Cosmic Coffee Time with Andrew Prestage
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Cosmic Coffee Time with Andrew Prestage
It's cosmology in a cup! - Cosmic Coffee Time is bite sized podcasts making sense of space, astronomy, life, and the universe, best enjoyed with a coffee. A down to earth look at what's up there, and it's just for you spacefans. Grab a coffee and see where in the universe we go this time. Follow on...
Nedávné epizody
83 epizod
#83 Two black holes collided a billion light years away, we detected it on Earth just this year, and it was the biggest ever recorded.
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A billion light years away, a billion years ago, two black holes spiralled toward each other and collided, we detected its gravit...
#82 Apollo-Soyuz at 50! It’s been a half century since this incredible project. The first international space mission.
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In 1975, an incredible and unlikely partnership resulted in the docking of a NASA Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in...
#81 After centuries of Earth’s rotation slowing down, it’s now speeding up and making the days shorter. But you’d never notice.
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Earth’s days had been getting longer since observations began. Every century, the length of the day would increase by about two m...
#80 Plants on the Moon. An Australian team of biologists and engineers are really sending a mini greenhouse to the Moon.
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An Australian team of botanists and engineers are working on a project that might make or break the future of long term, long dis...
#79 Launched in 1972 for Venus, Kosmos 482 failed to escape Earth orbit — and finally returned in May 2025, after 53 years in space
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Kosmos 482, was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1972 on a mission to Venus, but a technical glitch meant it never made it past Ea...
#78 The Andromeda Galaxy is a cosmic neighbour that’s going to collide with our Milky Way Galaxy. Should we panic?
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No need to panic. Yet! We’ll be fine for the next 4 or 5 billion years, but Andromeda is heading our way. The Andromeda Galaxy wa...
#77 The stranded astronauts are finally home after 9 months in space. Let’s see how Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore got home
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Their planned 8 day visit to the International Space Station was turned on its head when NASA announced their Boeing Starliner ca...
#76 The Apollo program was the high point of the space age. From test flights, to lunar landings and the moon buggies
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After everything learned through Mercury and Gemini culminated in the seventeen Apollo missions. The first ten were all testing a...
#75 NASA's Project Gemini was a spectacular program that bridged the gap from Project Mercury to Apollo. Gemini developed the incredible technology and techniques needed for the lunar program
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Nasa had accomplished spaceflight with Project Mercury but the gap to Apollo was still huge. How do you dock two spacecraft in fl...
#74 At the beginning of the space race, Project Mercury was NASA’s first human crewed spaceflight program, and it was a significant step on the road to the moon. Let’s dive into the vault and check it out.
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Back in the late 1950s, NASA was formed. Its first job was to put together a human crewed spaceflight program and put an astronau...
#73 NASA’s Project Mercury Monument has turned 60! It’s a tribute to America's first attempt at human space flight. The monument has a time capsule that is scheduled to stay sealed for 500 years! Let’s check out what's inside.
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Project Mercury was NASA’s first attempt at human crewed space flight. It sent Alan Shepard into space, and John Glenn into orbit...
#72 The space pioneers from Earth weren’t humans, what? That’s right, long before humans launched into space, there were a whole team of dogs, monkeys, chimps, insects and more, who rode rockets to space. All in the name of research.
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When Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit in 1961 to become the first human in space, he was already 14 years behind the first animals...
#71 Earth has a new moon! For about the next 8 weeks... Asteroid 2024 PT5 will be captured by Earth's gravity before returning to its normal solar orbit.
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Earth has a new moon! well, for about 8 weeks anyway. Asteroid 2024 PT5 has been captured by Earth’s gravity and will be in orbit...
#70 The Boeing Starliner capsule's first crewed test flight has left two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station. What went wrong, and how are they going to get home?
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Boeing’s Starliner space capsule blasted off for its first crewed test flight in early June. Great news right? Turns out, no. Aft...
#69 NASA's Curiosity rover has just made the most incredible discovery of its 12 years on Mars. By running over a rock!
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NASA's Curiosity rover touched down on Mars in August 2012, and it's been exploring the Red Planet all that time. There have been...
#68 A piece of space history was written this month, a sample from the far side of the moon! Let's check out the Chang'e 6 lunar lander and it's history-making mission.
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As I write this, just a couple of days have passed since the Chang'e 6 sample return capsule touched down with its historic paylo...
#67 OSIRIS-REx NASA mission scientist Greg Brennecka brings us up to date on the incredible early findings from the Bennu asteroid sample.
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In September 2023, Greg Brennecka stopped by to preview the return to Earth of the OSIRI-REx asteroid Bennu sample return capsule...
#66 Saturn’s largest moon Titan is an incredible place, but could anything live there? Canadian Astrobiologist Dr Catherine Neish led a study on Titan’s habitability. She joins us for a fascinating chat about what she found.
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Titan. The largest moon in the Saturnian system has been a candidate as a habitable world ever since NASA’s Cassini mission sent...
#65 Spaghettification? This really is a thing. It happens if you get too close to a black hole, but what is it? And how did it get that name?
