Walkabout the Galaxy

Where would you go and what would you bring with you if you could explore any object in the universe? Our cosmologist Jim Cooney wants to look for aliens underneath Europa's icy shell. This shell's complicated fractures may owe something to a new form of ice discovered in a delightfully simple experiment. Further out, a dwarf planet beyond Neptune has a ring unlike any we've seen before, and a delightfully complicated experiment may explain the origin of cosmological magnetic fields.

Neutrinos are slippery little buggers, and a new experiment is tightening the net to pin down their itsy-bitsy mass. Closer to home, the Earth's core is a complicated system with changing rates of rotation. We also take a look at the peculiar rings of a distant cometary body, Chariklo, thanks to a new observation by JWST. Join us for all the space news and Mars rover trivia.

Scientists have created a simulation of a wormhole in a quantum computer. Top quark helps us understand the significance of this as well as reminds us what the heck a wormhole is anyway. In planetary science, collisions may once again come to the rescue to help explain a mystery. This one is the odd gap in exoplanet sizes. And Down quark gives us an update on the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids and its sticky solar panel. Join us for all this, telescope trivia and more.

Our own solar system is lacking in one of the most common types of planet, the Super Earth. These large rocky planets have a cookie-cutter characteristic that may be explained by the evolution of stuff in a forming system’s disk. Speaking of disks, a mystery about the Milky Way its family of satellite galaxies seems to have been solved. Discover all this with updates from JWST, Artemis, a look ahead to NEO Surveyor, rocket trivia, and a cosmological stumper with your hosts, the astroquarks.

Top quark Jim Cooney rejoins the crew and gives us a deep dive into the breakthrough in nuclear fusion at the National Ignition Facility. Mars rover Perseverance is busy storing samples of Mars for a future mission to bring home, and the Sun may have a 17-year cycle in addition to the well-known 11-year cycle. Ring in the new year with the astroquarks to learn about all this, comet trivia, and more.

The astroquarks get Down with it as we welcome Dr. Audrey Martin back as the Down astroquark for a discussion of the strange auroral phenomenon known as STEVE (for real), an odd gamma ray burst that may be the result of an unusual stellar merger, and updates on the successful Artemis 1 mission to the Moon.

Europa’s got miniature tectonic activity, and a dark matter candidate may real itself through micro-gravitational lensing events. Dr. Audrey Martin joins us to discuss the strange spectra of the Trojan asteroids which have similar characteristics to comet dust tails. Join us for all this, silly particle name trivia, Artemis updates, and more.

Artemis 1, the most powerful rocket to ever leave the Earth, is up and on its way to the Moon after more hydrogen leaks than we care to remember, and Up Astroquark Dr. Hannah Sargeant signs off on her last Walkabout appearance as she is away to new adventures. We review the Artemis 1 mission, a new tracer for the origin of water on Earth and Mars, and we learn about a new idea for that famous dimming of the supergiant star Betelgeuse. Learn about gravity darkening, also a great name for a rock band, space junk trivia, and more with Strange, Charm, and Up.

Somewhere out there in the vast reaches of space are unfathomably powerful natural particle accelerators. They fling protons and other particles across the universe, and we detect them here as cosmic rays. Scientists are measuring cosmic neutrinos that would also be produced in these cosmic accelerators, and those ghostly particles may be starting to give us some indications where they, and cosmic rays, originate from. We also check in on simulating an asteroid apocalypse, the cosmic neutrino background, and more.

The Mars Insight lander detected an impact that produced a stadium-sized crater on the red planet, and the 30-year magnetospheric mission Geotail comes to an end. An experiment deep underground on Earth helps explain the puzzling composition of some of the oldest stars, and we explore the future of eclipses in our trivia. Catch up on all this, the latest space news, and more.

Join us for a special reunion of all the astroquarks with a fresh look at some of our favorite topics, from hunting for biosignatures on Venus and plumes on Europa to the quivering of space-time measured by LIGO. New results on old observations and quasar trivia round out our 300th episode.

We absolutely definitely have not seen any life on Mars. That said, new research suggests that over 3 billion years ago there may have been a certain kind of habitable climate on Mars for some little critters whose effects on the atmosphere would have made Mars - wait for it - uninhabitable! Join us for this and the most powerful gamma ray burst yet observed.

Astronomers have new evidence of the gaseous remnants of the supernova of a population III star from just 700 million years after the big bang. Speaking of big bangs, DART smacked Dimorphos and produced a long trail of debris from the tiny asteroid, and Mercury reveals a surprisingling dynamic surface. Tune in for space news near and far and Nobel prize trivia with your astroquarks.

Humanity gets a bit of payback on asteroids for the rude destruction of the dinosaurs and almost all life on Earth 65 million years ago with the DART spacecraft’s successful impact on a teensy-weensy asteroid. New research suggests the asteroids teamed up on Earth long ago, and that there were at least two major impacts to end the Cretaceous and the dinosaurs. Hot and barren Mercury may have significant deposits of solid ice at its poles, and we learn about photon rings around black holes. No giggling.

There are lots of explosions in this episode, beginning with the upcoming planned impact of the DART mission into a teeny-weeny asteroid to test planetary protection techniques. Then we take a look at some nifty detective work about a volcanic explosion on Mars, and finally, astronomers may have found the pre-smoking gun that lets us know when a star is about to go supernova.

The Astroquarks venture into the belly of the beast with our first live recording at the amazing DragonCon in Atlanta. Join us for a look ahead at upcoming Moon missions beyond Artemis, dragon trivia and more.

We take a journey to the Radius Valley to explore an exoplanet larger than the "Super Earths" and smaller than Neptune and Uranus. This one in particular is interesting not only because of its unusual size but also its composition appears to have a huge amount of water that may be in liquid form. We'll also check in with Up Quark Hannah Sargeant in the Artemis Corner, and cover a lot of space news and trivia.

We return to two of our favorite topics, the red giant star Betelgeuse, and of course the Moon. Some clever historical detective work has revealed that Betelgeuse was not red, but yellow, two thousand years ago. This tells us how massive the star is and how far along it is in its evolution to a supernova. Closer to home, another clever bit of detective work gives a new history to ancient lunar craters by examining the Moon’s gravitational lumpiness. Cool!

Lightning generally goes cloud to cloud or cloud to ground, but sometimes it shoots up to the ionosphere at the edge of space. We take a close look at strange lightning with lightning trivia. A baby star system in our own galaxy appears to be making a giant planet that’s less than two million years old, while the ages of distant galaxies observed by JWST are now a controversy. Catch up with us on all the latest and greatest space news and discoveries.

Korea sends its first mission to the Moon, and Mars sent a very old piece of itself to Earth. Meanwhile, the Large Hadron Collider is finding more odd collisional products than expected: the rate of creation of three W bosons is a bit high. Do you ever feel that there’s something wrong with the world? Maybe the LHC is getting a glimpse of new physics. Join us for all that, space chorizo, and the Jeans length with a full set of four astroquarks.

In this episode we explore clouds at the edge of space in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and discoveries of galaxies far more distant than we have seen before. We also explore why it’s so difficult to define the edge of something as ordinary as a planetary system, like our own solar system. And from that discussion is born Gravity Man and Electromagnetism Woman! Tune in to learn more!

We survey the initial five data releases from the JWST, from squiggly lines showing the composition of a distant planet’s atmosphere, to turbulent star forming regions, and the depths of space and time in a stunning look back toward the big bang. Join us for a geek-out session over this amazing sneak preview of what is to come in the years ahead from this reminder that humans can do cool things too.

We’ve had more experience flying to the Moon than you might think, and done some odd things with it, like feeding it to cockroaches. Join us for a look at the history of flights to the Moon, an interesting crater produced by space debris, and a field of rogue stars lost in intergalactic space.

Journey with us to the far reaches of the outer solar system where we take a closer look at two small objects explored by New Horizons: Pluto's moon Charon and the Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth. Charon's atmosphere goes through dramatic seasonal pulses that may explain its odd, reddish polar cap, while Arrokoth has the density of a fluffy snowbank 30 km long. There's some crazy stuff out there.

What does Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io have in common with one of the largest stars in the galaxy? Both are belching sulfur compounds, though for very different reasons. We learn about sulfuric outgassing on Io and the incredible hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris and its huge stellar eruptions. Plus, the European Space Agency is building a probe to hideout in space hoping to catch a passing rogue or long period comet. Join us for all that, plus space news and trivia.

Pulsars are becoming the astrophysical version of big collisions for planetary scientists: they are explaining, perhaps, more and more things. Tune into this episode, where we welcome back Adam LaMee, to discuss the origin of a diffuse gamma ray glow from galactic central park as possibly due to a large population of pulsars. Also, don't forget the trivia and fake sponsors!

The astroquarks talk haboobs. Unfortunately Jim is not with us to giggle, but Dr. Katariina Nykyri joins Strange and Charm to explain space weather and magnetospheric slingshots, and the Perseverance rover provides new insights into the generation of those famous Martian dust storms. Or haboobs.

Live from MegaCon 2022 in Orlando, we team up with space reporter Brendan Byrne to discuss the image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, great discoveries in store with JWST, and the Mars Insight lander going out with a quake, if not a bang.

Light gets redder as it climbs out of gravitational holes, and a star near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way conveniently demonstrates this beautifully. Join us for a discussion of gravitational redshift, a sci-fi discussion of time travel and body shifting, and a bit of Messier trivia.

As Top Quark likes to say, "You wouldn't understand: it's an early universe thing". That's why he's so excited that there's a new window into the goings on at the dawn of time by using HD. No, not high definition displays, but Hydrogen Deuteride! Oh boy, do we have fun with Deuteride on this episode. We also take a look at the crazy shuffling of planets in our own solar system, and much more.

Science marches onward, and the next steps in planetary science aim towards the seventh planet from the Sun, which shall not be named, and Saturn's little moon with a big ocean, Enceladus. Join us for a review of the new directions for planetary science research in the next decade, space news, and Uranus trivia.

