EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
Episodes
When Science Results Rhyme: Exoplanets, Supernovae, and Relativity
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's episode, we look at planets younger than fossils, celebrate relativity repeatedly working as expected, and peer at previously only theo...
Never trust a volcano & other geology tales
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The world we live on today has undergone dramatic change since it first formed, and time hasn't necessarily been kind. Earth has gained some weight (a...
Climate Change Follows the Water
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We live on an ever-changing world, and by studying the past, we can better understand our potential futures. In this episode, we follow the water and ...
JWST's picture album of Baby stars, planets, moons and more
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we look at some of our latest discoveries about the formation of star systems, including planets and moons, and the growth of black h...
Giant Black Holes Cosplay as Little Red Dots
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The universe is hard enough to figure out without one kind of object dressing up as another, but - just in time for Halloween - researchers have figur...
The Black Hole eating star with supernova sized regrets
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's episode, we tell the story of a Giant Blue Star that made the terrible, terrible mistake of trying to nibble on its more evolved siblin...
Rockets make bad neighbors
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's episode, we take a look at the impact SpaceX launches from the Space Coast will have on their competitors and those living, working, an...
It came from the outer solar system
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's episode we take a look at all the news our outer solar system has to offer. From newly discovered outer solar system objects to interst...
Volunteer Stargazers
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode we look at how volunteers throughout history have aided in scientific explorations and tell you how you can get involved with ...
2 Tales of 2 decades: Rubin Observatory and SpaceX Starship
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Join us as we look at two parallel stories - the development of the Vera Rubin Observatory and the SpaceX Starship rocket. Both projects are 20 years ...
When the Universe Attacks
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Fermi Paradox by looking at a bunch of science capable of preventing and destroying civilizat...
Happy Space News! Aurorae, Planet 9, and weird things that make us say "it's not aliens"
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we take a closer look at the weirdly twisty search for a possible planet in our outer solar system. We'll also take in the happy science of...
A failing look at Earth, a first look at other worlds, and more
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's closer look we are going to look at the earth-facing missions that are getting dragged down by our atmosphere and will be forcibly reti...
Federal Budget Cuts: An extinction-level event
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week we look at how the elimination of science programs, projects, datasets, and funding may be shaping into an extinction-level event for US Spa...
From the beginning of the universe to the beginning of spring, it's all science
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey through all that's new in space and astronomy, including dark energy news, the death of supersymmetry, a closer look a...
Space is hard: IM2 Failure, Starship 8 explosion, Mars Sample Return delays, and more
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey through all that's new in space and astronomy, including new results from Perseverance Rover, Venusian Volcanism, Mars...
The Book of Mars, Star Formation, and More
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including DESI takes a census of central blackholes, star formation in clu...
Temperatures That Kill
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including a potentially killer asteroid, a new look at the history of Eart...
Space stories of joy
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's the kind of week where we feel the need to put joy into the world, and we've made the decision to just find stories to bring a smile and share th...
Science Here & Far: The Moon, Asteroids, Dark Comets... & Dark Energy
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru new discoveries planetary science and Cosmology. We look at Dark Comets, Io's gooey mantle, the colonization of a...
Searching for Dark Energy in Black Holes
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From baby planets to ancient black holes, let's look at the week's space news, including the discovery of a planet around a still-forming star, our Su...
By fire and ice: mass extinctions gone wild
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru new discoveries in past planetary destruction. From fire to ice, let's look at snowball Earth, melting permafrost...
Aerospace vs Climate Change
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including the first results from Euclid, Roman and Rubin get ready to sear...
Hera and Clipper plan on getting up close with other worlds, and Black Hole News
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including microscopic black holes trying to be dark matter, massive black ...
SpaceX vs FAA and EPA and Cards Against Humanity
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week we're doing something we've never done before; we're dedicating the majority of the show to a single story: SpaceX's recurring failure to fo...
Planning for Asteroid Attacks, Dino Prints Cross Ocean, Viper Updates, & more
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including volcanic glass beads, dino prints that span the ocean, a deep di...
Mars is the future, the day the Dinos Died, a Star's Death in 3 Acts, and more
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including new info on the origins of the Dino Killing asteroid, a star bei...
