRS, later given the Hawaiian name Oumuamua, or “a messenger from afar arriving first”, had already made its closest pass to the Sun on September 9th, 2017, traveling at a top speed of 87.4 kilometers per second. It whipped around the Sun, and then continued on its hyperbolic orbit out into deep space again. It passed near the Earth on October 14, then crossed the orbit of Mars on November 1st, by May 2018 it’ll be farther than Jupiter, and get past Saturn in early 2019. Astronomers around the world have been making continuous observations of the asteroid, using some of the largest telescopes on Earth and in space. But they’ve got to work quickly, by mid-December, it’ll be too dim to observe with any of our instruments.

We once thought our Solar System was normal, average. How wrong we were, how varied the planetary systems are out there. It turns out, the migration of planets played a huge role in the Solar System we see today. Watch John Michael Godier's half of the collaboration here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqqKPjr0Bcw Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 In 1995, astronomers found the first ever planet orbiting another main-sequence star. The star was 51 Pegasi, and the planet was like nothing astronomers had ever expected to see. It has less than the mass of Jupiter, but orbits its star every 4 days. Even Mercury in our own Solar System needs 88 days to orbit once around the Sun. But 4 days? That’s just crazy. As astronomers continued to search the skies, more and more of these massive planets orbiting their stars so closely turned up. A few decades after their first discovery, we now know of dozens of these hot Jupiters. Not in every system, but it does appear that about 1.2% of stars have hot Jupiters orbiting around them. The problem is that hot Jupiters shouldn’t exist. Old models of planetary formation, based on our Solar System say that you should get rocky worlds close to the star, gas planets in the middle, and ice worlds farther out. The blasts of radiation from a newly forming star should have cleared out excess material from the inner orbits, stopping the formation of worlds. The only way to explain this situation is if the planets formed farther out, and then shifted around. Planetary migration. Welcome to a two part episode I’m doing with science fiction author John Michael Godier. If you haven’t yet, you’ve got to check out his channel. Lots of great space science news and futurism. In this episode, I’m going to be tackling the science and history of planetary migration. And in his video, John’s going to be looking forward into the future of planetary migration in our Solar System, and how we could move the planets around on our own. I’ll put a link to his episode in the show notes, and in the playlist at the end.

In this week’s question show, Fraser explains how astronomers measure the spin rate of black holes, other uses of gravitational slingshots, and why everyone is talking about Patreon. Get an email announcement whenever we release a new video: http://eepurl.com/dcThQ5 Links I mentioned: Astronomy Cast - http://www.astronomycast.com Andy Weir - http://andyweirauthor.com/ Weekly Space Hangout - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMPZpa08LoY What Fraser's Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 1:11 Mysterious Nepal: u idiot make this video as exactly the article I have read ?! 3:10 Mycll d.D: Whjat does it mean for a black hole to spin? How can it have a speed when the singularity has zero radius? All of its mass is concentrated into zero volume, right? 4:57 RockawayCCW: Just curious, what's the maximum speed that a spacecraft could achieve by slingshotting around the planets in our Solar System? 6:39 M M: Great video Fraser. Is robbing orbital speed from a planet always done with the spacecraft coming from behind it? Could we slow down if we can from the front? 8:09 Chad Baptiste: Oh man! I just thought of a dope question! Hopefully it makes it into your next QA. What resolution of detail would the Hubble Telescope be able to pick up were it pointed to Earth? Is it like Google Maps detail, or CSI's "zoom and enhance!" detail? 9:40 jonfarray: Hi Fraser, I'm awesome inspired by your QAs. I have a Q that I would love you and your communities thoughts on. As the only known observers, what are we? Are we bags of meat? Bags of star dust? A body with a brain? A brain with a body? A spirit in a vessel? A single organism or a sentient community of organisms? I'm trying to keep my question short, but I guess I'm asking, what are we and what is the meaning of life please? Could it be to the observer? Thanks! 12:01 Grimbot2: If the Moon could be safely placed on Earth's surface, what would happen? Would it roll across the surface as the Earth rotates or would it sink through Earth's crust? 13:14 Paul Clifford: "head over to Patreon" is mandatory in every YouTube video now huh? 15:31 Ivaca Pavic: Why do you always say "in pretty much" every black hole? Does that mean there are galaxies detected without supermassive black holes in the center? What holds those galaxies together then? 16:28 khh1960: When using the transit method to detect exoplanets, how do they determine the size and orbital distance of the planets just by the amount of lost luminosity? 17:58 M.Otto: Wouldn't a water shield a few meters thick be cheaper 19:36 joethepro36: Glad to hear it, without moon landings, Mars is a pipedream. The only question I have is if the Moon is suitable as a staging base? What do you think Fraser?

