Walkabout the Galaxy
Episodes
Scary Things That Can Happen To Planets
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We take a deep dive into the origin of Mars's moons and whether they are chips off the old block. There's no research to explain the mystery of why Ma...
Crazy Rings, Watery Moons, and Ancient Black Holes
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Impact of Impacts on Water on Mars
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Live at Nerd Nite with the Moon, JUICE, and M87 Black Hole
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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'...
MegaCon 2023 and JWST
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 JWS...
Oumuamua Explained and Dark Matter Near Black Holes
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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, sa...
Active Volcanism on Venus!
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Compelling evidence for recent (1990's!) volcanic activity on Venus has been un-Earthed, or rather un-Venused, by Robert Herrick through analysis of M...
It's About Time!
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 o...
Sweet Europa Tail
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 dus...
Runaway Black Holes and Certified Organic Asteroids
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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'...
Whacky Water and Weird Rings
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ali...
The Trouble with Neutrinos and Other Mysteries
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Tiniest Wormhole
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Super Earth Assembly Line
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 characteris...
On Top of Nuclear Fusion
11 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 P...
All About STEVE and GRBs
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Trojans and Axions
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Europa's got miniature tectonic activity, and a dark matter candidate may real itself through micro-gravitational lensing events. Dr. Audrey Martin jo...
Up, Up, and Away
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
In Search of the Cosmic Accelerator
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Somewhere out there in the vast reaches of space are unfathomably powerful natural particle accelerators. They fling protons and other particles acros...
Chasing Geotail and Martian Impacts
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Mars Insight lander detected an impact that produced a stadium-sized crater on the red planet, and the 30-year magnetospheric mission Geotail come...
Astroquarks 300!
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 plu...
Life on Mars Killed Life on Mars
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Pop III!
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Astronomers have new evidence of the gaseous remnants of the supernova of a population III star from just 700 million years after the big bang. Speaki...
Payback for Chicxulub!
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Humanity gets a bit of payback on asteroids for the rude destruction of the dinosaurs and almost all life on Earth 65 million years ago with the DART ...
Boom: DART, Volcanoes, and Supernovae
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are lots of explosions in this episode, beginning with the upcoming planned impact of the DART mission into a teeny-weeny asteroid to test plane...
DragonCon 2022: To the Moon with Artemis and More
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Astroquarks venture into the belly of the beast with our first live recording at the amazing DragonCon in Atlanta. Join us for a look ahead at upc...
Water Worlds at Distant Suns
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We take a journey to the Radius Valley to explore an exoplanet larger than the "Super Earths" and smaller than Neptune and Uranus. This one in particu...
Ancient Astronomers and Ancient Lunar Impacts
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We return to two of our favorite topics, the red giant star Betelgeuse, and of course the Moon. Some clever historical detective work has revealed tha...
Strange Lightning and the Youngest Planet
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lightning generally goes cloud to cloud or cloud to ground, but sometimes it shoots up to the ionosphere at the edge of space. We take a close look at...
Is There Something Wrong with the Standard Model?
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Korea sends its first mission to the Moon, and Mars sent a very old piece of itself to Earth. Meanwhile, the Large Hadron Collider is finding more odd...
The Edges of Space, the Solar System, and the Universe
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we explore clouds at the edge of space in the Earth's upper atmosphere and discoveries of galaxies far more distant than we have seen ...
JWST and the Circle of Life of Stars
29 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We survey the initial five data releases from the JWST, from squiggly lines showing the composition of a distant planet's atmosphere, to turbulent sta...
Fly Me to the Moon Again and Again
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We've had more experience flying to the Moon than you might think, and done some odd things with it, like feeding it to cockroaches. Join us for a loo...
Two Odd Balls: Charon and Arrokoth
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Journey with us to the far reaches of the outer solar system where we take a closer look at two small objects explored by New Horizons: Pluto's moon C...
Noxious Fumes from Stars and Moons
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does Jupiter's volcanic moon Io have in common with one of the largest stars in the galaxy? Both are belching sulfur compounds, though for very d...
The Galactic Gamma Ray Background from Pulsars
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Pulsars are becoming the astrophysical version of big collisions for planetary scientists: they are explaining, perhaps, more and more things. Tune in...
Space Haboobs and Martian Haboobs
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The astroquarks talk haboobs. Unfortunately Jim is not with us to giggle, but Dr. Katariina Nykyri joins Strange and Charm to explain space weather an...
Yes MegaCon There IS a Black Hole
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Live from MegaCon 2022 in Orlando, we team up with space reporter Brendan Byrne to discuss the image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way,...
Lunar Plants and Micronovae
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A new type of nova has been confirmed. One million times fainter than a nova, these thermonuclear runaway explosions are confined to the polar regions...
Gravitational Redshift and Sci-Fi Body and Time Shifts
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Light gets redder as it climbs out of gravitational holes, and a star near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way conveniently demonstrates thi...
Mapping the Early Universe in HD
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As Top Quark likes to say, "You wouldn't understand: it's an early universe thing". That's why he's so excited that there's a new window into the goin...
