EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News

This episode has everything! Creepy hands, cats, white dwarfs, and a whole lot of Pluto-sized worlds (from the past).

This week we look at the weird results in space science. From looking at how wildly different images from different IR telescopes can be colorized, to worlds colliding, to white dwarfs of unusual size ,and even to Earth's crust on the move, the news was surprising and sometimes a tad bit horrifying. And we present all of it here.

This week we're doing a weather check.

Join us as we bounce between the geology behind the recent landslide in Nepal and Tibet, the joy of Saturn's south pole forming a decagon, the frustration of both US and Russian space programs having launch capacity issues, and the good news of BepiColombo getting ready to enter Mercury's orbit.

In this special episode, funded by the National Science Foundation, we're taking a break from the headlines to study the changing anatomy of a comet.

Across a long career, Dr William Hartmann has done everything from innovating how the Moon was formed to founding the Planetary Science Institute to defining space art for a new generation; a generation that included host Pamela Gay. Tune in to hear about science, art, and how they can mix as individuals both make new discoveries, and the illustrations to accompany them!

Science comes from many corners, and there is a need for both 600-m radio telescopes made on a great plain (Like the RATAN-600) and 60cm radio dishes built in a living room. In this After Hours, we talk with ASU professor Danny Jacobs about how he engages students of all kinds in space sciences through educational tools like the cardboard radio telescope (https://astrochart.github.io), and in space telescope operations with the SPARCS small sat (https://sparcs.asu.edu/)

On July 20, the world celebrates International Moon Day. This UN designated holiday marks the anniversary of humanity's first landing on the Moon. The Apollo 11 landing in 1969 is now only a distant memory or a date from history for most people, but it is worth thinking about as the world prepares to return humans to the Moon in the coming decade. Joining us to discuss International Moon Day is Dr. Jekan Thanga, the head of the Space TREx Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Come learn how his interdiciplinary team is taking a page from the past as we plan for a Lunar future.

Our solar system readily provides us with free samples of other worlds in the form of meteorites. The trick comes in first recognizing them, and then in understanding what science is locked in their minerals. One major center for collecting and studying these space rocks is Arizona State University's Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies which houses the Carleton B Moore Meteorite Collection. Join us as we discuss the collection with Director Rhonda Stroud.

The physics behind modern spaceflight explores everything from aerodynamics to thermodynamics with a lot of kinematics playing a role along the way. We welcome on guest Trisha Muro to discuss her new book, "It's (Just) Rocket Science", which explores how we can learn physics through spaceflight missions.

How is this the last episode of the season? July snuck up on us. We'll be back Sept 2 with Season 5! For now, we've got astronomers asking questions; questions like "Did you eat a planet?" and "How did you get there?" Expect the unexpected with a side of rockets.

In this episode we look at the hidden and unexpected geology that may lurk beneath East Antarctica's ice sheet, evidence of past worlds and lost moons that may once have populated our solar system, and evidence of a past Supernova that today may be showering the Earth with material.

Join Pamela for an hour that looks at science and society as she talks with author and cosmologist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. In her new book, "The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, & the Cosmic Dream Boogie" Prescod-Weinstein weaves scientific and lyrical understandings of cosmology, bringing together the language of elders with the math of modern computational models. This combination puts our human state in a greater perspective of time and space that looks beyond western textbooks (Oh, and there is a lot of Star Trek referenced in there too!)

In this episode, we look at the SpaceX SEC initial filing and put its facts and figures in context and ask, can they do it? And can the Earth survive if they succeed?

In this episode, we're going to look at Psyche's success at Mars, the cool 3I-ATLAS science coming from Europa Clipper and JUICE en route to the Jupiter system:, and we also look at JWST's efforts to study exoplanetary atmospheres and the weird weather of other worlds.

Trisha Epp joins us to talking about NASA's collaboration with Freelancer, and how Innovation is now getting crowdsourced. Join in to learn how to launch your own Moonshot! Guest Trisha Epp is a Physicist, Philosopher, and Futurist with a Masters in Geophysics from CalTech and a duel bachelors in physics and philosphy from the University of British Columbia. Since 2023, she's been the Director of Innovation for Freelancer.com's "NASA Tournament Lab". This crowdsourcing innovative invites the public to help solve global problems ranging from maternal morbidity to risk prediction.

Pamela is on the road in this episode as we look at how (and why) astronomers keep finding the improbable, follow the evidence to possible sources of little red dots, study the power of big star clusters to move gas, and examine the merger history of little black holes into bigger ones.

In today's episode, we look at the Voyager mission's exploration beyond our solar system, the organics Mars Curiosity Rover has discovered, the distribution of planets uncovered by the TESS mission, and how JWST measured the surface of a rocky world 50 light years away!

In this episode, we're going to be looking back in time at how Dark Matter may have influenced the formation of Supermassive Blackholes, newly catalogued remnants of left over hydrogen, an ancient star found as part of a class observing project, and tales from the launch pad.

As commercial space becomes a more and more mature industry, we're seeing new needs emerge. Front and the center is the need for someone - or some company - to make it easy for folks in need of a launch to find the right ride share for their satellite, no matter how small. Enter ExoLaunch. In this episode we talk with ExoLaunch CEO Robert Sproles about what their company is accomplishing as the shipping company to the stars (or at least Earth Orbit).