Space and astronomy news
Most of the time stars hang around for billions of years. But the Universe is a big place, and anything that can go wrong, inevitably does. Today we talk about what happens when these stars come together. The outcome is violent, and fortunately for you, also interesting.
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 406: Stellar Cannibalism”
Last week we talked about knowledge, what we do and don’t know. This week we talk about questions which are impossible to ask, where the answers don’t actually exist.
There the things we know, the things we don’t know, and the things we can’t know. How do we know which one is when when we’re deciding to fund research and direct our scientific inquiry.
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 404: What We Know, What We Don’t Know and What We Can’t Know”
How much of a challenge is it to get funding for large projects like LIGO? Fraser and Pamela discuss the difficult issues finding “Big Money.”
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 403: Funding Big Science: from Alma to LIGO to TMT”
What kinds of things can we see using gravity, that we may not otherwise be able to see? Pamela will fill us in on the Great Attractor, etc!
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 402: Gravity Eyes: See The Invisible With The Force”
What do Pamela and Fraser think will happen or be discovered in 2016? What would they like to see in the near future?
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 401: Predictions for 2016 and Beyond”
It’s time for us to go back and catch up with all of the projects, news stories, weird star systems, and other topics that we need updates on!
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 400: State of the Universe”
Science is typically a male dominated profession, mostly dudes, not a lot of ladies. From researchers to professors, to law makers, woman have a tough time gaining traction in such a heavily gendered field. Today we’re going to talk about what it takes to make it as a woman in science, what additional hurdles you’ll have to navigate, and what resources are available if you’re being harassed or discriminated against.
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 399: Women in Science”
Astronomers gather electromagnetic radiation with the telescopes: mostly visible light. But sometimes they’ve got to be clever about where they look for these elusive photons. Light can get emitted, absorbed, reflected, and each method tells astronomers a little more about what they’re looking at.
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 398 – Seeing Things: Emitting, Reflecting, Ionizing Light Sources”
One of the biggest, most basic questions you can ask is: “why is there something and not nothing?” The reality is that we don’t know the answer, we might never know the answer. Let’s probe to the edge of what we can explain, and what ideas cosmologists have proposed to explain how we all got here.
Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 397: Why is There Something and Not Nothing?”