NASA Budget Woes May Murder Missions
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including Hubble, Chandra, and VIPER face cuts/cancellations, weird exopla...
Found: 1 Intermediate Mass Black Hole
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including how Jupiter's Great Red Spot went missing, Io's Lava Lake, Titan...
JWST Reveals Star Formation Details
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including Mars Perseverance Rover fords an ancient river, black holes some...
Planning to go back to the moon
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's take a quick tour of the latest news, including updates on the Hubble Space Telescopes and single gyro operations, EUCLID's image release, an am...
Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we bring you stories on how JWST - Not LIGO and Virgo - spotted the most distant Black Hole merge to date, why the search for life on...
Carrington 2024
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we're taking a closer look at Sunspot complex 3664 and the beautiful chaos that it's been creating. And because we're in a planetary ...
Io and Juno Begin to Part Ways
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In February, on the closest approach, NASA's Juno spacecraft was within 930 miles of the closest moon Io's surface. Since then, Juno's orbit has been ...
Catch the (Alien) Rainbow
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As scientists discover and explore the atmospheres of more and more planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, we are learning that if you can imagine...
Following the Water Toward Climate Change
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week's episode is brought to you by last week's terrible weather. While experiencing hail and thunder IRL, we also saw press release after press ...
Planet Formation is (Still) Not Well Understood
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
SPECIAL SHORT: How NASA Budget Cuts Will Hurt Space Science
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier in March, Congress voted into place the FY2024 budgets for multiple agencies, including NASA. The agency is being asked for an overall 2% cut....
Grindavik, Iceland, and Volcanoes with Dr. Melissa Scruggs
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As you know, our team loves volcanoes, and since we've been focused on Iceland for months, we brought in Dr. Melissa Scruggs (aka VolcanoDoc on Twitch...
Stability, Instability, Drama, and How We are Space Stuff
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is possible to buy stickers, sweatshirts, mugs, and other stuff and things emblazoned with the simple phrase, "We are star stuff". This phrase was ...
Early Black Holes Formed Before Stars?
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
One of the unexpected realities of JWST is the discovery that we have really been asking the wrong questions in many astronomy areas. For instance: we...
Yes, Scientists DO Look at the (Dark Energy Survey) Data
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every time I get the digital "why can't you scientists just look at the data" lecture, I wonder what people think scientists do. All we do is look at ...
Celebrating the Mars Robots that Could
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Robots on Mars have a long history of exceeding all possible expectations. From Spirit and Opportunity lasting far beyond their planned 90-day mission...
The Compass (Sometimes... Kinda) Points North
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you take a compass and follow its pointy little needle, you will end up in Northern Canada but not at the North Pole. If you have a boat, you'll en...
Spooky Season Space Images
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From October 25, 2023: Around our parent collaboration, CosmoQuest, Halloween is, hands-down, the most beloved season of the year. Costumes are worn. ...
Making Anti-Matter... Matter
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we look at what tree rings can teach us about past earthquakes, and how well machine learning can identify life, like trees, from car...
Whales and (Possible) Space Whales
29 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the Thanksgiving leftovers reach the stage of possibly gaining intelligence in the back of our refrigerators, we're going to take a look at the ori...
Blast From the Past: Watch the Annular Eclipse on October 14!
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When we headed into recording this episode, I didn't know if there would be a government shutdown or not, and I have to admit, on Saturday, September ...
Solar Cycle to the Maximum, 2025
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Researchers currently think solar maximum - when the Sun is most active - will occur sometime in late 2024 to early 2025. With this cycle, we will exp...
Planetary Formation Leads to Strange New Worlds
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We keep tweaking our format a little bit every episode, trying to find the right mix for YouTube, podcasts, and now, short-form video. We think we the...
It's Not Aliens (We Also Want Aliens)
03 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There are some news cycles that are just plain weird, and this news cycle tried really, really hard to be one of them. Headlines last week highlighted...
The Volcano That Could... But Didn't
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Pamela is big on volcanoes, and she hoped we'd have an awesome new eruption to report, but we don't. There is, however, still a lot of news this w...
