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 Twitter @CosmicCoffTime
Episodes
73 episodes
#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.
Project Mercury was NASA’s first attempt at human crewed space flight. It sent Alan Shepard into space, and John Glenn into orbit, among four other landmark flights over 5 years. By 1963 it was done, and NASA was ready to launch Gemini, its nex...
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Season 1
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Episode 73
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6:02
#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.
When Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit in 1961 to become the first human in space, he was already 14 years behind the first animals from Earth. The fruit flies that were flew to space in 1947 were just the first of many different animals in the d...
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Season 1
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Episode 72
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9:21
#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.
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 until late November 2024. This is really unusual and there have only been a few confirmed mini moons in the past. ...
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6:21
#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?
Boeing’s Starliner space capsule blasted off for its first crewed test flight in early June. Great news right? Turns out, no. After arriving at the International Space Station, some technical problems meant that it couldn’t be used to take its ...
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Season 1
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Episode 70
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7:05
#69 NASA's Curiosity rover has just made the most incredible discovery of its 12 years on Mars. By running over a rock!
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 some amazing discoveries and it's travelled over 30km but it has just made the most scientifically significant dis...
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Season 1
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Episode 69
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7:42
#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.
As I write this, just a couple of days have passed since the Chang'e 6 sample return capsule touched down with its historic payload. The first sample of rock and soil from the far side of the moon touched down on Earth. This has the potential t...
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Season 1
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Episode 68
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7:14
#67 OSIRIS-REx NASA mission scientist Greg Brennecka brings us up to date on the incredible early findings from the Bennu asteroid sample.
In September 2023, Greg Brennecka stopped by to preview the return to Earth of the OSIRI-REx asteroid Bennu sample return capsule. The sample landed safely and the mission scientists like Greg Brennecka have started their analysis. Some of our ...
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Season 1
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Episode 67
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18:05
#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.
Titan. The largest moon in the Saturnian system has been a candidate as a habitable world ever since NASA’s Cassini mission sent back the first radar images of its surface in 2004. Astrobiologist Dr. Catherine Neish of Western University in Can...
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Season 1
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Episode 66
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23:46
#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?
Space and cosmology throws up some strange effects sometimes, none stranger than spaghettification. Stephen Hawking coined the term for the stretching out that happens when you get close to a black hole. Let's take a look at what it really is, ...
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Season 1
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Episode 65
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6:46
#64 The Odysseus Moon Lander. The first private moon lander has touched down, but is it still ok?
Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines produced the first private mission to land on the moon. The Odysseus lander is just 300 km from the lunar south pole, investigating water ice and demonstrating the capabilities of NASA’s Com...
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Season 1
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Episode 64
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6:19
#63 Space Ethics. How do we navigate the ethical challenges of our journey beyond Earth?
So we pollute the upper atmosphere with rocket exhaust, is it worth the benefits of communications satellites and GPS? What about space junk? the garbage of earth orbit. Or mining asteroids? who owns the asteroids, can should they be able to se...
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Season 1
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Episode 63
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5:56
#62 The iconic Earthrise photograph. Is this the most influential picture from the Apollo era?
Apollo 8 orbited the Moon in December 1968, seven months before the first moon landing. Even though Apollo 8 never landed on the Moon, it did produce one of the most iconic photographs of the Apollo program, the Earthrise photograph. Astronaut ...
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Season 1
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Episode 62
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5:55
#61 Will Saturn’s rings really disappear from view in 2025? What’s going on with that?
In the news lately, you might have seen reports that the rings of Saturn are going to disappear from view. What could make that happen? And will they come back? Let’s check out what’s going on with the most spectacular feature in our solar s...
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Season 1
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Episode 61
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5:55
#60 Astrophotography. It's photography with a completely different technique. How do the pros do it, and what can I do with my smartphone?
Photographing the night sky is a completely different technique to photographing almost anything else. There's hardly any light, the objects are tiny and they move! It's really difficult. We've all given it a go and been disappointed, but how d...
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Season 1
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Episode 60
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6:17
#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.
India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover have landed in the south polar region of the moon. Some craters in this region are permanently shaded from the blazing sun and can have water ice at the base of these lu...
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Season 1
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Episode 59
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6:54
#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.
Cosmic Coffee Time’s resident space rock expert and NASA mission scientist Greg Brennecka is back again to preview the return to Earth of NASA’s incredible OSIRIS-REx mission. OSIRIS-REx is coming to the end of an epic seven year journey to col...
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Season 1
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Episode 58
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18:52
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#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?
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 story to tell. What relics from the early space age are held in safe storage in orbit? How does the accumulation of ...
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Season 1
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Episode 57
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8:07
#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?
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 – depending on which hemisphere you’re in, but why does that happen? And we know of the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of ...
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Season 1
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Episode 56
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6:35
#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.
Ask an eastern Australian about the Southern Aurora, and they might think you’re talking about the old overnight express train between Sydney and Melbourne. But! The train was named after the spectacular light show in the southern sky. The Auro...
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Season 1
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Episode 55
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5:55
#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.
In 2021, NASA announced the VERITAS mission to Venus, NASA’s first voyage to Earth’s twin planet since the early 90’s. Things haven’t gone completely to plan for this project, but one thing VERITAS has already accomplished, it got scientists re...
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Season 1
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Episode 54
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6:57
#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.
Our favourite space rock expert Greg Brennecka joins us to talk about the amazing Hayabusa2 mission, the sample return mission to asteroid Ryugu by Japanese space agency JAXA. Greg and his colleagues have been analysing the sample and some of t...
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Season 1
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Episode 53
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16:03
#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.
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 had nothing but their equipment and the stars to tell them where they were, even on the open ocean.Celestial nav...
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Season 1
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Episode 52
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6:08
#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
In 1978, NASA changed the rules around who could be selected as an astronaut. Civilian engineers, doctors and scientists could be selected to fly on the then brand new space shuttle. Meredith Bagby joins us to talk about this group, whose socia...
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Season 1
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Episode 51
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51:05
#50 We all love GPS, but what space science makes it work?
We all love GPS. The Global Positioning System helps us navigate across country and across town, and it also shows us where our rideshare car is, or how far away our food delivery driver is. Take a look at what space science makes it work, and ...
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Season 1
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Episode 50
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7:05
#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.
Friend of Cosmic Coffee Time and expert meteoriticist Greg Brennecka returns to talk about the breathtaking detection of a new meteorite impact on Mars. Greg tells us how the impact was detected, and then confirmed with detailed imagery from Ma...
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Season 1
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Episode 49
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10:21