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#88 – October 2019 Part 2


The Discussion: As a reward for good behavior, we’ve dispensed with wittering on about us and gone straight into the news.

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

  • The last of the Delta IV mediums
  • India’s Vikram lunar lander failure
  • ESA move a satellite to avoid crashing with a SpaceX satellite
  • NASA award funding for a Lunar Gateway pathfinding cubesat
  • Australia & Japan commit to supporting NASA’s moonshot, Project Artemis
  • NASA place orders for the first of possibly 12 Orion moon capsules.

Main news stories: A roundup of Elon Musk’s Herculean benevolent/malevolent efforts to get giant phalluses on Mars.

The Debate: Court is in session for the fifth and final round of advocacy to get a winner from your top ten historic space missions. This month Judge Damien presides over arguments between the International Space Station and the Pioneer missions.

Q&A: With the news of a near collision between a SpaceX and an ESA satellite, does that mean more satellite collisions in the future? From our good friend Noah Kraus in Bremen Germany.

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#88 – October 2019 Part 1


The Discussion: A look back at our 50th anniversary of the moon landings-themed dark sky star party, AstroCamp, and some wonderful suggestions as an alternative name for a ‘pair instability supernova’.

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

  • Discovery of an exoplanet stripped of its atmosphere
  • Understanding more about the features you can observe in Jupiter’s storms
  • Gaia tells us more about the evolution of open clusters
  • Chandra probes black hole clusters
  • Planet 9 (groan…) could be a tiny black hole (it couldn’t)
  • Amateur astronomer discovery of an interstellar comet
  • Understanding the evolution of globular clusters
  • NASA’s Insight lander suggests weird magnetic chirping at midnight on Mars

The main news story discussion: Water vapour in the atmosphere of an exoplanet in its habitable zone – leading to discussions on the importance of science journalism and the search for Earth 2.0

The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in October:

Paul: A round up of the planets available to northern hemisphere observers in October and a tour of the comets currently in our skies. In the deep sky, we recommend a look at globular cluster Messier 2 and the NGC7009 planetary nebula in Aquarius.

Ralph: 3 lunar/planetary conjunctions and a glut of meteor showers. Then further afield, the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies.

Main Object: Messier 44, The Beehive Cluster

Q&A: Advice on upgrading telescopes for our good friend Jeremy Hanson in Wisconsin, USA.

Also this month, a close friend of Jen’s, Chris Duffield, got ill and died in China aged 27. The foreign office have told his family that the ballpark figure for getting him home will be between £15,000-£20,000. If you’d like to help repatriate the friend’s body, please do consider giving a donation to the gofundme account at tiny.cc/lpvgdz. Thank you.

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#87 – September 2019 Part 2


The Discussion: Nuking hurricanes and the lessons of Chernobyl.

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

  • A new adaptor on the ISS making two emergency exits
  • Russia sends a gunslinging robot into space (no, really!)
  • ESA’s ExoMars mission is in hot water again
  • NASA’s Europa Clipper on track to meet its mid-2020s launch window
  • The companies being funded to develop tech for NASA’s moonshot
  • Ramping up of commercial assistance to Project Artemis

Main news stories: A NASA astronaut accused of a crime in space, issues of jurisdiction and what happens to sock dust in space.

The Debate: Court is in session for the fourth round of advocacy to get winner from your top ten historic space missions. This month we pit Mars against the Outer Limits as Spirit & Opportunity take on the Voyagers.

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#87 – September 2019 Part 1


The Discussion: A good old British whinge about the weather and looking forward to our biannual dark sky star party, AstoCamp.

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

  • An experiment in an underground lab in London to understand dark energy
  • Eight new repeating fast radio burst source
  • Help us come up with a cooler name than a pair-instability supernova
  • The late accretion phase of the formation of the solar system
  • The discovery of interstellar radioactive iron in the Antarctica
  • Spitzer reveals surprising exoplanetary details.
  • A new exoplanet discovery of three rocky worlds in the same system
  • Using oceanography to suggest greater exoplanet biodiversity

The main news story discussion: The latest big Juno discovery at Jupiter.

The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in September:

Jen: A tour of the planets on offer and the zodiacal light

Ralph: Jupiter Saturn and two meteor showers in September. Then further afield, a double star, an open cluster and a dark Nebula in Cepheus.

Main Object: Messier 27, The Dumbbell Nebula

Q&A: How can Titan have such a thick atmosphere with such a low gravity? From Alastair Frith in the UK

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#86 – August 2019 Part 2


The Discussion: Following on from last month’s 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we take a look at the recent movies and documentaries & social media: High Life, 8 Days to the Moon and Back, Apollo 50th, ApolloinRealTime.org. The ongoing inspiration of Apollo, the build-up of Project Artemis, saying farewell to Flight Director Chris Kraft and Mandla Maseko, and an email from our good friend Lee Stevens.  

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

  • Japan’s Hyabusa 2 mission to return asteroid samples to Earth
  • Toyota and JAXA prototype a pressurized lunar rover for launch in 2029
  • India launch Chandrayaan 2 to the lunar south pole
  • ESA propose a comet interceptor for 2028
  • A formation of satellites to study the heliosphere
  • NASA’s Orion capsule completes its abort tests

Main news stories: NASA select 12 new lunar technology investigations.

