Send us a text A billion light years away, a billion years ago, two black holes spiralled toward each other and collided, we detected its gravitational waves in January 2025. We’ve detected many of these before, but this one was different. It was such a strong, clear signal that we could test laws of physics that had been proposed many decades earlier. It even put Einstein to the test. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! cosmiccoffeetime@gmail.c...
Oct 07, 2025•8 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Send us a text In 1975, an incredible and unlikely partnership resulted in the docking of a NASA Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit. The cold war opponents worked together to overcome not only engineering challenges, but the rivalry and suspicion of the cold war. This cooperation led to the Shuttle-Mir program in the 90s and the present day International space station. They all began with the spirit of cooperation from Apollo-Soyuz. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for som...
Aug 31, 2025•9 min•Season 1Ep. 82
Send us a text Earth’s days had been getting longer since observations began. Every century, the length of the day would increase by about two milliseconds. Like… clockwork. In recent years, something strange has been happening, the days have started getting shorter as the rotation of the Earth has been speeding up. Even more strangely, we don’t really understand why. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! cosmiccoffeetime@gmail.com You can request...
Jul 31, 2025•9 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Send us a text An Australian team of botanists and engineers are working on a project that might make or break the future of long term, long distance space occupation. They're growing plants. Not that unusual, but they're trying to grow them on the Moon. Plants produce oxygen and they are food, essential elements of living away from Earth. Let's check out the plan to experiment with germinating seeds in shoebox sized 'lunariums' on the Moon within the next 12 months. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on...
Jun 30, 2025•8 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Send us a text Kosmos 482, was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1972 on a mission to Venus, but a technical glitch meant it never made it past Earth orbit. Designed to withstand the hellish surface of Venus, its lander remained in space for over 50 years, but this relic of Cold War space exploration has finally returned, re-entering Earth’s atmosphere decades after its failed journey. Though the mission never reached Venus, Kosmos 482’s dramatic, delayed descent closes a half-century chapter in s...
May 31, 2025•12 min•Season 1Ep. 79
Send us a text No need to panic. Yet! We’ll be fine for the next 4 or 5 billion years, but Andromeda is heading our way. The Andromeda Galaxy was the first object to be identified as being outside our own galaxy, and it introduced us to extragalactic astronomy. And that’s not all. It can teach us more about dark matter and it could be home to billions of planets. It’s a very cool neighbour, but one day - it’s kinda going to move in! Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/C...
Apr 30, 2025•9 min•Season 1Ep. 78
Send us a text Their planned 8 day visit to the International Space Station was turned on its head when NASA announced their Boeing Starliner capsule was unsafe to use. What did Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore do for those 9 months? And we check out the plan that was put together to get them home safely. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! cosmiccoffeetime@gmail.com You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear fro...
Mar 31, 2025•6 min•Season 1Ep. 77
Send us a text After everything learned through Mercury and Gemini culminated in the seventeen Apollo missions. The first ten were all testing and rehearsals, but the whole program, and a whole era was characterised by Apollo 11, the first time humans set foot on the moon. Along with the triumph, there was tragedy and a very near miss, and one of the most underrated aspects of NASA's space program - the lunar roving vehicles that let the astronauts explore more than seven kilometres from the Lun...
Feb 28, 2025•11 min•Season 1Ep. 76
Send us a text Nasa had accomplished spaceflight with Project Mercury but the gap to Apollo was still huge. How do you dock two spacecraft in flight and how do crews live in a tiny spacecraft for lunar length flights. These are just a couple of the questions that NASA needed to answer. Gemini was just the project to resolve all of these issues. It was a proving ground, for learning, testing and practicing the skills needed for lunar missions. Gemini wasn't the first program to accomplish spacefl...
Jan 31, 2025•11 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Send us a text Back in the late 1950s, NASA was formed. Its first job was to put together a human crewed spaceflight program and put an astronaut into orbit - safely. This was Project Mercury. There were some uncrewed developmental flights and then six crewed flights between 1961 and 1963, this was an enormously significant step toward the Apollo moon landings just six years later. So who were the Mercury astronauts and what was the mission profile of these first six crewed spaceflights? Follow ...
