Description:  A Four Panel Comic.  In The First Two Panels, Me And My Father Are Squinting At The Night

Opportunity discovers fresh crater on Mars

via reddit

Today I learned that the Curiosity sang itself ‘Happy Birthday’ on its year anniversary of being on Mars.

All alone.

Hundreds of thousands of miles from anyone or anything.

Guys I am depressed over robots now.

Ep. 11 Satellites, Spacecraft, and Probes - HD and the Void

An overview of the little machines that taught us about our solar system, from Sputnik to future missions into deep space.

An episode late is better than none at all! Hear about satellites, space probes, orbiters, and landers through history. 

Below the cut are sources, music credits, an awesome infographic showing all the satellites currently in orbit around Earth, a vocab list, and the transcript of this episode. Let me know what you think I should research next by messaging me here, tweeting at me at @HDandtheVoid, or asking me to my face if you know me in real life. And please check out the podcast on iTunes, rate it or review it if you’d like, subscribe, and maybe tell your friends about it if you think they’d like to listen!

(My thoughts on the next episode were space race history, the transit of Venus, or maybe something about the Moon landing. I’m prepping to interview a friend about her graduate-level research into the history of the universe and possibly dark matter, too. Let me know by the 8th and I’ll hopefully have the next podcast up on September 18th!)

Glossary

Clarke Belt - an area of geostationary orbit in Earth’s atmosphere, 35,786 km directly above the equator, where a satellite orbits the Earth at the same speed the Earth is rotating.

geostationary orbit - when an object orbits directly above the equator and appears stationary to observers on Earth’s surface.

geosynchronous orbit - when an object orbits Earth at an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis. From the perspective of an observer on Earth's surface, the object would return to the exact same position in the sky after a period of one day.

gyroscopes - a device consisting of several rings that spin freely around different axes. The rapidly rotating wheel has a large moment of inertia and therefore resists change from the plane in which it is rotated. Large gyroscopes allow for steady navigation of ships, submarines, and space ships. See examples in the link.

heliosheath - the outer region of the heliosphere. It is just beyond termination shock, the point where solar wind abruptly slows down and becomes denser and hotter as it presses outward against the approaching wind in interstellar space.

heliosphere - a huge wind sock-shaped bubble that extends beyond Pluto’s orbit and contains our solar system, solar wind, and the entire solar magnetic field.

lander - a spacecraft launched with the intent to land it, unharmed and fully functioning, on the surface of an object that is astronomical in nature. It is aimed at a specific target that astronomers want to learn more about and investigates the object at the surface level. It can be manned or unmanned.

orbiter - an unmanned spacecraft launched with the intent to bring it into orbit around a larger body in order to study that body. It is similar to a satellite but does not orbit Earth.

probe - an unmanned machine sent into space to collect data. It is aimed at a specific target that astronomers want to learn more about.

spacecraft - a pilot-able vehicle used for traveling in space. It can be manned or unmanned.

Van Allen Belts - belts of radiation in Earth’s atmosphere.

Transcript

Sources

Timeline of space exploration to 2013 via the National Archives

Timeline of NASA, the space shuttle, and near-Earth space flights

Space exploration timeline via Sea and Sky

Gyroscope definition via USC

Infographic on satellites launched 1950-1978 via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

List of satellites via Wikipedia

A history of Sputnik via an excerpt from Paul Dickson’s book Sputnik: The Shock of the Century on PBS

“Instead of being concerned with winning the first round of the space race, Eisenhower and his National Security Council were much more interested in launching surveillance satellites that could tell American intelligence where every Soviet missile was located.”

Explorer 1 overview via NASA

Vanguard 1 overview via NASA

SCORE overview via the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Pioneer lunar mission overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Various probe/satellite mission overviews via NASA

Australian WRESAT mission via Australia’s Department of Defence

Pioneer expeditions via NASA

Mariner 10 mission overview via NASA

Magellan mission overview via NASA

Synthetic aperture radar overview via radartutorial.edu

MESSENGER mission overview via JHU Applied Physics Lab

Mariner missions to Venus overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Mariner missions to Mars overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

“The final Mariner to Mars, however, was the lab’s greatest planetary success to date.”

Mariner 9 via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Viking mission overview via NASA

Pathfinder/Sojourner mission overview via NASA

Opportunity mission overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Spirit mission overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Curiosity rover via NASA

Pioneer 10 mission overview via NASA

Pioneer 11 mission overview via NASA

Juno mission overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Cassini-Huygens mission overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Voyager mission overview via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

“The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.”

Voyager mission trackers via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Heliosphere definition via NASA

Heliosheath definition via NASA

New Horizons mission overview via NASA

Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory via NASA

Chandra X-Ray Observatory via NASA

Spitzer Space Telescope via CalTech

Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) via NASA

International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) via NASA

International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) via ESA

Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) via NASA

Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA, formerly ASTRO-D) via NASA archives

Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) via JHU

Active space probe/observatory missions via NASA

Chandrayaan-1 via the CalTech Jet Propulsion Lab

Hayabusa 2 mission overview via NASA

Hayabusa-2’s twitter account

A map of every active satellite orbiting Earth via Quartz

Union of Concerned Scientists Satellite Database

Cul-de-Sac comic by Richard Thompson

“Well, there’s dust everywhere, and there’s all kinds of trash—food wrappers and broken parts of things and gloves and shoes. And gas giants and black holes and rocks and dirt. And there’s old TV shows and strange creatures and there’s unidentifiable stuff that no one can explain. And it’s expanding all the time. Toss in a few trillion stuffed toys and it’d be just like your room.”

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: ‘Satellite’ by Guster off their album Ganging Up On The Sun

Filler Music: ‘Sunn’ by Radical Face off his album Sunn Moonn Eclippse. Check out the video in the album link, it’s amazing.

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught.

This Black Eye Galaxy that got its name from the band of light absorbing dust appearing in front of the star systems bright center in the Hubble space telescope.

via reddit

I talked about Proxima Centauri last week but didn't realize it has a planet!

It’s starry scholastic month! Planet X will start it off with his first lesson: Proxima B!

http://www.space.com/33845-why-proxima-b-exoplanet-hard-to-find.html

The Cassini probe took a picture of Saturn that includes Earth in it!

Cassini has actually taken a ton of cool photos of Saturn if you want to check those out in the wake of last week’s planets podcast. 

The orbit of Jupiter protects the Earth from asteroids.

One-year countdown to solar eclipse, August 21, 2017: path of totality overlaid on U.S. population density and interstate map.

China's First Lunar Rover Live-Blogged Its Own Death

The Yutu rover suffered a mysterious “abnormality” over the weekend. And the robot’s microblogged death note may make you cry.

oh gosh!