Episode 3 of the To the moon and beyond podcast takes a look at who some of the key players are in the 21st century space race and what they are competing for.
It’s the case of the missing ‘a.’
Nick Lehr/The Conversation via NASA
Armstrong always insisted that he said, ‘That’s one small step for a man.’ Yet everyone omits the ‘a’ when they repeat the quote. A linguist tries to get to the bottom of what happened.
Conspiracy theorists claim NASA used the Apollo special camera to stage the moon landings in a studio and then slowed down the footage to make it look like there was less gravity.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission.
Neil Armstrong/NASA
The first episode of a brand new podcast series to mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landings looks back at what going to the moon taught us and why we stopped sending people there.
Planets form from a disc of dust orbiting a star.
Mopic/Shutterstock.com
It is always exciting to discover new planets beyond our Solar System. Now a planetary astrophysicist is using a star’s chemistry to predict which ones are likely to host giant planets.
A nuclear reaction is under way inside the Sun.
Emily Nunell/The Conversation CC-NY-BD
It’s true that here on Earth, if you want to burn something you need oxygen. But the Sun is different. It is not burning with the same kind of flame you would have on Earth if you burned a candle.
Geminid meteors shower downward on a December night in a remote part of Virginia.
Genevieve de Messieres/Shutterstock.com
Every day about 50 tons of rocks from space fall on Earth. An examination of these meteorites has inspired a new theory about how exactly these rocks formed.
Portrait of Ada Lovelace – mathematician and poet.
Alfred Edward Chalon/Wikipedia
How do you train space engineers? You enable college students to build mini satellites, called CubeSats, launch them into space and help them collect the data.
Planetary scientists believe that Earth was formed by the conglomeration of meteorites and comets – which also brought water.
Festa/SHutterstock.com
The source of water on Earth, the Moon and planets in our solar system is hotly debated. Some in the planetary science community argued that it came from asteroids and comets. Now they have proof.
Are space twin Scott and Earth twin Mark no longer identical?
Robert Markowitz/NASA
Before sending humans to Mars or the moon, scientists need to understand what long-term space living does to the human body. Now results are coming in from the Kelly brothers in the TWINS Study,
The Saturn V rocket, here launching SkyLab, also sent Apollo 11 to the moon.
NASA
Designing for women goes beyond just making gear in a size small. By not tailoring equipment and uniforms for women and other underserved people, we prevent them from reaching their full potential.
Methane detected at Mars’ Gale Crater (the centre picture).
Kevin Gill/Flickr
For the first time, an instrument orbiting Mars and a rover on the surface have detected methane simultaneously – raising hopes for finding life on the red planet.
Minutes after launching the Falcon Heavy rocket, SpaceX was livestreaming footage from the Tesla Roadster it released into space.
SpaceX
SpaceX’s advances in space technology have reduced barriers to space and changed the direction of American space policy, but it is not without its challenges.
Rovers including ‘Rosalind Franklin’ will pick up where Opportunity left off – trying to answer the question of whether there is, or ever has been, life on Mars.
Zambezi river delta, snapped by Landsat 8 in March 2018.
NASA
Satellites hundreds of miles overheard are helping scientists to predict drought, track floods and see how climate change is changing access to water resources.