With all the enthusiasm that’s being generated with astronomy, it’s had a bit of a strange side-effect. We’ve been causing some of our listeners to have midlife crises about their careers. We’ve had other people who just want advice – they’re moving into college for the first time and they want to direct the courses they’re going to be taking into astronomy. Some other people already have skills that are very useful and have wondered how they can help up or even change their career to be working in the field. We thought we’d try and answer everyone’s questions all at once and just run through the major career paths you can take that relate to astronomy and space, and the kinds of things you’ll need to do to actually make yourself a good candidate for that field.
Ep. 66: How Amateurs Can Contribute to Astronomy
Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs make meaningful contributions to discoveries. Many professional researchers work hand-in-hand with teams of amateurs to make discoveries that just wouldn’t be possible without this kind of collaboration. In fact, Pamela regularly relies on dedicated enthusiasts for her data on variable stars.
Ep. 65: The End of Our Tour Through the Solar System
All good things come to an end – we now find ourselves in the outer reaches of the solar system where our Sun is hard to distinguish from the other bright stars in the sky. But we’re not done with the solar system, there’s some stuff that’s leftover. This week, we look at the outer reaches of the solar system and how it interacts with the rest of the universe.
Ep. 64: Pluto and the Icy Outer Solar System
It’s been a long journey, 64 episodes, but now we’re back where we began: Pluto. Last time we talked about how Pluto lost its planethood status, so we won’t go over all that again. This time we’re going to talk about Pluto, its moons, the Kuiper belt, and the other icy objects that inhabit the outer Solar System.
Ep. 63: Neptune
We’ve reached Neptune, the final planet in our tour through the solar system – but don’t worry! The tour’s not over, but after this week we’ll be all out of planets. Neptune has a controversial story about its discovery, some of the strongest winds in the solar system and some weird moons.
Ep. 62: Uranus
This week, we’re on to the next planet in the solar system. We don’t know a whole lot about this blue gas planet, but today we’ll cover some of the neat stuff we do know, including it’s faint rings, sideways axis of rotation and its rocky core – a first in the gas planets we’ve encountered so far in our tour.
Ep. 61: Saturn's Moons
We know that delaying this show one more week would be too dangerous, so here you go: Saturn’s moons. These are some of the most interesting objects in the Solar System, from the spongy Hyperion, to the geysers on Enceladus, to the rainy, misty, oceany Titan. They’ve kept Cassini busy for years, and scientists will likely be pondering them for decades.
Ep. 60: Questions Show #7
It’s about time for a question show again, so we’ll have one last interruption to our planetary tour, to deal with the questions that arose from our inflation show (episode 58).
So if you still don’t understand inflation, take a listen to this week’s show and as always, send us your questions.
Ep. 59: Saturn
Returning to our tour of the solar system, let’s voyage away from the largest planet to the second largest, Saturn. Once again, we’ll break up our visit because there’s lots to talk about. This week, we talk about Saturn and its famous rings. Next week, we’ll discuss its many moons.
Ep. 58: Inflation
We interrupt this tour through the solar system to bring you a special show to deal with one of our most complicated subjects: the big bang. Specifically, how it’s possible that the universe could have expanded faster than the speed of light. The theory is called the inflationary theory, and the evidence is mounting to support it. Einstein said that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, and yet astronomers think the universe expanded from a microscopic spec to become larger than the solar system, in a fraction of a second.
Ep. 57: Jupiter's Moons
Last week we talked about Jupiter and we could sense right away it would be too much to handle. This week, we’ll talk about Jupiter’s moons – how many are there? What makes them so interesting? Is it true that the most likely place in the solar system to find life (other than Earth) is actually on one of Jupiter’s moons? Hang on tight. We’re going to cover a lot.
Ep. 56: Jupiter
Last week we talked about rubble, this week we’re going to dig into the largest planet in the Solar System: Jupiter, but will it all just be hot gas? There’s so much to talk about, we’ve decided to break this up into two shows. This week we’re going to just talk about Jupiter, and then next week, we’re going to cover its moons.
