AWESOME ASTRONOMY1 Sep 2016

#51 - September 2016

The Discussion: Jeni's astronomy research yields its first results in the hunt for exoplanet phase variation and we revisit our Star Wars podcast extras with a listener's book review.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

An 'Earthlike planet detected by ESO around our nearest stellar neighbour
The upcoming launch of OSIRIS Rex to sample an asteroid
That bump in the data at CERN turns out to be a false hope
That alien megastructure story just won't foxtrot oscar
The Cassini spacecraft spots methane filled canyons on Saturn's moon Titan
A meteorite lands in Yorkshire garden. Real or fake?

Woobusters: Continuing our quest to debunk the myths and conspiracy theories that persist in every dark corner of the news and the internet. This month's topic, picked at random from Paul's festering Hat of Woo: Area 51 – the remote and secret installation in the Nevada desert where sanity gets dissected and reason is left to die.

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 get a question that probes certainty in science and how high certainty discoveries can still turn out to be wrong:

Why when the Bicep two team found the evidence for primordial gravitational waves did they claim it was a five sigma result, and later wasn't it shown the result was not accurate? I thought a five sigma had a 1 in 350million chance of being wrong! There has to be something I don't understand about the sigma scale or the Bicep results? Rodney Cuthbertson.

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An American Astronomer in Cwmdu

It's AstroCamp time again and this time we reveal the dark matter of Awesome Astronomy as Dustin joins us in darkest Welsh Wales. An episode recorded in front of a live AstroCamp audience. Produced by...

21 Sep 57min

Holy Flipping Galaxies Batman!

So it turns the Milkyway may have done a back flip...news about the Swift telescope, NASA raiding its bare cupboards, and a super fast star. Also our usual skyguide and wittering. Ohnand a song. You w...

1 Sep 57min

The Eclipse and the Perseids

Join Paul in his Astronomy lair as he live sketches the Eclipse, chats to neighbours and talks Astronomy news while spotting Perseid meteors. Produced by Paul, Jen, John, Damien & Dustin

15 Aug 45min

Jodrell Bank Murder Club

Angry episode where Paul and Jeni have their blood boiled by the decision to defund Jodrell Bank Observatory and the plans to launch over a million satellites. Produced by Paul, Jeni, Dustin, Damien, ...

2 Aug 1h 11min

Eclipse Girl Summer

Summer is here, so is the heat and so is the Eclipse! Chat, tips and hints about August's Eclipse and the Perseid meteor shower, as well as summer vibes, emails and Jeni dressing up as Max Wall Produc...

24 Juli 1h 8min

When Cosmologists get spicy

This month it appears cosmology is saved, Swift maybe saved and exoplanets have their magnetosphere measured. Jeni has been in the States where she may have been turned into an android visiting Silico...

1 Juli 1h

The Secret History of a Space Mission

The idea that sparked a billion-dollar space telescope was recorded in the most unlikely of places: a scrap of paper fished out a pocket while gondolas sailed by in Venice. In this talk, award-winning...

19 Juni 1h 10min

Objects in the Golden Mirror may be Closer

This month a bit of a JWST fest with news about the cosmic Web (Webb?! ) and those little red dots the seem to be breaking cosmology. There is also our normal skyguide and moon guide. Produced by Paul...

1 Juni 51min