Joe Palca
speaker
141 appearances
18 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2025
last heard 7 Sep
Joe Palca’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 18 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 6.
Appearances
After that, its five year scientific mission will begin.
Free NPR News, I'm Joe Palca.
The school bus sized observatory has a number of scientific goals.
It's looking for a special kind of exploding star called a type one A supernova that astronomers use to study a mysterious force called dark energy.
It will also search for planets around distant stars as well as galaxies far beyond the Milky Way.
Critical systems like the solar panels and main antenna have successfully deployed, as has the sunshade designed to block out unwanted light.
The spacecraft also completed a correction to its trajectory.
The telescope should arrive at its parking place in about ninety days.
After that its five year scientific mission will begin.
Free NPR News, I'm Joe Palka.
The mission is called Bepi Columbo.
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It's actually made of two probes, one that will study Mercury's magnetic field, and another that will take close up pictures of the planet's surface, among other things.
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In order to reach Mercury, Bepi Columbo needed to fly by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself six times.
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During its eight year cruise, the twin probes relied on something called the Mercury transfer module for propulsion.
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But that module had to be jettisoned before arrival.
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Now that's happened.
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For NPR News, I'm Joe Palka.
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The mission is called Bepi Columbo.
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It's actually made of two probes, one that will study Mercury's magnetic field, and another that will take close up pictures of the planet's surface, among other things.
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In order to reach Mercury, Bepi Columbo needed to fly by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself six times.
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Showing 21–40 of 141 · page 2 of 8
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