Space is our future, but space is also a deadly place, with poisonous radiation and an increased risk of cancer. We’re protected here on Earth thanks to our planet’s magnetosphere, but is there a way to create an artificial magnetosphere and shield astronauts? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 With over half a century of experience sending humans into space, we’ve learned quite a bit about what it does to the human body. The microgravity weakens the bones, reduces muscles and puts stress on the organs, but this can be partly compensated by exercise. Time spent in isolation or in close quarters with other astronauts can push people to the breaking point. But this isn’t the first time we’ve learned to work in isolated and dangerous environments with other people. Being in space, away from the support of modern society requires that astronauts have the skills, training and communication with Earth to deal with medical emergencies, hardware failures, and the inevitable hostile xenomorphs, whether it’s a stand up fight or another bug hunt. But there’s one risk that’s going to always be there when humans travel out into the Solar System: radiation. Powerful solar storms can kill astronauts in days, but even the ongoing background radiation of the Universe is going to be increasing their risk of getting cancer, through their entire lives. We’re protected here on Earth by our planet’s magnetosphere; the magnetic shell that surrounds our world, redirecting high-energy particles so they can’t reach the surface. Earth is protected, and so is Jupiter. But good luck living down on the cloud tops of that gas giant. Unfortunately, the outer space places where we’d really like to live: the Moon, Mars, or rotating space stations in the Lagrange points, have no such protection. This leads our imaginations to wonder, could we generate an artificial magnetosphere to protect astronauts and space colonists? Magnets keep photos and shopping lists stuck to my refrigerator. How hard could it be?

In this week’s question show, Fraser explains his thoughts on SpaceX, what he does for his regular job, and wonders if you could use a black hole to perform gravitational slingshots, whether planets could hide in Lagrange points, and growing trees on Mars. Here's a link to my "What I'm watching Playlist" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 00:28 FrogLungs - you think people in the Andromeda galaxy are saying the Milky Way galaxy is hurtling towards them? 01:24 Daneel Buchner - What's the maximum speed you could achieve using a gravitational slingshot around a black hole? 04:15 DocWolph - So could you not have an Earth-sized Trojan planet riding along in the Lagrange Point of a sufficiently large main planet? Most like captured there and not in this star system. 05:44 - SubnetMask - Hey Fraser, what's your day job and what are your hobbies? Who do you live with? And what kind of music do you listen to? 08:21 - Gally - Could a redwood tree that's grown on Mars or the Moon get so large that it could be a living building? Assuming that the tree is in a building. 10:27 - Quintin Riekert - Why do you sound so negative about SpaceX 13:22 - Radar Blue - How come neutron stars, composted of neutrons have a magnetic field at all. Are neutrons central to magnetism? The neutrons are usually portrayed as "no electric charge" unlike the proton and electron. 14:12 - Silt Strider - Are the "planetary planes" in our galaxy random or do they have a tendency, like to be at a similar angle as our galaxy? 16:17 - Vectorlover3 - I have a question. Given the cost of launching infrastructure, the idea of retiring the iSS and the idea of the Deep Space Gateway, could we not move and repurpose the ISS? if not to lunar orbit then only for a one-off mission to Mars? Thanks. 19:25 - Fun4uitstrue - Hey Fraser, I know you did a video on what space actually looks like, but it was mostly concerning false color images. What I'm wondering is what space ACTUALLY looks like from the naked eye. Say if I teleport to between the orbits of Earth or Mars or even into interstellar space and if I open my eyes, what would I see? 21:56 - AnotherGlenn - Has anyone been developing equipment for processing raw materials in space? We'll need clean water? What about the energy and the chemicals needed for the processes? What will we have to bring with us? What can we use that's already onsite? 23:52 - Stu niverse - As the Sun heats up over these millions of years, since Mars' global temperatures goes up, would that mean that Mars' state could be a little more comfortable for life?

