syzygy: Recent Episodes
Chris Stewart & Emily Brunsden
According to one survey, around one-third of Australians think aliens not only exist, but have actually visited Earth. That's ... a bit fraction. In this final episode of season 2, we ask how we'd even find out if life exists around other stars. Emily introduces the Habitable Worlds Observatory, an incredible new space telescope that's just in the early design phase and not due for years yet, with lots of technical and scientific holes to plug. Whether we can find life on other planets, who knows ... but maybe we've just found season three of Syzygy!
On the web: syzygy.fm
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Habitable Worlds Observatory
• Square Kilometre Array
• SETI and Jill Tarter
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell and the first pulsar
• Roman Space Telescope
• Designs for the HWO
• Exoplanet biosignatures
Exo-planets, sure. Exo-moons and -comets? Fine. But exo ... telescopes?! Emily is going out on a limb in this episode, expanding the definition of telescope to include things that measure stuff in space, and we're here for it! Which means we really do have a few telescopes out there beyond the Solar System, in the shape of Voyagers 1 and 2, with a few more waiting in the wings.
On the web: syzygy.fm
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• The Voyager Missions: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2
• Where are the Voyager spacecraft now?
• The Heliosphere, where the Solar System ends
• The Voyager Golden Record
• NASA relieved to get a call from Voyager 1
• Syzygy Episode 42: Life, the Universe, and Everything
• Syzygy Episode 79: Voyager Hears a Hum
• Voyager 2 turns of last scientific instrument
• Uranus mystery finally solved!
• The Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud
• The Pioneer Program, esp. Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11
• The Pioneer Plaque
• The New Horizons mission and the Pluto Heart image
• New Horizons visits Ultima Thule (Arrokoth)
We know, we know — we did exoplanets last time. But that was the current state-of-play and a 2024 exoplanets wrapped update. In this episode, Emily looks to the future! She does a deep dive into the promise of the just wonderful JWST, as it prods exoplanets in ways they’ve never been prodded before.
On the web: syzygy.fm
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• The JWST mission
• The Transit method
• Exoplanet Phase Curves
• Exoplanet GJ1214b and the phase curve paper
• Transmission spectroscopy
• Exoplanet WASP 39b
• Direct imaging of exoplanets
• Exoplanet HIP65426b
• The JWST first release images
• The WASP 96-b “dodgy graph” (see Brundsen, 2025)
• Exoplanet WASP 43b’s day and night (and the Nature paper)
• The Trappist 1 system
It couldn't be a season of exo-stuff without taking a good hard look at the current state of exoplanets, the OG exo-thing. Emily sums up the state of exoplanet research in 2024 — her Exoplanets 2024 Wrapped, if you like — then lines up her top three exoplanets of the year, and considers what's coming up next in this exo-ploding field.
On the web: syzygy.fm
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Exoplanets found in 2024
• The Roche Limit
• Paper about Gliese 4256b and a nice article
• Comet Shoemaker Levy smashes into Jupiter!
• Brand-new IRAS 04125+2902: paper and article
• Retrograde hot Jupiter TIC 241249530 b: paper and article
Exoplanets, sure. Exo-moons too, apparently. But exo ... comets?! Yes indeed, they're a real thing, and we've known about them for ages! How do you spot something so tiny around another star, so far away? Emily has the insider knowledge, because it's something she's genuinely investigating in her job as an actual, real-life astronomer.
On the web: syzygy.fm
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Comets: dirty snowballs
• Exocomets
• Famous comets
• Shoemaker-Levy’s Jovian rendezvous
• Beta Pictoris, HyperMegaMall of astrophysics
• Exocomets around Beta Pic
• TESS, everyone’s favourite exo-hunter
Way, way back in the early epochs of Syzygy (ep 19 in Oct 2018 if you must know) we talked about the exciting prospect of spotting the first exomoon — a moon orbiting a planet orbiting a star that is not our own. It seemed reasonable to expect that six years later exomoons would be a thing we've discovered, and maybe even started a catalogue. But turns out, observing a minute signal on top of an already minute signal is hard. Emily outlines our best prospects for exomoon discovery.
On the web: syzygy.fm
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Syzygy ep 19: Moons, Exomoons & Moonmoons
• Does Kepler 1625b have an exomoon?
• Seems Unlikely …
• What about Kepler 167e?
• Volcanic exomoon around Wasp 49b?!
A short announcement: Syzygy is now seasonal! From now on we're going to release the podcast in seasons, and we're excited to announce the imminent release of the first episode of Syzygy Season Two. Yep. Two. Season One is everything we've done so far. Trust us, it's easier this way. Season Two is all about Exo-Stuff — exo-planets, exo-moons, exo-comets ... are they a thing? Apparently, yes. So keep an eye out in the days ahead for the new season of Syzygy.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced byChris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web:syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Live from York's Festival of Ideas*, in front of an audience of ... what, had to be a few hundred thousand people, right? ... Emily and Chris discuss some awesome astronomy that you can go outside and see with your own eyes. In particular, they go deep on the incredible May 2024 aurora, and show what the 2024 total eclipse across the USA looked like, with a preview of amazing eclipses to look forward to in the coming years. Chris finishes with a song, as he does. Watch on YouTube!
(* Apologies for the audio quality, it was a big echo-ey space and it didn’t record as well as I’d hoped)
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced byChris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web:syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Watch this live show on YouTube
• York Festival of Ideas
• The May 2024 Aurora
• Solar Cycle 25
• The Solar Dynamics Observatory
• timeanddate.com
• The 2024 total solar eclipse
• Upcoming eclipses
A huge team of astronomers — and their even-huger team of tiny, fibre-obtic-wielding robots — are zeroing in on one of the great questions of cosmology: just what the heck is going on with Dark Energy? We know the Universe is expanding. Apparently, it's expanding faster. But maybe it is expanding faster, slower? Tiny robots measuring breathtakingly-huge cosmic bubbles may give us an answer.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced byChris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web:syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Announcement of the DESI results
• A good video about the results
• The DESI home page
• Dark Energy
• Heat Death or Big Rip
• The 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics
• BAO bubbles
This week, a new Black Hole Record (kinda), and with it a nice conundrum. the GAIA mission has found the biggest black hole ... of the stellar-mass variety ... in our galaxy. A lot of caveats there, but the fun thing is, it's just next door, which makes us wonder if that's coincidence or a harbinger of more big black holes to come in GAIA's data dumps! Plus, a riddle: why do we keep spotting black holes that are too big to make? Did we break physics? Emily has a few explanations.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• The Biggest (small) Black Hole (in our galaxy)
• The rapid-release paper
• The GAIA mission
• GAIA’s data release schedule
• Types of Black Hole
• LIGO gravitational wave telescope
• Quasi-stars
• Syzygy Episode 116: Black Hole Sun
We're live from the 10th birthday celebrations for the University of York's Astrocampus, Emily's home turf and all-round fabulous teaching and outreach space. Emily fields some amazing questions from kids and adults attending the event, and gives some of Astrocampus's highlights and achievements over the past decade, as well as some plans for the future!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
After some lengthy follow-up (the Bennu sample is open at last! And SLIM is alive!), Emily investigates possibly the most podcasty story we’ve had on the show: six planets around distant star HD110067, all locked into resonances that play beautiful music. Turns out if you leave a planetary system alone for long enough, gravity tends to pull everything into simple harmonies. Maybe our own solar system has a song to sing in the far future?
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The Bennu asteroid sample is open!
• JAXA SLIM updates
• First SLIM images
• Sextuplet symphony: The Nature paper
• A good article about the discovery
• Blog post by Dr Hugh Osborn with exoplanet music video
• Trappist-1 system
• Orbital resonances
• Multiple star systems
• JWST finds methane in exoplanet atmosphere
• A breathless headline
Emily and Chris tune in to JAXA’s livestream of SLIM — the Smart Lander for Investigating and Moon — as it attempted to slick the landing on the lunar surface on Friday 19 January 2023. We were prepared for success and champagne, or failure and lessons-learned. What we didn’t expect was … ambiguity, uncertainty and WE ARE STILL CHECKING THE STATUS SO PLEASE WAIT. Did SLIM and its fabulous little transformer rovers make it to the Moon OK or not?! Join us for all the anticipation, the wonder, and the confusion in this special syzygy episode.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• JAXA’s SLIM mission
• YouTube livestream recording and press conference
• Update article from 3 days later
• Mission success!
• The SLIM Rovers LEM 1 and LEM 2
• Buy your own LEM-2 rover! (Or buy us one, we’d love you forever!)
• Upcoming missions to the Moon
• India’s Chandrayaan-3 landing
• Israel’s failed moon landing
• Moss Piglets on the Moon?
