Universe Today Podcast

By Fraser Cain

Natural Sciences

What's Universe Today Podcast about?

Space news, interviews, Q&As, and exclusive content from Universe Today.
Audio versions of Fraser Cain YouTube channel.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

[Secret Bonus] Universe Tod...

09.23.2023

This is a sneak peek into our monthly Patreon-exclusive podcast we call Shareholders Meeting. Patreon is the reason we don't have ads and sponsor integrations in our podcast and YouTube videos. So, if you want to help us keep it ...

Universe Today Podcast episodes:

09.23.2023 [Secret Bonus] Universe Today's Shareholders Meeting This is a sneak peek into our monthly Patreon-exclusive podcast we call Shareholders Meeting. Patreon is the reason we don't have ads and sponsor integrations in our podcast and YouTube videos. So, if you want to help us keep it ...
09.22.2023 [Space Bites] JWST CO2 Discovery on Europa // Fullmetal Exoplanet // Lunar Starship Engine Test James Webb detects carbon dioxide on the surface of Europa. A full metal exoplanet. Searching for tiny dyson spheres. And learning how black holes eat so quickly.
09.15.2023 [Space Bites] So Much James Webb News // NASA's UAPs Report // Closest Black Hole to Earth Have astronomers found the first signs of life on an exoplanet? So much James Webb news. The closest black hole to Earth. NASA gives its report on UAPs.
09.12.2023 [Interview] A Big Problem with Modern Science Communication What's going on with the Hubble Tension and does it really imply a Crisis in Cosmology? How to stay sceptical but at the same time keep an open mind? What big discoveries should we expect in the coming future? Looking ...
09.08.2023 [Space Bites] New Sun, Moon and X-Ray Missions // Mars Colony Size Limit // Starship's Ready Starship could be almost ready to fly. The smallest possible Mars colony. Three more space missions launched this week. And a new look at China’s next-generation crew capsule and lunar lander.
09.05.2023 [Interview] Looking Deep Into Milky Way's Center with JWST The center of our Galaxy is a mystery. It is full of dust which most telescopes can't see through. But with James Webb we can look into it. What hides deep in the middle of the Milky Way? Finding out ...
09.04.2023 [Special] I Challenged Space YouTubers To Pick James Webb's Best Image Which JWST image is the best so far? To answer that, we did a series of polls among our community with a quarter-final round, semi-final and the final. Can my fellow space YouTubers guess which one turned out to be ...
09.01.2023 [Space Bites] Ultra-Dense Exoplanet // New Horizons Needs Saving // Big ISS Upgrade An exoplanet denser than steel. The Whirlpool Galaxy from JWST. We finally learn where the solar wind comes from. The ISS is getting gigabit internet.
08.26.2023 [Interview] A Clever Hack to Solve The Hubble Tension There is a disagreement in measurements of the Hubble constant often referred to as The Crisis in Cosmology. One way to solve it is to observe redshift drift. However, it requires lengthy observations. But my guest, Dr Geraint Lewis, has ...
08.25.2023 [Space Bites] India Lands Russia Crashes // Mystery of Neptune Clouds // Red Shift Drift India lands on the Moon. Another Ring Nebula image from JWST. One of the coolest exoplanet videos you’ve ever seen. New images of Neptune.
08.18.2023 [Space Bites] True Darkness of The Universe // MOND vs Dark Matter // SETI Symposium The farthest star and the farthest galaxy seen by JWST. Measuring the darkness of the Universe from deep space. New evidence for MOND vs dark matter.
08.11.2023 [Space Bites] LK-99 Update // Ingenuity's Unscheduled Landing // SuperHeavy Hot Fire Test Superconductor update. Contact re-established with Voyager 2. Two stars orbiting so closely they could hide inside the Sun. A field of gravitational lenses in a new JWST image.
08.09.2023 [Interview] Nautilus – True Next Gen Space Telescope Classical space telescopes have their limit. You can't simply build bigger mirrors all the time. Instead, you can build more mirrors and combine them into a telescope array. That's the concept behind the Nautilus Array which we discuss with Prof. ...
08.04.2023 [Space Bites] Voyager-2 Lost Contact // Potential Superconductor Breakthrough // Sag A* Companion NASA Loses Contact with Voyager 2 because of a mistake. Euclid sends its first images. Finally, The Ring Nebula from JWST.
08.01.2023 [Interview] Dealing With Space Junk Dealing with space debris is an increasingly important aspect of spaceflight. Can we take it under control? What technical challenges will we need to overcome? What will it mean for the future of space infrastructure? Answering all these questions with ...
07.31.2023 [Interview] Launching Rockets With Just Electricity What will it take to ditch chemical rockets and make space launches fully electric? What tech will it require and when will it be reasonable to use such a system? What technical challenges are associated with it? Answering all these ...
