PODCAST

The Star Spot

Justin Trottier

The astronomy and space exploration podcast

science & medicine natural sciences

All Episodes

52:33

Episode 165: Landing on Europa, with Cynthia Phillips

The Star Spot ·

2019/05/27

Feature Guest: Cynthia Phillips In the 1970s, the Viking landers performed historic experiments aimed at detecting life in the Martian soil. The results were disappointing although to this day still not entirely conclusive. Now over 40 years later a new lander with a next generation set of life detection equipment is under assessment by NASA. This time the target is not the Red Planet, but the ocean moon Europa, which has emerged as a prime candidate in the search for life in the solar system. Today

33:30

Episode 164: Jupiter's Ancient Odyssey, with Simona...

The Star Spot ·

2019/04/29

Feature Guest: Simona Pirani The planet Jupiter occupies a position today that is far from its home 4.5 billion years ago, a destination resulting from a primeval migration that started way out around the current location of Uranus. Like the god for which it was named, Jupiter enjoys the company of thousands of followers, the so-called trojan asteroids, which have remained by its side all these years, and they now offer a window into the murky origins of the gas giant. Today we’re joined here at The

40:52

Episode 163: The Ring Worlds of Saturn, with Bonnie...

The Star Spot ·

2019/04/15

Feature Guest: Bonnie Buratti The spacecraft Cassini went out in spectacular fashion, travelling through Saturn’s rings for a final death dive into the gas giant. Even in its final heroic moments, Cassini was relaying back data shedding light on the bizarre worlds known as the ring moons of Saturn. The origin of these small bodies, which manage to maintain orbits within the turbulent environment of Saturn’s rings, pose a a puzzle for scientists. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by Bonnie

36:42

Episode 162: The End is Nowhere Near Nigh, with Fred...

The Star Spot ·

2019/03/18

Feature Guest: Fred Adams If you thought the far distant future of our universe was going to be bleak, dreary and dark, well, you’d be right. But remember, the universe is still just a baby and it has many new experiences ahead of it. Over the many trillions of years of its unimaginably long life, new processes will take over, new forms of galactic structure will emerge and types of stars that have never existed will come to populate the galaxy. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by Fred

32:24

Episode 161: The Boom Time of the Universe, with...

The Star Spot ·

2019/03/04

Feature Guest: Rosemary Wyse The universe is past its prime, by about 8 to 10 billion years. Sorry if you missed it. From the rate of star formation to the frequency of galactic mergers, the cosmos just isn’t what it used to be. Yet remarkably all is not lost, for there’s an astronomical archeology available to us. It turns out stars retain a memory of their ancient origins and galaxies hold clues to their own violent histories. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by Professor Rosemary Wise for

32:22

Episode 160: Boom to Bust Part 1: Before the...

The Star Spot ·

2019/02/18

Feature Guest: Katrin Heitmann The Astronomy and Space Exploration Society, a student group based at the University of Toronto, hosted its annual signature symposium event on Friday, February 15th, 2019. This year’s theme was “Boom to Bust,”with three keynote speakers covering, in turn, the birth, life and death of the cosmos. Once again The Star Spot was privileged to be on location to cover the event. And now in a special three episode series, we’re joined by each fascinating speaker as we take

40:24

Episode 159: Living on the Edge: Are We On the...

The Star Spot ·

2019/01/21

Feature Guest: Ulf Danielsson Our universe is big. But what if all of this was just one of an unimaginably large number of bubble universes. That’s the proposal by a group of scientists who recently introduced a new model for the universe which for the first time links string theory with dark energy and higher dimensions. But how does it compare to rival multiverse theories? Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by physicist Ulf Danielsson to explain how his model, uniquely, provides for

27:01

Episode 158: Telling Space Stories, with Rayna Slobodian

The Star Spot ·

2019/01/07

Feature Guest: Rayna Slobodian As we dream of space, we must remain anchored to humanity. Space exploration is a human story, and music may be the perfect medium to capture the emotive drama of discovery, risk and the mystery of the unknown. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by singer-songwriter, space ethicist, homelessness researcher and all around geek, Rayna Slobodian, for a far-ranging discussion that, while focused on space music, is ultimately about bringing space exploration down to

50:00

Episode 157: How We Discovered Blazars Cause...

The Star Spot ·

2018/12/24

Feature Guest: Darren Grant A one hundred year old astronomical mystery may finally have been solved. Scientists have long wondered just what caused high energy particles called cosmic rays, which arrive on Earth from the far unknown reaches of the universe. But now we have a discovery by the South Pole Neutrino Observatory, appropriately named IceCube, which points the finger at a peculiar phenomena known as blazars. The IceCube Collaboration’s Professor Darren Grant joins us today here at The Star

49:34

Episode 156: The Do-It-Yourself Spacesuit, with...

The Star Spot ·

2018/11/30

Featured Guest: Cameron Smith One of the challenges in building a future where humans are able to explore other worlds are the massive, clumsy and expensive spacesuits currently in use. Now enter into the picture Pacific Spaceflight. They’re a grassroots team with a do-it-yourself attitude and they’re busy perfecting the next generation space suit technology. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by their leader, Professor Cameron Smith, an anthropologist and archeologist who’s research on

37:50

Episode 155: Artificial Photosynthesis: Taking the...

