Universe Today Podcast

My guest today is Andrea Lin, a graduate student at the Eberly College of Science at Penn State University. Andrea is working with the NEID Spectrograph, a brand new instrument that will eventually be capable of detecting Earth-sized worlds orbiting sunlike stars.

In this week's Questions and Answers show, I explain how an infinite Universe could be the ultimate answer to the Fermi Paradox, where the energy for tidal heating comes from, and why are there always so many asteroid scare stories in media?

In this week's live questions and answers show, I explain why NASA doesn't build standardized rovers, how we know the Universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, and which are the best (and worst) entry-level telescopes to get.

In this week's live questions and answers show, I speculate what kind of civilization could be permanently stuck on the surface of their planet, if rival nations could shoot down each other's spacecraft, and how do I really feel about the Space Launch System?

My guest today is Dr. Alex Teachey, a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taipei, Taiwan. Alex specializes in searching for moons orbiting extrasolar planets: exomoons. Learn why these could be some of the most interesting places to search for life in the Universe.

In this week's episode, I answer questions about the speed of supernovae, if a black hole can pull itself apart, is there really no way to repair James Webb, and more...

In this week's live Q&A, I explain what would happen if we build a particle accelerator around the entire Moon (and what would happen if it generated a black hole), if you can ice skate on Pluto, and is it better to do sample return missions or explore with rovers and landers.

My guest today is Dr. Mary Voytek, the director of NASA's Astrobiology Program since 2008. Dr. Voytek and others from NASA are proposing a new 7-step framework on how they could report on the discovery of life beyond Earth. We'll discuss this new framework as well as the latest challenges in the search for life across the Universe.

In this week's questions show, I answer if you could have a planet made entirely of water, is it our duty to spread life in the Universe? Could Planet 9 be a brown dwarf? And more...

My guest today is Dr. Boris Goncharov, a researcher at the Gran Sasso Science Institute. Boris is part of the team using the precise signals from pulsars as a way to detect gravitational waves. This technique could be sensitive enough to even detect merging supermassive black holes.

My guest today is Dr. Justin Simon, a planetary scientist within the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at the Johnson Space Center. He specializes in measuring meteorites and samples collected by spacecraft. We'll be talking about what it takes to sample the surface of Mars and other worlds:

In this week's questions show, I answer questions about ice on rockets, the maximum gravitational slingshot, could black holes pull you out of black holes, and more...

In this week's questions show, I theorize how long life can survive in the Universe, could we detect a wormhole in the Solar System, what's happening with the Chinese Space Agency? And more...

My guest today is Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan, a PhD astronomer at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Madhusudhan is one of the researchers who investigated the habitability of "hycean worlds"; ocean worlds with a thick hydrogen ocean. These worlds are completely alien to anything we have in the Solar System, and yet, could have a much wider region that remains habitable than terrestrial planets.

My guest today is Dr. Hiro Ono, the Group Leader of the Robotic Surface Mobility Group for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Dr. Ono is been awarded a NIAC prize to develop a rover that could crawl into the fascinating vents on Enceladus, to search for evidence of life on this icy world.

In this week's live questions and answer show, I explain how astronomers measure the distance to gravitational wave events, how clean are spacecraft sent to Mars, and would it be possible to have a sample return mission from Titan?