"Consider your waistline, is it expanding? Is it expanding at an ever-increasing rate? If so, you are in tune with The Universe. Yes, the universe is expanding faster than astronomers had thought, a new study suggests. And if you don't believe me trot along to space.com to verify this strange and amazing new factoid."

Interferometry for the people: Dr. Anna Scaife talks about radio astronomy interferometry.

Big Data in the City: The Square Kilometre Array radio telescope is attracting many kinds of talent and resources to Cape Town. One of the most challenging aspects of the SKA is its greed for data. It will need a massive IT infrastructure to deal with the amount and throughout of data, and this has spin-off potentials for the city. We explore these with Dr Jasper Horrell, the Manager for Science, Computing, and Innovation at the SKA.

New 'Laser Comb' dramatically improves science - local scientists triumph

MEERKAT switched on!

SKA Chief Scientist Dr Fernando Camila describes the first test from the new telescope, MEERKAT. This will eventually form part of the massive Square Kilometre Array, an instrument 100 times more powerful than any radio telescope ever built. MEERKAT itself is a South African effort and will be the largest radio telescope in the world when it is completed next year, comprising 64 radio astronomy dishes. Listen to this fantastic news from our shores about South African science and engineering. Fernando will be back to tell us about the kinds of science this instrument will perform but in the meantime he and the project team are delighted with what they’re seeing.

New bigger, better and all together funkier special purpose space telescope called The James Web Space Telescope

Great Balls of Fire:

It’s Friday 13th and if nothing untoward has happened to you yet, consider asteroids landing on Earth and spoiling your weekend. What to do about it? Listen to this podcast for handy hints. Well, actually not, but you could possibly be reassured by the efforts of space agencies and what they propose to do about asteroids.

The Sounds of The Universe

Sending a Dragon capsule to Mars “as soon as 2018″

“One of the planets you can see in the night sky is Mars. It remains in Scorpius rising at 7:30 at night and visible, and closing on it heels is Saturn, only half an hour behind and also in the central body of Scorpius. Jupiter is also up, in the constellation of Leo the lion so we have the big visible planets all there to view most of the night. It’s amazing to look at Mars and think that one day earthlings will set foot on its surface…”.

Super Massive Black Holes emitting jets all in the same direction the latest from research in Cape Town:

Big news in astronomy: local research has uncovered black holes emitting jets of material into interstellar space which are all pointing in the same direction. This has implications for how the universe was formed. Listen to Professor Russ Taylor of the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy explain these latest findings.