Long-time Syzygy listener Jack asks: "Hey Emily — what's the deal with quasi-stars?" (We're paraphrasing). Quasi-stars are hypothetical, enormous stellar-object-thingies that might have formed shortly after the Big Bang. They're so huge they might have formed with black holes at their cores. If they existed at all, it would explain why astronomers keep finding intermediate-mass black holes in gravitational wave experiments. And as a bonus for you, Jack, Emily presents Hawking stars: otherwise ordinary stars that could be hiding a tiny black hole deep in their core. Could the Sun be a Hawking star? The mind boggles.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• Quasi-stars
• (… as opposed to Quasars)
• Types of black hole
• Intermediate-mass black holes and LIGO
• Hawking stars
• The research paper that seeded this episode
• Asteroseismology, the music of the stars
Astronomers routinely detect cosmic rays, the high-energy particles from space that collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a shower of secondary particles that rain down on the earth below. But every so often — like, less than once a decade — they spot a cosmic ray smashing into the planet with just stupid amounts of energy. The sort of energy you associate with hitting a golf ball or maybe dropping a brick on your foot, but definitely NOT a single subatomic particle. Not only do astronomers have no idea what could produce these Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays, one was spotted recently that seems to have originated in one of the emptiest regions of the universe. Emily explains the Strange Mystery of the Cosmic Zevatron.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The recent UHERC paper
• A good article about the discovery
• The Utah Telescope Array
• The Oh My God Particle
• Cosmic Rays
• The Local Group
• The Virgo Supercluster
• The Local Void
We've talked BOATs before — cosmic events that are the Brightest Of All Time — and it's always a favourite topic on the show. Recently astronomers analysed the runner-up BOAT in the Burster category, an astoundingly violent, weirdly long-lasting, and oddly-located neutron star merger, and measured the amount of afterglow Tellurium to learn more about fast neutron processes. What?! As Emily patiently explains, with a brief cameo from Tom Lehrer, it's all about a deeper understanding of where all the chemical elements in the universe come from.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• Research paper
• Overview of the research
• Syzygy episodes with BOATS:
— Episode 30: Stardust or Cosmic Poo
— Episode 61: Biggest Bag Ever!
— Episode 107: Biggest Bang Ever! (Again)
• Nucleosynthesis
• The rapid neutron capture process
• … as opposed to the slow neutron capture process
• Tom Lehrer’s Elements song
• Binding Blocks
• The actual BOAT
We love it any time a listener gets in touch — but the best is when a listener suggests a topic for an episode of the podcast. So when Zofia Szczesna got in touch (through the Syzygy website, natch) and asked about white dwarf stars, Emily put her research hat on and dug into the amazing astrophysics of these amazing little entities. In this episode she lists her three favourite things about white dwarfs: a cheeky supernova loophole, wibbly-wobbliness, and our white dwarf (or more accurately, black dwarf) future.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• Osiris Rex’s recent little problem
• White dwarf stars
• Degenerate electrons and neutrons
• The Chandrasekhar limit
• Types of supernovae
• Variable stars
• Proton decay
• Black Dwarfs
JWST is flinging out Just Wonderful observations at great speed, many already leading to new astronomical insights. Here's one that was really unexpected: the Orion Nebula is full of JuMBOs! Jupiter-Mass Binary Objects, that is — pairs of giant planets (or planetty-things, the definition isn't terribly clear ...) floating free in space, in quantities that aren't possible based on what we thought we understood about planet formation. New observations that seem to break astrophysics? We're always up for that discussion!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The Fibonacci Sequence
• The JuMBOs papers: overview, and JuMBO-specific
• The Orion Nebula
• JWST gets a good look at the Orion Nebula
• Where is the Orion Nebula, exactly?
• The definition of “planet"
Earth got a special delivery recently: a little pod plonked down in the Utah desert, containing a few hundred grams sampled from the surface of an asteroid. This isn't the first sample return mission, but it's definitely the biggest. The little parcel of asteroid dirt inside is now being very carefully handed out to researchers across the globe, and we're going to learn loads of important stuff, like what asteroids are made of, how we might stop one from hitting us ... and even, maybe, just maybe, whether they contain the building blocks of life.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The OSIRIS-REx mission
• Landing in the desert (NASA video stream)
• Grabbing the sample in 2020
• Sample return missions
• Asteroid Bennu
• OSIRIS-APEX
• Asteroid Apophis
• The Asteroid Belt
It’s always nerve-wracking waiting for a very expensive new space telescope to launch — the whole mission can literally end in a highly explosive blink of an eye. Fortunately for the Euclid mission team, their gleaming new spacecraft left the Earth in one piece, and made its way to L2 to begin it's new job. It’s mission? Oh, just to solve five huge mysteries of the universe, from the nature of dark matter and dark energy, to unravelling the threads of the cosmic web.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• Telescopes up a mountain in Hawaii
• The Euclid Mission website
• The Launch!
• Euclid’s Big Five
• Streaming data from L2
• Euclid’s first test images
• Dark Matter & Dark Energy
• The Cosmic Web
• Fly-through of the Cosmic Web
Every so often, a Syzygy listener writes in with a cracking question that sends Emily and Chris off spelunking down the deep, deep sinkholes of astronomy and cosmology. This time, listener Eve asked an absolute cracker, to wit: Just how much energy is there in the universe right now? A simple question at first glance. At second glance (and every glance thereafter) it's not simple at all. We need to first consider, what is energy? What is the universe? And even, what is "now"? It's very confusing.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• Feynman’s discussion of energy
• Dark matter
• Dark energy
• The observable universe
• Critical energy density
• Is the energy in the universe zero?
• The Big Bang Singularity
• The fates of the universe
Everyone's favourite bonkers red giant is back in the news again, and it has the supernova spotters in a froth. Last time we talked about Betelgeuse, it had gone unusually dim. Never fear, it's back with a vengeance — not just brighter, but pulsing twice as fast! Is the end nigh? Can we expect it to go boom soon? Well ... define 'soon'. Emily has all the answers.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The Betelgeuse paper
• A good article on what’s going on with Betelgeuse
• The Great Dimming
• The brightest stars in the sky
• Indigenous peoples have known about variable stars for a very long time
• Could we spot a supernova coming?
Astronomers have spotted what seems to be a supermassive black hole devouring a huge gas cloud — and in the media it's being claimed as the Biggest Explosion in the History of Explosions. Except, is it though? And didn't we already talk about this, way back in Episode 61? And anyway, what does "biggest" even mean? Or "explosion", for that matter? Or "time"? It's all very confusing. Emily's here to make sense of it all.Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The research paper
• A good article about the story
• The OG Episode 61: Biggest Bang Eva!
• Energy units, including ergs and joules
• Gamma Ray Bursts
• The Gamma Ray Burst of 2022
• BOATS (and GOATS)
• Vale D Alexander Kann
Like many of us, as some stars get older, they get bigger. Like, really big. Big enough to swallow up any planets orbiting near by. Astronomers have known this for a while now, but they'd never actually seen it happen ... until now. Emily explains what's going on, what's been observed, why a planet-gobbling star seems the only real explanation, and what it all means for the Earth's distant future.
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The original paper by De et al
• A good article about the research https://time.com/6276702/star-eating-a-planet/
• The Zwicky Transient Facility https://www.ztf.caltech.edu
• NASA's NEOWISE telescope https://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu
• Really big stars
• Comet Shoemaker-Levy-9
In 2023, the Moon is where it’s at — so many rockets taking so many little orbiters and landers and rovers and boxes full of weird trinkets ... just in the coming few months! And that’s before you even count the missions aimed at pushing human footprints into the lunar dust for the first time since the early 70s. Everyone and their dog is sending stuff to the moon, and Emily is here with all the details of six missions set to launch in the coming Northern Spring-Summer launch season.
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• Missions to the Moon — past, present and future
• JUICE
• Astrobiotic’s Mission One
• The Lunar X Prize
• Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 mission
• Chandrayaan 3
• Luna 25
• JAXA’s SLIM
• The Artemis program
The biggest black hole ever has been found — not supermassive, but ultramassive. Emily takes Chris on a tour of all the types of black hole, from the speculative minis, through the solar and intermediate mass kinds, to the stonking supermassive and frankly ludicrous ultramassive. And we ask, how exactly do you see a black hole when it's ... you know ... black?
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The ultramassive black hole paper
• Article about the research
• Mini black holes
• Will the LHC destroy the Earth?
• Stellar mass black holes
• Intermediate mass black holes
• LIGO and Black hole mergers
• Supermassive black holes
• That black hole photo
• Squeezars
• The biggest black holes
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Gravitational lensing
• Euclid, LSST and the SKA
In the hunt for life in the universe, astronomers are looking hard at the catalogue of potentially habitable exoplanets. The ones orbiting Red Dwarf stars seem promising — Red Dwarfs are really common, and we've just launched a shiny new space telescope that's perfect for observing them, their planets, and even their planets atmospheres. Trouble is, Red Dwarf stars are ... nasty. Like, really mean. Emily gives all the details on why we might not be discovering signs of life near a Red Dwarf any time soon.