07.28.2023 [Space Bites] UAP Coverup Controversy // NASA's 2027 Nuclear Rocket // Trillions of Rogue Planets NASA reveals nuclear rocket partnership with Lockheed Martin. Witnesses claim there’s a UAP coverup. There could be trillions of rogue planets wandering the Milky Way.
07.26.2023 [Special] All The AMAZING SCIENCE of James Webb's First Year in Space It's already been one year of JWST operations. In this episode we accumulated all the major science results, all the amazing images and graphs, all the important discoveries and controversies. Enjoy the ULTIMATE GUIDE to the first year of James ...
07.22.2023 [Interview] Weirdest White Dwarf Ever Found. What's Going On? A white dwarf was found that literally has to sides. One is Hydrogen. The other one is Helium. And it constantly rotates and changes those two sides. What's going on and how could this possibly happen? We're figuring it out ...
07.21.2023 [Space Bites] Two-Face White Dwarf // Age Of The Universe Controversy // Lagrange Point Planet Is the Universe twice as old as we thought? China updates its lunar exploration plans. Astronomers might have found an exoplanet in a Lagrange Point.
07.18.2023 [Interview] We Must Go Back To Enceladus! Here's Why Enceladus is the most interesting world in our Solar System in terms of exploration potential. It just is. But at the moment there are no approved missions to come back there. In this interview I'm discussing a New Frontiers class ...
07.18.2023 [Special] Real Science Results Behind JWST's First Year James Webb recently celebrated its first anniversary at work. What science results did it bring? Why graphs of spectra are as great as the nice pictures? How did JWST change Cosmology? What to expect from the next year of observations? ...
07.14.2023 [Space Bites] India's Moon Lander Launch // JWST Anniversary // Strong ELT Progress JWST celebrates its first year of operation. The Extremely Large Telescope is half-built. A black hole suddenly roars into life.
07.08.2023 [Interview] Axions or Not. What's Hiding Behind Dark Matter Before finding out what is dark matter we might first need to find what it isn't. In this interview Dr Keir Rogers explains what do we currently know about dark matter, what can we find in the near future and ...
07.07.2023 [Space Bites] Big JWST Discoveries // 63-Day Silence for Ingenuity // Lensing Gravitational Waves So much James Webb discoveries. A planet survives after being consumed by a red giant star. Euclid successfully launches. And gravitational lensing gravitational waves.
07.05.2023 [Q&A] Submarine for Titan, Planets Changing Size, Even Bigger LIGO When does a Lagrange point stop being one? Can we make LIGO even bigger? Do planets change their size over time? Can we build a submarine to go to Titan? What's next for the TRAPPIST-1 system? All this and more ...
07.02.2023 [Bonus] Robo Eels Exploring Water Worlds, NASA UAP Study, AGI to Take Over This is an episode of John Michael Godier's show Event Horizon. We explore the extraordinary idea of robo-eels, groundbreaking aquatic automatons designed to unlock the mysteries of water worlds like Enceladus and Europa. Then, we shift gears to discuss NASA's ...
07.01.2023 [Space Bites] Gravitational Waves Background Announced // Planets in The Oort Cloud // Big Starship Update Gravitational wave background of the Universe. A map of the Milky Way in neutrinos. More new discoveries from JWST. A major update for Starship.
06.27.2023 [Interview] Vera Rubin Telescope Will Revolutionise Astronomy. Here's Why The Vera Rubin Observatory will soon come online. It will be a game-changer for Astronomy. How exactly will it happen and how it will help SETI? We're trying to find the answers with my guest, Dr James Davenport from The ...
06.27.2023 [Q&A] Dark Matter Evidence, Oort Cloud Shape, Size of Lagrange Points Will LIGO detect gravitational waves when Betelgeuse explodes? Why are scientists so sure about dark matter? Could Betelgeuse become a black hole after it goes supernova? Why is the Oort cloud a sphere, not a disk? What determines the size ...
06.23.2023 [Space Bites] Ancient Echo from Sgr A* // Lightning on Jupiter // TRAPPIST-1c by James Webb JWST Looks at the Next Planet in the TRAPPIST system. Could we detect colliding supermassive black holes. Hot Jupiters that flew too close to their stars.
06.21.2023 [Interview] Simulating The Universe with Supercomputers Supercomputer simulations of the Universe are a huge part of modern astronomy. In this interview with Dr Andrew Pontzen we discuss, how exactly are these simulations done, what's the future of this industry, how it will shape the James Webb ...
06.20.2023 [Q&A] Strange Isotopes in Supernovae, External Gravitational Lenses, Existence of The Present Which astronomical events can only be seen with gravitational waves? Is there enough water on the Moon for a permanent colony? Can we use stars other than the Sun as gravitational lenses? Does the present even exist or are we ...
