Universe Today Podcast

Three stars mysteriously vanished. So much JWST news. Hundreds of volcanoes on Io. Starship is ready to fly again.

Are we alone in the Universe? How can we approach this question with a real scientific perspective? What would life even look like if it existed somewhere? Answering all these questions and more with Dr Adam Frank.

Can you reconstruct an image that was gravitationally lensed? How dark can outer space become? Will we ever be able to mine an asteroid? Answering all these questions and much more in this week's Q&A.

Red Dwarfs will be the longest living stars in the Universe. Many of them have planetary systems, like the famous Trappist-1. But there is a big problem, as red dwarfs can emit mega-flares which could render planets uninhabitable. Finding out, if there is any hope for finding life and how can we study red dwarfs better with Dr Ward Howard.

See the latest solar eclipse from space. A future supercontinent will wipe out the mammals. Juno makes a close flyby of Io. A planet with clouds made of sand.

Dark matter is one of the most exciting mysteries in Astronomy. We can see its effects but we don't know what exactly it is. One of the proposed solutions is dark photons. What are they and what do we need to find them? Finding the answers with Nicholas Hunt-Smith.

How can we know that a star is about to go supernova? Can we create a pet black hole in our Solar System? What if all our star data is just wrong? How common are red dwarf binaries? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A.

Which things can go faster than light and what does it mean for Physics. Can quantum entanglement provide interstellar communication. Why NASA didn't believe in websites during the early internet era. How should scientists approach controversial ideas. Answering all these questions with Dr Robert Nemiroff.

Astronomers see ice giants colliding. We peek into the OSIRIS-REx sample collector. Even more evidence that the Big Bang hasn’t been overturned.

Nancy Grace Roman Telescope will launch in 2027. It will have a best-in-class coronagraph that should revolutionise exoplanet astronomy. How exactly will it work? Finding out with Dr Vanessa Bailey from NASA JPL.

How can neutrinos arrive faster than light? How did OSIRIS-REx get samples of an asteroid? Can we extract energy from gravitational waves? When will we be able to discover our first exomoon of an exoplanet? How can we measure the mass of Jupiter's core? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show.

Exoplanets are great. There are hycean worlds, super-dense iron planets, super light planets, ones with potential biosignatures and much more. Catching up on all the latest discoveries with Dr Jessie Christiansen.

A mind-bending JWST image of the Orion Nebula, filled with rogue planets. Seeing the cosmic web. An explanation for a massive star that just disappeared.

If we want to send an interstellar probe to the nearest stars, getting there isn't the only problem. We explore non-trivial problems like getting the signal back from the probes, communicating within the swarm, choosing which data to send back and much more with Marshall Eubanks.

Is our galaxy's black hole still consuming stars? When will we finally figure out dark matter? Can James Webb last until it exhausts its fuel and not break before that? How should we name exoworlds? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show.

JWST has shown us what the modern infrared telescope is capable of. But it's not far-infrared. There are no space telescopes operating in that spectrum at the moment. But why? And what would we be able to see if we had one? Let's find out with Dr David Leisawitz, Chief at NASA Science Proposal Support Office.