#78 - December 2018 Part 1

The Discussion: Arthur Eddington, the Caldwell catalogue and a round-up of emails to the show. The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have: Waiting for a Gamma Ray Burst Watching the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole feeding Finding a massive meteorite under 1km of ice in Greenland The discovery that the Milky Way has another satellite galaxy The Hyades is bigger than we thought – much bigger! Silica dust from supernovae discovered Main news story: The discovery of an exoplanet around Barnard’s Star just 6 light year away. The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in December: Ralph: Mars & Neptune conjunction, The Geminds meteor shower & Comet 46P Wirtanen at perihelion Paul: Venus, Uranus, Mercury & Jupiter Jeni: The Hyades in Taurus Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we take a look USAF’s rocket funding decision: What makes a galaxy? When is it a galaxy rather than just a cluster of stars? Wullie Mitchell, Scotland.