Tiny fragments of the dinosaur-killing asteroid may have been found, preserved in amber, and new analysis of old data reveals a tiny, but potentially profound error in the mass of one of the fundamental particles, the W boson. It's not all small, as we also take a look at the largest comet nucleus and the most powerful laser.

Mars has a thin atmosphere, so little changes in the weather, even breezes, make big relative changes in how sound travels. We speculate on the sounds of future baseball game on Mars before turning to a fortuitous glimpse of the light from an individual star when the universe was less than a billion years old.

No, these aren't fake relics of extraterrestrials left in fields of wheat, but they are peculiar signatures of what may be bursts of star formation in distant galaxies. We explore Odd Radio Circles, oxygen on Europa, and the history of Tolkien's Orcs.

What if the stuff that makes up most of the stuff in the universe is so lightweight that you could barely call it stuff? Ultralight dark matter is one possible way to explain the puzzle of the very early formation of supermassive black holes. We explore this and the intriguing origins of Ceres, and much more.

We like to think we understand ordinary matter: the stuff we're familiar with that makes up stars, planets, and donuts. Sure Dark Energy and Dark Matter are mysterious, but the rest we have a handle on. Or do we? The New Horizons mission adds to a growing puzzle about the Cosmic Optical Background, not to be confused with the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is a beast of an entirely different color!

We learn how binary star systems may create a second family of planets, Saturn's aurora may be powered by the ringed planet's high speed winds, and how thinking of planetary intelligence may guide future searches for extraterrestrial life.

A remarkably accurate test of general relativity confirms that not only does time run slower at your feet than at your head, but it runs slower at your eyes than your eyebrows. Plus, Psyche loses some of its metallic sheen, and we have spacewalk trivia and much more.

How special is the Earth for having a large Moon, and what can it teach us about where to look for habitable planets? In this episode we explore new research on what kind of planets are likely to get helpful moons like our own, and then we take a look at the idea of an infinitely cycling, but not repeating universe.

The Astroquarks assemble to examine the mysterious of a star that is blocked out perhaps by a giant dust cloud. Meanwhile, the Sun is passing through a Local Bubble in the Milky Way that has triggered star formation all around us. Join us for all this, rainbow trivia, and more.

We welcome 2022 with a look at the future home of the James Webb Space Telescope - Earth's L2 Lagrange point, and an exploration of Lagrange points around the solar system. New research suggests the geysers of Enceladus may originate in a slush pool rather than the moon's ocean, and what would it mean if there were antimatter stars? All this and more can be found on this episode of Walkabout with your happy hosts, the astroquarks.

One of our favorite cosmological mysteries is why there is any stuff in the universe. We're here because there was a tiny fraction more matter than antimatter created. We learn about a new observational test for one theory of why that happened, and it has to do with gravitational waves and Q-Balls! Find out what they are and learn about an odd planet and giant stellar flares closer to home.

We take a deep dive into toffee planets with The Planetary Guy, Dr. Paul Byrne, who helps us explore the myriad types of exoplanets that might be lurking out there, including some with eggshell crusts and toffee interiors. And gravitational waves have yielded another secret, confirming Stephen Hawking's Black Hole Area Theorem. Find out all about it, and black hole trivia, on WtG.

On the eve of its long-anticipated launch, we explore one of the many areas of exploration of the JWST, the early universe after the birth of the first stars and the reionization of the interstellar medium. We also take a look at a large comet showing activity beyond the orbit of Uranus, historical trivia, space news updates, and more. Join us for a walkabout the galaxy.

Scientists are creating large, quantum-fuzzy atomic nuclei with large numbers of neutrons to get clues about nucleosynthesis in the very early universe. Closer to home, the Juno spacecraft has peered hundreds of km below the Jovian cloud tops to better understand its colorful stripy system of bands and zones. And we get to say "fugacity" a lot in understanding exoplanet geological activity. Join us for all this, space news, and top quark trivia.

We explore an exoplanet system where the orbits of the planets are at right angles to each other. A chunk of rock trailing the Earth around the Sun may be a chunk of the Moon, and we take a look at some of the more interesting ways of getting into space and traveling long distances once we're there.

It's the first Strange Up Top episode of Walkabout with Hannah Sargeant where we explore the odd core of the Andromeda galaxy, the formation of galactic clusters, and the thermodynamics of information. Find out how the odd orbits of stars in Andromeda may the relics of an ancient black hole merger, how clusters of galaxies got their starts, and the strange consequences of the second law of thermodynamics.

Meet Up Quark Hannah Sargeant as we explore the role of neutrinos in understanding the universe and the coupled evolution of Pluto's climate and spin state. A hypothesized sterile neutrino seems to be missing, extending the puzzle of dark matter. Catch up on all this and some truly odd balloon historical trivia, space news, and more.

Almost all exoplanets have been discovered in our local neighborhood of the Milky Way, with a few exceptions due to gravitational microlensing, still within our galaxy. Astronomers have likely identified the first exoplanet in a distant galaxy by it eclipsing an X-ray source. We also check in on models of cosmological inflation, and the Moon still has surprises in store. All this, trivia, sci-fi rants, and more with the Astroquarks on Walkabout the Galaxy.

So much going on: Shatner goes to space, the astroquarks ponder time travel, Tunguska may have been a near miss, free neutron decay holds the key to the universe, Fast Radio Bursts become more puzzling, and Strange Quark absolutely does not want any tortoises or any creatures at all, for that matter, to be harmed! Join us and special guest Dr. Hannah Sargeant for all this, Captain Kirk trivia, and more.

The intrepid New Horizons spacecraft has discovered close binary comets in the Kuiper belt, and the Lucy mission is getting ready to explore binary trojan asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit. It's all about small bodies, including just how late we can nuke an inbound asteroid and live to tell the tale.

Comet 29P is on an odd, distant orbit, between Jupiter and Saturn, and like a fidgety child sent to the corner, it keeps having unpredictable outbursts. In other planetary systems, the numerous hot jupiter class of planets seem to have a uniform nighttime temperature due to the presence of clouds of rock droplets. Maybe a good name for a song: Rock Droplet? And we'll check in on the latest in Dark Energy news.

We discuss not one but two galactic civilizations (Dune and Foundation) coming to screens big and small this Fall. Life being a central part of most civilizations, we discuss some interesting new observations of biomolecules in space and review the bizarre menagerie of hypothesized exotic stars. Join us for all that and an Asimovian trivia.

Quasars, those incredibly bright and distant sources powered by supermassive black holes, may have a trick to their radiation that let's us use them as standard candles. We'll dive into that and take a dive in close to the Sun with the Parker Solar Probe to learn about its discoveries of new populations of dust in the inner solar system. Plus, impactor trivia, and how long would you want to stay in space?

Light's odd way of behaving both like a particle and a wave is nothing new, but a cool new experiment shows that it's not an either/or but a continuum of gradations from wave to particle. The universe has some crazy stuff going on. We use the wave nature to take a look at an odd transient phenomenon at the core of the Milky Way and for Top quark to embarrass Strange quark at trivia.

We explore dwarf galaxies with no star formation and dwarf planets with a clue to a lurking object in the outer solar system. But first Top Quark is stumped by a non-stumper stumper, and our trivia takes us out to the largest structures in the universe. Catch up on all the latest news with the astroquarks, and have fun at the same time.

Will we find extraterrestrial life on Mars, Europa, or an exoplanet like Earth? Or will it be on an entirely different kind of planet, larger than the Earth, smaller than Neptune, and with planet enormous quantities of water? These hydrogen-rich ocean worlds, or hycean worlds, may be habitable. And to keep our own planet habitable, we may need to think about gently nudging asteroids off a collision course rather than blasting them to smithereens.

Saturn's rings are so amazing that they have helped us learn that Saturn's core is a sludgy-soupy beast that doesn't have a sharp boundary. And the waves in the rings are like the Milky Way's spiral arms, one of which has a clump at an odd angle that may be similar to some clumps we see in Saturn's rings! The astroquarks are here to help you fit it all together. Plus, how fast can you walk on the Moon? You might be surprised.

The Galaxy is in turmoil. At the galactic council MEGACON, the forces of Cosplay, Comics, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Gaming, and more have gathered to restore balance and reason to society. The Astroquarks have lost one of their trio: Top Astroquark. As Charm and Strange struggle to fight the forces of chaos and unreason, the bearded SPACE WHISPERER Brendan Byrne of WMFE arrives on a beam of radio waves to complete the triad and allow the Walkabout the Galaxy to continue… Plus Artemis, Mars, JWST, and Olympic Space Trivia!

It's a tale of pairs and "self-coupling", which causes Top quark endless mirth, in this episode, with Higgs boson pairs, self-annihilating photon pairs producing antimatter (in an electron/positron pair), and a pair of oddly red asteroids. Tune in for another wide ranging episode, also featuring olympic rants.

They have to be out there, and now we have a first direct glimpse of what is likely to be the birthplace of an exomoon - a moon forming in a disk around a planet orbiting another star. We check in on the curious case of FBOTs (fast blue optical transients), and closer to home we've learned that Mars' interior has a bigger core than anticipated. Get this news, space news, trivia linking sci-fi and planetary-sci, and much more.

Lithium is not just in demand for all those new electric car batteries, it seems there's a problem with missing lithium in the universe. We explore the Cosmological Lithium Problem, take a look at what tree rings and the sea floor have to tell us about Earth's space environment, and take a deep dive into wormholes for our trivia.

Beware the Squire of Gothos for the Kepler mission has discovered 4 more new free-floating planets. LIGO has observed the first collision between a black hole and a neutron star, and the ocean of Enceladus just might harbor life. Learn about these astronomical developments and much more, including a Venus exploration trivia and science fiction film rants.

