Walkabout the Galaxy
This podcast takes a fun, sometimes irreverent look at the latest and most interesting discoveries in astronomy. The hosts, Joshua Colwell, Adrienne Dove, and James Cooney, discuss new findings and space news in an accessible and entertaining way. Each episode offers a tour of what's happening in the universe, from planets and stars to the latest research. It's aimed at anyone curious about space who enjoys a lighthearted approach.
Episodes
Have We Detected Dark Matter?
An intriguing detection from a dark matter experiment may be the first direct detection of a dark matter particle. This detection would mean dark matter is made of WIMPs: Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles. There's a non-negligible chance that this is an odd background detection and not dark matter, but if it is, we'll see more like it in the next few years. We also take a look at a study of wha
Mapping a Galaxy's Dark Matter and a Game-Changing Space Telescope
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope sees 100 times more sky than the Hubble Space Telescope and has the ability to directly image planets around other stars like those in our own solar system. Learn about this game-changing space telescope as well as new take on old Hubble observations that allows dark matter to be mapped on a finer scale than ever before.
Black Hole Stars and Solar Instabilities
What do you call a very-but-not-so-supermassive black hole completely encased in a warm dense cloud of hydrogen? A hot mess? How about "black hole star", a new category of crazy astronomical object that can explain some of the James Webb Space Telescope's mysterious findings from the early universe. And we're a step closer to understanding our own star with dazzling data from the Inouye Solar Tele
Dyson Spheres and Interstellar Colonization
Strange and Top are at it again with a deep dive on the physics, psychology, and philosophy of the big questions: is there technologically advanced life out there in the galaxy, and if so, we will ever know? Will we make it out of the solar system, and if so, what would that look like? Join us for all that and a physics question disguized as a trivia question.
Black Holes Come Back for Seconds and a Rocky Exoplanet with an Atmosphere
Supermassive have such voracious appetites that they create an energetic mess when eating which has a tendency to shoot their food off at very high speeds. New observations show the second course for these monsters as material falls back into them. A rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone has a confirmed atmosphere, checking another box for finding worlds that may have life. Join us for a whimsical
Distant Quasars and Earth's Quasi-Moon
Quasars, the energetic engines driven by the voracious appetite of supermassive black holes, have been observed in the very early universe, upending ideas about how long it took to form these behemoths in the first place. New results on a peculiar object tagging along around the Sun with the Earth casts doubt on its origin as a possible fragment of the Moon. And the climate takes a swipe at strang
I See a Big Moon Rising and a Bright Radio Sky
The astroquarks examine the oft-asked question of why the Moon sometimes looks huge and other times, not so much, and we take a look at the cool mission to grapple and boost the NASA Swift space telescope into a higher orbit. Plus, new observations reveal that the sky is much brighter at radio wavelengths than previously assumed, teaching us something about the population of free electrons. Join u
Europa's Disappearing Plumes
OG Top Quark Tracy Becker joins us with an update on water plumes from Jupiter's moon Europa, plus intriguing new data of interstellar comet 3I shows it is even older than we thought, with an age approaching that of the Milky Way galaxy itself. A new field of tektites has been discovered, pointing to a previously unknown major impact on the Earth. Join us for all this, space news, trivia and more.
