Radio and Podcasts

Pythagorean Astronomy: Cassini’s Grand Finale

Posted on 3 October 2017 by Chris North

The 15th of September marked the Cassini spacecraft’s final plunge into Saturn’s gaseous atmosphere. This grand finale marked then end of a 20 year journey, 13 of which were spent orbiting Saturn, studying the ringed planet and its extended family of moons. Here in Cardiff, Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder has been closely following Cassini, and working
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Cassini’s Grand Finale

Posted on 31 May 2017 by Chris North

This month we don’t just look back at a few news stories, but also ahead to what’s happening over the coming months for one of the most successful space missions ever: Cassini. Having orbited Saturn for 13 years, Cassini’s fuel is running out and the mission has embarked on a “Grand Finale” before its final
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Herschel on the Jodcast

Posted on 26 May 2017 by Chris North

Dr. Elisabetta Valiante from The School of Physics and Astronomy has been interviewed for the “May Extra” episode of the Jodcast – a long-running astronomy podcast produced by staff and students at Jodrell Bank. You can listen to the whole episode, or just Elisabetta’s interview. During the interview, Elisabetta explains what questions astronomers are trying to answer with the Herschel
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Pythagorean-Astronomy: ExoMars and Galaxies

Posted on 27 October 2016 by Chris North

A lot has happened this month – ESA got a spacecraft into orbit around Mars, but sadly lost the Schiaparelli lander, China launched two new taikonauts to their space station, and the Swarm mission uncovered details from Earth depths. Edward Gomez and I discussed these, and more, this month (though before the full nature of
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Rosetta & OSIRIS-Rex

Posted on 26 September 2016 by Chris North

This month sees the start of one mission and the end of another. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission launched at the start of the month to go and study asteroid Bennu, and even bring back a sample to Earth. Meanwhile, the end of the month sees the finale of ESA’s Rosetta mission, which has spent two years studying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. With
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Artist's impression of Proxima b

Pythagorean Astronomy: Proxima b

Posted on 26 August 2016 by Chris North

After a few weeks of rumours, the announcement of the discovery of an Earth-size (maybe!) planet around the Sun’s nearest neighbour has caused quite a stir. The planet is more massive than the Earth, but probably not by much, and sits in a location where liquid water could (at least in principle), exist on it’s
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Pythagorean Astronomy: The Origins of Black Holes

Posted on 30 June 2016 by Chris North

On 15th June 2016 the LIGO collaboration released more detections of gravitational waves. As with the first detection, announced back in February, these gravitational waves were emitted by pairs of black holes, spiralling together and merging, But of course, those black holes need to come from somewhere, and in this case it’s thought to be the deaths of
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Pythagorean Astronomy: New worlds

Posted on 26 May 2016 by Chris North

This month’s focus is on two different stories, but both involving the same spacecraft: Kepler. Edward Gomez and I discuss a result from the outer edge of our Solar System, regarding the icy world that goes by the catchy name of “2007 OR10”. By combining information from the Kepler Spacecraft, now in the second phase
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