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• What tThe Red Dwarf paper
• Article about the research
• Red Dwarf stars
• Flares, sunspots and coronal mass ejections
• CMEs are terrifying
• Everyone’s fave spectrograph, HARPS
• JWST & exoplanets
"These six galaxies break cosmology!" scream the headlines. Yeah, nah — yeah, astronomers have found some galaxies in the JWST data that are crazy old, and yet seem to be just way too big. But nah: this doesn't mean cosmology is broken. As usual, the scientists ignore the click-baity headlines, roll their eyes and get on with figuring it all out. Plus, what time is it on the Moon? Not a simple question.
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· What time is it on the Moon?
· Universe-breaking galaxies (Nature paper)
· Guardian article about the research
· JWST, our second favourite space telescope
· Redshift, distance and time
· Lyman Break Galaxies
· The Hubble OG, Ultra and eXtreme Deep Fields
· JWST: Hold-My-Beer Deep Field
The Earth's core has been acting weird for at least 70 years now. We're not sure why, but sometimes it's spinning faster than the surface, sometimes slower. Emily explains how we know what's happening down in the core, which is impressive enough ... but then she shows how astronomers do the same for very distant stars, and Chris's head explodes. Plus, it's been a big week for aurora fans, and there's even some bonus Einteinian weirdness at the end.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· The Earth’s core rotation speed paper
· A good article about it
· Big week for aurora fans
· Changes in the Earth’s magnetic field over time
· Different definitions of a day
· Asteroseismology (SciShow Space video)
· The Doppler Effect for sound and light
· Relativity and GPS (MinutePhysics video)
Emily's back from New Zealand, Chris is ... still just around, really. And Syzygy returns from hiatus with Episode 100, looking back on a huuuuuge year for the Just Wonderful Space Telescope. Emily takes us through the five "first-light" images released from JWST several months ago — plus one little bonus image that they found behind the couch. (Oh, and sorry for the audio quality on this one — for boring technical reasons we had to share one microphone ... Back to our usual high-quality production values for 101!)
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• JWST on the web: NASA and ESA
• JWST launch video
• Lagrange points
• JWST’s orbit at L2
• JWST first images
• Image 1: Webb’s First Deep Field
• Image 2: Carina Nebula
• Image 3: Stephan’s Quintet
• Image 4: Southern Ruing Nebula
• Image 5: WASP-96 b
• Surprise extra image: Jupiter!
• Conference info: First Science Results from JWST, Dec 2022
Not wanting to overshadow this week's exciting supermassive black hole image release or anything, but Emily has news of her own. A short episode, in which Chris delves into the new Sag A image a bit, before dropping the news bomb you've all really* been waiting for ...
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· Article about the SagA* image — and that’ll do, you can find the rest from there 😁
You've heard of supernovae, the just stupidly big explosions that mark the end of some stars' lives. Maybe you know there are different kinds of supernovae — type 1a, type II ... Did you know that, smaller than a super nova, there's just a plain, vanilla nova? Or that, even bigger than super, there's hyper-novae? Well, hold onto your hats, because there's a new nova in town, and it's ... really quite small. On the nova scale, anyway. Emily gives all the goss on cute little micronovae. Plus, we school astronomers on the tricky subject of communicating large quantities of energy.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· The micronova paper
· A good article (with a bad analogy) about the research
· Novae types: classical, recurrent, and dwarf
· Supernovae and their types
· The Cosmic Distance Ladder and Standard candles, and Dark Energy
· Hypernovae!
· TESS, everyone’s favourite space telescope
· Phobos, potato moon
Astronomers have spotted the biggest comet ever! And it's heading for Earth! Except (a) it's not heading towards Earth — it's closest approach to us will be beyond Saturn's orbit — and (b) it's not technically the biggest. But it's still cool! Emily's here with loads of info about comets, big comets, things that are sort of comets, how many tails they have (hint: it's more than one), and heaps more besides.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· The original paper, and the latest results
· Article about Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein
· Syzygy episode 50: Imposter Comet!
· Syzygy episode 64: Almost a Good Comet
· The Dark Energy Survey
· Dirty snowballs
· How many tails does a comet have?
· The Oort Cloud
· Famous comets: Halley, Hale-Bopp, Shoemaker-Levy 9
· Centaurs
A very different story this week: using high-energy particles, originating from violent supernovae and supermassive black holes, to scan the insides of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Physicists are teaming up with Egyptologists to check some tantalising results from 2017 thaty suggest there just might be a previously unknown cavity — an open space — inside the Great Pyramid. Could it be a new, hidden room? A vault filled with ancient treasure? Or just somewhere they kept all the heating ducts and old pain cans? Plus, Syzygy is officially setting the agenda for astronomy research, and Emily unwraps some baby presents!
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· The oldest galaxy ever found
· Get your Syzygy merch here
· ScanPyramids misson in 2017
· Explore Great Pyramid mission
· The Pyramids of Giza
· The Great Pyramid
· Cosmic rays
· The solar wind
· Active Galactic Nuclei
· Cosmic rays causing havoc in computers
· Muons and relativity
· Air showers of particles
· The IceCube neutrino detector
· Brian Cox makes a cloud chamber
For the latest — and last? — baby-themed episode, we talk baby planets and how they're made. And sure, we've talked about this before in previous episodes, but this time Emily comes with brand new research that shows an actual protoplanet forming from the stellar disk. And even better, the possibility that we can even spot a protomoon forming around a protoplanet. Plus, for any astronomers looking for ideas, she's got her Top 5 list of unsolved planet questions.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· Oldest star ever seen!
· Gravitational lensing
· Syzygy 26: How to build a solar system
· Syzygy 68: Birth of a Planet
· And just for fun, Syzygy 19: Moons, exomoons & moonmoons
· Far-our Super Jupiter AB Aurigae b
· Nice article about AB Aurigae b
· AB Aurigae in the movies
· Protomoon around protoplanet?
· Gravitational Microlensing
We’ve done the baby universe, and baby galaxies, and the very first baby stars ... and those were a bit nasty, a bit grumpy. So this week, we're talking baby stars again, but in the modern era — stars being born now, as we speak. Mind you, just because they've got more than H and He to buiold with, doesn't mean they're any less temperamental. Emily takes use from the interstellar medium, through interstellar clouds and collapsing proto-stars, to the birth of a cute little pre-main-sequence star.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
· The Interstellar medium and Interstellar clouds
· Proto-stars and their windiness
· Brown dwarfs
· Main sequence stars
· T Tauri stars
· Herbig Ae/Be stars
This week, it's baby galaxies — the very, very ancient, and the surprisingly brand new. Emily looks back at the earliest things-we-might-consider-galaxies, and the competing models for how they formed. Then we take a peek into the beautiful M81 galaxy, which is, as we speak, sloughing off some of its stars and galaxy stuff, thanks to an ongoing fight with M82 next door. The fun part is, the extra stuff seems to be forming into a new galaxy — albeit one with a difficult future ahead ...
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
• The first galaxies
• Globular clusters
• Dwarf galaxies
• Galactic tides
• The tidal galaxy paper
• M81 and M82
• The Dragonfly Telescope
• WASP telescope
• Where’s JWST at now?
Continuing our theme of baby-related astronomy, Emily picks up the story from last episode — we'd just finished making the universe and watching its insane growth spurt, and then ... the first stars turned on! And wow, were those first stars weird. Even weirder, there might still be some of them about, 13 billon years later!
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Where is the JWST?
Laporte et al’s paper on the earliest stars
A good article about the paper
The cosmic web
Stellar populations (I, II and III)
Redshift
We're back! Emily has some exciting news, and in regonition of this, we're starting a series of episodes on a theme — starting with the birth and infancy of the Universe! From the earliest physically-sensible moments, through the explosive growth spurt of Inflation, to the creation of forces, particles, nuclei and — eventuallly — atoms, we track the adorable and exciting early development of the cosmos.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Big Bang
Physics and Singularities
Hubble’s law
The Cosmic Microwave Background
Unification in physics
Planck time
Cosmic Inflation
Epochs in the early Universe
Big Bang nucleosynthesis
Matter-antimatter asymmetry
The Dark Ages
While the James Webb Space Telescope waits patiently for its new scheduled liftoff on Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe has been doing amazing things, whizzing through the outer edges of the Sun's corona for the very first time. Emily explains what we do — and staggeringly don't — know about our nearest star, and how Parker is going to help plug some of the more embarrassing gaps in our knowledge.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
JWST still set for launch
The Parker Solar Probe
The Photosphere
The Chromosphere
The Corona
Coronal Mass Ejections
The Carrington Event of 1859
The Solar Storm of 1989
Parker touches the Sun!
