Universe Today Podcast

NASA teases JWST images, Rocket Lab launches CAPSTONE, mystery rocket's crash site found on the Moon, how magnetars are created, ISS gets more independent from Russia and more.

In this week's Questions and Answers show, I explain how astronauts are trained to deal with medical emergencies if the Universe is expanding smoothly or chaotically, and what would survive longer, a white dwarf or a red dwarf?

SLS finally got through WDR (almost), Falcon 9 are setting new reuse records, China is about to beat NASA to Mars with a sample return mission, Charon red spot explained and more.

Dr. Martin Barstow is is a Professor of Astrophysics and Space Science at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester and the former President of the Royal Astronomical Society. Dr. Barstow was part of the team who worked on the recent Gaia Data Release 3, which categorized almost 2 billion stars in the Milky Way.

In this week's questions and answers show, I explain why most quasars are very far away, consider what would happen if you brought Pluto into the inner Solar System, and deliver the heartbreaking news of why the ISS won't be recycled.

Dr. Sonny White is a physicist and mechanical engineer. He previously worked at NASA's Eagleworks Lab testing advanced propulsion systems, and developing ideas for faster-than-light travel. He's now working with Limitless Space, founded with the vision of advancing human space exploration beyond the Solar System by the end of the 21st century.

FAA finally gave its approval to SpaceX for Starship launches from Boca Chica, Gaia released its third data drop, China stars continuous space presence, Perseverance finds another weird rock on Mars.

Annika Rollock is a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is studying next generation space habitats and recently published a paper about how future space stations can remain self-sufficient, especially when support and communication from Earth are far away.

In this week's questions and answers show, I explain how JWST and other telescopes see color, how images from observatories are released to the public, and how much of the sky can JWST see. Also, a bunch of non-Webb questions too.

Dr. Paul Hickson is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hickson is overseeing a team that built a telescope out of liquid mercury in India. The International Liquid Mirror Telescope is 4 meters across and built on top of a 3,000-meter mountain in India. This will prove the technology and allow for larger and larger liquid mirror telescopes on Earth (and eventually in space).

Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra is a geologist and astrobiologist with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. He studies the conditions that allowed life to spread across the Earth and searches for similar environments across the Universe. In a recent paper, Dr. Haqq-Misra suggests methods that we could search for technologically advanced civilizations across the Universe.

Here's an interview with me on the Spaced Out Podcast from the Center for Astro, Particle, and Planetary Physics at NYU Abu Dhabi. We talk about my career as a space journalist, how I approach the news, what my role is as a science communicator.

Dr. Zach Putnam is an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He's part of a team developing navigation techniques that use the signals from pulsars to always know your location, anywhere in the Solar System.

JWST got damaged by a micrometeoroid but seems to be okay, NASA buys more Crew Dragon flights, Mars rovers see interesting stuff, ESA confirms a comet hunter, UFOs get official NASA investigations, all planets get into order in the night sky and more.

Einstein's Theory of General Relativity has been tried and tested many times, and so far, Einstein was right. But we know his theory must be incomplete, as it still doesn't integrate with quantum mechanics. Where are physicists searching next for the future of cosmology and relativity? Dr. Leah Jenks is a PhD recipient from Brown University, and will become a KICP Fellow at the University of Chicago.

In this week's Questions and Answers show, I answer what it would take to build a telescope as big as the Earth's orbit around the Sun, why SgrA* seems to have been rolled over on its side, and how we know the age of stars.