Dec 31, 2024•11 min•Season 1Ep. 74
Send us a text Project Mercury was NASA’s first attempt at human crewed space flight. It sent Alan Shepard into space, and John Glenn into orbit, among four other landmark flights over 5 years. By 1963 it was done, and NASA was ready to launch Gemini, its next project. But being such a groundbreaking project, in 1964 NASA paid tribute to Mercury with a four metre high stainless steel monument with a time capsule that would remain sealed beneath it until the year 2464, five centuries later. What ...
Nov 30, 2024•6 min•Season 1Ep. 73
Send us a text When Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit in 1961 to become the first human in space, he was already 14 years behind the first animals from Earth. The fruit flies that were flew to space in 1947 were just the first of many different animals in the decade and a half before Gagarin’s orbital flight that were used to test equipment and living things’ capacity to survive and work in weightlessness. There were primates, dogs, mice and rabbits that crewed orbital and suborbital test flights....
Oct 31, 2024•9 min•Season 1Ep. 72
Send us a text Earth has a new moon! well, for about 8 weeks anyway. Asteroid 2024 PT5 has been captured by Earth’s gravity and will be in orbit until late November 2024. This is really unusual and there have only been a few confirmed mini moons in the past. Our new temporary neighbour is only about 11 metres across and won’t be visible to anyone who doesn’t have a professional large-scale telescope, but we’ll know it’s there! and although it will only stay for about 2 months, 2024 PT5 will be b...
Sep 30, 2024•6 min
Send us a text Boeing’s Starliner space capsule blasted off for its first crewed test flight in early June. Great news right? Turns out, no. After arriving at the International Space Station, some technical problems meant that it couldn’t be used to take its crew of Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth. The two astronauts were left with no way to get home. The two capsules already docked at the space station couldn’t be used, so the astronauts were stranded. Let’s find out what ...
Aug 31, 2024•7 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Send us a text NASA's Curiosity rover touched down on Mars in August 2012, and it's been exploring the Red Planet all that time. There have been some amazing discoveries and it's travelled over 30km but it has just made the most scientifically significant discovery of its 12 year career, and did it simply by running over a rock! One of Curiosity's wheels crushed a rock. It had looked just like any other orange martian rock, but when it shattered under Curiosity's wheels, it revealed breathtaking...
Jul 31, 2024•8 min•Season 1Ep. 69
Send us a text As I write this, just a couple of days have passed since the Chang'e 6 sample return capsule touched down with its historic payload. The first sample of rock and soil from the far side of the moon touched down on Earth. This has the potential to unlock some of the secrets from the side of the moon that we never see from Earth, why is the lunar crust thicker? Why are there fewer 'seas' on the far side? And what lies beneath the lunar crust? All of this against the background of a s...
Jun 30, 2024•7 min•Season 1Ep. 68
Send us a text In September 2023, Greg Brennecka stopped by to preview the return to Earth of the OSIRI-REx asteroid Bennu sample return capsule. The sample landed safely and the mission scientists like Greg Brennecka have started their analysis. Some of our toughest questions are being answered by the data already. How old is Bennu? Is there organic material? Where was the asteroid formed? Is Bennu different from what we expected? But hasn't been all smooth sailing. The mission team had to go i...
May 31, 2024•18 min•Season 1Ep. 67
Send us a text Titan. The largest moon in the Saturnian system has been a candidate as a habitable world ever since NASA’s Cassini mission sent back the first radar images of its surface in 2004. Astrobiologist Dr. Catherine Neish of Western University in Canada has spent years studying Titan, and has just published a study on the habitability of Titan. Catherine joins us to step through the findings, what is needed for life? Is there enough of it on Titan? And does it all come together? Read Ra...
Apr 30, 2024•24 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Send us a text Space and cosmology throws up some strange effects sometimes, none stranger than spaghettification. Stephen Hawking coined the term for the stretching out that happens when you get close to a black hole. Let's take a look at what it really is, how it works, and if we should have anything to fear from spaghettification... Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you...
Mar 31, 2024•7 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Send us a text Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines produced the first private mission to land on the moon. The Odysseus lander is just 300 km from the lunar south pole, investigating water ice and demonstrating the capabilities of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS). But space is difficult and not many projects go perfectly first time. Is Odysseus ok? Let’s find out! Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a ...
