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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 lunar craters. 

India became only the fourth nation to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the moon, and the first to successfully land a spacecraft in the moon’s south pole region. It’s an incredible story!

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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 collect a rock and soil sample from asteroid Bennu. Greg is a mission scientist on OSIRIS-REx and will be doing analysis on the Bennu sample in his own lab. It’s breathtakingly rare to get a pristine sample from an asteroid in another part of the solar system, and Greg shares with us the plans for this sample and what this 60 gram sample of asteroid could teach us. 

• If you want to learn more about rocks from space, check out Greg's book 'Impact' at Harper Collins here

 
 
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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 space junk affect mission planning, and how are we going to keep space safer from impacts in the future? You’ll never guess how we rediscovered some space hardware from an early moon mission!

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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 Capricorn, but how does the solstice define them? Same with the Arctic and Antarctic circles. Does it fall on the same date each year? Well almost, but it does take some clever human manipulation of the calendar to keep it that way.

 
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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 Aurora Australis to use the phenomenon’s correct name, and its northern equivalent the Aurora Borealis or Northern lights have a fascinating astronomical cause. And the nature of the Aurora remained a mystery until the 20th century, despite being documented for thousands of years. Let’s take a look!
 
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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 reviewing data from previous missions, and what they found was truly incredible. And all without leaving the ground.
 
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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 the findings are incredible.
What does Ryugu tell us about the early solar system? What do we learn about water on bodies like asteroids? and could Ryugu be carrying enough of the building blocks of life to potentially populate another habitable planet?

It's a fascinating chat.


 If you want to learn more about rocks from space, check out Greg's book 'Impact' at Harper Collins here

See Hayabusa2's touch and go sample collection on Ryugu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xnInpqMiG4

Hayabusa2 landed back on Earth at the Woomera Rocket Range in South Australia, December 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek1MRUbJSo8
 

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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 navigation combined the sextant, almanac and chronometer to make a reliable navigation system that just needed one other thing, the sun and the stars... And some handy astronomical knowledge!
 
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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 social backgrounds were as diverse as their professions. For the first time, the group included women and people of colour.
There were triumphs with astronauts like Sally Ride and Greg Bluford, and tragedy when four of this talented group were lost in the Challenger disaster.

This is a compelling insight from Meredith, who had access to five astronauts from this historic class.

Find Meredith Bagby's book The New Guys here 

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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 why it can still provide your coordinates even if you're miles away from any phone or data signal or Wi-Fi.
 
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