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Planetary Radio • Dec 29, 2015

2015: A Great Year for Space Exploration

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On This Episode

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Casey Dreier

Chief of Space Policy for The Planetary Society

20170726 Twitteravatar Isabel Lawrence 50 Hi Res

Our year-end review features the “best of 2015” lists from Jason Davis, Casey Dreier, Emily Lakdawalla and Bill Nye the Science Guy. What’s Up offers planets, a comet, and a nice prize package for the space trivia contest.

Space highlights of 2015
Space highlights of 2015 From left to right: 1. Dawn's view of dwarf planet Ceres and its now less mysterious "bright spots," found to likely be composed of salts. 2. SpaceX returned its Falcon 9 rocket to flight with flair, successfully deploying 11 communications satellites after returning the rocket's first stage to Cape Canaveral for an upright landing. 3. Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko shows off its dramatic jets for the Rosetta mission, which is still actively monitoring this small but active body. 4. The Planetary Society's LightSail had a successful test flight earlier this year. 5. New Horizons stole the show in 2015 by returning stunning images of Pluto, revealing a beautiful and geologically complex world to human eyes for the first time.Image: Ceres: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / Daniel Macháček; Falcon 9: SpaceX; Comet 67P: ESA / Rosetta / NavCam; LightSail: Josh Spradling / The Planetary Society; Pluto: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / ZLDoyle; Mosaic: Tanya Harrison / The Planetary Society

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This week's prizes are a lovely Planetary Radio t-shirt, a 200-point iTelescope.net astronomy account AND a set of Year In Space wall and desk calendars.

iTelescope.net
iTelescope.net

This week's question:

What is the orbital period (length of a year) for Sedna, the far distant object in a highly-elliptical orbit?

To submit your answer:

Complete the contest entry form at http://planetary.org/radiocontest or write to us at [email protected] no later than Tuesday, January 5th at 8am Pacific Time. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Last week's question:

What Apollo spacecraft was name Falcon? Give us the mission number and type of spacecraft.

Answer:

The answer will be revealed next week.

Question from the week before:

What are the four worlds in our solar system that sand dunes have been discovered on?

Answer:

The four worlds in our solar system known to have dunes are Venus, Earth, Mars and Titan. Arrakis and Jakku are not in our solar system.