Second Generation Black Hole Mergers and Solar System Chaos
Exquisitely detailed measurements of the ripples in spacetime from the mergers of black holes now show that some of these merging black holes were, themselves, created by an earlier black hole merging event. While this had been suspected to take place, we now have clear evidence of it. On a less dramatic scale but much closer to home, new simulations of the early solar system suggest the large pop
Whacky Black Hole Collisions and Strange Uranian Rings
Mysterious bright blue flashes from relatively empty parts of the universe have a new possible explanation involving, what else, black holes. We explore this new idea to explain Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients (LFBOTs) with black hole collisions, take a peek at the black hole in our own Milky Way, and discuss some puzzling observations of two of the rings of Uranus. Plus, we have a stupid st
Little Plutino Has An Atmosphere and Making Sense of Saturn
A Plutino, an object that shares Pluto's orbit but which is much smaller than Pluto, appears to have a very thin global atmosphere. We discuss the detection and how such a small body could hold onto even a thin atmosphere, as well as a new model that describes many of Saturn's peculiarities with a recent collision between its big moon Titan and a precursor to the sponge-y moon Hyperion. Join us fo
Superkilonova and Artemis II Recap
Gravitational waves and light combine to reveal what is suspected to be a superkilonova which is much cooler than the name suggests. Cool in the cool way, not the temperature way. Learn about splitting neutron stars and, in our Artemis II recap, we revisit the highs (awesome mission, great astronauts) and lows (broken space toilet) of the mission that took people a record distance from the Earth,
A Whisper of a Hint of Primordial Black Holes plus Earth BLOBs
Gravitational Wave observatory LIGO has seen a signature that looks like the merger of primordial (pre-stellar, big bang (not big band!) era) black holes. If confirmed with future observations, this would tell us a lot about the early universe and potentially shed light on dark matter. Finally! Plus, closer to home, the BLOBs in the Earth's mantle help us untangle the complicated past of our magne
Supermassive Black Holes Supersoaking Other Galaxies
Supermassive black holes can be terrible neighbors. New research shows that their powerful jets of charged particles can shut down star formation in neighboring galaxies within the galaxy cluster, which is just plain rude. Closer to home, our own Down Quark Audrey Martin is part of a study shedding new light (with the James Webb Space Telescope) on the mysterious L type asteroids, that formed at v
Snowball Earth was Cold and Scary and the Milky Way Magnetic Field is a Mess
The Earth spent some crazy amounts of time (tens of millions of years) completely frozen over. And not, in the grand scheme of things, all that long ago. New research shows the ocean was salty and super-cold. How did life survive? New techniques using radio observations reveal a complicated and twisty galactic magnetic field. Join us for an icy, winter olympics themed episode to find out all this
Planetary Nebulae and Active Asteroids Get a Closer Look
There's always been a fuzzy line between asteroids and comets, and new observations of asteroids in the vicinity of Jupiter provide a hint to the origin of the mysterious active asteroids that look like asteroids but act like comets. Elsewhere in the galaxy, the famous ring nebula gets a new spectral image that shows the presence of band of iron. Could it be the remnants of a planet like Earth or
A Dark Universe Unveiled
Scientists head to the volcanic fields of Iceland to test instruments for the VERITAS mission to Venus, Artemis II is ready for its historic flight to the Moon, and the Dark Energy Survey reveals the distribution of dark matter on an astounding scale. For mind-blowing astro-stuff, space news, and trivia, join the astroquarks on Walkabout the Galaxy.
Crazy Spinners in the Asteroid Belt and S8 Tension
The amazing discoveries from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have already started, and the astroquarks take a look at some close to home. Asteroids bigger than a city block spinning in fewer than 5 minutes are just the beginning, and will change our understanding of the collisional evolution of the asteroid belt. The astroquarks muse on the biggest questions in astronomy today, and one of those, the
Cosmic Rays from Everywhere and Stringy Ancient Galaxies
The Parker Solar Probe flies through the Sun's corona, MAVEN has gone silent, and new data shed light on the origins of cosmic rays. JWST's observations of ancient galaxies reveal odd shapes that may be connected to dark matter. Join us for a year-end look at the latest discoveries and space news and much more.
Interstellar Star Scars and Poop on Mars
We explore the dining and drinking choices for astronauts, complex chemicals discovered in asteroid samples, and untangling the web of scars in the local interstellar cloud to reveal past encounters of the Sun with some hot stellar neighbors. If you wish you had more hot stellar neighbors, you should definitely check out this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.
Gravothermalizing and Baby Black Holes
There's a new funky proposal for small black holes in the early universe, and another potential dark matter candidate. Learn about cannibal stars and much more, together with double trivia and space news with your friendly neighborhood astroquarks.
An Ancient Moon of Mars?
The story behind this investigation is almost more cool than the discovery itself. Microlayers of sediments in Mars' Gale Crater, observed by NASA's Curiosity rover, are indicative of tidal sloshing of water in the lake that once filled the crater. Problem is, the age of the rocks and the magnitude of the tides would require a different moon than the ones currently there. Cool! Join us to hear abo
Why Is There A Universe At All?
