The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu
A half-hour dose of cosmic conversation with scientists, educators and students about the cosmos, scientific frontiers, scifi, comics, and more. Hosted by Dr. Charles Liu, PhD, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. Support us on Patreon.
Episodes
Why should people care about fundamental questions of existence or try to understand the principles of our universe? Because we may be the only sentient beings in existence who can! At least, that’s what returning guest Dr. Kelsey Johnson, past president of the AAS and the ASP, and author of “Into the Unknown – The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos, tells Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu as our interview resumes.
...Why is star formation the workhorse of the universe? What is a flocculent galaxy? Which cosmic cataclysm creates new globular star clusters? And why are we currently seeing such amazing aurora in unusual places?
To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astronomer Dr. Kelsey Johnson, past president of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), and author of “Into t...
Happy Halloween! In this special episode of The LIUniverse, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome back archaeology expert Hannah Liu, MEd to bring a scientific eye to the holiday and some of its most familiar denizens: witches, werewolves, zombies, black cats and even the Great Galactic Ghoul!
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). You’ll learn all abo...
Welcome to Season 4 of The LIUniverse and thank you for joining us on this journey.
We’re kicking off the new season with another Chuck GPT episode devoted to answering your questions, and to do that, we’ve brought back archaeology expert Hannah Liu, MEd. She’s not alone: joining Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu is The LIUniverse’s Social Media Guru, Stacey Severn.
As always, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmi...
How did the universe evolve, and more importantly, how might it end? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome theoretical cosmologist and astrophysicist, Dr. Katie Mack, author of the recently published book, “The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking).” In Part 2, we look at dark matter, Gravitational Memory Effect, and more. (You can listen to Part 1 here.)
We dive right in with a question from David: “I w...
How did the universe evolve, and more importantly, how might it end? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome theoretical cosmologist and astrophysicist, Dr. Katie Mack, author of the recently published book, “The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking).” You’re going to need your thinking caps for this episode, because the trio get into some pretty intense and complex concepts in physics and astrophysics.
...
How do you go from a small town in Colorado to being a scientist-astronaut candidate in Australia? And how can you make space accessible for disabled astronauts? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome scientist-astronaut candidate Celene Shimmen.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the new study using the James Webb Space Telescope that disproves the detection of tryptoph...
We jump right back in where we left off in Part 1 of our interview with Dr. Cady Coleman, astronaut, chemist, engineer, flautist, and most recently, the author of “Sharing Space: An Astronaut's Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change.” (If you missed it, listen to Part 1 here.)
Chuck asks Cady to tell us more about NASA’s decision to not include small and extra-large spacesuits to “save space.” She explains how, a few months l...
What is the overview effect? Why is slow fast when you’re spacewalking? And what would happen to Chuck and Allen’s hair in space?
To get the answers to these and other questions, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome back astronaut, chemist, engineer, flautist, and most recently, the author of “Sharing Space: An Astronaut's Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change,” Dr. Cady Coleman.
As always, though, we start off w...
Does sound travel faster in space? Is the multiverse theory true? Can gravity escape a black hole? In our latest episode of our popular “Chuck GPT” series, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome our Social Media/Patreon Community Director Stacey Severn to answer fan questions collected from Patreon patrons, students, Facebook and YouTube.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the recently...
Is there really a music of the spheres? And why is space so inspirational for creativity? To ponder these cosmic questions, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome noted composer and pianist Bruce Lazarus.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, this time in honor of our guest: the fact that the movie “Oppenheimer” won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Chuck mentions some other in...
Do gravitons exist? What are blazars? How did our universe begin? To grapple with questions on a cosmological scale, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Ron Gamble, a theoretical astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the gravitational wave background. Luckily, we have the “cosmological - gravitational wave - black hole meister...
Volcanoes in space...supervolcanoes here on Earth... and lava lakes everywhere! To get an expert opinion on eruptions, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Sam Tramontano, a Post-Doctoral researcher in geology and Earth sciences at The American Museum of Natural History.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the Juno spacecraft’s two recent close passes (under 1000 miles) of Jupiter...
How does the brain actually work? And is there anything we can do when it doesn’t? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Nicki Driscoll, CTO and Co-Founder of NeuroBionics.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the recently announced discovery of Super-Earth TOI-715 b that is within its star’s habitable zone. It’s roughly 1.5x the diameter of Earth and orbits an M-4 Red ...
The total solar eclipse is almost here! In this special episode of The LIUniverse, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu bring you both the basics and some more in-depth investigations of how eclipses work, how to see them, and what makes them so unique. This episode includes clips from Chuck’s recent public talk at the College of Staten Island to a packed house. So, if you hear some background chatter, it’s th...
What is the science behind the science fiction in Three Body Problem? In our second episode of “ChuckGPT” Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome two members of our production team: Jon Barnes, our Editor, and Stacey Severn, our Social Media/Patreon Community Director, to delve into the questions and answers posed by the award-winning novel and new series on Netflix.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully coo...
What does the study of archeology, the study of the human past, offer to the astronomers of today? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome archaeology expert Hannah Liu, MEd, to connect the past, the present, and the future of astronomy in an episode Allen has described as, “A Fistful of Lius.”
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a recent scientific paper just published by...
How can college students who would like to work in the space industry and at NASA get their foot in the door? And what is the purpose of the Lucy mission to the Trojan Asteroids? To get the answers to both of these questions, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Freya Holloway, a NASA L’SPACE Lab Tech at ASU.
As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the latest, most accurate coloration of ...
Welcome to the Season 3 premiere of The LIUniverse, your happy half-hour dose of cosmic conversation and geeky banter with host Dr. Charles Liu! In this episode, Chuck and co-host Allen Liu welcome back Dr. Jimmy Negus, who was our guest on our very first episode, to talk about Solar Flares, “Deep Space Nine,” and more.
As some of you may remember, Jimmy was only a PhD candidate back then, with his research focused on active galact...
What happens to one sun of a binary pair if the other goes supernova? Can we mitigate the greenhouse effect? How big should a telescope be? For our Season 2 finale, we’re answering fan questions from YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. To bring those questions to life, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome two members of the LIUniverse social media team, “Vinyl Benjy” Schoenfeld, our TikTok manager, and Stacey Severn, our Soc...
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