Hosted by Chris Beckett & Shane Ludtke, two amateur astronomers in Saskatchewan. actualastronomy@gmail.com Our guest today is Peter Jedicke who was National President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada from 2004 to 2006 and is now a Fellow of the RASC. He is also Honorary President of the RASC London Centre. His favourite astronomical topic, both astrophysically and as an observer, is globular clusters and co-authored the RASCC Observer’s Handbook section on Star Clusters. Peter co-authors the Star Clusters section of the RASC Observer's Handbook. Lastly, Peter helped start the li ..read more

Only eight times in history have scientists found an asteroid, tracked its trajectory toward Earth, and caught the resulting fireball on cameras. The latest of these eight events happened in January 2024, with the discovery of asteroid 2024 BX1, a mere three hours before impacting the atmosphere over Europe. And of course, the SETI Institute's own Dr. Peter Jenniskens was hot on the trail, flying to Germany to help search for meteorite fragments. Within the week, several pieces were discovered, and early analysis found that they belong to a rare group of meteorites called "aubrites".   Jo ..read more

What’s the most distant thing we can see with the naked eye? What about with a telescope? What about at other wavelengths? Is there anything more to see? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!   This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/spaceman and get on your way to being your best self. Visit BetterHelp to get 10% off your first month!   Support the show: http://www.patreon.com/pmsutter All episodes: http://www.AskASpaceman.com Follow on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PaulMattSutter Read a book: http://www.pmsutter ..read more

https://www.astronomycast.com/2006/11/einsteins-theory-of-special-relativity/ From November 6, 2006. It’s all relative. How many times have you heard that? Well, when you’re traveling close to the speed of light, everything really is relative; especially the passage of time. This week, Fraser and Pamela give you the skinny on Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. After listening to a few thought experiments, you too should be able to wrap your head around this amazing theory.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.&n ..read more

Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006. travelersinthenight.org Today's 2 topics: - Ten hours and 46 minutes after my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard discovered a Toyota RAV4 sized space rock, now named 2018 UA, streaking through the constellation of Pegasus at 8.8 miles/second, this tiny asteroid passed less than 1/2 the distance of the communications satellites to the surface of planet Earth. - Aten Asteroids are stealthy space rocks which can ..read more

Using archival data from the Gemini North telescope, a team of astronomers have measured the heaviest pair of supermassive black holes ever found. The merging of two supermassive black holes is a phenomenon that has long been predicted, though never observed. In this podcast, Dr. Roger Romani discusses the discovery of this system and what we can learn about massive black hole pairs from this system.   Bios:  - Rob Sparks is in the Communications, Education and Engagement group at NSF’s NOIRLab in Tucson, Arizona. - Dr. Roger W. Romani is a member of the Kavli Institute for Particle ..read more

From March 29, 2024. One of our recurring topics is “Planet formation is not well understood,” and a trio of new papers is making it clear why planet formation continues to... not be well understood. Put simply: the Universe likes to create more diverse solar systems than an entire planet’s worth of sci-fi writers can imagine.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to ..read more

Paul Hill and Dr. Jenifer “Dr. Dust” Millard host.  Damien Phillips, John Wildridge and Dustin Ruoff produce. This month Dr. Jen is off to the US for the Solar Eclipse while Paul is just back from Goonhilly Earth Station. We chat about the imminent demise of the Chandra Space Telescope, more news on the Hubble tension, and of course the Great North American Eclipse.  Chinese Lunar ambitions, Starship making it to space and the first Boeing Starliner crew make the news while in this month’s history moment we talk about the brightest Stellar event witnessed by humans.    www ..read more

Throughout human history, comets have fascinated us. They have gone from signs and portents of bad things to come to well-studied and even visited "dirty snowballs". Every year, observers search the skies, hoping to discover the Next Big Comet - Halley, Hyakutake, Hale–Bopp, McNaught. From SOHO and LINEAR to ATLAS and IRAS, numerous observatories have continued to add to the count of discovered comets.  But it doesn't require expensive hardware or spacecraft to make similar observations from your own backyard; telescopes and even binoculars will work - at least for the brightest objects ..read more

From August 8, 2023. A massive, Jupiter-sized exoplanet has been discovered orbiting a small, low-mass star and this discovery is challenging theories on how planets form around their stars. The planet, called TOI-4860 b, is about the same size as Jupiter and orbits its star once every 1.5 Earth days, classifying it as a warm Jupiter. This is unusual because planets this large are not supposed to form around low-mass stars.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstron ..read more