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PODCAST

Walkabout the Galaxy

Joshua Colwell, Adrienne Dove, and James Cooney

An irreverent and informative tour of the latest, greatest, and most interesting discoveries in astronomy.

science natural sciences

All Episodes

45:44

Jim the Asteroid Licker

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/12/08

An asteroid has been observed getting smashed to smithereens by another asteroid! And a medium-sized black hole has been observed, which oddly enough is more interesting than a tiny black hole or a humongous black hole. Find out why, and catch up on nerd news, space news, and special Top quark astro-historical-paradoxical trivia on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

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44:11

Would You Like Your Chunky Space with a Swirl?

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/11/25

Strange quark is convinced that the swirls on the Moon are actually 2001 monoliths, and all three of your hosts are eager to go check them out. On the way, will the spacetime they're traversing be smooth or chunky? Top quark explains the difference, along with updates on Europa's ocean, space news, and trivia.

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50:59

Antimatter and Wormholes

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/11/17

An instrument on the International Space Station that can help us understand more about antimatter is getting an upgrade, and we review that old sci-fi staple: the wormhole. Somehow we manage to do this without talking about Star Trek (mostly), but we have nerd news and space updates together with trivia and a new discovery about some of the many moons in our solar system.

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45:24

When a Giant Black Hole Blows a Lot of Gas

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/11/11

Yes, it's just as bad as the title suggests, because when a supermassive black hole in a galactic center really gets going it can shut down star formation in the galaxy by blasting out all the raw star materials also known as atoms. The astroquarks explore galaxies with large and small star formation rates, plus we catch up on space news with Voyager 2 and the return to the Moon, and some throwback Voyager trivia.

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45:49

Astroquark Soup

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/11/03

Some clever detective work has found one of the smallest black holes known. The astroquarks also take a look at the puzzling mess of the Hubble Constant and the disagreement over its value. Plus, the interstellar comet's supply of water seems consistent with our own solar comets, and the Lagrange Points (the musical quintet, not the set of gravitational potential equilibria in an orbiting two-body system, duh!) sponsor our show. Tune in for all that and universal trivia. It's a veritable astroquark

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46:45

The Vibration Dance and the Mole Shimmy

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/10/23

The astroquarks are joined by Dr. Renee Weber from NASA's Mars Insight mission to bring us the skinny on that spacecraft's mole's struggles to burrow into Mars. We also check in on polluted white dwarf stellar remnants and what they are teaching us, remarkably, about the interiors of exoplanets, plus spacecraft trivia, philosopher wars, and of course yet another sponsor for Walkabout the Galaxy.

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46:06

Bananas About Brown Dwarfs

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/10/15

The astroquarks are joined by Dr. Adam Burgasser from the Cool Star Lab at the University of California San Diego to talk about the mysterious members of the astrophysical menagerie that lie between planets and stars. Brown dwarfs are lurking in the dark, sometimes closer than we might think. We also have spaceflight history trivia, 20 new moons, and a spot about G.

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45:07

Lost in Space: Rogue Planets and the Intergalactic Web

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/10/05

The astroquarks spin around the universe, from an ancient tree's rings providing clues to magnetic reversals on Earth to planets wandering among the stars and the first detection of the filamentary structures of hydrogen gas strung between clusters of galaxies. Plus space news, nerd news, and Star Wars Lego trivia! This episode is a veritable Kessel Run.

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47:20

I've Got My Eyeball Planet on You

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/09/29

The astroquarks welcome Stephanie Jarmak from UCF to discuss the study of gluons, the hilariously named force-carriers that hold quarks together, Trojan asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit, eyeball planets and snowball planets, and more. All this plus space news, nerd news, and relativistic trivia on the latest episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

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50:08

The One From Geneva

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/09/22

Ever wonder what goes on at an international meeting of planetary scientists? Who hasn't?! This special episode of Walkabout comes to you from a hotel room in Geneva Switzerland following the joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society's planetary science division and the European Planetary Science Congress. Josh and Addie are joined by original Top Quark Dr. Tracy Becker and Dr. Bonnie Meinke for a free-wheeling discussion of highlights from the meeting, the solar system's most recent

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49:38

Moon Water and Galaxy Bubbles

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/09/08

The astroquarks revisit the importance of H2O on the Moon, even if it is tied up inside rocks, before taking a visit to the realm of the Milky Way's gigantic bubbles of plasma emanating, it seems, from the central black hole. Plus, artificial intelligence reaches a milestone, while the astroquark intelligence is just hanging on. Tune in and decide for yourself.