In another wide-ranging episode, we discuss how atmospheric and oceanic chemistry changes wiped out most life on Earth 250 million years ago, the best evidence yet for a third type of supernova, and the importance of timekeeping for astronomy and space missions. We also have historical clock trivia and a lot of space news to share.

Just when the mysterious dimming of nearby giant star Betelgeuse is explained, a more distant giant star was almost completely blocked out. We discuss the very different explanations for these two stellar events, and we check in with updates on metallic asteroid Psyche and other Astroquarkian asteroid news.

These days it goes without saying that the universe is the same in every direction, at least on large scales. Or is it? We take a look at a new result from the Sloane Digital Sky Survey that seems to show a big smiley face in space, or more precisely, a decidedly non-random distribution of matter on a very large scale. We'll discuss what it means, or doesn't, take a look at citizen science, and discuss the latest in space news, nerd news, and a sci-fi trivia.

We're feeling happy, chatty, and ranty in the first show back in our studio since February, 2020, with a look at two new missions to Venus, a cool experiment about Aurora, magnetic field trivia, and so much more.

On our 239th episode the Astroquarks reflect on the Friends Reunion where they reflected on their time making only 236 episodes. The Friends and the Astroquarks have aged, but nothing compared to the Universe. We take a look at the first results from an ambitious all-sky survey to compare the distribution of matter in the universe today to what is predicted from our baby pictures of the universe. The results are a bit surprising. Also surprising: our helicopter trivia.

Neptune, as the outermost big planet, has an outsized effect on the countless objects in the Kuiper belt in the distant reaches of the solar system. We take a look at how the orbits of Kuiper belt comets today can teach us about Neptune's orbit 4 billion years ago, which is pretty cool if you think about it, and even if you don't. We also get a clue that cosmic rays may come from supernovae, including one in our own galactic back yard. Get all this and top quark trivia on this episode of WtG.

We are kidding, neutrinos. We love you. You're just a little bit scary! In this episode we discuss a way we'll learn about the mysterious tiny particles and their interactions with matter, as well as new spacecraft observations of the Sun, and a black hole caught in the act of spaghettification of a nearby star. Plus: special neutrino trivia from Top astroquark!

How many licks does it take to get to the center of Saturn? We don't know, but when you get there you will find a gooey surprise. Saturn's core is more massive than previously thought, and has a mixing transition to the gases above, revealed by studying Saturn's rings of all things. Meanwhile the center of the galaxy has an odd source of antimatter. Learn about all that, giant telescopes, and upcoming missions on Walkabout the Galaxy.

A quackery of astroquarks takes a close look at neutron stars thanks to observations from the NICER observatory on the International Space Station and some clever scientific modeling that reveals these rapidly spinning stellar remnants are not too soft, not too stiff, but just the right amount of squeezable. Join us to find out the hidden mysteries of neutron stars, and just what do you call a group of black holes, anyway? How about moons, craters, planets, and comets? Get the answers to all this and more on Walkabout the Galaxy.

Not all dark matter is "dark matter" dark matter. Some is simply dark, well, matter. An Australian radio telescope has found a long filament of cold plasma from the scintillations it produces in the radio waves of background sources. We'll explain all that, and take a deep dive into dust from space and dust from your face in another wide-ranging episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

The center of our galaxy is producing more gamma rays than we can account for. Some say dark matter is the explanation, and others say no way. We explore the different scenarios for the high energy source of this extra light, and closer to home check in on Mars with updates from Perseverance, the Ingenuity drone, and Mars Insight quakes.

We explain the polarization of light in the context of the image of the black hole event horizon in M87 and take a new look at the interstellar object Oumuamua and what may have powered its peculiar motion through our solar system. Was it the dark side of the force? Tune in for a Dark Side themed episode to find out.

A supermassive black hole seems to be going on a walkabout its own galaxy, and dust from Mars (or its moons) seems to be going on a walkabout the solar system. We explain how that's possible and how we know about it on this episode which features space news updates and an elemental and historical trivia question.

If space is the final frontier, where does it begin? That deceptively simple question is one of many topics the Astroquarks ponder in this episode, as well as unusual supernovae, and planets that recycle their atmospheres. There's some other completely random and inappropriate trivia, and some nerd news ranting. In other words, your typical Walkabout the Galaxy.

The astroquarks explain the physics behind Warp Drive and a new solution to Einstein's general theory of relativity. Closer to home, the Moon showers the Earth with sodium atoms, and ancient comets may have provided the carbon necessary for life. Plus, we have a brain-twisting math trivia that unites economics and cosmology. Only on Walkabout the Galaxy.

The search for the elusive intermediate mass black hole (hundreds to thousands of times the mass of the Sun) has instead turned up a cluster of black holes within a cluster of stars. Just a few thousand light years from home, globular cluster NGC 6397 has a swarm of black holes at its core. Hear how astrophysical sleuths figured this out as well as catch up on space news, elemental trivia, and musings on vacation destinations with your friendly neighborhood astroquarks.

NASA's Perseverance rover successfully touched down on Mars last week, capping a perfect set of three arrivals at the red planet. Dr. David Brain joins us to tell us about the plans for one of those missions, and how it will help us unravel Mars' complicated climate history. Plus, we have a series of Mars trivia questions and a look at what the future holds for Mars exploration.

The astroquarks debate the relative merits of hair and baldness in the grand context of black holes and the ultimate question of the nature of information in the universe. Not bad for a cheeky title! We also take a look at some ancient craters on the Earth, and the Ham Sandwich Theorem, among others.

Dr. Zoe Landsman rejoins the Astroquarks to explain how creating simulated regolith or dirt helps scientists and engineers prepare for missions to the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and Phobos. We also take a look back in time on planet Earth to a continental growth spurt 3 billion years ago.

Three missions, including two rovers, are arriving at Mars this month. We preview some of the unique aspects of the Mars Perseverance rover, and we explore the curious case of a giant galaxy with, apparently, no central black hole. Hear how merging black holes might use gravitational waves to shoot across the cosmos, plus a poetic sponsor, and the word Scutum is said way too many times.

We go deep on this episode of Walkabout, with new analysis of the lakes on Titan showing the largest may be more than 300 meters deep. In deep space, the long, low rumble of spacetime from interactions of supermassive black holes may have revealed itself in subtle changes in the timing of pulsars. Check it all out, plus find out just how long two shakes of lamb's tail really is. We've got the whole universe covered.

The galaxy has been making rocky planets for longer than we thought, and a new study shows us how black holes can tell us just how symmetric the universe is using a bumblebee field. You’ll have to listen to find out! Plus, we have nerd news, space news, and trivia. Don’t miss it.

We welcome special guest Heather Archuletta, a NASA pillownaut, who tells us what it's like to spend weeks simulating space travel in a slightly inverted bed. While time may have seemed to slow down last year, the Earth has actually been speeding up a bit. We'll explain it all, along with news from our neighboring star, sleep trivia, and nerd news as we kick off the third annual Year of the Astroquarks.

A planetary explorer in deep space turns its eyes outward and faints a brighter glow from distant galaxies than expected, while an alternative theory to dark matter suffers a blow. (Natural) radio emissions from an exoplanet may have been detected for the first time. The astroquarks explain it all and have a year-end space news trivia round up to close out our 2020 season.

Astrometry, what is it good for? Among other things it tells us where the heck we are, and that turns out to be only 25,000 light years away from the monster black hole at the center of the galaxy. Closer to home, the astroquarks discuss the exciting return of samples from an asteroid and the Moon by two robotic explorers, plus astronomy trivia and more space news from the venerable Voyager probes.

We are not only star stuff, we are also Big Bang stuff! We learn about how the formation of deuterium in the first few minutes after the Big Bang has left a lingering mark on the universe and each of us. A mysterious blue nebula has been explained as the Yo-Yo like aftermath of the merger of two small stars, Jim and Addie choose between the Moon and Mars for their vacation destinations, and our trivia is about the big blue marble.

Learn about a catastrophic merger of neutron stars that resulted in a weird beast known as a magnetar. Also, your Astroquarks take a look at a new model for geysers on Jupiter's moon Europa, and challenge you with some Einstein trivia. The odds are improving for axions being dark matter, plus, Jim does a 180 on Baby Yoda!

A Fast Radio Burst (we like to call them Furbies) has been seen coming from a highly magnetic neutron star right here in our own galactic backyard. A new analysis of Kepler data tells us how many of Star Trek's "Class M" (Earthlike) planets are nearby, and Top quark Jim Cooney provides the stumpers. Plus, we have a special astronomy election trivia question, for the most famous case of voting on a science question. Spoiler: you really shouldn't vote on things like that.

Charm quark Addie Dove is over the Moon about the announcement that water molecules have been found in minerals all over the lunar surface. We also take a look back at our friend the Philae lander which bounced several times on a comet before coming to rest in a nook or a cranny. The surface of the comet is softer than fresh snow. Join us for a tour of the solar system, with spacecraft trivia and some random astroquarkiness thrown in for good measure.

Join us for a behind-the-scenes blow-by-blow discussion of the activities of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission as it made contact with the asteroid Bennu and captured a sample of material from the ancient solar system. We are joined by Dr. Humberto Campins, a Co-Investigator on the mission, for an in-depth examination of this literally ground-breaking event. And we also have a Halloween-theme for our trivia, space news, and a nerd news apology.

We celebrate the Nobel Prize in Physics for Roger Penrose and Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel for discoveries about black holes, but Strange quark has some grievances to air about the Netflix show Away and Penrose's penchant for exclamation marks. We also see how the Sun is helping us better understand observations of distant stars and learn about the Astroquarks' very own satellite getting ready for launch.

A nifty story about complexity from the simplicity of gravity helps reveal the origins of the comets in the Oort Cloud and explain their current distribution. If that's not far out enough, we also take a look at the mysteries of quantum entanglement and explore the story of the long-forgotten fourth Rice Krispies elf, Jerk!