In order to get the large scale structure of the Universe we see today, cosmologists have proposed the idea of inflation, that the Universe expanded an enormous amount in the earliest moments. But if inflation really happened, then it has even stranger implications for the nature of the Universe and the search for multiverses. Ethan Siegel https://www.patreon.com/startswithabang/ Treknology https://www.amazon.com/Treknology-Science-Star-Tricorders-Drive/dp/0760352631 Playlist Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmnnhuiEaxjmvNkcujvNqNVs Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 We’ve covered the topic of inflation a couple of times in the past, but I’ll give you the short version one more time. The Big Bang exquisitely explains the expansion of the Universe we see today. When we look out as far as we can, to the edge of the observable Universe we see the afterglow of the Big Bang: the cosmic microwave background radiation. This light was released the moment the Universe had cooled down a little, and has been traveling for almost 13.8 billion years to reach us. Thanks to the expansion of the Universe, it’s been redshifted to just a few degrees above absolute zero. When astronomers measure the temperature of this background, it’s incredibly consistent, with only tiny fluctuations measurable with the most sensitive instruments. This means that the entire Universe that we can see had time to transfer temperature to each other before it expanded. But the original Big Bang Theory suggests that the expansion of the Universe didn’t give the material time to even out its temperature. In order to explain this, cosmologists developed the concept of inflation. There was a period in the earliest Universe when the energy in matter was bound up in the fabric of space itself. The Universe expanded so quickly, that a region the size of a subatomic particle would have been stretched to the size of the visible Universe in a fraction of a second. Inflation also answered other challenges that the original Big Bang couldn’t explain, such as the flatness of the Universe, and total lack of monopoles. Like I said, we’ve done a whole video about inflation. But inflation has introduced its own set of strange ideas, including the concept of “eternal inflation”; that inflation didn’t end for the entire Universe like it did in our local area. There are regions undergoing inflation all over the place, creating multiple universes within our Universe. You know, a multiverse. I’ll be honest, though, the concept of eternal inflation is beyond my comprehension. And so, in times like this, I like to bring in a ringer. Today, I’m glad to bring you Dr. Ethan Siegel, an astrophysicist and science writer. His most recent book is Treknology, all about the science of Star Trek. Ethan tackles some of the most complex topics out there in an understandable way, and I could really use his help.

On October 5th, 2017, US Vice President Mike Pence announced that NASA is going back to the Moon. He didn’t provide any other details, just some kind of moonward directed space exploration. And it turns out they won’t be the only ones. The Moon is going to be a busy busy place. Return to the Moon Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmmDoQq8v--bhIqL1JrEDf1v Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 This probably didn’t come a surprise to anyone, but the US presidential administration announced that they were throwing out the plans of the previous administration, and forging forth in a new direction. NASA won’t be visiting asteroids, retrieving samples, and working towards the human exploration of Mars, instead they’ll be targeting the Moon. Exactly how is still up in the air. I’m sorry, I sound like a total killjoy here, but every time NASA has its plans wrenched in a new direction, I get a little more exhausted. But, this is the problem of giant, goals-based mission planning. I’m still holding out for some capabilities-driven missions. However, there are a total of 5 different groups targeting the human exploration of the Moon. Nobody near the Moon for almost 50 years, and suddenly everyone wants to visit.

In this week’s question show, Fraser wonders if we’ll be able to grow crops in lunar soil, if the Moon has been changing over time, and what title does Elon Musk get when he colonizes Mars. Here's a link to my "What I'm watching Playlist" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 0:20 - Puffs Koko - So if Elon Musk lands people on Mars and sets up labs, then buildings and so on, does that make Mars his planet? Does he then become President and ruler of Mars claimed by him? 1:58 - Einomies - Speaking of the Moon's aesthetic. Has it changed at all during recorded history, with new craters or something of the sort. Other than whatever we left behind, of course. 2:53 - ak101farham - Can you grow plants on lunar soil? 5:03 - veggiet2009 - One of the most underrated fictional technologies from Star Trek are the sensors which are able to scan planets at short range, detecting everything from the number of bio signs to tectonic activity. My question is: is this tech even anything?What needs to be developed to have this kind of capability? 7:38 - Barrett Bogner - Has there ever been talk of a space elevator on the Moon? We hear about the Moon being a pit stop for exploring other planets. But do any of these moon base plans call for a space elevator? Is it possible with current materials? 9:04 - toposaurus TOP 10 - My friend does not believe in time dilation. He says that time is only a measurement that humans invented. 10:06 - Richard - On the topic of de-orbiting things: if an asteroid aimed at the Earth and could throw at a regular Earth-based throwing speed, would the speed be enough momentum to make the object eventually burn up in the atmosphere. 14:05 - RPKVids - When the Universe was smaller than an atom, were physics the same as they are now, like was there gravity, heat, cold, etc? 16:02 - LiveToLearn - Fraser, if we eventually confirm that Mars (Europa, Titan, Enceladus), etc. are biologically dead, would it make any sense to send some extremophiles to check out if they could survive long term? 17:30 - Aniket Yadav - If we could physically feel gravitational waves, what would they feel like? 18:53 - Brian Blatz - Dark matter is just a gap fill for flawed mathematics, fix your math and stop making excuses.

