NASA's Curious Universe

The idea of an asteroid from outer space crashing into Earth has captured the imaginations of science fiction directors for decades. But here at NASA, we take potentially hazardous near-Earth objects seriously. We have a planetary defense office that plans for every scenario—we’ve even practiced nudging an asteroid off course with spacecraft. But there are tens of thousands of objects in near-Earth space, and the first step in protecting against potential impacts is spotting, tracking and managing every single one of them. Learn how NASA does just that from Joe Masiero, a scientist on the asteroid survey mission NEOWISE. Then, join friend of the show Latif Nasser, co-host of the podcast Radiolab, to untangle the mystery of a strange space rock that’s not quite a moon but not quite a normal asteroid, either.

From Earth, the Sun can seem steady and predictable. But when you look at our star close up, there’s a lot going on. Go behind the scenes with NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office, a team monitoring space weather—eruptions of radiation and plasma from the Sun that can wreak havoc on spacecraft and pose dangers to astronauts. We’ll also revisit the most powerful geomagnetic storm on record, an 1859 event that produced northern lights visible in the tropics and made electrical systems go haywire. This is episode four of the Sun and Eclipse series from NASA’s Curious Universe, an official NASA podcast.