New research shows that Enceladus's ocean may have produced geysers at different locations on the small moon in the past, and the odd shapes of stellar remnants known as planetary nebulae finally get an explanation. We also get a special Charm Quark trivia from Addie to celebrate International Observe the Moon Night.

With all the excitement about the potential discovery of a biomarker, Phosphine, on Venus, we take a close look at the observations with Venus expert Dr. Brad Sandor who explains the challenges and problems with the observations. And we take a look at a system where the planet is larger than its own star! Join us for two fascinating science topics and a planetary volcanology trivia question.

Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Mary Robinette Kowal joins us for a wide ranging discussion from her Lady Astronauts novels to her work as a puppeteer and writing mentor. We also have math professor Dr. Pat Hooper join us to explain the answer to our math trivia.

The astroquarks go to DragonCon in this special edition of Walkabout the Galaxy. We review the latest gravitational wave discovery of the biggest small black hole seen to date and the surprising abundance of liquid water on small bodies in the solar system. Then test your six degrees of Josh Colwell knowledge in a special egotistical trivia challenge.

The astroquarks delve into the interiors of White Dwarfs, the relics of sunlike stars, with the help of Einstein's theory of general relativity. And the Mars Insight lander collected some intriguing data that may help pin down the details of the death spiral of its moon Phobos. Don't worry, we've got a hundred million years, give or take. Also catch up on new nerd news and biological trivia as well as launches and crashing satellites.

Ceres, whatever you want to call it, seems to have a bunch of salty water near its surface. Top quark gets worked up about planet nomenclature, while Strange and Charm get worked up about how Top pronounces "Ceres"! And, somehow, a nearby microquasar is tickling a gas cloud to emit gamma rays. Join us for a tour of these new discoveries, trivia, and more.

Low mass stars and high mass planets are the talk of the astroquarks in this episode, featuring a close-up look at the weather on Jupiter and a revisit to just what kind of stars provide the star stuff we're all made of. You can also find out what tractor beams have to do with Jedi mind tricks, and how crowded our local stellar neighborhood is. There's more to it than meets the eye!

Deep in the interior of the Sun all the energy that supports life on Earth is created by fusing hydrogen into helium. For the first time, neutrinos produced by the relatively rare CNO fusion process in the Sun have been detected. Elsewhere, we explore a hypothesis that planets like the Earth might get their water via an interplanetary bucket brigade. In addition to all that we'll explore continental drift, lunar drift, and dreams for our next missions - and movies.

The asteroid really did kill the dinosaurs, but the universe seems to be hiding something deeper and more mysterious from us about how it evolves. Closer to home, the European Solar Orbiter reveals adorable campfires on the Sun. Sure they would engulf a continent or two, but from a safe distance they are charming. The Astroquarks walk you through it all, as well as the summer of Mars, with several missions slated for launch to the red planet.

Far, far away, beyond the Zone of Avoidance, lurking in darkest, deepest space, lies the great southern wall of galaxies! New mapping of the local universe has revealed this sheet of galaxies that is roughly one-thirtieth the size of the entire observable universe! Learn about our place in the cosmos and news from colliding stellar cores, space news, comet trivia and more with your walkabout friends.

Is it the tiniest black hole ever or the largest neutron star ever? We may never know, but one of them has been discovered thanks to gravitational wave observations. And an interesting black hole merger took place near the center of a distant galaxy, and we may see it get gobbled up in just a few years. Closer to home, we explore how to look for moons around exoplanets, as well as space news, LEGO trivia, and your Walkabout sponsor of the week.

The 200th episode of Walkabout the Galaxy goes from odd Earthly atmospheric "elves" to mysterious new fundamental particles called axions, with a stop by Jupiter's fuzzy core on the way. To capture the essential Astroquarkiness of Walkabout, a special poetic sponsor leads things off, and an astrophysical trivia for Top quark sets us up for the next hundred episodes.

Astronomers may have found the smoking gun for fast radio bursts in the form of a magnetar in our own galaxy. These highly magnetic neutron stars now look like the best bet as the sources of these powerful bursts of energy seen from distant galaxies. The astroquarks also take a look at Mars' moons and an intriguing theory that suggests Mars has had rings, and may again.

The astroquarks discuss stunning images of a disk of gas and dust around another star giving birth to a planet, more weirdities and oddness in the Earth's magnetic field, the rain on Titan, and so much space news. It's so much exciting stuff that we had to record outside. Catch up on human spaceflight news as well as extraterrestrial lake trivia with your friendly guides to the universe.

The astroquarks are face to face to face at a safe physical (not social!) distance. We zoom out, without zoom, to explore the question of the origin of life in an immense universe. People are fixin' to go back to space from the U.S., Pluto's atmosphere may stick around longer than though, and there's plenty of space news and human spaceflight trivia.

Everyone's favorite scary astronomical object, the black hole, just got a bit closer to home with the discovery of a modest, stellar-sized black hole a mere 1000 light years from the solar system. Top quark Jim Cooney reassures us that that gives us at least 999.9 light years of safety buffer. Pieces of the asteroid Ryugu en route back to Earth as part of the Hayabusa-2 mission may have an interesting mix of "weathered" material on board. Get the details as well as android trivia and space news on this episode of Walkabout.

As the Sun starts getting more active at the beginning of a new solar cycle, new observations of sunlike stars show that the Sun itself may be unusually calm. Good news for life on Earth, but a downer for the astroquarks dreaming of meeting the Vulcans or Klingons sometime soon. Also, we review progress in understanding the large scale structure of the universe and solar trivia.

Former co-host Dr. Tracy Becker joins us to talk about exploring the geysers of Jupiter's moon Europa, the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, and the disappearance of what we thought was a nearby exoplanet. Join us for this special Seussian episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

We love antimatter, and we love the matter-antimatter paradox. How come there was just a smidge more matter in the universe than antimatter? Neutrinos, the wispiest of particles, may provide a clue. We also check in on another Earth-like exoplanet, and Jim tackles a sexy stumper, plus space news, astronomy trivia, and more with your friendly neighborhood astroquarks.

We welcome special guest Dr. Zoe Landsman back to the show to tell us about the metal asteroid Psyche and the eponymous mission to visit it. We get an update on an observational test of one of the central pillars of cosmology, and have some spaceship/asteroid/comet trivia to stump the astroquarks.

Professor Mohamed Noor, Star Trek Advisor, Dean of Natural Sciences at Duke University, and author of "Live Long and Evolve", comes back to the show to share his thoughts on extraterrestrial organisms big and small. He also shares some behind-the-scenes activity from the Star Trek Cruise. We also learn about a crazy new validation of the constancy of the speed of light, more space news, and Star Trek trivia. We also answer the question, if underwear is the safest material, why not just wear underwear everywhere?

The astroquarks show remarkable restraint by refusing to say that Uranus emitted a big blob of gas. Instead they keep things astronomically professional with the discovery of a plasma bubble near the 7th planet in data collected in 1986 by the venerable Voyager 2. Zooming out even further, a possible explanation for conflicting data about the expansion of the universe may be that we are living in a giant bubble 100 million light years across, give or take. See if you can match wits with Charm and Top in our Greek mythology trivia questions.

The astroquarks take a social distancing break from each other, but not from you, with our first remote recording. We have all the Walkabout goodness to transport you to other worlds and stars, with news of the first discovery of particular kind of pulsating star, discovery of a certain kind of salt in a comet, and fun speculation about an exotic quark star. Join the astroquarks to escape your Earthly troubles for another entertaining walkabout the galaxy.

Professor Yan Fernandez, Principal Scientist of the Arecibo Observatory, joins Josh and Addie to talk about the unique capabilities of this enormous (300 meters!) radio telescope to study everything from the Earth's atmosphere out to distant pulsars. And speaking of magnetic stars, our dear old Sol seems to be rousing from its latest solar slumber and entering the next 11-year-ish solar cycle. Join us for all the space news and a slew of sci-fi trivia on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

When regular run-of-the-mill black holes spiral into a deathly embrace, a gravitational chirp spreads across the universe, but when the behemoths in galactic centers merge, they cause a low rumble in space-time. Scientists are using nature's free ultra-precise astronomical clocks - pulsars - to hunt for this rumble. Closer to home the Earth has a new very-very-mini-moon, and the astroquarks face multiple energy-related trivia questions.

In this special Elizabethan episode of Walkabout, we check out the tired, battered, and bruised asteroid Pallas, one of the largest in the asteroid belt, and discuss why its neighbors beat up on it so much. We also take a peek at a new discovery about antimatter and an exotic quirk of quantum mechanics that also lives in the antimatter realm, catch up on space news, time travel shows, and much more.

We have an interesting new clue about what causes the ridiculously power phenomena known as Fast Radio Bursts (or at least about what doesn't cause them!), and we are joined by astroquark emerita Tracy Becker to tell us about the discovery of a baby moon around a near-Earth asteroid from the Arecibo Observatory. We also have Earth news and Space news and an energy round of trivia. Toss in a little matter-antimatter and it's another episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

The astroquarks discover their new favorite thing in the universe. They'll tell you all about it and why we all have to hope it's a real thing. Also learn about ridiculous mathematical functions, the latest space news, and a little gravitational blippity-bloop for good measure.

Would you rather go ice fishing on an alien moon or bungee jumping on Mars? Either way, you definitely want to hear about the mysterious way matter twists spacetime with another confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity involving a white dwarf and a pulsar. Join the astroquarks for all that plus the discovery of the nearest exoplanet, solar system trivia, and all the latest space and nerd news.

Volcanoes on ancient Earth and not-so-ancient Venus are the main topics for the astroquarks, with planetary trivia, and a giant gassy wave moving through the Milky Way. Catch up on all the different types of numbers, from imaginary to prime, and all the space news and climate updates on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy. Check out YouTube for the gas-wave shimmy.

The astroquarks explore our origins with from the ancient fossil Lucy to the upcoming asteroid mission of the same name. They then head for the stars, including a nearby one with a potentially habitable planet, and re-examine the case for dark energy. You're not going to want to miss this one, for the science, the trivia, and a special sponsor message.

