Space Nuts Podcast

Did you know? Hayabusa2 passed within about 800 metres of asteroid Torifune while travelling at roughly 18,000 km/h — about the same speed the International Space Station orbits Earth.

Did you know? The six merging galaxies spotted by JWST are forming stars at up to 16 times the rate of our entire Milky Way galaxy combined.

Did you know? 3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar object ever detected, after 'Oumuamua (2017) and Borisov (2019) — and it may be up to 12 billion years old.

Did you know? The metallic spheres found on Forrest Beach are believed to be pressure vessels made of titanium alloy — a material with such a high melting point it can survive fiery re-entry through Earth's atmosphere intact.

Did you know? New Horizons is currently the only active spacecraft exploring the outer heliosphere — the boundary region where the Sun's influence fades into interstellar space.

Did you know? Gravitational microlensing events are one-time-only — once a planet is detected this way, astronomers will likely never observe that exact alignment again.

💡 Did You Know? (1) Rubin Observatory's camera is so large and detailed that it would take about 400 ultra-high-definition TV screens to display just one of its full-resolution images.

💡 Did You Know? (4) NASA's proposed PROMISE rover would be powered by the same type of radioisotope generator that has kept the Curiosity rover running on Mars for over 14 years.

💡 Did You Know? (6) Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere — thicker than Earth's — and the only place besides Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface, in the form of methane and ethane lakes.

💡 Did You Know? (2) Over its 10-year survey, Rubin is expected to detect around 10 million supernovae — compared to roughly a few thousand known before it began.