[On June 19th] we’ll be talking about Astronomy with popular author and super-blogger Phil Plait!
And, as usual, we have a lot of questions.
Like, why is Pluto now not a planet? What’s NASA up to lately? And what’s the deal with the Hubble Telescope? How do we know we really landed on the moon? Is it likely that the world will be destroyed by asteroids, comets, black holes, or supernovae?
Ooh! Like in the Star Trek movie! When Spock is mind-melding with Kirk? He talks about a supernova that “threatened the galaxy”! Can that happen?
Um… the supernova part, not the mind meld.
Ask away on the next Skeptically Speaking, every Friday at 6pm MDT, on CJSR 88.5 FM or live on cjsr.com.
And as always, if you have a question and can’t/don’t want to be live on the show, email us right now and we’ll ask it for you.
Details and podcasts and whatever here.
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I’m usually the first caller into the show each episode, I challenge any listeners to beat me to the phones.
have read a heck of a lot of science since 1962 (was 13), so am entitled to vent my rage.. in favor of science and against censoreship or anti-science. As in Carl Sagan counting out 90% of USA citizens as anti-science. Of course have written sci-fi; am a generalist, but mostly astronomy.
Hoping that Venus Express will debunk … Carl Sagan! Cause no proof has been good for the super-greenhouse since 1978, when Pioneer witnessed lots of sulfur (volcanoes).
Deuterium (HDO) is 120 timmes too prevalent; temperature 350 C higher than Mercury AVERAGE heat; 167 super-volcanoes but how many are active? Moreover, continuous lightning can explain Venus’ slight glow (Patrick Moore)? and whole-atmosphere circum-navigation in 4 days is 60 times swifter than ultra-slow rotation of -243 days. Reduction in atmosphere, hydrogen escapes, radioactive Argon, nothing goes towards Sagan’s theory. All in favor of mine: titanic impact, so powerful it still makes the massive atmosph crazy with ‘ergs’ — a 2000 mile wide moon is only force that can modify rotation of Venus, while it almost totally breaks up the crust. Under that crust is a fantastic amount of GAS. Only way to have a hundred bars of ‘air’.
The great proof of my catastrophe? Venus producing 10 to 15% energy more than it receives from Sun. Or heat decreasin a bit – like 5 degrees a century. Pettit-Nicholson bolometrics can help us, since 1922, to ascertain heat imbalance, maybe. And pardon my English, it’s my second language. Only 99% bilingual. But am sure of my ‘statictics’ and know all the fuss with Sagan, Rasool-de-Berg, Velikovsky, Hoyle and Drake among others. Thanks for lending an ear. Am 60 but lover of all science. Oh! & the real proof on Moon walking: The hated Soviets sent 3 robots (1970-1976) that brought back a pound or so of regolith, glass beads and cinders. The same darned thing all the Apollos came back with. No big rocks of course… P.M.