Fraser Cain
Universe Today
Dr. Pamela Gay
CosmoQuest
It’s almost time for our annual summer hiatus, but before we go, we wanted to direct you towards all the fun and space stuff we’ll be enjoying this summer. We’ve got meteor showers, planets, rocket launches, TV shows, movies! Here’s what’s good. In a couple of weeks,...
Humanity has turned its focus back to the Moon, sending a fleet of spacecraft to the lunar surface. Some are run by the government, but there’s a whole new group of commercial landers bearing instruments to the lunar surface. Is this the future of lunar exploration?...
Astronomy Cast dive into the wild world of non-roving rovers. The future of exploration isn’t just rolling… it’s hopping, flying, crawling, and swimming!
Computers are getting smaller, faster and more capable, which has enabled an entirely mew class of satellites: CubeSats.
Recent Episodes
The time has come. The mighty Vera Rubin Observatory has finally come on line and delivered its “first light” images. And by Pamela’s rules that means we get to talk about it! So let’s do that! After decades of waiting, we have images from Vera Rubin Observatory! Show...
It’s almost time for our annual summer hiatus, but before we go, we wanted to direct you towards all the fun and space stuff we’ll be enjoying this summer. We’ve got meteor showers, planets, rocket launches, TV shows, movies! Here’s what’s good. In a couple of weeks,...
Humanity has turned its focus back to the Moon, sending a fleet of spacecraft to the lunar surface. Some are run by the government, but there’s a whole new group of commercial landers bearing instruments to the lunar surface. Is this the future of lunar exploration?...
Computers are getting smaller, faster and more capable, which has enabled an entirely mew class of satellites: CubeSats. A mission small enough that you can hold it in your hands, and yet powerful enough to even travel to other planets and send messages home. ...
Computers are getting smaller, faster and more capable, which has enabled an entirely mew class of satellites: CubeSats. A mission small enough that you can hold it in your hands, and yet powerful enough to even travel to other planets and send messages home. ...
NASA’s newly launched SphereX mission is up & operational and has completed its initial checkout and “first light”. Everything looks good! And now it’s starting its science operations. And that’s good enough for Pamela! And THAT means we can talk about it. So...
There are stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. But very little evidence of anything in between. Where are all the intermediate-mass black holes that should be the building blocks of the biggest ones? Actually, the science has been accelerating rapidly and we now...
You’ve heard the news! Astronomers are reporting the discovery of biosignatures at K2-18b. Is this proof of life or should we all be more skeptical? It's in the news and people are claiming aliens... but is it aliens? Let's see what the data actually says. Show Notes...
I’m sure you’ve heard that all eyes are on the Moon’s southern pole. This is where various NASA and Chinese missions are targeting. What makes this region so special and what are the special challenges that explorers will face. From TV shows to real-world...
There is an ongoing debate on where NASA should go next with humans: to the Moon or Mars. (Or maybe an asteroid or one of Mars’ moons). We are on the verge of sending humans back to the Moon. At the same time others would prefer we focus our exploration on Mars. It’s...
Even empty space isn’t empty. It’s filled with the quantum fluctuations of spacetime itself. Which can be measured with famous experiments like the Casimir Effect. There is a surprising amount of energy in space itself, which has led to some interesting theories about...
When enormous stars detonate as supernovae they release a burst of neutrinos that can be the first sign of a coming explosion. Now, astronomers have built a network to watch for that flash of neutrinos, and help direct their telescopes for when the sky show begins....
We thought Dark Energy was constant with time, but new results from DESI say maybe not, and honestly, if it wasn't constant the Hubble Tension would be a whole lot easier to solve. Show Notes Hubble Tension Definition Historical Debate & the current state...
Fast Radio Bursts the briefest of moments, some dead stars can flash brighter than their entire galaxy (in Radio light) and then live to do it again and again. It’s time for an update on fast radio bursts, a phenomenon we’ve only known about for a few decades. In this...
Most planets orbit stars. That’s the rule, right? Well, maybe not. In fact the vast majority of planets could be floating freely through the Milky Way. Today we’re gonna talk about rogue planets. Sometimes planets just go rogue. Let's learn about planets living free...
We have dust storms on Earth and of course the famous dust storms on Mars. There are even dust storms on Titan. What causes these storms and how do they work differently on the worlds in the solar system. But what about the exoplanets? The bane of solar panels,...
New asteroids are found every day, and every day we learn that those asteroids don't have any murderous intentions. But how do we learn that? In this episode we dig into asteroid orbital determination. Show Notes Detection of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) Discovery...
What time is it? OK, fine, what time is it on the Moon? The Moon orbits the Earth, so it doesn’t fall into a specific time zone. Also, there’s lower gravity on the surface of the Moon, which changes the rate that clocks tick. Well… It’s time to introduce Lunar...
Just a few years ago LIGO detected the first direct evidence of gravitational waves coming from colliding black holes. And there you have it. Boom! Black holes collide! But that wasn’t all we learned from gravitational waves, nor will we learn. Sure, the masses of...
Gravity Waves ... not gravitational waves ... move atmospheres and make pretty clouds. Show Notes Introduction to Atmospheric Gravity Waves: Definition and differentiation from gravitational waves. Their occurrence due to a balance of buoyancy and gravity....