Things would be a lot simpler and a lot less interesting if charge parity existed in the universe, but there would be no one to appreciate that simplicity because we would not exist! New results from the Large Hadron Collider provide a hint at explaining why there is matter in the universe and it was not all eliminated in a dramatic annihilation of matter-antimatter collisions. So, that's a relief
The Amazing and Crazy Story of Gemini and Jumbo Black Holes
The astroquarks are joined by Jeffrey Kluger, editor at large at Time Magazine and author of 13 books including Apollo 13 and the new book on the Gemini program. Tune in to hear about some of the outlandish ideas that were explored on the way to the Moon. Plus, top quark gives us a look at a new class of black holes that we've decided are "Jumbo Black Holes". All that plus twin trivia, a hot take,
Rings Around a Comet, Betelbuddy, and Odd Jupiter Moons
These rings aren't around Uranus, they're somewhere even more odd. We discuss the mysterious and changing ring system around the Centaur object Chiron, new clues about the origin of the solar system from the irregular moons of Jupiter, and the puzzling stellar companion to Betelgeuse. Plus, top quark Jim Cooney stumps us with trivia.
Adaptive LIGO and a New Look at an Old Crater
Adaptive optics techniques get applied to the mirrors in the LIGO gravitational wave observatory, promising a five-fold or greater improvement in sensitivity to gravitational waves from colliding black holes across the universe. And right here in our backyard, a suspicious sub-surface crater-like feature gets a new look that appears to confirm its extraterrestrial origin. Join us for space news, t
Einstein Cross Reveals Dark Matter and a Life-y Mars Rock
We take a look the Cheyava Falls rock on Mars, or rather the Perseverance rover took a look at it, and we discuss what it saw which were some intriguing mineral formations that could have a biological origin. And gravitational lensing has enabled astronomers to map the distribution of dark matter in a small cluster of galaxies, providing a new tool to understand the distribution of this mysterious
Exo-Pluto Debris in Our Solar System and Axions Galore
An interstellar interloper may have been a chip off the old block, where the old block was a Pluto-like planet around another star, and the chip is solid air (nitrogen that is)! And we revisit the potential role of axions in the great dark matter chase and a new way that JWST may help us answer it. Join us for all that, exoplanets, science fiction trivia and more.
Europa Clipper Report from Mars and ATLAS 3I Update from DragonCon 2025
That's no error, this is episode 404, recorded in front of a live audience at DragonCon 2025 with special guest Trina Ray, Deputy Science Manager for the Europa Clipper mission. We get an update from the cool RADAR test the spacecraft conducted at Mars, new information on the history and composition of Interstellar Comet ATLAS 3/I and a super-duper-massive black hole. Join us for all this, 404 tri
Trappist-1, ESCAPADE, and Axions
There is so much going on in the universe it's hard to keep track. That's why we have not one but two top astroquarks on this episode to cover the latest discoveries and news from the solar system to the deepest recesses of space. A search for a habitable atmosphere comes up empty, while a mission to study the loss of Mars' atmosphere nears launch. And a clever new technique may be able to detect
Weird Black Hole Blazar and Water Ice Glaciers on Mars
There's more abundant and accessible water ice on Mars, ready for us to scoop it up, heat it up, and eat it up. And in the distant recesses of the universe there's a supermassive black hole with an interesting neighbor that causes a periodic splash of light. Learn all about it, plus trivia, fake sponsor, the Earth's puzzling spin, and much more.
Forbidden Black Hole Merger and Chaos on Europa
We discuss the largest black hole merger observed to date, between two black holes that are in the so-called forbidden mass range. They must have been created by some ancient merger of other black holes themselves. It's black holes everywhere you look these days. Closer to home, we take a look at Europa's weird Chaos terrain and new insights on how Mars lost its atmosphere. We also get a shout out
Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS is Out Of This World
The astroquarks celebrate 400 episodes with a special sponsor, a special stumper, and a special interstellar comet making its way through our solar system from an origin near the galactic center perhaps as much as 7 billion years ago.
