Pythagorean Astronomy: Revisiting Venus

Posted on 29 April 2021 by Chris North

Last September, a team of scientists led by Professor Jane Greaves announced the detection of a rare gas, phosphine, in the atmosphere of Venus. With no plausible explanations of how it could be there, one possibility remaining was that it was being produced by some sort of microbial life floating in the cloud decks of
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Catching a Shooting Star

Posted on 30 March 2021 by Chris North

Where were you on 28th February 2021, just before 10pm? If you were in parts of Wales, or the west of England, you may have seen a bright flash streaking in the sky. This was a fireball – a bright kind of meteorite which is a special sight in its own right. But this was
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Astrobiology and Technosignatures

Posted on 4 March 2021 by Chris North

The idea of life elsewhere is not a new one. Hundreds of years ago it was assumed that there were beings everywhere, before such views were considered heretical, and the determination that places like the Moon were dry airless worlds started to reduce the possible places life could thrive. But even as recently as the
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Pythagorean Astronomy: The Martian Triple

Posted on 2 February 2021 by Chris North

Over the course of the next month, we’ll see the arrival at Mars of not one, not two, but three spacecraft: Nasa’s Perseverance Rover, with its little helicopter Ingenuity; the Chinese Space Agency’s Tianwen-1 mission, which comprises an orbiting spacecraft, a landing platform and a rover; and the UAE’s Hope mission, which is an orbiting
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Review of the Year and Galactic Dynamics

Posted on 31 December 2020 by Chris North

With the end of one of the craziest years in living memory, we start with astronomical reflections on the last 12 months – and how far we’ve come over the course of the last decade. A new results has been published about the structure of our own Milky Way Galaxy, using the emission from carbon
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Watery Worlds and Tumbling Telescopes

Posted on 28 November 2020 by Chris North

A show of two halves, this month, starting with watery moons. One isn’t so surprising – Jupiter’s icy Europa. Known to have an ocean under the thick ice shell, models suggest that the plumes that have been observed may not be from the global reservoir, but from smaller briny pools within the icy crust. The
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Asteroid tagging and Stellar Spaghettification

Posted on 29 October 2020 by Chris North

Chris North and Edward Gomez give a round-up of the month in astronomy. Towards the end of October, NASA’s Osiris Rex spacecraft grabbed a sample from the asteroid Bennu. What happens next, and what might we learn from these samples? Chris and Edward discuss. There’s also an update on Betelgeuse (however you chose to pronounce
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Pythagorean Astronomy: It’s (Almost) Never Aliens

Posted on 14 September 2020 by Chris North

This is a special episode – released a couple of weeks earlier than normal – that’s because we’ve got a very special story to talk about this time. A team of astronomers has detected hints that indicate the possibility that there may be life in the clouds of Venus. Despite the maybes and possibilities, this
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Black holes – too big and too small

Posted on 3 September 2020 by Chris North

If there’s anything that pricks up the ears in astronomy, it’s black holes. And this month we have not one, but two black hole stories. And, depending on how you count them, four black holes, though two of them no longer exist – if that sounds confusing, then don’t worry, it’ll become clear! Regular listeners
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Solar Obiter – Not Suitable for Vegetarians

Posted on 30 July 2020 by Chris North

In astronomy, the month of July has been the month of two things: comets, and Mars. Comet Neowise, or to give it it’s full title C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, has graced the skies of the northern hemispheres, becoming the first naked eye comet for some time. Some have even argued it’s the best comet for decades.
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