Want to take a space vacation with Fraser and astrophysicist Dr. Paul M. Sutter? We're going to Cape Canaveral and the Caribbean September, 2018. We'll check out rockets, see the space shuttle, cruise the Caribbean waters, hit up beaches and Mayan Ruins. With stargazing on the deck of the boat every night, and live recordings of our shows, the Guide to Space and Ask a Spaceman. Go to http://astrotouring.com for more information and to reserve a spot.

We’re all familiar with the idea of solar sails to explore the Solar System, using the light pressure from the Sun. But there’s another propulsion system that could harness the power of the Sun, electric sails, and it’s a pretty exciting idea. Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 A few weeks ago, I tackled a question someone had about my favorite exotic propulsion systems, and I rattled off a few ideas that I find exciting: solar sails, nuclear rockets, ion engines, etc. But there’s another propulsion system that keeps coming up, and I totally forgot to mention, but it’s one of the best ideas I’ve heard in awhile: electric sails. As you probably know, a solar sail works by harnessing the photons of light streaming from the Sun. Although photons are massless, they do have momentum, and can transfer it when they bounce off a reflective surface. In addition to light, the Sun is also blowing off a steady stream of charged particles - the solar wind. A team of engineers from Finland, led by Dr. Pekka Janhunen, has proposed building an electric sail that will use these particles to carry spacecraft out into the Solar System.

Astronomers have made the groundbreaking detection of two neutron stars colliding in a galaxy 130 million light years away. They detected the gravitational waves AND the blast of radiation released from the collision, observing a kilonova for the first time. Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 I know we’ve been talking about gravitational waves quite a bit here on the Guide to Space, and a few episodes ago, I hinted at the tantalizing possibility that gravitational waves could, maybe, perhaps, be used to detect colliding neutron stars. You know, once more sensitive instruments came online, and physicists tweaked and tuned them. Well, it turns out such a detection had already been made when I recorded that, now, hilariously out of date video. But it gets even better. At the same time they detected the rippling distortion of spacetime produced by the gravitational waves, different teams of astronomers were actually able to watch blast of radiation released by the neutron star using every wavelength at their disposal. They detected the gravitational waves and then saw the collision in the sky. I promise you, this is one of the biggest discoveries of the year.

In this week’s question show, Fraser wonders where would be the best place to put a really powerful telescope, why a kilonova is important, and what happens when brown dwarfs die. More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt... Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

Some comets orbit the Sun on a regular basis, but others come in from deep space, a region known as the Oort Cloud. What causes them to make this journey, and will we ever be able to explore the Oort Cloud? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt... Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 Before I get into this episode, I want to remind everyone that it’s been several decades since I’ve been able to enjoy a bright comet in the night sky. I’ve seen mind blowing auroras, and witnessed a total solar eclipse with my own eyeballs. The Universe needs to deliver this bright comet for me, and it needs to do it soon. By recording this video now, I will summon it. I will create a video that’ll be hilariously out of date in a few months, when that bright comet shows up. Like that time we totally discovered a supernova in the Virtual Star Party, by saying there wasn’t a supernova in that galaxy, but there was, and we didn’t get to make the discovery. Anyway, on to the episode. Let’s talk about comets. Comets are awesome. They’re made of gas, dust, rock, and organic materials, smashed together, and existing mostly unchanged since the formation of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago. Every now and then, some gravitational interaction kicks a comet into an orbit that brings it closer to the Sun. Because of the increased radiation, the comet’s volatile gas and dust sublimates off the surface, leaving behind a long tail of ice. And this is how we discover them. In fact, comets are one of the objects in the night sky regularly found by amateurs. And by discovering a comet, you get to have it named after you. Of course many of the comets are named after robotic observatories, just another way the robots are taking human jobs.

