Universe Today Podcast

In this week's QA, I compared apples to apples and look at the launch capability of the Falcon Heavy versus the Space Shuttle. The answer may surprise you. We also look at extracting energy from a black hole, and if launching satellites from the Earth's poles will avoid a Kessler Syndrome.

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During our Iceland adventure, I had a chance to sit down with Dr. Paul Sutter and talk about the limits of science. Why a better version of the Planck Mission can't tell us anything else about the cosmic microwave background radiation.

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In this week's question show, I explain why I'm happy to answer questions, what first telescope people should get, and if we've ever seen a black hole ever. Also, stick around to the end, where Dr. Alan Stern, the principal investigator of New Horizons answers a question about the mission.

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NASA is going to decide between a comet sample return mission or a helicopter on Titan. Which mission should it be?

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In this week's QA, I answer the several related questions about why NASA doesn't just cancel the Space Launch System and give all their money to SpaceX. With special guest answerer Emma Osborne.

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover has been exploring the surface of Mars for over 5 years now. What has it turned up?

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In this QA from Iceland, astrophysicist Dr. Paul Sutter steps in to tackle some of the more complicated cosmology and physics based questions from the audience. Did the Big Bang create the matter of the Universe, how close are we do discovering what dark matter is, and more.

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There are few rockets more iconic than the RS-25, also known as the Space Shuttle main engine. Even though it’s been around in some form since the 1970s, it’s been improved and upgraded several times, making it the most efficient liquid fuel rocket engine going today. And now the RS-25 is going to see a new chapter in its history, working to carry NASA’s new Space Launch System back to deep space, beyond Earth orbit.

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In this week's questions show, I talk about being wrong, why I'm such a buzz kill to sci-fi, and what I'd launch on a Falcon Heavy.

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You might have heard of the recently solved Pioneer anomaly. But what about the flyby anomaly? The unexpected velocity change that happens during gravitational slingshots.

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In this week's questions show, Fraser is excited to see the southern hemisphere night sky, considers how the next generation of telescopes will change our understanding of the Big Bang, and suggests what you should look at with a new telescope.

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When astronomers scan the atmospheres of other worlds, they’ll be looking for gases to confirm that yes, indeed, there’s life there. It turns out, this is actually pretty tough.

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In this week's questions show, Fraser wonders where you'd have to go in the Universe to minimize your time dilation, how to see Iridium Flares, how interferometry works, and more.

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When we see images of space, it’s hard to know which are real images and which are artist illustrations.

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In this week's questions show, Fraser wonders how we're ever going to clear all that space junk orbiting Earth, whether it's better to colonize Mars or Mercury, and can water worlds explain the Fermi Paradox?

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Forget rocky worlds like Earth and Mars. New discoveries about icy worlds like Europa and Enceladus make them the ideal candidates for the search for life in the Universe. In fact there could be hundreds, or even thousands of times more worlds out there with ability to support life.

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We try to avoid thinking about it, but spacecraft are machines that break down and eventually fail. Some can last for years, others decades, but in the end they’ll be gone forever.

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In this QA episode, Fraser wonders when the Big Rip might happen, could there be binary galaxies, what it would be like to live in higher gravity.

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Mars is in the spotlight now, as both SpaceX and NASA are preparing their long range plans to send humans to the Red Planet. But Mars is an inhospitable environment, especially because of its tenuous and poisonous atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

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On October 25, 2017, astronomers from NASA’s Minor Planet Center sent out an announcement that they needed help confirming the trajectory of an interesting object.

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In this week’s question show, Fraser explains why almost everything in the Solar System is spinning in the same direction, is there a limit to how massive black holes can get, and do galaxies have an escape velocity?

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Space is our future, but space is also a deadly place, with poisonous radiation and an increased risk of cancer. We’re protected here on Earth thanks to our planet’s magnetosphere, but is there a way to create an artificial magnetosphere and shield astronauts?

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We once thought our Solar System was normal, average. How wrong we were, how varied the planetary systems are out there. It turns out, the migration of planets played a huge role in the Solar System we see today.

