Walkabout The Galaxy

We explore the strange ring system of dwarf planet Quaoar, and discuss a new study that suggests that Uranus's four largest moons (which aren't really very large!) may have subsurface salty oceans. In the astrophysical realm, black holes may have emerged from the chaotic soup of energy during the inflation era when the universe was not even minutes old. Add to that some nerdy computer trivia and you've got yourself another episode of Walkabout the Galaxy!

New calculations show how large impacts onto Mars may have boosted its greenhouse effect, helping explain how it was warm enough for all those rivers and lakes billions of years ago. If that explains Mars' early warm climate, it could be bad news for potential for life there. Futher from home, dust has been observed star forming regions in the Small Magellanic Cloud where the abundance of planet-building raw materials is low. Check out these stories, space news, and special top quark trivia.

We return to Orlando Nerd Nite for a live recording where we take a look at the exciting upcoming missions to the Moon and the ESA mission to Jupiter's moons, JUICE, now on its 8 year journey to its destination. We revisit the amazing image of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87, now even amazing-er thanks to the clever implementation of artificial intelligence by some good old fashioned human intelligence. 

Space reporter Brendan Byrne becomes an honorary astroquark at MEGACON 2023 where we take a look at some of the recent and landmark discoveries of JWST, including the earliest supermassive black hole and a new era of studying exoplanets. Plus: Anime trivia!

That interstellar comet appears to have gotten its odd behavior from the natural rocket effect of hydrogen gas being released near the Sun and not, sadly, alien rocket technology. The universe is still a cool and interesting place, though, and a new clever measurement of stars orbiting black holes shows evidence for a pile-up of dark matter around the black holes, giving us another way to study this mysterious stuff.

Compelling evidence for recent (1990’s!) volcanic activity on Venus has been un-Earthed, or rather un-Venused, by Robert Herrick through analysis of Magellan radar data. A volcanic vent seems to have roughly doubled in size in 1991. We discuss the difficulties of these observations and the implications for future missions. We also take a look at the role of supermassive black holes in controlling star formation in galaxies and have a numerical Top quark trivia. Warning: this episode gets off to a bit of a silly start, so jump ahead to the 24-minute mark if you want to get straight to Venus!

What time is it on the Moon? It turns out the answer to that is not as easy as just lining it up with a time on the Earth. Worse, it's not even that obvious what time it is on the Earth. That's just one of many topics we explore in this episode, including a discovery that the Milky Way is much larger than previously thought, and tracing water molecules from the interstellar medium step by step into that cool glass you have with dinner. Join us for all that, time trivia, and more.

Learn about active asteroids and how the DART mission kind of turned an asteroid into an active asteroid, how impacts into Mercury have given it a dust trail, and we speculate about what might happen if Europa came to Earth. See title for conclusion! It's all about asteroids and dust and impacts on this episode of Walkabout.

Astronomers have sighted a supermassive black hole ejected from its host galaxy and creating a wake of stars from intergalactic gas. And if that wasn't enough to blow your mind, closer to home we've seen organic molecules in the material returned from the surface of a near Earth asteroid. Join us for all this, a weird exoplanet, Apollo program trivia, and some surprising tangents.

Where would you go and what would you bring with you if you could explore any object in the universe? Our cosmologist Jim Cooney wants to look for aliens underneath Europa's icy shell. This shell's complicated fractures may owe something to a new form of ice discovered in a delightfully simple experiment. Further out, a dwarf planet beyond Neptune has a ring unlike any we've seen before, and a delightfully complicated experiment may explain the origin of cosmological magnetic fields. 

Neutrinos are slippery little buggers, and a new experiment is tightening the net to pin down their itsy-bitsy mass. Closer to home, the Earth's core is a complicated system with changing rates of rotation. We also take a look at the peculiar rings of a distant cometary body, Chariklo, thanks to a new observation by JWST. Join us for all the space news and Mars rover trivia.

Scientists have created a simulation of a wormhole in a quantum computer. Top quark helps us understand the significance of this as well as reminds us what the heck a wormhole is anyway. In planetary science, collisions may once again come to the rescue to help explain a mystery. This one is the odd gap in exoplanet sizes. And Down quark gives us an update on the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids and its sticky solar panel. Join us for all this, telescope trivia and more.

Our own solar system is lacking in one of the most common types of planet, the Super Earth. These large rocky planets have a cookie-cutter characteristic that may be explained by the evolution of stuff in a forming system’s disk. Speaking of disks, a mystery about the Milky Way its family of satellite galaxies seems to have been solved. Discover all this with updates from JWST, Artemis, a look ahead to NEO Surveyor, rocket trivia, and a cosmological stumper with your hosts, the astroquarks.

Top quark Jim Cooney rejoins the crew and gives us a deep dive into the breakthrough in nuclear fusion at the National Ignition Facility. Mars rover Perseverance is busy storing samples of Mars for a future mission to bring home, and the Sun may have a 17-year cycle in addition to the well-known 11-year cycle. Ring in the new year with the astroquarks to learn about all this, comet trivia, and more.

The astroquarks get Down with it as we welcome Dr. Audrey Martin back as the Down astroquark for a discussion of the strange auroral phenomenon known as STEVE (for real), an odd gamma ray burst that may be the result of an unusual stellar merger, and updates on the successful Artemis 1 mission to the Moon.

Europa’s got miniature tectonic activity, and a dark matter candidate may real itself through micro-gravitational lensing events. Dr. Audrey Martin joins us to discuss the strange spectra of the Trojan asteroids which have similar characteristics to comet dust tails. Join us for all this, silly particle name trivia, Artemis updates, and more.

Artemis 1, the most powerful rocket to ever leave the Earth, is up and on its way to the Moon after more hydrogen leaks than we care to remember, and Up Astroquark Dr. Hannah Sargeant signs off on her last Walkabout appearance as she is away to new adventures. We review the Artemis 1 mission, a new tracer for the origin of water on Earth and Mars, and we learn about a new idea for that famous dimming of the supergiant star Betelgeuse. Learn about gravity darkening, also a great name for a rock band, space junk trivia, and more with Strange, Charm, and Up.

The Mars Insight lander detected an impact that produced a stadium-sized crater on the red planet, and the 30-year magnetospheric mission Geotail comes to an end. An experiment deep underground on Earth helps explain the puzzling composition of some of the oldest stars, and we explore the future of eclipses in our trivia. Catch up on all this, the latest space news, and more. 

Join us for a special reunion of all the astroquarks with a fresh look at some of our favorite topics, from hunting for biosignatures on Venus and plumes on Europa to the quivering of space-time measured by LIGO. New results on old observations and quasar trivia round out our 300th episode.

We absolutely definitely have not seen any life on Mars. That said, new research suggests that over 3 billion years ago there may have been a certain kind of habitable climate on Mars for some little critters whose effects on the atmosphere would have made Mars - wait for it - uninhabitable! Join us for this and the most powerful gamma ray burst yet observed.