This week on the Cosmic Companion, we take a look at Exoplanets in Your Backyard! Or, at least how you can get a small idea of what it might be like to visit these worlds, and you know… Survive.

Later in the show, we’re going to be talking with Allyson Johnson, senior editor at National Geographic. We’ll be discussing their new release, Complete National Parks of the United States, and explore how some national parks can give us a small taste of life on distant worlds.

Astronomers currently know of a little over 5,000 worlds orbiting stars other than the Sun. These range from small, hot rocky planets huddling close to their star, to massive Jupiter-like worlds. This largest class of worlds could themselves be encircled by families of Moons, some as large as Mercury — or perhaps even the Earth.

Listen to the podcast episode here or watch this program as a video!

Next week, we will begin a tour of the winter sky so grand, it will take two weeks (that’s a fortnight for those of you STILL refusing to use metric!). In part one, we welcome Andrew Fazekas - National Geographics’s “Night Sky Guy” back to the show. We’ll talk about what can be seen in the wintertide sky using just your eyes! (Part 2 will examine The Winter Sky w/ Telescopes! w/ Michael Petrasko from Insight Observatory!).

Clear skies!

James

The Cosmic Companion w/ James Maynard is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecosmiccompanion.substack.com/subscribe