McGill Podcasts » AstroMcGill: Recent Episodes
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Tom Prince visited McGill as part of the opening of the new McGill Space Institute. We talk to Tom about his work with the Palomar Transient Factory and the upcoming Zwicky Transient Facility. Guest: Tom Prince(California Institute of Technology). Hosts: Robert Archibald and Emilie Parent. Duration: 25 minutes. Production: Nick Adelson.
We were visited by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered pulsars during her graduate studies in the 1960s. She talks to us about the still highly active field of pulsar astronomy and her varied career since their discovery. We also discuss her tireless advocacy for women in physics and astronomy. Guest: Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Oxford University). Hosts: Robert [...]
Chiara talks to us about how timing the rotation of pulsars can be used to detect gravitational waves–ripples in the very fabric of the cosmos. Guest: Chiara Mingarelli (California Institute of Technology). Hosts: Erik Madsen and Chitrang Patel. Duration: 19 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
Enrico talks to us about the formation of heavy elements in the Universe through processes such as neutron star mergers. Guest: Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz (University of California Santa Cruz). Hosts: Robert Archibald and Chitrang Patel. Duration: 17 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
Bryan talks to us about magnetic fields in the Universe (and a little bit about cows). Guest: Bryan Gaensler (University of Toronto, Dunlap Institute). Hosts: Erik Madsen and Gabrielle Simard. Duration: 21 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
We discussed how astronomers can studied cosmology, the formation and evolution of the Universe, by observing nearby dwarfs galaxies, instead of extremely distant galaxies at the edge of the Universe. Guest: Beth Willman (Haverford College). Hosts: Erik Madsen and Gabrielle Simard. Duration: 23 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
We talked about exoplanets, detecting exoplanets through measurements of radial velocities, and what we can look forward to from this field in the near future. The two websites mentioned during the podcast are exoplanets.org and the Habitable Zone Planet Finder. Guest: Jason Wright Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Erik Madsen Duration: 40 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
We discussed the large-scale structure of the Universe and how we can understand it from observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background emission, the relic light from the formation of the Universe. Guest: Kendrick Smith Hosts: Robert Archibald and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 13 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
The topic of this week’s podacst with Sara Ellison was the merging of galaxies. Guest: Sara Ellison Hosts: Sean Griffin and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 19 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
In this podcast, we talked about the nuclear explosion happening on the surface of neutron star, and how these objects located thousands of light years away can be used to better understand nuclear physics. Guest: Laurens Keek Hosts: Sebastien Guillot Duration: 20 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
We talked about white dwarf stars, and the possible existence of planets around them. Guest: Gilles Fontaine (Université de Montréal) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 22 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
Sara Seager was one of the invited guest of the Lorne Trottier 2014 Public Science Symposium, and we had the chance for record a podcast with her. The topic of this episode was the search for planets outside of our Solar System, including planets that could be hosting life, and how we would detect those [...]
During his visit for the Lorne Trottier 2014 Public Science Symposium, we had the chance to sit with Jim Bell for an AstroMcGill podcast We talked about exploration of the Solar System, and his involvement with Mars exploration missions. Guest: Jim Bell (Arizona State University and Planetary Society) Hosts: Robert Archibald and Sean Griffin Duration: [...]
We discussed galaxy clusters, the growth of large scale structure in the Universe, and Marc’s work on the MUSTANG 2 detector at the Green Bank Telescope. Guest: Marc Delvin (U. of Pennsynvania) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Robert Archibald Duration: 24 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
During this episode, we talked about his PhD research work on the observations of the gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background with the South Pole Telescope. Guest: Kyle Story (U. of Chicago) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 15 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
Following her lecture for the Physical Society Colloquium at McGill, we recorded this episode during which we talked about supermassive black-holes and active galactic nuclei. Guest: Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo (U. Montreal) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 19 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
Welcome to the 4th season of the AstroMcGill Podcasts. This week with Wladimir Lyra, we discussed how gases and tiny rocks around a star combine to form the different objects of a planetary system. Guest: Wladimir Lyra (CalTech/JPL) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Dave Tsang Duration: 20 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
The discussion was focused on pulsars in binary systems, which are very useful to test different theories of gravity. General relativity – Einstein’s theory – wonderfully predicts the observations of pulsars in the highly-relativistic environments of binary systems. Guest: Emmauel Fonseca (UBC) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Chen Karako. Duration: 22 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
Guest: Dick Manchester (ATNF) We had the chance to receive Dick at McGill for a special visit. During this episode, we had a broad discussion about pulsars, these very compact objects that we still do not understand very well, but that are extremely useful to better understand some areas of physics. Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Dave Tsang [...]
Guest: Sarah Burke Spolaor (CalTech) The discussion of this podcast was centered on a new and unknown type of astrophysical phenomenon, called Fast Radio Bursts, very brief bursts of radiation disappearing as fast as they appeared. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 22 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
Guest: Coleman Miller (U. of Maryland) We had a great discussion about the formation of supermassive black-holes, and black-holes of all sorts. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 21 minutes Production: Mike Collicutt.
