Walkabout the Galaxy

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 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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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.

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...

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. 

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...

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!

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.

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. 

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...

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.

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...

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. 

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.

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...

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.

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.

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....

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...

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...

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...