AWESOME ASTRONOMY

The Discussion:

• Tales from a dark sky weekend
• Jen appearing on the Cosmic Companion and at the Open University Space Society
• Emails on space tourism and from a US state penitentiary

The News:

• NASA gets ready to test an asteroid redirect mission
• Shatner in space
• Mixed fortunes in the news for Bezos & Musk
• The James Webb Space Telescope is still on track for a December launch

The news discussion: NASA's Lucy mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.

Moons of the Solar System: Our show segment exploring the discovery, exploration and our knowledge of the solar system's moons. This month we complete this segment with a look at moons around asteroids and the tantalising glimpses of moons around planets outside our solar system.

The Discussion:

• Murder on a submarine
• Jeni's exoplanet talk for the Open University Space Society - available here on YouTube
• An email from Eastern Europe prompting a discussion on future energy harvesting

The News: Rounding up the astronomy news in October, we have:

• Understanding asteroids using ground based telescopes
• Solving The Mysterious Case of the Missing Supernova
• Discovering a new asteroid close to the Sun
• Evidence of recent volcanoes on Venus
• A look at the joys of star parties (not just ours!)

The Sky Guide: This month we're taking a look at the constellation of Lacerta with a guide to its history, how to find it, a couple of deep sky objects and a round-up of the solar system views on offer in October.

Q&A: Is there more matter in the Universe now than when the Big Bang happened? From our good friend Nick Massey on Facebook.

The Discussion:

• Our practical astronomy gathering is back – join us in Wales on 2-5th October
• Jen is contributing to Andy Oppenheimer's book Stars of Orion
• Submit your support for Lego to create a clockwork solar system
• Watch Jen's free online exoplanet talk for the Open University Space Society
• Emails from our good friends:
  • Casey Ash in Thailand, about the perennial issue of satellite constellations
  • Conor Brian from Texas about the first Martian settlers

The News:

• Ongoing problems with the James Webb Space Telescope as it nears launch.
• The first NASA Artemis moon mission suffers a setback
• The International Space Station's new module is now functional
• Inspiration4 - the first civilian mission to space
• Commercial rocket companies Astra & Firefly put on the firework show
• NASA's Perseverance rover collects its first Mars samples for a return to Earth

The news discussion: Is commercial spaceflight just a billionaires' plaything?

Moons of the Solar System: Our show segment exploring the discovery, exploration and our knowledge of the solar system's moons. This month we reach the last major solar system body to have moons: Pluto.

The Discussion:

• Jeni Nearly joined a cult
• Farewell to Carolyn Shoemaker
• The Room of Doom at Redditch Astronomical Society
• The new updated Sky Guide app (that Jen works on)
• Listeners' emails on how annoying we are and nebulae

The News: Rounding up the astronomy news in September, we have:

• A new classification of habitable exoplanets
• Astronomers find thousands of new galaxies
• Red Dwarf stars might not be as hostile to life as previously thought
• Have we found a new spiral arm to the Milky Way?
• Why last year's Comet ATLAS wasn't the comet of a generation

The Sky Guide: This month we're taking a look at the constellation of Aquarius with a guide to its history, how to find it, a couple of deep sky objects and a round-up of the solar system views on offer in September.

Q&A: Why is the CMB microwave light still visible if it was first emitted 13billion-ish years ago? From our good friend Graeme Durden of Kent in the UK.

This podcast extra is all about our favourite topic of them all, exoplanets. Thanks to our good friends Ian and Billy, we'll be taking a look at the very exciting upcoming low-Earth orbit space mission Twinkle. This small satellite will help us better understand the chemical composition of known exoplanets, which in turn will help us understand their history - and even their weather!

Guests:

Ian Stotesbury - master of astrophysics and lead systems engineer at Blue Skies Space. Ian has a background in low Earth orbit Earth monitoring missions and constellations, but is now making the leap to other planets.

Dr Billy Edwards - gained his PhD in Astrophysics from UCL, specialising in observing exoplanet atmospheres with space based telescopes. He's stayed on at UCL and is now a project scientist for the Twinkle Space Mission.

