Ep. 77: Where is the Centre of the Universe?
There are some people – I’m not naming names – who think the universe revolves around them. In fact, for most of humankind, everybody thought that. It’s only been in the last few hundred years that scientists finally puzzled out that the Earth isn’t the centre of the universe at all. That begs the question: where is the centre?
Ep. 76: Lagrange Points
Gravity is always pulling you down, but there are places in the solar system where gravity balances out. These are called Lagrange points and space agencies use them as stable places to put spacecraft. Nature is on to them and has already been using them for billions of years.
Student Questions: Curtis High School
This is our second installment in our series of student questions shows and these questions come to us from Curtis High School.
Thanks to GLAST, Astronomy Cast is now able to provide equipment to send to high school teachers who want to Pamela and Fraser to do a special questions show just for their class. We will be making this shows available on the feed on days other than Monday (that’s still reserved for your regularly scheduled Astronomy Cast).
To find out how your class can participate, check out our new Education page for details or drop us an email to info@astronomycast.com
Ep. 75: Stellar Populations
After the big bang, all we had was hydrogen, a little bit of helium, and a few other trace elements. Today, we’ve a whole periodic table of elements to enjoy, from oxygen we breathe to the aluminium cans we drink from to the uranium that powers some people’s homes. How did we get from plain old hydrogen to our current diversity? It came from stars, in fact successive generations of stars.
Ep. 74: Antimatter
Sometimes, we don’t get to decide what our show’s about. So many threads come together at the same time driving the decision for us. This is one of those situations. We’ve gotten so many questions from listeners in just the last week about antimatter that our show had just been chosen for it. You command, we obey. Let’s talk about antimatter.
Ep. 73: Questions Show #8
We’ve been so crazy following our own whims through the universe that we’ve neglected your questions. That ends today. It’s time to dig deep into our overflowing email box to retrieve the puzzling questions our listeners have sent in.
Ep. 72: Cosmic Rays
We’re going to return back to a long series of episodes we like to call: Radiation that Will Turn You Into a Superhero. This time we’re going to look at cosmic rays, which everyone knows made the Fantastic Four. These high-energy particles are streaming from the Sun and even intergalactic space, and do a wonderful job of destroying our DNA, giving us radiation sickness, and maybe (hopefully!) turning us into superheroes.
Ep. 71: Gravitational Waves
When he put together his theories of relativity, Einstein made a series of predictions. Some were confirmed just a few years later, but scientists are still working to confirm others. And one of the most fascinating is the concept of gravitational waves. As massive objects move in space, they send out ripples across the Universe that actually distort the shape of matter. Experiments are in place and in the works to detect these gravitational waves as they sweep past the Earth.
Ep. 70: How To Win a Nobel Prize
Now that you’ve got your career in astronomy, obviously the next goal is to win a Nobel prize. We’re here at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, which is just one tiny step that a person has to take before you get that Nobel prize. Before you get that call in the middle of the night from Sweden, you’re going to need to come with an idea, do some experiments, write a paper, get published and a bunch of other stuff. This week, we’ll tell you all about it.
Student Questions: Farmersburg
Thanks to GLAST, Astronomy Cast is now able to provide equipment to send to high school teachers who want to Pamela and Fraser to do a special questions show just for their class. We will be making this shows available on the feed on days other than Monday (that’s still reserved for your regularly scheduled Astronomy Cast). This is the first one available and comes with questions from Farmersburg School.
To find out how your class can participate, check out our new Education page for details or drop us an email to info@astronomycast.com