Episode list

V101 Science

How Big is the Biggest Galaxy in the Universe?
The Milky Way is a large galaxy thought fair typical for a spiral galaxy. Our nearest spiral neighbor Andromeda is probably twice as large. When spiral galaxies merge they for enormous elliptical galaxies with the largest known being IC-1101. It is large enough to engulf the entire local from of the Milky Way, Andromesda, the Mangelanic clouds and Traiangulum galaxies.
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Haumea - The Egg Shaped World (Beyond Pluto Episode 1)
Dwarf planet Haumea is a Kuiper Belt object a bit farther from the sun than Pluto. Like Pluto it has a deep red spot probably due to tholins created by solar energy reacting with methane on its surface. Haumea is one of the fastest rotating objects in the Solar System giving it an egg shape, has two moons and an icy ring all perhaps caused by a impact in the past.
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Makemake - The Icy Red World (Beyond Pluto Episode 2)
Dwarf planet Makemake is a Kuiper belt object a bit smaller than Pluto. Like Pluto it is thought its surface is composed of frozen nitrogen and methane which reacts with solar radiation to produce tholins that give it a reddish brown hue. Makemake has its own moon provisionally name Mk2.
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Eris -The World That Demoted Pluto (Beyond Pluto Episode 3)
Eris is a dwarf planet comparable in size to Pluto but beyond the Kuiper Belt in a region called the Scattered Disk. It has its own moon named Dysnomia. When discovered it was considered for designation as the tenth planet of the Solar System but it instead led to the demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet.
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Sedna - The Oort Cloud Dwarf Planet (Beyond Pluto Episode 4)
Sedna is an object in the outer Solar system so distant is presumed to be a Oort cloud object. It is thought to be large enough to classify as a dwarf planet and is to have surface tholins like most known Kuiper belt objects. It is currently on an inbound trajectory reaching perihelion in 2075 when it will be three times farther from the sun than Neptune.
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Gonggong - The Largest Unnamed World in the Solar System
GongGong is the seventh dwarf planet discovered. It is thought to be an icy rock world and like other Kuiper Belt objects it has a reddish surface likely due to tholins. It's rotation rate of 45 hours is unusually long. It has it's own moon (Xiangliu) unnamed at the time of this production.
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Orcus - The Anti-Pluto Dwarf Planet
Orcus is a dwarf planet with a eccentric orbit similar to Pluto's but oriented about 180 degrees around the Solar system. Each reaches aphelion when the other is a perihelion.
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The Goblin Dwarf Planet - An Inner Oort Cloud Object
The Golblin, discovered in 2009, is believed to be a dwarf planet and Oort Cloud object about 200 miles in diameter with a orbital period of 32,000 years. It is currently inbound to the Solar System but will never come even close to the orbit of Pluto. But it may be helpful in the search for the hypothetical Planet Nine.
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Mercury 101: A World of Extremes
Mercury is a cratered rocky planet similar to the other terrestrial planets with an outer crust, mantle, liquid outer core and solid inner core but lacking an atmosphere. Due to proximity to the sun it is a challenge to observe but was visited by two probes with a third due to visit in 2025.
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Extremely Rare Planet Discovered, a Cloudless Jupiter!
Planet Wasp 62b is a hot Jupiter class planet, half again as large of Jupiter though less massive and orbiting close to its parent star. Astronomers studying the planet observed spectral lines for sodium which is smoking gun evidence that it has a rare cloudless as contrasted with Jupiter's dense clouds.
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Triton: Neptune's Backwards Moon Was Once a Dwarf Planet Larger than Pluto!
Neptune'n moon Triton is an oddball. In contrast to all other major moons in the Solar System it has an inclined retrograde orbit relative to Neptune. And, geologically it is more like a Kuiper Belt object. If so, it is the largest know Kuiper Belt object and it probably eliminated several of Neptune's existing moons when it was captured.
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What's It Like Inside Neptune? Below the Clouds of an Ice Giant Planet
Travel to Neptune, the Solar System's most distant planet. Plunge into its chilling hydrogen and helium atmosphere with supersonic wind tinged brilliant blue by methane. Then gradually transition into its ironically scalding, superheated ocean maintained as a dense liquid by the deep atmosphere and hot core.
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