In this week’s question show, Fraser wonders if the Earth will get new moons, if dark energy is getting more diluted over time, and if the ice on Jupiter’s moons will protect us from its deadly radiation. More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt... Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

Elon Musk gave us an update on SpaceX’s plans to send humans to Mars, going all in on their new launch vehicle: the BFR. Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt... Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 For the last couple of episodes, we’ve talked about NASA’s plans to explore deep space, with the Space Launch System and the Deep Space Gateway. That’s fine and all, but many of you wanted to know how all this would compare to what SpaceX is planning for the colonization of space. It had been a while since we got an update from Elon Musk, but on Friday we got a big announcement from the SpaceX CEO, and it kind of makes your head spin. At the International Astronautical Congress in Australia - the home of the newly announced Australian Space Agency, congrats Australia, you totally deserved it. What what I saying? Oh right, at the IAC, Elon Musk announced what they’ve been working on since last year’s announcement of the Interplanetary Transport Ship. All of SpaceX’s current rocket fleet: the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy, the Dragon spacecraft, it’s all going to be made obsolete by their “all in” investment to build the one rocket that’ll do everything: the BFR.

Hey everyone, just a quick timelapse video to show you what I was seeing on Wednesday night. I got an alert on my phone that there was a geomagnetic storm going on here in Canada, so I went out to a nearby beach, set up the camera to see if I could capture any activity. As soon as the timelapse started, the sky exploded in aurora activity. Huge sheets and ribbons stretching from horizon to horizon. I've never seen anything like it. The timelapse was made with a Panasonic Lumix GH5 (the same camera we use for the Guide to Space) with a 14mm Rokinon lens. It's 200 separate images, f 2/8, ISO 3200.

NASA is working on developing a space station in a cis-lunar orbit that will serve as the jumping off point to exploring the Solar System; it’s known as the Deep Space Gateway. Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt... Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001 I don’t have to tell you that the vision of human space exploration in the Solar System has kind of stalled. Half a century ago, humans set foot on the Moon, and we haven’t been back since. Instead, we’ve thoroughly explored every cubic meter of low Earth orbit, going around and around the Earth. In fact, back in 2016, the International Space Station celebrated 100,000 orbits around the Earth. The space shuttle was the last US vehicle capable of taking humans up into orbit, and it was retired back in 2011. So things look pretty bleak for sending humans out to explore the Solar System. Earlier this year, however, NASA announced their next great step in their human space exploration efforts: the Deep Space Gateway. And if all goes well, we’ll see humans living and working farther from Earth, and for longer periods than ever before. After the space shuttle program was wrapped up, NASA had a bunch of challenges facing it. Perhaps the greatest of these, was what to do with the enormous workforce that built and maintained the space shuttle fleet. Thousands were laid off, and moved to other aerospace jobs and other industries, but the space agency worked to develop the next big launch system after the shuttle. Originally there were the Ares rockets, as part of the Constellation Program, but these were canceled and replaced with the Space Launch System. We’ve done a whole episode on the SLS, but the short version is that this new rocket will be capable of lifting more cargo into orbit than any rocket ever. The first version, known as the Block 1 will be capable of lofting 70,000 kg into low-Earth orbit, while the upcoming Block 2 will be able to carry 130,000 kg into LEO - more than the mighty Saturn V rocket. What are you going to do with a rocket this powerful? Launch new space telescopes, robotic missions to the outer Solar System, and put humans into space, of course. In addition to the SLS, NASA is also working on a new capsule, known as the Orion Crew Module. This Apollo-esque capsule will be capable of carrying a crew of 4 astronauts out beyond low-Earth orbit, and returning them safely back to Earth. But if you can send astronauts out beyond low-Earth orbit, where will they go? The Deep Space Gateway.

In this week’s question show, Fraser searches for the most energetic collisions in the Universe, whether we should vacuum up dust on the Moon, and are there supernovae that don’t create black holes. Make sure you check out Scott Manley's channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt... Chad Weber - [email protected] Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

After nearly 20 years, hundreds of thousands of photos, hundreds of flybys, and thousands of scientific papers, it’s time to say goodbye to Cassini. In this special video, we team up with David Joseph Wesley to say farewell to one of the most important scientific instruments humanity has ever built.