Ep. 55: The Asteroid Belt
In the last few weeks we’ve had many emails saying that our tour of the solar system would not be complete without a show on the asteroid belt. Your wish is our command! We talked about Mars in episode 52, and now that we’re back on track our next stop is the asteroid belt.
Ep. 54: Questions Show #6
It’s been a while, so let’s catch up with the listener questions. We’ve got some easy ones, some hard ones and probably some impossible ones. We talk about our universe as a black hole, tidal locking of planets like Uranus, colours of stars at different ages, our universe’s birthday and more.
Ep. 53: Astronomy in Science Fiction
This is a very different episode of Astronomy Cast. As we mentioned last week, Pamela recently attended the Dragon*Con science fiction convention in Atlanta, Georgia. While she was there, she participated in a special live edition of Astronomy Cast with special guest Dr. Kevin Frazier. Kevin is a NASA scientist, and the science consultant for the TV shows Battlestar Galactica and Eureka. He and Pamela work through physics and astronomy in popular science fiction. What they get right, and what they get wrong… so very wrong.
Special Episode: Panspermia
As a reward to the all the dedicated fans who completed our demographic survey, we released this special episode of Astronomy Cast. As promised, we’re now releasing this episode to all of our subscribers. Panspermia is a controversial theory that life on Earth originated… out there. Maybe it started out in a cosmic dust cloud or originated from another planet, but somehow the very first lifeforms made the trip through the vacuum of space and colonized our home planet.
Ep. 52: Mars
Today we consider Mars, the next planet in our journey through the Solar System. Apart from the Earth, it’s the most explored planet in our Solar System. Even now there are rovers crawling the surface, orbiters overhead, and a lander on its way. It’s a cold, dry desert, so why does this planet hold such fascination?
Ep. 51: Earth
Another week, another planet. This time we talk about our own home world: Earth. You might think you know the planet beneath your feet, but it’s actually one of the most interesting and dynamic places in the Solar System. Learn about our planet’s formation, weather, its changing climate, and life.
Ep. 50: Venus
Last week we talked about Mercury, so this week our planetary parade proceeds to Venus. It’s the brightest object in the sky, the hottest object in the solar system, and it’s probably one of the most deadly places to go and visit.
Ep. 49: Mercury
We’re still digging through the thousands of comments and suggestions from the listener survey but we hear your requests and suggestions, and now you get to start reaping the benefits. Today we start our survey of the solar system with Mercury. What mysteries is it hiding from us? How similar is Mercury to the other rocky planets? How much do we really know about this first rock from the Sun?
Ep. 48: Tidal Forces Across the Universe
Last week we talked about tidal forces within our solar system. This week we’re going to expand our view and encompass the entire universe. Some of the most dramatic events originate from tidal forces caused by gravity: other worlds, galaxies, black holes and even entire clusters of galaxies are under this influence.
Ep. 47: Tidal Forces
Consider the following: we’ve got tides here on Earth, the Moon only shows one face to the Earth, we’ve got volcanoes on Io, and ice geysers on Enceladus. All these phenomena originate from a common cause: the force of gravity stretching across space to tug at another world.
Ep. 46: Stellar Nurseries
We’ve discussed star formation in the past, but now we wanted to talk about the different kinds of stellar nurseries we see across the Universe. We know where our Sun came from because we can look out and see different stellar neighborhoods at every stage of development. It takes a village of gas and dust to raise a star.
Ep. 45: The Important Numbers in the Universe
This week we wanted to give you a basic physics lesson. This isn’t easy physics, this is a lesson on the basic numbers of the Universe. Each of these numbers define a key aspect of our Universe. If they had different values, the Universe would be a changed place, and life here on Earth would never have arisen.
Listener Survey
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It’s time to answer questions again, but this time we hope that you’ll take a minute and answer ours. We’ve written a brief survey that we hope you’ll take a minute to fill out. This survey will allow us to collect some general demographic information about our audience so we can make the show even better. We promise it doesn’t even ask your email address – and, if you fill it out, we’ll give you a link to a special, full-length episode that does not appear on our feed.
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