Universe Today Podcast

BONUS PART STARTS AT 30:33

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🟣 Guest: Dr. Austin Phoenix https://nationalsecurity.vt.edu/personnel-directory/phoenix-austin.html

📜 ECLIPSE – Efficient variable Conductivity Lunar Insulator for Passive Surveyor Environmental control https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/eclipse-efficient-variable-conductivity-lunar-insulator-for-passive-surveyor-environmental-control/

👉 All 2026 NIAC Selections https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/niac-studies/niac-2026-selections/

The Moon is brutal. It's super hot during the day and super cold during the night. Most landers and rovers can't survive that swing. So, how do you mitigate it? One of this year's NIAC projects has a potential solution.

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:04 Why is the Moon so terrible?

• 04:56 Mitigation strategies

• 30:33 Bistable booms https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.13818

• 37:26 Current obsessions

• 45:03 Final thoughts

BONUS QUESTION STARTS AT 12:55

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Will private companies take over the ISS? Which sci-fi stories need to be written? What's the state of Canadian rocket market? And in Q&A+, a quick rundown of all my telescopes.

• 00:00 Intro

• 00:25 [@D.S.8197] Will private companies replace the ISS?

• 05:51 [@kairon156] Which SciFi stories I would like to see written?

• 09:16 [@melantorja] Thoughts on Canadian rocket companies

• 11:32 [@Matthew...1979] How do we see Proxima Centauri?

• 12:55 [@raelcohen] Which telescopes do I own?

• 18:17 Gaming hand-helds

BONUS QUESTION STARTS AT 13:36

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Does the Fermi paradox make any sense? How can we talk about life out there if all the exoplanets are just single pixels or worse? Is it all just nonsense? And in Q&A, what was my favourite part of the Artemis 2 mission?

• 00:00 Intro

• 00:25 [@frankshifreen] What's the point of searching for life with our primitive instruments

• 13:36 [@ConspiracyTheoryEnthusiast] My favorite part of the Artemis 2 mission?

• 19:33 Summer media

Patrons, send in your questions: patreon.com/posts/164654175

BONUS PART STARTS AT: 19:02

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Starship 13 flies and lands softly in the ocean. Astronomers see the companion star for Betelgeuse. A comet spun down, reversed direction and might tear itself apart. Did Webb see primordial Little Red Dots? On Space Bites+, measuring the heat working its way out of Io. All this and more in this week's Space Bites.

Interviews mentioned

• LRDs with Dr. John Chisholm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4caOfg5K8Is

• LRDs with Dr. Vasily Kokorev https://youtu.be/zoHtCmCbcEU

• OBLIVION NIAC with Jeff Nosanov https://youtu.be/U6fZ2GryNhU

Timecodes

• 00:00 Intro

• 00:22 They Are Recovering The Starship https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spacexs-starship-deploys-starlink-satellites-during-13th-flight-test

• 03:45 More Evidence for Bettelbuddy https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2611/

• 05:39 Bad News, Everyone https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/07/28/commissioning-update-for-spacecraft-to-boost-nasas-swift/

• 07:22 CAPSTONE-2 for Moon Docking https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/armd/nasa-announces-new-spacecraft-technology-demonstration-mission-at-moon/

• 09:06 Chang’e-6 Rocks https://www.universetoday.com/articles/change-6-samples-reveal-how-earth-slows-solar-wind-striking-moons-near-side https://www.universetoday.com/articles/samples-of-lunar-rock-are-leading-scientists-to-rethink-the-moons-history

• 12:05 Self-Destructing Comet https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spin-reversing-comet-may-face-self-destruction

• 13:31 Vote results 14:13 Little Red Dots https://www.universetoday.com/articles/a-distant-primordial-object-may-be-a-newborn-little-red-dot https://www.universetoday.com/articles/little-red-dots-could-be-ancient-globular-clusters-each-dominated-by-a-super-massive-star

• 17:40 Almost an Exomoon https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-first-confirmed-exo-satellite-challenges-our-definitions-of-planets-and-moons

• 19:02 BONUS Story https://www.universetoday.com/articles/juno-measures-the-heat-below-ios-restless-surface

• 21:36 Final thoughts

🟣 Guest: Jeff Nosanov https://orbitalvelocity.space/

🎙️ Space Madness Podcast https://orbitalvelocity.space/#podcast

📚 How to do Business with NASA: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs, Innovators, and Contractors https://a.co/d/062c8pxQ

📜 OBLIVION: Observing Black hole LIght Via Intensity cOrrelatioN https://www.nasa.gov/general/oblivion-observing-black-hole-light-via-intensity-correlation/

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:45 NIAC Season 2026

• 02:54 OBLIVION

• 11:06 How can it possibly work

• 16:18 Possible targets for observation

• 20:01 Alternative applications

• 26:23 Orbital Velocity LLC

• 36:28 Space Madness Pod

• 41:01 Current obsessions

• 48:25 Final thoughts

BONUS QUESTION STARTS AT 13:58

Watch the video here (with no ads) or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HeBEGMNq5OQ

Why is the Universe not 13.8 Billion light-years wide? Could a black hole possibly consume the entire Universe? Where did all the metals come from? And in Q&A+, what's the best part of my job here?