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In this week’s question show, Fraser explains how astronomers measure the spin rate of black holes, other uses of gravitational slingshots, and why everyone is talking about Patreon.

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In this week’s question show, Fraser explains his thoughts on SpaceX, what he does for his regular job, and wonders if you could use a black hole to perform gravitational slingshots, whether planets could hide in Lagrange points, and growing trees on Mars.

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In order to get the large scale structure of the Universe we see today, cosmologists have proposed the idea of inflation, that the Universe expanded an enormous amount in the earliest moments. But if inflation really happened, then it has even stranger implications for the nature of the Universe and the search for multiverses.

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On October 5th, 2017, US Vice President Mike Pence announced that NASA is going back to the Moon. He didn’t provide any other details, just some kind of moonward directed space exploration. And it turns out they won’t be the only ones. The Moon is going to be a busy busy place.

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In this week’s question show, Fraser wonders if we’ll be able to grow crops in lunar soil, if the Moon has been changing over time, and what title does Elon Musk get when he colonizes Mars.

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We’re all familiar with the idea of solar sails to explore the Solar System, using the light pressure from the Sun. But there’s another propulsion system that could harness the power of the Sun, electric sails, and it’s a pretty exciting idea.

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Astronomers have made the groundbreaking detection of two neutron stars colliding in a galaxy 130 million light years away. They detected the gravitational waves AND the blast of radiation released from the collision, observing a kilonova for the first time.

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Some comets orbit the Sun on a regular basis, but others come in from deep space, a region known as the Oort Cloud. What causes them to make this journey, and will we ever be able to explore the Oort Cloud?

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In this week’s question show, Fraser wonders where would be the best place to put a really powerful telescope, why a kilonova is important, and what happens when brown dwarfs die.

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In this week’s question show, Fraser wonders if the Earth will get new moons, if dark energy is getting more diluted over time, and if the ice on Jupiter’s moons will protect us from its deadly radiation.

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Elon Musk gave us an update on SpaceX’s plans to send humans to Mars, going all in on their new launch vehicle: the BFR.

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NASA is working on developing a space station in a cis-lunar orbit that will serve as the jumping off point to exploring the Solar System; it’s known as the Deep Space Gateway.

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In this week’s question show, Fraser searches for the most energetic collisions in the Universe, whether we should vacuum up dust on the Moon, and are there supernovae that don’t create black holes.

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One of the most beautiful and scientifically interesting objects in space are the globular clusters, containing hundreds of thousands of stars. What are they and where did they come from?

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In this week’s question show, Fraser explains why James Webb can’t be repaired if anything goes wrong, why we even need space telescopes in the first place, and his favorite methods of zipping around the Solar System.

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Astronomers have been searching for mid-weight black holes, and now they’ve found one, right here in the Milky Way.

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Over the past decades, many missions have been canceled. What alternative history could we have had if these projects had gone through?

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We’re nearly at the 40th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. And they’re still going! Let’s remember these amazing missions.

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The Van Allen Belts surround the Earth with deadly radiation. What can we do to get past them and escape into deep space?

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In part 2 of this series, we look at the supertelescopes heading to space in the next few decades.

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Astronomy is about to get much much more exciting, with a whole new class of enormous telescopes developed on Earth and in space. How much more powerful? What will we be able to see?

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It’s a mystery that’s puzzled astronomers for years. Which came first, supermassive black holes or the galaxies that surround them?

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In this week’s question show, Fraser wonders if science is the best tool we’ve got, if communicating with aliens is a wise idea, and how he feels about people falling asleep to his videos.

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In this week’s question show, Fraser answers questions about dark matter black holes, the magnetospheres of exoplanets and whether the Earth is increasing or decreasing in mass.

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In this week’s QA, Fraser worries about artificial super intelligence, getting flung out of the Milky Way.

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North America is preparing itself for the August Eclipse, so we thought it would be a good time to explain how eclipses work and what’s going on as the Moon briefly destroys the Sun.

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Once we know where all the dangerous asteroids are, how do we prevent one from hitting Earth?

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