It’s a question extravaganza on our latest episode of Ask an Astronomer and we are doing it all to help get as many people as possible entered our contest for a chance to win a dwarf mini telescope. Space Science Educator Don Hladiuk and Earth and Space Science Professor Stephen Jeans tackled not 10, not 20, but 60 of your questions! We covered everything from upcoming eclipses to the eventual decommissioning of the International Space Station. “It’s going to be scrapped eventually,” Hladiuk said. “Some segments might be saved, but in the early 2030s they’re going to have a spacecraft docked with SpaceX de-orbit it over the south Pacific (Ocean), but in the meantime it’s still functioning.” Our Canadian astronaut from Alberta, Joshua Kutryk, will be launching hopefully later in September to spend a long duration mission at the station. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a space show without talking about extraterrestrial life and why scientists are completely obsessed with finding “Goldilocks zones” in our galaxy. “What we are looking for in planets in Goldilocks zones is do they have the right conditions,” Jeans said. “We use spectrometers in our telescopes and we try to figure out from the light and image that we get from the planet if it has an atmosphere and if there’s water in there and we are basically looking for burps and farts in space.” “Because if we can identify the gases that life produces and life produces gases then those would be in the atmosphere which wouldn’t be on a planet without life burping and farting on it.” Here’s a breakdown of what’s covered in September’s episode by timecode: 00:00 - Telescope contest details 01:27 - How does a rainbow form 02:39 - Best stargazing opportunities and constellations 05:18 - International Space Station 06:49 - Eclipses 07:50 - How planets and stars get their names/is Pluto still a planet? 10:02 - Planetary and star distances 15:32 - UFOs and Extraterrestrial life There’s still time to get your questions in for the telescope contest. If you live in Alberta, head over to our Ask an Astronomer page and submit a question to our astronomers. If we feature your question on the show, you’ll be entered into a draw for your chance to win a Dwarf Mini telescope courtesy of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Full contest details can be found here (maybe insert a hyperlink to our Ask an Astronomer landing page). You can also watch full episodes of Ask an Astronomer on our CTV Calgary website and on our CTV News YouTube page.
