91.5 KRCC's Looking Up

This week on Looking Up Bruce Bookout tells us a bit about the naming process for asteroids. During another 80's musical interlude, I wondered how asteroids are named. Asteroids are those left-over parts of the cloud that formed our solar system. These planetesimals didn't quite make it to a full planet and literally are our debris field among the planets. There are more than 794,000 known minor planets known.

Mars does a disappearing act in the early morning sky on February 18. But not to worry, it's just hiding behind the moon, as Hal explains on this week's Looking Up. We’ve talked before about how the planets revolve around the Sun in pretty much a flat plane that is roughly circular. And remember too that the moons going around the planets in the Solar System are also going around in that same basic plane. That means that every now and then, from a particular observer’s point of view, planets...

This week on Looking up Hal informs us about a star named Porrima. But is it one star or two? High in the east in the Colorado night sky is the very interesting star Porrima. Or rather, I should say stars, because there are actually two stars orbiting each other, only 38 ly away. Or maybe I should just say “star” because whether you see one or two stars through a telescope depends on what year it is.

This week on Looking Up Hal grabs a celestial lion by the tail. One of my favorite constellations is Leo the Lion, now rising in the east after sunset. Leo has lots of interesting stars, and it also actually looks a bit like what it is supposed to be, a lion.

This week on Looking Up Bruce Bookout takes on a listener question. One of our listeners, Scott K., asked a great question that is the basis of how we know, what we know about the universe. His question is: “How do astronomers determine things such as the existence of water and/or the estimated temperature on a planet that is light years away?”

This week on Looking Up Hal doubles our pleasure and doubles our fun by revealing some of the secrets of the Gemini Twins. Did you ever wish you had a twin brother or sister? Someone to be with and to talk to all the time? How about to spend all eternity with in the Colorado night sky? If you said yes to the latter, you may well be talking about the wonderful constellation of Gemini soaring in the Colorado night sky now through May.

This week's Looking Up has a certain flow to it as Hal talks about the river constellation. There are lots of constellations up in the Colorado night sky all year round, with 88 total constellations all told. Today I want to tell you about one you may never have heard of, but is low in the Colorado sky right now, the river constellation, formally known as Eridanus.

Fortunately, our very own star won't be falling down from the sky anytime soon. However, we are the closest to ol' Sol right now than at any other point of our yearly path around the sun, as we learn on Looking Up this week. Well, we are now in the deep, dark, days of winter. The holidays are behind us, and we’re still about a month away from having a groundhog predict when Spring will arrive. And so, with the cold winter winds blowing past you, let me ask, were you a bit warmer yesterday?

This week on Looking Up Hal gets around to telling us about an asterism visible in the night sky this time of year - the Winter Circle. If you are a weather wimp, like I am, you prefer warm weather. That point of view is a bit unfortunate for astronomers, because the winter night sky seen here in Colorado is in many ways far more beautiful and interesting than what we see when it’s warm outside.

Yes, the darkest days are still ahead but spring can't be too far behind as we learn on Looking Up this week. We’ve talked before about how the Earth is tilted on its axis, and that tilt gives us seasons and days of varying length, in terms of how many hours of Sun and darkness we have.

This week on Looking Up Hal informs us about a beautiful cosmic conjunction in our evening sky. There are things in our Colorado night sky that are really interesting, and there are things that are really beautiful to look at, and there are some things that are both. For the next few days, we get both!

This week on Looking Up Hal speaks of the star Furud, which means "the solitary one". I’m sometimes asked how I pick what objects in the Colorado night sky to talk about. Sometimes I pick things that are beautiful and other times I pick things that are inherently interesting, and sometimes it’s both. And then there is today’s topic, the star Furud.

This week on Looking Up Bruce Bookout sets his sights on the Earth's precession. During a recent 80’s musical flashback, I wondered about a fundamental part of our movement in the universe. It is well understood that our spherical earth spins on its axis providing the basic unit of time defined as a day. That spin establishes an axis of rotation that we further define by having poles on the surface of the earth; in the north and south. And like a top spinning in space, the Earth wobbles, or...

This week on Looking Up we are California Nebula dreamin'. We humans like to find order in chaos, and we have a trait, called Pareidolia, which leads us to try to see patterns in, well, lots of things. That’s why we think we see a man in the Moon, and why some folks thought they saw a face on Mars.

This week Looking Up reaches a milestone episode. For some reason that I’m sure sociologists and anthropologists fully understand, humans tend to like things in nice round numbers, or at least I do. And so, the topic of this week’s episode of Looking Up is, well, Looking Up, as we’ve reached the 250 th edition of our little astronomy show.

The planet Mercury will transit the sun on November 11th, and you're invited to the party! Today I want to invite you to a very special party here at KRCC, coming up a week from today. It’s a very special event that rarely happens, and if you miss this one, you’ll have to wait years to see it again. I’m talking about the transit of the planet Mercury across the face of the Sun!

Bruce Bookout steers this week's episode of Looking Up and guides us to the constellation of Aquarius. Constellations are fickle things. Defining what shape you see and what that means is all derivative of your culture and what that pattern appears to be. We call this pareidolia; the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds or seeing faces on Mars.

This week on Looking Up Hal kneels at the throne of Cassiopeia in order to pay homage to the star Ruchbah. Today I’d like to tell you about an interesting star, high in the Colorado night sky right now, the star Ruchbah. Ruchbah is the 4 th brightest star in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia. In Arabic, Ruchbah means “the knee” which makes sense, given that Cassiopeia is supposed to be a queen sitting on her throne.

This week on Looking Up Hal goes to Plan B, which is always good to have if you're heading into outer space. I don’t know about you, but I like to have backups for things in my life. I carry an extra pen, and I like to have a backup plan if I’m going out. So, it seems reasonable that we have a backup north star, or pole star.

This week on Looking Up we go on a planet hunt with Hal. How many of the 8 planets can you see? (sorry, Pluto fans, there are 8). I admit, it is a bit of a trick question. But the month of October is an especially great month for planet watching, in which you can see SIX of the 8 planets, though you’ll need a telescope to see some of them.