Fraser Cain
Universe Today
Dr. Pamela Gay
CosmoQuest
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.
Have you ever noticed that significant space and astronomy events seem to happen during holidays? It’s not a coincidence, there’s actually a reason why. Today we’ll talk about some of the key events that happened during holidays.
Summer is officially, astronomically here. And for folks in the Northern Hemisphere, that means it’s the perfect time to head outside and see what’s happening in the sky. Today we’ll give you a good list of things to keep an eye out for, with or without a telescope.
Summer is here and that means finally tackling your huge list of books piled up on your bedside table and filling up your Kindle. What books do we recommend for some fun reads?
Recent Episodes
In episode 198 we explained how space missions are chosen, and introduced the Decadal Survey. Since the time we recorded that episode, the full Decadal Survey for planetary science has been released, explaining the science goals for planetary geologists over the next...
When we look around our planet, we see a huge variety in landforms: mountains, valleys, plateaus, and more. Continents rise and fall over the eons, providing geologists with a history of the planet's evolution. The study of these changes is known as geomorphology, and...
The Earth seems like a safe place, most of the time. But we have evidence of terrible catastrophes in the ancient past. Times when almost all life on Earth was wiped out in a geologic instant. What could have caused so much devastation? And will something like this...
Another mission named after a famous physicist. This time we're looking at the Planck mission, designed to study the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation over the entire sky. Like the previous WMAP mission, this will help astronomers understand the first moments...
It's time for another action-packed double episode, where we meet a man and his mission. This time around its German physicist Max Planck, considered to be the father of quantum theory - he was later granted a Nobel Prize for just that discovery. Let's take a trip...
Have you ever heard an astronomer utter these words? Oh be a fine girl and kiss me. They're not being romantic, they're trying to remember the different ways to organize stars, as detailed nicely on a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Let's learn what all those letters...
The Sun, Moon, stars and planets are visible to the unaided eye, and so they have been visible to astronomers since before recorded history. Some of the earliest records we do have tell us what the ancient astronomers thought about the heavens, and how they used the...
Just as sound can echo off distant objects, light can echo too. And the echoes of light bouncing off stellar remnants, black hole accretion disks, and clouds of gas and dust provide astronomers with another method of probing the distant cosmos. Download Ep. 215: Light...
Have you ever wanted to go to space, but lacked the... everything... to be an astronaut? A whole new industry of space tourism will take you where you need to go. There are new companies offering zero-G flights, sub-orbital flights, and there have even been paying...
It's now believed that there's a supermassive black hole lurking at the heart of every galaxy in the Universe. These monstrous black holes can contain hundreds of millions of times the mass of our own Sun, with event horizons bigger than the Solar System. They're the...
Last week we talked about the old way navigators used to find their way around the planet; by looking at objects in the sky, and doing some tricky math. The new navigation system, of course, is the Global Positioning System, and it helps you find your spot on the...
Before there was GPS, navigators had to rely on the Sun and the stars to find their way around the Earth. It's easier than it sounds, if you've got the right instruments, clear skies, and a really accurate clock. Let's examine the history of celestial navigation,...
The twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been crawling around the surface of Mars since early 2004 - years longer than they were expected to live. And what they have discovered there on Mars has given scientists their best understanding of...
We don't like to cover news on Astronomy Cast, but sometimes there's a news story that's interesting, complicated, and rapidly unfolding - and it happens to cover an area that we haven't talked much about. So today we thought we'd talk about the discovery of...
Last week we talked about Lyman Spitzer, and this week we'll take a look at the orbiting observatory that bears his name: the Spitzer Space Telescope. Designed to see into the infrared spectrum, Spitzer has returned images of objects that were previously hidden to...
Time for another action-packed double episode of Astronomy Cast. This week we focus on the Lyman Spitzer, a theoretical physicist and astronomer who worked on star formation and plasma physics. Of course, this will lead us into next week's episode where we talk about...
Last week we talked about fusion, where atoms come together to form heavier elements. This week, everything comes apart as we talk about nuclear fission. How it occurs naturally in the Universe, and how it has been harnessed by science to produce power, and...
When the Universe formed after the Big Bang, all we had was hydrogen. But through the process of fusion, these hydrogen atoms were crushed into heavier and heavier elements. Fusion gives us warmth and light from the Sun, destruction with fusion bombs, and might be a...
Now we're going to answer a question that a 4-year old might ask - what is temperature? Why are things hot and why are they cold? How hot or cold can they get? And how is this all important for astronomy? Download Ep. 204: Temperature Jump to Shownotes Jump to...
Europa is the smallest of the Jovian satellites, but it might be one of the most exciting spots in the Solar System. When NASA's Voyager spacecraft flew past the moon, they discovered huge cracks in its icy surface. Is it possible that Europa has a huge ocean of...