Cosmic Queries – Space Junk! with Moriba Jah
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What is the premise of the Cosmic Queries episode on space junk?
Hey Start Talkins, Neil here. You're about to listen to an episode specially drawn from our archive. To serve your cosmic curiosity. The archives run deep. If you enjoy this, take a peek at the full catalog. On your favorite podcast platform. There's a lot there to tickle your geek underbelly. Check it out. Welcome to Star Talk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. Star Talk begins right now. This is Star Talk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And today we're gonna talk about the space environment in which Business surveillance Travel all takes place. It's like from Earth's surface up to the top of the atmosphere. That's something we haven't talked about.
Chuck. That's where we're going today.
Yes, that's right. We're it's we're I like I like space junk better than See you said it uh you said it all fancy. I just thought I I just like to say space jump.
Like space jump. Yeah, I space jump.
Almost hear like Quincy Jones in the back pum pum pum phone um pump.
Sanford and Sun in space. That'll be the next That's right. Well, I've got I've got one of the world's, if not the world's expert on this very subject right here with Star Talk. And I and his name is Moribba Ja. Moribba, welcome to Star Talk.
Thank you so much. Uh it's an honor and a pleasure to be here with all of you.
Yeah, so you you're an astrodynamicist and space environmentalist. That sounds like if no one knew what that was, you would have to invent it just because the world needs it, right? Is that is that a fair way to describe what you do?
Yeah,
absolutely. Yeah.
That's you know what though, I gotta tell you, there that that means that there was a time when there wasn't time when we didn't need you. So this is not a good thing that you exist because you know, it's like it's like social media manager. Like there was a time that meant that you had somebody but you were clearly a person who socialized with the media quite a bit and you know, you needed somebody to handle that. It didn't mean what it means now.
Right, right, right. It's a
bad thing that we have to have. It's
a bad it's a bad thing that you exist. I'm sorry, I've gotta say that.
No, no, no. I agree with all of you uh f fullheartedly. You know, a after after about nineteen fifty seven with the launch of Sputnik. Май м the нефти.
Right. So now Sputnik. Well let me finish with the man's resume. Oh so God, I'm sorry. There's I already know it's what's in it. I'm rather talk to him because he's got some fascinating stuff. It's
got some fascinating stuff. So he's a professor and researcher at UT Austin at the Cockrell School of Engineering. And so let me just give the list here because every one of these could be like an entire Star Talk. The non-gravitational astrodynamics. I love that. But I don't know what in the universe is moving without the influence of gravity. Advanced nonlinear multi-sensor object tracking. Sounds like the Pentagon needs you. Prediction and information fusion. What a space object detection. This man is like, okay, if we're gonna have a space war, I wanna Mars tell me about it. But on top of that, and we'll get to it um in a later segment, but I want to put it up front right here, um, eyes on the sky, mixed reality experience.
That's not with the engineering department. What is that?
Yeah, so interestingly enough, we have some faculty that are in the fine arts and uh they've created something called Texas Immersive, and it's really trying to combine digital and physical experience for storytelling.
Wow. Okay, so this would this would increase the impact of any kind of science that you do.
Absolutely. Yeah. A 110% because uh one of the things that I've seen is just going to talk to scientists, it's like the echo chamber and it, you know, the self-licking ice cream cone, not so not so useful. So I need to be able to reach reach people and the the storytelling with mixed reality seems to be something that could really help.
I love that. And and the website's eyesonthesky.org. So that that's good. So Chuck, what I keep interrupting.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the premise of the Cosmic Queries episode on space junk?
0:00–5:42
2
Who is Dr. Moriba Jah and what does an astrodynamicist do?
5:42–39:30
3
How big is the current space‑junk problem and how many objects are we tracking?
39:30–48:27
4
Did China’s recent space‑station incident illustrate irresponsible behavior in orbit?
48:27–54:38