Vera Rubin Observatory Sets Sights on the Universe
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has started making observations with the world's largest optical detector boasting over 3 billion pixels at the back of an enormous telescope in the high Andes. We take a look at some of the early discoveries and look ahead to what's in store for this enormous project as it plans to scan the sky hundreds of times at unprecedented detail over the course of the next dec
Supernova Hazards and Cloudy With a Chance of Sand
We're all about the weather on this episode, with a new study showing that even relatively distant supernova may have affected the Earth's climate in the recent past. And the James Webb Space Telescope has observed exoplanet WASP-107b to have clouds of sand vapor. Plus, we have two hot takes and two Top astroquarks!
Cool Planetary Cores and Lava Fountains Galore
Original top quark Tracy Becker is back to bring us up to speed Europa Clipper's flyby of Mars, and we learn about a new way for planetary cores to form without so much heat. Join us for all this, plus lava fountain trivia, space news, and much more.
The End of the Universe As We Know It and We Feel Fine
A major update to the predicted end of the universe has it coming much earlier than previously anticipated. However, we still have plenty of time to get our affairs in order, and the update has to do with spaghettification, and anything with spaghettification can't be all bad. We also talk about active asteroids, your ideal night sky, and cosmological trivia.
A Slurping Black Hole and a Win for the Streaming Instability
We get lucky and catch a rogue supermassive black hole in the act of slurping up a star as it meanders through a distant galaxy. Closer to home, the detection of a second trinary, or triple, system in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of Neptune bolsters the streaming instability theory of planet formation. We talk about all that and what it has to do with the Tour de France, as well as space news
Vesta Chip Off the Old Block and a Nearby Dark Molecular Cloud
The asteroid Vesta may be a fragment of a much larger protoplanet, and astronomers examine old data to discover a large molecular cloud lurking right in the solar system's backyard. Get all the details, plus habitable exoplanets get another look, space news, and trivial matters with your friendly neighborhood astroquarks.
Ultralight Dark Matter and Peanut Asteroid Hot Take
NASA's Lucy mission had a picture perfect encounter with the asteroid Donaldjohanson on its way to the first ever flybys of Trojan asteroids. Discoveries of ancient supermassive black holes challenge theories of their formation. If dark matter is composed of ultralight particles (lighter than a neutrino), that could resolve the mystery. Join us for these and other cosmic discoveries, space news, t
Hot Takes on Water on Earth and Black Hole Singularities
The astroquarks discover hot takes and explore the nature of ice, the origin of Earth's water, and the trouble with the singularities at the hearts of black holes. Plus, we have a stumper, astronomical trivia, and much more.
Weird Convection on Venus and a Wrinkle in the Lambda Cold Dark Matter Model
Venus's extra-thick crust may be extra chewy, allowing convection to occur and helping power volcanoes into the current era. New observations of the distant universe, meanwhile, show that dark energy may not have behaved as expected in the standard cosmological model. We'll break it all down for you together with space news and trivia with your friendly neighborhood astroquarks.
Supernovas and Mass Extinctions
A survey of nearby stars establishes the rate of supernovas in our general neighborhood. Evidence indicates we had nearby stellar explosions at the times of two mass extinctions. Those supernovas may have decimated the ozone layer and contributed to extinctions and climate changes. Plus, we recorded on April 1 and take a look at silly April 1 science papers, and we get tilted with our trivia and s
Life on Hycean Worlds, Interstellar Debris, and Dark Matter Survey
If there are Hycean worlds and if they have a certain kind of microbial life and if there is enough of it, JWST might be able to see the chemical products of that in the planet's atmosphere. We take a look at that, debris from neighboring stars entering our solar system, and the first results from the Euclid space telescope. Join us for all this plus a hilarious double stumper and more.
Are We Inside a Black Hole?
There are exciting new observations from recent lunar missions, a possible chunk of the Moon keeping us company, and an intriguing observation supporting the theory that the entire universe is inside a black hole! Get inside the event horizon with the astroquarks for all the space updates, trivia, and more.
Oort Cloud Spiral, the Color of Mars, and a New Dwarf Galaxy
We take a look at the formation and structure of the Oort cloud of comets which is spherical at large distances but has a spiral structure in its inner regions. And, after all this time, there's a surprising twist on the nature of the iron mineral that gives Mars its reddish hue. Also hiding in plain sight is a dwarf galaxy in the neighborhood of the Andromeda galaxy, our largest companion galaxy.
