Astronomy Cast

By Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay

Natural Sciences

What's Astronomy Cast about?

Astronomy Cast brings you a weekly fact-based journey through the cosmos.

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LAST EPISODE

Ep. 612: Hiatus Message

07.12.2021

Fraser & Pamela will return in early September with more episodes of Astronomy Cast. We hope you all have a safe, relaxing and prosperous summer!

Astronomy Cast episodes:

07.12.2021 Ep. 612: Hiatus Message Fraser & Pamela will return in early September with more episodes of Astronomy Cast. We hope you all have a safe, relaxing and prosperous summer!
07.05.2021 Ep. 612: The SETI Renaissance Last week we talked about the various ways that astronomers could detect the presence of intelligent civilizations by observing technosignatures. This week we'll give you an update on the state of the search for extraterrestrials. This field has gone from ...
06.28.2021 Ep. 611: What is Required to Confirm Alien Life: Intelligence Edition Last week we talked about what it's going to take to confirm basic biological life across the Solar System and the Milky Way. This week, we'll discuss what it's going to take to detect intelligent life out there in space.
06.21.2021 Ep. 610: What is Required to Confirm Alien Life: Non-Sentient Edition Are we alone in the Universe? It's one of the biggest scientific questions we can possibly ask. And yet, with rovers on Mars, missions planned to visit Europa and Ganymede. Powerful telescopes able to detect the atmospheres of exoplanets, we're ...
06.14.2021 Ep. 609: Volcanos With Benefits: Lava Tubes, Hydro Thermal Vents & More Volcanos can be some of the worst natural disasters that we can experience here on Earth. But life wouldn't even exist without them. So, what are volcanos good for anyway?
06.07.2021 Ep. 608: NASA Perseverance, The First 100 Days As you all know, Pamela refuses to talk about any missions which aren't actually doing science. Well, Perseverance has crossed the line, from fantasy to an actual working rover, scooping regolith and yeeting helicopters. What has the rover accomplished in ...
05.31.2021 Ep. 607: InSight and Earthquakes Mars is cold and dead today, but the massive volcanoes tell us what the planet used to be like, millions and even billions of years ago. But how volcanically active is the planet today? That's what NASA's Mars InSight lander ...
05.24.2021 Ep. 606 - Time Dilation: Skipping Thru Time Have you ever wanted to be a time traveler? Well, good news! You're time traveling right now. Into the future at one second per second. Taking too long? Don't want to wait? Good news, Einstein's got you covered. Today, let's ...
05.17.2021 Ep. 605: Sounding Rockets Last week we talked about balloon-based astronomy. This week we're gonna talk about putting telescopes on rockets and making observations mid flight. Welcome to the wild world of sounding rockets.
05.10.2021 Ep. 604: Balloon Astronomy So when you think about the world's observatories, I'm sure you're imagining huge telescopes perched atop mountain peaks or space telescopes like Hubble. But you might be surprised to learn that some telescopes are carried high into the atmosphere on ...
05.03.2021 Ep. 603: New Colors of the Radio Spectrum Last week we talked about how new telescopes and techniques are allowing astronomers to explore the shortest wavelengths of light. This week we go to the other end of the electromagnetic spectrum and explore the longer radio waves which are ...
04.26.2021 Ep. 602: The New Colors of Gamma Rays - Getting Shorter The Earth's atmosphere protects us from a Universe that is definitely trying to kill us. But it also blocks our view of the entire cosmos, like seeing X-rays and gamma radiation. Space telescopes are changing our view of the most ...
04.19.2021 Ep. 601: Unexpected Light Pollution Day-by-day we're loosing our connection with the night sky. Already one third of humanity lives in so much light pollution that they can't see the Milky Way without a drive. And now satellite constellations are adding additional light pollution, even ...
03.29.2021 Ep. 600: Looking Ahead Today we are gonna gaze into the future of space and astronomy. What upcoming missions & events are we excited about?
03.22.2021 Ep. 599: Zodiacal Light Pamela has told us in the most flowery terms about the diffuse dust across the inner solar system left over from the formation of the inner planets. well, it turns out she was wrong. Super wrong. Time to update!
03.15.2021 Ep. 598: How You Could Overturn Cosmology You've probably heard of dark matter and dark energy, but maybe you don't fully understand what they are. Or maybe the idea itself just rubs you the wrong way and you'd like to know why scientists think they can just ...
03.08.2021 Ep. 597: The Expansion of the Universe It's been a while since we checked to make sure the Universe was still expanding. Yeah, apparently, that's still a thing. But in the last few years powerful new telescopes and expansive surveys have given us much more knowledge about ...
03.01.2021 Ep. 596: The Universe’s Background Noise You might be familiar with the cosmic microwave background, but that's just one of the background radiations that astronomers look at. Some are well known and cataloged. While others are just starting to be possible to see at all. All ...
02.15.2021 Ep. 595: Planet Hunting - Revisited This is gonna be another one of those evergreen topics where we come back again and again. Finding planets. Every time we talk about this now it seems like we've gained thousands of new planets. Well, buckle up! New techniques ...
02.08.2021 Ep. 594: Juno - Primary Mission Highlights Pamela is always loath to talk about spacecraft until the mission's in space and the science is rolling. NASA's Juno Mission just received a mission extension, adding Jupiter's moons to the menu. Now, finally, we can talk about Juno! [Ed. ...
02.01.2021 Ep. 593: Stellar Parasites Stars often come in groups of 2 or more. And if they're orbiting close enough to each other one star can feast on the other and when that happens, well, mayhem ensues!
01.25.2021 Ep. 592: Gamma-Ray Bursts - Updated Some of the most powerful explosions in the Universe are gamma-ray bursts, capable of blasting a beam of death half way across the galaxy. In just the last few years astronomers have discovered a tremendous amount about these blasts and ...
01.18.2021 Ep. 591: What Are We Gonna Do With All That Space Junk? Remember the good old days when there were only a few thousand living and dead satellites? Well, those days are long over. We're now entering an era where there will be tens of thousands of satellites. Not to mention the ...
01.11.2021 Ep. 590: Lunar Hazards: Dust, Radiation and More 2024 can't come soon enough. You know, that's the year when humans will set foot on the Moon again. Now don't you roll your eyes! That's the plan. Unless the plan changes. But my point is, explorers going to the ...
