Orbital Path

Almost two years ago, Orbital Path launched with an episode on our fascination with space aliens. But what’s really going on out there on KIC8462852?


Physicists are coming to terms with a strange new concept of Time — strange and new, perhaps, to many western minds. But it’s a notion that feels at home in the mountain kingdom of Bhutan.

It’s time we get over out three-dimensional selves. 
Brian Greene — world renowned astrophysicist, New York Times bestselling author, NOVA host, and serial Colbert guest — explains why.

Michelle and NASA astronomer Andrew Booth retreat to the comfort of the hot tub — and Andrew reveals one of his deepest fears: Mathematics.

People have dreamed of making this trip for millennia. Next year NASA launches the first ever voyage to the sun.

NASA astronomer Andrew Booth joins Michelle in the hot tub to drink a glass of chardonnay, and talk weird science.

There was a time before planets and suns. A time before oxygen. You could say there was time, even, before what we think of as light. Back in 1989, the Big Bang theory was still in question. But that year, a NASA team led by cosmologist John Mather launched a mission to probe the earliest moments of the universe. Mather won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). This work dramatically confirmed the Big Bang theory — and, as part of it, Mather and his team took a picture of the very first light escaping into our universe. In this episode, Dr. Thaller visits Mather to talk about these discoveries, which transformed scientific understanding of the universe. We also hear about Mather’s current project: an orbiting space telescope twice the size of the Hubble. It promises to capture the first light of galaxies and stars, and even distant planets not unlike our own.

NASA is relying on hi-tech lasers — and some vintage U.S. Navy hand-me-downs — to learn about the polar regions of a remarkable, watery planet. It's located in the Orion spur of our galaxy. NASA scientists have detected mountain ranges completely under ice. But the remaining mysteries of the ice here are profound, and what the science tells us could have dramatic impact on human life. In this episode, Dr. Thaller visits with two key members of NASA's IceBridge mission — Christy Hansen, Airborne Sciences Manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center, and Joe MacGregor, Deputy Project Scientist for Operation IceBridge.

The big one is coming! That is, the total solar eclipse of Aug. 21. Dr. Thaller shares her wisdom on how best to view the eclipse and its larger implications for science.

Recently, we’ve started to get the first images back from Juno, which is on a mission to Jupiter. Host Dr. Michelle Thaller walks us through the results so far and how you can participate in what Juno discovers next.

Dr. Michelle Thaller visits the NASA lab that discovered that meteorites contain some of the very same chemical elements that we contain. Then, Michelle talks to a Vatican planetary scientist about how science and religion can meet on the topic of life beyond Earth.

When the Cassini spacecraft blasted into space on October 15, 1997, even the most optimistic scientists would have had a hard time predicting the mission’s success. Dr. Michelle Thaller speaks with the Cassini mission’s Project Scientist Linda Spilker, as well as Julie Webster, a longtime Cassini engineer and a manager for spacecraft operations. One of Cassini’s biggest legacies will be how she gave a much clearer picture of Saturn’s 62 moons, including two worlds that scientists now think could potentially host life. Nearly twenty years later, Cassini will crash-land into Saturn’s atmosphere this September, ending a rich chapter in exploration and discovery of our own solar system.

Nearly 100 years after Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves — huge undulations in the fabric of space-time itself — in 2015, detectors here on Earth finally picked up the signal of these massive disturbances. Dr. Michelle Thaller pulls apart the power and mystery of gravitational waves, and talks with Dr. Janna Levin, theoretical astrophysicist and author of the book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs From Outer Space.

Listeners, you requested more episodes, so we present the first of our mini episodes. They’ll arrive two weeks after each monthly regular episode, and include Michelle Thaller’s insight on the latest space news. Enjoy episode one: NASA’s NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) mission will launch in May. Michelle explains the NICER mission’s many applications, including the possibility of using neutron stars as intergalactic global positioning systems.

Space science can help track what's happening on Earth. In this podcast episode, Orbital Path talks landslides and the satellites that monitor them for the third anniversary of the deadliest landslide in US history. On March 22, 2014 a 650-foot hillside collapsed and covered the community of Oso, Washington. Forty-three people died. Hear from scientists working to investigate this landslide and predict future ones, as well as a woman who witnessed the landslide.