First images from inside the corona (feat. Milky Way!)
Spaceguard!
Every year, thousands of decent-sized chunks of rock hurtle past — and often into — the Earth. Of the ones that do hit, most burn up leaving a pretty trail. Occasionally, a bigger one explodes with a boom that shatters windows. More rarely, a big one wipes leaves a large smoking crater and widespread local destruction. Then there was that huge one that devestated the planet, wiping out the dinosaurs. Wouldn't want one of those again/ Fortunately, loads of astronomers are watching the skies to spot any asteroids getting too close for comfort. But what if they find one — what do we do about it? This month, a small spacecraft called DART began its mission to crash into a distant asteroid, to see if maybe we can shift it's orbit a little. It's a test, for sometime in the future, when we might need to do that for real, to save the planel.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
The DART mission
Dimorphos & Didimos
LICIAcube
NASA’s Asteroid Watch
Big asteroid impacts in history
Sentinel space telescope
Spaceguard!
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
The research paper
A good article on the research
Galactic cannibalism simulation from NASA
The Magellanic Clouds
The Local Group of galaxies
Globular clusters
Stellar populations
Milkdromeda
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
Hubble’s had some trouble
The Supernova 2020fqv paper
A good article about SN 2020fqv
Type I and Type II supernovae (video)
Supernova naming conventions
Space telescopes: TESS and Hubble
The original Rosetta Stone
The Open Supernova Catalog
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
The paper in Nature Astronomy
A good article about the research
The Whirlpool Galaxy
NASA’s exoplanets page
Exoplanets in other galaxies
X-Ray binaries
Exoplanet transits
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Lucy Mission
Jupiter’s Trojans
Earth’s own Trojan asteroid
Lucy’s gold plaque
Lucy the fossil
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Jupiter spot paper by Wong et al.
ESA site on the discovery
NASA’s Jupiter website
The Juno mission and images
The Cassini-Huygens mission
Voyager I visits Jupiter
Historical observations by Cassini & Hooke
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
NASA’s JWST page
ESA’s JWST page
Canadian Space Agency JWST page
The Great Observatories
Lagrange points
JWST’s 4 Science Themes
Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Heritage Images
Visible vs IR astronomy
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
Virgin Galactic
Branson goes to space
Blue Origin
Bezos is going to space
The Kármán Line
Definitions of the edge of space
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Dark Energy Survey
Dark Matter & Dark Energy
Links to DES papers
The Planck mission
Galaxy on Glass
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
China’s Mars mission
Voyager 1 hears a hum
The NASA Voyager mission site
The interstellar medium
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
Ingenuity’s first flights on Mars!
The Fermilab g-2 experiment
A cartoon explainer of the muon g-2
The Standard Model of particle physics
Lattice QCD
Lattice results and the muon g-2
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
Mt John Observatory
Emily’s telescope
Emily’s research
Cassegrain telescopes
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
NASA Mars Robot Family t-shirt — get yours now!
The UAE’s Hope mission
China’s Tianwen 1 mission
Tianwen 1’s space selfie
NASA’s Perseverance mission
Perseverance on twitter: @NASAPersevere
Video of Perseverance's landing
Image taken of the landing taken from Mars orbit!
Perseverance’s first image from the surface
Searching for life on Mars
The non-discovery of Martian life in a meteorite
What does Mars sound like?
NASA Mars rover family portrait
The code in the parachute
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
Missions to Mars in 2021
Stellar evolution
The birth of stars
Red Giant stars
Planetary Nebulae
White Dwarf stars
In this rather delayed episode, we say farewell to an old friend: the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, tragically destroyed at the start of December 2020 after 57 years of solid service. Wiping a fond tear from her eye, Emily recalls the scientific highlights and cultural importance of this great telescope dish.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
You might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we talk about in this episode:
Sample-return missions
Video of Arecibo’s final moments — Nature
WhatAreciboMeansToMe on Twitter
Arecibo’s scientific legacy
The SETI Institute
The Arecibo Message
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Blanets paper
On Interstellar and real physics
Black hole photo from 2019
The Snow (or Frost) Line
The recent Squeezar paper
S2’s orbit around the supermassive black hole in our galaxy
New speed and distance record holder S4714
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
As of 2020, 57 women have won a Nobel Prize (Marie Curie got two — Physics and Chemistry!) That’s 57 — compared to 870 men and 25 organisations. We should celebrate those who have won, and try harder to recognise, encourage and reward women across the sciences — and all facets of human endeavour.
Female Nobel Laureates
The 2020 Nobel Prize announcement video
The Nobel Foundation’s 2020 Physics Prize page
The Physics Nobel Prize since 1901
A short history of black holes
Minute Physics video series on Special Relativity
Royal Institution video introduction to General Relativity
Schwarzschild and his radius
Quasars and AGN
Roger Penrose
Penrose tiling
MC Escher
Escher’s impossible constructions
Star S2 orbiting the black hole at super speed
ESO video of S2’s orbit
Andrea Ghez’s experiment
Reinhard Genzel
Sagittarius A*
Speckle imaging
Active and Adaptive Optics
An article on quantum gravity
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Phosphine on Venus paper
Lead scientist Jane Greaves explains (video)
Another good video about phosphine (Periodic Videos)
Venus and the runaway greenhouse effect
Extremophiles on Earth
Biosignatures
The Pigeon, the Antenna and Me (video)
Missions to Venus
First photos from Venus
Parker Solar Probe mission
BepiColombo’s Venus fly-by
How hot is the surface of Venus again?
Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Going to Mars:
China’s mission
UAE mission
USA mission
Books:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book
Cosmic Revolutionary’s Handbook
Pods:
Astronomycast
Liftoff
Films:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy everything else
Galaxy Quest
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Dish
Hidden Figures
TV:
Cosmos, Sagan edition
Cosmos, Updated
Space (Hyperspace), with Sam Neil
Space Force
Orbit
YouTube:
Emily’s drain-unblocking fave, post 10
Dr Pimple Popper (warning: not for the squeamish!)
Crash Course Astronomy
Deep Sky Videos
Sean Carroll’s Biggest Ideas in the Universe
Web & Apps:
Stellarium
Gaia Sky
Cats in Space Quoting Scientists
Lunar Loo Challenge
Also worth checking out:
Star In A Box
Ryugu Trek
Exoplanet Travel Bureau
If the Moon Were 1 Pixel
Astro gear:
Syzygy’s own merch
Emily’s Pinterest
STARtorialist
Galaxy on Glass
NASA valentines
Fabric & quilting:
Robert Kaufman Science Fair
Stargazer
Andover Colour Theory
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Comet NEOWISE
Spotting NEOWISE in the sky: North America, the UK
The USA’s going to Mars
So is the UAE
And so is China
The CNO Neutrino research (PDF slides from talk)
Nature article about the research
The Borexino experiment
Neutrinos, sneaky things
Fusion inside stars
PP Chain reaction
The CNO cycle
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
ESO release on the research
The ALMA telescope observations of 2017
ESO video zooming into the stettar disc
The SPHERE instrument
The Snow Line, a.k.a. the Frost Line
The Extremely Large Telescope
The cancelled Overwhelmingly Large Telescope
Telescope names by xkcd
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Special Event! Syzygy Live at the Festival of Ideas — Friday 12 June, 8-9pm UK time. All the details at the website.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Neutron stars and pulsars
Videos on neutron stars from Kurzgesagt: video 1, video 2
Most precise pulsar, more stable than an Atomic clock
The Crab Nebula pulsar
Video on the Supernova of 1054
P-dot disgram
The Ideal Gas Law
Equations of state
LIGO
Gravitational wave evidence for neutron star mergers
Veritasium video on neutron star mergers
Special Event! Syzygy Live at the Festival of Ideas — Friday 12 June, 8-9pm UK time. All the details at the website.
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The BBFH paper
Nucleosynthesis
P-P chain reaction
The Hot CNO cycle
Margaret Burbidge obituary, 5 April 2020
Geoffrey Burbidge obituary, 6 Feb 2010
William Fowler
The Nobel Prize 1983
Frank Hoyle
Hoyle and the Big Bang
Panspermia
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Atlas: comet C/2019 Y4
ATLAS, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System
Hubble watches Atlas breaking up!
Comets have two tails
Great Comets in history
Comet McNaught in 2007
Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997
Halley’s Comet in 1986
Come see us live at the Northern Podcast Festival in Hull, 16 May
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Super Pink Moon, April 2020
Super Flower Moon, May 2020
The Nature Paper on this weird lopsided star (from arxiv)
A phys-org article on the discovery
Delta Scuti stars
Deep Sky video about Delta Scuti stars
Lambda Boo stars
Heartbeat stars
Roche lobes — don’t overfill yours!
