A Visitor From the Stars: ‘Oumuamua

The first confirmed interstellar visitor to our solar system is a needle-shaped asteroid given the Hawaiian name ‘Oumuamua. Karen Meech leads the team that is learning as much about it as possible before it leaves our neighborhood, never to return. Elon Musk has decided on the payload the first Falcon Heavy rocket will carry into space. It’s Musk’s electric sports car, says Bill Nye. The Science Guy talks with Mat Kaplan about several other space stories in the news. India’s next mission to the moon is simply amazing, as Emily Lakdawalla reports. The perfect gift for any young space explorer is one of the prizes in this week’s What’s Up space trivia contest.

Related Links:

• Pan-STARRS
• University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy ‘Oumuamua Press Release
• New York Times Turning Points Magazine—Bill Nye: The Cosmos is Calling. What Do We Say?
• India's Chandrayaan-2 mission preparing for March 2018 launch
• Chop Shop Planetary Society Store

This week's prizes are a Chop Shop-designed Planetary Society t-shirt and a 200-point iTelescope.net astronomy account.

This week's question:

How many spacecraft have either flown by or orbited Jupiter?

To submit your answer:

Complete the contest entry form at http://planetary.org/radiocontest or write to us at [email protected] no later than Wednesday, December 13th at 8am Pacific Time. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Last week's question:

Who was the first Planetary Radio guest on November 25, 2002?

Answer:

The answer will be revealed next week.

Question from the week before:

Who first proposed the theoretical existence of neutron stars?

Answer:

Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky were the first to propose the theoretical existence of neutron stars.