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Astronomy Cast Episode 233 from Monday, October 3rd, 2011. Radar.

Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Cain, I'm the publisher of University Day, and with me is Dr. Pamela Gay at Professor at Southern Illinois University.

Everyone's feeling, hi Pamela, how you doing?

I'm doing well, how are you doing?

Good, good, so I don't know if people missed it, but we were on the skeptics guide to the University 24-hour marathon, I guess yesterday when we were recording this, and we were able to put Steve novella to sleep.

It's something to be proud of.

It really is, it really is, I feel like that's going to be something I will treasure forever.

But yeah, if you didn't miss it, you should check it out, I'm sure they're going to be releasing parts of it in some form on audio or video or whatever.

But anyway, huge congratulations to the SGU folks, and all of the people who helped them out.

It was an epic 24-hour show with them, which we will never, ever do.

And they actually got Rebecca Watson to enjoy Dungeons and Dragons.

Dungeons and Dragons, I know, I know, I can't, this is awesome.

She's now looking like us.

Exactly.

All right, so Radar is one of those technologies that changed everything.

It allows both an aircraft to see at night and through thick fog.

But it also changed astronomy and ground imaging, tracking asteroids with great accuracy, allowing spacecraft to peer through Venus' thick clouds,

and revealing secrets beneath the Earth's shifting sands.

All right, Pamela Radar.

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