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PODCAST

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder

Single Malt Sky

Star Trails is a weekly astronomy podcast that begins in your backyard and expands outward to the edge of the universe. Each episode features a guide to the night sky visible across North America — constellations, planets, moon phases, and celestial events — along with deeper explorations of the science, history, and perspective that make astronomy one of humanity’s greatest adventures.From ancient skywatchers to modern spacecraft, from quiet stargazing to the violent deaths of stars, Star Trails

science astronomy

All Episodes

29:00

A Black Hole Is Pointing at Us

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/10/04

A black hole in our galaxy appears to be aiming a relativistic jet almost directly toward Earth. That sounds like a reasonably good opening line for October.The object, IRAS 18293−0941, is a binary system about 12,000 light-years away. A stellar-mass black hole is feeding on material from a massive companion star and launching jets at no less than roughly two-thirds the speed of light. Because one jet is directed close to our line of sight, astronomers believe they may have found the Milky Way's

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32:36

There Was a Planet That Swallowed a Moon

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/09/27

What if Venus once had a moon, and then destroyed it?A new study suggests that under plausible conditions, an ancient Venusian moon could have slowly migrated inward, crossed the Roche limit and ultimately been torn apart or swallowed by the planet. And Venus may not be the only hungry object in our cosmic neighborhood: another recent study explores whether the young Sun could have consumed a super-Earth, leaving subtle chemical and structural fingerprints behind billions of years later.This week on

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23:44

Dyson Spheres: The Heat Has to Go Somewhere

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/09/13

What if the first evidence of an advanced alien civilization isn’t a message, but a star whose energy books don’t quite balance?This week, we explore the strange history and surprisingly real science of Dyson spheres, from Olaf Stapledon and Freeman Dyson to the unforgettable Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Relics.” We’ll learn why a vast swarm of orbiting collectors makes more sense than a solid shell, and how astronomers search for the missing starlight and excess infrared heat such a

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27:15

Rivers Through the Dark

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/09/06

Galaxies carry the evidence of their past. When the Milky Way captures a dwarf galaxy or tears apart a globular cluster, it leaves behind long, ghostly ribbons of stars called stellar streams. These streams preserve the history of ancient collisions, and their shapes may trace the invisible dark matter surrounding a galaxy.This week, we follow the stellar wreckage left behind by galactic cannibalism, from the enormous Sagittarius stream wrapped around the Milky Way to Oyashio, the first suspected

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27:22

Little Red Dots at Cosmic Dawn

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/08/30

The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered hundreds of tiny red points in the early universe. They are extraordinarily compact, unexpectedly bright and strangely quiet in the X-ray and radio wavelengths where an active black hole should reveal itself.Astronomers call them “little red dots,” but that modest nickname conceals one of the most intriguing mysteries of the Webb era.In this episode, we follow the clues hidden in their light. Some may contain young black holes buried inside enormous

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35:00

Did the Milky Way Flip?

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/08/16

The Milky Way looks permanent from our place inside it, a great band of stars stretching across the night sky. But new research suggests our galaxy may once have been oriented in a completely different direction, perhaps reorienting by more than 90 degrees during its violent youth.This episode explores the evidence for the Milky Way's possible ancient flip and, even more remarkably, how astronomers could possibly reconstruct something that happened around ten billion years ago. Using stellar motions

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38:17

When Black Holes Twist Spacetime

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/08/02

What happens when a black hole spins? According to general relativity, it doesn't simply rotate in space, it actually drags spacetime around with it.This episode explores the strange phenomenon known as frame dragging, from its first predictions more than a century ago to new observations that may let astronomers watch it at work around supermassive black holes. We'll visit a distant black hole where the remains of a shredded star appear to be wobbling through twisted spacetime, then return to the

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27:00

Listening to the Heartbeat of the Milky Way

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/07/19

Most amateur astronomers spend their nights collecting light. But what if you could study our galaxy without looking through a telescope at all?In this episode, we sit down with amateur astronomer and radio enthusiast Hap Griffin to explore the fascinating world of backyard radio astronomy. Using a homemade radio telescope consisting of a recycled microwave dish, and less than $100 worth of electronics, Hap is recreating one of the classic experiments that revealed the Milky Way's spiral

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21:11

Is there a Black Hole in Our Backyard?