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Space and cosmology throws up some strange effects sometimes, none stranger than spaghettification. Stephen Hawking coined the te...
#64 The Odysseus Moon Lander. The first private moon lander has touched down, but is it still ok?
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Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines produced the first private mission to land on the moon. The Odysseus lander is...
#63 Space Ethics. How do we navigate the ethical challenges of our journey beyond Earth?
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So we pollute the upper atmosphere with rocket exhaust, is it worth the benefits of communications satellites and GPS? What about...
#62 The iconic Earthrise photograph. Is this the most influential picture from the Apollo era?
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Apollo 8 orbited the Moon in December 1968, seven months before the first moon landing. Even though Apollo 8 never landed on the...
#61 Will Saturn’s rings really disappear from view in 2025? What’s going on with that?
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In the news lately, you might have seen reports that the rings of Saturn are going to disappear from view. What could make that h...
#60 Astrophotography. It's photography with a completely different technique. How do the pros do it, and what can I do with my smartphone?
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Photographing the night sky is a completely different technique to photographing almost anything else. There's hardly any light,...
#59 India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to land in the south polar region of the moon. Let's see why the this incredible spacecraft and rover could be instrumental for the future of human spaceflight.
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India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover have landed in the south polar region of the moon. Som...
#58 Resident space rock expert Greg Brennecka is back to preview the return to Earth of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft with a sample of asteroid Bennu.
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Cosmic Coffee Time’s resident space rock expert and NASA mission scientist Greg Brennecka is back again to preview the return to...
#57 Space junk! Most of the human made objects orbiting Earth aren’t functional. Some of them are incredible objects that have outlasted their mission durations by years. How will these fascinating relics affect future spaceflight?
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Around 80% of the human made objects in orbit are mission left overs. Some of it is real junk, but some of it has an incredible s...
#56 The June solstice, it defines the Arctic circle, the Tropic of Cancer and the Antarctic circle. It has the longest daylight hours in the northern hemisphere, shortest in the southern. But why do those things happen on one day every year?
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Around the 21st of June every year is the June solstice. We might know that it’s the longest or shortest day of the year – depend...
#55 The spectacular Aurora Borealis and its southern partner Aurora Australis. The astronomical light show is such a cool thing to see, but its science was a mystery until the 20th century.
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Ask an eastern Australian about the Southern Aurora, and they might think you’re talking about the old overnight express train be...
#54 NASA’s VERITAS mission to Venus. There’s some good news, there’s some bad news and there’s one incredible discovery hidden for thirty years.
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In 2021, NASA announced the VERITAS mission to Venus, NASA’s first voyage to Earth’s twin planet since the early 90’s. Things hav...
#53 The Hayabusa2 Asteroid Ryugu sample return mission. Space rock expert Greg Brennecka joins us for an incredible up-close look at real life asteroid material.
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Our favourite space rock expert Greg Brennecka joins us to talk about the amazing Hayabusa2 mission, the sample return mission to...
#52 Hundreds of years before GPS there was celestial navigation. Let's see how astronomy and some basic equipment kept old time mariners on course.
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Recently, we took a look at GPS and the space science that makes it work. This time, we're going back to an era when navigators h...
#51 NASA's astronaut class of 1978. We have a compelling chat with Meredith Bagby about this ground breaking group of space shuttle astronauts, and her fascinating book The New Guys
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In 1978, NASA changed the rules around who could be selected as an astronaut. Civilian engineers, doctors and scientists could be...
#50 We all love GPS, but what space science makes it work?
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We all love GPS. The Global Positioning System helps us navigate across country and across town, and it also shows us where our r...
#49 The new Mars meteorite impact. NASA Insight has detected a new meteorite impact on Mars! Meteorite expert Greg Brennecka returns to talk about this breathtaking new discovery.
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Friend of Cosmic Coffee Time and expert meteoriticist Greg Brennecka returns to talk about the breathtaking detection of a new me...
#48 Caroline Herschel - So much more than just the sister of the guy who discovered Uranus
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Caroline Herschel is probably best known as the sister of William Herschel, the person credited with the discovery of planet Uran...
#47 Have you ever heard of moonquakes? Let's take a look at how different they are from earthquakes.
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For a long time we speculated that there might have been earthquakes on the moon, we call them moonquakes. How did we eventually...
#46 Meteorite expert Greg Brennecka returns to the podcast to talk about the Nadir crater. An exciting new discovery that could be a 66 million year old meteorite impact.
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Expert meteoriticist and friend of Cosmic Coffee Time Greg Brennecka returns to talk about an exciting development in the meteori...
#45 NASA's Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon, Titan. A drone is going to fly in the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon. Incredible!
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NASA is planning to fly a drone in the atmosphere of the second largest natural satellite in the solar system, Saturn's Titan. Wh...
#44 About that black hole at the centre of our galaxy... Now we've got a picture! Sagittarius A*
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Scientists have long held a theory that there was a black hole in the centre of our milky way galaxy. This was proved some years...