Planetary Decadal Survey with Almost no Uranus Jokes
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Science marches onward, and the next steps in planetary science aim towards the seventh planet from the Sun, which shall not be named, and Saturn's li...
The Cosmic Significance of Tiny Things
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tiny fragments of the dinosaur-killing asteroid may have been found, preserved in amber, and new analysis of old data reveals a tiny, but potentially ...
The Sounds of Mars and the Lights of the Earliest Stars
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mars has a thin atmosphere, so little changes in the weather, even breezes, make big relative changes in how sound travels. We speculate on the sounds...
Odd Radio Circles
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
No, these aren't fake relics of extraterrestrials left in fields of wheat, but they are peculiar signatures of what may be bursts of star formation in...
Ultralight Dark Matter
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What if the stuff that makes up most of the stuff in the universe is so lightweight that you could barely call it stuff? Ultralight dark matter is one...
All the Light in the Universe
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We like to think we understand ordinary matter: the stuff we're familiar with that makes up stars, planets, and donuts. Sure Dark Energy and Dark Matt...
When Galaxy Clusters Collide
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Even the emptiness between galaxies is filled with enough energy over those vast expanses to generate shock waves and giant structures when clusters o...
How Smart Is Your Planet?
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We learn how binary star systems may create a second family of planets, Saturn's aurora may be powered by the ringed planet's high speed winds, and ho...
Psyche-ology and Generally Crazy Relativity
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A remarkably accurate test of general relativity confirms that not only does time run slower at your feet than at your head, but it runs slower at you...
Hot Fusion and Crashing Satellites
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sustained fusion reactions with a net production of energy may be getting closer, and a whole bunch of space junk is definitely getting closer. A long...
A Bouncy Universe
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How special is the Earth for having a large Moon, and what can it teach us about where to look for habitable planets? In this episode we explore new r...
IWOW
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mimas, the heavily battered "death star" moon of Saturn, may harbor a sub-surface ocean of liquid water like its neighbor, Enceladus. Water may have f...
The Local Solar Bubble and Another Dusty Star
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Astroquarks assemble to examine the mysterious of a star that is blocked out perhaps by a giant dust cloud. Meanwhile, the Sun is passing through ...
Lagrange Points Everywhere
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We welcome 2022 with a look at the future home of the James Webb Space Telescope - Earth's L2 Lagrange point, and an exploration of Lagrange points ar...
Q-Balls!
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of our favorite cosmological mysteries is why there is any stuff in the universe. We're here because there was a tiny fraction more matter than an...
Eggshell Planets and the Inexorable Growth of Black Holes
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We take a deep dive into toffee planets with The Planetary Guy, Dr. Paul Byrne, who helps us explore the myriad types of exoplanets that might be lurk...
JWST and the Era of Reionization
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the eve of its long-anticipated launch, we explore one of the many areas of exploration of the JWST, the early universe after the birth of the firs...
Strange Atoms and Jupiter's Deep Atmosphere
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists are creating large, quantum-fuzzy atomic nuclei with large numbers of neutrons to get clues about nucleosynthesis in the very early univers...
Perpendicular Planets and a Chip Off the Old Moon
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We explore an exoplanet system where the orbits of the planets are at right angles to each other. A chunk of rock trailing the Earth around the Sun ma...
Galactic Protoclusters and the Heat of Information
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's the first Strange Up Top episode of Walkabout with Hannah Sargeant where we explore the odd core of the Andromeda galaxy, the formation of galact...
Sterile Neutrinos and True Polar Wander
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Meet Up Quark Hannah Sargeant as we explore the role of neutrinos in understanding the universe and the coupled evolution of Pluto's climate and spin ...
A World That's Out Of This Galaxy
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Almost all exoplanets have been discovered in our local neighborhood of the Milky Way, with a few exceptions due to gravitational microlensing, still ...
Captain Kirk Goes to Space and Other Oddities
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
So much going on: Shatner goes to space, the astroquarks ponder time travel, Tunguska may have been a near miss, free neutron decay holds the key to t...
Binaries Galore
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The intrepid New Horizons spacecraft has discovered close binary comets in the Kuiper belt, and the Lucy mission is getting ready to explore binary tr...
Centaurs and Rocky Clouds
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Comet 29P is on an odd, distant orbit, between Jupiter and Saturn, and like a fidgety child sent to the corner, it keeps having unpredictable outburst...
The Psychohistory of Astroquarks
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss not one but two galactic civilizations (Dune and Foundation) coming to screens big and small this Fall. Life being a central part of most c...
Taking the Measure of the Universe with Quasars
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Quasars, those incredibly bright and distant sources powered by supermassive black holes, may have a trick to their radiation that let's us use them a...
The Mind Blowing Wave Particle Duality of Light
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Light's odd way of behaving both like a particle and a wave is nothing new, but a cool new experiment shows that it's not an either/or but a continuum...
Odd Galaxies and Odder Planets
09 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We explore dwarf galaxies with no star formation and dwarf planets with a clue to a lurking object in the outer solar system. But first Top Quark is s...
