Astronomy Cast

AstronomyCast 284: Optics, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

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.

AstronomyCast 282: Seasons, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

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.

AstroCast 281: Explosions in Space, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 280: The Cosmological Constant, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

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.