In this podcast extra, we discuss:

• The origin of the Twinkle Space Mission and Blue Skies Space, the company behind the satellite, including an enlightening discussion on why some space missions are chosen, and why some seem to just always miss out.
• Twinkle's unique science instruments (including an astonishingly wide wavelength range), exoplanet science goals, and surprising but very carefully considered size.
• Twinkle's construction and launch window
• Ian and Billy's wildest hopes and dreams for Twinkle observations (including Uranus and Neptune!!) and future follow-up missions
• An invitation for YOU to join in with the ExoClock mission. Help professional astronomers monitor transiting exoplanets!

The Discussion:

• Presenting on the BBC
• The importance of dust to astronomy

The News:

• A round up of current Mars exploration from Perseverance, Ingenuity, Hope & Zhurong.
• The mystery of the disappearing Mars rock
• The Boeing gremlins continue
• Bezos joins the billionaire space tourism club

Moons of the Solar System: Our show segment exploring the discovery, exploration and our knowledge of the solar system's moons. And we move onto the moons of Neptune.

Q&A: Why would anyone want to venture to Mars? From our good friend Richie Melton of

Formby, Merseyside, UK, Earth.

The Discussion:

• Star Wars marathon
• Observing the ISS & the Nauka Module
• NAM 2021
• Amateur recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism
• Spectrum analysing the new audio anomaly

The News: Rounding up the astronomy news in August, we have:

• Detecting light from behind a black hole
• New Insights shows Mars' interior is very different to Earth's
• Evidence of an ocean beneath the surface of Jupiter's moon Ganymede
• The Oort Cloud could be filled with extrasolar debris
• Earth rock may contain extraterrestrial Plutonium
• First clear detection of a moon-forming disc around an exoplanet

The Sky Guide: This month we're taking a look at the constellation of Lyra with a guide to its history, how to find it, a couple of deep sky objects and a round-up of the solar system views on offer in August.

Q&A: Could dark matter exist in a different dimension, and we only feel the gravitons they emit? From our good friend Dan Scholes of no declared location.

The Discussion:

• Hubble's still in trouble
• Jeni's presenting on the BBC's Weatherman Walking
• Ideas for a new segment to replace the moons of the solar system

The News:

• Ingenuity helicopter is exceeding all expectations
• Russia looks to expand its real estate on the ISS
• NASA's Artemis 1 is being stacked for a November launch
• China's sending Taikonauts to the moon & Mars
• Bezos & Branson

Moons of the Solar System: Our show segment exploring the discovery, exploration and our knowledge of the solar system's moons. And we move onto the moons of Uranus.

Q&A: Are summers in the southern hemisphere hotter than in the northern hemisphere because they're close to the sun at perihelion?' From our good friend Krista Bowen from Arkansas via email.

The Discussion:

• Can you help out the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory?
• Combining sports & astronomy
• The hive mind responds to the new audio anomaly

The News: Rounding up the astronomy news in July, we have:

• Hubble in trouble
• Incredible new images of Jupiter's moon Ganymede
• A glimpse of the first ever stars
• Cosmic twisters
• The biggest comet ever seen comes barreling into the solar system

The Sky Guide: This month we're taking a look at the constellation of Aquila with a guide to its history, how to find it, a couple of deep sky objects and a round-up of the solar system views on offer in July.

Q&A: How does Europa have a salty ocean & how do we know?? From our good friend @AlistairFrith on Twitter.

To illustrate the epic saga of the Great Dimming of Betelgeuse, in this podcast extra, we revisit all our previous discussions of the red supergiant – collated just for you in one handy dandy place!

We cover all the previous major studies of the Great Dimming event from the past year and a half, to let you relive the glorious adventure that is scientific investigation!

Tune in to see how this amazing story has evolved and remind yourself of the previous theories; from coincidental pulsation cycles, to surface temperature drops, and, of course, cosmic dust (as predicted by the Dust Queen herself).

We finish with a brief summary of the newest research published in Nature, using data from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT).

**Also download Episode 109 Part1 on 1st July 2021 to hear our full discussion of the seemingly final instalment of this incredible adventure.**