Walkabout The Galaxy

Informações:

Sinopsis

An irreverent and informative tour of the latest, greatest and most interesting discoveries in astronomy.

Episodios

  • A Deep Dive into Venus's Atmosphere

    23/09/2020 Duración: 56min

    With all the excitement about the potential discovery of a biomarker, Phosphine, on Venus, we take a close look at the observations with Venus expert Dr. Brad Sandor who explains the challenges and problems with the observations. And we take a look at a system where the planet is larger than its own star! Join us for two fascinating science topics and a planetary volcanology trivia question.

  • Mary Robinette Kowal

    16/09/2020 Duración: 49min

    Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Mary Robinette Kowal joins us for a wide ranging discussion from her Lady Astronauts novels to her work as a puppeteer and writing mentor. We also have math professor Dr. Pat Hooper join us to explain the answer to our math trivia.

  • Big Black Holes and Tiny Water Worlds

    09/09/2020 Duración: 56min

    The astroquarks go to DragonCon in this special edition of Walkabout the Galaxy. We review the latest gravitational wave discovery of the biggest small black hole seen to date and the surprising abundance of liquid water on small bodies in the solar system. Then test your six degrees of Josh Colwell knowledge in a special egotistical trivia challenge.

  • Pressures Great and Small

    02/09/2020 Duración: 45min

    The astroquarks delve into the interiors of White Dwarfs, the relics of sunlike stars, with the help of Einstein's theory of general relativity. And the Mars Insight lander collected some intriguing data that may help pin down the details of the death spiral of its moon Phobos. Don't worry, we've got a hundred million years, give or take. Also catch up on new nerd news and biological trivia as well as launches and crashing satellites.

  • Ceres is a Planet with Water!

    26/08/2020 Duración: 44min

    Ceres, whatever you want to call it, seems to have a bunch of salty water near its surface. Top quark gets worked up about planet nomenclature, while Strange and Charm get worked up about how Top pronounces "Ceres"! And, somehow, a nearby microquasar is tickling a gas cloud to emit gamma rays. Join us for a tour of these new discoveries, trivia, and more.

  • The One With All The Fields

    12/08/2020 Duración: 47min

    Low mass stars and high mass planets are the talk of the astroquarks in this episode, featuring a close-up look at the weather on Jupiter and a revisit to just what kind of stars provide the star stuff we're all made of. You can also find out what tractor beams have to do with Jedi mind tricks, and how crowded our local stellar neighborhood is. There's more to it than meets the eye!

  • Strange Neutrinos and the Bucket Brigade

    05/08/2020 Duración: 46min

    Deep in the interior of the Sun all the energy that supports life on Earth is created by fusing hydrogen into helium. For the first time, neutrinos produced by the relatively rare CNO fusion process in the Sun have been detected. Elsewhere, we explore a hypothesis that planets like the Earth might get their water via an interplanetary bucket brigade. In addition to all that we'll explore continental drift, lunar drift, and dreams for our next missions - and movies.

  • One Mystery Solved Another Mystery Deepens

    22/07/2020 Duración: 46min

    The asteroid really did kill the dinosaurs, but the universe seems to be hiding something deeper and more mysterious from us about how it evolves. Closer to home, the European Solar Orbiter reveals adorable campfires on the Sun. Sure they would engulf a continent or two, but from a safe distance they are charming. The Astroquarks walk you through it all, as well as the summer of Mars, with several missions slated for launch to the red planet.

  • The Great Wall of Galaxies

    15/07/2020 Duración: 43min

    Far, far away, beyond the Zone of Avoidance, lurking in darkest, deepest space, lies the great southern wall of galaxies! New mapping of the local universe has revealed this sheet of galaxies that is roughly one-thirtieth the size of the entire observable universe! Learn about our place in the cosmos and news from colliding stellar cores, space news, comet trivia and more with your walkabout friends.

  • Things That Go Bump in the Dark

    01/07/2020 Duración: 47min

    Is it the tiniest black hole ever or the largest neutron star ever? We may never know, but one of them has been discovered thanks to gravitational wave observations. And an interesting black hole merger took place near the center of a distant galaxy, and we may see it get gobbled up in just a few years. Closer to home, we explore how to look for moons around exoplanets, as well as space news, LEGO trivia, and your Walkabout sponsor of the week.