Guest: Leslie Rogers (CalTech) During this podcast, we had a general discussion about exoplanets. Host: Dave Tsang Duration: 11 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan.
Guest: Mariska Kriek (U. of California, Berkeley) Mariska’s work is focused on the study of galaxies. We discussed how galaxies formed, how they evolved across cosmic times, and how they form stars from the gas and dust they contain. Host: James Kennedy and Ryan Lynch Duration: 23 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan.
Guest: Falk Herwig (U. of Victoria) This podcast discussion focused on stars and how they create the “heavy” elements present in the Universe, in other words, the nuclear reactions that led to the expression “We are made of star stuff”. To view the videos mentioned in this episode, see this page and this page. Host: Ryan Lynch Duration: 26 minutes [...]
Guest: Jeff McMahon (U. of Michigan) Jeff’s field of study is cosmology. During this podcast, we talked about his work on measurements of the cosmic microwave background and his involvement with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot Duration: 26 minutes Production: Mike Collicutt
Guest: Matt Mountain (Director of STScI) We had a very interesting and inspiring discussion about the Hubble Space Telescope, and the many discoveries made by this telescope. We also talked about Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, and its potential to search for life outside of our Solar system. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot [...]
Guest: Anna Frebel (MIT). Anna studies very old stars, almost as old as the Universe itself. We discussed the implication of their existence and how she is looking for these peculiar and very faint stars. She also posts videos sharing her experiences at some of the largest telescopes in the world. Check out her YouTube [...]
Guest: David Nataf (Australian National University). David observes the stars in the bulge of our Galaxy to measure their abundance of helium and their ages, an important step to understand the history of our Galaxy. Host: James Kennedy. Duration: 22 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan
Guest: Daisuke Nagai (Yale) We talked about computational cosmology, and how computer simulations can help us understand many things about the Universe. Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and James Kennedy Duration: 22 minutes
Guest: Andrea Ghez (UCLA) Andrea visited the Physics Department to give the Anna I. McPherson Lectures 2013/2014 and it was our pleasure to record this podcast with her. We discussed her recent work on the supermassive black hole at the center of our Galaxy, and the observational techniques developed to indirectly observe it. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot Duration: 25 minutes
Guest: Philip Muirhead (Boston University). He is interested in the wide variety of exoplanets orbiting other stars, especially low-mass stars. We talked about the detection of exoplanets and the results from the Kepler mission. Host: Ryan Lynch. Duration: 18 minutes.
Guest: Andrey Timokhin (NASA/GSFC). We discussed his research on pulsars and their emission mechanism. Hosts: Robert Archibald and James Kennedy. Duration: 18 minutes.
Guest: Peter Martin (CITA, UToronto). His current research focuses on the dust present in our Galaxy. We discussed what this galactic dust is, how it is detected, and what we can learn from it. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 25 minutes.
Guest: Robert Archibald (McGill) Robert Archibald published the first firm detection of an anti-glitch in a magnetar. An anti-glitch is a sudden decrease of the rotation period of a magnetar (a neutron star with a very large magnetic field), by opposition to the frequently-observed glitches which are sudden increase of the period (spin-up). This discevery can have [...]
Guest: Ryan Lynch (McGill) Ryan studies neutron stars and in particular, pulsars. He was part a collaboration who discovered a massive pulsar in a binary system, which allows to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Hosts: Robert Archibald and Sebastien Guillot Duration: 25 minutes
Guest: David H. Shoemaker (MIT). David is part of the advancedLaser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), and we discussed gravitational waves and how LIGO is expected to detect these ripples in the curvature of space-time predicted by Einstein. Hosts: Ryan Lynch, Sean Griffin, and Dave Tsang. Duration: 21 minutes.
Guest: Lucy Fortson (U. of Minnesota). While Lucy’s initial research interest were focused on high-energy astrophysics, she joined the Zooniverse collaboration (initially the GalaxyZoo project), an online citizen-science project. We discussed what the project its challenges are, as well as some of the science that resulted from it. If you are interest in joining one of the [...]
Guest: Dan Stinebring (Oberlin College). The discussion was focused on gravitational waves and the NANOGrav collaboration. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sean Griffin. Duration: 17 minutes.
Guest: Aaron Parsons (UC, Berkeley). We talked about the PAPER experiment, which is hoping to shed light on the end of the “dark ages” of the Universe, just as the first stars and galaxies started to form. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sean Griffin. Duration: 19 minutes.
Guest: Maxim Lyutikov (Purdue University). We discussed how and why pulsars emit radiation at radio wavelengths, and at higher energies in the gamma-ray and X-ray bands. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Dave Tsang. Duration: 19 minutes.
Special podcast with 2011 Physics Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt (Australian National University). We had the honor of receiving Brian Schmidt for a podcast interview, during which we talked about his discovery that the Universe was expanding. Brian Schmidt, Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Dave Tsang. Duration: 27 minutes.