Come see us live at the Northern Podcast Festival in Hull, 16 May
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Perseverance, the latest robot on Mars
The Observable Universe
The Great Attractor
The Zone of Avoidance
The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
SDSS, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Galaxy Zoo
Fly through the Universe!
The Millennium Simulation Project
Zoom into the Cosmic Sponge
Fly through the Millennium Simulation Universe
The Illustrious Simulation
Illustris simulation video
Dark Emulator
Come see us live at the Northern Podcast Festival in Hull, 16 May
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Come to Syzygy live, 16 May, at the Northern Podcast Festival
The original paper by Giacintucci et al
Press releases: from Chandra X-Ray Observatory and from ICRAR
Previous energy record holder
Read more: NewScientist article
Bigger than a supernova: Hypernovas!
The SKA Telescope
Video about the SKA:
Murchison Widefield Array
Giant Metrewave Radio
Galactic Cannibalism
Come see us live at the Northern Podcast Festival in Hull, 16 May
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Come to Syzygy live, 16 May, at the Northern Podcast Festival
Supermoon
The Super Moons of 2020
Moons by month
Lunar months
The Moon Illusion, video by ASAP science
The Ponzo Illusion
The Parthenon’s visual tricks
The Ebbinghaus Illusion
Come see us live at the Northern Podcast Festival in Hull, 16 May
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Come to Syzygy live, 16 May, at the Northern Podcast Festival
Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope
Stunning images of the Sun’s surface
Solar corona
Heliosphere
ESA’s Solar Orbiter
Video of the Solar Orbiter’s mission
Parker Solar Probe mission
Sun’s magnetic poles about to flip
Come see us live at the Northern Podcast Festival in Hull, 16 May
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Northern Podcast Festival in Hull, 16 May
Pancake day, a.k.a Shrove Tuesday
Angular Momentum and ice skating
Saturn and its rings
Evolution of the Solar System
Planetary disks around other stars
Galaxy formation and density waves
Photo of a black hole (see also Syzygy episode 35)
Accretion disk
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Gravitational Waves near Betelgeuse
The Murchison Meteorite
Original paper on the pre-solar grains in the Murchison Meteorite
Video of Russian dash cam meteor
The Tunguska Event of 1908
The Gaia mission
Gaia Sausage
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines
Betelgeuse is acting weird
The recent observations
The constellation of Orion
Zoom into Orion Nebula
Barnard’s Loop
Supergiant stars
Stellar evolution
Star Size Comparison video
Supernova 1987a
Supernova candidates
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
SpaceX’s Starlink
Some good articles about the issue: Forbes, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, Space.com
Forbes article on some ways Starlink could be made better
Official statements from the International Astronomical Union, the International Dark Sky Association, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Change.org petition about Starlink
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Hyabusa-2 mission
The Supermassive Black Hole paper and press release
A good article about the research
All about SMBHs
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The exoplanet seasonality paper
A good article about the research
Plate Tectonics with MinuteEarth
The James Webb Space Telescope
Has JWST launched yet?
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Friend of the show Circus Stu and Circus Skills York — thanks for the bell, Stu!
The Podcast Social Club
Deer Shed Festival
NASA’s Exoplanet Travel Bureau
Chris’s deadly pulsar planet
Emily’s deadly lava planet
Chris’s terrifying glass planet
Emily’s existentially terrifying rogue planet
Chris’s weird & wonderful über-Saturn
Emily’s weird & wonderful … exoplanet? Discovery of planet around PSR1829-10 and retraction
Earthrise photo
Pale Blue Dot, as made famous by Carl Sagan
The Voyager missions
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Podcast Social Club — Nov 22-23
York’s Astrocampus
The transit of Mercury 2019 in glorious 4k!
Transits in the future
The Black Drop Effect
Kepler the astronomer
Kepler Space Telescope
Exoplanet transit light curves
CGP Grey: Which Planet is the Closest?
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Podcast Social Club — Nov 22-23
First all-female space walk
2I/Borisov, first interstellar comet
Research papers on 2I/Borisov: Initial characterisation and detection of cyanide
‘Oumuamua, an interstellar “asteroid?”™
Path of 2I/Borisov
The Oort Cloud
Halley’s Comet
Comet Shoemaker Levy rams into Jupiter in 1994
Kruger 60, hometown of 2I/Borisov? (Original paper)
Comet Interceptor mission
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Podcast Social Club — Nov 22-23
The Official Syzygy Planet Spotter Scorecard
Stellarium app for stargazing
NASA’s overview of the planets
Mercury transit Nov 2019
Venus transits
Retrograde motion of the planets
Saturn has more moons than Jupiter
Exoplanet-hosting stars: Pollux, Formalhaut and Proxima Centauri
Hubble image (!) of Fomalhaut b
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Podcast Social Club — Nov 22-23
Hot Neptune Desert
Forbidden Planets
Fulton Gap
Exoplanet sizes
Impossible planets
Solar oscillation movies
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Podcast Social Club — Nov 22-23
The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics
Original research paper on the Milky Way explosion
Joss Bland-Hawthorn’s Conversation article about the research
The structure of the Milky Way
The Magellanic Clouds
The super massive black hole at the heart of the galaxy
Agctive Galactic Nuclei
ROSAT and FERMI
The GAIA survey
LIVE SHOW! We’re coming to the Podcast Social Club, Nov 22-23, in Thirsk, UK. Come join the audience for this fab podcast event!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Podcast Social Club — Nov 22-23
Einstein’s biggest blunder
Hubble and the expansion of the universe
Measuring distance with standard candles
Veritasium video on The 2011 Nobel Prize
The fate of the universe: crunch, rip or chill?
Planck map of the Cosmic Background Radiation
2DF Galaxy Redshift Survey
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The Nature Astronomy paper
NASA’s site on neutron stars, pulsars and magnetars
Video on white dwarf stars by Kurzgesagt
Electron degeneracy
Chandrasekhar and his Limit
The 100m Greenbank Radio Observatory
Degenerate matter
Jocelyn Bell Burnell and LGM-1
Neutron star limit, known as the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
The research papers: Tsiaras et al, and Benneke et al
National Geographic article about the discovery
Some of the hyped media response
The Goldilocks Zone
Hubble Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
What’s a Grism?
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talked about in this episode:
Apollo 11 — the film
Israel’s moon mission crashes!
All about tardigrades
The Arch Mission Foundation
Tesla in Space
Indian Space Research Organisation
Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Amazon affiliate link)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide Wiki
42, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything
Fermi Problems
The Drake Equation
Carl Sagan
SETI
Jill Tarter
The Arecibo Telescope
The Arecibo Message
The University of York’s Astrocampus
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Micklegate Social in York
The centre of the galaxy smells like raspberries and tastes like rum
A syzygystic coincidence?
Coronal mass ejection in 2012
The Big Rip
Pillars of Creation
Finger of God
Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Historical balloon telescopes
The Cosmic Microwave Background
Sixty Symbols video about the CMB
COBE mission
WMAP mission
The Planck mission
The CMB and Inflation
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Apollo 11 anniversary
The Dish (96% on Rotten Tomatoes)
Science during the Apollo 11 mission
ROI for the Moon missions
Future Moon missions
Mars missions
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Giant Magellan Telescope
A good video about the GMT from National Geographic
XKCD on telescope names
The plain old Magellan Telescope
SALT, the South African Large Telescope
The Very Large Telescope
The European Extremely Large Telescope
The Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (now cancelled)
The Thirty Metre Telescope
Making Magellan Mirrors (video)
Description of the mirror process (video)
The GMT Science Book
Active Optics and Adaptive Optics
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The blue supergiant paper
Blue Supergiants
Rigel in Orion
Space telescopes
Supernova 1987a
Syzygy LIVE! The Great Syzygy Space Off — 23 May in York!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Syzygy LIVE! The Great Syzygy Space Off — 23 May in York!
What The BLEEP?
Mark Kermode reviews “What The Bleep Do We Know?!”
Bleep?! on Rotten Tomatoes (36%)
Gravity
Gravity on Rotten Tomatoes (96%)
Gravity review in the Guardian (5 stars)
Interstellar
Modelling black holes for Interstellar
Interstellar on Rotten Tomatoes (72%)
Interstellar review in the Guardian (4 stars)
Syzygy LIVE! The Great Syzygy Space Off — 23 May in York!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Syzygy LIVE! The Great Syzygy Space Off — 23 May in York!
Hayabusa mission
Hayabusa blasts an asteroid!
Moon origin theories
Primal supernova
Late Heavy Bombardment Period
Theia, planet of doom!
Video of Theia collision (boooom!)
The donut theory paper
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
NASA announces the Helium Hydride discovery
The original Nature paper
NGC 7027, the Gummy Bear Nebula
SOFIA, the scope on a plane that tweets
Adaptive Optics & Active Optics
Planetary Nebulae
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Black Hole Image press conference (NSF, USA)
Event Horizon Telescope
How To Understand the Image of a Black Hole, by Veritasium
… and explainer afterwards
M87 Galaxy and its jet
Katie Bouman is all of us
Katie Bouman’s TED talk
Interstellar’s black hole
Doppler beaming
Black hole history
Rotating black holes (more Veritasium, what is it with this guy)
Pale Blue Dot
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
More than (or nearly!) 4000 exoplanets!
Exoplanet archive says we’re so close to 4k!
Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia says we’ve already passed 4k
GRAVITY images exoplanet with optical interferometry
The GRAVITY paper
The Very Large Telescope
The GRAVITY instrument
Animation of HR 8799 planetary orbits
Gamma Doradus variable stars
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Happy Birthday, Astrocampus!
Royal Astronomical Society article about Bethany’s research
Bethany’s paper
Binary star systems
Habitable Zone
A septuple star system
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
TESS the exoplanet hunter
JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission
The Ryuga asteroid
Ceres, the dwarf planet
Brian May, astrophysicist
Origin of Earth’s water
Ryugu, the dragon palace
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
LIGO
Time for an upgrade
WIRED story about the upgrade
Gravitational waves
Methods of detecting gravitational waves
Veritasium video on wave interference
Interferometer animation
Black hole merger in 2015
Neutron star merger in 2017
Cosmic inflation
Theories Of Everything
LISA — LIGO, but bigger, and in space!
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
International Year of the Periodic Table: https://www.iypt2019.org
Dmitri Mendeleev: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev
Farewell, Opportunity. You’ve done so very well! https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7334
Astronomer’s Periodic Table by Periodic Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6akrRznGgDc
Stellar nucleosynthesis: https://www.thoughtco.com/stellar-nucleosynthesis-2699311
Big Bang nucleosynthesis: http://www.einstein-online.info/spotlights/BBN.html
Supernova nucleosynthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis
Neutron star mergers: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v10/114
The elements song, by Tom Lehrer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3NOQnsQM
An updated version, by Helen Arney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzvjB5hC2qc
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The research in this episode: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/01/16/science.aat2965?rss=1
Article about the research: https://www.universetoday.com/141272/saturns-rings-are-only-10-to-100-million-years-old/
The Cassini-Huygens mission: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/overview/
Images from Cassini: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/galleries/images/
Farewell, Cassini: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/15/cassini-end-of-mission-rip/
Mimas, the Death Star moon: https://www.universetoday.com/15436/saturns-moon-mimas/
Comet smashes into Jupiter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9
How long is a day on Saturn? https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7316
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:The Super Wolf Blood Moon of 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBWYEffBpW0
Meteorite impact during eclipse: https://www.space.com/43075-blood-moon-2019-meteor-impact-video.html
Future Eclipses: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list.html
Got some spare dough? Send Emily and Chris to this eclipse! https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2020-december-14
Moon’s shadow on the Earth during solar eclipse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEJuBrRwlU4
TESS website: https://www.nasa.gov/tess-transiting-exoplanet-survey-satellite
Juno mission photography: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/Juno
TESS First Light: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1523/first-light-tess-shares-first-science-image-in-hunt-to-find-new-worlds/
First exoplanets from TESS data: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1542/nasas-tess-rounds-up-its-first-planets-snares-far-flung-supernovae/
Gamma Dor stars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Doradus_variable
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The early solar system: https://www.space.com/35526-solar-system-formation.html
Stellar nurseries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_formation
Pillars of creation: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-pillars-of-creation
The Snow Line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_line_(astrophysics)
Models of planet formation: http://cosmicdiary.org/geminiplanetimager/2015/09/16/what-do-we-know-about-planet-formation/
Where did Earth’s water come from? https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/where-did-earth-get-its-water
Jupiter and Saturn migration: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/young-jupiter.html
Hot Jupiters: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/investigating-the-mystery-of-migrating-hot-jupiters
Hoptunes: http://kiaa.pku.edu.cn/news/2018/introducing-hoptunes-new-class-exoplanets-could-help-solve-mystery-worlds-scorching-orbits
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Image 1, The Pillars of Creation, from Time Magazine’s 100 Photos site: http://100photos.time.com/photos/nasa-pillars-of-creation
The Pillars of Creation — 2015 update: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-pillars-of-creation
Comparing the two images: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1501d/
Modelling the Pillars in 3D: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWklVPvk0C8
Image 2, Huge Hubble panorama of Andromeda galaxy: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/
Zoom into Andromeda! https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable/
A video zoom into the Andromeda image: https://youtu.be/aLlQxsGyhnw
A fly-through in 4k: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU
The zoom that broke Chris’s brain: http://hubblesite.org/image/3478/news_release/2015-02
Chris’s video on Andromeda’s awesomeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wicEtpPfry4
Chris Baker, Galaxy on Glass: https://galaxyonglass.com
Image 3, Chris’s Witch’s Broomstick: https://galaxyonglass.com/product/supernova-the-witchs-broom/
The Witch’s Broom, a.k.a The Veil Nebula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_Nebula
The Cygnus Loop Nebula: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/pia15415.html
Image 4, Chris’s Rosette: https://galaxyonglass.com/product/the-rosette/
The Rosette Nebula: https://oneminuteastronomer.com/2477/rosette-nebula/
Strömgren Spheres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strömgren_sphere
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The merging galaxies paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0652-7
Hubblesite article about the story: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/astronomers-unveil-growing-black-holes-in-colliding-galaxies
Simulations of galaxy collisions: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10687
Stephan’s Quintet: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140327.html
Keck Observatory: http://www.keckobservatory.org
Gravitational wave discovery: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20170927
Simulations of SMBH mergers: https://www.space.com/42017-merging-supermassive-black-holes-eerie-glow.html
Milky Way and Andromeda are going to collide: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/milky-way-collide.html
And they will form … Milkdromeda! https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30955
Andromeda in the night sky: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061228.html
If only Andromeda was a bit brighter: http://i.imgur.com/EpuhHJa.png
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
YorNight 2018: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
The Kepler mission: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler
Kepler runs out of fuel: https://www.space.com/41363-kepler-exoplanet-hunting-telescope-dead.html
TESS: https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov
NASA’s heart-tugging animation: https://nasaviz.gsfc.nasa.gov/20284
NASA’s Exoplanet Travel Bureau: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/exoplanet-travel-bureau/
Kepler 78b: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/226/kepler-78b/
Kepler 186f: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/198/kepler-186f-the-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-artists-concept/
Kepler 64b: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/222/kepler-64b-four-star-planet/
Musical note: Chris would like to acknowledge that he now realises that The Exoplanet Song’s chorus melody is really quite similar to the verse melody from Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”. And by “quite similar” he means “almost identical to”. He’d like to point out that he did have a sneaking suspicion there was a reason the song had come to him so quickly … So, you know, thanks Jason.)