• 00:00 Intro

• 00:26 [@anonylity_4798] How is the Universe bigger than it's older

• 05:33 [@WendellBroadwell] Will the entire Universe inevitably fall into a giant black hole?

• 11:18 [@davidpayton7838] Where did all the heavy metals come from?

• 13:58 [@doogle4144] Do I prefer writing text articles for UT or being in front of a camera?

• 17:08 Perseids

BONUS STORY STARTS AT 14:16

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Bad news for the planets of Bernard Starr. Measuring the atmosphere on a rocky world within the habitable zone. Identifying the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. How the Milky Way flipped its disk. And on Space Bites Plus, how global Martian dust storms can be even worse.

• 00:00 Intro

• 00:19 Bad news for Barnard's Star exoplanets https://www.universetoday.com/articles/astronomers-determine-that-exoplanets-around-barnards-star-are-extremely-uninhabitable

• 02:27 Rocky + Habitable Zone + Atmosphere https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-first-breath-of-another-world

• 04:11 Testing the Limits of Relativity https://www.universetoday.com/articles/a-star-orbiting-our-galaxys-supermassive-black-hole-tests-the-limits-of-relativity

• 06:24 Milky Way Flipped Its Disk https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-milky-way-flipped-its-disk-billions-of-years-ago

• 07:54 The Type of Meteorite that Killed the Dinosaurs https://www.universetoday.com/articles/researchers-narrow-down-the-type-of-meteorite-that-killed-the-dinosaurs

• 09:07 Vote results

• 09:29 Asteroid Turned Out To Be a Comet https://www.universetoday.com/articles/astronomers-catch-a-dark-comet-red-handed

• 11:45 Van Gogh in Space https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-dark-energy-cameras-new-image-is-reminiscent-of-van-gogh

• 13:01 Psyche flyby https://www.universetoday.com/articles/nasas-psyche-spacecraft-captured-a-time-lapse-video-of-its-mars-flyby

• 14:16 Bonus story https://www.universetoday.com/articles/electrically-charged-mars-storms-threaten-future-exploration

• 17:21 Problem with YouTube

BONUS QUESTION STARTS AT 11:05

Watch the video here (with no ads) or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HhfRcjS6HUI

If other Universes exist, is it even possible to detect them? What created the fields and quantum fluctuations that supposedly set off the Big bang? Could we use a long tether as a power source around Jupiter’s strong magnetic field? And in Q&A+, what is the best way to watch a SpaceX launch?

• 00:00 Intro

• 00:28 [@hempfreedom3044] Could we detect other Universes if they exist?

• 03:43 [@EdSceptic-y2e] What created the fields and quantum fluctuations that supposedly set off the Big bang?

• 09:27 [@doogle4144] Could we use a long tether as a power source around Jupiter’s strong magnetic field?

• 11:05 [@HenryWarren-b6j] What is the best way to watch a SpaceX launch?

• 15:57 Star City review

👉 More interview HERE: https://www.patreon.com/collection/44300

BONUS PART STARTS AT 34:06

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Supernova remnants should be stable. All the action is long gone. But newly found supernovae in M87 unexpectedly show signs of rapid change. Why does this happen? Nobody really nows yet.

🟣 Guest: Dr. Roy Kilgard https://rkilgard.faculty.wesleyan.edu/

📜 NASA's Chandra Finds Unexpected Fireworks in Aftermath of Stellar Explosions https://chandra.si.edu/press/26_releases/press_061526.html

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:56 Dynamic supernovae

• 08:28 What's going on there?

• 20:11 How can we resolve this mystery

• 22:08 X-ray binaries

• 24:24 Demarkation of compact objects

• 29:17 Neutron stars becoming black holes

• 34:06 Light pollution

• 43:53 Current obsessions

• 51:25 Final thoughts

BONUS QUESTION STARTS AT 14:12

Watch the video here (with no ads) or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3tWYGNd3hcA

• 00:00 Intro

• 00:26 [@PerryM-vy4fe] Is a magnetic shield the first step for a true Mars colonization?

• 04:58 [@giubl3] Does stuff near the black hole spin faster than stuff further away?

• 08:59 [@paigepotter4682] What’s the most “I can’t believe this is my job” moment I had?

• 14:12 [@Nomad77ca] Do I follow Nord Space and their new launch facilities in NFLD?

• 16:55 My sad telescope