Today we are gonna gaze into the future of space and astronomy. What upcoming missions & events are we excited about?
Mar 29th: Looking Ahead
Tag: astronomy cast
Mar 22nd: Zodiacal Light
Pamela has told us in the most flowery terms about the diffuse dust across the inner solar system left over from the formation of the inner planets. well, it turns out she was wrong. Super wrong. Time to update!
Mar 15th: How You Could Overturn Cosmology
You’ve probably heard of dark matter and dark energy, but maybe you don’t fully understand what they are. Or maybe the idea itself just rubs you the wrong way and you’d like to know why scientists think they can just make stuff up like this. So you’d like to overturn cosmology? Here’s all you need to do.
Mar 8th: The Expansion of the Universe
It’s been a while since we checked to make sure the Universe was still expanding. Yeah, apparently, that’s still a thing. But in the last few years powerful new telescopes and expansive surveys have given us much more knowledge about what’s happening. Especially at the earliest times.
Mar 1st: The Universe’s Background Noise
You might be familiar with the cosmic microwave background, but that’s just one of the background radiations that astronomers look at. Some are well known and cataloged. While others are just starting to be possible to see at all. All of them tell us more about our Universe.
Feb 22nd: How Is A Space Mission Chosen?
Space scientists and engineers recently went through the process of deciding on their science goals, so we thought we’d spend an episode explaining how this works, and how the next generation of spacecraft and telescopes will be selected.
Feb 15th: Planet Hunting – Revisited
This is gonna be another one of those evergreen topics where we come back again and again. Finding planets. Every time we talk about this now it seems like we’ve gained thousands of new planets. Well, buckle up! New techniques will grow that by tens of thousands and even millions!
Feb 8th: Juno – Primary Mission Highlights
NASA’s Juno Mission just received a mission extension, adding Jupiter’s moons to the menu. Now, finally, we can talk about Juno!
Feb 1st: Stellar Parasites
Stars often come in groups of 2 or more. And if they’re orbiting close enough to each other one star can feast on the other and when that happens, well, mayhem ensues!
Jan 25th: Gamma-Ray Bursts – Updated
In just the last few years astronomers have discovered a tremendous amount of gamma-ray bursts and what’s actually causing them. The answer, of course, is that it’s more complicated than we originally thought.