The Star Spot ·

2018/11/12

Featured Guest: Katharina Brinkert On Earth, we can thank the sun for making life possible. Now what if we could harness the power of the sun to make life possible on long duration space missions. Introducing the concept of artificial photosynthesis. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by chemist Katharina Brinkert, whose pioneering experiments on the International Space Station turning sunlight into fuel and breathable air might just pave the way for human exploration of the solar system

21:12

Episode 154: The Vatican Observatory: Astronomy and...

The Star Spot ·

2018/10/29

Featured Guest: Cosette Gilmour The proper relationship between science and faith is a core question for the modern age. At the centre of this debate has often been the Vatican observatory. The fascinating history of the Vatican Observatory stretches from the 18th century up to today, controversially combining scientific scholarship and religious tradition. In the last few decades the Observatory hosted a conference exploring the search for alien life and another aimed at a scientific understanding

33:19

Episode 153: A Reality Check on Terraforming Mars,...

The Star Spot ·

2018/10/15

Featured Guest: Bruce Jakosky Don’t shoot the messenger. The terraforming of Mars has been the dream for many of us who long for a future where humanity has colonized the Red Planet. But is it time to rethink those plans? Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by Bruce Jakosky, Principal Investigator of the Martian MAVEN Mission, and he’s got some bad news. Current in Space Dave spotlights the first confirmed detection of an extrasolar moon, and its a whopper. Then Tony shares new research

34:26

Episode 152: Alien Viruses, with Ken Stedman

The Star Spot ·

2018/10/01

Featured Guest: Ken Stedman They aren’t pleasant, but viruses are the most common form life on our planet. So why aren’t the world’s space agencies taking viruses seriously in their search for alien life. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by astrobiologist and astrovirologist Ken Stedman who has a plan to change and that and put viruses front and centre as we explore our solar system and beyond. Current in Space We’re roving around our first asteroid, reports Simon. And if its heading into

32:41

Episode 151: New Moons of Jupiter, with Scott Sheppard

The Star Spot ·

2018/09/17

Featured Guest: Scott Sheppard On the hunt for the solar system’s elusive Planet X, a team of astronomers accidentally stumbled upon the discovery of 12 new moons of Jupiter. Oops. But it gets even better, because one of these things is not like the others and the way that moon just doesn’t belong might just solve the mystery of lunar origins. To help us understand how one very happy accident is shedding light on the formation of our solar system, today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by the

35:48

Episode 150: At the Birth of Our First Newborn...

The Star Spot ·

2018/09/03

Featured Guest: André Müller Astronomers have taken their first image of an infant planet still developing around a newly formed star. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by André Müller, whose team is busy studying this baby world and has already discovered evidence of an atmosphere and possibly even moons, astounding knowledge of such a tiny speck 370 light years from Earth. On a personal note, I want to dedicate this special 150th episode of The Star Spot to my amazing wife Denise and to our

44:43

Episode 149: The Question of Life on Mars, with David...

The Star Spot ·

2018/08/20

Featured Guest: David Hamilton The recent discovery of a lake of liquid water beneath the Martian south pole culminates a series of stunning discoveries that are forcing us to rethink the question of habitability on the Red Planet. Now two space missions are underway aimed at sites on Mars that may be the best candidates yet for life and boasting the most advanced bio detection instruments ever sent into space. To help us prepare, today we’re joined at The Star Spot by space physicist David

40:21

Episode 148: Does Canada Have a Vision for Space...

The Star Spot ·

2018/08/06

Featured Guest: Chuck Black The Canadian Space Advisory Board was tasked with developing a plan to rejuvenate Canada’s declining world standing in space exploration. In 2017 the Board made a bold proposal that Canada designate space a national strategic asset and increase funding necessary for the “revitalization of Canada’s space capacity.” But when in March 2018 the federal government released its annual budget, these calls were entirely ignored. The chair of the Canadian Space Advisory Board was

12:20

Episode 147: Postcards From Home

The Star Spot ·

2018/07/23

Today we turn our telescopes back around to study ourself. Our own solar system is undergoing a conceptual revolution. From its chaotic birth to its fiery end, our solar system is no longer seen as static and isolated. It is now understood to change and evolve, to offer great environmental diversity across its many worlds, and it now seems our solar system even interacts with the rest of the galaxy. In this special interregnum here at The Star Spot, today our news team of Tony, Maya and Dave take us

28:10

Episode 146: Supernovae and the Evolution of Life on...

The Star Spot ·

2018/05/28

Feature Guest: Brian Thomas We have this impression of our planet as isolated from the rest of the universe, our lives cut off from the drama unfolding elsewhere in our galaxy. But what if the course of life’s evolution on Earth was intimately connected to events well beyond our solar system. It now seems likely that supernovae hundreds of light-years away have profoundly affected our history and may even account for climatic changes just as our species was emerging. Today we’re joined here at The

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