Ep. 706: China’s Space Program

Astronomy Cast Ep. 637: Machine Learning in Astronomy by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay Computers are a big part of astronomy, but mostly they've been relegated to doing calculations. But recent developments in machine learning have changed everything, giving computers the ability to do jobs that humans could only do in the past.

4 Huhti 202229min

Astronomy Cast Ep. 636: Blowing Bubbles by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay We think of space as a vacuum, but there are regions of different density. There are winds blowing from stars and other objects that clear out vast bubbles in space, and look absolutely fantastic in pictures. And they might have been critical for Earth to even exist in the first place.

28 Maalis 202229min

Astronomy Cast Ep. 635: Jets: When Magnetic Fields Fling Things by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay As astronomers look out across the Universe. They see various objects spewing jets of material light years into space. What causes these jets? And what impact do they have on the Universe?

21 Maalis 202226min

Astronomy Cast Ep. 634: Milky Way’s Mergers & Acquisitions by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay The Milky Way is a vast grand spiral today, but how did it get this way? Astronomers are starting to unravel the history of our galaxy, revealing the ancient collisions with dwarf galaxies, and how they came together to build the modern Milky Way.

14 Maalis 202227min

Astronomy Cast Ep. 633: Weirdly Habitable Places by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay We've always assumed that habitable planets would need to be like Earth; a terrestrial planet orbiting a sunlike star. But now astronomers have been discovering planets in the habitable zone around very much non-sunlike stars. What strange places could be habitable?

7 Maalis 202228min

Astronomy Cast Ep. 632: Building Images: Optical vs Radio by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay A recent image from the South African MeerKAT Telescope blew our minds. It was a high resolution image of the center of the Milky Way showing delicate filaments and other structures. What was so mind blowing is that this was an image from a radio telescope. Today we’re gonna talk about why this was such an accomplishment and what the future holds for radio astronomy.

28 Helmi 202229min

Astronomy Cast Ep. 631: All The Uses Of Pulsars (Including Murder) by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay Pulsars are the rapidly spinning degenerate husks of dead stars, turning hundreds of times a second. But they're also handy clocks, spinning with such certainty and accuracy that astronomers can use them for all kinds of stuff. We might even use them to navigate the cosmos.

21 Helmi 202230min

Astronomy Cast Ep. 630: Things We Can Look Forward To by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay In a rare moment of weakness, Pamela has decided she's open to the possibility that a future exists. That missions, telescopes and spacecraft are going to be built and they're going to do science. Today we'll talk about what we're looking forward to before she changes her mind and my naive optimism for the future.

14 Helmi 202227min