Orbital Path

Series produced by PRX

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Orbital Path with Michelle Thaller takes a look at the big questions of the cosmos and what the answers can reveal about our life here on Earth. From podcast powerhouse PRX, with support from the Sloan Foundation.

About Our Host: Dr. Michelle Thaller is Deputy Director of Science Communcation at NASA. She is a research scientist who studies binary stars and the life cycles of stars. In her off-hours, Michelle often puts on about 30 lbs of Elizabethan garb and performs intricate Renaissance dances.


43 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Building 29
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Caption: The James Webb Space Telescope in the vast cleanroom of Building 29 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center., Credit: NASA
Orbital Path signs off with a site visit to NASA’s extraordinary building 29.

Bought by KPIP-LP, WCNY, and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Dec 21, 2018
  • Length: 31:07
  • Purchases: 3
Hello, Asteroid!
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Caption: Bennu comes into focus., Credit: Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.
Billion-year-old asteroid dust, coming right up!

Bought by KPIP-LP and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Nov 30, 2018
  • Length: 20:45
  • Purchases: 2
Black Holes from the Dawn of Light
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Caption: Super-massive black hole (artist's rendering)., Credit: NASA
Astronomers investigate a mystery that is 13 billion years old.

Bought by KPIP-LP and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Oct 26, 2018
  • Length: 22:34
  • Purchases: 2
Space Lasers for the Home Planet
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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NASA develops a futuristic space laser. Launches it into orbit. And aims it directly back at planet Earth.

Bought by KPIP-LP and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Sep 28, 2018
  • Length: 23:58
  • Purchases: 2
Brian Greene goes to 11 — again
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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Humans! Time to get over your three-dimensional selves. 
Brian Greene — world renowned physicist, bestselling author, NOVA host, and serial Colbert...

Bought by KPIP-LP and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Aug 31, 2018
  • Length: 30:56
  • Purchases: 2
The Universe of Leonard Susskind
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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Has a Bronx plumber’s son become the Einstein of our time?

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, and KVSC


  • Added: Jul 27, 2018
  • Length: 27:11
  • Purchases: 3
Mars Goes Organic
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Caption: The Curiosity rover on Mars., Credit: NASA
NASA has found organic molecules on Mars. Could life be next?

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, WRGY, KUER, PRX Remix and more


  • Added: Jun 29, 2018
  • Length: 28:12
  • Purchases: 6
Earth, Desert Planet?
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Caption: Mars appears, like Earth, once to have been crossed by flowing rivers., Credit: NASA
Adults don’t have all the answers — or all the questions. In our second edition of TELESCOPE, Michelle grapples with an 8th grader’s question about...

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, KUER, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Mar 23, 2018
  • Length: 06:59
  • Purchases: 4
Our Darkening Universe
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Piece image
Adam Riess was only 41 when he was named a Nobel Prize winner. The Johns Hopkins distinguished professor of astronomy shared in the award for his w...

Bought by KPIP-LP, WCNY, KICI Iowa City, WDBM, WRGY and more


  • Added: Mar 13, 2018
  • Length: 21:30
  • Purchases: 6
Introducing...Telescope!
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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Adults don’t have all the answers — or all the questions. So Michelle takes on some astronomical queries from 8th-graders.

Bought by KPIP-LP and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Feb 23, 2018
  • Length: 08:20
  • Purchases: 2
Star Death Tango
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Caption: Artist's rendering, Credit: CALTECH/NSF/LIGO Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet
In the time of the dinosaurs, two stars spiraled to their deaths. And 130 million years later, they taught humans the origin of gold.

Bought by KPIP-LP, WCNY, KICI Iowa City, and KUER


  • Added: Feb 09, 2018
  • Length: 24:11
  • Purchases: 4
Ozone Disaster Redux
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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Science for science’s sake may be luxury we can all do without — until, as happened during the 1980s, it quite literally saves the world.

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, KUER, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jan 26, 2018
  • Length: 20:02
  • Purchases: 4
Fireside Physics: A Solstice on Saturn?
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Caption: The winter solstice gets tricky if your home planet has rings..., Credit: NASA
The winter solstice: a time to curl up by the fire, toast marshmallows, and reflect on the passage of the seasons...on other planets.

Bought by KWMR, KPIP-LP, and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Dec 29, 2017
  • Length: 17:00
  • Purchases: 3
From Another Star
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Piece image
NASA has been on the lookout for rogue asteroids for years. Then astronomers in Hawaii glimpsed a massive, cigar-shaped object — from another solar...

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, and WHCP-LP Cambridge


  • Added: Dec 15, 2017
  • Length: 16:15
  • Purchases: 3
Winter's Night Sky
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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Today’s astrophysicists probe the farthest reaches of the universe using instruments impossible to imagine when the constellations were named. But...

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, KUER, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Dec 01, 2017
  • Length: 12:00
  • Purchases: 4
Aliens Again!
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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Almost two years ago, Orbital Path launched with an episode on our fascination with space aliens. But what’s really going on out there on KIC8462852?

Bought by KPIP-LP, WCNY, KICI Iowa City, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Nov 17, 2017
  • Length: 16:37
  • Purchases: 4
The 11 Dimensions of Brian Greene
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
Piece image
It’s time we get over out three-dimensional selves. 
Brian Greene — world renowned astrophysicist, New York Times bestselling author, NOVA host, an...

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, and KUER


  • Added: Oct 20, 2017
  • Length: 29:23
  • Purchases: 3
Episode 22: Journey to the Sun
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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People have dreamed of making this trip for millennia. Next year, NASA launches the first ever voyage to the sun.

Bought by KPIP-LP and KICI Iowa City


  • Added: Sep 15, 2017
  • Length: 18:00
  • Purchases: 2
Minisode 4: Hot Tub Physics!
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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NASA astronomer Andrew Booth joins Michelle in the hot tub to drink a glass of chardonnay, and talk weird science.

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, KUER, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Sep 01, 2017
  • Length: 11:27
  • Purchases: 4
Episode 21: First Light
From: PRX
Series: Orbital Path
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Michelle visits a Nobel Prize winner who took a “baby picture” of the universe — NASA cosmologist John Mather.

Bought by KPIP-LP, KICI Iowa City, and KUER


  • Added: Aug 18, 2017
  • Length: 22:53
  • Purchases: 3

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