Ep. 780: When Asteroids & Comets Attack!

Astronomy Cast

Natural Sciences, Science, Astronomy

4.8 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Astronomy Cast Ep. 780: When Asteroids & Comets Attack! By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay Streamed live on Jan 26, 2026. We live in a cosmic shooting gallery. It's not a matter of "if" but "when"! Dinosaurs, blah, blah, blah. You know the drill. But seriously, folks, it's raining rocks & ice out there! How seriously should we take it? What happens when a variety of different objects hit the Earth? Different kinds of objects affect Earth very differently when they impact. Let's discuss what makes an impactor more or less dangerous. This show is supported through people like you on Patreon.com/AstronomyCast In this episode, we'd like to thank: Burry Gowen, Eric Lee, Jeanette Wink, Michael Purcell, Andrew Poelstra, David, David Rossetter, Ed, Gerhard Schwarzer, Jason Kwong, Joe McTee, Sergey Manouilov, Siggi Kemmler, Sergio Sancevero

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm
0:02.0	Oh Thank you. I'm Astronomycast, Episode 780, when asteroids and comets attack.
0:53.3	Welcome to Astronomycast, our weekly facts-based journey
0:55.6	through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.
0:59.8	I'm Fraser Kane. I'm the publisher of the universe today with me, as always is Dr. Pamela Gay,
1:03.8	a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of CosmoQuist.
1:08.0	Hey, Pamela, how you doing? I am doing well. I am deeply confused by
1:12.6	what February could bring us in terms of rockets. And very, very sad that I went on vacation,
1:18.4	which means that I don't have the ability to go watch rockets. But by the time people are
1:23.2	listening to this, in theory, Artemis 2 could launch within days of when you're listening.
1:33.3	So we're looking at Artemis 2. We are looking at New Glenn 2. We're looking at a variety of
1:40.3	other rockets because why not? There's a whole bunch of stuff around the globe that's pioneering
1:45.4	this month. I'm going to try and stream a bunch of it and you usually do interviews with
1:50.8	Scott Manley and I forgot the other humans name. Marks House. Yes. And those interviews are wonderful. Go
1:57.7	check them out, humans. It's, it's, we're going back. And I'm really feeling
2:05.1	like Blue Origin is going to be able to deliver Viper. And that's what I'm really excited about.
2:11.4	So it feels very bizarre to me to put these words in a sentence, Blue Origin launches rockets.
2:20.1	I know.
2:21.0	And yet they appear to be doing such a thing.
2:23.9	Yeah, slow and study.
2:25.3	Yeah, well, slow.
2:27.2	I don't know what steady or slow.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Astronomy Cast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Astronomy Cast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.