Even in ancient times, astronomers realized there was something different about the planets – they move! The movement of the planets and their moons are governed by gravity. And as we all know, gravity can do some funny things.

This is going to be one of those weeks where we tackle something you’re mentally avoiding. You know all those astronomical terms, like alt-azimuth, right ascension and declination, arc seconds and arc minutes? Of course not, your mind has blocked them out. Today we’re going explain them, so you don’t need to avoid them any more. Soon, you’ll be ready to find anything in the cosmos.

Last week we talked about Fermi the man, now we’re going to talk about Fermi the space telescope. That’s right, Enrico Fermi made such an impact in the astronomy and physics community that he got a space telescope named after him. Let’s take a look at what this mission will do, and its discoveries so far.

Astronomy is one of the scientific fields that have been completely shaken up by new media. The Internet has enabled communication between researchers in a dramatic new way, creating new collaborations, removing obstacles, and drawing in an army of enthusiastic volunteers to help with research. Let’s take a look at how new media is helping change astronomy, and how you can get involved.

For those non-scientists trying to get their original ideas accepted by the scientific community, you’ve got to have thick skin. It might seem like there’s a vast conspiracy, or a general attitude that drives away original, but unorthodox ideas. But that’s not true, the reality is that great ideas in science come from everywhere, even amateurs. In this episode we’ll help you understand what scientists will be looking for, and the best ways to be taken seriously.

Have you ever wondered how astronomers do their research? How do they go from idea or question, to gathering their data, to publishing the research. What are all the hoops they have to jump through, the paperwork to fill out, and the cool toys they get to use along the way?

And now we reach the end of our tour through the electromagnetic spectrum. Last stop… gamma rays. These are the most energetic photons in the Universe, boosted up to incredible energies in the most violent places in the Universe. Gamma rays are tricky to catch, but they can reveal the most dramatic events in the Universe.

Optical astronomy; now this is the kind of astronomy a human being was born to do. In fact, until the last century, this was the only kind of astronomy anybody ever did. Now we’ve got the whole electromagnetic spectrum to explore, but our heart still belongs to optical astronomy. Of course, with bigger telescopes, better optics and more sensitive detectors, even optical astronomy has come a long way.

Today we continue our unofficial tour through the electromagnetic spectrum, stopping at the infrared spectrum – you feel it as heat. This section of the spectrum gives us our only clear view through dusty material to see newly forming planetary systems and shrouded supermassive black holes. And infrared lets us look out to the most distant regions of the observable universe, when the first building blocks of galaxies came together.

Astronomers are very resourceful, when it comes to light, they use the whole spectrum – from radio to gamma rays. We see in visible light, but that’s just a tiny portion of the spectrum. Today we’re going to celebrate the other end of the spectrum; the radio end, where photons really stretch out their wavelengths.

You can’t make a Solar System without a whole lot of dust. And that’s the problem. This dust has blocked astronomers views into some of the most fascinating parts of the cosmos. It shields the galactic core, enshrouds newly forming stars and their planets, and blocks our view to churning supermassive black holes, actively feeding in distant galaxies. But new telescopes and techniques are allowing astronomers to peer through this dust, and see these events like never before.

You’ve heard us talk about capsules, you’ve heard us talk about space suits, well today we take a look at the only currently in use reusable space craft. It’s a not a bird, its not a plane – It’s the US Space Shuttle. And to make it interesting – we’ve sent Scott Miller, Astronomy Cast student web developer, down to watch the launch so he can bring us back us first hand story.

This week Bob Novella of Skeptics Guide to the Universe is going to pepper Pamela with questions, testing her ability to leap from tides to gravitational waves to Higgs bosons. We’ll see where this takes us on this skeptical journey through what is known and what we’re trying to learn about this universe.

Dreaming up new planets is a favourite pastime of science fiction writers, but the universe often has them beat – coming with planets in place and forms that we had quite thought to imagine. Today we know of 228 planets orbiting alien stars, and in this episode we will look at the diversity of these worlds, from Mushy Lava covered planets to Icy Giants to the hottest of hot Jupiters.