Astronomy Cast

AstronomyCast 252: Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

Quantum theory is plenty strange, but one of the strangest discoveries is the realization that there’s a limit to how much you can measure at any one time. This was famously described by Werner Heisenberg, with his uncertainty principle: how you can never know both the position and motion of a particle at the same time.

AstronomyCast 250: Precision, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

Have you ever looked into the sky and noticed a fuzzy blob? That’s a Messier Object, carefully cataloged by Charles Messier to make it easier to find comets. We’ll learn about the history of the catalog, Messier’s criteria and some of the prominent objects you’ll see in the sky.

AstronomyCast 249: Schrödinger's cat, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 248: The Carina Constellation, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

Accuracy, precision and reproducibility. These are the foundations of science that make our progress possible. How do these play into a scientist’s daily activities? And just how precise can we get with our measurements?

Another edition of our weekly space hangout. This week we talked about a week of space remembrance, solar storms, Newt's plans for a 2020 lunar base, arsenic and old news, black holes and their galaxies and the death of Phobos-Grunt.

AstronomyCast 247: The Ages of Things, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay