Walkabout the Galaxy

There's a bright supernova in a nearby galaxy, and a very distant supernova made brighter by the beauty of gravitational lensing. In another galaxy, a gargantuan black hole is revealed to be orbited by another supermassive black hole, resulting in a gamma ray flares as it rips through the main black hole's accretion disk. Closer to home, we learn about new asteroid missions and a rapidly warming planet (hint: it's ours). Plus: Harrison Ford and Leonard Nimoy trivia!

Lefty astroquark Jim Cooney leads us on an exploration of what it means for the universe to have chirality. In other words, is there a break in parity in the way galaxies are distributed, or would the universe look the same if we saw its mirror image? The answer and its possible explanation are fascinating. And Josh gets to once again talk about one of his favorite topics, Saturn's rings, and new results on their age.

We take a deep dive into the origin of Mars's moons and whether they are chips off the old block. There's no research to explain the mystery of why Mars and the rest of the planets are even here after billions of years, when the solar system seems to be inherently unstable. And astronomers may have caught a star in the act of gobbling up a planet in the first stages of the star's death throes. Catch up on these scary things that can happen to a planet, space news, and Top quark trivia.

We explore the strange ring system of dwarf planet Quaoar, and discuss a new study that suggests that Uranus's four largest moons (which aren't really very large!) may have subsurface salty oceans. In the astrophysical realm, black holes may have emerged from the chaotic soup of energy during the inflation era when the universe was not even minutes old. Add to that some nerdy computer trivia and you've got yourself another episode of Walkabout the Galaxy!

New calculations show how large impacts onto Mars may have boosted its greenhouse effect, helping explain how it was warm enough for all those rivers and lakes billions of years ago. If that explains Mars' early warm climate, it could be bad news for potential for life there. Futher from home, dust has been observed star forming regions in the Small Magellanic Cloud where the abundance of planet-building raw materials is low. Check out these stories, space news, and special top quark trivia.

We return to Orlando Nerd Nite for a live recording where we take a look at the exciting upcoming missions to the Moon and the ESA mission to Jupiter's moons, JUICE, now on its 8 year journey to its destination. We revisit the amazing image of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87, now even amazing-er thanks to the clever implementation of artificial intelligence by some good old fashioned human intelligence.

Space reporter Brendan Byrne becomes an honorary astroquark at MEGACON 2023 where we take a look at some of the recent and landmark discoveries of JWST, including the earliest supermassive black hole and a new era of studying exoplanets. Plus: Anime trivia!

That interstellar comet appears to have gotten its odd behavior from the natural rocket effect of hydrogen gas being released near the Sun and not, sadly, alien rocket technology. The universe is still a cool and interesting place, though, and a new clever measurement of stars orbiting black holes shows evidence for a pile-up of dark matter around the black holes, giving us another way to study this mysterious stuff.

Compelling evidence for recent (1990's!) volcanic activity on Venus has been un-Earthed, or rather un-Venused, by Robert Herrick through analysis of Magellan radar data. A volcanic vent seems to have roughly doubled in size in 1991. We discuss the difficulties of these observations and the implications for future missions. We also take a look at the role of supermassive black holes in controlling star formation in galaxies and have a numerical Top quark trivia. Warning: this episode gets off to a bit of a silly start, so jump ahead to the 24-minute mark if you want to get straight to Venus!

What time is it on the Moon? It turns out the answer to that is not as easy as just lining it up with a time on the Earth. Worse, it's not even that obvious what time it is on the Earth. That's just one of many topics we explore in this episode, including a discovery that the Milky Way is much larger than previously thought, and tracing water molecules from the interstellar medium step by step into that cool glass you have with dinner. Join us for all that, time trivia, and more.

Learn about active asteroids and how the DART mission kind of turned an asteroid into an active asteroid, how impacts into Mercury have given it a dust trail, and we speculate about what might happen if Europa came to Earth. See title for conclusion! It's all about asteroids and dust and impacts on this episode of Walkabout.

