Pythagorean Astronomy

This month saw the announcement of two follow-up discoveries of two explosive events. Firstly observations of one of the highest energy ever gamma ray burst ever seen, detected back in January, have identified where it originated. Meanwhile, colleagues in Cardiff University have been searching for signs of a remnant neutron star at the heart of Supernova 1987A (which was observed to explode back i...

October 2019 saw the first all-female spacewalk, and the discover of 20 new moons of Saturn. There were also more observations of interstellar comet Borisov, and evidence for the Milky Way's black hole having sent out a violent flare several million years ago. Chris and Edward discuss these latest stories. October also saw a planned hiatus in operations of the LIGO and Virgo detectors, which are m...

The space news cycle was dominated for a while this month with the discovery of water vapour in the atmosphere of planet K2-18b. The planet is in the habitable zone of its star, but is somewhat larger than the Earth - what does that mean for its habitability? Meanwhile, radio astronomers have discovered the most massive neutron star found to date - close to the maximum theoretical limit. Closer to...

The summer might be "silly season" in the press, but not so in astronomy. With peroxide on moons and belching black holes there's lots of sensible research going on for us to discuss. A number of recent rocket engine tests lead us to consider what the near future of space travel might look like, with a proposed "lunar gateway" providing a staging point for explorers. Where might they go? Perhaps a...

July 1969 was the month that the first people walked on the Moon. 12 people walked on the surface of our celestial neighbour between 1969 and 1972. Since then, humanity has been confined to low-Earth orbit. There is talk of sending people back to the Moon, on timescales that vary depending on who you talk to. There’s also talk of missions to Mars, possibly in the next few decades. But for the vast...

Mars is covered in craters, but most of them are very old. But new ones do appear from time-to-time, created when objects hit the surface of the red planet. That's just what happened at some point a couple of years ago, producing one of Mars' youngest craters. Higher up in Mars' atmosphere, scientists are also learning about the role the micrometeorites play in forming clouds. And how can the Moon...

A roundup of the month's news from around the Solar System - and beyond. You don't think of mars rovers having drawers, but that's exactly what has just been installed on the Rosalind Franklin Rover, part of ESA's ExoMars mission. This is no ordinary drawer, of course, but the "Analytical Laboratory Drawer", designed to test martian soil for the presence of biomarkers or microfossils, either of wh...

14th May 2009 marked the the launch of the Herschel Space Observatory. Herschel was a cornerstone mission for ESA, the European Space Agency, with the goal of unveiling the hidden Universe. In this special bonus edition of Pythagorean Astronomy, marking 10 years since Herschel's launch, Cardiff University's Dr Chris North finds out how it did this, and what astronomers have uncovered over the past...

A roundup of the month's news from around the Solar System - and beyond. Starting with the Moon, where the first attempt by a privately funded organisation to land on the Moon has ended in a crash-landing. Despite the sad end, the Beresheet mission was otherwise a success, and a promising start for privately funded missions around the Solar System. Further afield, there are new results from the Ex...

In December 2018 an object hit the Earth's atmosphere at over 100,000 kph over the Arctic Ocean, entirely unnoticed, until the orange streak was spotted in satellite imagery. Meanwhile, two missions are currently exploring much larger asteroids - Japan's Hyabusa-2 mission to Ryugu and NASA's Osiris-REX mission to Bennu. Chris North and Edward Gomez discuss the unexpected impact and the latest resu...

Chris North and Edward Gomez discuss the latest events from around the Solar System. Hayabusa 2 has successfully hopped down onto the surface of Ryugu, meanwhile an Israeli lander has been launched to the Moon, where it will also hop about. Further afield, there are new clues to the origin of Neptune's odd little moon Hippocamp. Down hear on Earth, the LOFAR radio telescope array has produced the...

Chris North and Edward Gomez discuss the latest events from around the Solar System. At the start of the year, the Chinese Space Agency successfully landed their latest lander (Chang'e 4) on the far side of the Moon. The lander also carried a rover, Yutu 2, which has begun exploring the lunar surface, and a radio telescope. Further from the Sun, new analysis of data from the Cassini spacecraft has...