SYZYGY LIVE! Join us for a very special live podcast recording at the University of York’s YorNight 2018: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Chris’s video about the cosmic distance ladder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFoHlWK571k
The AU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit
A very simple Parallax explanation: https://youtu.be/iwlMmJs1f5o
Parsec definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec
Cepheid Variables: https://www.space.com/15396-variable-stars.html
NGC 4258: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/m106/
Type 1a Supernovae: https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/supernovae2.html
Edwin Hubble: https://www.spacetelescope.org/about/history/the_man_behind_the_name/
Redshift and blueshift: https://www.space.com/25732-redshift-blueshift.html
Hubble’s Constant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EP5cNoNuXo
The expanding universe as explained by Brian Cox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR6wN8ym7SI
SYZYGY LIVE! Join us for a very special live podcast recording at the University of York’s YorNight 2018: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
Want to help us make Syzygy even better? Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Visit us at syzygy.fm or find us on Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
SYZYGY LIVE! Podcast recording at YorNight 2018 https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
NASA’s Mercury page: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mercury/overview/
NASA’s Messenger Mission: https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-s-messenger-spacecraft-10-years-in-space
BepiColombo’s going to Mercury: http://sci.esa.int/bepicolombo/59288-bepicolombo-s-journey-to-mercury/
JAXA, Japan’s space agency: http://global.jaxa.jp
Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/ESA_history/Giuseppe_Bepi_Colombo_Grandfather_of_the_fly-by
ESA’s video showing BepiColombo’s journey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yp-q1wqgig
Animation of Mercury’s 3:2 orbital resonance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUde7LFOlPs
Tidal Locking: https://www.universetoday.com/123391/what-is-tidal-locking/
Ice on Mercury: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/water-ice-on-mercury/
Colour maps of Mercury: https://www.universetoday.com/102901/messengers-unique-view-a-colorful-spinning-planet-mercury/
The solar wind: https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SolarWind.shtml
The Great Observatories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Observatories_program
Want to help us make Syzygy even better? Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Visit us at syzygy.fm or find us on Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
SYZYGY LIVE! Podcast recording at YorNight 2018 https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
Fermi’s new constellations for the high-energy sky: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
Imaging the SMBH at the centre of the Milky Way: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/magazine/how-do-you-take-a-picture-of-a-black-hole-with-a-telescope-as-big-as-the-earth.html
Event Horizon Telescope: https://eventhorizontelescope.org
Emily’s Astrocampus at the Uni of York : https://eventhorizontelescope.org
Sagittarius A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A
Star S2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2_(star)
A truck-full of data: https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/
The Black Hole (movie): https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1002497_black_hole
Interstellar (movie): https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interstellar_2014
The physics of the Interstellar black hole: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/
Gravitational lensing: https://www.spacetelescope.org/science/gravitational_lensing/
Pale Blue Dot: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/pale-blue-dot/
Carl Sagan on the Pale Blue Dot image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
Want to help us make Syzygy even better? Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
———————————
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Visit us at syzygy.fm or find us on Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Kepler mission: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/
Kepler’s been put to sleep: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler-put-into-sleep-mode-as-telescope-s-pointing-performance-degrades
Hubble’s gyro problems: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/hubble-space-telescope-taken-offline-after-gyroscope-failure/
Exomoon paper: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaav1784
Moons of the Solar System: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/in-depth/
Saturn’s moonlets: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/31/saturns-rings-contain-millions-moonlets-new-nasa-images-reveal-cassini
Jupiter’s rings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Jupiter
Multiple star systems: https://www.universetoday.com/132154/multiple-star-systems/
Pluto & Charon: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-and-charon-new-horizons-dynamic-duo
Animations of the Pluto-Charon binary: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Animations/Pluto-System.php
Want to help us make Syzygy even better? Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
———————————
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Visit us at syzygy.fm or find us on Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
The Goblin paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.00013.pdf
A more readable story about The Goblin: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-discovery-goblin-stirs-signs-elusive-planet-9-180970442/
The Astronomical Unit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit
The Kuiper Belt: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt
The Voyager missions: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov
The Heliopause: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere
The Oort Cloud: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud
Our nearest star (other than the Sun, which is a star also): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri
Trans-Neptunian Objects: https://www.universeguide.com/fact/kuiperbelt
The Subaru Telescope: https://subarutelescope.org
The Skymapper Telescope: https://rsaa.anu.edu.au/observatories/telescopes/skymapper-telescope
The Zooniverse — get some Citizen Science going: https://www.zooniverse.org/
Zooniverse — Backyard Worlds: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/marckuchner/backyard-worlds-planet-9
Want to help us make Syzygy even better? Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod
———————————
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Visit us at syzygy.fm or find us on Twitter: @syzygypod
Things we talk about in this episode:
Quantum weirdness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kb1VT0J3DE
Quantum entanglement: https://www.quantamagazine.org/entanglement-made-simple-20160428/
The MIT/Vienna experiment: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/miot-lfa082018.php
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
———————————
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
TESS update: https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Paper about the stars at the galactic core: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2018/07/aa33718-18/aa33718-18.html
Article about the research: https://www.universetoday.com/139701/einstein-was-right-again-successful-test-of-general-relativity-near-a-supermassive-black-hole/
Video about the research: https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1825a/
Video of the orbiting stars: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TF8THY5spmo
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity: https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/instant-expert-general-relativity/
The Very Large Telescope: http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/telescopes/vlti.html
A visit to the VLT: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BXIA5r9r29I
Tests of General Relativity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
To view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Mars is still having a bit of a dust storm: https://mars.nasa.gov/weather/storm-watch-2018/
• Name the ExoMars rover! (Please, no Marsy McMarsfaces, OK?) https://events.airbus.com/exomarsnamecomp
• The Lunar Eclipse, 27 July 2018, livestream replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqBStEIVF8o
• So, water on Mars, eh? https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mars-may-have-lake-liquid-water-search-life
• The scientific paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/07/24/science.aar7268
• The Mars Express mission: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express
• Lake Vostok: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok
• All the times we’ve found water on Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
To view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• Mars is having a bit of a dust storm at the moment: https://mars.nasa.gov/weather/storm-watch-2018/
• Name the ExoMars rover! (Please, no Marsy McMarsfaces, OK?) https://events.airbus.com/exomarsnamecomp
• When and where to see the Lunar Eclipse, 27 July 2018: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2018-july-27
• Solar eclipse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse
• Solar corona: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona
• Star Charts: https://astronomynow.com/uk-sky-chart/
• Free planetarium app for your computer/phone/tablet/device: http://stellarium.org
• Historical eclipses: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhistory/SEhistory.html
• Historical comets: http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/54198-harbingers-of-doom-windy-exhalations-or-icy-wanderers/
• Historical supernovae: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation
• Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
• Future eclipses: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list.html
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
To view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
All the latest TESS news! https://tess.mit.edu/news/
TESS’s first light: http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/first-light-for-tess
The Blazar Neutrino — Paper 1: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/eaat1378
Paper 2: : http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/147
A good article about the IceCube Neutrino: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/high-energy-neutrinos-blazar-icecube
Neutrinos: https://icecube.wisc.edu/info/neutrinos
IceCube Neutrino Observatory: https://icecube.wisc.edu
IceCube’s stunning Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/icecube_neutrino/
Blazars: https://www.universetoday.com/30594/blazars/
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
To view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• A listener question from Circus Stu! https://www.circusskillsyorkcic.org
• James Clerk Maxwell: https://digital.nls.uk/scientists/biographies/james-clerk-maxwell/discoveries.html
• Wave-particle duality of light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuv6hY6zsd0
• Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity: http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary/specialRT.html
• General Theory of Relativity: https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/instant-expert-general-relativity/
• Bowling balls and rubber sheets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTY1Kje0yLg
• Brian Cox drops stuff in a vacuum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E43-CfukEgs
• Mass is weird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztc6QPNUqls
• Neutrino astronomy: https://www.space.com/24334-neutrino-telescopes-astronomy-new-era.html
• Gravitational waves: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/what-are-gw
• Gravitational wave Astronomy: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-future-of-gravitational-wave-astronomy/
• Dark Sky Reserves: http://darksky.org
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
To view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• This week’s black hole paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/06/13/science.aao4669
• A good article about the story: https://www.sciencealert.com/arp-299-supermassive-black-hole-tidal-disruption-event-relativistic-jet-direct-image
• Black holes: what are they, exactly? A basic primer: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html
• A bit more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
• Want to blow your mind? Star Size Comparison 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoW8Tf7hTGA
• Prof. Andrea Ghez looks at the supermassive black hole at the of the Galaxy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y9_g4b1PlA
• Prof. Ghez’s group: http://www.galacticcenter.astro.ucla.edu
• Galaxy collisions: https://phys.org/news/2016-10-galaxies-collide.html
• Gravitational singularities: https://www.universetoday.com/84147/singularity/
• Stephen Hawking: http://www.hawking.org.uk
• John Archibald Wheeler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
The University of York's Astrocampus: http://www.astrocampus.org.uk
The Hubble Space Telescope: https://www.spacetelescope.org
Top 100 Hubble images: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/top100/
Big Data in Astronomy: https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2015/jun/25/big-universe-big-data-astronomical-opportunity