More (Failed) Observations of Dark Matter
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's episode, we look at the upcoming solar maximum, how solar activity affects Neptune, the robotic invasion fleet on Mars, and how some of...
A River Runs Through It - Mars and Titan
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode reminds you to look up, look out, and reflect on what we see around us. Stories cover a weird white dwarf that is doing things our Sun ma...
Satellite Constellations and Early Warning Systems
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
According to satellite cataloger Jonathan McDowell, there are now 18 satellite constellations, like Starlink, being planned. These constellations will...
The Universe is (Still) Trying to Murder Us
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In today's episode, we're going to look at everything from how past Earth couldn't support photosynthesis because the days were just too short, to cur...
Once and Future Life on Venus, Earth, and Mars
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Each week, when we set off to do this show, we start with one core idea: We want to tell you what is new in space and astronomy… and remember Earth ...
Earth Science is Planetary Science
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we need to take one of our periodic looks at our planet's science and understand what it means to life as we know it. But we will onl...
A New Space Race?
06 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Space science isn't where the money is… at least not yet. Astronomy and planetary science in the U.S. are funded by NASA, the National Science Found...
The History of Life As We Know It
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we're going to look at how we now work to understand the history of life - including human life - on Earth by studying the geology of...
Meteors, Meteor Showers, and their Parent Bodies
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we're going to be talking more about meteors - including the source of the Geminids meteor shower, asteroid Phaethon - as well as hot...
SETI and the Very Large Array
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While we could spend an entire episode on Earth, there is just too much going on in the universe to linger anywhere too long. From our world, we journ...
Do Not Look Directly at this Podcast
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features the kind of news week where we looked at the April 20th eclipse in the South Pacific and decided it just wasn't a huge priority....
In Venus VERITAS
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For decades now, our planetary science news cycles have been dominated by Mars. Mars is relatively close, and we have a lot of experience landing ther...
Pareidolia, Pattern Matching, and AI Art
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Humans are the ultimate pattern matchers - at least for now. I have to admit I'm looking forward to the day I can give some new AI a set of images and...
The Search for Life on Other Worlds
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Right now, humans are tantalizingly close to being able to search for life on other worlds where it is reasonable to think life could exist. We can't ...
Will Asteroid 2023 DW Collide with Earth in 2046? (All signs point to no.)
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A new asteroid has been discovered with an orbit that crosses our own planet's orbit. In general, this object and Earth are very good and not trying t...
Is 2023 the Year of Io?
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In general, the kind of year we'll experience gets its label at the end of the year. 2005 was the year of the never-ending hurricane season. 2017 was ...
Bring on the JWST Science Results
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
OK so this is actually episode six, but our producer Ally numbered the episodes weird and we got mixed up. This week, thanks to the support of so many...
Is This How We Get Cylons?
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this show, we'll go through more than 20 studies and observations ranging from planetary climates to galaxy mergers, and we'll take a closer look a...
Cosmology: From Particles to Galaxy Clusters
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We live at a time when technological advances are allowing us to explore ideas faster than ever before. So today, we bring you lab results on ice that...
Mass Extinction, Volcanoes, and Rings Around an Asteroid
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we discuss one mass extinction, three stories with volcanoes, star formation, galaxy dissolution, and space mission synchronized obse...
Space science potpourri and a more hopeful look at climate change
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode has a little bit of everything as we bring you results from astronomers, geoscientists, climate scientists, imaging scientists, glaciolog...
New science from AAS rearranges our understanding of the universe
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hello and welcome! This show - Escape Velocity Space News - is new, and we're so glad that you're here with us, right from the beginning. Dr. Pamela G...
EVSN announcement for DS
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Audition Template: 1 Mono Host track (with Speech Volume Leveler), 1 Mono Interview track (with Speech Volume Leveler), 1 Stereo Sound FX with effects...
Dealing with Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A trio of asteroid-related stories crossed our emails this week: Bennu's sample is on schedule for next year's return, researchers have developed a to...
JAXA Triggers Flight Termination of Launch
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Space is hard, and some days, getting rockets to work doesn't go as well as expected. An Epsilon rocket launched by JAXA and carrying eight payloads i...
