Walkabout the Galaxy

Candy Hansen, veteran of Voyager, Cassini and Mars missions and head of the JunoCam on Juno at Jupiter joins the astroquarks to talk about the edge of the solar system. The astroquarks discuss what the edge of the solar system is, plus stars from other galaxies, space trivia and superhero news. 

Planet 9 is Pluto, but Planet X is back in the news with the discovery of another object in the deep and distant recesses of our solar system, nicknamed the Goblin! It adds another piece of evidence to the idea that a big planet-y thing is lurking our there. So the astroquarks start Halloween season off with a Goblin-themed episode with a planetary Goblin and goblin trivia.

It would take a falcon huge episode to cover all the space news this month, so the astroquarks take a crack at it. From Space-X's latest plans for a crewed lunar flyby mission to the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission's landers on the asteroid Ryugu, to the latest news about the missing matter in the universe, this episode has it all. It's falcon huge.

The astroquarks have your bases covered, from Juno's discovery of a magnetic nubbin at Jupiter (check your Friends references) to confirmation of the decay mode of the Higgs Boson to what does it matter anyway because we're all living on the Holodeck! Adam LaMee joins us again to thwart us with a taste of our own quark-thwarting questions. Plus comet trivia and your sponsor. 

Zoe Landsman, "b" astroquark, joins Josh, Jim, and guest Adam LaMee to talk about an ancient (or very young, depending your point of reference) galaxy that's popping off stars so fast we almost called this the Pop Off episode. Plus Adam turns the tables on the astroquarks, updates and trivia on the Mars rovers, plugging leaks in space with your thumb, and the solar cycle.

Move over Mars, the Moon wants in on the water game! Attention is focused on the south polar region of the Moon which is both dark (and therefore cold and water-friendly) all the time, and also bright (and therefore solar-panel friendly) all the time. What?! Yep, that's right. The astroquarks are back from summer break to break it all down for you in this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy, plus space trivia and news.

In this week's "water on Mars" there's actual news of a potential liquid water reservoir on the red planet today. Well, more in it, than on it, but that adds it to the icy moons with subsurface lakes. This lake is very cold, so that water must be very salty. The astroquarks bring you up to date, touch on a new verification of general relativity, and most importantly delve into obscure superheroes and super-energetic cosmic rays. Great name for a rock band by the way.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a little neutrino left a very large black hole headed straight for a point in space that would be occupied by the Ice Cube neutrino observatory at the Earth's south pole just in time to detect it! This is the story of that neutrino, Scrabble(TM) competitions, neutrino trivia, and a very embarrassing sponsor message. We're all very sorry about that sponsor message, but they paid, so we honored the contract, okay?!

Strange, Charm, and Top explore the ways orbits change and a new research report that says that most of the asteroids in the inner part of the asteroid belt may be the debris of just five primordial protoplanets that got smashed to smithereens billions of years ago. That's why the new name for asteroids is going to be "smithereens". Plus: nerd news and spaceflight history trivia!

An ambitious Japanese mission, Hayabusa-2 has arrived at its target asteroid Ryugu. We find out about the great science to come from this exciting asteroid sample return mission, and a look ahead to the James Webb Space Telescope, whose launch has been slipped to make absolutely sure that nothing got Ryugu'd (it's just fun to say!) while building it. Plus we talk about the science of learning, and un-learning, with our special guest Anna Turner.

The astroquarks discuss their preferences for NASA's research priorities and the results of a new survey of Americans on the subject. There's also the discovery of new weird stellar objects near the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, updates on Mars' early climate, and space trivia as always!

The astroquarks have often wondered where all our alien friends are hanging out. Maybe they're all just in a different universe? Well, most of those universes are probably duds, and anyway, we'll never know! That's the whole definition of a universe. New research sheds light on the surprisingly small role dark energy plays in the early evolution of a universe, and then there's the question of AntMan and the Wasp: do they conserve mass or not when they shrink? We must know!

It may sound like the title of an astroquark's sex tape, but we actually do have news about a potentially new long-term resident of the solar system captured from another planetary system, and Top astroquark Jim Cooney tells us all about a black hole gobbling up so much stuff that it's the brightest object in the universe! Honorary "Bottom" astroquark Dr. Zoe Landsman joins us to discuss these odd objects, Deadpool and Solo, and asteroid trivia.

We all know Mars is crunchy on the outside, but does it have a chewy center? The NASA Mars InSight mission is en route to the red planet to answer that question. The astroquarks talk about InSight's science and instruments, Han Solo, and Richard Feynman in another wide-ranging episode of Walkabout the Galaxy!

Check out our first literally-titled episode! David Grinspoon, co-author of "Chasing New Horizons", the behind-the-scenes story of the Pluto mission, joins the astroquarks to dish on Pluto the planet, space exploration, Carl Sagan, and Mickey Mouse's dog!