Careers in Astronomy: https://aas.org/learn/careers-astronomy
Amateur astronomy around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_societies
Astronomy apps: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/752-best-space-watching-apps.html
Galaxy Zoo: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo/
More citizen science: https://www.zooniverse.org
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• NASA’s announcement: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-finds-ancient-organic-material-mysterious-methane-on-mars
• The first Science paper about Methane: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1093
• The second Science paper about organics in the dirt: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1096
• NASA’s Curiosity rover: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html
Video showing Curiosity’s view of the Gale Crater: https://youtu.be/U5nrrnAukwI
• Curiosity’s selfie: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/mount-sharp-photobombs-mars-curiosity-rover
• Curiosity sings Happy Birthday to itself: https://youtu.be/uxVVgBAosqg
• Methane from cows: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cow-emissions-more-damaging-to-planet-than-co2-from-cars-427843.html
• Water on Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars
• Olympus Mons: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/solar_system_highlights/olympus_mons
• ESA’s ExoMars: http://exploration.esa.int/mars/48088-mission-overview/
• The fate of the Schiaparelli Lander: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-blogs/schiaparelli-requiem-for-a-mars-lander/
• NASA’s Spirit & Opportunity rovers: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/index.html
• The Mars 2020 mission: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/overview/
• The Mars Helicopter! https://youtu.be/oOMQOqKRWjU
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7121
• Sending humans to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/content/journey-to-mars-overview
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
• The Dunes on Pluto paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/992
• A good article about the paper: https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/scientists-unlock-the-secrets-of-pluto-s-methane-dunes
• All about Pluto from NASA: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/overview/
• When I was your age, Pluto was a Planet! https://www.redbubble.com/people/kipstewart/works/3024944-when-i-was-your-age-pluto-was-a-planet?p=t-shirt
• Why Pluto is no longer a planet: https://www.universetoday.com/13573/why-pluto-is-no-longer-a-planet/
• How Pluto got its name: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-pluto-got-its-name-180955912/
• The Kuiper Belt: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/in-depth/
• The New Horizons mission: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html
• Images of Pluto, before and after New Horizons: https://blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/2016/08/04/pluto-what-a-journey/
• Pluto … or Pluto™? https://twitter.com/ekaschyk/status/620967219934154752
• Images of the dunes on Pluto: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/992/tab-figures-data
• Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
The Octopuses from Space paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610718300798
Panspermia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
Octopuses? Octopi? Octopodes? https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-are-the-plurals-of-octopus-hippopotamus-syllabus
Octopuses are awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAIedFgdY0
Octopuses are really awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG6JebW63f4
Occam’s Razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
TESS Mission first images! https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-new-planet-hunter-snaps-initial-test-image-swings-by-moon-toward-final-orbit
The Europa Plume paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0450-z
A good article about the pile up: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/twenty-years-ago-the-galileo-spacecraft-flew-through-a-plume-on-europa/
The Galileo Mission: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/overview/
Jupiter’s moons: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/overview/
The Cassini mission: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
Cassini’s awesome photo album: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/hall-of-fame/
Saturn’s moon Enceladus: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/moons/enceladus_(moon)
Water plumes on Enceladus: https://theconversation.com/icy-plumes-bursting-from-saturns-moon-enceladus-suggest-it-could-harbour-life-38673
Hubble images of plumes on Europa: https://gizmodo.com/hubble-discovers-new-evidence-of-geyser-activity-on-eur-1787081944
ESA’s JUICE mission: http://sci.esa.int/juice/
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/
Extremophiles on Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
——————————
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
The Galactic Pile Up paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0025-2
A good article about the pile up: https://www.sciencealert.com/galaxy-megamergers-in-the-early-universe-protoclusters-spt2349-56-dusty-red-core
Syzygy Ep 01: https://www.syzygy.fm/podcast/2018/4/4/episode01
Rogue planets:: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet
The ESA’s Gaia mission: http://sci.esa.int/gaia/
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Gaia/Gaia_creates_richest_star_map_of_our_Galaxy_and_beyond
The Whirlpool Galaxy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool_Galaxy
The Magellanic Clouds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellanic_Clouds
The Local Group of galaxies: https://www.universetoday.com/30286/local-group/
Size comparison of Andromeda and the Moon: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/01/moon_and_andromeda_relative_size_in_the_sky.html
The Virgo Supercluster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_Supercluster
The Millennium Simulation Project: https://wwwmpa.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/virgo/millennium/
A video zoom into the universe from the Millennium Run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74IsySs3RGU
Minute Physics video on how the simulation was done, with some awesome graphics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP-C_B8nSmw
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
TESS mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3niFzo5VLI
The nanodiamond meteorite paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03808-6
Guardian article on the story: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/17/diamonds-in-sudan-meteorite-are-remnants-of-lost-planet
The Asteroid Belt: https://www.universetoday.com/32856/asteroid-belt/
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, lizardy sock puppet: https://youtu.be/MLtlcSR9A6M
Nanodiamonds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanodiamond
Solar System formation: http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/how-do-planets-form
Solar System formation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhy1fucSRQI
Theia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet)
Meteorite 2008 TC3: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/meteorites-found-from-asteroid-2008-tc3/
Exploding meteor over Russia in 2013: https://youtu.be/fBLjB5qavxY
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131106-russian-meteor-chelyabinsk-airburst-500-kilotons/
Meteortites stand out in the desert: https://www.universetoday.com/89656/the-asteroid-that-fell-to-earth-meteorites-from-2008-tc3-still-giving-up-their-secrets/
Meteorites on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xmeteorite.TRS0&_nkw=meteorite&_sacat=0
Meteorites in Antarctica: https://www.space.com/14316-hundreds-meteorites-antarctica-scientists.html
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
TESS launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3niFzo5VLI
TESS’s crazy orbit: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/tess/operations.html
TESS’s telescopes: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/tess/the-tess-space-telescope.html
Emily’s research: https://www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/#research
Types of variable stars: https://www.space.com/15396-variable-stars.html
Modes of vibration on a string: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSIw5SgUirg
Red Giant stars: https://www.universetoday.com/24720/red-giant-star/
Animation of a stellar pulsation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IVm_aE3k98
The Sun’s core is rotating faster than its surface: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/esa-nasa-s-soho-reveals-rapidly-rotating-solar-core
The Song of the Sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2eQPOo95l0&feature=youtu.be
Singing Stars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzeJq3CbiZM
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
Astronomical naming schemes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_naming_conventions
TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite: https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov
The best exoplanet pages out there- get lost in the awesome! https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/
Kepler and K2 missions: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
Comparing Kepler and TESS fields of view: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=12885&button=recent
Exoplanet atmospheres: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2130730-neptune-like-exoplanet-spotted-that-has-a-watery-atmosphere/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180301144131.htm
TESS’s Mission Objectives: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/tess/objectives.html
TESS’s orbit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AIbD2WxyN8
SpaceX Rocket Man: https://youtu.be/aBr2kKAHN6M
Fly Your Exoplanet on TESS: https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/fly_your_exoplanet.html
https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/fly_your_exoplanet_pics.html
James Webb Space Telescope: https://jwst.nasa.gov
JWST and Hubble mirror comparison: https://jwst.nasa.gov/mirrors.html
JWST’s L2 Lagrange Point: https://www.wired.com/2011/08/james-webb-space-telescope-and-l2-orbits/
Lagrange and Laplace: https://manyworldstheory.com/2014/11/24/lagrange-laplace-and-legendre-which-one-is-which/
If you like what you've heard on Syzygy, let us know:
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Tell your friends, leave us a review on iTunes or your podcast directory of choice, or just drop us a note to say hi!
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
Dark Matter in the news: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/galaxy-seems-to-lack-dark-matter-stumping-astronomers/
Nature Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25767
PDF of the paper: http://www.astro.yale.edu/dokkum/papers/mass.pdf
Galaxy Rotation Curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve
MACHOs, WIMPS & other weirdness: https://theconversation.com/from-machos-to-wimps-meet-the-top-five-candidates-for-dark-matter-51516
Dark matter and galaxy clusters: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/galaxy-clusters-reveal-new-dark-matter-insights
Galaxies in collision: https://phys.org/news/2016-10-galaxies-collide.html
The Bullet Cluster: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060824.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily is an astronomer at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris can be found online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
Geocentric models of the universe: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model
Retrograde motion of planets & heliocentric models: earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OrbitsHistory/
Poor Pluto: www.universetoday.com/13573/why-pluto-is-no-longer-a-planet/
First exoplanet confirmed 1995: exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/2084/
The transit method: www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/exoplanets/transit-photometry.html
Kepler mission: kepler.nasa.gov
Exoplanets we know of: exoplanets.nasa.gov
Our location in the Milky Way: www.universetoday.com/65601/where-is-earth-in-the-milky-way/
Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers opening line: www.goodreads.com/quotes/54481-far-out-in-the-uncharted-backwaters-of-the-unfashionable-end
Extragalactic planets paper: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aaa5fb
Extragalactic planets news story: www.sciencealert.com/planets-found-in-another-galaxy-quasar-gravitational-microlensing
Quasars: www.spacetelescope.org/science/black_holes/
Gravitational Lensing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens
Einstein and the solar eclipse: www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/07/04/how-a-solar-eclipse-first-proved-einstein-right/#6bda2738766a
Funhouse quasar image: phys.org/news/2018-02-astrophysicists-planets-extragalactic-galaxies-microlensing.html
Rogue planets: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet
Planet HIP13044b: www.space.com/9556-alien-planet-galaxy-discovered.html
Galactic Cannibalism: www.universetoday.com/89086/galactic-cannibalism/
Exoplanet in Andromeda: www.newscientist.com/article/dn17287-first-extragalactic-exoplanet-may-have-been-found/
Exoplanet microlensing a quasar: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extragalactic_planet#Twin_Quasar-related_planet