Fraser Cain
Universe Today
Dr. Pamela Gay
CosmoQuest
Starliner S2.1 docking on May 20, 2022 (NASA) Prior to recording their exoplanets episode, Fraser and Pamela discussed their wild week of space flight news and discussed their concerns about the Starliner and StarShip programs. This is particularly timely as we...
In this bonus episode, we bring you behind the scenes audio from our June 10 pre-show discussion about the “far too much news” that occurred the week of June 3, 2024. Check out the original recording on YouTube here. This episode was sponsored by Mint Mobile.
Normally, Pamela refuses to think about the future. But today, on our final episode before hiatus, she’s throwing out those rules. Here’s what we’re excited about for the future, especially in the next couple of months until we return in September Recorded: 10 June...
It’s almost time for our summer hiatus. A time to catch up on all that reading. We’ll give you some book recommendations, and what we’re hoping to read during the summer. https://www.youtube.com/live/LFCW2nCw2-w?feature=shared Show Notes The following books were...
Recent Episodes
https://youtu.be/n4x3XyJtgXQ With a sample of asteroid Bennu firmly inside OSIRIS-REx's return capsule, it's time to bring this treasure home so scientists can study the composition and history of the space rock. But it's not the only sample return mission out there,...
https://youtu.be/fCxkDWINq1I 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. Download MP3 | Show Notes |...
https://youtu.be/prdjF4YmAas (Sorry for the delay everyone. It has been a week.) Did you hear the news? Nobel Prizes for black holes. We know there are stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes, but how do you get from one to the other? How do black holes...
https://youtu.be/qm5q4aRwtNQ 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. Download MP3 | Show Notes | Transcript Show...
https://youtu.be/09NzMzt8yXE 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...
https://youtu.be/cIcPtF1bN-U 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...
https://youtu.be/kgaUY0XcxZI Have you heard the big news? Of course you have, evidence of phosphine on Venus which could be a biosignature of life on our evil twin planet. There have been a lot of surprising stories about Venus, so let's get you all caught up....
https://youtu.be/vuoIlAvTfz0 Every two years or so, Mars lines up nicely with the Earth. It only takes two minutes to communicate with rovers, you can see the polar ice caps in a small telescope, and it's the best time to send spacecraft to the red planet. Download...
https://youtu.be/bxAZTyr-DXk It's time, once again, for Astronomy Cast to go on hiatus. You've got a couple of months on your own to explore the night sky. Before we say goodbye, though, we'd like to make a few suggestions. Download MP3 | Show Notes | Transcript...
https://youtu.be/-jvklCr8btg As amateur astronomers, we curse the Moon every month. Seriously, why doesn't someone get rid of that thing? This week, something occurred to us. What if we actually pointed our telescopes at the Moon? What would we see? Download MP3 |...
https://youtu.be/-ttZy7UXp6s We imagine the asteroid belt as the place where all the rocks hang out in the Solar System, but there are two huge bands of asteroids that orbit the Sun with Jupiter called the Trojans. And soon, we might actually get a chance to see them...
https://youtu.be/Q7uWOp7kxwU Not only have astronomers discovered thousands of exoplanets, but they're even starting to study the atmospheres of worlds thousands of light-years away. What can we learn about these other worlds, and maybe even signs of life. Download...
https://youtu.be/Scs9NHSSNu0 We're all looking forward to the next generation of exoplanetary research, where we get to see pictures of planets directly. But astronomers are already making great strides in directly observing newly forming planets, helping us...
https://youtu.be/lcbALEjp0k4 We're familiar with regular binary stars. Two stars orbiting each other. Simple. Of course, the Universe has come up with every combination of things orbiting other things. And this week we look at the extreme version of this. Download MP3...
https://youtu.be/B3MFSCdyNHE Discovering comets is one of the fields that amateurs can still make a regular contribution to astronomy. But more and more telescopes are getting found by spacecraft, automated systems and machine learning. This week, we'll talk about how...
https://youtu.be/QFeuXhIOxNI Every year, more and more people are making their way to space. Some private citizens have already gotten their astronaut wings, paying for a trip to space out of their own pocket. What are the ethical implications of this as the costs of...
https://youtu.be/Ud7BCycI820 The key to surviving in space will be learning how to live off the land. Instead of carrying all your fuel, water, and other resources from Earth, extract them locally at your destination. It's called In Situ Resource Utilization and if we...
https://youtu.be/Xj6x1AK6BOE Space is really far away, so when you send a satellite out into the void, that's pretty much the last you're going to be able to work on it. And if anything goes wrong, too bad, you're out a satellite. But a new test has shown that it's...
https://youtu.be/-dQtA9h1tUc As everyone knows, the Universe owes us a bright comet. There have been a lot of promising candidates, but in the end, they always fail to live up to our expectations. Comets keep on breaking up with us. Download MP3| Download Raw Show...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idra0yV3QvU So much of our Solar System has been shaped by enormous collisions early on in our history. Seriously, the nature of every planet in the Solar System has some evidence of massive impacts during some point in its history....