The title has nothing to do with the episode except what could be more fundamental than simply measuring how far away something is? The astroquarks tackle this deceptively complex question on cosmological scales as well as the origins of meteor showers and archeoastronomy of ancient aurorae.

The astroquarks are wrapped up with the passage of time and the aging of the stars, the universe, and themselves as the first annual year of the astroquark comes to a close. We discuss the red giant star Betelgeuse's mysterious year-end fainting (as in the opposite of brightening), and ss this stellar neighbor nears its explosive end, we take a look at the lives of galaxies and the universe as a whole.

Walkabout the Galaxy closes out 2019, the first annual Year of the Astroquark, with an episode touching on everything from interstellar comet I2/Borisov to the tiger stripes of Enceladus and the first map of the surface of a freakin' neutron star! As always we share abundant space news, from Starliner to the Mars InSight mole, and embarrassing nerdiness, so wrap up the year with Strange, Charm, and Top, and we'll see you in 2020 for the second annual Year of the Astroquark.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 soup!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 visitor from interstellar space, and new findings about how an ancient asteroid collision helped diversify life on planet Earth.

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.

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 recently. Plus space news and hurricane trivia!

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.

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 truly important questions in life.

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 trivia.

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 much more.

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 amazing achievement of Apollo 11 with bonus Apollo trivia.

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.

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 life and rocks on the Moon! So take the universe for a spin with us, and get a tangential trivia and all your space news on Walkabout the Galaxy.

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 trivia.

The astroquarks take a stroll through the extrasolar planetary zoo where there are new members of the close-to-Earth-sized club and a peculiar Neptune-y thingy orbiting super close to its star. Meanwhile there are rapid developments in NASA's renewed focus on sending astronauts to the Moon, and we revisit the strange case of quarks, anti-quarks, and the existence of matter in the universe. Plus a very deep dive into Forbidden Planet-inspired trivia.

NASA unveils a new accelerated timeline to get astronauts forward (not back, get it?) to the Moon in 2024 with the new Artemis program. The astroquarks bring you up to speed on the latest space exploration news, and are joined by author Dennis Taylor of the "Bobiverse" trilogy of science fiction novels ("We are Legion", "For We Are Many", and "All These Worlds"). This gets us into Von Neumann machines, the Fermi paradox and the Great Filter, and bonus Bob trivia.

The astroquarks discuss news about lunar quakes and Venus... volcanoes. But volcanoes doesn't rhyme with quakes, so I sacrificed alliteration for rhyming. Venus may be volcanically active, at least on relatively recent geological timescales. If only we could go back in time to see! Top quark Jim Cooney will bring us up to date on a new experiment that fiddles with the direction of time's arrow. All that, plus space news and bonus trivia on this episode of Walkabout.

From a human-made crater (well, spacecraft-made) on an asteroid, to the Moon-forming impact, to an accelerating pace of black hole merger detections, the astroquarks survey the latest news in astronomical collisions. The asteroid Apophis has a close date with Earth in 2029, and what episode of Walkabout would be complete without some general relativistic frame dragging? Zoe Landsman joins us while Charm quark Addie Dove is off launching things into space! Plus space news and a historical/avengical trivia.

Scientists have been chasing methane on Mars for years. It's a slippery little molecule that doesn't stick around very long and has several biological (as well as non-biological) sources. The armada of spacecraft at Mars have conflicting measurements of the presence or absence of methane in Mars' atmosphere. Fortunately the astroquarks are here to make sense (or fun) of it. Plus, we discuss a cool new way to figure out the rate of expansion of the universe, and bonus methane trivia!

We discuss the dramatic first view of a black hole in a special episode recorded in front of a live audience. In addition to the Event Horizon Telescope's image, bonus nerd trivia, and an abundance of space news, we review the latest in space impacts, including the dramatic fossil field in North Dakota revealing the death and mayhem just minutes after the catastrophic asteroid impact that wiped out nearly all life on Earth 65 million years ago.

Just when you thought Dark Energy couldn't get any stranger, new measurements of the history of the expansion of the universe show an era well after the big bang and inflation but long, long ago when the rate of expansion was different than today. We are running out of dark names for the unknown. Closer to home the astroquarks discuss evidence for rain and water on Mars at a surprisingly recent (well, still a long time ago) epoch. All that plus space news and nerd trivia can be found on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

We are joined by asteroid expert and "b" quark Dr. Zoe Landsman to discuss the remarkable discovery by the OSIRIS-REx mission that the asteroid it is orbiting, Bennu, is spitting pebbles and rocks out into space. The mechanism for this remains a topic of research. Also, another thing named after Enrico Fermi, another super moon with a silly name, and examining Apollo samples that have been sealed since they were recovered from the lunar surface. All in all, just another episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

Our guest, André Bormanis, has spent a considerable amount of time thinking about extraterrestrial intelligence, as well as warp travel, holodecks, artificial life forms, and more. Having spent more than a decade as an advisor and producer on the Star Trek franchise, André is now an executive producer and writer on "The Orville", Seth MacFarlane's trekkiest of shows. André joins the astroquarks for a discussion of Trek, humor, and the vexing Fermi paradox. Maybe we're just too early to the party. Check it out, and check out "The Orville", plus a special Trek trivia on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

Science Fiction great Joe Haldeman ("The Forever War", "Marsbound", "The Hemingway Hoax", "Worlds") joins the astroquarks for a wide-ranging discussion from microwave-plasma-grapes to cosmic rays, science in science fiction, and the latest space news including SpaceShipTwo returning to space and Hayabusa-2 touching an asteroid.

Sometimes it seems like you can't count on anything, and now the Earth's north pole is on the move at a dramatically accelerated rate, more than 30 miles per year. Of course, that's not the rotation pole, but the magnetic pole, and it's not the north magnetic pole, it's the magnetic north pole. Confused? That's what the astroquarks are here for. Tune in for this, more interesting news about the complicated environments around the cool red stars that are home to so many exoplanets, space news, and trivia.

The astroquarks welcome Professor Mohamed Noor from Duke University, author of "Live Long and Evolve" to talk about evolution of humans and aliens, interspecies sex, and what we can learn about the big questions of life, the universe and everything from Star Trek. As if that wasn't enough, there's new intriguing information about Dark Energy, plus Nobel Prize trivia and space news featuring our recent payload flights with Blue Origin's New Shepard. Tune in for all your space and alien news.

Hold on to your solar system, the Milky Way may be in store for a galactic collision sooner than anticipated. And speaking of collisions, evidence from craters on the Moon as well as an apparent dearth of craters on the Earth (I just wanted to say dearth and Earth in the same sentence) suggest that the current rate of asteroid and comet impacts on the Earth is 2-3 times higher now than it was a few hundred million years ago. Zoe Landsman joins us for a traveling Addie to discuss all this, new research on the likelihood of life in the ocean of Europa, and Top quark trivia.

2019 began with the successful flyby of Ultima Thule (2014 MU69 - more on the name in the show!) by the New Horizons spacecraft, but there's much more to talk about, including a discovery of more Fast Radio Bursters (mysterious sources of tremendous energy), and observations that show phase transitions in White Dwarf stars. Josh, Addie and Jim have got it all, plus space news and trivia, in this episode that kicks off the Year of the Astroquark. You heard it here first!

The astroquarks look back on a momentous year for space exploration and look ahead at what to expect in 2019. Strange and Charm will have payloads flying to space, and Saturn's rings will still be around for a few years. But new studies of the mass of the rings and the rate of erosion, measured indirectly, suggest that if you wait a few hundred million years they may well be gone. Plus, Top Astroquark provides a bonus trivia for our year-ending holiday special episode!

Space Reporter Brendan Byrne from WMFE 90.7, home of NPR in Central Florida, joins the Astroquarks to look at NASA's new exploration programs for the Moon and Mars. We have our first listener contribution with the pronunciation of the Mars 2020 Landing Site, and Jim goes off on Fahrenheit AND Celsius. Do not get him started! Plus space news and trivia and more.

A long time ago a galaxy very close by plunged through the Milky Way, and a trail of dark matter from that miniature galaxy is passing through us all right now, including Dr. Brad Sandor who joins the astroquarks to talk dark matter, the Mars InSight lander, the Mars 2020 rover, Venus's atmosphere, lots of space news, and trivia. So much spacing going on in this episode! It's a real walkabout the galaxy.

In our first letter-themed episode, the Astroquarks check in with Ryugu, Bennu, Ultima Thule, and Oumuamua, while Jim contemplates muumuus. We also talk about dynamically trapped dust clouds near the Earth to make Addie happy, and we have a truly embarrassing sponsor. We're sincerely sorry, but you'll enjoy all the U's, from asteroids, to missions to a U-themed trivia. We do it all for you!

We almost called this "Everything you wanted to know about alien sex with Dr. Michael Wall", but it's not alien sex with Mike Wall, it's Mike Wall telling us about alien sex! A senior writer with Space.com and author of the new book Out There, Mike joins the astroquarks to talk about aliens, paranormal beliefs, and an exotic type of star called a dark star. Plus space news, trivia, and it turns out the astroquarks are really interested in three-way alien sex.

In this wide-ranging episode, the gang takes a look at the recently launched BepiColombo mission to Mercury and why it takes so long to get to such a relatively near planetary neighbor. On the astrophysical front, the relatively cool stars that host most of the observed exoplanets in our corner of the galaxy are prone to large solar flares. The astroquarks discuss the implications for extraterrestrial life, and that brings us back to Europa, an ocean world orbiting Jupiter whose surface may be punctuated by tall ice spires called penitentes, also seen in snow and ice on Earth. Plus trivia, space news, and, as always, a new sponsor!

Candy Hansen, veteran of Voyager, Cassini and Mars missions and head of the JunoCam on Juno at Jupiter joins the astroquarks to talk about the edge of the solar system. The astroquarks discuss what the edge of the solar system is, plus stars from other galaxies, space trivia and superhero news.

