George Bendo
George's Random Astronomical Object
George's Random Astronomical Object is a biweekly astronomy podcast featuring science discussions about astronomical objects at randomly selected locations in the sky. The wide range of topics discussed in the show include stars, variable stars, variable variable stars, supermassive black holes, ultracool dwarf stars, exoplanets, howler monkeys, infrared radiation, acronyms, more acronyms, starbursts, measurements of less than 12 parsecs, jellyfish galaxies, diffuse ionized gas, and general overall weirdness.
Author
George Bendo
Category
Podcast website
Latest episode
Jun 22, 2026
Where to listen?
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Episodes
Object 28: Stellar Assassination 24.08.2020 9:09
PGC 43234 was a relatively uninteresting galaxy until its central supermassive black hole shredded a star in an event known as ASASSN-14li.
Object 27: More Powerful than a Football Player with a Rocket Launcher 10.08.2020 11:52
WR 40 is one of the brightest and best-studied Wolf-Rayet stars, a class of stars that are so hot that they are blowing themselves apart.
Object 26: Cold at 14 Million Degrees Celsius 27.07.2020 9:31
The group of galaxies called the IC 1860 Group looks like it was recently disturbed by a spiral galaxy falling into it.
Object 25: The Ultracool Neighbor 13.07.2020 9:35
The nearby star DENIS J104814.7-395606 is cool (in the sense that it is awesome) because it is so cool (in the sense that it has a very low surface temperature for a star).
Object 24: Too Fast but Not Too Furious 29.06.2020 9:27
PSR 0820+02 is the second pulsar ever discovered to be in a binary star system.
Object 23: The Counterrevolutionary from Centaurus 15.06.2020 10:00
A number of peculiarities about the lenticular galaxy NGC 5102 indicate that a dwarf galaxy fell into it several hundred million years ago.
Object 22: Above and Below or Something Like That 01.06.2020 14:59
NGC 55 has the interesting distinction of being the closest galaxy to Earth that is seen edge-on, and it also contains an ultraminous X-ray source (ULX) uncreatively named NGC 55 ULX.
Object 21: Retro Gaming and Star Formation 18.05.2020 9:43
NGC 281, which is also called the Pacman Nebula, is a place where star formation has been triggered two different ways, although the stars are not chased by any Ghost Nebulae.
Object 20: A Classic Non-Comet 04.05.2020 10:39
Even though it may be rather ordinary from a scientific standpoint, the open cluster Messier 23 is a very popular with amateur astronomers.
Object 19: Probably Not the Y2K Bug 20.04.2020 9:33
Everything about the triple star system V505 Sgr looked normal aside from an abrupt change in the orbits of the stars sometime around the year 2000.
Object 18: 0.2 Seconds of Gamma Rays 06.04.2020 7:34
The short gamma ray burst GRB 100206A was found in a luminous infrared galaxy, which is very unusual place to find such gamma ray bursts.
Object 17: Confusing U 23.03.2020 9:22
4U 1957+115 is a low mass X-ray binary, a binary star system with a normal star about the size of the Sun and a relatively small black hole three times the mass of the Sun, and it also has an unfortunately confusing name.
Object 16: Playing Golf on the Moon 09.03.2020 13:55
The extremely bright, point-like emission from J1955+5131 in visible light and radio waves makes it useful for matching up images from different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as an interesting object in its own right.
Object 15: Calibrated Variability 24.02.2020 13:36
Despite the variability of the gamma radiation from J0510+1800, this blazar is used as a flux calibrator at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.
Object 14: Exoplanetary Acronym 103b 10.02.2020 10:18
WASP-103 has an acronym for a name and also has a gaseous planet orbiting so close to it that the planet is in danger of being destroyed.
Object 13: Stellar Companion Facial Reconstruction 27.01.2020 7:55
BV Centaurus is an unusual example of a class of U Gem cataclysmic variable stars in which a white dwarf is stripping gas from a companion star.
Object 12: Watching Infrared Paint Dry 13.01.2020 11:00
ELAIS N1 is a extragalactic deep field selected specifically for identifying many distant, faint galaxies at infrared wavelengths.
Object 11: Howling Fast Differential Rotation 30.12.2019 9:06
Psi Capricorni was the first star other than the Sun where the phenomenon of differental rotation was ever measured.
Object 10: Ram Your Jellyfish 16.12.2019 11:28
Abell 85 is a large, nearby cluster of galaxies with so many things happening inside that it could be called a ball of chaos.
Object 9: A Cruise Holiday with a Peculiar Carbon Star 02.12.2019 9:34
The star HD 214714 contains not only a large amount of carbon in its stellar atmosphere but also a peculiar combination of other heavy elements as well.
Object 8: A Misbehaving LIRG 18.11.2019 10:58
II Zw 96 is a luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) where most of the infrared emission comes from some type of off-center region, which is weird compared to most other LIRGs.
Object 7: Circles within Circles 04.11.2019 11:23
30 Ari contains four stars and an exoplanet all arranged in a rather complex set of nested orbits.
Object 6: Extra Peculiar 21.10.2019 8:15
HD 98851 is both an Am chemically peculiar star and a delta Scuti variable star, and it has two different pulsation cycles, which makes it really peculiar.
Object 5: Some Unexpected Helium 07.10.2019 10:31
RV Octantis would be considered a run-of-the-mill RR Lyrae variable star if it wasn't for the unexpected discovery of helium in its atmosphere.
Object 4: A Damp Lyman Alpha Elephant 23.09.2019 13:35
The most interesting thing about the quasar LBSQ 0058+0155 is not the quasar itself but the galaxy between the quasar and Earth.
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