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Astronomycast Episode 619

Icy Moons and dwarf planets. Welcome to Astronomycast for weekly

fax-based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only

what we know but how we know what we know. I'm Fraser Kane, publisher of

Universe today with me as always is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the

planetary science institute and the director of Cosmic Quest. Hey Pamela, how

you doing? I am doing well. How are you doing? Doing great. We mentioned this

is the pre-show but the the new Decadal Survey, the 2020 Decadal Survey is out.

You can freely download it and read all of the cool new science missions that

are being suggested and backed by the National Academy of Science. It's a

pretty exciting time to see what the future holds for space and astronomy and

various missions and so on. It's it's going to be a lot to go through. I know that

they are looking for a next set of great observatories and I am looking

forward to seeing what we as a community are able to come up with and implement and

I just hope that this brings that next new level of innovation. So cool.

All right so the outer solar system is far enough from the sun that water

doesn't get blasted away into deep space. In this icy realm there are many

world with vast quantities of water ice. Today let's look at the icy outer

moons and dwarf planets. All right let's talk about the outer solar system, the

icy objects. I'm trying to think is there a are they the same? Are they different?

What would be like your standard what's your baseline here for a for an icy

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