syzygy

We’ve done the baby universe, and baby galaxies, and the very first baby stars ... and *those* were a bit nasty, a bit grumpy. So this week, we're talking baby stars again, but in the modern era — stars being born now, as we speak. Mind you, just because they've got more than H and He to buiold with, doesn't mean they're any less temperamental. Emily takes use from the interstellar medium, through interstellar clouds and collapsing proto-stars, to the birth of a cute little pre-main-sequence star.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

·      The Interstellar medium and Interstellar clouds

·      Proto-stars and their windiness

·      Brown dwarfs

·      Main sequence stars

·      T Tauri stars

·      Herbig Ae/Be stars

This week, it's baby galaxies — the very, very ancient, and the surprisingly brand new. Emily looks back at the earliest things-we-might-consider-galaxies, and the competing models for how they formed. Then we take a peek into the beautiful M81 galaxy, which is, as we speak, sloughing off some of its stars and galaxy stuff, thanks to an ongoing fight with M82 next door. The fun part is, the extra stuff seems to be forming into a new galaxy — albeit one with a difficult future ahead ...

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The first galaxies

• Globular clusters

• Dwarf galaxies

• Galactic tides

• The tidal galaxy paper

• M81 and M82

• The Dragonfly Telescope

• WASP telescope

• Where’s JWST at now?

Continuing our theme of baby-related astronomy, Emily picks up the story from last episode — we'd just finished making the universe and watching its insane growth spurt, and then ... the first stars turned on! And wow, were those first stars weird. Even weirder, there might still be some of them about, 13 billon years later!

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

Where is the JWST?

Laporte et al’s paper on the earliest stars

A good article about the paper

The cosmic web

Stellar populations (I, II and III)

Redshift

We're back! Emily has some exciting news, and in regonition of this, we're starting a series of episodes on a theme — starting with the birth and infancy of the Universe! From the earliest physically-sensible moments, through the explosive growth spurt of Inflation, to the creation of forces, particles, nuclei and — eventuallly — atoms, we track the adorable and exciting early development of the cosmos.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

The Big Bang

Physics and Singularities

Hubble’s law

The Cosmic Microwave Background

Unification in physics

Planck time

Cosmic Inflation

Epochs in the early Universe

Big Bang nucleosynthesis

Matter-antimatter asymmetry

The Dark Ages

While the James Webb Space Telescope waits patiently for its new scheduled liftoff on Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe has been doing amazing things, whizzing through the outer edges of the Sun's corona for the very first time. Emily explains what we do — and staggeringly don't — know about our nearest star, and how Parker is going to help plug some of the more embarrassing gaps in our knowledge.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

JWST still set for launch

The Parker Solar Probe

The Photosphere

The Chromosphere

The Corona

Coronal Mass Ejections

The Carrington Event of 1859

The Solar Storm of 1989

Parker touches the Sun!

First images from inside the corona (feat. Milky Way!)

Spaceguard!

Every year, thousands of decent-sized chunks of rock hurtle past — and often into — the Earth. Of the ones that do hit, most burn up leaving a pretty trail. Occasionally, a bigger one explodes with a boom that shatters windows. More rarely, a big one wipes leaves a large smoking crater and widespread local destruction. Then there was that huge one that devestated the planet, wiping out the dinosaurs. Wouldn't want one of those again/ Fortunately, loads of astronomers are watching the skies to spot any asteroids getting too close for comfort. But what if they find one — what do we do about it? This month, a small spacecraft called DART began its mission to crash into a distant asteroid, to see if maybe we can shift it's orbit a little. It's a test, for sometime in the future, when we might need to do that for real, to save the planel.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The DART mission

Dimorphos & Didimos

LICIAcube

NASA’s Asteroid Watch

Big asteroid impacts in history

Sentinel space telescope

Spaceguard!

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The research paper

A good article on the research

Galactic cannibalism simulation from NASA

The Magellanic Clouds

The Local Group of galaxies

Globular clusters

Stellar populations

Milkdromeda

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

Hubble’s had some trouble

The Supernova 2020fqv paper

A good article about SN 2020fqv

Type I and Type II supernovae (video)

Supernova naming conventions

Space telescopes: TESS and Hubble

The original Rosetta Stone

The Open Supernova Catalog

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The paper in Nature Astronomy

A good article about the research

The Whirlpool Galaxy

NASA’s exoplanets page

Exoplanets in other galaxies

X-Ray binaries

Exoplanet transits

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The Lucy Mission

Jupiter’s Trojans

Earth’s own Trojan asteroid

Lucy’s gold plaque

Lucy the fossil