Did You Quipu?
Lunar exploration continues to accelerate, and there's a new longest "structure" in the universe. Quipu is a quasi-alignment of clusters of galaxies stretching over 1 billion light years. Structure is in cynical quotation marks because these objects are not bound or connected to each other in any way, but their arrangement is a natural consequence of the evolution of the universe. If we happen to
Hubble Tension Won't Go Away But Some Exoplanets Do
The more measurements we make of the expansion of the universe, the more it seems as though Hubble Tension is not a problem with our data but a problem with our understanding of the expansion of the universe. We'll talk about that, and some cool new observations closer to home, including a disintegrating exoplanet that is giving us a unique peak into a planet's insides. Join us for all this and mo
Exocomets, Io, and the Great Dimming of T Tauri
Juno reveals a surprise about the interior of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, and the OG young variable star T Tauri is getting ready to fade from view thanks to its dusty neighbors to the south. Speaking of dust, that's what gets kicked up when comets collide, and a new survey examines the cometary belts around dozens of star systems, providing a detailed look at the outer reaches of exoplanetary sys
Little Red Dots and Big Black Holes
The discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope keep coming. After showing that galaxies formed far earlier than we thought, we now have a better understanding of what was going on in the early universe. Those little red dots spied by JWST are actually the glow of heated dust and gas from supermassive black holes, and not the glow from billions of stars as had been thought. Closer to home, did
Kiss and Capture for Pluto and Charon and Dark Energy Remains Dark
Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, orbit each other with gazes lovingly fixed on each other, held in place by a romantic tidal attraction. But Charon's large size has always been difficult to explain. New simulations show that their love affair may have started at the beginning with a "Kiss and Capture" collision, much gentler than the devasting impact that formed our own Moon. Hear all about tha
Quasi Particles, Pluto's Moons, and Cosmic Rays
We kick off 2025 with oddities from quasi particles, to cosmic rays, to the moons of Pluto. What has mass when it moves in one direction and doesn't when it moves in another direction? How do thunderstorms on Earth interact with cosmic rays? What is up with Pluto's moons? Join us as we tackle these questions as well as the stumper and special top quark trivia. It's all part of the package in an ep
Mysterious Dark Comets
We know about extinct comets and active asteroids, but now we've got something in between: dark comets, whose orbits indicate cometary activity, but we can't see it! We'll get the scoop on these interesting objects, a flare from a supermassive black hole, and a twist on the question of the age of Saturn's rings. Plus, we have our end-of-the-year rocket launch roundup, and a special astrophysical F
Making Big Blobs is Hard
Top quark Jim Cooney explains why making big blobs is hard and how new observations are helping us understand how the universe made big immensely big blobs more commonly known as giant elliptical galaxies. Nature loves to make a disk, and we love to tell you all about the cool things nature does, including a solid state greenhouse on ancient Mars that may have produced a huge buried supply of wate
Neutrino Fog and the Hunt for Dark Matter
It's a good news bad news story with the detection of the neutrino fog. This signal from solar neutrinos may confound our search for certain dark matter candidates, but at least we know our detectors are very, very sensitive! We also take a look at magnetic fields in the outer solar system, specifically why Uranus's magnetosphere was so weird when we visited in 1986, and what tiny grains from a ne
Not All Supernovae Are Created Equal
If you're speaking English, not Latin, do you really have to say "supernovae" instead of "supernovas"? Also, they are, in some sense, created equally: explosion of a white dwarf, but the outcomes are not all equal. You are welcome for this grammatical tangent, and please enjoy our fun discussion about weird tesserae (more Latin!) on Venus and the whole standard candle story of type 1a supernovae g
Is There Another Belt of Comets?
New observations contradict earlier studies about the possibility of another belt of comets orbiting the Sun twice as far away as Pluto. We'll take a look at what's what in the outer solar system and also explore whether black holes may help explain the Hubble tension. We also play FLOD (Flyby, Land, Orbit, Destroy) and have some "how many planets" trivia.
