Universe Today Podcast

AI is practically everywhere right now. But what practical use does it have in science? How can machine learning and large language models help in Astronomy and Cosmology? What can they look like and what use can we get out of them?

How old is Jupiter’s Red Spot, watching a supermassive black hole wake up, the earliest merging quasars, and Starliner still hasn’t come home.

What are primordial black holes and how are they different from all the other kinds of black holes out there? How could we possibly detect them and what would it mean for Cosmology? Can primordial black holes be a solution for dark matter? Finding out the answers in this interview.

Satellites run out of fuel and have to de-orbit and end their missions. But what if they had access to a practically infinite amount of fuel? What if they could scoop air from the atmosphere and use it as propellant? That is exactly the research that Dr Mansur Tisaev is doing!

What percentage of stars live in binary systems? Are there Lagrange points all the way down? Can there be a rogue gravitational wave? Why do stars twinkle? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show.

Mars is full of toxic perchlorates that can be very harmful for future human missions. So, when people go to Mars, they will need to fix it. NASA has awarded a NIAC grant for a project that can help solving this problem. It's called Detoxifying Mars: the biocatalytic elimination of omnipresent perchlorates.

We’re now weeks away from a nova, NASA is looking for new Mars Sample Return mission ideas, there’s frost on Olympus Mons, and watching asteroids collide in another star system.

What kind of science can we do with telescopes on the Moon? Giant radio dishes in craters, gravitational wave detectors, UV interferometers, and much more. How Starship will completely change this field and enable new opportunities. With Dr. Martin Elvis.

What is the coldest place in the known Universe? Which object that has a name is the most distant in the Solar System? What would be the best use for SpaceX Starship? How do satellites avoid collisions? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show.

Another Test of SpaceX Starship Superheavy combo, another analysis of the flight with Scott Manley and Marcus House! Super Heavy soft-landed in the ocean. Starship survived re-entry. What does it mean for SpaceX?

Starship is successful on its fourth flight, Starliner reaches the station, carrying people, Hubble is only using one gyro, and Chang’e-6 scoops samples from the Moon and heads for home.

How much water will a proper Moon base need? Where can we get it from? How can we manage and maintain the water? How will this approach work on Mars and beyond? Finding out the answers with Dr Jeffrey Lee.

How would they get a 14-meter mirror to space? Are we sure there's no life on the Moon? Can there be Lagrange points around Lagrange points? How much mass does Earth gain and lose to space? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A.

Lava tubes are one of the most interesting places on the Moon. They can be a great place for a potential lunar base, but they also can be a time capsule that can tell us about the entire history of the Moon. And there's a very interesting mission in development that could explore lava tubes. It's called Lunar Leaper.

Starship is ready for its 4th flight, Webb finds the most distant galaxy ever seen, a new way to detect Hawking Radiation, and fresh volcanoes on Venus.

Where can we observe the effects of dark matter? How did all satellites survive the recent solar storms? Why auroras can show different colours? If we found Planet X, could we even observe it? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show.