Ep: 290 Failed Stars

If you get enough hydrogen together in one place, gravity pulls it together to the point that the temperature and pressures are enough for fusion to occur. This is a star. But what happens when you don't have quite enough hydrogen? Then you get a failed star, like a gas giant planet or a brown dwarf.

Ep. 244: Io

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) If you want to see one of the strangest places in the Solar System, look no further than Io, Jupiter’s inner Galilean moon. The immense tidal forces from Jupiter keep the moon hotter than hot, with huge volcanoes blasting lava hundreds of kilometres...

Ep. 242: Torino Scale

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) When you hear of a looming asteroid strike, do you wonder what to do? Should you go into your underground bunker, evacuate the state, or leave the planet? Fortunately, astronomers have developed the Torino Scale – a handy measurement that incorporates...

Ep. 238: Solar Activity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) The Sun looks like a harmless burning ball of fire in the sky: warm, life-giving and forever unchanging. But we know better, don’t we. It’s really a massive ball of churning hydrogen plasma, encased in twisting magnetic field lines, speckled...

Ep. 237: Spooky Sounds From Space

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) To help you out with your halloween parties, we’ve collected together the spooky sounds of space. Every piece of audio we’re about to play might sound like it comes from a terrifying nightmare dimension, but it’s really just a natural...

Ep. 226: Weather

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) How’s the weather? Maybe a better question is… why’s the weather? What is it about planets and their atmospheres that create weather systems. What have planetary scientists learned about our Earth’s weather, and how does this relate...