Trojan Asteroids Everywhere
Join Strange and Down quarks for a close look at Trojan asteroids, the forgotten asteroids of the solar system. NASA's Lucy mission is en route to take our first close look at these denizens of the outer solar system and has an Earth gravity assist in December 2024. As you'll see in our trivia, the numbers of Trojans may surprise you. Jupiter is the king of the Trojans, but we'll take a closer loo
Basin Instinct - Cosmological Structure and Edible Asteroids
We get a tour of our place in the grand cosmological scheme of things with new mapping of the local Basin of Attraction. Spoiler: also Jim's new stage name. And we explore the final frontier of In Situ Resource Utilization with studies of how to get edible nutrients from the raw materials in asteroids. It's a little bit gross. Plus space news, trivia, and more. Join us to learn about all this (and
OG Top Goes to Europa
Original Top Quark Dr. Tracy Becker returns to her old stomping grounds to hang with the Walkabout crew and send Europa Clipper on its way to Jupiter. Join us for a preview of this mission's ambitious goals and the exciting journey it took to the launch pad. Also, new research suggests the Earth may escape a fiery death when the Sun becomes a red giant. We have, of course, space news, space histor
Back in Black Holes
We've got mini black holes as potential dark matter candidates and monstrous black holes spewing jets to cosmological scales. Who better than Top quark Jim Cooney to take us through these black holes? No one, that's who. We take a deep dive into meteorites, particularly those that have come from Mars. You may be surprised to learn how many we have, and now we know more about where those free Mars
Black Hole Spindown Chirp and a 9-Day Geologic Rumble
Gravitational waves may provide a new way to observe supernovae in our own Milky Way galaxy and determine when they produce black holes and when they result merely in neutron stars. Closer to home, scientists did some clever detective work to figure out the source of a mysterious 9-day seismic shaking here on Earth. The culprit: a giant, regular sloshing in a fjord triggered by a landslide as a re
Recent Lunar Volcanic Activity and the Metallicity Cliff
Tiny samples brought back from the Moon hint at surprisingly recent volcanic activity. What's up with that?! Elsewhere in the galaxy, a detailed study of over 100,000 stars identifies the metallicity cliff. This is where stellar composition that is low in heavy elements seems to inhibit the formation of at least some types of exoplanets. The astroquarks have all the details for you, as well as a P
Adventures in Space the Cady Way
The Astroquarks are joined by former NASA astronaut, PhD Chemist, and retired USAF Colonel Cady Coleman at Dragon Con 2024 for a wide ranging discussion of space flight, institutional challenges, training, flute playing, and more.
Ocean World Mimas and the JUICE Slingshot
Recent (astronomically speaking, of course!) perturbations to Mimas's orbit may be the explanation for the surprising presence of a global subsurface ocean in this tiny moon of Saturn. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency's JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) mission successfully completed a novel gravity assist making use of the Earth's Moon and the Earth to send it towards... Venus! We have all th
Barney the Dinosaur Killer from Outer Space and Water Inside Mars
New research shows that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago formed in the colder, more distant reaches of the solar system. The Astroquarks have taken it upon themselves to dub this asteroid Barney. We'll update you on that new research and a surprising discovery from Mars Insight data that suggests Mars has a potentially huge amount of delicious H2O not to far beneath
The Fermi Paradox - Are We Truly Alone?
When Frank Drake created his famous eponymous equation to estimate the number of advanced communicative civilizations in the Milky Way, we had little more than educated guesses for most of the factors in that equation. Decades later we have much better data, and the answer seems to reinforce Fermi's famous paradox: why is our galaxy so silent? The role of plate tectonics in enabling evolution of a
Chemical Whispers of Life on Mars
The astroquarks assemble for their 365th episode, about 10 years after their first, with a look at a canceled mission to the Moon and tantalizing observations from an ongoing mission at Mars. The Perseverance rover has spied a particularly unusual rock sample with some tantalizing features. Join us for the deets as well as historical astronomy trivia, space news, and more.
