Cosmic Coffee Time with Andrew Prestage

Send us Fan Mail Scientists have long held a theory that there was a black hole in the centre of our milky way galaxy. This was proved some years ago but we've finally got an image of it from real observational data. It's a fascinating story. Let's take a closer look. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for...

Send us Fan Mail Sunspots are darker and cooler areas on the surface of the sun. What causes them? How long do they last? And how do they fit into the 11 year cycle of solar activity? Let's take a look. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you. Email us! c...

Send us Fan Mail You might have heard of pulsars. They're objects that emit regular pulses of radiation. But what are they, how do they form, and what makes them pulse? Let's take a look. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you. Email us! cosmiccoffe...

Send us Fan Mail Galileo Galilei Made some incredible observations of the moon and was a real pioneer in calculating the height of some of the moon's geological features. In 1610 he turned the world of planetary astronomy on its head. He described the phases of Venus, came agonisingly close to discovering the true nature of Saturn's rings, and studied what became to be his namesake syste...

Send us Fan Mail As many as 80% of the stars we see in the night sky could be part of a binary system, two or more stars orbiting each other. So what it a binary system and how can we observe them? We know single stars like our own sun can have a system of planets, but what does that look like for stars in a binary system. Let's take a look. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some speci...

Send us Fan Mail Until the Apollo moon landings, our only samples of material from space were in the form of meteorites. These meteorites gave us an insight into the origins of our solar system, and might even have provided the complex organic molecules that allowed life to develop on our planet.  In this episode we have an awesome chat with noted meteoriticist Greg Brennecka. We explore some of t...

Send us Fan Mail From Mars rovers that were the size of a microwave oven back in the 90s, we now have the Perseverance rover that's the size of a car. And a helicopter. We take a look at the amazing Mars 2020 project that is taking Mars exploration to the next level.  It's collecting samples for future return to Earth and the Ingenuity helicopter is flying through the Martian atmosphere...

Send us Fan Mail There's a strange gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, a gap where Bode's law says we would expect the fifth planet to be. There's no planet there, but there's something else that's just as amazing, it's the asteroid belt. Let's take a look at the four main asteroids and see what makes up the other million identified objects. Follow Cosmic...

Send us Fan Mail Voyager 1 took the famous photograph the Pale Blue Dot. It's the furthest travelled machine ever made by people. At 23 billion km, it takes nearly a full day for its radio signals to reach us. Voyager 2 toured all of the gas planets in our solar system and remains the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune. But it gets even better. Both of these 1970s tech spacecr...

Send us Fan Mail Neptune. Something was perturbing Uranus' orbit, turns out it was the eighth planet, Neptune. Neptune was the first planet to have its existence and position calculated before it was discovered. Let's take a look at Neptune and its major moon Triton. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content  twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the...

Send us Fan Mail Uranus. Stop giggling, is the first planet to be discovered by telescope. The inner planets have always been known about, but Uranus need to wait until the telescope was invented. Let's take a closer look. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content  twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear...

Send us Fan Mail Jupiter is the first of the gas giant planets. Let's take a look at what makes these planets different from the inner planets. It has a fascinating set of moons that help make up the Jovian system, and we find out how it subtle set of planetary rings were discovered. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content  twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a to...

Send us Fan Mail How do you keep a chemistry class's attention in the age of smart phones? Explosions, loud noises and passion! That's how Kate the Chemist does it. Dr. Kate Biberdorf is a professor of chemistry at the University of Texas and she's a science entertainer. She amazed Stephen Colbert with the elephant's toothpaste experiment on Late Night, and blasted a thousand p...

Send us Fan Mail We have a great chat with Earl Swift about NASA's lunar rovers and his new book Across the Airless Wilds. It's a fascinating dive into the last three moon landings and what could be regarded as the pinnacle of human exploration. Earl recounts his time with astronauts Charlie Duke and Dave Scott, and Laszlo Kestay from the United States Geological Survey, and gives us som...

Send us Fan Mail There's a lot about Mars that is very Earth-like, from the length of a day to the kinds of seasons it has. Being a neighbouring planet, it's no surprise that we talk about sending astronauts to Mars.  While we're waiting, let's take a look at some of the super cool spacecraft that have already been to Mars. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special...

Send us Fan Mail Earth. It's home to every living thing we've ever known, but what if we really take a step back and study our planet the same way we study the others. What everyday events have an astronomical cause. And what about all that water, and all that life! Grab a coffee and join us for a view of our own planet, from outside. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special...

Send us Fan Mail Planet Venus is sometimes called Earth's twin. It's the same size and in planetary terms it's close by, but why isn't it our first choice for exploration? Some of the differences make Venus super difficult to study so in a way it remains mysterious.  Why is it difficult to study? And what makes the environment on Venus so harsh? Grab a coffee and join us as we...

Send us Fan Mail We don't get to hear much about planet Mercury. It took us a long time to learn much about it and only two spacecraft have ever been there. Let's take a look at some of the little known but fascinating facts about Mercury's history, why it has the longest day in the solar system and what we've learned from lonely pair of spacecraft that have visited it.   Follo...

Send us Fan Mail So back in the 1930's, astronomers noticed that there didn't seem to be enough mass in galactic clusters to hold them together, but they were held together. There mas be some additional mass and gravity to hold everything together, but where is it? It can't be seen. And this problem produced the theory of dark matter.  Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some s...

Send us Fan Mail Join us for a discussion with David W. Brown about his new book The Mission, the true story of NASA's bold Europa Clipper mission and the search for signs of life on Jupiter's icy ocean moon Europa. David tells us about the incredibly diverse team that put this project together,  why Europa is the most likely place in the solar system to find signs of extraterrestrial li...

Send us Fan Mail So way back in the 90s, NASA launched the bus-sized Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. But it had a huge problem, it couldn't focus the light from space as well as it should have. What went wrong? And how did NASA fix it, so it could stay in service for thirty years? Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a top...

Send us Fan Mail Meteors, they're not falling stars, but what are they? Where do these objects come from and why do they 'burn up' in the atmosphere? And what's the difference between a meteor and a meteorite? We also take a quick look at some of the most famous meteor incidents in history. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content twitter.com/CosmicCoffTime...

Send us Fan Mail Let's take a closer look at the Sun - but not literally. How does it it produce so much energy and why can it do this for billions and billions of years? It's the source of practically all light and heat on Earth, so it's cool to know. What does the future hold for the Sun? How much longer could it support life on Earth? Let's find out Follow Cosmic Coffee Time...

Send us Fan Mail We've had a look at the history of human lunar exploration, but this time we're going to look to the future. We're going back to the moon with project Artemis. Apollo was great, but that was 50 years ago. How are we doing it this time? It will be more flexible and more sustainable. Let's take a look at what's in store for human lunar exploration over the n...

Send us Fan Mail We love the moon. Sometimes we just step outside and it's there waiting for us. There's so much to explore with the moon, we're taking a few episodes to get right into it. Here's part 4. Let's continue our look at the exploration of the moon, this time it's the Apollo missions. It's incredible that people have been to the moon, and almost as unbe...