The Astroholic Explains

You can’t save the dark skies without convincing people it matters, and education is crucial to this. Across the world, so many are working on that specific aspect, and we will hear from some of these extraordinary communicators in this episode.

The episode features:

Rayan Khan, founder of Cosmic Tribe

Shweta Kulkarni, founder of AstronERA

Dr John Berentine, Principal Consultant at Dark Sky Consulting LLC

Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society

Bettymaya Foott, Engagement Associate at DarkSky International

Dr Michelle Wooten, Assistant Professor of Astronomy Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The battle against light pollution goes through policy and legislation. Certain regions of the world are actually in a better situation than you might think. While the road ahead is long, we talked to those who are paving the way.

The episode features:

Yana Yakushina, lawyer at the Space Court Foundation

Rayan Khan, founder of Cosmic Tribe

Dr John Berentine, Principal Consultant at Dark Sky Consulting LLC

Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society

Jasmine van der Pol, Senior Programme Manager LUCI Association

Dani Robertson, Dark Sky Officer for Eryri National Park and the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Dr Michelle Wooten, Assistant Professor of Astronomy Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

For most people, a dark enough sky can only be accessed on holiday, away from cities. There is a growing movement of astrotourism, so we look into what that’s like, and how it helps the fight against light pollution.

The episode features:

Rayan Khan, founder of Cosmic Tribe

Megan Eaves, author of Nightfaring

Shweta Kulkarni, founder of AstronERA

Dani Robertson, Dark Sky Officer for Eryri National Park and the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Carol Redford, Founder & CEO of Astroturism Western Australia

Michael Rymer, Dark Sky Places Program Associate at DarkSky International.

This episode of Starless focuses on the impact of light pollution. How has anthropogenic light changed the world in less than two centuries? The full impact is not completely understood, but what we know makes for a very concerning tale.

The episode features:

Dr Michelle Wooten, Assistant Professor of Astronomy Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Dr Mario Motta, Cardiologist and astronomer, whose work has specialized in the effect of light pollution on human health.

Dr Brett Seymoure, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Biology at the University of Texas at El Paso

Dr Ellen Cieraad, Research Professor at the Nelson-Marlborough Institute of Technology

In this introductory episode, we will be talking about dark skies and light pollution in general, and what some organizations are doing to protect the night sky, as well as some of the misconceptions about reducing light pollution.

Featuring:

Rayan Khan, founder of Cosmic Tribe

Megan Eaves, author of Nightfaring

Shweta Kulkarni, founder of AstronERA

Dr John Berentine, Principal Consultant at Dark Sky Consulting LLC

Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society

Bettymaya Foott, Engagement Associate at DarkSky International

For the 2024 Christmas Special, we tackle Special Relativity and Chris's issues with time dilation and relativity in general!

Link for Invisible Rainbows

Chris and I decided to find out when humans realized that meteorites came from beyond Earth: it could be a lot older than it was once thought! Egyptologist Dr Victoria Almansa-Villatoro joins us to discuss meteorite artifacts and intriguing hieroglyphs from Ancient Egypt.

We are talking about ancient aliens. (No, not the racist conspiracy theory!) We look into the concept of extraterrestrials over history and how it originated. Who were the first recorded people who pondered about life outside Earth?

In this episode, we tackle the classic concept of sound in space, what can we measure, and why it is important that some sound waves move through the cosmos.

Our position inside the Milky Way doesn't give us an advantageous view of our galaxy. But that doesn't mean we haven't found a way around it. Joined by Dr GyuChul Myeong, we explore how we make sense of the Milky Way and its past collision with the Gaia-Sausage galaxy.