Astronomy Cast

The mighty Arecibo Radio Observatory is one of the most powerful radio telescopes ever built – it’s certainly the larger single aperture radio telescope on Earth, nestled into a natural sinkhole in Puerto Rico. We’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the construction of the observatory with a special episode of Astronomy Cast.

This week we talk about the failed search for extraterrestrials, Galaxy M106, Curiosity drilling, a weird metal object found on surface of Mars, the year of the comets, a supernova precursor, and the near-earth asteroid flyby. We are joined by Amy Shira Teitel, Nicole Gugliucci, Alan Boyle, Thad Szabo, Nancy Atkinson, and Phil Plait. Hosted by Fraser Cain.

The very outer reaches of the Solar System is a region of space known as the Oort Cloud, which may extend as far as a light-year from the Sun. We only know about the Oort Cloud because that's where long-period comets come from, randomly falling into the inner Solar System from time to time.

This week we talk about activities at the Science Online Conference, the anniversary of the Columbia disaster, stuff on the Sun, and a storm on Saturn. We are joined by , Amy Shira Teitel, Nicole Gugliucci, Alan Boyle, Thad Szabo, and Scot Lewis. Hosted by Fraser Cain.

As a meteor crashed into the atmosphere above Russia, the world discovered the importance of shock waves; how they're caused and how they propagate through the atmosphere. Today we'll discuss the topic in general and find many examples where shock waves can be created, here on Earth, and out in space.

This week we talk about Mars Curiosity working at night, a historic gamma-ray burst, the Manatee Nebula, a new astronomy thesaurus, a new image of Betelgeuse, and dung beetles using the brightness of the Milky Way to navigate. We are joined by Emily Lakdawalla, Amy Shira Teitel, Nicole Gugliucci, and Scot Lewis. Hosted by Fraser Cain.

If you get enough hydrogen together in one place, gravity pulls it together to the point that the temperature and pressures are enough for fusion to occur. This is a star. But what happens when you don't have quite enough hydrogen? Then you get a failed star, like a gas giant planet or a brown dwarf.

This week we talk about: Plans for an inflatable space station, the return of the Orion Mission, craters on Titan, a supercomputer bolted to a telescope, one high school teacher's work in astronomy, an ancient riverbed on Mars, and an update on recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society. We are joined by Alan Boyle, Pamela Gay, Nicole Gugliucci, Amy Shira Teitel, and Scot Lewis. Produced by Nicole Gugliucci. Hosted by Fraser Cain.

Sure, our atmosphere protects us from a horrible Universe that's trying to kill us, but sometimes it prevents us from learning stuff too. Case in point, the atmosphere blocks highly energetic particles from reaching our detectors. But there's a way astronomers can still detect their influence: Cherenkov Radiation; the cascade of radiation that blasts out as a high-energy particle makes its way through the atmosphere, like a radioactive rainshower.

As we quickly learn with water, matter can be in distinct phases: solid, liquid, gas and plasma; it all depends on temperature. But why do different materials require different temperatures? And what's actually happening to the atoms themselves as the material switches phases?

It’s mind bending to think about this, but the light in your house, and the house itself are really the same thing. Matter and energy are interchangeable. This was the amazing revelation made by Albert Einstein, with his famous formula: E=mc^2. This is the process that the Sun uses to turn hydrogen into radiation through fusion, and the terrible damage from a nuclear weapon.

Everyone is always predicting the end of the world. Someone’s going to tell you that this the year that it’s all going to end… the end of planet Earth… and they’re always wrong. But, someone will eventually be right. Planet Earth is doomed, lets figure out how.

Have you checked out the internet lately? Apparently there is some kind of rogue planet causing pole alignment and a killer solar flare that will set off a chain reaction turning the whole universe into strange-matter……. after an alien invasion.

Astronomy depends on bullying light. We reflect it, refract it, bend it, and near it through complex manipulations of light. Though optics we bring we bring the distant universe to our eyepiece.

Our Universe appears timeless and unchanging, the stars taking their nightly flight across the sky. But over long periods of time, you realize that our local region, and even the entire Milky Way is in constant motion. The constellations we see today would be very different millions or even thousands of years ago. Today we'll discuss stellar motion, how astronomers detect it and how it's useful.