Ep. 689: Our Warming World – 20 Years of Climate Science

It’s official! June and July were the warmest we’ve seen since records began over a century ago. Fires are rampant across Canada, and we’re seeing record droughts around the world. Today, we’re going to look at 20 years of climate science, how well does reality match up with the predictions.

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17 seasons and more than 600 episodes await.

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. 677: The Answer is Always Dust

Ep. 677: The Answer is Always Dust

Whenever astronomers discover something surprising, the answer often turns out to be dust. Dust obscuring our view, dust changing the polarity, dust warming things up, dust cooling things down. It’s always dust. Until it isn’t.

Recent Episodes

Ep. 649: Why Does Everything Happen on Holidays?

https://youtu.be/vJ9JaMGfqsM?t=446 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....

Ep. 648: Summer Observing

https://youtu.be/16AOH_JFozU?t=895 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...

Ep. 647: Best Sci-Fi Beach Reading

https://youtu.be/dF18aVF7mdU NOTE: Video is incomplete due to technical difficulties. 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?...

Ep. 646: Long Term Future in Space

https://youtu.be/cUZQHC-Xk7k We always say that we're living in golden age of space and astronomy, but it feels like things are just accelerating. What does the long-term future hold for our place in the Universe? Download MP3 | Show Notes | Transcript Show Notes Star...

Ep. 645: The Future of the ISS

https://youtu.be/l-8OBX6j66c The International Space Station has been continuously inhabited for over 20 years now, serving as a peaceful collaboration between space-faring nations. But it's a machine, and it's getting old. In addition, the Russian invasion of Ukraine...

Ep. 644: Is Earth… Normal?

https://youtu.be/FWmMwisoBSQ Now that we've discovered thousands of exoplanets, we're learning more and more about what kinds of planetary systems there are out there across the Universe. Are planets like Earth unique or totally rare? Download MP3 | Show Notes |...

Ep. 643: Sagittarius A*

https://youtu.be/dALXUbVaWCs 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. Download...

Ep. 642: Is the Sun… Normal?

https://youtu.be/NFR7R6wNxcM 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? Download MP3 | Show...

Ep. 641: Are Planets Alive?

https://youtu.be/VYSO-rb1iLM The Earth is teeming with life, both in the upper atmosphere to kilometers underground. There's no question that our planet has life. But is our planet itself alive? This is a question posed back in the 1970s as the Gaia hypothesis, and it...

Ep. 640: Survey Science: Newest Projects and Results

https://youtu.be/_vWn9c4WaP0 There are general-purpose telescopes and missions that astronomers can use to study specific objects. And there are survey missions that look at the entire sky, which astronomers can use to answer questions about the Universe. We've talked...

Ep. 638: Simulating Space Missions

https://youtu.be/QBAf5CVkvTM Although humans have never actually been to Mars, explorers have simulated many aspects of Mars missions here on Earth. There are missions under the ocean, on the tops of volcanoes, in the harsh Canadian north, and even in bed that...

Ep. 637: Machine Learning in Astronomy

https://youtu.be/ISg74n2B4CA Computers are a big part of astronomy, but mostly they've been relegated to doing calculations. Recent developments in machine learning have changed everything, giving computers the ability to do jobs that humans could only do in the past....

Ep. 636: Blowing Bubbles

https://youtu.be/DoWq4_zIlu4 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...

Ep. 635: Jets: When Magnetic Fields Fling Things

https://youtu.be/TwNN3BQbjVA As astronomers look out across the Universe, they see various objects spewing jets of material light years into space. What causes these jets, and what impact do they have on the Universe. Download MP3 | Show Notes | Transcript Show Notes...

Ep. 634: Milky Way’s Mergers & Acquisitions

https://youtu.be/FPCf6eGaBQ4 The Milky Way is a vast grand spiral today, but how did it get this way? Astronomers are starting to unravel the history of our galaxy, revealing the ancient collisions with dwarf galaxies, and how they came together to build the Milky...

Ep. 633: Weirdly Habitable Places

https://youtu.be/bfYxeEh0TFk We've always assumed that habitable planets would need to be like Earth; a terrestrial planet orbiting a sunlike star. But now astronomers have been discovering planets in the habitable zone around very much non-sunlike stars. What strange...

Ep. 632: Building Images: Optical vs. Radio

https://youtu.be/V5ZqqA17IxU A recent image from the South African Meerkat telescope blew our minds. It was a high resolution image of the center of the Milky Way, showing delicate filaments and other structures. What was so mind blowing is that this was an image from...

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

https://youtu.be/bgklGICUNeQ 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...

Ep. 630: Things We Can Look Forward To

https://youtu.be/zYPJFJndDUM In a rare moment of weakness, Pamela has decided she's open to the possibility that a future exists. That missions, telescopes and spacecraft are going to be built and they're going to do some science. Today we'll talk about what we're...