Orbital Path

Building 29

All things in the cosmos have a lifespan, from the smallest particles to the most ancient suns. Everything has its season. Every season must come to an end. And this epi

Hello, Asteroid!

Asteroids, as the dinosaurs found out, can have big effects on life on Earth.  Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid crashed into the Yucatán. The impact caused apoc

Black Holes from the Dawn of Light

To make a black hole, you need to think big. Really big. Start with a star much bigger than the sun — the bigger the better. Then settle in, and wait a few million years

Space Lasers for the Home Planet

On September 15, 2018, the last Delta II rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force base, in California. It carried into orbit IceSat-2 — a satellite equipped with perha

Brian Greene goes to 11 — again

We live our lives in three dimensions. But we also walk those three dimensions along a fourth dimension: time. 

Our world makes sense thanks to mathematics. Math lets u

The Universe of Leonard Susskind

To hear Leonard Susskind tell it, we are living in a golden age of quantum physics. And he should know. Susskind is a grandee of theoretical physics. In the 1960s, he

Mars Goes Organic

For a long time, probably as long as we have been gazing up at the night sky, people have been asking ourselves: Are we alone? Is there life out there, anywhere else in t

Earth, Desert Planet?

Zoe is in 8th grade. She’s a student in Mr. Andersen’s Earth science class at a public school in Brooklyn. Lately, she’s been concerned about the future of the planet.

Our Darkening Universe

Secrets of the universe? A glimpse of the whiteboard in the office of Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Adam Riess. Adam Riess was only 41 when he was named a Nobel Pri

Introducing…Telescope!

Instead of grappling with the big, cosmic questions that preoccupy adults, this week on Orbital Path we’re doing something different. We’re grappling with the big, cosmi

Star Death Tango

On August 17, 2017, an alert went out. Gravitational wave detectors in Louisiana and Washington state had detected a disturbance from deep space. The effect was subtle

Ozone Disaster Redux

Scientists in 1985 discovered something that threatened the world we live in: The ozone layer had a hole in it. A big one. And this hole was growing very quickly. If it

Fireside Physics: A Solstice on Saturn?

In this darkest season of the year, Dr. Michelle Thaller and NASA astronomer Andrew Booth curl up by the fire. Gazing into the embers, red wine in hand, they consider the

From Another Star

NASA’S office of planetary defense isn’t worried about Klingons or Amoeboid Zingatularians.  They worry about asteroids and comets.  Like the one that exploded over Che

Winter’s Night Sky

These days, astrophysicists like Dr. Michelle Thaller use instruments to probe the distant reaches of our galaxy, and far beyond. They use interferometry, the Hubble spac

Aliens Again!

We’ve got some awkward news to share, folks: The producer of Orbital Path is claiming he’s been abducted by space aliens. So this week, we’re dusting off the theremin an

Time and Space in the Kingdom of Bhutan

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan avidly guards its traditional culture. Bhutan is a nation that — instead of looking to GDP or debt ratios — measures success by an index o

The 11 Dimensions of Brian Greene

We live our lives in three dimensions. But we also walk those three dimensions along a fourth dimension: time.

 Our world makes sense thanks to mathematics. Math lets u

Minisode 5: Scary Math

In a scary time, in a scary world, in a scary universe, NASA astronomer Andrew Booth says one of the things that frightens him most is math. Specifically, the power of m

Episode 22: Journey to the Sun

Locked up on the Greek island of Crete, Icarus and his dad made wings out of  beeswax and bird feathers. They soared to freedom — but Icarus got cocky, flew too close to