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.

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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

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 Jupiter spot paper by Wong et al.

ESA site on the discovery

NASA’s Jupiter website

The Juno mission and images

The Cassini-Huygens mission

Voyager I visits Jupiter

Historical observations by Cassini & Hooke

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:

NASA’s JWST page

ESA’s JWST page

Canadian Space Agency JWST page

The Great Observatories

Lagrange points

JWST’s 4 Science Themes

Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Heritage Images

Visible vs IR astronomy

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:

Virgin Galactic

Branson goes to space

Blue Origin

Bezos is going to space

The Kármán Line

Definitions of the edge of space

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.

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 Dark Energy Survey

Dark Matter & Dark Energy

Links to DES papers

The Planck mission

Galaxy on Glass