Fraser Cain
Universe Today
Dr. Pamela Gay
CosmoQuest
Astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets, revealing entirely new types of worlds that we don’t have in the Solar System. It is enough to start getting a rough sense of what kinds of planets are out there. What’s the big picture? Show Notes Our World in Data...
Here’s a familiar question: how’s the weather? We’re familiar with the weather on Earth and telescopes and missions are watching the weather on other planets in the Solar System. But for the first time in history, astronomers can now answer that question for...
Most of the exoplanets we’ve found are around stars, where they belong. But a few have been found free-floating in interstellar space. The evidence is growing that there are a lot of them out there, maybe even more than planets with stars. How do they form and how can...
Our galaxy series continues with elliptical galaxies. Unlike other types, these are large, smooth with very few distinguishing features. They’re filled with red and dead stars, a clue to their evolution. Listen Show Notes This episode discusses Elliptical Galaxies,...
Recent Episodes
Last month astronomers announced that they had detected a tiny asteroid that had been captured by the Earth's gravity well and had been sharing our orbit for a few years. Today, let's talk about the smallest moons in the Solar System. Download MP3| Download Raw Show...
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...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2WFmyfrEdE&feature=youtu.be Pamela and Fraser discuss the implications of COVID-19 and it's changes on the world, and what we all can do during this time. Download MP3| Download Raw Show with Q&A| Show Notes | Transcript Show...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sen2rMwYPnY We lost a bright star here on planet Earth last week. NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson passed away at the age of 101, after an incredible career of helping humans land on the Moon. If you saw the movie Hidden Figures,...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tw-Xe_AxJM 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...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSRhDKtpFg 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...
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...
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...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8kJy-_90Y&feature=youtu.be For the longest time astronomers could only study the skies with telescopes. But then new techniques and technologies were developed to help us see in different wavelengths. Now astronomers can study...
https://youtu.be/ltohpTiKKhs The other big issue at the AAS was the challenge that astronomy is going to face from all the new satellite constellations coming shortly. There are already 180 Starlinks in orbit, and thousands more are coming, not to mention the other...
https://youtu.be/pe9Wyi6WnME This episode recorded on Wednesday, January 8 This week we're live at the American Astronomical Society's 235th meeting in Honolulu, Hawai'i. We learned about new planets, black holes and star formation, but the big issue hanging over the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQPWMUUBwjA It's hard to believe it, but we survived another trip around the Sun. Now it's time to take the whole journey all over again, but with new news. Let's take a look at some of the space and astronomy stories we're looking...
Huge surveys of the sky are finding more and more planets, stars and galaxies. But they're also turning up strange objects astronomers have never seen before, like Boyajian's star. Today we're going to talk about some unusual objects astronomers have discovered, and...
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is the earliest moment in the Universe that we can see with our telescopes, just a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang itself. What will it take for us to be able to fill in the missing gap? To see closer to the...
Powerful observatories like Hubble and the Very Large Telescope have pushed our vision billions of light-years into the Universe, allowing us to see further and further back in time. But there are regions which we still haven't seen: the Cosmic Dark Ages. What's it...
Last week we gave you an update on the formation of elements from the Big Bang and in main sequence stars like the Sun. This week, we wrap up with a bang, talking about the death of the most massive stars and how they seed the Universe with heavier elements. In this...
The Universe started out with hydrogen and helium and a few other elements, but all around us, there are other, more proton-rich elements. We believe these heavier elements formed in stars, but which stars? And at what points in their lives? Today we'll update our...
Few sciences have been able to take advantage of the power of computers like astronomy. But with all this computing power, you might be surprised to learn how important a role humans still play in this science. In this episode we mentioned donations. Click to learn...
Astronomy Cast 545 & 546 rescheduled for 3 pm/3:30 pm ET Monday, Nov 4 Before we discovered other planets, our Solar System seemed like a perfectly reasonable template for everywhere. But now we see massive planets close to their stars, which leads you to the...
Things used to be so simple. Comets were snowballs from the outer Solar System, and asteroids were rocks from the inner Solar System. But now everything's all shades of grey. Astronomers have found asteroids that behave like comets and comets that behave like...