Astronomy Cast

What starting telescope equipment does the Astronomy Cast team suggest? How much energy does a black hole generate? And how do we measure time outside the Earth? If you've got a question for the Astronomy Cast team, please email it in to [email protected] and we'll try to tackle it for a future show. Please include your location and a way to pronounce your name.

Last week we took a peek into the tiny world of quantum mechanics, and its unintuitive, but very accurate mathematical predictions. And although we all appreciate the physics lesson, you're probably wondering what this all has to do with astronomy. Well, today we bring it all home and explain how quantum mechanics has given astronomers one of the most powerful tools they have to study the nature of the cosmos.

What would happen if the Moon wasn't tidally locked to the Earth? What happens to all that mass and energy disappearing into a black hole? And how can we explain the space station's crazy orbit? If you've got a question for the Astronomy Cast team, please email it in to [email protected] and we'll try to tackle it for a future show. Please include your location and a way to pronounce your name.

Quantum mechanics is the study of the very tiny; the nature of reality at the smallest scale. It's a science that defies common sense, and delivers no helpful analogies. And yet it delivers the goods, making scientific predictions with incredible accuracy. Let's look into the history of quantum theory, and then struggle to comprehend its connection to the Universe.

Are new stars dark until their photons reach the surface? How fast do neutrinos travel? And what’s the story with Hawking Radiation? If you've got a question for the Astronomy Cast team, please email it in to [email protected] and we'll try to tackle it for a future show. Please include your location and a way to pronounce your name.

This week we’re going to think big. Bigger than big. We’re going to consider the biggest things in the Universe. If you could pull way back, and examine regions of space billions of light-years across, what would you see? How is the Universe arranged at the largest scale? And more importantly… why?

How do planets get their atmospheres? What would happen to the Earth if the Moon just disappeared? And what’s that strange glow we see after sunset? If you've got a question for the Astronomy Cast team, please email it in to [email protected] and we'll try to tackle it for a future show. Please include your location and a way to pronounce your name.

And now we reach the end of our tour through the electromagnetic spectrum. Last stop: gamma rays. These are the most energetic photons in the Universe, boosted up to incredible energies in the most violent places in the Universe. Gamma rays are tricky to catch, but they can reveal the most dramatic events in the Universe.

Can our Sun generate a solar flare that would wipe out life on Earth? Has the Large Hadron Collider answered any questions about the Higgs boson? And what would happen if you shined your flashlight out the front window of a spaceship going almost the speed of light? If you've got a question for the Astronomy Cast team, please email it in to [email protected] and we'll try to tackle it for a future show. Please include your location and a way to pronounce your name.

If you've ever broken a bone, X-rays are a part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Doctors use X-rays to study the human body, and astronomers use X-rays to study some of the hottest places in the Universe. So let's put on our X-ray specs, and see what we can see.