Astronomy

Our series on Universe weirdness marches on. This week we take a look at the habitable zone, and how things aren’t as simple as we thought.

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Show Notes

• Habitable Zones of Different Stars (old NASA article)
• What is the Habitable Zone? (Guide to Space 2015)
• The Habitable Zone (Penn State Astronomy 801 Class notes 2018)
• Circumstellar habitable zone (Wikipedia)
• Why just being in the habitable zone doesn’t make exoplanets livable (Science News 2019)
• What is Tidal Locking? (Guide to Space 2015)
• Tidal locking (Wikipedia)
• Methane on Titan (Wikipedia)
• The Mystery of Methane on Mars and Titan (Scientific American 2009)
• Methane-Filled Lakes on Titan are “Surprisingly Deep” (Universe Today 2019)
• Are there geysers on Europa? (EarthSky 2018)
• Saturn Moon Enceladus Blasts Rings with Geysers in Gorgeous Cassini Photo (Space.com 2018)
• On Icy Pluto, Volcanoes May Spout Liquid Water (Space.com 2019)
• Pluto Was Supposed to Be Fully Frozen – But It Looks Like It Has Liquid Oceans (Science Alert 2019)
• The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe (press release)
• Life on Mars (Hypotheses) (Wikipedia)

Transcript

Download MP3| Download Raw Show with Q&A| Show Notes | Jump to Transcript or Download

From memorious clothing to wasteless habitats, the reality of living on Mars is brought home at London's Design Museum with genuine optimism

From memorious clothing to wasteless habitats, the reality of living on Mars is brought home at London's Design Museum with genuine optimism

On July 29, 2011 the Cassini spacecraft's

How do binary stars form?

Have you contemplated your home galaxy lately?

What does the Andromeda galaxy really look like?

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do.

In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013

After the 2017 detecton of 1I/'Oumuamua,

NASA released a report Friday with recommendations from the Planetary Protection Independent Review Board (PPIRB) the agency established in response to a recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report and a recommendation from the NASA Advisory Council.

October's Orionid meteor shower is one of the most reliable of the annual displays of "shooting stars." Unfortunately, this year, the Orionids are going to face a handicap.

The Milky Way glistens above four antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a telescope array in northern Chile.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir ventured outside the International Space Station early this morning (Oct. 18) to embark on the first spacewalk in history to be conducted entirely by women.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir have made history conducting the first all-female spacewalk, and did so using a spacesuit that shares a connection to Kathryn Sullivan, the first U.S. woman to walk in space 35 years ago this month.

Here's a run-through of the trailblazing women who achieved major firsts in space.

Today spacewalks are an almost routine part of space exploration but the very first spacewalk by Alexei Leonov, who died last week at 85, was anything but straightforward.

An AI was trained on thousands of ancient Greek engravings to fill the gaps where there are missing or damaged words

An AI was trained on thousands of ancient Greek engravings to fill the gaps where there are missing or damaged words

On Oct. 18, 1963, a cat went to space! Félicette was a French "catstronaut" who became the first and only feline to fly to space. See how it happened in our On This Day in Space video series!