Episodes
A brief description of what constitutes and astronomical observatory with a few examples in the real world that you have probably heard of.
Published 07/20/23
A brief description of the philosophical concept known as Occam's Razor, which asserts that “the simplest explanation of a particular natural phenomenon is usually the correct one.”
Published 07/19/23
A brief description of why the Webb Telescope is optimized to observe infrared light. Hint: it has to do with the four main science areas that it will be studying: “Other Worlds,” “Star Lifecycle,” “Galaxies Over Time,” and “Early Universe.”
Published 01/04/23
A brief description of the four main science goals of the James Webb Space Telescope - “Other Worlds,” “Star Lifecycle,” “Galaxies Over Time,” and “Early Universe.”
Published 01/04/23
A brief description of the James Webb Space Telescope and how it's different than the Hubble Space Telescope.
Published 12/20/22
A brief description of the Hubble Space Telescope and its scientific capabilities.
Published 12/14/22
A brief description of the two primary reasons why we send telescopes into space to observe and study celestial objects.
Published 12/14/22
A brief historical summary of what we mean when we refer to "Spiral Nebulae."
Published 06/19/22
A brief description of what will happen if the universe stops expanding and collapses back on itself - this is known as the Big Crunch.
Published 05/31/22
A brief description of the basic properties of astronomical objects such as mass, radius, distance, luminosity, and temperature.
Published 05/18/22
A brief description of the Local Group of galaxies which contains the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, and dozens of dwarf galaxies all gravitationally bound to each other.
Published 05/10/22
A brief description of what scientists mean when they say we "know" something.
Published 04/10/22
A brief description of the structure of atoms - how they are mostly empty space - and why the everyday objects you use don't collapse and fall in on themselves.
Published 04/08/22
A brief description of what we mean when we talk about interacting galaxies.
Published 03/09/22
A brief description of nuclear fusion, which is the process by which stars produce light so that they can shine.
Published 03/09/22
A brief description of giant molecular clouds and why they are important for stars.
Published 02/25/22
A brief description of the observational evidence we have supporting our assertion that the Milky Way galaxy is spiral in shape.
Published 02/24/22
A brief description of the 21 centimeter radiation (light) that the Hydrogen atom emits and the mechanism behind this emission.
Published 02/04/22
A brief description of what astronomers mean when they say that "all pulsars are neutron stars but not all neutron stars are pulsars."
Published 12/18/21
A brief description of neutron stars, which are essentially the end state of massive stars some of which become pulsars.
Published 08/03/21
A brief description of a white dwarf star, which is the end-state of a star that is less than 8 times the mass of Sun.
Published 07/28/21
A brief description of how we use the HR Diagram and the main sequence to measure the ages of stars in groups and clusters.
Published 06/23/21
A brief description of seeing and the resolving power of a telescope.
Published 06/18/21
A brief description of the true nature of black holes as highly localized sources of gravity and not cosmic vacuum cleaners.
Published 06/14/21