Idaho Skies Transcript for July 10th and 11th

RACHEL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for July 10th and 11th. We’re your hosts, Rachel...


PAUL
...and Paul.


RACHEL
The moon was full yesterday.


PAUL
That means its light makes it impossible to see the Milky Way for several more days.


RACHEL
On nights when moonlight doesn’t interfere, the Milky Way appears like a strange column of smoke rising out of the south.


PAUL
That galactic smoke then passes overhead and towards the east.


RACHEL
However, it’s not really smoke; it’s the light of countless millions of distant stars.


PAUL
If you scan the Milky Way with binoculars, you’ll see some of these stars in front of the glow of even more distant stars.


RACHEL
The reason the Milky Way has its long, narrow shape is that we’re seeing the galaxy’s stars from within its plane.


PAUL
So imagine being a pepperoni on the pizza and looking towards the center of the pie.


RACHEL
There would be no pepperonis above or below you, but lots of tasty pepperonis towards the center of the pizza pie. Yum.


PAUL
Some refer to the Milky Way as a city of stars, gas, and planets 100,000 light years across.


RACHEL
But it’s only 1,000 light years thick where Earth resides.


PAUL
The Milky Way contains all of the stars that we see with our eyes, or about 5,000 stars.


RACHEL
And another 400 billion stars that we can’t see with the unaided eye.


PAUL
By far, most of those stars are faint red dwarfs that are impossible to see without the aid of large telescopes.


RACHEL
They’re faint and red because of their low mass.


PAUL
But their low mass means they’ll outlive all the bright stars that we can see in the night sky.


RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the 10th and 11th of July.


PAUL
Be sure to read our blog at idahoskies.blogspot.com for additional information.
For Idaho Skies this is Paul...


RACHEL
...and Rachel.


PAUL
Dark skies and bright stars.