BONUS CONTENT: Full-length interview with Jochen Grandell
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Catch the full-length interview with Jochen Grandell, Program Scientist for the Meteosat third generation, from our October 4th episode.
Dinosaurs Washed Away in Largest Wave to Wrap Earth
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As if getting set on fire and tossed into space wasn't enough, new research finds evidence that after the Chicxulub impact, dinosaurs were also the v...
Observed: It's a Star-Eat-Star Universe
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
While astronomers have observed white dwarfs consuming companion stars on numerous occasions, for the first time, they have now observed the consumpti...
Firefly Makes Orbit on Second Try
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Early Saturday morning, another company entered the exclusive club of successful orbital launchers, Firefly Aerospace, when their second attempt to re...
BONUS CONTENT: Shape modeling Didymos before DART's arrival
01 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Catch the full-length interview with Eric Palmer from our September 30th show.
Globular Clusters: Already Old Nine Billion Years Ago
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The quest to understand the formation mechanisms of globular clusters was limited by the Hubble Space Telescope's ability to peer back in time. Now, J...
BONUS CONTENT: Full-length interview with Amanda Sickafoose - Dimorphos impact captured by South African telescope
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Catch the full-length interview with Amanda Sickafoose from our September 29th episode.
Confirmed: 68 New Gravitational Lenses
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Using a machine learning algorithm, scientists have confirmed 68 out of 77 potential gravitational lens candidates from a subset of over 5,000 possibi...
DART Mission Successfully Boops Dimorphos
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After ten months of space travel, NASA's DART spacecraft arrived at the asteroid Didymos, targeted the moonlet Dimorphos, and successfully flung itsel...
Quasar's Light Echoes After 6.73 Years
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Astronomers using the 1.2-meter Whipple Observatory to follow the brightness of a lensed galaxy for 14.5 years have calculated that the time delay bet...
NASA Tries Fuel Tanking the SLS Again
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In advance of the next scheduled launch attempt, NASA conducted another test to fill the fuel tanks onboard the Space Launch System rocket. The result...
Bringing Telescopes to Students in Libya
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Beth is joined by Mike Simmons, the founder of Astronomy for Equity, an Affiliate Research Scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, an...
Being a Star: Nature vs Nurture
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Asteroseismologists are combining data from TESS, Kepler, and eventually JWST to study stellar oscillations in 'infant' stars, with the goal of creati...
Saturn's Rings are Made of a Broken-up Moon
17 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Using computer simulations, researchers have pieced together a possible scenario where Titan caused another of Saturn's moons to break up and become t...
Mount Sharp, Mars, Shaped by Water and Wind
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Data and images from NASA's Curiosity rover found evidence that wind played a key role in erosional processes on the red planet, despite the lower atm...
BONUS CONTENT: Full-length interview with DART investigation team member Jian-Yang Li
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Listen to the full-length interview with Jian-Yang Li from our September 13th episode.
How to Build a Supervolcano in Just Four Million Years
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Using pockets of gas found in tiny crystals, scientists have created a timeline for the formation and eruption of four supervolcano events in northern...
Water Worlds May Hide Water Underground Summary
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A population study of 43 exoplanets orbiting M-dwarf stars used both the transit method and radial velocity method to find the densities of the worlds...
Climate Change Melts Glaciers, Greens the Arctic
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As global temperatures rise, Earth observations show that glaciers are retreating and ice sheets are melting everywhere from Greenland to Antarctica w...
SEASON PREMIERE: Catching up on news and rockets!
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As we return from our summer hiatus, we are back with a rundown of some of the stories that came out during the break. On the planetary front, JWST ha...
Machine Learning Pinpoints Martian Meteorite Origin
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Using layers of data from a variety of Martian missions, researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm that identified the actual crater fro...
All the Rockets and All the Rocks
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With the release of JWST's first science images behind us, we now catch up on all the rocket launches of the past few days. Meanwhile, Bennu continues...
JWST Releases First Five Science Images
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Starting with the stunning release of JWST's first image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 on July 11, the bonanza continued the morning of July 12 with ne...