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/07/05

What if the mysterious "Planet Nine" isn't a planet at all?In this episode, we journey to the distant frontier of our Solar System to explore one of astronomy's strangest modern hypotheses: the possibility that the unseen object influencing the orbits of distant icy worlds could actually be a primordial black hole, an ancient relic formed in the first moments after the Big Bang.Along the way, we'll revisit the discovery of Neptune, learn how astronomers detect objects they can't even see, and

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23:21

How Jupiter Almost Destroyed the Solar System

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/06/21

For generations, we've pictured the Solar System as a stable and orderly place: planets forming where they are today and quietly orbiting the Sun for billions of years. But what if that picture is wrong?In this episode, we explore the Grand Tack Hypothesis, a fascinating idea suggesting that Jupiter may have migrated deep into the young Solar System before reversing course and heading back outward. Along the way, the giant planet may have reshaped the asteroid belt, influenced the formation of Mars,

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30:51

A Summer Sky Road Trip

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/06/07

Summer is almost here, and with it comes one of the richest observing seasons of the year.In this episode, we take a road trip through the summer sky, exploring the constellations, deep-sky objects, planets, meteor showers, and celestial events that will define the next three months of stargazing. Along the way we'll visit the Summer Triangle, cruise through the star clouds of the Milky Way, stop at famous landmarks like the Great Hercules Cluster and the Lagoon Nebula, and look ahead to the Perseid

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17:52

From the Archive: Star Party Stories

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/05/31

Back in November of 2024, I attended a star party hosted by the Midlands Astronomy Club and recorded what became one of my favorite episodes of Star Trails. This week, while taking a short break to recharge and prepare future episodes, I thought it would be the perfect time to revisit that night under the stars.In this remastered archive presentation, we’ll head out to a dark-sky observing site where amateur astronomers gather with telescopes, guitars, stories, and a shared fascination with the

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29:06

The Birth and Death of Galaxies

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/05/24

This week we conclude our month-long journey through galaxies by exploring one of the biggest questions in astronomy: how galaxies are born, evolve, and eventually die.We begin in the aftermath of the Big Bang, tracing how tiny fluctuations in matter slowly grew into the first galaxies. Along the way, we explore starburst galaxies, galactic recycling, and the remarkable realization that the elements making up planets, oceans, and even human beings were forged inside ancient generations of stars.Then

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21:51

The Hidden Universe: Cosmic Structures in the Dark

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/05/17

This week we continue our month-long journey through the world of galaxies, but this time, we venture into one of astronomy’s darkest frontiers. Beyond the glowing spirals and brilliant star clouds lies a universe filled with hidden structures, invisible matter, and mysteries that continue to challenge modern science.We venture into the Zone of Avoidance, a cosmic blind spot created by the dust and stars of our own Milky Way, and ask whether entire galaxies may still be hiding just beyond our view

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29:08

When Galaxies Collide

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/05/10

This week we continue our month-long journey through the world of galaxies, but this time, we move beyond what galaxies are and explore what galaxies actually do. It turns out these vast islands of stars are anything but static. They collide, merge, exchange gas and dust, fling stars into deep space, and sometimes grow by consuming smaller neighbors in a process astronomers call galactic cannibalism.We begin close to home with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy, a hidden companion galaxy

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23:12

Where the Milky Way Begins… and Ends

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/05/03

This week, we begin a new month-long journey into one of the most awe-inspiring subjects in astronomy: Galaxies.We start close to home by exploring our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and asking a deceptively simple question: where does a galaxy actually end? Along the way, we’ll explore spiral arms, dark matter, supermassive black holes, the hidden structure of our galactic halo, and the faint ghostly glow of Integrated Flux Nebula, dust clouds illuminated by the combined light of billions of

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38:15

The Invisible Architecture of the Universe, with Dr....

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/04/26

In this episode we step behind the scenes of modern astronomy to explore a side of the universe you can’t see, at least not directly.We sit down with Professor Enrique López Rodríguez, an extragalactic astronomer at the University of South Carolina and one of the leading researchers in the United States studying magnetic fields in galaxies.The conversation also dives into the complex behavior of supermassive black holes, some actively feeding and driving powerful outflows, others surprisingly quiet,

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22:22

From Gears to Code: Computing the Cosmos

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/04/19

In this episode, we explore the role of computers in astronomy. From the ancient Antikythera Mechanism and the human “computers” of the Harvard College Observatory, to the rise of electronic machines, supercomputers like the Cray-2, and modern programming languages like Fortran and Python, we trace the evolution of how we’ve learned to model and understand the universe.Along the way, we dive into concepts like data reduction, radio interferometry, distributed computing with SETI@home, and the

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26:03

Radio Astronomy: Listening to the Universe

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/04/12

In this episode, we move beyond what the eye can see and into a universe that has been quietly speaking all along.Radio astronomy has transformed our understanding of the cosmos, not by capturing images, but by detecting faint signals that have traveled across space for billions of years. From the accidental discovery of radio waves from the Milky Way by Karl Jansky, to the detection of the afterglow of the Big Bang, this field has revealed a hidden layer of reality that optical astronomy alone

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24:41

Space Oddity: The Harmony of Isolation

Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder ·

2026/04/08

What makes a song feel like space? In this special bonus episode of Star Trails, we take a deep dive into the song "Space Oddity," not just as a piece of music, but as a story of distance, disconnection, and drift.Released in 1969 at the height of the space race, Bowie’s breakout hit arrived alongside humanity’s first steps on the Moon. The BBC even used it during their coverage of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, a strange pairing for a song about an astronaut who never makes it home.But the real story

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