Planet 9 is Pluto, but Planet X is back in the news with the discovery of another object in the deep and distant recesses of our solar system, nicknamed the Goblin! It adds another piece of evidence to the idea that a big planet-y thing is lurking our there. So the astroquarks start Halloween season off with a Goblin-themed episode with a planetary Goblin and goblin trivia. Get your spook on, plus a multitude of asteroid hoppers and news from the surface of Mars in the latest episode of Walkabout the Galaxy, the only one that is this actual episode!

It would take a falcon huge episode to cover all the space news this month, so the astroquarks take a crack at it. From Space-X's latest plans for a crewed lunar flyby mission to the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission's landers on the asteroid Ryugu, to the latest news about the missing matter in the universe, this episode has it all. It's falcon huge.

The astroquarks have your bases covered, from Juno's discovery of a magnetic nubbin at Jupiter (check your Friends references) to confirmation of the decay mode of the Higgs Boson to what does it matter anyway because we're all living on the Holodeck! Adam LaMee joins us again to thwart us with a taste of our own quark-thwarting questions. Plus comet trivia and your sponsor.

Zoe Landsman, "b" astroquark, joins Josh, Jim, and guest Adam LaMee to talk about an ancient (or very young, depending your point of reference) galaxy that's popping off stars so fast we almost called this the Pop Off episode. Plus Adam turns the tables on the astroquarks, updates and trivia on the Mars rovers, plugging leaks in space with your thumb, and the solar cycle.

Move over Mars, the Moon wants in on the water game! Attention is focused on the south polar region of the Moon which is both dark (and therefore cold and water-friendly) all the time, and also bright (and therefore solar-panel friendly) all the time. What?! Yep, that's right. The astroquarks are back from summer break to break it all down for you in this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy, plus space trivia and news.

In this week's "water on Mars" there's actual news of a potential liquid water reservoir on the red planet today. Well, more in it, than on it, but that adds it to the icy moons with subsurface lakes. This lake is very cold, so that water must be very salty. The astroquarks bring you up to date, touch on a new verification of general relativity, and most importantly delve into obscure superheroes and super-energetic cosmic rays. Great name for a rock band by the way. Catch it all on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a little neutrino left a very large black hole headed straight for a point in space that would be occupied by the Ice Cube neutrino observatory at the Earth's south pole just in time to detect it! This is the story of that neutrino, Scrabble(TM) competitions, neutrino trivia, and a very embarrassing sponsor message. We're all very sorry about that sponsor message, but they paid, so we honored the contract, okay?!

Objects in our solar system can take pretty torturous paths to get from point A to point B. Nature can scramble the orbits of asteroids, and people can make satellite orbits scramble in just the right way to go from one orbit to another. Strange, Charm, and Top explore the ways orbits change and a new research report that says that most of the asteroids in the inner part of the asteroid belt may be the debris of just five primordial protoplanets that got smashed to smithereens billions of years ago. That's why the new name for asteroids is going to be "smithereens". Plus: nerd news and spaceflight history trivia!

An ambitious Japanese mission, Hayabusa-2 has arrived at its target asteroid Ryugu. Are-you-good with that? See what we did there? (Ryugu'd? Get it?) Yes, that's the level of discourse on Walkabout the Galaxy, but we also find out about the great science to come from this exciting asteroid sample return mission, and a look ahead to the James Webb Space Telescope, whose launch has been slipped to make absolutely sure that nothing got Ryugu'd while building it. Plus we talk about the science of learning, and un-learning, with our special guest Anna Turner.

NASA does many inspiring and amazing things, from fundamental research into the evolution of the universe and the formation of planetary systems, to development of new technologies to enable humans to go to other worlds. They also sponsor research to monitor the Earth and to monitor the space near the Earth for potential impactors. The astroquarks weigh in on their own preferences for NASA's research priorities and discuss the results of a new survey of Americans on the subject. There's also the discovery of new weird stellar objects near the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, updates on Mars' early climate, and space trivia as always!

The astroquarks have often wondered where all our alien friends are hanging out. Maybe they're all just in a different universe? Well, most of those universes are probably duds, and anyway, we'll never know! That's the whole definition of a universe. New research sheds light on the surprisingly small role dark energy plays in the early evolution of a universe, and then there's the question of AntMan and the Wasp: do they conserve mass or not when they shrink? We must know!

It may sound like the title of an astroquark's sex tape, but we actually do have news about a potentially new long-term resident of the solar system captured from another planetary system, and Top astroquark Jim Cooney tells us all about a black hole gobbling up so much stuff that it's the brightest object in the universe! Honorary "Bottom" astroquark Dr. Zoe Landsman joins us to discuss these odd objects, Deadpool and Solo, and asteroid trivia.

We all know Mars is crunchy on the outside, but does it have a chewy center? The NASA Mars InSight mission is en route to the red planet to answer that question. The astroquarks talk about InSight's science and instruments, Han Solo, and Richard Feynman in another wide-ranging episode of Walkabout the Galaxy!

Check out our first literally-titled episode! David Grinspoon, co-author of "Chasing New Horizons", the behind-the-scenes story of the Pluto mission, joins the astroquarks to dish on Pluto the planet, space exploration, Carl Sagan, and Mickey Mouse's dog!

The astroquarks remember Yuri Gagarin's historic first flight in this episode before zooming off to the galactic center to see what's what with the discovery of thousands of black holes packed into the region. Then they zoom out to the galactic halo for a quick distance check on a globular cluster. Hopefully they won't get lost in space!

What do Annihilation, Buckyballs, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and an itsy-bitsy galaxy have in common? They're all topics for the latest walkabout the galaxy with the astroquarks. A small galaxy has been observed with essentially no dark matter (most are mostly made of the dark stuff). Paradoxically, this is very strong evidence for the existence of dark matter. Speaking of things that are hard to see, we'll also check in on TESS, the next space telescope designed to discover lots of Earth-y exoplanets. Join Josh, Addie, and Jim for another whimsical jaunt through the latest news in astronomy and a peak at science fiction.

The astroquarks discuss the late Stephen Hawking's first major breakthrough in astrophysics: radiation from black holes, now known as Hawking Radiation and what that means about what would happen if you through all the recordings of Walkabout the Galaxy into a black hole. UCF student and astronomer Anna Metke joins Josh and Jim to talk about telescopes near and far, and the giant radio telescopes of the Deep Space Network used to talk to spacecraft across the solar system.

Some things are hard to see, like black holes. In this episode of Walkabout the Astroquarks discuss a couple of new observations that help us see the earliest stars in the universe and the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Plus: Josh struggles to understand superhero movies, Jim provides the trivia, and Addie, as always, is Charm.

The Astroquarks welcome Dr. Phil Metzger, expert on the use of local materials on the Moon, asteroids, and Mars, to tell us about the prospects for prospecting in space. Find out how to build your Moon home from the space dirt on hand, plus nerd news and space trivia!

"Starman" in the Tesla Roadster is headed out past the orbit of Mars, and NASA has some cool new missions in the works for exploration of the solar system. One of those, Mars 2020, is the next high-tech rover for the red planet, and this one will be carrying with it an unusual rock sample. The astroquarks cover that and the two finalists for NASA's next New Frontiers mission, and we'll hear about a new study suggesting lots of interstellar planets in a distant galaxy. Plus, of course, our sponsor, and space trivia!

It's a satellite theme on this episode, with a sparkly disco ball in space, a long-lost scientific satellite tracked down by an amateur astronomy sleuth, and space trivia about all the junk in space. Join the astroquarks for a quirky quarky tour of our solar system, and some new evidence about the earliest history of life on Earth.

Clues to dark matter may be buried in the relics of the oldest stars in the galaxies. The old stars probably formed when the dark matter did, so their motions are probably similar. The astroquarks discuss what this means for understanding that mysterious stuff, plus using X-rays to navigate spacecraft and yet another peculiar meteorite. Dr. Jonathan Kollmer joins the gang for these topics, as well as a sci-fi trivia and nerd news updates.

Thank you Australia for giving us a meteorite called Bunburra Rockhole, and not just because the name is endlessly fun to say, but also because it hints at an origin from a missing asteroid. In this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy, the Astroquarks also take a look at Saturn's youthful rings, the link between star formation and the supermassive black holes in the hearts of galaxies, and space trivia and nerd news.

The astroquarks kick off the new year with a look at a clever and challenging new technique to detect gravitational waves created by supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies, and maybe even by the big bang itself. The waves make the Earth's position change, resulting in apparent changes in positions of things we look! Plus: astronomy predictions for 2018, nerd news, and space trivia.

While terrestrial matters were frequently dark and depressing, 2017 was a banner year for the cosmos, or at least for our understanding of it. From Cassini's Grand Finale to LIGO's detection of neutron stars colliding, the astroquarks review the highlights of the year and a new story about a very old black hole from the dawn of the universe. A supermassive black hole formed before the universe was a billion years old, suggesting galaxy formation was off to a robust and early start. Join Josh, Addie and Jim for all that, nerd news and space trivia to wrap up 2017.

Antimatter, the stuff that lets the USS Enterprise fly about the galaxy is the topic of this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy because it's made in your garden variety thunderstorm. Lightning strikes have enough energy to drive nuclear reactions that produce antimatter electrons. Join the astroquarks for this and other heady topics such as the wobble of the Earth's axis in space trivia.

Disappointed that we don't have jetpacks and flying cars? Dr. Amanda Hendrix joins the Astroquarks to suggest an alternative: colonize Saturn's moon Titan, where a thick atmosphere and weak gravity mean we could all just fly like birds! Really! But, wait, there's more! Tune in to this episode of Walkabout for discussions of nearby moons and planets to colonize, space trivia and more.

