Ep. 244: Io
If you want to see one of the strangest places in the Solar System, look no further than Io, Jupiter’s inner Galilean moon. The immense tidal forces from Jupiter keep the moon hotter than hot, with huge volcanoes blasting lava hundreds of kilometres into space.
Ep. 243: Tunguska Event
On June 30th, 1908 “something” exploded over the Tunguska region of Siberia, flattening thousands of square kilometres of forest, and unleashing a force that rivalled the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. What was it? What could unleash that kind of destructive energy? And will it happen again?
Ep. 242: Torino Scale
When you hear of a looming asteroid strike, do you wonder what to do? Should you go into your underground bunker, evacuate the state, or leave the planet? Fortunately, astronomers have developed the Torino Scale – a handy measurement that incorporates both the risk of a strike with the amount of devastation.
Ep. 241: Astrophotography, Part 3: Image Processing
Time for part 3 of our tour through the hobby of astrophotography. You’ve set up your gear, taken some clear images. Now we’re going to help you turn that raw data into the kind of amazing photographs you see in books and on the web.
Ep. 240: Astrophotography, Part 2: Techniques
In the first episode, we talked about the gear you’ll need for your expensive astrophotography hobby. This week we continue our discussion, and talk about the techniques you’ll use to get those amazing photographs. Bring a hot drink, and get ready for some cold nights. But trust us, it’ll all be worth it.
Ep. 239: Astrophotography, Part 1: The Gear
No matter how good your telescope is, you’re never going to see the same detail and colours as the photographs. To take amateur astronomy to the next level, you really need to attach a camera to your telescope. Welcome to the hobby of astrophotography. Fair warning, this hobby could bankrupt you.
Ep. 238: Solar Activity
The Sun looks like a harmless burning ball of fire in the sky: warm, life-giving and forever unchanging. But we know better, don’t we. It’s really a massive ball of churning hydrogen plasma, encased in twisting magnetic field lines, speckled with sunspots, and constantly disgorging vast plumes of radiation and charged particles. The Sun is very active indeed.
Ep. 237: Spooky Sounds From Space
To help you out with your halloween parties, we’ve collected together the spooky sounds of space. Every piece of audio we’re about to play might sound like it comes from a terrifying nightmare dimension, but it’s really just a natural space phenomena.
Ep. 236: Einstein Was Right
At least once a week we get an email claiming that Einstein was wrong. Well you know what, Einstein was right. In fact, as part of his theories of Special and General Relativity, Einstein made a series of predictions about what experiments should discover. Some explained existing puzzles in science, while others made predictions that were only recently proven true.
Ep. 235: Einstein
What can we say about Einstein? Albert Einstein! Lots, actually. In this show we’re going to talk about the most revolutionary physicist… ever. He completely changed our understanding of time, and space, and energy, and gravity. He made predictions about the nature of the Universe that we’re still testing out.