Feb 29, 2024•6 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Send us a text So we pollute the upper atmosphere with rocket exhaust, is it worth the benefits of communications satellites and GPS? What about space junk? the garbage of earth orbit. Or mining asteroids? who owns the asteroids, can should they be able to sell the minerals asteroids provide? These are questions that would never have been asked before space travel became as regular as it has today. Let's take a look at this new way of thinking about our responsibilities in space. Follow Cosmic C...
Jan 31, 2024•6 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Send us a text Apollo 8 orbited the Moon in December 1968, seven months before the first moon landing. Even though Apollo 8 never landed on the Moon, it did produce one of the most iconic photographs of the Apollo program, the Earthrise photograph. Astronaut Bill Anders snapped a colour picture of the Earth rising over the lunar horizon as the capsule orbited the Moon. But what makes this picture so iconic? And why did we nearly miss out on it. Let's dive in! Check out the Earthrise photograph F...
Dec 31, 2023•6 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Send us a text In the news lately, you might have seen reports that the rings of Saturn are going to disappear from view. What could make that happen? And will they come back? Let’s check out what’s going on with the most spectacular feature in our solar system. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content x.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you. Email us! cosmiccoffeetime@gmail.com...
Nov 30, 2023•6 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Send us a text Photographing the night sky is a completely different technique to photographing almost anything else. There's hardly any light, the objects are tiny and they move! It's really difficult. We've all given it a go and been disappointed, but how do they get the incredible pictures we see on the internet and on TV, and how can normal spacefans like us take a night sky picture? Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic fo...
Oct 31, 2023•6 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Send us a text India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover have landed in the south polar region of the moon. Some craters in this region are permanently shaded from the blazing sun and can have water ice at the base of these lunar craters. India became only the fourth nation to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the moon, and the first to successfully land a spacecraft in the moon’s south pole region. It’s an incredible story! Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twit...
Sep 30, 2023•7 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Send us a text Cosmic Coffee Time’s resident space rock expert and NASA mission scientist Greg Brennecka is back again to preview the return to Earth of NASA’s incredible OSIRIS-REx mission. OSIRIS-REx is coming to the end of an epic seven year journey to collect a rock and soil sample from asteroid Bennu. Greg is a mission scientist on OSIRIS-REx and will be doing analysis on the Bennu sample in his own lab. It’s breathtakingly rare to get a pristine sample from an asteroid in another part of t...
Aug 31, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 58
Send us a text Around 80% of the human made objects in orbit are mission left overs. Some of it is real junk, but some of it has an incredible story to tell. What relics from the early space age are held in safe storage in orbit? How does the accumulation of space junk affect mission planning, and how are we going to keep space safer from impacts in the future? You’ll never guess how we rediscovered some space hardware from an early moon mission! Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some spe...
Jul 31, 2023•8 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Send us a text Around the 21st of June every year is the June solstice. We might know that it’s the longest or shortest day of the year – depending on which hemisphere you’re in, but why does that happen? And we know of the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, but how does the solstice define them? Same with the Arctic and Antarctic circles. Does it fall on the same date each year? Well almost, but it does take some clever human manipulation of the calendar to keep it that way. Follow C...
Jun 30, 2023•7 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Send us a text Ask an eastern Australian about the Southern Aurora, and they might think you’re talking about the old overnight express train between Sydney and Melbourne. But! The train was named after the spectacular light show in the southern sky. The Aurora Australis to use the phenomenon’s correct name, and its northern equivalent the Aurora Borealis or Northern lights have a fascinating astronomical cause. And the nature of the Aurora remained a mystery until the 20th century, despite bein...
May 31, 2023•6 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Send us a text In 2021, NASA announced the VERITAS mission to Venus, NASA’s first voyage to Earth’s twin planet since the early 90’s. Things haven’t gone completely to plan for this project, but one thing VERITAS has already accomplished, it got scientists reviewing data from previous missions, and what they found was truly incredible. And all without leaving the ground. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the show!...
Apr 30, 2023•7 min•Season 1Ep. 54