The Debate: Court is in session for the third round of advocacy to get winner from your top ten historic space missions. This month we have an epic battle of space telescopes as Kepler goes toe to toe with Hubble.

Q&A: Why did NASA choose to send a drone to Titan rather than a submarine to Enceladus? Suki Woods in Norway

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#86 – August 2019 Part 1


The Discussion: Space education at science fairs, sweating in space suits, the public attitude towards space exploration while there are so many relevant shows on TV. A correction from a listener and a lesson in Dutch.

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

  • A young stellar system showing us moons being formed around exoplanets
  • Pinpointing a Fast Radio Burst to understand what it actually is
  • An update on the Hubble Constant
  • Neptune-like exoplanets
  • How do stars merge in a stable manner?
  • A planetary nebula formed from a star in that missing 3-8 solar masses.

The main news story discussion: Protest in Hawaii over the Thirty Metre Telescope.

The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in August:

Paul: A tour of the planets on offer, the Perseid meteor show, peculiar galaxy NGC7727 and globular cluster NGC6760, both in Aquila.

Jen: How to find Neptune and what to look for. The further afield, the Albireo, Epsilon Lyrae and Izar double stars.

Main Object: Caldwell 4, The Iris Nebula

Q&A: Could multiple space telescopes use optical interferometry to cheaply outperform the vast expensive ground-based telescopes?

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The Hubble Tuning Fork and Citizen Science


In this podcast extra episode we talk to Karen Masters, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Haverford College, Pennsylvania about The Hubble Tuning Fork and Galaxy classification. But it’s not only about that canonised galaxy classification system; it’s also about how citizen science, astronomy done by absolutely anybody from their homes, can and do change the accepted wisdom and advance science.

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#85 – July 2019 Part 2


The Discussion: An Apollo-fact filled episode to commemorate the 50th anniversary of humanity venturing onto the surface of another body. Paul works on an Oscar performance; we congratulate Jess Wade on receiving a BEM award and we take a look at the latest movie to lionise the efforts of Apollo 11.

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

  • NASA plan to open up the International Space Station to commercial uses & ownership
  • NASA fund two concepts to explore moon craters and asteroids
  • ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter kills the excitement over methane on Mars.
  • NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan
  • A solar sail gets tested in space
  • A look at the return to the moon blueprint

Main news stories: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 with Krispy Kreme, Apolloinrealtime.org, @Pilliarscreatio, the best of the Apollo history books, movies and a few fun facts.

The Debate: Court is in session for the second round of advocacy to get winner from your top ten historic space missions. On the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, what else would be doing battle, other than Apollo missions? So it’s the heavyweights: Apollo 8 vs Apollo 11. Only one will survive!

Moon Hoaxes: This is a particularly active time for moon hoax conspiracy theorists so we thought we’d give you some ammunition for the next time someone tells you the flag was waving in the wind or the shadows should all be parallel…

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#85 – July 2019 Part 1


The Discussion: Paul pulls a drowning child out of a river and we discuss the BBC’s current astronomy-themed TV programme, The Planets. A drunken and sarcastic Jen is a good Jen and a rather pleasant surprise from listener Lee Stevens

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

  • Taking Spitzer out “like a dog on the moor with a shotgun”
  • The International Astronomical Union launches a competition to name an exoplanet in each of the countries it operates, at nameexoworlds.iau.org
  • The chances of exoplanet habitability may be lower than thought.
  • Two exoplanet discoveries with very good habitability potential
  • NASA announces two more heliospheric missions, PUNCH & TRACERS
  • The Mars Curiosity Rover says, ‘No, there are methane spikes on Mars’.

The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in July:

Paul: The King of Planets, Jupiter, on offer all month and a partial lunar eclipse on the night of 16th July. For the deep sky, M10 & M12 globular clusters in Ophiuchus.

Ralph: Asteroid 18 Melpomene at opposition on 3rd July. On the 9th of July we have the Ring World, Saturn, at opposition and the Southern Delta Aquariids peak on 28/29th July. For the deep sky, beautiful binary targets Epsilon Lyrae and Albireo.

Main Object: The Earth’s Moon.

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#84 – June 2019 Part 2


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The Discussion: The privations of a PhD student, listeners’ comments sparking a couple of corrections from the last episode, another bout of potaytoes/potartoes and we hear that new revelations about space mirrors cult sci-fi.

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

  • Damage to cartilage from microgravity
  • The big debate in space exploration appears to be ‘is Daniella Westbrook the ideal astronaut experiment’?
  • ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter kills the excitement over methane on Mars.
  • NASA asks for an additional $1.6Bn for getting astronauts to Mars by 2024
  • NASA will be sending a woman to the moon in the Project Artemis crew
  • A look at the return to the moon blueprint

Main news story: The Lunar Gateway, an orbiting platform around the moon.

The Debate: Court is in session for the first round of advocacy for to find the winner in your top ten historic space missions. Which will make it through and which will consigned to the dustbin of history – Cassini Huygens or New Horizons?

Q&A: At 6 million kelvin, is the plasma around the M87 supermassive black hole still a plasma? Andy Burns from the UK