Episodes

Ep. 193: Astronomy with the Unaided Eye

We talk a lot about telescopes here on Astronomy Cast, but you really don’t need any special equipment to appreciate what the night sky has to offer. Just head outside with some sky charts, maybe a planisphere, some friends and hot chocolate, and you’re good to go. Let’s talk about what kinds of things you can see with just your eyes.

Ep. 192: Chandra X-Ray Observatory

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is the third of NASA’s Great Observatories, sent into space aboard the space shuttle to view the Universe in high energy X-ray radiation. This is the territory of supernovae, supermassive black holes and neutron stars; some of the most extreme places in the Universe.

Ep. 191: Chandrasekhar

The first half of the 20th Century was a productive time for astronomy, with theorists working out much of the science that we take for granted today. One of these astronomy stars was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who determined the maximum mass of a white dwarf star.

Ep. 190: Kepler Mission

Last week we studied Kepler the man, and this week we take a look at Kepler, the mission. Launched in March, 2009, this is a spacecraft designed to search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Let’s take a look at the history this mission, the launch and the science gathered so far.

Ep. 189: Johannes Kepler and His Laws of Planetary Motion

Nicolaus Copernicus changed our understanding of the Universe when he rearranged the Solar System to put the Sun at the center, with the Earth becoming just another of the planets orbiting it. But the movement of the planets didn’t really match the theory; not until Johannes Kepler came along with his ellipses, and everything finally worked.

Ep. 188: The Future of Astronomy

We spent 5 episodes telling the story of astronomy so far, how we got from the work of the Babylonians to the modern discoveries made in the last decade. But now we want to look forward, studying the current space missions and experiments to uncover the mysteries that astronomers hope to solve.

Ep. 186: History of Astronomy, Part 4: The Beginning of Modern Astronomy

With our proper place in the Universe worked out, and some powerful telescopes to probe the cosmos, astronomers started making some real progress. The next few hundred years was a time of constant refinement, with astronomers discovering new planets, new moons, and developing new theories in astronomy and physics.

Ep. 185: History of Astronomy, Part 3: The Renaissance

Now we reach time with names that many of you will be familiar: Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus. This is an age when the biggest names in astronomy used the best tools of their time to completely rearrange their understanding of the Universe, putting the Earth where it belonged – merely orbiting the Sun, and not the center of everything.

Ep. 184: History of Astronomy, Part 2:The Greeks

With the earliest astronomers out of the way, we now move to one of the most productive eras in astronomy; the ancient Greeks. Even though they didn’t have telescopes, the Greeks worked out the size and shape of the Earth, the distance to the Moon and Sun, and even had some accurate ideas about our place in the Universe.