Stars have a voracious appetite, gobbling up most of the stuff in their immediate neighborhood, leaving just a few scraps to make planets. Sometimes, though, even the planets do not escape the stellar maw. In this episode of Walkabout, the astroquarks discuss a neat observation that shows a star likely gobbled several rocky worlds at some point in its past. Plus, help NASA name a Kuiper Belt Object, and find out the link between the planet eater and Greek mythology in this episode's trivia.

That asteroid is rogue, and that's hyperbolic, but not hyperbole. The astroquarks welcome Dr. Dan Durda to discuss the first detection of a planetary object passing through our solar system that definitively came from another planetary system. All those Star Trek episodes where there is a wandering planet or comet or asteroid in space are now officially validated!

If two neutron stars collide in a galaxy 130 million light years away and no one has a gravitational wave observatory to detect it, does it make a sound? Well, that's a silly question, but it happened, and not only was this cosmic catastrophe observed in the high energy light it emitted, but the rippling of spacetime was detected as well. Astronomy now has two independent ways of observing energetic events, and for the first time, something was seen using both techniques: electromagnetic waves (light) and gravitational waves. Join the astroquarks to hear about the first "kilonova" observed this way and what it has to do with your gold jewelry.

The astroquarks welcome noted science blogger and author Dr. Ethan Siegel whose new book Treknology takes a look at the intersection of science and science fiction. While you may already have a tablet computer, warp drive is probably still a few years away. But Elon Musk may be sending missions to the moon in less time than it takes the U.S.S. Enterprise to complete its 5-year mission (so, less than 5 years, get it?). Tune in for the latest news on exploration of the solar system as well as a look back to some classic Trek-nology with Dr. Ethan Siegel on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

The astroquarks welcome WMFE space reporter Brendan Byrne who recounts his flight on the SOFIA airborne observatory. They hen vent about how the Nobel Prize committee has unaccountably once again passed them over. Here about this year's winners in physics, and a discussion of the history of the Kuiper Belt in this episode's space trivia.

How exactly (and why) does a spacecraft get a "gravitational assist" from a planet en route to another planet? Where does that energy come from? The Astroquarks take a look at gravity assists and the OSIRIS-REx mission to grab some bits of a Near-Earth Asteroid and bring them back to Earth. Plus, the field of gravitational wave astronomy expanded now with the detection of a new black hole collision by two separate gravitational wave observatories. It's a weighty episode.

Josh recounts experiencing the end of the Cassini mission and recalls more than a quarter century of involvement with the project in this episode. Then the astroquarks take a look outward toward our galaxy and its retinue of dwarf galaxies and what that may say about how typical, or not, the Milky Way is in the grand scheme of things. All that plus Cassini trivia, nerd news, and a meteorological sponsor on this episode of WtG.

Asteroid Florence with her two mini-moons pays a visit to the Earth, while Tabby's Star continues to mystify with its unpredictable fluctuations in brightness. The astroquarks also cover the latest LIGO rumors about the detection of neutron star collisions, expanding the realm of gravitational wave astronomy. Plus Nerd News and Space Trivia!

New experiments have created diamonds in the conditions expected in the interiors of Uranus and Neptune. Former Top Astroquark Tracy Becker joins Josh, Addie and Jim to discuss diamond rain deep in the atmospheres of these giant planets. Join the astroquarks for nerd news, space trivia, and a bit of planetary science for good measure.

The astroquarks tell their eclipse stories from the Great American Eclipse. The Sun and every star has weather, spots, oscillations, flares and all sorts of activity. Some of this is revealed during an eclipse to the naked eye. Now, telescopes have enabled us to map the appearance of the red supergiant, Antares. Join Josh, Addie and Jim for this stellar episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

The weight on that box of breakfast cereal ultimately traces back to "le grand K", a metal sphere in a vault in Paris, a wonderfully archaic standard for how much stuff makes a kilogram. We'll talk about the efforts to update that standard, the next Kuiper Belt Object to be explored by the New Horizons spacecraft, eclipses and occultations, and of course Zombies. Join the astroquarks for the latest astro-news, nerd news, and this episode's trivia about the length of the month!

The Sun doesn't just shine, it rings like a bell, or a drumhead wrapped into a ginormous ball of incandescent plasma. The astroquarks talk about how helioseismology tells us about the interior of the Sun, and new research shows some surprising changes in the Sun's outer layers. And the disappointing news from the realm of cosmology is that dark matter is probably not warm and fuzzy, depriving us of endless opportunities for jokes, not to mention that it would be awesome if we had fuzzy dark matter throughout the universe. Catch up on the latest astronomy, nerd news, and space trivia with the astroquarks on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

If the controversy over Pluto's planetary status weren't already enough, what do you call a planet that is not even orbiting a star? The astroquarks explore rogue planets in this episode, planets that wander interstellar space, without a fire to keep them warm. We discuss how they nevertheless have been detected. Also, Addie's favorite body (rhymes with loon) and Jim's new favorite name, nerd news, space sponsor, and space trivia.

Dr. Kristen John of NASA's Johnson Space Center joins the Astroquarks for a wide-ranging discussion on topics from Jupiter's Great Red Spot to teleportation (yes, it's a real thing) and just what that means (not at all clear, but don't get ready to step into that transporter beam just yet).

The astroquarks are joined by Dr. Phil Metzger who spends a lot of time thinking about how our civilization can make the great leap into space. We may not be that far away from truly moving off our home planet and becoming a "Type 1 Civilization" that inhabits the solar system and not just one planet. We discuss how we'll get there, how long it might take, the challenges we face, and of course the latest nerd news and trivia from the world of Pandora (the Avatar one, not Saturn's moon).

Planet 9, also known as Egotron in honor of its supporters, has never been seen. A new statistical analysis of a deep sky survey suggests that's because it doesn't exist. The object's existence has been proposed to explain an apparent clustering of the orbits of some objects that have the charming quality of actually having been directly observed. The astroquarks discuss the arguments for Egotron and how statistics and observation bias play into all this. Speaking of statistics and planets, Kepler's list of planet candidates keeps growing. Hear about the latest discoveries, nerd news, space trivia and more on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

The astroquarks take a look at new indications of water ice on the Moon, evidence that Jupiter formed in less than a million years, and the third detection by LIGO of gravitational waves from a black hole merger. All that, NASA's new astronaut class, New Horizons, and the summer sci-fi blockbuster and blockbuster wannabes on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

How many jokes can the three astroquarks make about the pronunciation of the seventh planet? You'll have to tune in to this episode of WtG to find out. Josh, Addie and Jim discuss how aurorae on planets are made and why seeing them on Uranus is surprising. Also, is there a new type of planetary object, or is it just more hot gas? Find out about the Synestia, Uranus, nerd news and Star Trek trivia on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

You may think of inflation as prices creeping higher, but to a cosmologist it's been an important idea to explain why the universe is so uniform on very large scales in every direction we look. But does inflation pass muster as a testable scientific theory? The astroquarks review what inflation is all about as there is renewed discussion in the scientific community about the theory and its predictions. Plus, nerd news and the Great American Eclipse.

The Juno mission is studying Jupiter's interior, but its citizen-scientist JunoCam is returning stunning images of the largest planet. Hear the astroquarks Josh Colwell, Addie Dove and Jim Cooney provide equally stunning descriptions of those pictures. You will hear color! If you're on mind-altering substances. Otherwise it will be a tour of the solar system, from Jupiter to Mars to Comet 67P. All that plus nerd news and space trivia.

Josh and Addie welcome two special guests for this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy where we learn about a new and clever measurement of the size and shape of the heliosphere. Cooler still, some of the critical data came from our old friend Cassini and even older friends the Voyager spacecraft. All this, plus trivia, nerd news and a galaxy-sized wave of hot gas.

No, that ain't no negative mass, but yes, for Cassini the end is nigh. The series of 22 Grand Finale orbits has begun, providing unique views of Saturn and its rings and a way to probe the planet's interior and magnetic field. The astroquarks also check out yet another exoplanet in the habitable zone of a nearby star and discuss the headline about a discovery of "negative mass".

The astroquarks dissect the latest news from Saturn's intriguing moon Enceladus. Molecular hydrogen in its geysers suggest that Enceladus' ocean floor has the same kinds of hydrothermal energy sources that may have powered the origin of life on Earth. Plus, lots of Star Wars nerd news, and from the cosmological realm the first map of dark matter bridges connecting pairs of galaxies.

The Large Hadron Collider announced five new subatomic particles recently. Top astroquark Jim Cooney is our go-to quark for all things quarky, so he explains what's going on with these new particles. Charm astroquark Addie Dove gives us the latest rocket news, and Strange astroquark Josh Colwell discovers that there's something good about "Starship Troopers". Tune in for the latest news in astronomy, from the planetary to the cosmological, nerd news, space trivia, and "what's on Josh's whiteboard" on each episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

What are gravitational waves good for? Getting rid of that pesky supermassive black hole that's outstayed its welcome, for one thing. Join the astroquarks, Josh Colwell, Addie Dove and Jim Cooney, for a journey from a comet with landslides to a distant galaxy that is losing its central black hole. All that, nerd news, and more on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

On this Pi-Day recording of WtG, the astroquarks have a special trivia question and science topics ranging from interplanetary dust to Saturn's intriguing ravioli-shaped moon Pan, and antimatter. Find out how much more energetic you'd feel if you metabolized food the way Star Trek's antimatter engines work instead of through boring chemical reactions.

There are black holes and interferometry in this episode, but the nerd news segment on Patrick Stewart either sets a new standard or a new low. You be the judge as the astroquarks, Josh Colwell, Addie Dove and Jim Cooney take a look at advances in imaging the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

A system of seven Earth-sized planets has been observed orbiting a (relatively) nearby star. At least three of these planets are in the habitable zone, or as Top Astroquark Jim Cooney would say, the haBITable zone. That's where there may be liquid water on the surface of the planet. The star for these planets is tiny and not so hot, so the planets are huddled around it like campers around the embers of a dying fire. Tune it for that plus: Star Wars! Note to Star Wars and Star Trek: next movie have some planets that are, like these, so close to their star that they have synchronous rotation, with a permanent dayside and a permanent nightside!

