Ep. 554: Big Telescope Controversy in Hawai’i
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 whole conference is the protests and politics over the new Thirty Meter Telescope due for construction on Mauna Kea.
Ep. 553: What To Look Forward To In 2020
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 forward to in 2020.
Ep. 552: Boyajian’s star (and other strange stars)
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...
Ep. 551: Missing Epochs – Observing before the CMBR
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 beginning of time itself?
Ep. 550: Missing Epochs – Observing the Cosmic Dark Ages
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 going to take to observe some of these earliest moments in the Universe?
Ep. 549: Stellar nucleosynthesis revisited: In and on and around dead stars
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.
Ep. 548: Stellar nucleosynthesis revisited: In stellar cores & atmospheres
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 knowledge with the latest science.
Ep. 547: Why Astronomy Still Needs Humans
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.
Ep. 546: Weird Issues: Planetary Migration
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 question, how does it all get there. Do the planets form in place or do they migrate around?
Ep. 545: Weird Issues: Are comets asteroids or are asteroids comets?
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 asteroids.