Astronomers have sighted a supermassive black hole ejected from its host galaxy and creating a wake of stars from intergalactic gas. And if that wasn't enough to blow your mind, closer to home we've seen organic molecules in the material returned from the surface of a near Earth asteroid. Join us for all this, a weird exoplanet, Apollo program trivia, and some surprising tangents.

Where would you go and what would you bring with you if you could explore any object in the universe? Our cosmologist Jim Cooney wants to look for aliens underneath Europa's icy shell. This shell's complicated fractures may owe something to a new form of ice discovered in a delightfully simple experiment. Further out, a dwarf planet beyond Neptune has a ring unlike any we've seen before, and a delightfully complicated experiment may explain the origin of cosmological magnetic fields.

Neutrinos are slippery little buggers, and a new experiment is tightening the net to pin down their itsy-bitsy mass. Closer to home, the Earth's core is a complicated system with changing rates of rotation. We also take a look at the peculiar rings of a distant cometary body, Chariklo, thanks to a new observation by JWST. Join us for all the space news and Mars rover trivia.

Scientists have created a simulation of a wormhole in a quantum computer. Top quark helps us understand the significance of this as well as reminds us what the heck a wormhole is anyway. In planetary science, collisions may once again come to the rescue to help explain a mystery. This one is the odd gap in exoplanet sizes. And Down quark gives us an update on the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids and its sticky solar panel. Join us for all this, telescope trivia and more.

Our own solar system is lacking in one of the most common types of planet, the Super Earth. These large rocky planets have a cookie-cutter characteristic that may be explained by the evolution of stuff in a forming system's disk. Speaking of disks, a mystery about the Milky Way its family of satellite galaxies seems to have been solved. Discover all this with updates from JWST, Artemis, a look ahead to NEO Surveyor, rocket trivia, and a cosmological stumper with your hosts, the astroquarks.

Top quark Jim Cooney rejoins the crew and gives us a deep dive into the breakthrough in nuclear fusion at the National Ignition Facility. Mars rover Perseverance is busy storing samples of Mars for a future mission to bring home, and the Sun may have a 17-year cycle in addition to the well-known 11-year cycle. Ring in the new year with the astroquarks to learn about all this, comet trivia, and more.

The astroquarks get Down with it as we welcome Dr. Audrey Martin back as the Down astroquark for a discussion of the strange auroral phenomenon known as STEVE (for real), an odd gamma ray burst that may be the result of an unusual stellar merger, and updates on the successful Artemis 1 mission to the Moon.

Europa's got miniature tectonic activity, and a dark matter candidate may real itself through micro-gravitational lensing events. Dr. Audrey Martin joins us to discuss the strange spectra of the Trojan asteroids which have similar characteristics to comet dust tails. Join us for all this, silly particle name trivia, Artemis updates, and more.

Artemis 1, the most powerful rocket to ever leave the Earth, is up and on its way to the Moon after more hydrogen leaks than we care to remember, and Up Astroquark Dr. Hannah Sargeant signs off on her last Walkabout appearance as she is away to new adventures. We review the Artemis 1 mission, a new tracer for the origin of water on Earth and Mars, and we learn about a new idea for that famous dimming of the supergiant star Betelgeuse. Learn about gravity darkening, also a great name for a rock band, space junk trivia, and more with Strange, Charm, and Up.

The Mars Insight lander detected an impact that produced a stadium-sized crater on the red planet, and the 30-year magnetospheric mission Geotail comes to an end. An experiment deep underground on Earth helps explain the puzzling composition of some of the oldest stars, and we explore the future of eclipses in our trivia. Catch up on all this, the latest space news, and more.

Join us for a special reunion of all the astroquarks with a fresh look at some of our favorite topics, from hunting for biosignatures on Venus and plumes on Europa to the quivering of space-time measured by LIGO. New results on old observations and quasar trivia round out our 300th episode.

We absolutely definitely have not seen any life on Mars. That said, new research suggests that over 3 billion years ago there may have been a certain kind of habitable climate on Mars for some little critters whose effects on the atmosphere would have made Mars - wait for it - uninhabitable! Join us for this and the most powerful gamma ray burst yet observed.

Astronomers have new evidence of the gaseous remnants of the supernova of a population III star from just 700 million years after the big bang. Speaking of big bangs, DART smacked Dimorphos and produced a long trail of debris from the tiny asteroid, and Mercury reveals a surprisingling dynamic surface. Tune in for space news near and far and Nobel prize trivia with your astroquarks.

Humanity gets a bit of payback on asteroids for the rude destruction of the dinosaurs and almost all life on Earth 65 million years ago with the DART spacecraft's successful impact on a teensy-weensy asteroid. New research suggests the asteroids teamed up on Earth long ago, and that there were at least two major impacts to end the Cretaceous and the dinosaurs. Hot and barren Mercury may have significant deposits of solid ice at its poles, and we learn about photon rings around black holes. No giggling.

There are lots of explosions in this episode, beginning with the upcoming planned impact of the DART mission into a teeny-weeny asteroid to test planetary protection techniques. Then we take a look at some nifty detective work about a volcanic explosion on Mars, and finally, astronomers may have found the pre-smoking gun that lets us know when a star is about to go supernova.

The Astroquarks venture into the belly of the beast with our first live recording at the amazing DragonCon in Atlanta. Join us for a look ahead at upcoming Moon missions beyond Artemis, dragon trivia and more.

We take a journey to the Radius Valley to explore an exoplanet larger than the "Super Earths" and smaller than Neptune and Uranus. This one in particular is interesting not only because of its unusual size but also its composition appears to have a huge amount of water that may be in liquid form. We'll also check in with Up Quark Hannah Sargeant in the Artemis Corner, and cover a lot of space news and trivia.

We return to two of our favorite topics, the red giant star Betelgeuse, and of course the Moon. Some clever historical detective work has revealed that Betelgeuse was not red, but yellow, two thousand years ago. This tells us how massive the star is and how far along it is in its evolution to a supernova. Closer to home, another clever bit of detective work gives a new history to ancient lunar craters by examining the Moon's gravitational lumpiness. Cool!

Lightning generally goes cloud to cloud or cloud to ground, but sometimes it shoots up to the ionosphere at the edge of space. We take a close look at strange lightning with lightning trivia. A baby star system in our own galaxy appears to be making a giant planet that's less than two million years old, while the ages of distant galaxies observed by JWST are now a controversy. Catch up with us on all the latest and greatest space news and discoveries.

Korea sends its first mission to the Moon, and Mars sent a very old piece of itself to Earth. Meanwhile, the Large Hadron Collider is finding more odd collisional products than expected: the rate of creation of three W bosons is a bit high. Do you ever feel that there's something wrong with the world? Maybe the LHC is getting a glimpse of new physics. Join us for all that, space chorizo, and the Jeans length with a full set of four astroquarks.

In this episode we explore clouds at the edge of space in the Earth's upper atmosphere and discoveries of galaxies far more distant than we have seen before. We also explore why it's so difficult to define the edge of something as ordinary as a planetary system, like our own solar system. And from that discussion is born Gravity Man and Electromagnetism Woman! Tune in to learn more!

We survey the initial five data releases from the JWST, from squiggly lines showing the composition of a distant planet's atmosphere, to turbulent star forming regions, and the depths of space and time in a stunning look back toward the big bang. Join us for a geek-out session over this amazing sneak preview of what is to come in the years ahead from this reminder that humans can do cool things too.

We've had more experience flying to the Moon than you might think, and done some odd things with it, like feeding it to cockroaches. Join us for a look at the history of flights to the Moon, an interesting crater produced by space debris, and a field of rogue stars lost in intergalactic space.

Journey with us to the far reaches of the outer solar system where we take a closer look at two small objects explored by New Horizons: Pluto's moon Charon and the Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth. Charon's atmosphere goes through dramatic seasonal pulses that may explain its odd, reddish polar cap, while Arrokoth has the density of a fluffy snowbank 30 km long. There's some crazy stuff out there.

