Robot Astronomy Talk Show: The Mass of Asteroids (Cameron Diaz, Ed Wasser)

Cameron Diaz teaches Robot IR-2 (Ed Wasser) how astronomers can measure the mass of asteroids from tremendous distances.

Specifically, it describes the formula "F=ma" and how it can be used in conjunction with measurements of the "Yarkovsky Effect," a force that can push around asteroids & other objects in space.

This video is part of the Robot Astronomy Talk Show series. It airs as part of NASA's IRrelevant Astronomy (the "IR" stands for "infrared"), a channel of comedic educational videos.

For latest episodes, please subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit our website:
spitzer.caltech.edu/irrelevant

• Category

  Science & Technology

[wilomica]

Did Cameron Diaz quit acting to become the worlds 'hottest' teacher?

[NAMLegolas]

YAY! RATS!

[garry12gg]

I wish IR-2 had a Facebook Page or Twitter account, so that the fans could talk to him.

[sssdeecee]

Cute... both the video and Cameron Diaz. :-)

Kudos for making this science cool and accessable to young people. Very good explanation of one way the mass of asteroids is calculated via the Yarkovsky effect.

But some of the content may have been misleading. Cameron seemed to imply that it was discovered and first used by JPL in 2012. But that isn't true. The effect was discovered in 1900 and first applied by JPL in 2003. Science journal vol.302 #5651 has a great article about this.

[Richard Sommery-Gade]

In a way this could also be applied to the magnetic effects that we are currently studying at the space station.