The Astroholic Explains

Our Christmas special is finally here! This time we have a murder mystery set in a space hotel during a total solar eclipse featuring a full array of suspicious guests. Who among these peculiar characters is a murderer? Please enjoy our latest work: "Death by Eclipse"  Starring (in order of appearance): Steven Di Costa as the Narrator,  Chris Carpineti as Dafydd Morgan, Suze Kundu as Son...

Our final episode for season two is another fictional one. Our drama starts on a damaged starship at the edge of the solar system. Its commander has forgotten who she is, what she's doing there, and who the other passengers in this vessel are. The episode features the voices of Chris Carpineti, Danielle Emina, Dr Suze Kundu, Emily, Lucy & Claire Waller, Tom Hale, Sacha Coward, Katy Evans, Hann...

For the final factual episode of season 2, we have crowdsourced many questions about space. Tune in to discover how many atoms are in the universe, how we can tell that galaxies rotate, how we measure the speed of stars, what would happen if we blew up the Moon, and many more questions!

Uranus and Neptune are the Ice Giants of the Solar System. We are joined by Naomi Rowe-Gurney ,  who specializes in studying their atmospheres to uncover their mysteries, from their diamond rains to their likely funky smells!

A new fictional episode for you! A billionaire planning to nuke Mars send two hapless idiots to confirm that the planet is sterile. What could go wrong? We are also joined by Anuradha Damale to talk about nuclear weapons & space policy. This episode starred Sacha Coward as Andrew, Sheldon Goodman as Joe, Chris Carpineti as the Narrator, Trip Galey as Jeb Tusk, and Anne Jones as Janine. It was...

In this episode, we answer @BlueMouseEeek 's 4-year-old's question regarding planets beyond Earth that can support life as well as facing the issues of a silicon-based life form. 

We are answering more of our listeners' questions in this episode. Jake wonders: how come all the planets in the solar system orbit almost on the same plane? And the answer has a culinary analogy!

We are back with a big apocalyptic question! In this episode, we talk about how the Sun will change and evolve and how that will impact the planets, moons, and space rocks of the Solar System

We have a new fictional episode for you to enjoy, based around first contact with an alien civilization. This is The Message! This episode was guest-edited by Dr Shaun O’Boyle. Secretary-General of the UN - Prayas Khan was played by Dr Suze Kundu. The Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs - James O’Brian was played by Karl Byrne, and the Chief of Staff - Damien Carré was Be...

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Joby Hollis who is part of the science team of the NASA Perseverance rover to tackle the question of life on the Red Planet, and what to expect from Perseverance when it lands on Mars in 2021. 

In this episode, we are pulled towards the topic of gravity wells and we are caught in the cosmic web, talking about the origin of galaxies.

In this episode, we talk about what happens in the shadows around our planet, from the phases of the Moon to why eclipses can turn our satellite blood red!

In this episode, we are joined by European Space Agency scientist Dr. Dave Williams who talks about the incredible Solar Orbiter mission. This will study the solar wind, the interior of the Sun, and will observe the polar region of our star for the very first time! 

We are back for season 2 and we start with a question every supervillain wants answering: how to completely annihilate the Earth using whatever the cosmos provides! 

In this first Christmas Special, guest-produced by Shaun O'Boyle, we leave our standard format behind and jump into a world of science fiction and horror. This is brought to life by the extraordinary voices of Katy Evans, Dr Suze Kundu, Powder Scofield, and Russell Moul.

Space around the Earth is full of junk and one of our listeners asks "what are we doing about that?"  To answer's this question we bring in an expert, Joshua Lurie and dive deep into ways to clean up after ourselves in space.  

Can we send a probe inside a black hole? And why are we so obsessed with the Milky Way? This and more in this episode of The Astroholic Explains!

In this episode we talk about globular clusters and how they help us work out the age of stars, and then return to our neighbourhood to investigate the rumour of an undiscovered planet in the Solar System.

This time we answer two questions from the same person. Laurie asks if other solar systems are likely to be similar to ours, and about the risk of pregnancy in space. 

In this episode we answer two different but equally important questions. What would the headlights on a spaceship moving at the speed of light look like, and are there actually aliens out there? 

In this episode we tackle two more questions from our lovely listeners. The first is about what determines the rotation of planets and the second one focuses on the matter at hand: are we really made from stardust? 

In this episode, we answer two listeners' questions one about Flat-Earthers and one about astrology. Surprisingly, it is not as ranty as you might expect, at least not from Alfredo. No more spoilers, have a listen and get in touch if you have more questions. 

Almost 111 years after the Tunguska Event we answer our first (unexpectedly nepotistic) crowdsourced question about the risk of an asteroid impact, and we try to wrap our heads around just how devastating such events could be!

In this episode we investigate the Goldilocks Zone, the area around a star where planets might have the right conditions for habitability, and we travel through the solar system to look for life outside Earth.

The Milky Way is on a collision course with the closest major galaxy, Andromeda. What's going to happen to our solar system when the two objects finally collide? Find out in this episode of The Astroholic Explains!