What does Jupiter's volcanic moon Io have in common with one of the largest stars in the galaxy? Both are belching sulfur compounds, though for very different reasons. We learn about sulfuric outgassing on Io and the incredible hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris and its huge stellar eruptions. Plus, the European Space Agency is building a probe to hideout in space hoping to catch a passing rogue or long period comet. Join us for all that, plus space news and trivia.

Pulsars are becoming the astrophysical version of big collisions for planetary scientists: they are explaining, perhaps, more and more things. Tune into this episode, where we welcome back Adam LaMee, to discuss the origin of a diffuse gamma ray glow from galactic central park as possibly due to a large population of pulsars. Also, don't forget the trivia and fake sponsors!

The astroquarks talk haboobs. Unfortunately Jim is not with us to giggle, but Dr. Katariina Nykyri joins Strange and Charm to explain space weather and magnetospheric slingshots, and the Perseverance rover provides new insights into the generation of those famous Martian dust storms. Or haboobs.

Live from MegaCon 2022 in Orlando, we team up with space reporter Brendan Byrne to discuss the image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, great discoveries in store with JWST, and the Mars Insight lander going out with a quake, if not a bang.

A new type of nova has been confirmed. One million times fainter than a nova, these thermonuclear runaway explosions are confined to the polar regions of white dwarf stellar embers. Closer to home, researchers at the University of Florida have grown plants in lunar soil returned from the Apollo missions. Supply your own fertilizer. We have astro-historical-etymological trivia and sponsor message.

Light gets redder as it climbs out of gravitational holes, and a star near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way conveniently demonstrates this beautifully. Join us for a discussion of gravitational redshift, a sci-fi discussion of time travel and body shifting, and a bit of Messier trivia.

As Top Quark likes to say, "You wouldn't understand: it's an early universe thing". That's why he's so excited that there's a new window into the goings on at the dawn of time by using HD. No, not high definition displays, but Hydrogen Deuteride! Oh boy, do we have fun with Deuteride on this episode. We also take a look at the crazy shuffling of planets in our own solar system, and much more.

Science marches onward, and the next steps in planetary science aim towards the seventh planet from the Sun, which shall not be named, and Saturn's little moon with a big ocean, Enceladus. Join us for a review of the new directions for planetary science research in the next decade, space news, and Uranus trivia.

Tiny fragments of the dinosaur-killing asteroid may have been found, preserved in amber, and new analysis of old data reveals a tiny, but potentially profound error in the mass of one of the fundamental particles, the W boson. It's not all small, as we also take a look at the largest comet nucleus and the most powerful laser.

Mars has a thin atmosphere, so little changes in the weather, even breezes, make big relative changes in how sound travels. We speculate on the sounds of future baseball game on Mars before turning to a fortuitous glimpse of the light from an individual star when the universe was less than a billion years old.

What if the stuff that makes up most of the stuff in the universe is so lightweight that you could barely call it stuff? Ultralight dark matter is one possible way to explain the puzzle of the very early formation of supermassive black holes. We explore this and the intriguing origins of Ceres, and much more.

We like to think we understand ordinary matter: the stuff we're familiar with that makes up stars, planets, and donuts. Sure Dark Energy and Dark Matter are mysterious, but the rest we have a handle on. Or do we? The New Horizons mission adds to a growing puzzle about the Cosmic Optical Background, not to be confused with the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is a beast of an entirely different color!

Even the emptiness between galaxies is filled with enough energy over those vast expanses to generate shock waves and giant structures when clusters of galaxies collide. We explore this, the lives of galaxies, and some intriguing results about activity on the asteroid Ceres.

We learn how binary star systems may create a second family of planets, Saturn's aurora may be powered by the ringed planet's high speed winds, and how thinking of planetary intelligence may guide future searches for extraterrestrial life.

A remarkably accurate test of general relativity confirms that not only does time run slower at your feet than at your head, but it runs slower at your eyes than your eyebrows. Plus, Psyche loses some of its metallic sheen, and we have spacewalk trivia and much more.