by Brian Dunning
January 27, 2026
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Today I thought I'd torment you with a pop quiz, knowing that you have not studied for it. However, if you've paid close attention to Skeptoid for the past 19 years without ever having forgotten a detail from any episode, you should have no problem. But for the rest of you, you're going to have to rely on your knowledge of space. Not just real space, but skeptical space; meaning questions about space in which whackjobs and conspiracy theorists have invented their own versions of reality to support their beliefs. So really, you're going up against them today. Are you ready?
Let's get started with:
1. Fun with Jupiter
As discussed in Skeptoid #143, a wacky conspiracy theory charges NASA with launching the Galileo probe to Jupiter as a secret plan to turn Jupiter into a second sun — probably because they saw the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact in which this actually happens. (Note that I don't say that they probably read Arthur C. Clarke's original novel, 2010: Odyssey Two, because I doubt their reading skills are up to par.) The conspiracy theory calls this plan The Lucifer Project. What is the mechanism by which Jupiter would allegedly be turned into a star?
- Galileo would be accelerated directly into Jupiter's core, striking it with enough energy to explode it, and igniting Jupiter's 76% hydrogen atmosphere.
- Galileo's planned collision into Jupiter would streak through its atmosphere, using frictional heating to ignite its atmosphere.
- The plutonium in Galileo's nuclear power packs would compress in Jupiter's atmosphere and become a nuclear explosion, igniting the planet into a star.
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is C, the plutonium in Galileo's nuclear power packs. These are RTGs, radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which convert the heat from plutonium decay into electricity, powering the spacecraft. The claim is ridiculous for at least three reasons:
- The plutonium fuel in an RTG is in small pieces, each wrapped in graphite, and in no case could ever possibly form into a spherical critical mass.
- Thermonuclear explosions with 100 times what you could possibly get with all the plutonium in an RTG have been tested on Earth, and Earth didn't turn into a small star. So it's pretty dumb to think Jupiter would.
- No matter what you did, Jupiter has too little mass to create gravitational confinement, which is one of the things needed to sustain the fusion reaction in a star.
Correction: An earlier version of this erroneously named the Cassini probe when Galileo was intended. We must get the goofy conspiracy theory details right! BD
2. A Real Warp Drive?
I don't think I've ever had a conversation with a UFOlogist who hasn't pointed out that NASA has endorsed the existence of warp drives, which would allow aliens to freely visit the Earth. What they're referring to is the Alcubierre drive, a speculative thought experiment published over 30 years ago by physicist Miguel Alcubierre. As he is quick to acknowledge, what is the main reason it can't work?
- It requires exotic matter which does not exist in the universe.
- It requires more energy than exists in the entire Milky Way.
- It can only exist in a hypothetical alternate universe in which imaginary and real numbers are transposed.
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is A, it requires exotic matter. Exotic matter would be needed to produce negative energy, neither of which exist. So why would Dr. Alcubierre use them in his design? Think of i, the imaginary number which is the square root of -1. It does not exist in this universe; you will never have i apples in a basket. However, even in your high school math, you used it; such imaginary numbers come in handy to make certain equations solvable. Negative energy, while not a real thing that exists, can also be used in approximately the same way in theoretical physics equations. Can't exist in reality; but makes certain concepts solvable in physics — like a conjectural warp drive.
3. The Black Knight Satellite
For decades, some UFO fans have clung to the belief that a 13,000-yr-old satellite of alien origin was discovered orbiting the Earth by — who else but the god of all crackpot conspiracy theorists — Nikola Tesla. Every time a Mercury or Apollo astronaut reported seeing something weird, the UFOlogists took it as a sighting of the alien satellite, which they named the Black Knight Satellite, and which was the subject of episode #365. Then in 1998, space shuttle Endeavor brought back very clear photos of a strange object in orbit. While many UFOlogists were satisfied that this was proof of Black Knight's existence, the astronauts who took the photo have always said that it was of what?
- The shuttle's own manipulator arm, aka the Canadarm.
- The International Space Station, which they had just left.
- A piece of thermal blanket that got loose from the shuttle's payload bay.
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is C, a piece of thermal blanket. It got loose before they could catch it, so the astronauts documented it with multiple very clear photographs. No aliens yet.
4. The South Atlantic Anomaly
Episode #234 looked at the South Atlantic Anomaly, a region of space over Brazil where the irregular shape of the Van Allen Radiation belts mean they dip down to only 200 km above the ground. Many have suspected that interference from the Anomaly's radiation could have played a role in the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447. Which of the following is true?
- Flight 447 was never inside the Anomaly.
- Flight 447's flight recorder data tapes showed damage consistent with radiation from the Anomaly.
- It's more likely that Flight 447's electronics were taken out by a solar flare from Sunspot 1019 on the day the plane crashed.
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is A, Flight 447 was never inside the Anomaly. Its closest approach to Earth is 200 km, yet the highest commercial airliners can fly is about 15 km. The plane was also some 1000 km past the Anomaly when it went down, which was actually caused by ice on some of its sensors. If a plane could get way up inside the Anomaly, yes it might have some problems; both the International Space Station and a few hundred satellites have to take special procedures to shield sensitive electronics when they pass through it.
