Podcaster: Ralph & Paul
Title : Awesome Astronomy’s January Edition
Organization: Awesome Astronomy
Link : www.awesomeastronomy.com
Description:
The Discussion: The Awesome Astronomy Christmas prize competition and a few New Years’ resolutions
The Sky Guide: Paul starts with a tour of the planets available this month to northern hemisphere observers – with the show-stopper Jupiter and bright Venus in the evening sky and Saturn and Mars for the early risers. Two new moons make this an excellent month for deep sky observing, which the Quadrantid meteor shower will benefit from. And Paul finishes off with a round up of the most interesting star clusters and nebulae on offer in the constellations of Orion and Canis Major.
The News: In the news section, Ralph begins with a round up of the Comet ISON saga, before moving on to the Chinese space ambitions following the successful landing of their lunar lander Chang’e 3. Next up is the news that Hubble has revealed water geysers spewing from Jupiter’s moon Europa. And we finish with a round up of a few exoplanet items that have made the news.
The 5 Minute Concept: Paul explains one of the most bizarre and important discoveries in the field of stellar evolution: Pulsars
The Interview: This month, Ralph speaks with University of Oxford astrophysicist and host of the BBC’s The Sky at Night TV programme, Dr Chris Lintott.
Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month Ralph & Paul answer:
- Hail Alien Overlords! [that’s going to get our attention!] I have a question; what is the difference between an Open and a Globular cluster? Is it just that globular clusters are more massive and stick together? And are there intermediate objects?
Andrew Burns in the UK via email
- Does Mars have periodical meteor showers, and given the thinness of your atmosphere are they like a carpet bombing from space?
Ray Bonner in the UK via the Facebook Group
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — no one. We still need sponsors for many days in 2013, so please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.
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365 Days of Astronomy
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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the New Media Working Group of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. In the new year the 365 Days of Astronomy project will be something different than before….Until then…goodbye