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Federal Budget Cuts: An Extinction Level Event

This week we look at how the elimination of science programs, projects, datasets, and funding may be shaping into an extinction-level event for US Space-related sciences. Come cry with us.

3.13 The Book of Mars, Star Formation, and More

I’m recording this on March 5. At this point in time, there is no new NASA administrator and we continue to live in the liminal space where the massive layoff that have struck so many Federal Agencies are still somehow only touching the edges of Space Science. We seen...

3.12 Temperatures That Kill

Our episodes have been slightly more spaced out for a couple of months for different reasons. First, there were the holidays. Since then, I and some colleagues have been putting significant effort into a pair of tiny NASA grants as we try to get ahead on our work in...

3.11 Space stories of joy

This week I'm coming to you from Florida, where I have had the amazing opportunity to see the launch of Firefly Aerospace's blue ghost and iSpaces Mission 2. I didn’t see New Glenn launch in person due to a conflict with PodFest, but all in all, it is a week of too...

3.09 Searching for Dark Energy in Black Holes

Here in the United States, it is the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. While I’m script writing in southern Illinois, Ally, our producer is working on her other podcast, “Big Impact Astronomy.” While I’m sure both our families would rather we took the time to relax,...

3.08 By fire and ice: mass extinctions gone wild

I’m writing and recording this on November 14. It is now 9 days after the US elections and we now know that the Republicans now control all three branches of the US government. Historically, Republican controlled administrations have been good for science and have...

Ep. 3.07 Aerospace vs Climate Change

I am currently wishing we produced a weekly show because this past week has been full of news that is surreally relevant to both Space Exploration and the elections. We’ve seen Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, Amazon, and aerospace company Blue Origin, have...

Ep. 3.05 SpaceX vs FAA and EPA and Cards Against Humanity

This week we’re doing something we’ve never done before; we’re dedicating the majority of the show to a single story: SpaceX’s recurring failure to follow the rules, regulations, and norms of international spaceflight. We have the receipts, and we hope that you will...

Ep. 3.02 NASA Budget Woes May Murder Missions

Ep. 3.02 NASA Budget Woes May Murder Missions

Putting this episode together has been a bit of a wild ride and we actually delayed the episode for one week because I was hoping to see some of the stories on our list to cover come to some kind of a resolution.   But no… 5 extra days later, we’re still not...

Ep 3.01: Found – 1 Intermediate Mass Black Hole

Ep 3.01: Found – 1 Intermediate Mass Black Hole

Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including how Jupiter's Great Red Spot went missing, Io's Lava Lake, Titan's coastal erosion, and this week's tales from the launch pad. We also look closer at the discovery of the first...

Ep. 2.24: JWST Reveals Star Formation Details

Ep. 2.24: JWST Reveals Star Formation Details

Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including Mars Perseverance Rover fords an ancient river, black holes sometimes form like baby stars, and this week's tales from the launch pad. We also look in detail at how JWST images...

Ep. 2.23: Planning to go back to the Moon

Ep. 2.23: Planning to go back to the Moon

Let's take a quick tour of the latest news, including updates on the Hubble Space Telescopes and single gyro operations, EUCLID's image release, an amazing new image of Io by LBT, and new calculations of Pluto's oceans. We also look in detail at plans to return humans...

S2 Ep 22: Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)

S2 Ep 22: Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)

In this episode, we bring you stories on how JWST - Not LIGO and Virgo - spotted the most distant Black Hole merge to date, why the search for life on other worlds gets more challenging the more we look, and we take a deep dive into the things we’re doing that cause...

S2 Ep 22: Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)

S2 Ep 21: Carrington 2024

In this episode, we’re taking a closer look at Sunspot complex 3664 and the beautiful chaos that it’s been creating. And because we’re in a planetary science kind of mood, we’re also looking at stories related to observing weather on alien worlds, the history of Mars...

S2 Ep 22: Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)

S2 Ep 20: Io and Juno Begin to Part Ways

In February, on the closest approach, NASA's Juno spacecraft was within 930 miles of the closest moon Io’s surface. Since then, Juno’s orbit has been shrinking, bringing the mission closer to Jupiter and away from the circling Galilean moons. Io and Juno have parted...

S2 Ep 22: Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)

S2 Ep 19: Catch the (Alien) Rainbow

As scientists discover and explore the atmospheres of more and more planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, we are learning that if you can imagine it, it probably exists. In a new paper discussing the planet WASP-76b, researchers describe what appears to be a...

S2 Ep 22: Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)

S2 Ep 18: Following the Water Toward Climate Change

This week’s episode is brought to you by last week’s terrible weather. While experiencing hail and thunder IRL, we also saw press release after press release and article after article discussing climate change. This one-two punch of new science and the need for a new...