Questions Show - light speed, Andromeda galaxy, dark matter and black holes

Another week, another roundup of your questions. This week listeners asked: will reaching light speed destroy the Universe? When is Andromeda going to look really, really cool with the unaided eye? Why didn't dark matter all turn into black holes? And there's even more. If you've got a question for the Astronomy Cast team, please email it in to info@astronomycast.com and we'll try to tackle it for a future show.

Show - light speed, Andromeda galaxy, dark matter and black holes (17.07MB)

Will traveling at light speed destroy the Universe?

• Is faster the light travel possible?
• Check out Episode 31 of Astronomy Cast, which discusses warp speed (among other things)
• Does gravity travel at the speed of light?
• BAUT forum discussion of infinite gravity
• Warp Drive and Cloaking Devices:  Not Just Science Fiction Anymore? –from Universe Today

Will Andromeda be ever be easily visible (and look really cool!) in our night sky?

• All about Andromeda- from SEDS
• When Galaxies Collide — from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
• Paper on The Collision Between the Milky Way and Andromeda

Will proton beams in the LHC be going twice the speed of light?

• Large Hadron Collider info
• All about Einstein's theory of relativity – from the University of New South Wales

Does dark matter collapse into black holes?

• Why doesn't dark matter fall into a black hole? – from Cornell University
• Greedy Supermassive Black Holes Dislike Dark Matter –from Universe Today
• How Dark Matter Might Have Snuffed Out the First Stars – from Universe Today
• Could the First Stars Have Been Powered by Dark Matter? – from Universe Today

Are black holes spinning?

• Black Holes Seen Spinning at the Limits Predicted by Einstein — from Universe Today
• Supermassive Black Holes Spin at the Limits of Relativity – from Universe Today
• Iron Can Help Determine if a Black Hole is Spinning – from Universe Today

Is it possible the Big Bang wasn't the beginning of the Universe?

• Physicist Neil Turok:  Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning – from Wired
• Thinking About Time Before the Big Bang — from Universe Today
• Before the Big Bang – from Universe Today
• What Was Before the Big Bang? — from Universe Today
• And it Came From the CMB — from Star Stryder
• The Improbable Universe – from Star Stryder
• The Universe In One Year – from Discovery Channel

1. Vanmonde Says:
   September 26th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

   Download is not working!

2. Goran Nordstrom Says:
   September 26th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

   ddownload this instead !!!

   http://media.libsyn.com/media/astronomycast/AstroCast-080925.mp3

3. Astronomy Cast Says:
   September 26th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

   Sorry - stray character. Now fixed. - Pamela

4. Kai Says:
   September 26th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

   Both the link in the second comment and the link in the post are giving me a 500 - Internal Server Error page.

5. Kai Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

   And…it's working now. Great show as always, guys.

6. Dave B. Says:
   September 28th, 2008 at 5:34 am

   Linky no worky

7. Dave B. Says:
   September 28th, 2008 at 5:41 am

   Sorry, I can in fact dl it– it appears to be a Firefox issue for me, works fine in IE.

8. Nathan Says:
   September 28th, 2008 at 11:23 am

   Dave B is right both links would not work in Firefox 3.0 but i could download it through IE6 without issue

9. Andrew Says:
   September 28th, 2008 at 12:05 pm

   Very interesting show! Thanks.

10. Yoo Says:
    September 29th, 2008 at 3:14 am

    Thanks for answering my question about dark matter and black holes! I think I get it now, but can you confirm or deny my understanding that it's the lack of friction is why dark matter is more diffuse than ordinary matter?

11. John Says:
    September 29th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

    I'm not getting these downloaded anymore and my podcast aggregator (j river media center 12) says there's an "xml field error". Any thoughts?

12. SF Reader Says:
    October 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    Whew! I had to stop listening to this at work and instead listen during my commute. Serious listening needed.

    Thanks!

    Dennis

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