  • The 200th One

    24/06/2020 Duración: 48min

    The 200th episode of Walkabout the Galaxy goes from odd Earthly atmospheric "elves" to mysterious new fundamental particles called axions, with a stop by Jupiter's fuzzy core on the way. To capture the essential Astroquarkiness of Walkabout, a special poetic sponsor leads things off, and an astrophysical trivia for Top quark sets us up for the next hundred episodes.

  • Of Magnetars and Mars

    10/06/2020 Duración: 52min

    Astronomers may have found the smoking gun for fast radio bursts in the form of a magnetar in our own galaxy. These highly magnetic neutron stars now look like the best bet as the sources of these powerful bursts of energy seen from distant galaxies. The astroquarks also take a look at Mars' moons and an intriguing theory that suggests Mars has had rings, and may again.

  • Planet Formation Caught in the Act

    03/06/2020 Duración: 50min

    The astroquarks discuss stunning images of a disk of gas and dust around another star giving birth to a planet, more weirdities and oddness in the Earth's magnetic field, the rain on Titan, and so much space news. It's so much exciting stuff that we had to record outside. Catch up on human spaceflight news as well as extraterrestrial lake trivia with your friendly guides to the universe.

  • The Universe May Be Empty But We Are Together

    20/05/2020 Duración: 49min

    The astroquarks are face to face to face at a safe physical (not social!) distance. We zoom out, without zoom, to explore the question of the origin of life in an immense universe. People are fixin' to go back to space from the U.S., Pluto's atmosphere may stick around longer than though, and there's plenty of space news and human spaceflight trivia. 

  • A Backyard Black Hole

    13/05/2020 Duración: 35min

    Everyone's favorite scary astronomical object, the black hole, just got a bit closer to home with the discovery of a modest, stellar-sized black hole a mere 1000 light years from the solar system. Top quark Jim Cooney reassures us that that gives us at least 999.9 light years of safety buffer. Pieces of the asteroid Ryugu en route back to Earth as part of the Hayabusa-2 mission may have an interesting mix of "weathered" material on board. Get the details as well as android trivia and space news on this episode of Walkabout.

  • Is The Sun a Sunlike Star

    06/05/2020 Duración: 41min

    As the Sun starts getting more active at the beginning of a new solar cycle, new observations of sunlike stars show that the Sun itself may be unusually calm. Good news for life on Earth, but a downer for the astroquarks dreaming of meeting the Vulcans or Klingons sometime soon. Also, we review progress in understanding the large scale structure of the universe and solar trivia. 

  • The Quark with a Fork

    30/04/2020 Duración: 52min

    Former co-host Dr. Tracy Becker joins us to talk about exploring the geysers of Jupiter's moon Europa, the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, and the disappearance of what we thought was a nearby exoplanet. Join us for this special Seussian episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

  • When You Wish Upon a Neutrino

    22/04/2020 Duración: 42min

    We love antimatter, and we love the matter-antimatter paradox. How come there was just a smidge more matter in the universe than antimatter? Neutrinos, the wispiest of particles, may provide a clue. We also check in on another Earth-like exoplanet, and Jim tackles a sexy stumper, plus space news, astronomy trivia, and more with your friendly neighborhood astroquarks.

  • Psyche Out: Metal Asteroids and an Irregular Universe

    15/04/2020 Duración: 54min

    We welcome special guest Dr. Zoe Landsman back to the show to tell us about the metal asteroid Psyche and the eponymous mission to visit it. We get an update on an observational test of one of the central pillars of cosmology, and have some spaceship/asteroid/comet trivia to stump the astroquarks. 

  • Alien Life and Star Trek Diseases

    07/04/2020 Duración: 50min

    Professor Mohamed Noor, Star Trek Advisor, Dean of Natural Sciences at Duke University, and author of "Live Long and Evolve", comes back to the show to share his thoughts on extraterrestrial organisms big and small. He also shares some behind-the-scenes activity from the Star Trek Cruise. We also learn about a crazy new validation of the constancy of the speed of light, more space news, and Star Trek trivia. We also answer the question, if underwear is the safest material, why not just wear underwear everywhere?

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