Universe Today Podcast

This week Professor Brad Peterson joins me to talk about the capability of the LUVOIR telescope, which is one of the next generation space telescopes NASA is considering as part of its new Decadal Survey.Support Universe Today Podcast

In this week's QA, I explain why dark matter is really a thing, and not just some made up thing by evil astronomers. How event horizons flatten out when they spin, what kind of scientist I'd want to be, and if you could build a ladder to space.Support Universe Today Podcast

Just me again, back from Australia answering live questions about the Universe.Support Universe Today Podcast

Astronomers have finally solved one of the outstanding mysteries in cosmology. Forget about all the dark matter and dark energy, where’s all the missing regular mass in the Universe? This has been called the “missing baryon problem”.Support Universe Today Podcast

In this week's question's show, I answer what would happen if the Milky Way lost its supermassive black hole, why can't you spiral stuff into the Sun, why do we assume life breathes oxygen?Support Universe Today Podcast

Until we learned to properly navigate our way across the oceans, early explorers were fearful to lose sight of land in case they’d be lost at sea. They learned to use the water currents, winds, movements of birds and of course, the positions of the Sun, the Moon and the stars to find their way across the seas to distant lands. As we learned to launch spacecraft into orbit and out into the Solar System, mission planners needed to develop entirely new methods of navigation. Support Universe Today Podcast

In this week's episode, I explain why you can't just calculate the position of Planet 9, why we don't use parachutes to retrieve boosters, and if we can wait 100 million years to see the Great Attractor.Support Universe Today Podcast

For the first time ever, astronomers have captured a direct image of a newly forming planet orbiting around a newly forming star. It’s a stunning photograph, not only for the science and what was observed, but what it means the future of exoplanetary astronomy.Support Universe Today Podcast

Live QA with just Fraser this week.Support Universe Today Podcast

Rocket launches are expensive. Even with huge price drops from SpaceX and other New Space companies, there’s no cheap way to get stuff down here in Earth’s gravity well up to low Earth orbit. In order to really survive and thrive in space, we’ve got to learn to live off the land, to acquire the resources in space that will allow us to survive… in space. We’ve got to learn to turn those raw materials into forms we need: fuel, breathable air, water, construction materials, and eventually even finished goods like rocket parts and electronics.Support Universe Today Podcast