AWESOME ASTRONOMY

The Discussion: As we welcome in the New Year, we discuss the holiday season and your suggestions to replace the Guide to the Electromagnetic Spectrum section of the show.

The News: Rounding up the astronomy news at the beginning of 2021, we have:

• Finding exoplanets that have a good chance of being able to see us
• The 'Missing Lithium Problem’
• Chasing down the Hubble Constant
• A new method for detecting exoplanets
• Was there another dwarf planet in the inner solar system?

Main News story: That intriguing radio signal found coming from the vicinity of Proxima Centauri.

The Sky Guide: This month we’re taking a look at the great winter constellation of Auriga with a guide to its history, how to find it, a couple of deep sky objects and a round-up of the solar system views on offer in January.

Q&A: We know there is a lower temperature limit (absolute zero), but is there an upper temperature limit? From Matt in California.

A pantomime look back at the biggest and most exciting news and events from 2019; a look forward to the best astronomy and space exploration events of 2020; the science of Santa’s deliveries and the traditional outtakes.

The Discussion: A look back at our 50th anniversary of the moon landings-themed dark sky star party, AstroCamp, and some wonderful suggestions as an alternative name for a ‘pair instability supernova’.

The News: Rounding up the astronomy news this month we have:

• Discovery of an exoplanet stripped of its atmosphere
• Understanding more about the features you can observe in Jupiter’s storms
• Gaia tells us more about the evolution of open clusters
• Chandra probes black hole clusters
• Planet 9 (groan...) could be a tiny black hole (it couldn’t)
• Amateur astronomer discovery of an interstellar comet
• Understanding the evolution of globular clusters
• NASA’s Insight lander suggests weird magnetic chirping at midnight on Mars

The main news story discussion: Water vapour in the atmosphere of an exoplanet in its habitable zone - leading to discussions on the importance of science journalism and the search for Earth 2.0

The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in October:

Paul: A round up of the planets available to northern hemisphere observers in October and a tour of the comets currently in our skies. In the deep sky, we recommend a look at globular cluster Messier 2 and the NGC7009 planetary nebula in Aquarius.

Ralph: 3 lunar/planetary conjunctions and a glut of meteor showers. Then further afield, the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies.

Main Object: Messier 44, The Beehive Cluster

Q&A: Advice on upgrading telescopes for our good friend Jeremy Hanson in Wisconsin, USA.

Also this month, a close friend of Jen’s, Chris Duffield, got ill and died in China aged 27. The foreign office have told his family that the ballpark figure for getting him home will be between £15,000-£20,000. If you’d like to help repatriate the friend’s body, please do consider giving a donation to the gofundme account at tiny.cc/lpvgdz. Thank you.

In this podcast extra episode we talk to Karen Masters, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Haverford College, Pennsylvania about The Hubble Tuning Fork and Galaxy classification. But it’s not only about that canonised galaxy classification system; it’s also about how citizen science, astronomy done by absolutely anybody from their homes, can and do change the accepted wisdom and advance science.

The world veers towards madness, asteroids threaten destruction and Gaia is no more. But the planets are putting on a show and Pluto is 95, so that’s alright...

Produced by Ralph, Paul, Jen, John, Damien & Dustin