Weekly Space Hangout - Dr. Scott Bellamy, Mission Manager for DART
Release Date: 01/14/2022
UNAWE Space Scoop - The Curious Case of the Missing Planets Around Gas and Dust Rings
The 365 Days of Astronomy
Most if not all newly formed stars have protoplanetary disks of gas & dust circling around them. If you go to Wikipedia’s page on protoplanetary disks: … you’ll see the famous 2014 image of HL Tauri. I remember the day it was made public. I said to myself “There it is! Planets have to be forming in the gaps.” There are at least 7 gaps there, so it’s going to be a nice solar system eventually. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: and donate as much as you can! Share the...
info_outline
Cheap Astronomy - Dear CA #82: Clarifications
The 365 Days of Astronomy
That IS the question. - Do we have the ability to measure the exact amount of heat arriving at the Earth from the Sun? Here on Earth, we often talk about light as being what we can see and heat as being what we can feel. But, really any wavelength of electromagnetic radiation can raise the temperature of something that absorbs it. - If we want a lunar orbiting space station, couldn’t we just send the ISS there? Well we could, but whether it would work is another question. There’s a fundamental principle that things are built-for-purpose. We've added a new way to donate...
info_outline
Astronomy Cast Ep. 643: Sagittarius A*
The 365 Days of Astronomy
All the waiting is over, we've finally seen the image of the event horizon from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Different shaped blobs! And a black circle in the middle. What are we looking at? Today we're going to explain the picture, and what's next for the Event Horizon Telescope. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you!...
info_outline
Travelers in the Night Eps. 601 & 602: Phaeton’s Child & Solar Flares
The 365 Days of Astronomy
Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006. Today's 2 topics: - Phaethon and asteroid 2005 UD are closely related. - The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory or SDO has been keeping a 24/7 eye on the Sun for past 10 years. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! ...
info_outline
Deep Astronomy - After the Voyager Probes: What NASA's Next Interstellar Mission May Look Like
The 365 Days of Astronomy
NASA is getting ready to decide on whether to embark on its next interstellar mission. It will span over 50 years and travel 1000 AU. The latest report shows a possible launch in the 2030's if NASA gives the go-ahead. Let's meet and talk about this really cool mission! Sources used: We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you!...
info_outline
Weekly Space Hangout - Bringing Exoplanets Into Focus, Bit By Bit, With Alex Madurowicz
The 365 Days of Astronomy
Host: Fraser Cain ( )Special Guest: Gravitational lensing has been used to discover far-distant galaxies that are obstructed from view thanks to the inconvenient positioning of astronomical interlopers. Recently, researchers have begun asking if this same lensing technique could be adapted to use the gravity of OUR SUN to suss out never-before seen details of the more than 5000 exoplanets discovered to date. It is thought that by aligning the sun in a straight line between a space-based telescope and an exoplanet, exoplanet images could be obtained. But this would require a lot of fuel and...
info_outline
Actual Astronomy - All About Binocular Astronomy
The 365 Days of Astronomy
Hosted by Chris Beckett & Shane Ludtke, two amateur astronomers in Saskatchewan. Binoculars are extremely useful astronomical tools, and are quite portable, so you never have to be without them handy! There’s an old saying among us amateur astronomers: “Your best telescope is the one that you use.” And the one you use is the one that’s easy to set up or schlep about, and that’s usually a pair of binocs. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: and donate as much as you can! Share the...
info_outline
Awesome Astronomy - May Part 2
The 365 Days of Astronomy
Paul Hill, Ralph Wilkins and Dr. Jenifer “Dr. Dust” Millard host. Damien Phillips, John Wildridge and Dustin Ruoff produce. The Discussion: Getting back in the studio. Watch us recording in our behind the scenes 10th Anniversary show. Inspiring children to think about careers in science. Listener’s emails about swearing in the podcast and… The News: Our favourite Welsh satellite space company, Space Forge. Rocket Lab’s attempt to catch a falling rocket booster with a helicopter. More JWST updates! Jeff Bezos buys every western rocket (that’s not owned by Musk) for...
info_outline
Ask A Spaceman - Ep. 176: Why Is Gravity So Weak?
The 365 Days of Astronomy
How did gravity get so ridiculously weak? Could it be related to extra dimensions? What does string theory and the concept of the “bulk” have to do with it? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman! Support the show: All episodes: Follow on Twitter: Like on Facebook: Watch on YouTube: Read a book: Go on an adventure: Keep those questions about space, science, astronomy, astrophysics, physics, and cosmology coming to #AskASpaceman for COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF TIME AND SPACE! Big thanks to my top Patreon supporters this month: Justin G, Chris L,...
info_outline
Astronomy Cast Ep. 642: Is the Sun... Normal?
The 365 Days of Astronomy
We've always assumed that we lived in a perfectly normal star system with a normal star and normal planets. It's all... normal. But with our modern understanding of billions of stars, just how normal is our Sun, anyway? We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee...
info_outlineHost: Fraser Cain ( @fcain )
Special Guest: This week we are excited to welcome Dr. Scott Bellamy to the WSH. Scott is the Mission Manager for NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission which successfully launched in the early morning hours from Vandenberg atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on November 24, 2021.
Scott Bellamy is one of the Mission Managers in the Planetary Missions Program Office (PMPO) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, AL. Presently, Scott is responsible for day-to-day oversight of the Europa Clipper flagship mission, as well as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission.
DART's mission is to conduct a real-life experiment in changing an asteroid’s orbit through kinetic impact. In late September 2022, DART will intercept the moonlet (i.e., Dimorphos,) of the asteroid Didymos — a binary system — and slow Dimorphos’ orbit by up to 10 minutes. DART is the first-ever mission of this type and is sponsored by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
Europa Clipper, on the other hand, will launch in October 2024 to perform a detailed exploration of Jupiter’s ocean-world moon, Europa. This mission will provide priceless information on the thickness and composition of the ice shell to possibly enable a future mission to land a probe on Europa and search for microbial life.
Prior to these missions, Scott was simultaneously the Mission Manager for another project that we at CosmoQuest hold near-and-dear to our hearts, the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission to obtain and return the first-ever United States asteroid sample; the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster–Commercial (NEXT-C) project providing DART’s primary propulsion; and the Near Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor) mission to provide the capability for detecting low-observable asteroids.
Scott originally came to Marshall Space Flight Ccenter as the Air Force Liaison Office in 2008 and afterwards retired with over 25 years of service. He then served in several roles, including being a member of the very small team that shaped what later became the Space Launch System (SLS), before joining the Planetary Missions Program Office in 2013.
Regular Guests:
Ashley Walker ( https://www.blackinastro.com/ @That_Astro_Chic )
Dave Dickinson ( http://astroguyz.com/ & @Astroguyz )
Pam Hoffman ( http://spacer.pamhoffman.com/ & http://everydayspacer.com/ & @EverydaySpacer )
This week's stories:
- Diamond rain in the ice giants.
- James Webb. Again.
- Everything to see in the night sky in the next month.
- A strange mystery at Jupiter. SOLVED!
- An interstellar probe proposal.
We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.
Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can!
Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!
Every bit helps! Thank you!
------------------------------------
Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!
http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.
Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)
------------------------------------
The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu
Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].