Author: Damien Phillips

Download Episode!

The Discussion: Jeni’s back and the band is back together to discuss watching this year’s Perseid meteor shower and coverage of the Great American Eclipse

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• The shortlisted explorer and missions of opportunity being considered by NASA
• Jellyfish galaxies feeding supermassive black holes
• Goodbye to the Cassini Saturn explorer

‘The Other Section’: This month we keep Paul’s festering Hat of Woo out of sight and take a long look at the Voyager spacecraft on the 40th anniversary of this programme, which revealed the solar system unlike any other space mission.

Download Episode!

The Discussion: Jeni’s bizarrely decided that a holiday is preferable to being locked in a bunker with two megalomaniacal Martians, so you’re left with an exhausted Paul and a jetlagged Ralph this month. What could go wrong? We discuss outreach at science festivals and a happy resolution to the light pollution issue in the Brecon Beacons dark sky reserve.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• The new Doctor is upsetting some people (get over it!)
• The hunt Planet 9 takes another turn
• Have astronomers discovered the smallest possible star?
• A deep dive on the Great American Eclipse on August 21st
• And an update on the gravitational wave data debate

Astronomy You’ve Probably Never Heard Of: This month we give Paul’s festering Hat of Woo and airing as we kick start another occasional feature looking into the science progress in areas (or astronomers) you’ve probably never heard of. This month we look at cosmology and the expanding universe from the perspective of the much-overshadowed astronomy giant, Vesto Slipher.

Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we’re tackling a question about the effects of using a centrifuge to simulate gravity in space:

“Let’s say we build a spaceship which contains a massive wheel which rotates to generate 1G. If you are standing on the inside of the outer wall of the wheel, you will be rotating at the same speed as the wheel and therefore feel the 1G. (Like you see in 2001 – A space Odyssey). So the artificial gravity is only created by the rotation and centrifugal force and not by the distortion of space time due to a massive body.

Now what will happen when I jump? When I jump up, I am no longer connected to floor of the wheel. What happens to me? As I understand it, I should start to float inside the wheel, like they do in the ISS. The reason is that the centrifugal force generated by rotating wheel no longer applies to me as I am longer connected.

If this is the case, then you better never run inside the wheel (running means you will have both feet of the ground between steps) and most likely need to wear Velcro shoes to ensure you stay connect to the floor of the wheel.

Am I missing something as a lot of proposed interplanetary spaceships include some sort of wheel to generate artificial gravity? Your humble listener and collector of your podcast posters.

Raoul (@QuidneIT on Twitter) in Oxfordshire

Download Episode!

The Discussion: Combating light pollution for the AstroCamp in the Welsh Brecon Beacons and fighting to help the National Park retain its International Dark Sky Reserve status. Then we turn our attention to politics in space science and listeners’ views on politics in podcasts.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• Another gravitational wave detection and what we’re learning from it
• The European Space Agency’s latest mission approvals
• NASA’s last exoplanet data dump from the Kepler mission
• China’s experiment observing long distance quantum entanglement
• Britain’s ambitious space ambitions and Europe freezing out the UK
• Has the origin of the Wow Signal finally been solved?
• How common are the ingredients for life in the universe?

The Hat of Woo: This month we look at EM drives and NASA’s cover up hiding the warp drive they’ve developed at their super-secret Eagleworks and aren’t using but they definitely, definitely have it. Honestly.

Download Episode!

The Discussion: Jeni’s returns from her South African research using the Infrared Survey Facility telescope, Paul calls time on the Principia Mission and we go through a couple of readers emails to discuss Caroline Herschel, the Woomera Test Range and Australian space funding.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• Is there any evidence for other universes in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation?
• An update on Tabby’s Star (It’s NOT an alien megastructure).
• Are we already creating our own defence against Coronal Mass Ejections by chance?
• A run through NASA’s 2018 budget proposal

The Interview: This month we speak to former test pilot and astronaut – and one of only 6 remaining people to have walked on the moon – General Charlie Duke.

Practical Astronomy: The Hat of Woo takes a rest this month as we introduce an occasional look into areas of interest to the practical amateur astronomer with topics requested by you. This month we take a look at an essential piece of kit suggested by Sean Smith from Dublin: eyepieces.