[Space Bites+] NASA Goes Nuclear // 4% Chance of Hitting The Moon // Big Dark Energy Results
The Dark Energy Survey results are in, an asteroid strike on the Moon would be a boon to science, Mercury might not be totally dead, and NASA continued to test its nuclear rockets. And in Space Bites+ solving the mystery of cosmic expansion close to home.
Watch the video here (with no ads) or on YouTube https://youtu.be/NK-zu5eMvJU
BONUS PART START AT 17:21
👉 Escape Velocity Space News (EVSN) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDtUsDJGqiI&list=PLo1j35Qh8M1xuXThFgWMJNdHYNBb9gf4U
00:00 Intro
00:15 4% Change of YR4 Hitting the Moon https://www.universetoday.com/articles/asteroid-2024-yr4-has-a-4-chance-of-hitting-the-moon-heres-why-thats-a-scientific-goldmine
02:15 NASA's nuclear rockets are back https://www.universetoday.com/articles/nasa-fires-up-nuclear-future-for-deep-space-travel
04:57 Big results from the Dark Energy Survey https://www.universetoday.com/articles/dark-energy-survey-data-reveals-the-tighest-estimates-yet-on-cosmic-expansion
10:06 It's ALIVE (maybe) https://www.universetoday.com/articles/mercury-may-not-be-dead-after-all
11:01 TESS spies 3I/ATLAS https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/3iatlas/2026/01/27/nasas-tess-reobserves-comet-3i-atlas/
12:06 Vote results https://www.youtube.com/@frasercain/posts
12:34 Super-Eddington limit black holes https://www.universetoday.com/articles/this-rapidly-growing-black-hole-is-challenging-super-eddington-accretion
14:37 Circinus Galaxy https://www.universetoday.com/articles/nasas-webb-telescope-peers-into-the-heart-of-the-circinus-galaxy
16:24 Huge gravitational lens https://www.universetoday.com/articles/an-almost-famous-galaxy-cluster-is-the-jwsts-picture-of-the-month
17:12 More space news
Comments (11)
I 'd point out that your containment better be 100% fool-proof if you have to cart around 2 kg, as each kilogram (2.2 pounds for the metric challenged) would yield ~43 megaton blast. So 2 kg would be 83 megatons, more than the Tsar Bomba the Soviets set off (50 megatons, although it was capable of 100)
Fraser I haven’t a clue how to connect to you!
Fraser, greatly appreciate your e-mail newsletters and video productions. Advancements in human capability to better understand our universe leads to a much richer life. Cheers from Seattle!
DEAR FRASER: Thank you for turning me on to Sean Carroll's "Mindscape" podcast. I listened to it for the first time today, and it was tremendously stimulating. Now I have TWO podcasts to listen to.
Hey Fraser, do you have any idea why I get an error message when I try to hit the “join for free” button on the Fraser Cain Patreon page? Been trying to follow you for the last year plus and I get that response everyyyy single time.
What does the error say? It looks like you were a patron back in May and then stopped. But you were once a patron, then you're already following me for free.
Thrust is determined by Mass*Velocity. The velocity of the exhaust determines the terminal velocity of the craft.
MOSTTLY Dead Planet? Sorry, Fraser, but it was such a huge label, I had to laugh. Great Space Bites, though. Such a fascinating range of topics.
It's a bit like Ford Prefect describing Earth as "Mostly harmless".
How much additional risk to manned spaceflight from YR4's ejecta ? That's a significant question that does impinge on future missions. The source article by Yifan He et al on arXiv has a reference ... but it's on the last line of the first page and it's a ? !!! Any thoughts ? PS it's not yet peer reviewed. Hmmmm. ... a while later ... OK found it. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.11217 Peer reviewed by ApJ. The Potential Danger to Satellites due to Ejecta from a 2032 Lunar Impact by Asteroid 2024 YR4 by Wiegert et al.
14:37 Measurements made by a JWST instrument provided by the Canadian Space Agency 🇨🇦 https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/fine-guidance-sensor-near-infrared-imager-and-slitless-spectrograph-fgs-niriss/