On the Astronomy Show today I will be looking at results from the European space robot MASCOT as it hops around the crazy rocky surface of the Ryugu asteroid. The MASCOT lander was deployed from the Japanese Hayabusa2 mother ship. The problems of working on this small asteroid include the gravity being only one-66,500th of Earth's, this means that even a tiny push off the surface is enough to send the lander floating away from the asteroid.
I will take a look at the night sky with details of how we just missed a meteor storm from the Draconid meteor shower on the 8th-9th October and hopefully coming soon the brightest comet of the year, comet Wirtanen is expected to become a naked eye object during December and over Christmas.
Other regular features include the latest astronomy news with 4 huge planets being discovered around a very young star and astronomers observe a surprisingly faint and fading supernova. The Messier marathon has reached M77 a Seyfert galaxy in Cetus and the A-Z of constellations is at the small constellation of Scutum the Shield. The astronomical Scrapbook looking at anniversaries this week include the death of the York based telescope maker Thomas Cooke in 1868 and the launch of the first astronaut or Taikonaut from China in 2003. This plus the round up of what is going on in the astronomical societies in the north of England.
The Astronomy Show only on Drystone Radio 103.5FM every Wednesday afternoon between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. The show can be heard on line at www.drystoneradio.com or you can listen to the show later via the Drystone Radio podcast.
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