#49 - July 2016

The Discussion: Earthling slave John got married! The new fashion of requesting telescopes at weddings, a good time of year for solar astronomy, the scores are in for the results of Jeni’s master’s degree, Jeni gets a sciencey summer job and we make a joking (but no less genuine) appeal for astronomy equipment to review in future shows. The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have: NASA inflate Bigelow Aerospace’s inflatable habitat on the ISS Progress on NASA’s attempts to send humans beyond low Earth orbit Analysis of ALMA data hints at planetary formation beginning earlier than thought An update on the origins of the elusive Planet 9 The Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft gets ready to orbit the gas giant Arizona astronomers find 65 young galaxies – the oldest galaxy cluster yet discovered 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 Big Hat of Woo, is moon landing hoaxers – the mother of all space-related conspiracy theories! 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 about our own observing and imaging of the skies: How do you think the name of Planet 9 will be chosen if it’s eventually discovered – is it too late to start a campaign for Planet McPlanetface? Gavin Mills from Canberra, Australia