Astronomy Cast
Take a fact-based journey through the cosmos. Tune in to hear weekly discussions on astronomical topics ranging from planets to cosmology. Hosted by Fraser Cain (Universe Today) and Dr. Pamela L. Gay (Planetary Science Institute), this show brings the questions of an avid astronomy lover direct to an astronomer. Together Fraser and Pamela explore what is known and being discovered about the universe around us. Astronomy Cast is supported thru patreon.com/AstronomyCast.
Episodes
Astronomy Cast Ep. 757: CubeSats
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on May 19, 2025.
Computers are getting smaller, faster and more capable, which has enabled an entirely mew class of satellites: CubeSats. A mission small enough that you can hold it in your hands, and yet powerful enough to even travel to other planets and send messages home.
Every year, our electronics seem ...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 756: SphereX
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on May 12, 2025.
NASA’s newly launched SphereX mission is up & operational and has completed its initial checkout and “first light”. Everything looks good! And now it’s starting its science operations. And that’s good enough for Pamela! And THAT means we can talk about it. So let’s do that! There's a new space telescope in town (or at least in LEO). Let's...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 755: Intermediate Mass Black Holes
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on May 5, 2025.
Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay.
There are stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. But very little evidence of anything in between. Where are all the intermediate-mass black holes that should be the building blocks of the biggest ones? Actually, the science has been accelerating rapidly and we now know...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 754: K2-18b
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Apr 28, 2025.
You’ve heard the news! Astronomers are reporting the discovery of biosignatures at K2-18b. Is this proof of life or should we all be more skeptical? It's in the news and people are claiming aliens... but is it aliens? Let's see what the data actually says.
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Astronomy Cast Ep. 753: Why is the Moon's South Pole So Interesting?
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Apr 21, 2025.
I’m sure you’ve heard that all eyes are on the Moon’s southern pole. This is where various NASA and Chinese missions are targeting. What makes this region so special and what are the special challenges that explorers will face. From TV shows to real-world mi...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 752: Should We Go to the Moon or Mars Next?
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Apr 16, 2025.
Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay
There is an ongoing debate on where NASA should go next with humans: to the Moon or Mars. (Or maybe an asteroid or one of Mars’ moons). We are on the verge of sending humans back to the Moon. At the same time others would prefer we focus our exploration on Mars. I...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 751: Vacuum Energy
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Apr 7, 2025.
Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay.
Even empty space isn’t empty. It’s filled with the quantum fluctuations of spacetime itself. Which can be measured with famous experiments like the Casimir Effect. There is a surprising amount of energy in space itself, which has led to some interesting theories about how the future of th...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 750: Supernova Early Warning System
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Mar 31, 2025.
Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay
When enormous stars detonate as supernovae they release a burst of neutrinos that can be the first sign of a coming explosion. Now, astronomers have built a network to watch for that flash of neutrinos, and help direct their telescopes for when the sky show begins. Supern...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 749: Dark Energy Changing Over Time
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Mar 24, 2025.
The Hubble Tension is a vexing problem, with astronomers measuring the expansion of the Universe at different points in its history and getting different results. Errors have mostly been ruled out, which leaves the potential for new physics. Has the strength of dark energy been changing over time? We thought Dark En...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 748: Fast Radio Bursts
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Mar 17, 2025.
For the briefest of moments, some dead stars can flash brighter than their entire galaxy (in Radio light) and then live to do it again and again. It’s time for an update on fast radio bursts, a phenomenon we’ve only known about for a few decades. In this time astronomers have learned a tremendous amount them. They’re not solved,...
Streamed live on Mar 10, 2025.
Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay
Most planets orbit stars. That’s the rule, right? Well, maybe not. In fact the vast majority of planets could be floating freely through the Milky Way. Today we’re gonna talk about rogue planets. Sometimes planets just go rogue. Let's learn about planets living free from stars.
Show Notes:
Earth's Dust Storms
M...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 746: Dust Storms
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live Feb 24, 2025.
We have dust storms on Earth and of course the famous dust storms on Mars. There are even dust storms on Titan. What causes these storms and how do they work differently on the worlds in the solar system. But what about the exoplanets?
The bane of solar panels, humans, and robots, dust storms have a way of picking up steam (or at least d...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 745: How We Know If Asteroids Will Attack
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live Feb 20, 2025.
I’m sure you’ve heard the news, asteroid 2024 YR4 has a tiny chance of hitting Earth in 2032. How do astronomers discover these dangerous asteroids, measure their future impact risk and track the changes over time? When should we panic? New asteroids are found every day, and every day we learn that those asteroid...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 744: Lunar Time
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Feb 10, 2025.
What time is it? OK, fine, what time is it on the Moon? The Moon orbits the Earth, so it doesn’t fall into a specific time zone. Also, there’s lower gravity on the surface of the Moon, which changes the rate that clocks tick. Well… It’s time to introduce Lunar Time.
When are you when you are ...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 743: What Else Can We Learn From Gravitational Waves?
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Feb 3, 2025.
Just a few years ago LIGO detected the first direct evidence of gravitational waves coming from colliding black holes. And there you have it. Boom! Black holes collide! But that wasn’t all we learned from gravitational waves, nor will we learn. Sure, the masses of merging black holes are nice to kno...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 742: Atmospheric Gravity Waves
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Jan 27, 2025.
Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay
Gravity Waves ... not gravitational waves ... move atmospheres and make pretty clouds. Have you ever looked up into the sky and seen bizarre cloud formations that look like waves on the ocean? These are gravity waves. Not to be confused with gravitational waves, and they’re ca...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 741: Technosignatures
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Jan 20, 2025.
As humanity developed more advanced technology, we’re having a larger effect on our environment. The more we do, the more we could be detectable. And this gives us ideas on how we could detect other civilizations, even if they don’t realize we’re watching.
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Astronomy Cast Ep. 740: Sneaky Stars!
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Jan 13, 2025.
Why stars can’t be trusted!
If you’re an astronomer you depend on accurate observations of stars, but there’s a problem. Stars are sneaky! Changing in size, brightness, color, they hide their chemistry, their age and even their companions from all but the cleverest observers. Stars explode precisely when they intend to. Betelgeuse t...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 740: Drones!
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live January 9, 2025.
From little Ingenuity to the future Firefly and all our Earth Science fliers, let's look at the buzzy scientists. NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter showed us how wonderful a flying science platform can be on another world. Soon there’ll be a helicopter flying on Titan, but there are many other flying robots that’ll be helping us with all o...
Astronomy Cast Ep. 738: Looking Ahead to 2025
By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay
Streamed live on Dec 16, 2024.
What can we hope (or dread) to see in 2025?
Last week we talked about the 2024 strangeness. Now we’re gonna talk about the upcoming space stories for 2025 that we’re looking forward to. It’s a nice mix of new rockets, new missions and new fly-bys.
Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay
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