Streamed live Feb 24, 2025.

We have dust storms on Earth and of course the famous dust storms on Mars. There are even dust storms on Titan. What causes these storms and how do they work differently on the worlds in the solar system. But what about the exoplanets?

The bane of solar panels, humans, and robots, dust storms have a way of picking up steam (or at least dust) all over the solar system.

Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay

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This Episode is made possible thanks to our Patrons on Patreon. Join at the Galaxy Group level or higher to be listed in our YouTube videos.

Thanks to: Andrew Poelstra, BogieNet, Brian Cagle, David, David Truog, Ed, Gerhard, Schwarzer, Jeanette Wink, Siggi Kemmler, Stephen Veit 

Streamed live Feb 20, 2025.

I’m sure you’ve heard the news, asteroid 2024 YR4 has a tiny chance of hitting Earth in 2032. How do astronomers discover these dangerous asteroids, measure their future impact risk and track the changes over time? When should we panic? New asteroids are found every day, and every day we learn that those asteroids don't have any murderous intentions. But how do we learn that? In this episode we dig into asteroid orbital determination.

Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay

SUPPORTED BY YOU

This Episode is made possible thanks to our Patrons on Patreon. Join at the Galaxy Group level or higher to be listed in our YouTube videos.

Thanks to: Andrew Poelstra, BogieNet, Brian Cagle, David, David Truog, Ed, Gerhard, Schwarzer, Jeanette Wink, Siggi Kemmler, Stephen Veit 

Streamed live on Feb 10, 2025.

What time is it? OK, fine, what time is it on the Moon? The Moon orbits the Earth, so it doesn’t fall into a specific time zone. Also, there’s lower gravity on the surface of the Moon, which changes the rate that clocks tick. Well… It’s time to introduce Lunar Time. 

When are you when you are on the Moon? Researchers are putting together definitions!

Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay

SUPPORTED BY YOU

This Episode is made possible thanks to our Patrons on Patreon. Join at the Galaxy Group level or higher to be listed in our YouTube videos.  

Thanks to: Andrew Poelstra, BogieNet, Brian Cagle, David, David Truog, Ed, Gerhard, Schwarzer, Jeanette Wink, Siggi Kemmler, Stephen Veit 

Streamed live on Feb 3, 2025.

Just a few years ago LIGO detected the first direct evidence of gravitational waves coming from colliding black holes. And there you have it. Boom! Black holes collide! But that wasn’t all we learned from gravitational waves, nor will we learn. Sure, the masses of merging black holes are nice to know, but what else can we learn from gravitational black holes?

Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay

SUPPORTED BY YOU!

This Episode is made possible thanks to our Patrons on Patreon. Join at the Galaxy Group level or higher to be listed in our YouTube videos. 

Thanks to: Andrew Poelstra, BogieNet, Brian Cagle, David, David Truog, Ed, Gerhard, Schwarzer, Jeanette Wink, Siggi Kemmler, Stephen Veit 

Streamed live on Jan 27, 2025.

Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay

Gravity Waves ... not gravitational waves ... move atmospheres and make pretty clouds. Have you ever looked up into the sky and seen bizarre cloud formations that look like waves on the ocean? These are gravity waves. Not to be confused with gravitational waves, and they’re caused by a balance of buoyancy and gravity. And of course these have been seen across the solar system. 

SUPPORTED BY YOU

This Episode is made possible thanks to our Patrons on Patreon. Join at the Galaxy Group level or higher to be listed in our YouTube videos. 

Thanks to: Andrew Poelstra, BogieNet, Brian Cagle, David, David Truog, Ed, Gerhard, Schwarzer, Jeanette Wink, Siggi Kemmler, Stephen Veit 

Streamed live on Jan 20, 2025.

Pollution will ultimately give away a society.

SUPPORTED BY YOU

This Episode is made possible thanks to our Patrons on Patreon. Join at the Galaxy Group level or higher to be listed in our YouTube videos. 

Thanks to: Andrew Poelstra, BogieNet, Brian Cagle, David, David Truog, Ed, Gerhard, Schwarzer, Jeanette Wink, Siggi Kemmler, Stephen Veit 

Streamed live on Jan 13, 2025.

Why stars can’t be trusted!

If you’re an astronomer you depend on accurate observations of stars, but there’s a problem. Stars are sneaky! Changing in size, brightness, color, they hide their chemistry, their age and even their companions from all but the cleverest observers. Stars explode precisely when they intend to. Betelgeuse took a brightness plunge, T CrB refused to go nova, and other failures to be predictable irk observers for good reasons. Let's talk about it.

Streamed live January 9, 2025.

From little Ingenuity to the future Firefly and all our Earth Science fliers, let's look at the buzzy scientists. NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter showed us how wonderful a flying science platform can be on another world. Soon there’ll be a helicopter flying on Titan, but there are many other flying robots that’ll be helping us with all our science needs. 

What can we hope (or dread) to see in 2025?

Last week we talked about the 2024 strangeness. Now we’re gonna talk about the upcoming space stories for 2025 that we’re looking forward to. It’s a nice mix of new rockets, new missions and new fly-bys.

Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay

Streamed live December13, 2024.

Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay.

2024 was a strange year! I’ll let your imagination take flight and consider how 2024 was weird for you. But, for space and astronomy we had some interesting, revolutionary, unsettling and downright weird stories pop up. Today let’s talk about them.