Big Picture Science for Feb. 16, 2026: Celestial Shake-Up

Big Picture Science: Celestial Shake-Up

We’re going back to the Moon. The planned March 2026 launch of Artemis II is the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972. Historic as it is, it isn’t the only lunar event creating a stir at NASA. Two seismometers are to be delivered to Schrödinger’s Crater in a mission called The Farside Seismic Suite, in which the instruments will measure moonquakes and record the possible impact of asteroid 2024 YR4 on lunar surface. Meanwhile, studies of the sun are heating up. The so-called PUNCH mission, a four-satellite constellation that will create an image of the sun’s corona and solar winds, may help us better understand what drives solar storms and how we can protect Earth from their energetic blasts.

Guests:

• Eugene Cernan – Apollo 17 astronaut
• Harrison "Jack" Schmitt – Geologist and Apollo 17 astronaut
• Andrew Rivkin – Planetary astronomer at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University
• Ceri Nunn – Lunar seismologist and planetary scientist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Ryan French – solar physicist, at the Laboratory for Atmospheric & Space Physics, Boulder, Colorado, and author of “Space Hazards: Asteroids, Solar Flares and Cosmic Threats”
• Craig DeForest – Heliophysicist, Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator on NASA’s  PUNCH mission

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