Ep. 703: Solar Maximum of Doom? Maybe

Ep. 703: Solar Maximum of Doom? Maybe

Solar cycle 25 is shaping up to be a doozy, with plenty of flares and coronal mass ejections blasting off the Sun. As the solar activity continues to rise, how are things shaping up?

Ep. 683: Cosmic Dawn

Ep. 683: Cosmic Dawn

After the cosmic microwave background radiation was released, the Universe returned to darkness, cloaked in this clouds of primordial hydrogen and helium. Gravity pulled these vast clouds into the first stars, and then the first galaxies. This is Cosmic Dawn, and JWST will help us probe this mysterious time.

Ep. 681: Kilonovae

Ep. 681: Kilonovae

In 2017, astronomers detected the gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation from colliding neutron stars. This had been long theorized as one of the causes of a certain type of gamma-ray burst. By studying the event and its afterglow, astronomers have learned a tremendous amount about the formation of the heaviest elements in the Universe.

Ep. 680: Rogue Black Holes

Ep. 680: Rogue Black Holes

Last week we talked about rogue stars. This week we’re going to take things up a notch and talk about an even more extreme event. Rogue black holes. Astronomers recently discovered a supermassive black hole on an escape trajectory, leaving newly forming stars in its wake. It’s wonderful, terrible, nightmare fuel.

Ep. 679: High(per) Velocity Stars

Ep. 679: High(per) Velocity Stars

Most stars in the Milky Way are trapped in here with us, doomed to orbit around and around and around. But a few have found a way out, an escape into the freedom of intergalactic space. How do stars reach escape velocity, never to return?

Ep. 665: The Age of Reionization

Ep. 665: The Age of Reionization

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation tells us so much about the Universe. After that era, the Universe went dark. Then, as gas pulled together into the first stars and eventually galaxies, light returned, beginning the Age of Reionization.

Ep. 664: The First Stars

Ep. 664: The First Stars

The Sun is a third generation star, polluted with the metals from long dead stars. Astronomers have also discovered second generation stars, with very low metallicity. But theories suggest there must be a first generation, with stars made from only pure hydrogen and helium. Can we ever find them?

Ep. 650: First Light for JWST

Ep. 650: First Light for JWST

Well, this is it, we’re finally going to talk about the James Webb Space Telescope. After decades of development, delays and budget creep, the powerful infrared observatory is at its final home at the L2 Lagrange Point. Yesterday we saw the first scientific images from the telescope, and according to Pamela’s rules, we’re finally allowed to talk about it.

Ep. 643: Sagittarius A*

Ep. 643: Sagittarius A*

All the waiting is over, we’ve finally seen the image of the event horizon from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Today we’re going to explain the picture, and what’s next for the Event Horizon Telescope.

Ep. 642: Is the Sun… Normal?

Ep. 642: Is the Sun… Normal?

We’ve always assumed that we lived in a perfectly normal system with a normal star and normal planets. It’s all… normal. But with our modern understanding of billions of stars, just how normal is our Sun, anyway?

Ep. 636: Blowing Bubbles

Ep. 636: Blowing Bubbles

We think of space as a vacuum, but there are regions of different density. There are winds blowing from stars and other objects that clear out vast bubbles in space, and look absolutely fantastic in pictures. And might have been critical for Earth to even exist in the first place.

Ep. 631: All the Uses of Pulsars (Including Murder)

Ep. 631: All the Uses of Pulsars (Including Murder)

Pulsars are the rapidly spinning degenerate husks of dead stars, turning hundreds of times a second. But they’re also handy clocks, spinning with such certainty and accuracy that astronomers can use them for all kinds of stuff. We might even use them to navigate the cosmos.

Ep. 628: The Sun Revisited

Ep. 628: The Sun Revisited

Once again, it’s time to take a look at the Sun. You know, ongoing thermonuclear explosion of fusing hydrogen that’s right over there. Fortunately, there’s a fleet of spacecraft and ground observatories ready to give our best ever view of the Sun.

Ep. 593: Stellar Parasites

Ep. 593: Stellar Parasites

Stars often come in groups of two or more. And if they’re orbiting close enough to each other, one star can feast on the other. And when that happens, well, mayhem ensues.

Ep. 583: The Nobel Prize

Ep. 583: The Nobel Prize

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three brilliant researchers who worked out some of the secrets of black holes. Today we’re going to talk about the chain of discoveries that led to this award.

Ep. 581: Other Kinds of Novae

Ep. 581: Other Kinds of Novae

Don’t ever accuse us of not comprehensively covering every kind of exploding star. This week we gather up all the leftover ways that stars partially or fully explode, or don’t. Probably. Enjoy.

Ep. 580: Exploding Dwarfs

Ep. 580: Exploding Dwarfs

You’d think that a white dwarf star is the end of a stellar life. It’s all downhill from there. A long, slow cool down towards the end of everything. But in some situations, even dead stars can get exciting again, briefly becoming some of the brightest objects in the Universe. And just maybe, the last exciting thing that ever happens in the Universe.

Ep. 579: White and Black Dwarfs

Ep. 579: White and Black Dwarfs

I’ve got some bad news for you: stars die. At some point in the next few billion years or so, our Sun is going to start heating up, using up all the fuel in its core, and then eventually die, becoming a white dwarf. It will then slowly cool down to the background temperature of the universe, becoming a black dwarf.

Ep. 563: White Dwarf Mergers

Ep. 563: White Dwarf Mergers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUiGEfdJsK4 White dwarfs are usually about 60% the mass of the Sun, so it was a bit of a surprise when astronomers found one that was almost exactly twice that. What happens when white dwarfs merge? Download MP3| Download Raw Show with...

Ep. 560: Betelgeuse

Ep. 560: Betelgeuse

You might be surprised to hear that we’ve never done an episode of Astronomy Cast featuring Betelgeuse. Well, good news, this is that episode. Let’s talk about the star, why it might be dimming, and what could happen if it explodes as a supernova.

Ep. 559: The Surface of the Sun

Ep. 559: The Surface of the Sun

A brand new telescope has completed on Maui’s Haleakala, and it has just one job: to watch the Sun in unprecedented detail. It’s called the Daniel K. Inouye telescope, and the engineering involved to get this telescope operational are matched by the incredible resolution of its first images.

Ep. 558: Supernova SN 2006gy

Ep. 558: Supernova SN 2006gy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJQFrgxlmus We've been following this story for more than a decade, so it's great to finally have an answer to the question, why was supernova 2006gy so insanely bright? Astronomers originally thought it was an example of a supermassive...

Ep. 557: Red Dwarfs: Friend or Foe

Ep. 557: Red Dwarfs: Friend or Foe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh1Ocfgmptc On the one hand, red dwarfs are the longest lived stars in the Universe, the perfect place for life to hang out for trillions of years. On the other hand, they're tempestuous little balls of plasma, hurling out catastrophic...

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