It's the plural episode of Walkabout as the Astroquarkae discuss the formation of White Dwarfs and Planetary Nebulae, what they have to do with each other, planets, and the price of tea in China (answers: lots, something superficial, and nothing at all). Also in this episode: nerd news, fishing advice, space trivia, and an imperial sponsor.

Walkabout the Galaxy is a fun and informative discussion of news in astronomy hosted by astronomers Josh Colwell, Addie Dove and Jim Cooney.

The astroquarks welcome Brendan Byrne from WMFE 90.7 to discuss the some jaw-dropping images of Saturn's rings as Cassini begins working its way in towards its fateful plunge into Saturn on September 15, 2017. Along the way we'll dissect F/X no-no's in Star Wars and find out from Brendan if we're there yet. There = Mars, by the way, and time's a wastin'.

One of these rocks is not like the other. One is a meteorite, and one is an asteroid, and we know that meteorites come from asteroids. So how come they look so different? The astroquarks discuss new research into ancient meteorites that shows how the tumultuous history of the asteroid belt is to blame. Plus charm quark Addie Dove points out that one rock is on the ground and one isn't, so there's a pretty big different right there. Strange quark Josh Colwell gets very strange with the sponsor message, and top quark Jim Cooney tells us that if you'd like to age about 1 second slower than everyone else you just have to move to the center of the Earth's core. In other words, just another episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

Venus continues its record-setting warm streak now at over 1 billion years and counting, while the Earth just set its own modest record for the hottest year in the last 150 for the third record-setting year in a row. We've got a lot of work to do if we want to catch up with Venus. Speaking of Venus, something weird happened in its atmosphere that's probably the result of a gravity wave, not to be confused with gravitational waves which are a different beast altogether. Let the astroquarks take you on a journey from Venus to distant galaxies, and from greenhouse warming to non-Newtonian dynamics in this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

In this piece of time of "Walk About the Great Big Group of Stars" we talk about two stars that will run into each other and make a big bright red thing five years from now. We also talk about two new big boxes with computers and stuff inside. The space team for our land will put these big boxes on two up-goers in years ahead to study things made of rock and also made of stuff that is like rock but heavier than rock that we use to make cars. These things go around the Sun and are smaller than our world, but are still a lot bigger than a person.

The astroquarks examine new observations of the rate of expansion of the universe and its consequences for Dark Energy, the mysterious force that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. That, and what it would be like to live on Titan, a world where methane (natural gas) takes the place of water on the Earth: it rains methane into methane lakes, and it freezes out depending on the season. It's a veritable methanological cycle.

The astroquarks are back with a wide-ranging discussion from actual quarks to exoplanets with rain of molten glass and clouds of vaporized rock, as well as the latest news in rocket launches and sci-fi movies.

The astroquarks, Josh, Addie and Jim, return from a break to catch up on the latest planetary and galactic news. There is new indirect evidence that a largish body may be lurking in the distant regions of our solar system. Others have called this "Planet 9". Listen in to hear why strange quark Josh prefers the moniker "Egotron". Charm quark Addie fills in on the latest rocket news and mishaps. That, plus a new census on the number of galaxies in the early universe shows ten times more than previously thought. Top quark Jim tells us why that's no big deal.

The astroquarks commemorate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. New this episode is the discovery of the Philae lander's final resting place on a comet, the launch of the OSIRIS-REx mission to grab some asteroid stuff and bring it home, the unveiling of Blue Origin's New Glenn reusable orbital rocket, and a proposal for a competitor to fantasy football: fantasy astrophysicists!

With a new "Earth-like" planet orbiting the nearest star to our Sun and frequent headlines popping up about interesting signals from SETI programs, and a flurry about a mysterious "Em-Drive" to facilitate interstellar travel, the Astroquarks put on their skeptical hats (actually, they are always on) to ask "is that a thing?". Spoiler alert: nah. But the Pale Red Dot at Proxima Centauri is definitely a thing, and it's pretty cool. Or hot. Depends which side of it you're standing on. Tune into Walkabout the Galaxy for this and all the latest astro-news.

The astroquarks delve into the critical issues facing our world: what reboot is more awesome or more terrible: Star Trek, Star Wars, or Tarzan? Also, lots of comparative planetology as we discuss who is more lovable: Venus, Earth, or Mars in the past, present and future? Venus and Mars may have been lovely a few billion years ago, and we visit Titan, Saturn's moon and honorary planet and home of great lakes of liquid methane fed by methane river canyons. Join us for these exciting topics and imponderable questions such as what makes a lake a lake and not a sea.

NASA's Juno spacecraft is orbiting the largest planet with the primary goal of understanding its internal structure. It will do this through a clever technique we at the Walkabout studios call "science". Check it out. It also comes in handy in just about every aspect of life. Join the astroquarks for the latest discoveries in our solar system on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

The Sun may be showing signs of belatedly entering a mid-life crisis of sorts. A sporty new car may improve the Sun's mood, as its spin and sunspot production may be slowing now that it's nearing the 5-billion year mark. Well, still a few hundred million years to go before ol' Sol reaches that sobering birthday, but he can see it coming. Don't worry Sol, the Walkabout gang and the rest of humanity is here for you. Josh, Addie, and Jim discuss the Sun's mid-life crisis and the color of quarks among other things in this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

Lurking out there beyond the orbit of the Moon is a sneaky little asteroid that is stalking the Earth, meandering around and pretending not to be paying attention. But you can't fool the fools on Walkabout the Galaxy. Jim Cooney joins Josh and Addie as we spill the beans on Earth's tiny not-quite-a-moon companion and review the latest discovery of black hole mergers by the LIGO gravitational wave observatory.

While we stick by our longstanding advice never to enter a black hole, Jim Cooney and Zoe Landsman join Josh and Addie in this episode to discuss new findings that radiation emitted by black holes through quantum effects may carry information about the stuff the black hole gobbled up. Also, the rate of expansion of the universe may be a bit faster than previously thought. File this under "things I don't need to worry about before I run my errands."

In the good old days you needed a lens or a mirror to have a telescope, but now they'll use any old thing to look at the sky: ultra-precise orthogonal laser interferometers to measure gravitational waves or big tanks of water to see gamma rays from supernovae (that's Latin for supernovas). Jim Cooney and Zoe Landsman join Josh and Addie to talk about a new gamma ray observatory and why anyone might build such a thing. Also, planets and stuff.

Josh and Addie welcome Julie Brisset to discuss the comings and goings of SpaceX Dragon capsules to Earth as well as planned (unmanned) missions to Mars in the very near future. Catch up on the latest in space exploration on Walkabout the Galaxy.

Just when you thought a supernova couldn't get any cooler (metaphorically speaking, of course), the Kepler spacecraft comes along and spies for the first time the "breakout" of the exploding star from itself. Confused? Then this episode of Walkabout will clear things up for you. Josh and Addie welcome Dr. Phil Metzger to talk supernovae, meteors and the far side of the Moon.

Ten years after the development of a dramatic new picture of the early history of the solar system, dubbed the Nice model (it was created at the Observatory in Nice, France), it has undergone several tweaks and modifications. The model posits a reshuffling of the big planets that led to a number of our current solar system's notable features, such as the late heavy bombardment, the distribution of orbits of asteroids and comets, and Keeping Up With the Kardashians. On this episode of WtG, we welcome Akbar Whizin to discuss new research that reshuffles the Nice reshuffling, as well the new Star Trek TV show and the charming nature of baseball statistics.

Jim Cooney joins Josh and Addie to talk about the origin of galaxies and the observation of a galaxy from when the universe was but a teeny weeny baby of a universe, less than 1/12th its current size. Also, Scott Kelly is back on terra firma and has to deal with gravity. Hear all about redshifts, the big bang, and hyposprays on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, two big black holes (no jokes, please) collided with each other releasing a ginormous amount of energy that has propagated across the universe as the tiniest stretching and jiggling of space itself. Jim Cooney joins Josh and Addie to talk about the first direct detection of the waving of space-time (in other words, gravitational waves).

Not content with being the self-proclaimed "Pluto Killer", CalTech professor Mike Brown has now co-authored a paper hypothesizing the existence of, in his own words, "the most planet-y of planets" or "Planet 9", in the far outer reaches of our solar system. We get it: you hate Pluto! But personal planetary battles aside, this is an interesting bit of dynamical detective work in which lead author Konstantin Batygin and Brown argue that a roughly Neptune-sized planet several hundred times further from the Sun than the Earth is needed to explain the peculiar configuration of a dozen or so objects in the Kuiper Belt. Jim Cooney joins Josh and Addie to talk about Planet 9. If it's the most planet-y of planets, let's come up with a new name for whatever the Earth is.

So what do floods in the southwest have to do with the price of anchovies? Join Josh, and Julie Brisset and find out in this episode of Walkabout from our guest Professor Dan Britt. But first: Star Wars. Spoilers abound.

Join us for a discussion with Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, and hear about the mission and its discoveries from the man who made it happen. New Horizons is headed towards its next target, a smaller object in the Kuiper Belt, the region of space beyond Neptune that was also, as it turns out, the birthplace of comet 67/P Churyomov-Gerasimenko. Yep, that's the comet that the ESA mission Rosetta is studying, and none other than Alan Stern is the P.I. of the ultraviolet spectrometer on that mission. It's all about the Kuiper Belt and missions to explore it with Alan Stern on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.

Why is there no air on Mars? NASA's MAVEN mission has supplied some details on how our neighbor lost what was likely a robust atmosphere comparable to Earth's. Spoiler alert: size does matter. Mars' diminutive scale poses a number of problems for holding onto the atmosphere. MAVEN has now witnessed erosion of the atmosphere due to the solar wind. Hear about Mars and more on this episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.