06.17.2023 [Interview] Can Axions Be Dark Matter? We still don't know what is Dark Matter. We can see its effects but we don't know what it's made of. However, with their latest publication, Dr Amruth Alfred suggests that dark matter should be made of axions (which are ...
06.16.2023 [Space Bites] Another Enceladus Breakthrough, Crystallising White Dwarf, 19-Hour Earth Day A white dwarf is starting to turn into a diamond. Another key element for life found in the plumes at Enceladus. The Parker Solar Probe discovers the source of the fast solar wind. All this and more in this week’s ...
06.14.2023 [Q&A] Solar Wind Slowing Down Planets, Nuking the Sun, Exomoon Reflection Is nuking the Sun a good way to disarm the Earth? Should they rebuild the Arecibo observatory? How will SpaceX Starship change spaceflight? Could we see a reflection of an exomoon in a planet's ocean? Can a heavy suit help ...
06.09.2023 [Space Bites] James Webb Deep Field, Betelgeuse's Doing It Again, Starliner Fail Betelgeuse is unexpectedly bright, and update of JWST’s Deep Field program, and more problems with the Boeing Starliner.
06.06.2023 [Q&A] True Size of the Universe, Inescapable Planets, Magnetic Poles Reversal Was the Universe ever the size of an orange or a basketball? Can life exist on planets that cannot be escaped? Can the asteroid belt ever produce a new planet? Is the CMB slowly changing over time? What happens at ...
06.02.2023 [Space Bites] Huge Discoveries by James Webb // Fire In Space // Quantum Squeezing Lots of new discoveries from JWST. How a software bug killed HAKUTO-R. Kepler’s last ever exoplanets.
05.26.2023 NASA Selected Blue Origin // Galaxies Getting More Impossible // First (Exo)Radiation Belt NASA chooses another lander for Artemis V. The first radiation belt ever seen outside the Solar System. And those impossible galaxies might be even more massive than we thought.
05.25.2023 [Interview] What Did NASA Discover With TESS' First Complete Mission It's already been five years since NASA's TESS mission was launched. Now it completed its first full mission observing the sky and hunting for exoplanets. In this interview, I'm talking with Nicole Colon from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center about ...
05.23.2023 [Q&A] Did The Universe Come From Nothing? Can Stars Be Alive? What's The Best Nebula? Could stars and planets be living organisms? Is LHC dangerous for the Earth? How do neutrino detectors work? Does the Big Bang suggest that everything around us came from nothing? What will happen if we create a black hole on ...
05.23.2023 [Interview] Aliens' Perspective of Technosignatures from Earth If an extra-terrestrial civilisation saw the Earth, what technosignatures could they pick up? What could they learn about life on our planet and human civilisation in particular? I'm discussing that with Dr Michael Garrett who is the Director of Jodrell ...
05.19.2023 [Space Bites] Can We Fix The Hubble Tension, JUICE's Happy End, NASA's Snake Robot NASA tests out a snake bot that could explore difficult terrain. An independent way to measure the expansion rate of the Universe. JUICE successfully deploys its radar antenna.
05.18.2023 [NIAC 2023] Radioactive Flashlight for Moon Rovers In the second part of my conversation with Dr Christopher Morrison we discuss his second NIAC award. It suggests creating a power source that can also be a science instrument.
05.16.2023 [Q&A] How to Find The Voyagers, Deorbiting the ISS, Non-Rotational Artificial Gravity How can we get artificial gravity in space without rotating a spacecraft? Will there be bigger Mars helicopters in future? How exactly will they deorbit the ISS? Who will be selecting the crew for the Mars mission? Where are the ...
05.13.2023 [Interview] Battling Moon Dust With Liquid Nitrogen Spray Moon Dust will be a major problem once people will return and settle there. We need to find ways to clean it from space suits, equipment, etc. In this interview I'm talking with Ian Wells, who is a cryogenics researcher ...
05.12.2023 [Space Bites] First Artificial Gravity Test in 2025, Uranus Moons' Oceans, Webb's Eye of Sauron There could be liquid oceans in the moons of Uranus. Saturn takes the lead for the most moons in the Solar System. James Webb gazes into the Eye of Sauron aka Fomalhaut.
05.11.2023 [NIAC 2023] Observe the Universe from Deep Space This is the first part of my interview with Dr Cristopher Morrison. In this one, we're discussing the concept of a propulsion system that should allow things like catching up with an interstellar visitor or delivering a telescope to the ...
05.10.2023 [Interview] Turning the Gravitational Wave Game To The Max Gravitational waves can reveal things we would never detect otherwise. But different events require different sizes of detectors. In this interview, I'm talking with Waldemar Martens from ESA about a proposed LISAmax mission that will have 259 million kilometer arms ...