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44:58

The Podcast of Dorian Hurricane

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/08/30

Hurricanes are regular visitors to the Walkabout Studios at the University of Central Florida, but not to the planet Venus, whose slow rotation makes for rather dull weather. High of 900 degrees is forecast for Venus for the foreseeable future. But there are some mysteries in its upper atmosphere. We'll also talk about the mysteries of quantum gravity, which doesn't exist yet, and the role of supernovae in starting planetary systems and evidence for a bunch of them popping off in our neighborhood

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48:50

Starforker

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/08/24

Join us for a special musical episode of Walkabout the Galaxy with guest Adam LaMee as we take a look at a nearby giant exoplanet and a very distant supernova of a type that has never been seen before.

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54:39

Will the Sun Burp When it Eats the Earth?

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/08/14

Astronomy and cosmology challenge our perceptions of space and time, make us ponder our place in the universe, and give us wonders from the infinitesimal to the nearly-infinite. Then there's Walkabout the Galaxy, where we attack the question of which is a bigger relative bite: when the Sun in its red giant phase swallows the Earth, or when Jim Cooney in his fishing phase swallows a gnat. For that and the other truly important questions, you can count on the Astroquarks. Walkabout the Galaxy: for the

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48:39

When Light Climbs Out of a Hole

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/07/30

We never get tired of Einstein being right, and once again his general theory of relativity is up to the challenge. The astroquarks take you on a tour to the black hole at the center of the Milky Way for another test of Einstein's theory of gravity, while closer to home the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission has successfully grabbed some more asteroid rubble. Dr. Zoe Landsman, aka Beauty Astroquark, joins Josh and Jim on this walkabout with spaceships being propelled by sunlight, nerd news, and Apollo

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52:36

Where Silence Has Lease

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/07/23

A thousand bonus Trekkie points for getting the reference of the title of this episode, and another 1000 points for connecting it to our main science topic (spoiler alert): voids in space. Space is very empty, and some parts are emptier than others. Giant voids are helping us narrow down the rate of expansion of the universe. NPR's Brendan Byrne, space reporter for WMFE 90.7, joins us to give a peak behind the scenes of NASA's plans to send people to the Moon, plus some physics-y space trivia and

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01:01:10

The Black Hole Middle Class

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/07/16

Supermassive black holes lurk in nearly every galaxy, and stellar-mass black holes are making news with mergers that we see with our gravitational wave observatories. But what about the black hole middle class? And just how massive are these things anyway? Plus, Hollywood director and astroquark brother K.C. Colwell ("Deep Impact", "The Mummy", "The Wolverine", "The Walking Dead") joins the astroquarks to talk about science and special effects in movies. And we honor the 50th anniversary of the

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48:40

Dragonfly Me to the Moon of Saturn

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/07/03

We're going back to Saturn! NASA has selected the Dragonfly mission to the planet-moon Titan to explore its atmosphere and carbon-rich chemistry with a dual quadcopter capable of flying several km at a time. Work continues on the Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter's own Ocean World. The astroquarks catch you up on these new missions, plus some nerdy sci-fi trivia, Josh mangles French, and, as always, be sure to listen through to the end for a unique and surprising outro to the show.

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47:04

Left and Right in the Universe

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/06/23

There is no center of the universe, no top or bottom (except for our astroquarks!), but all sorts of things in the universe have a definite handedness, and this includes fundamental particles, whose left-ness or right-ness is captured in a quantum property called spin. Top astroquark Jim Cooney takes us for a spin around new results looking into why there is a preference for certain directions of spin. Closer to home we look into the spin of the early Sun and how it ties into the early evolution of

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48:01

The Universe is Running Hot and Cold

Walkabout the Galaxy ·

2019/06/12

The universe began in a hot, dense state, as the song goes, and we can, oddly, see that heat from the thing that we are still in. The universe. Strange stuff. The radiation leftover form the big bang, known as the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, has cooled off, but analysis of measurements of this radiation by the Planck spacecraft point to some odd hot and cold halves of the universe. The astroquarks take a deep dive into the CMB, plus lots of new spaceflight news and of course your Walkabout

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361 results

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