RACHEL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for December 14th, 15th, and 16th. We’re your hosts, Rachel...
PAUL
...and Paul.
RACHEL
The crescent moon passes just below the Red Planet on the 14th.
PAUL
Mars will be the orangish star you see above the moon after dark on the 14th. The moon is 242,000 miles away while Mars is 103 million miles away. Whereas the moon will show attractive detail through binoculars, Mars is too small and far away to show anything through binoculars. Both however, are worlds where automated robots have traversed.
RACHEL
The first robot to travel on another world was the Soviet Lunokhod 1 and it landed on the moon November 17th, 1970. Lunokhod 1 was solar powered and operated under human control back on Earth. A drive team sent commands to the rover for 321 days before it failed. In that time, the rover drove a distance of 6.4 miles.
PAUL
The first robot to land on Mars was the American Sojourner robot and it landed on Mars on July 4th, 1997. Sojourner was also solar powered and instructed by a team on Earth. Unlike Lunokhod, drivers could not operate Sojourner in near real time. That’s because the time it takes for a signal to travel to Mars is too great. So the American team radioed a series of instructions to Sojourner to carry out as best as it could.
RACHEL
Did you know there’s a robot operating on an asteroid? The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency dropped two robots on an asteroid named Ryugu. The gravity on this asteroid is so weak that wheeled robots cannot get enough traction to drive across the surface. The robots are named MINERVA-2 1A and 1B and they hop across the surface. Each hop might take 15 minutes to complete because of the incredibly weak gravity of this tiny asteroid.
PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the 14th, 15th, and 16th of December.
RACHEL
Be sure to read our blog for additional information. It’s at idahoskies.blogspot.com.
For Idaho Skies this is Rachel...
PAUL
...and Paul.
RACHEL
Dark skies and bright stars.
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