Guest: Christian Ott (CalTech). We discussed the death of massive stars, called supernova explosions, and how we can try to understand them with computer simulations. Here is a link to the YouTube channel mentioned during the podcast: SXS Collaboration YouTube Channel. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Dave Tsang. Duration: 24 minutes.
Guest: Joanna Rankin (U. of Vermont). In this episode, the discussion was focused on her work on the emission mechanism of pulsars, sometimes called “cosmic lighthouses”. Hosts: Sean Griffin, Ryan Lynch and Dave Tsang. Duration: 20 minutes.
Guest: Chris Thompson (CITA, U of Toronto). We discussed his research on gamma-ray bursts and magnetars. Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 19 minutes.
Guest: Chelsea Sharon (Rutgers University). We talked about the study of star formation in very distant galaxies. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 18 minutes.
Guest: Victoria Scowcroft (Carnegie Observatory). We talked about her involvement in the Carnegie Hubble Program, a project dedicated to the measurement of the Hubble constant by calibrating the steps of the distance ladder. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 17 minutes.
Guest: David Tsang (McGill). We talked about neutron star mergers as emitters of gravitational waves. These waves are ripples in the curvature of space-time. Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 23 minutes.
Guest: Dong Lai (Cornell). We discussed his research on hot Jupiters, a type of exoplanets on which tidal forces play an important role. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 22 minutes.
Guest: Ue-Li Pen (CITA, U of Toronto). We talked about his involvement with the rehabilitation of the Algonquin Radio Observatory, and how it was used for radio pulsar scattering observations. Hosts: James Kennedy and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 10 minutes.
Guest: Mathias Zaldarriaga (IAS/Princeton). We discussed various topics of cosmology (the Big Bang, inflation, the Cosmic Microwave Background, etc…). Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 25 minutes.
Guest: Abby Vieregg (Harvard CFA). We talked about her work on the detection of neutrinos (hard-to-detect fundamental particles) with the balloon-borne instrument ANITA at the South Pole. Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 23 minutes.
Guest: Abe Falcone (Penn State). The discussion was about cosmic rays, very energetic particles with cosmic origin. Hosts: James Kennedy and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 30 minutes.
Guest: Marco Viero (CalTech). He studies the cosmic infrared background and dark matter. We discussed these topics with him. Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 20 minutes.
Guest: Mansi Kasliwal (Carnegie Institution for Science). Her research aims at the discovery and the understanding of new types of stellar explosions. We discussed what these explosions are and how she discovers them. Hosts: James Kennedy and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 17 minutes.
Guest: Joaquin Viera (CalTech). We discussed his research focused on bright and distant galaxies discovered with the South Pole Telescope and observed with the ALMA telescope. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 17 minutes.
Guest: Kristen Coppin and James Geach (both post-doctoral researchers at McGill University). We interviewed Kristen and Jim to discuss their results, recently published in a press release. They discovered a large structure of packed galaxies joining two galaxy clusters. We discussed this new result and its implications. Hosts: James Kennedy, Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 14 minutes.
Guest: Stephanie Juneau (CEA Saclay, France). We talked about supermassive black-holes, in other galaxies and in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 16 minutes.
Guest: Oded Aharonson (Center for Planetary Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel). We discussed the study of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, as well as his interests in other planets of the Solar System. Hosts: James Kennedy and Kevin MacDermid. Duration: 17 minutes.
Guest: Eric Linder, Co-director of the INPA at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. We talked about cosmology and particularly the composition of the Universe (Dark energy, dark matter, normal matter, etc…) and ways to study these different components. Hosts: James Kennedy, Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 23 minutes.
Guest: Rosalba Perna, associate professor at University of Colorado in Boulder. We discussed her research focused on the modelisation of various astrophysical phenomena, including magnetars and hot Jupiters (a type of exoplanets). Hosts: James Kennedy, Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 20 minutes.
Guest: Adam Showman, professor at the Lunar and Planetary Lab (University of Arizona). We discussed different aspects related to his research on exoplanets. Hosts: James Kennedy, Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 20 minutes.
Guest: John Tomsick, Assistant Research Scientist at the Space Sciences Laboratory (UC Berkeley). We discussed his research in the field of X-ray astrophysics, namely, observations of X-ray binaries (black holes or neutron stars in binary systems with bright X-ray emissions). Hosts: James Kennedy, Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 18 minutes.
Guest: Keith Vanderlinde, CIFAR Junior Fellow at McGill University. We discussed his research on cosmology and galaxy clusters, as part of the South Pole Telescope collaboration. Hosts: James Kennedy, Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 23 minutes.
Guest: George Helou, Executive director of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at CalTech, and deputy director of the Spitzer Infrared Telescope Science team. We discussed his scientific research: Space infrared astronomy and galaxies. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 24 minutes.
Guest: Richard Cyburt, assistant professor at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) of Michigan State University. We discussed his research on nuclear astrophysics, and how it bridges nuclear physics and astrophysics. Hosts: James Kennedy, Sebastien Guillot and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 20 minutes.
Guest: Laura Lopez, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We discussed her research on supernova remnants and massive stars, as well as her involvement in public outreach. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 21 minutes.