Older episodes

Universe Today Podcast

What's Universe Today Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Universe Today Podcast episodes:

[Secret Bonus] Universe Today's Shareholders Meeting

[Space Bites] JWST CO2 Discovery on Europa // Fullmetal Exoplanet // Lunar Starship Engine Test

[Space Bites] So Much James Webb News // NASA's UAPs Report // Closest Black Hole to Earth

[Interview] A Big Problem with Modern Science Communication

[Space Bites] New Sun, Moon and X-Ray Missions // Mars Colony Size Limit // Starship's Ready

[Interview] Looking Deep Into Milky Way's Center with JWST

[Special] I Challenged Space YouTubers To Pick James Webb's Best Image

[Space Bites] Ultra-Dense Exoplanet // New Horizons Needs Saving // Big ISS Upgrade

[Interview] A Clever Hack to Solve The Hubble Tension

[Space Bites] India Lands Russia Crashes // Mystery of Neptune Clouds // Red Shift Drift

[Space Bites] True Darkness of The Universe // MOND vs Dark Matter // SETI Symposium

[Space Bites] LK-99 Update // Ingenuity's Unscheduled Landing // SuperHeavy Hot Fire Test

[Interview] Nautilus – True Next Gen Space Telescope

[Space Bites] Voyager-2 Lost Contact // Potential Superconductor Breakthrough // Sag A* Companion

[Interview] Dealing With Space Junk

[Interview] Launching Rockets With Just Electricity

[Space Bites] UAP Coverup Controversy // NASA's 2027 Nuclear Rocket // Trillions of Rogue Planets

[Special] All The AMAZING SCIENCE of James Webb's First Year in Space

[Interview] Weirdest White Dwarf Ever Found. What's Going On?

[Space Bites] Two-Face White Dwarf // Age Of The Universe Controversy // Lagrange Point Planet

[Interview] We Must Go Back To Enceladus! Here's Why

[Special] Real Science Results Behind JWST's First Year

[Space Bites] India's Moon Lander Launch // JWST Anniversary // Strong ELT Progress

[Interview] Axions or Not. What's Hiding Behind Dark Matter

[Space Bites] Big JWST Discoveries // 63-Day Silence for Ingenuity // Lensing Gravitational Waves

[Q&A] Submarine for Titan, Planets Changing Size, Even Bigger LIGO

[Bonus] Robo Eels Exploring Water Worlds, NASA UAP Study, AGI to Take Over

[Space Bites] Gravitational Waves Background Announced // Planets in The Oort Cloud // Big Starship Update

[Interview] Vera Rubin Telescope Will Revolutionise Astronomy. Here's Why

[Q&A] Dark Matter Evidence, Oort Cloud Shape, Size of Lagrange Points

[Space Bites] Ancient Echo from Sgr A* // Lightning on Jupiter // TRAPPIST-1c by James Webb

[Interview] Simulating The Universe with Supercomputers

[Q&A] Strange Isotopes in Supernovae, External Gravitational Lenses, Existence of The Present

[Interview] Can Axions Be Dark Matter?

[Space Bites] Another Enceladus Breakthrough, Crystallising White Dwarf, 19-Hour Earth Day

[Q&A] Solar Wind Slowing Down Planets, Nuking the Sun, Exomoon Reflection

[Space Bites] James Webb Deep Field, Betelgeuse's Doing It Again, Starliner Fail

[Q&A] True Size of the Universe, Inescapable Planets, Magnetic Poles Reversal

[Space Bites] Huge Discoveries by James Webb // Fire In Space // Quantum Squeezing

NASA Selected Blue Origin // Galaxies Getting More Impossible // First (Exo)Radiation Belt

[Interview] What Did NASA Discover With TESS' First Complete Mission

[Q&A] Did The Universe Come From Nothing? Can Stars Be Alive? What's The Best Nebula?

[Interview] Aliens' Perspective of Technosignatures from Earth

[Space Bites] Can We Fix The Hubble Tension, JUICE's Happy End, NASA's Snake Robot

[NIAC 2023] Radioactive Flashlight for Moon Rovers

[Q&A] How to Find The Voyagers, Deorbiting the ISS, Non-Rotational Artificial Gravity

[Interview] Battling Moon Dust With Liquid Nitrogen Spray

[Space Bites] First Artificial Gravity Test in 2025, Uranus Moons' Oceans, Webb's Eye of Sauron

[NIAC 2023] Observe the Universe from Deep Space

[Interview] Turning the Gravitational Wave Game To The Max