Walkabout the Galaxy

The astroquarks look back on a momentous year for space exploration and look ahead at what to expect in 2019. Strange and Charm will have payloads flying to space, and Saturn's rings will still be around for a few years. But new studies of the mass of the rings and the rate of erosion, measured indirectly, suggest that if you wait a few hundred million years they may well be gone. Plus, Top Astroquark provides a bonus trivia for our year-ending holiday special episode!

Space Reporter Brendan Byrne from WMFE 90.7, home of NPR in Central Florida, joins the Astroquarks to look at NASA's new exploration programs for the Moon and Mars. We have our first listener contribution with the pronunciation of the Mars 2020 Landing Site, and Jim goes off on Fahrenheit AND Celsius. Do not get him started! Plus space news and trivia and more.

A long time ago a galaxy very close by plunged through the Milky Way, and a trail of dark matter from that miniature galaxy is passing through us all right now, including Dr. Brad Sandor who joins the astroquarks to talk dark matter, the Mars InSight lander, the Mars 2020 rover, Venus's atmosphere, lots of space news, and trivia. So much spacing going on in this episode! It's a real walkabout the galaxy.

In our first letter-themed episode, the Astroquarks check in with Ryugu, Bennu, Ultima Thule, and Oumuamua, while Jim contemplates muumuus. We also talk about dynamically trapped dust clouds near the Earth to make Addie happy, and we have a truly embarrassing sponsor. We're sincerely sorry, but you'll enjoy all the U's, from asteroids, to missions to a U-themed trivia. We do it all for you!

We almost called this "Everything you wanted to know about alien sex with Dr. Michael Wall", but it's not alien sex with Mike Wall, it's Mike Wall telling us about alien sex! A senior writer with Space.com and author of the new book Out There, Mike joins the astroquarks to talk about aliens, paranormal beliefs, and an exotic type of star called a dark star. Plus space news, trivia, and it turns out the astroquarks are really interested in three-way alien sex.

In this wide-ranging episode, the gang takes a look at the recently launched BepiColombo mission to Mercury and why it takes so long to get to such a relatively near planetary neighbor. On the astrophysical front, the relatively cool stars that host most of the observed exoplanets in our corner of the galaxy are prone to large solar flares. The astroquarks discuss the implications for extraterrestrial life, and that brings us back to Europa, an ocean world orbiting Jupiter whose surface may be punctuated by tall ice spires called penitentes, also seen in snow and ice on Earth. Plus trivia, space news, and, as always, a new sponsor!

Candy Hansen, veteran of Voyager, Cassini and Mars missions and head of the JunoCam on Juno at Jupiter joins the astroquarks to talk about the edge of the solar system. The astroquarks discuss what the edge of the solar system is, plus stars from other galaxies, space trivia and superhero news.

Planet 9 is Pluto, but Planet X is back in the news with the discovery of another object in the deep and distant recesses of our solar system, nicknamed the Goblin! It adds another piece of evidence to the idea that a big planet-y thing is lurking our there. So the astroquarks start Halloween season off with a Goblin-themed episode with a planetary Goblin and goblin trivia. Get your spook on, plus a multitude of asteroid hoppers and news from the surface of Mars in the latest episode of Walkabout the Galaxy, the only one that is this actual episode!

It would take a falcon huge episode to cover all the space news this month, so the astroquarks take a crack at it. From Space-X's latest plans for a crewed lunar flyby mission to the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission's landers on the asteroid Ryugu, to the latest news about the missing matter in the universe, this episode has it all. It's falcon huge.

The astroquarks have your bases covered, from Juno's discovery of a magnetic nubbin at Jupiter (check your Friends references) to confirmation of the decay mode of the Higgs Boson to what does it matter anyway because we're all living on the Holodeck! Adam LaMee joins us again to thwart us with a taste of our own quark-thwarting questions. Plus comet trivia and your sponsor.