The Earth is teeming with life, but the upper atmosphere to kilometers underground. There’s no question that our planet has life. But is our planet itself alive?
May 9th: Can Planets Be Alive?
Astronomy Cast Archive
May 2nd: Survey Science: Newest Projects & Results
There are general-purpose telescopes and missions that astronomers can use to study specific objects. And there are the survey missions that look at the entire sky, which astronomers can use to answer questions about the Universe.
Apr 25th: The Sun, Spots & All
It’s Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and that means the Sun is back. But it’s more than just a free heat lamp for your garden, it’s an incredible, dynamic nuclear reaction complete with flares, coronal mass ejections, twisting magnetic fields and the solar wind
Apr 18th: Big Qs Update: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Etc.
Knowledge moves forward, and so, we must move with it. Today we’ll give you an update on some of the most fascinating, fast-changing topics in astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.
Apr 11th: Simulating Space Missions
Although humans have never actually been to Mars, explorers have simulated many aspects of Mars missions here on Earth. There are missions under the ocean, on the tops of volcanoes, in the harsh Canadian north, and even in bed that simulate the limitations of spaceflight, and teach us many of the lessons to prepare us for the real thing.
Apr 4th: Machine Learning in Astronomy
Computers are a big part of astronomy, but mostly they’ve been relegated to doing calculations. But recent developments in machine learning have changed everything, giving computers the ability to do jobs that humans could only do in the past.
Mar 28th: Blowing Bubbles
We think of space as a vacuum, but there are regions of different density. There are winds blowing from stars and other objects that clear out vast bubbles in space, and they might have been critical for Earth to even exist in the first place.
Mar 21st: Jets: When Magnetic Fields Fling Things
As astronomers look out across the Universe. They see various objects spewing jets of material light years into space. What causes these jets? And what impact do they have on the Universe?
Mar 14th: Milky Way’s Mergers & Acquisitions
The Milky Way is a vast grand spiral today, but how did it get this way? Looks like ancient collisions with dwarf galaxies is the answer. But the ancient collisions with dwarf galaxies, and how they came together to build the modern Milky Way?
Mar 7th: Weirdly Habitable Places
We’ve always assumed that habitable planets would need to be like Earth; a terrestrial planet orbiting a sunlike star. But now astronomers have been discovering planets in the habitable zone around very much non-sunlike stars. What strange places could be habitable?