The competing conjecture, that a solar flare took out the plane, can be easily dismissed. Research done in 1967 at the University of Idaho demonstrated that even during major solar flare events, the flux of high-energy protons at equatorial latitudes remains far too low to cause systemic avionics failures.
5. The Apollo Landing Sites
In 2011, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took telescopic photographs of the footprints of the Apollo astronauts on the Moon. It did not satisfy the moon landing deniers, who claim that if the landing sites were really there, we would have been able to easily see them with the Hubble Space Telescope for the past 20 years, as we discussed in episode #537 on the undeniable physical proofs that humans from Earth went to the Moon and came back. What's the real reason that Hubble never got photographs of the Apollo landing sites?
- Hubble doesn't point toward the Moon because it's too bright for Hubble's sensitive instruments.
- Hubble physically cannot angle itself to point toward the Moon.
- The Apollo landing sites are too small for Hubble to see.
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is C, the landing sites are too small. This sounds hard to believe, but consider the immense size of the galaxies Hubble is designed to look at. Even though they're incredibly far away, their size is such that the math works out. The Apollo sites are tiny, and still pretty far away for Hubble. Even the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — which is literally right there orbiting above the sites — couldn't see any fine details when it first photographed the landing sites in 2009. It had to make a series of special extremely low altitude passes to resolve them in 2011.
6. Circumbinary Exoplanets
Episode #570 was about especially cool space missions, and one was the Kepler space telescope which discovered so many exoplanets. So you remember in Star Wars, Luke lived on Tatooine, and there was a sunset with two stars. That means Tatooine orbited a binary star, and so it was what we call a circumbinary exoplanet. How many circumbinary exoplanets are known as of today, January 2026?
- Fewer than 50
- Between 50 and 500
- More than 500
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is A, fewer than 50. Only a small handful of people have discovered those that are known, which is considered to be "fewer than 25" because some candidates are in various stages of confirmation.
7. Little Green Men
Skeptoid #486 looked at the history of the flying saucer craze, and of claims of little green men from space. Scientists suddenly took this idea very seriously — at least, briefly — when a steadily repeating radio signal was picked up coming from deep space. In honor of little green men, the signal was named LGM-1, and it was soon found to be one of the following three objects. However, your question is which of these following three objects is not found in the Milky Way?
- Quasar
- Magnetar
- Pulsar
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is A, quasars are not in the Milky Way; they are the extremely luminous active nucleus of a distant galaxy, powered by a supermassive black hole at the center. Pulsars and magnetars are found inside the Milky Way; and incidentally, LGM-1 turned out to be a pulsar, named for its pulsing, and it's how we found out about them. They are rapidly spinning neutron stars throwing out a powerful radio beam which sweeps past you like the beam of a lighthouse.
8. Detecting Particles
There are two particle detectors in the world with a volume of at least one cubic kilometer: the American IceCube buried in the ice near the South Pole, and the Russian Baikal-GVD beneath the waters of Lake Baikal (currently offline for upgrades, and discussed in episode #771). Two others are being built, the European KM3NeT in the Mediterranean, and a secretive Chinese one expected to be much larger. What type of particles are these designed to detect?
- Gravitational waves
- Dark matter candidate particles
- Neutrinos
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is C, neutrinos. These are fundamental, nearly massless, electrically neutral subatomic particles that travel at very close to the speed of light, interacting so weakly with matter that they can pass through planets as if they weren't there, making them abundant yet elusive "ghost particles" from gnarly events. Said gnarly events include supernovae, collisions of neutron stars, and violent radiation from black hole event horizons.
9. Wow!
And finally, an unreasonably difficult question that you would have no reason to know unless you are either super into astrology, or are some kind of savant on the subject of the famous 1977 Wow! signal discussed in episode #342. This mysterious deep space radio signal came from the direction of which constellation?
- Sagittarius
- Ursa Major
- Orion
Reveal the answer
The correct answer is A, Sagittarius. And it just so happens that we have some late-breaking news on the Wow! signal. That news is that whatever the most recent thing is you read online that it's finally been identified, is actually super old news; someone proposed that same thing forty years ago, and again twenty years ago, and again last week; and it was easily dismissed each time. So be prepared for another announcement soon; and again, I predict (with my psychic powers) that the same conditions will apply.
And that's all we have for you today! Total up your score. We had 9 questions. If you got 7 or more right, you are part of the Skeptoid inner circle and entitled to participate in our next occult indoctrination ceremony at our secret location. 5 or more right, you qualify to join our apprenticeship program, and can start by carrying water up our mountainside for the next ten years. If you only got 4 or fewer, then I'm sorry, but we're going to have to ask you to report to one of our Retraining Centers for orderly disposal in our disintegration machines.
And those are your only choices — unless, of course, you've studied the fallacy of the excluded middle.
By Brian Dunning