12.21.2020 Ep. 589 - Lunar Resources: Water (Update) & Other Volatiles We've talked about the Moon and its water many times here on Astronomy Cast, but there've been a bunch of big updates thanks to new research from NASA and others. Today we're gonna give you an update on the state ...
12.14.2020 Ep. 588 - Lunar Resources: Lava Tubes All eyes are on the Moon. We're going back, this time to stay, right? One of the best resources on the Moon will be the lava tubes that criss-cross the subsurface of the Moon. These can provide protection from space, ...
12.07.2020 Ep. 587: The Artemis Accords So the Moon is about to become a very busy place with multiple countries and private companies planning missions in the next few years. It's been decades since the Outer Space Treaty was negotiated. It's time for the Artemis Accords!
11.30.2020 Ep. 586: Life As We Know It: Habitable Exoplanets & Extremophiles As scientists continue to explore the Earth. They're discovering life, surviving and even thriving in extreme environments. What hints can this give us about what we might find as we search for live on other worlds.
11.23.2020 Ep. 585: Super Earths, Mini-Neptunes & Gas Dwarfs Astronomers are finding even more new extrasolar planets and they're starting to discover entirely new categories. There are classes of planets out there that we just don't have any analog here in the solar system. Let's talk about them!
11.02.2020 Ep. 584: Sample Return Missions From Asteroids So with a sample of asteroid Bennu firmly inside OSIRIS-REx's return capsule, it's time to bring this treasure home. So scientists can study the composition and history of the space rock. But it's not the only sample return mission out ...
10.26.2020 Ep. 583: The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics This year's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three brilliant researchers who worked out some of the secrets of black holes. Today we're going to talk about the chain of discoveries that led to this award.
10.19.2020 Ep. 582: Building Bigger Black Holes Did you hear the news? Nobel prizes for Black Holes! Now, we know there are stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes, but how do you get from one to the other? How do black holes get more massive?
10.12.2020 Ep. 581: Other Kinds Of Novae Don't ever accuse us of not comprehensively covering every kind of exploding star. This week we gather up all the left over ways that stars partially or fully explode or don't. Probably. Enjoy!
10.05.2020 Ep. 580: Exploding Dwarfs So you think that a white dwarf star is the end of a stellar life, and it's all downhill from there, a long, slow cool down towards the end of everything. But in some situations even dead stars can get ...
09.28.2020 Ep. 579: White and Black Dwarf Stars I've got some bad news for you. Stars die. At some point in the next few billion years or so our Sun is going to start heating up, using up all the fuel in its core, and then eventually die, ...
09.21.2020 Ep. 578: Venus Updates - or - Life on Venus?!? So have you heard the news? Of course you have. Evidence of phosphene on Venus. Which could be a biosignature of life on our evil twin planet. There have been a lot of surprising stories about Venus, so let's get ...
09.14.2020 Ep. 577: Mars in Opposition Every 2 years or so Mars lines up nicely with the Earth. It takes only 2 minutes to communicate with the rovers. You can see the polar ice caps in a small telescope. And it's the best time to send ...
06.29.2020 Ep. 576: Summer Stargazing Special It's time once again for Astronomy Cast to go on hiatus. You've got a couple months on your own to explore the night sky. But before we say goodbye, we'd like to make a few suggestions.
06.22.2020 Ep. 575: Observing The Moon As amateur astronomers, we curse the Moon every month. Seriously! Why doesn't someone get rid of that thing! This week, something occurred to us. What if we actually pointed our telescopes at the Moon? What would we see? The Lunar ...
06.15.2020 Ep. 574: Trojan Asteroids We imagine the asteroid belt as a place where all the rocks hang out in the solar system. But there are 2 huge bands of asteroids that orbit the Sun with Jupiter called the Trojans. And soon we may actually ...
06.08.2020 Ep. 573: Exoplanet Atmospheres Not only have astronomers discovered thousands of exoplanets, but they're even starting to study the atmospheres of worlds thousands of light years away. What can we learn about these other worlds and maybe even signs of life.
06.01.2020 Ep. 572: Twists in Planet Formation We're all looking to the next generation of exoplanetary research where we get planets directly. But astronomers are already making great strides in directly observing newly forming planets help us understand how our solar system might have formed.
05.25.2020 Ep. 571: Extreme Binaries So we're familiar with regular binary stars. Two stars orbiting each other. Simple. Of course the Universe has come up with every combination of things orbiting other things, and this week we look at some extreme examples.
05.18.2020 Ep. 570: Discovering Comets Discovering comets is one of the fields that amateurs can still make a regular contribution to astronomy. But more and more comets are getting found by spacecraft, automated systems and machine learning. This week we'll talk about how comets are ...
05.11.2020 Ep. 569: Ethics of Commercial and Military Space, Part 1: Private Space Flight Every year, more and more people are making their way to space. Some private citizens have already gotten their astronaut wings, paying for a trip to space out of their own pocket. What are the ethical implications of this as ...
05.06.2020 Ep. 568: In Situ Resource Utilization The key to surviving in space will be learning how to live off the land. Instead of carrying all your fuel, water and other resources from Earth, extract them locally at your destination. It's called in situ resource utilization, and ...
04.27.2020 Ep. 567: When Satellites Need a House Call Space is really far away, so when you send a satellite out into the void, that's pretty much the last you're going to be able to work on it. And if anything goes wrong, too bad, you're out a satellite. ...
04.20.2020 Ep. 566: When Comets Fall Apart As everyone knows, the Universe owes us a bright comet. There have been a lot of promising candidates, but in the end, they always fail to live up to our expectations. Comets keep on breaking up with us.
04.13.2020 Ep. 565: When Worlds Collide 565: When Worlds Collide Astronomy Cast 565: When Worlds Collide by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay So much of our Solar System has been shaped by enormous collisions early on in our history. Seriously, the nature of every planet ...
04.06.2020 Ep. 564: Mini Moons Last month astronomers announced that they had detected a tiny asteroid that had been captured by the Earth's gravity well and had been sharing our orbit for a few years. Today, let's talk about the smallest moons in the Solar ...