Hycean Worlds and Nudging Asteroids
02 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Will we find extraterrestrial life on Mars, Europa, or an exoplanet like Earth? Or will it be on an entirely different kind of planet, larger than the...
Saturn's Chewy Center and the Milky Way's Broken Arm
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Saturn's rings are so amazing that they have helped us learn that Saturn's core is a sludgy-soupy beast that doesn't have a sharp boundary. And the wa...
The Missing Astroquark
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Galaxy is in turmoil. At the galactic council MEGACON, the forces of Cosplay, Comics, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Gaming, and more have gathered to restore b...
Pairs of Bosons, Photons, and Asteroids
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's a tale of pairs and "self-coupling", which causes Top quark endless mirth, in this episode, with Higgs boson pairs, self-annihilating photon pair...
Exomoons and Inside Mars
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
They have to be out there, and now we have a first direct glimpse of what is likely to be the birthplace of an exomoon - a moon forming in a disk arou...
The Cosmological Lithium Problem
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lithium is not just in demand for all those new electric car batteries, it seems there's a problem with missing lithium in the universe. We explore th...
Rogue Planets, Gravitational Waves, and Life in Enceladus
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Beware the Squire of Gothos for the Kepler mission has discovered 4 more new free-floating planets. LIGO has observed the first collision between a bl...
Things that Blow. And Clocks.
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In another wide-ranging episode, we discuss how atmospheric and oceanic chemistry changes wiped out most life on Earth 250 million years ago, the best...
Stars That Blink
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Just when the mysterious dimming of nearby giant star Betelgeuse is explained, a more distant giant star was almost completely blocked out. We discuss...
The Cosmological Principle
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
These days it goes without saying that the universe is the same in every direction, at least on large scales. Or is it? We take a look at a new result...
Back to Venus with Several Rants
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're feeling happy, chatty, and ranty in the first show back in our studio since February, 2020, with a look at two new missions to Venus, a cool exp...
How the Universe has Aged
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On our 239th episode the Astroquarks reflect on the Friends Reunion where they reflected on their time making only 236 episodes. The Friends and the A...
Of Cosmic Rays and Neptune's Wandering Ways
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Neptune, as the outermost big planet, has an outsized effect on the countless objects in the Kuiper belt in the distant reaches of the solar system. W...
Ten Things I Hate About Neutrinos
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We are kidding, neutrinos. We love you. You're just a little bit scary! In this episode we discuss a way we'll learn about the mysterious tiny particl...
Surprises at the Centers of Things
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How many licks does it take to get to the center of Saturn? We don't know, but when you get there you will find a gooey surprise. Saturn's core is mor...
A Whirl of Neutron Stars
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A quackery of astroquarks takes a close look at neutron stars thanks to observations from the NICER observatory on the International Space Station and...
There Are Five Lights!
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Not all dark matter is "dark matter" dark matter. Some is simply dark, well, matter. An Australian radio telescope has found a long filament of cold p...
The Extra Glow at the Heart of the Milky Way
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The center of our galaxy is producing more gamma rays than we can account for. Some say dark matter is the explanation, and others say no way. We expl...
You Can't Be Darth Serious
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We explain the polarization of light in the context of the image of the black hole event horizon in M87 and take a new look at the interstellar object...
The Fifth Element
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A supermassive black hole seems to be going on a walkabout its own galaxy, and dust from Mars (or its moons) seems to be going on a walkabout the sola...
Space The Final Frontier
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If space is the final frontier, where does it begin? That deceptively simple question is one of many topics the Astroquarks ponder in this episode, as...
Warp Drive!
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The astroquarks explain the physics behind Warp Drive and a new solution to Einstein's general theory of relativity. Closer to home, the Moon showers ...
Deep Dive Into a Globular Cluster
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The search for the elusive intermediate mass black hole (hundreds to thousands of times the mass of the Sun) has instead turned up a cluster of black ...
If a Spacecraft Lands on an Empty Planet, Does it Make a Sound?
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
NASA's Perseverance rover successfully touched down on Mars last week, capping a perfect set of three arrivals at the red planet. Dr. David Brain join...
Hairy Black Holes
17 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The astroquarks debate the relative merits of hair and baldness in the grand context of black holes and the ultimate question of the nature of informa...
The Surprising Science of Space Dirt
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Zoe Landsman rejoins the Astroquarks to explain how creating simulated regolith or dirt helps scientists and engineers prepare for missions to the...
Perseverance, Cache Me While You Can!
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Three missions, including two rovers, are arriving at Mars this month. We preview some of the unique aspects of the Mars Perseverance rover, and we ex...
The Dark and Distant Rumbles of Spacetime
27 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We go deep on this episode of Walkabout, with new analysis of the lakes on Titan showing the largest may be more than 300 meters deep. In deep space, ...
Ancient Planets and Bumblebee Gravity
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The galaxy has been making rocky planets for longer than we thought, and a new study shows us how black holes can tell us just how symmetric the unive...
Meet Pillownaut Heather Archuletta
13 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We welcome special guest Heather Archuletta, a NASA pillownaut, who tells us what it's like to spend weeks simulating space travel in a slightly inver...