Universe Today Podcast

Plate tectonics could be incredibly rare, LEGO bricks made from actual space rocks, mapping the Milky Way’s dark matter halo, and Perseverance’s SHERLOC instrument is fully operational again.

China returns samples from the far side of the Moon, SpaceX will be de-orbiting ISS, could you surf the methane waves on Titan, and who knows when Starliner is coming home

Not every new space mission needs a separate launch and dedicated hardware. With this proposal, there's a huge potential for finding signals from primordial black holes by just using signals from a spacecraft flying to Uranus or Neptune. No additional hardware required.

How often do objects fall into the Sun? Why do some stars explode as novae, not as Type 1a supernovae? Can the US Army just donate NASA a Hubble 2? Will humans be living underground on Mars? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A.

AI is practically everywhere right now. But what practical use does it have in science? How can machine learning and large language models help in Astronomy and Cosmology? What can they look like and what use can we get out of them? Guest: Dr Mike Smith

How old is Jupiter’s Red Spot, watching a supermassive black hole wake up, the earliest merging quasars, and Starliner still hasn’t come home.

What are primordial black holes and how are they different from all the other kinds of black holes out there? How could we possibly detect them and what would it mean for Cosmology? Can primordial black holes be a solution for dark matter? Finding out the answers in this interview. Guest: Jason Kristiano

Satellites run out of fuel and have to de-orbit and end their missions. But what if they had access to a practically infinite amount of fuel? What if they could scoop air from the atmosphere and use it as propellant? That is exactly the research that Dr Mansur Tisaev is doing! Guest: Dr. Mansur Tisaev

What percentage of stars live in binary systems? Are there Lagrange points all the way down? Can there be a rogue gravitational wave? Why do stars twinkle? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show.

Mars is full of toxic perchlorates that can be very harmful for future human missions. So, when people go to Mars, they will need to fix it. NASA has awarded a NIAC grant for a project that can help solving this problem. It's called Detoxifying Mars: the biocatalytic elimination of omnipresent perchlorates. 👉 More about the NIAC project: https://www.nasa.gov/general/detoxifying-mars/ 🟣 Guests: D...

We’re now weeks away from a nova, NASA is looking for new Mars Sample Return mission ideas, there’s frost on Olympus Mons, and watching asteroids collide in another star system. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1198440-universe-today-book-club 00:00 Intro 00:15 A nova's coming https://www.universetod...

What kind of science can we do with telescopes on the Moon? Giant radio dishes in craters, gravitational wave detectors, UV-interferometers and much more. How Starship will completely change this field and enable new opportunities. 🟣 Guest: Dr. Martin Elvis https://cfa.harvard.edu/people/martin-elvis 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: ht...

What is the coldest place in the known Universe? Which object that has a name is the most distant in the Solar System? What would be the best use for SpaceX Starship? How do satellites avoid collisions? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/sh...

Another Test of SpaceX Starship Superheavy combo, another analysis of the flight with Scott Manley and Marcus House! Super Heavy soft-landed in the ocean. Starship survived re-entry. What does it mean for SpaceX? 📺 Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/@scottmanley 📺 Marcus House: https://www.youtube.com/@MarcusHouse 🚀 IFT-3 Analysis: https://youtu.be/EVic941kQ44 🚀 IFT-2 Analysis: https://yout...

Starship is successful on its fourth flight, Starliner reaches the station, carrying people, Hubble is only using one gyro, and Chang’e-6 scoops samples from the Moon and heads for home. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1198440-universe-today-book-club 00:00 Intro 00:14 Starship IFT-4 https://www.uni...

How much water will a proper Moon base need? Where can we get it from? How can we manage and maintain the water? How will this approach work on Mars and beyond? Finding out the answers with Dr Jeffrey Lee. 🟣 Guest: Dr. Jeffrey Lee https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dX5MnbUAAAAJ&hl=en 📜 Water Management Considerations for a Self-Sustaining Moonbase https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14100 🦄 S...

How would they get a 14-meter mirror to space? Are we sure there's no life on the Moon? Can there be Lagrange points around Lagrange points? How much mass does Earth gain and lose to space? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1198440-univers...

Lava tubes are one of the most interesting places on the Moon. They can be a great place for a potential lunar base, but they also can be a time capsule that can tell us about the entire history of the Moon. And there's a very interesting mission in development that could explore lava tubes. It's called Lunar Leaper. Guest: Dr Anna Mittelholz 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universet...

Starship is ready for its 4th flight, Webb finds the most distant galaxy ever seen, a new way to detect Hawking Radiation, and fresh volcanoes on Venus. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1198440-universe-today-book-club 00:00 Intro 00:14 Starship Flight 4 Coming Soon 01:55 Starliner might finally fly...

Where can we observe the effects of dark matter? How did all satellites survive the recent solar storms? Why auroras can show different colours? If we found Planet X, could we even observe it? Answering all these questions and more in this week's Q&A show. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1198440...

NASA selected the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF) for Phase 1 in 2024. It will be studying a possibility to search for existing and past life on Mars alongside the in situ resource utilization process. How will this device work and what potential implications could it have? Finding out with Dr Jan Spacek. 👉 Dr Jan Spacek: https://www.alfamars.org/team/jan-spacek/ 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patr...

A proposal for a giant new space telescope, a Venus-sized world in a star’s habitable zone, Vera Rubin gets its camera, and the first data release from Euclid. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1198440-universe-today-book-club 00:00 Intro 00:14 SALTUS: Giant 14m space telescope proposal https://www.un...

Getting to Enceladus is cool. However, it's not yet possible because there isn't enough budget for it. How can we make missions like that happen despite the budget limitations? Finding out the answers with Dr Manasvi Lingam. 👉 Manasvi Lingam's Google Scholar Page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XLPj80AAAAAJ&hl=en 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Sugges...

A new answer for Mars methane, BepiColumbo is having thruster problems, three of the oldest stars in the Universe found nearby, and the best auroras in decades. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1198440-universe-today-book-club 00:00 Intro 00:14 Mars Methane Mystery https://www.universetoday.com/16700...

How exactly does Gaia operate? What should we expect from it in the near future? When and why will it come to an end? And what comes after Gaia? Finding out the answers with Dr Berry Holl. 👉 Gaia Black Hole 3 discovery seminar at the Department of astronomy Geneva https://mediaserver.unige.ch/play/218992 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 📚 Suggest books in the book club...