Lunar Caves for Future Habitation
In this light episode of Walkabout the Galaxy, Josh and Audrey discuss the first confirmation of open spaces in lava tubes connected to lunar pits on the Moon. 200 lunar pits have been observed on the Moon, and now scientists have used radar data to demonstrate that these pits are in fact connected to caverns that could provide future astronauts with a safe haven beneath the lunar surface. Join us
Dark Matter, Deuterons, and a Mixed-Up Protoplanetary Disk
You'll be amazed at how much we can learn from iron meteorites. Who would have guessed that analysis of the compositions of these humble metallic remnants of asteroids would be able to tell us about the shape of the protoplanetary disk? We'll learn about the latest clues to the early history of our solar system, the surprising abundance of deuterons in cosmic rays provides another indicator that w
Cygnus X-3 and a Naked-Eye Nova
The clock is ticking on T Coronae Borealis which seems primed to undergo a nova explosion this summer. That will make this otherwise faint star as bright as Polaris thanks to a burst of nuclear fusion reactions on the exposed surface of this white dwarf. Another curious binary system, Cygnus X-3, is beaming x-rays toward us thanks to some nifty photon processing in the disk surrounding this black
Primordial Black Holes Make the Galaxy Go 'Round
We take a look at some Beta Pic Disk shots before journeying back to the earliest era of the universe and the possible formation of primordial black holes. Some of these may have been only the size of an atom and would have long since evaporated through Hawking radiation. But they may have left an observable imprint for our powerful telescopes peering into the distant past, and their larger siblin
Full Circle to the Origins of Carbon and Exotic Gravity
The Astroquarks celebrate their 360th episode with discoveries showing carbon much earlier in the universe than previously thought possible, and an exotic new proposal as an alternative to dark matter. Plus, we have radioactive trivia and a slew of space news with a busy week in rocket and spaceship activity.
Volcanic Activity on Venus RIGHT NOW!
There is a mountain - or should we say a volcano - of evidence, building that suggests volcanic activity on Venus during the time of the Magellan mission in the 1990s. We'll dig into that, struggle to get our script right, ponder the Fantastic Voyage, upcoming spaceflight milestones, and much more.
Watery Erigone and Rogue Stars in the Milky Way
New observations of Erigone, the parent body of an asteroid family, indicate its rocks are juicy with water. That makes it both a potential resource for future missions but also shows that asteroids may have played a big role in delivering water to the early Earth. Watery Erigone: it rhymes! You'll have to listen for details. And students discovered three high-speed wayward stars in the Milky Way,
Dyson Spheres and a Molten Planet
The Astroquarks delve into the possibility of giant alien constructs around stars, and the strange weather on a planet that is unreasonably close to its star. Join us for space news, trivia, and a fun exploration of odd topics in astronomy on Walkabout the Galaxy.
The Low Down on Big G and the Young Moon of Dinkinesh
NASA's Lucy mission discovered a surprising moon of the small asteroid Dinkinesh on its way to the orbit of Jupiter. New studies of that moon, a contact binary, suggest it may have a surprisingly young age. Meanwhile, cosmologists continue to wrestle with various seemingly contradictory measurements. One model suggests a modification to that old Physics 1 standby, the gravitational constant (or is
Dark Matter Wins Again
A clever test of dark matter and an alternative theory of gravity to explain the motions of stars around galaxies results in another check in the win column for dark matter. Simulations with the modified model of gravity failed to explain the motions in the inner regions of galaxies. Meanwhile the search for a hypothesized large object in the distant reaches of our solar system has so far come up
Surprises from Bennu and the Milky Way
Analysis of the samples returned from the asteroid Bennu have revealed surprising assemblages of minerals that put new constraints on the origin of the solar system. And once Top Quark Jim Cooney stops giggling, he tells us about the discovery of an itsy-bitsy galaxy, if you can call it that, orbiting the Milky way. It has only dozens of stars, plus, probably some dark matter. Join us for these su
The Dark Ages of the Universe
We peer back in time both to the murky history of our own solar system and to the dark ages of the universe. The JWST has confirmed that dwarf galaxies were the first to illuminate the universe, putting an end to the dark ages that followed the cooling after the big bang. In our own corner of the universe, new research highlights how nearby stars can lead to dramatic changes in our planet's climat