Chris North, Mat Allen and Sarah Roberts discuss the highlights of 2018, and look forward to 2019. From missions to the inner Solar System, landers on Mars, and rovers on asteroids, lots has happened. In 2019, we're looking forward to New Horizon's flyby of Ultima Thule out in the Kuiper Belt, more results from the asteroid belt, courtesy of both Hayabusa-2 and Osiris-Rex, and developments in comm...

Chris North, Matt Smith and Sarah Roberts discuss the landing of NASA's Insight probe, which is set to investigate the interior of Mars and search for Mars-quakes. Closer to home, we're celebrating 20 years of the International Space Station this month. In astrophysics research, Cardiff researchers, including Matt, were involved in a study of exploding stars, and identifying where many of the Univ...

Chris North, Sarah Roberts and Mat Allen discuss the launch of Bepi Colombo, which is on its way to study the planet Mercury. Meanwhile, the Hayabusa 2 mission continues its exploration of the asteroid Ryugu, while the Hubble Space Telescope has experienced a problem with its gyros - we discuss what that means for the telescope. (Update: the Hubble Space Telescope is back up and running again). El...

Chris North, Sarah Roberts and Mat Allen discuss a number of recent news stories. One of the latest planets to be discovered, "40 Eridani A a", seems to be a lot like the fictional planet Vulcan, home to Spock in Star Trek. The RemoveDEBRIS mission has test-fired its net, and the Hyabusa 2 mission has successfully sent to rovers bouncing around the asteroid Ryugu. There's also new results from the...

Earlier this month it was announced that an entrepreneur would like to launch an "artificial star" into orbit, adding to the mass of space junk. Chris North and Edward Gomez give their views on the matter, and how missions such as RemoveDEBRIS might help. Further afield, there's more water on Mars - or in this case beneath its surface - and ice near the poles of the Moon. While these seem like per...

July's astronomy update from Chris North and Edward Gomez. It was announced this month that Jupiter has got even more moons than previously thought, with its total haul now coming in at 79! We discuss why the new moons are odd. The Very Large Telescope in Chile also made a new discovery – a very young planet forming in the dusty disk of material around its star. And back here on Earth, the MeerKAT...

There were new results about organic compounds from two places in the Solar System this month: the planet Mars and the dwarf planet Ceres. We discuss what organic compounds are, and why their discovery doesn’t mean we’ve found life, but is still an interesting find. Further afield, the ALMA telescope has been finding planets orbiting other stars. While we know of over 3000 exoplanets to date, thes...

In May 2018 we welcomed to Cardiff a Nobel Prize winner: Professor Barry Barish, who was one of the scientists who founded the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, As regular listeners will remember, LIGO made the first direct detection of gravitational waves a few years ago. Barry’s been involved with the experiments for many years, and as such was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics...

This month has seen missions large and small launch towards Mars, and new results from the Gaia satellite. Meanwhile, astronomers have been using machine learning to address a number of problems – we discuss a couple of examples which have been published recently. Finally, there have been exciting new signs of plumes from Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons – something that future missions might be abl...

April saw Liverpool host the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science, from which there were a many new developments and discoveries, a few of which we discuss this month. The conference came just days after the NASA and ESA made the announcement that the largest astronomy project in recent times, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be delayed. It's launch has been pushed back from the (alrea...

Earlier this month the world was saddened to hear of the death of Professor Stephen Hawking, arguably one of the most famous physicists of recent times. He died peacefully at the age of 76, having lived with the debilitating condition of motor neurone disease which he was diagnosed with in his early 20s. Despite that he contributed hugely to science and its popularisation. This month we discuss th...

To accompany the March episode of Pythagorean Astronomy remembering Professor Stephen Hawking, we’re also releasing the uncut(!) version of the interview with Professor Peter Coles, in which he discusses the theories for which Stephen Hawking is famous – in particular Hawking radiation.

Ever taken a selfie on your birthday? Well, that's just what the Mars Rover Opportunity did to celebrate its 5000th "sol" (martian day) on Mars. This doesn't sound like much, but 5000 sols is about 14 years - not bad for a rover that was only expected to last about 3 months! The selfie - the first one Opportunity has ever taken - was thought up and coordinated by Doug Ellison, who has been involve...