Older episodes

Astronomy Cast

What's Astronomy Cast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Astronomy Cast episodes:

Ep. 612: Hiatus Message

Ep. 612: The SETI Renaissance

Ep. 611: What is Required to Confirm Alien Life: Intelligence Edition

Ep. 610: What is Required to Confirm Alien Life: Non-Sentient Edition

Ep. 609: Volcanos With Benefits: Lava Tubes, Hydro Thermal Vents & More

Ep. 608: NASA Perseverance, The First 100 Days

Ep. 607: InSight and Earthquakes

Ep. 606 - Time Dilation: Skipping Thru Time

Ep. 605: Sounding Rockets

Ep. 604: Balloon Astronomy

Ep. 603: New Colors of the Radio Spectrum

Ep. 602: The New Colors of Gamma Rays - Getting Shorter

Ep. 601: Unexpected Light Pollution

Ep. 600: Looking Ahead

Ep. 599: Zodiacal Light

Ep. 598: How You Could Overturn Cosmology

Ep. 597: The Expansion of the Universe

Ep. 596: The Universe’s Background Noise

Ep. 595: Planet Hunting - Revisited

Ep. 594: Juno - Primary Mission Highlights

Ep. 593: Stellar Parasites

Ep. 592: Gamma-Ray Bursts - Updated

Ep. 591: What Are We Gonna Do With All That Space Junk?

Ep. 590: Lunar Hazards: Dust, Radiation and More

Ep. 589 - Lunar Resources: Water (Update) & Other Volatiles

Ep. 588 - Lunar Resources: Lava Tubes

Ep. 587: The Artemis Accords

Ep. 586: Life As We Know It: Habitable Exoplanets & Extremophiles

Ep. 585: Super Earths, Mini-Neptunes & Gas Dwarfs

Ep. 584: Sample Return Missions From Asteroids

Ep. 583: The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics

Ep. 582: Building Bigger Black Holes

Ep. 581: Other Kinds Of Novae

Ep. 580: Exploding Dwarfs

Ep. 579: White and Black Dwarf Stars

Ep. 578: Venus Updates - or - Life on Venus?!?

Ep. 577: Mars in Opposition

Ep. 576: Summer Stargazing Special

Ep. 575: Observing The Moon

Ep. 574: Trojan Asteroids

Ep. 573: Exoplanet Atmospheres

Ep. 572: Twists in Planet Formation

Ep. 571: Extreme Binaries

Ep. 570: Discovering Comets

Ep. 569: Ethics of Commercial and Military Space, Part 1: Private Space Flight

Ep. 568: In Situ Resource Utilization

Ep. 567: When Satellites Need a House Call

Ep. 566: When Comets Fall Apart

Ep. 565: When Worlds Collide

Ep. 564: Mini Moons

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