Rings Around a Comet, Betelbuddy, and Odd Jupiter Moons
These rings aren't around Uranus, they're somewhere even more odd. We discuss the mysterious and changing ring system around the Centaur object Chiron, new clues about the origin of the solar system from the irregular moons of Jupiter, and the puzzling stellar companion to Betelgeuse. Plus, top quark Jim Cooney stumps us with trivia.
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49:48
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49:48
Adaptive LIGO and a New Look at an Old Crater
Adaptive optics techniques get applied to the mirrors in the LIGO gravitational wave observatory, promising a five-fold or greater improvement in sensitivity to gravitational waves from colliding black holes across the universe. And right here in our backyard, a suspicious sub-surface crater-like feature gets a new look that appears to confirm its extraterrestrial origin. Join us for space news, trivia, and more.
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39:33
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39:33
Einstein Cross Reveals Dark Matter and a Life-y Mars Rock
We take a look the Cheyava Falls rock on Mars, or rather the Perseverance rover took a look at it, and we discuss what it saw which were some intriguing mineral formations that could have a biological origin. And gravitational lensing has enabled astronomers to map the distribution of dark matter in a small cluster of galaxies, providing a new tool to understand the distribution of this mysterious stuff. Join us for these stories, space news, space trivia, and a fake sponsor!
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42:00
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42:00
Exo-Pluto Debris in Our Solar System and Axions Galore
An interstellar interloper may have been a chip off the old block, where the old block was a Pluto-like planet around another star, and the chip is solid air (nitrogen that is)! And we revisit the potential role of axions in the great dark matter chase and a new way that JWST may help us answer it. Join us for all that, exoplanets, science fiction trivia and more.
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46:33
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46:33
Europa Clipper Report from Mars and ATLAS 3I Update from DragonCon 2025
That's no error, this is episode 404, recorded in front of a live audience at DragonCon 2025 with special guest Trina Ray, Deputy Science Manager for the Europa Clipper mission. We get an update from the cool RADAR test the spacecraft conducted at Mars, new information on the history and composition of Interstellar Comet ATLAS 3/I and a super-duper-massive black hole. Join us for all this, 404 trivia, and more.
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