{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Kalam Astro","title":"Mercury Bound: BepiColombo's 8-Year Journey & the Moon Born in 5 Hours","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1768,"description":"This week on Kalam Astro, host Alya Al-Nuaimi brings you four extraordinary stories from the frontiers of space science — from satellites watching over us with AI eyes, to a spacecraft that took 8 years to reach its destination!\nWe start with Earth observation and AI: private companies are now launching entire fleets of small satellites, and these aren't your grandparents' space cameras. With onboard artificial intelligence, these satellites process data in orbit, spotting storms, illegal shipping, and environmental disasters instantly — sending back only what matters most.\nThen we travel to Mercury — the most underexplored planet in our solar system. The BepiColombo mission, a joint effort between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan's JAXA, launched in October 2018 and has been navigating the treacherous gravitational pull of the Sun for 8 long years. It performed gravity-assist maneuvers past Earth, Venus twice, and Mercury itself six times just to slow down enough to enter orbit!\nWe also explore one of the universe's greatest \"overnight\" miracles: new computer simulations suggest our Moon may have formed in just 5 hours following a colossal collision between early Earth and a Mars-sized planet called Theia. And we wrap up with hyperspectral imaging — a technology that lets satellites \"read\" chemical fingerprints from space, detecting oil spills, wildfires, and even underground rock formations.\nTune in, look up, and keep exploring with Kalam Astro! 🌌\n==\nListen to #Pulse95Radio in the UAE by tuning in on your radio (95.00 FM) or online on our website: www.pulse95radio.com\n************************\nFollow us on Social.\nwww.facebook.com/pulse95radio\nwww.twitter.com/pulse95radio","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/m-nOVVI7bpo0QVZ9Q8OHfrGYXAymDg744gYuUsfaBfk/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzUwMjUyLzE3MDky/MDE3OTgtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}