Joe Palka
speaker
237 appearances
31 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2025
last heard 29 Aug
Joe Palka’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 31 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 7.
Appearances
And I'm Joel Snyder.
This is NPR News.
If the orbit of the Earth around the Sun were a perfect circle, then the two bodies would always be the same distance apart.
But Earth's orbit is elliptical, a very slightly squashed circle, meaning every year there's a single time when it's closest and another when it's furthest away.
But even if it were circular, there would still be seasons.
That's because the Earth is tilted away from straight up and down in its orbit.
The tilt is significant, 23 degrees.
In winter, the North Pole points away from the sun, and in summer, towards the sun.
Longer time bathed in sunlight does more to explain changes in temperature than slight changes in distance.
For NPR News, I'm Joe Palka.
The excitement came from an opportunity to take images of an object with the prosaic name 3I Atlas.
Astronomers spotted 3I Atlas last summer and determined it was a comet.
Its speed and trajectory have convinced them it came from a distant star.
This is only the third such interstellar visitor to be detected near Earth.
In September, Psyche's mission managers scrambled to orient the probe so it could catch a glimpse of 3I Atlas, helping to refine its trajectory through our solar system.
Psyche's main mission is to visit an asteroid made primarily of metals, possibly providing clues about how Earth's metal core formed.
The probe will reach its target in 2030.
For NPR News, I'm Joe Palka.
There was no indication MAVEN was having any technical problems earlier this month when its orbit took it behind Mars, out of sight from Earth-based antennas.
But when it came back into view, no signal came from the probe's radio.
Showing 141–160 of 237 · page 8 of 12
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