Ask an Astronomer
The ask an astronomer segment of the Jodcast - a podcast covering all aspects of astronomy from The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory (UK).
Copyright: Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales License
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Ask an astronomer - Lagrangian points, gravity waves and escaping asteroids[Duration 09:56, 4.6 MB]Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000
Nick puts listener questions to Dr Edward Boyce. Mark Ashley asks how big Lagrange points are and asks if gravitational waves break the conservation of energy law. Max suggests a way to escape from asteroid Ianmorison using a trampoline but Edward explains that this method has some problems.
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Ask an astronomer - Galactic directions and Sirius[Duration 06:39, 3.1 MB]Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:00:00 +0000
Nick puts listener questions to Dr Edward Boyce. Mike Van Vooren asks which way our solar system is moving in our Galaxy and then goes on to ask if we are moving towards the nearest stars.
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Ask an astronomer - Jupiters, Illumination and Galaxy Collisions[Duration 08:40, 4.0 MB]Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:00:00 +0000
Nick puts listener questions to Dr Edward Boyce. Tom Hudson asks why we can't observe Jupiter-like extra solar planets using radio telescopes and also asks how much of the Earth's surface the Sun can illuminate at any one time. Stephen Uitti asks if the gas in galaxies forms stars during collisions. Stephen also wants to know if the interstellar medium (ISM) is replenished by stellar winds and supernovae.
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Ask an astronomer - exoplanets and infinity[Duration 12:43, 5.9 MB]Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:00:00 +0000
Nick puts listener questions to Dr Tim O'Brien. Mike VanVooren asks how many solar systems we have beyond our own and how many planets in total. Mike also asks what would be the size of the smallest planet we could find across the vast distances of space. William Bloomfield asks if he could go straight up from the Earth and kept going, where would he go. Are there boundaries to the Universe?
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Nick puts listener questions to Dr Edward Boyce. Larry Hunt asks how to convert redshifts into distance and wants to know if the conversion is one-to-one. Joe Jones asks what the object was that he saw near the International Space Station.
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Ask an astronomer - Railways, comets and space-time[Duration 17:02, 5.9 MB]Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:40:00 +0100
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Nick puts listener questions to Tim O'Brien. We find out if the local railways cause interference for the Lovell Telescope, what comets are, and try to get our heads around general relativity and gravity.
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Ask an astronomer - The Sun's sisters and gravitational waves[Duration 05:47, 2.0 MB]Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:50:00 +0100
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Nick puts listener questions to Ian Morison. First up we find out what would have happened to the stars that formed from the same original cloud of gas as the Sun. We also find out how the amazingly sensitive gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO compensate for seismic activity.
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Ask an astronomer - Oscillations and Planets[Duration 14:12, 4.9 MB]Tue, 15 May 2007 18:00:00 +0100
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Ian puts listener questions to Tim. First up we find out what the bright objects in the sky are. Next we find out how we can tell apart stars expanding and contracting from extrasolar planets.
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Ask an astronomer - Making Dark Matter Maps[Duration 07:03, 2.4 MB]Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000
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Nick asks Tim a question about the recent dark matter map created using gravitational lensing of background galaxies. How did they do it? Surely you need to know precisely where the galaxies were in the first place? Tim explains what was done to make the map and the differences between strong and weak gravitational lensing.
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Ask an astronomer - Two Tides a Day[Duration 06:55, 2.4 MB]Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000
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Nick asks Tim why, if the Moon takes one month to go around the Earth, there are two tides a day.
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Stuart asks Tim some cosmology questions sent in by one of our listeners. Are we lucky to be seeing the photons of light from the cosmic microwave background? Would someone in the Andromeda Galaxy see the same thing? Tim tries to make the cosmic fog clear for us.
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Nick asks Tim why the Moon often appears to be larger when it is closer to the horizon. Is it nearer? Does refraction play an effect? Is it due to the orbit of the Moon? Are our brains playing tricks on us? Tim explains the possibilities.
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As they were recording on Halloween, Tim O'Brien and Nick Rattenbury discuss one of the spookiest objects in the sky; the eclipsing binary named Algol (actually a triple star system). Algol is also known as the eye of Medusa and is seen to "wink" every few days.
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Tim O'Brien and Nick Rattenbury discuss how to find your way around the night sky using binoculars or a small telescope with planetarium software. They talk about telescope mounts (azimuth-elevation and equitorial) and how they relate to celestial coordinate systems.
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Tim O'Brien and Nick Rattenbury discuss the Moon receding from the Earth and they work out how many stars are larger and smaller than the Sun.
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Tim O'Brien and Ian Morison discuss the star of Bethlehem and the phases of the Moon
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Tim O'Brien explains why Mars is a red colour and then goes on to tell us all about spots on the Sun.
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Ian Morison discusses the brightness of the Moon and tells us what a parsec is.
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Tim O'Brien explains why stars shine, why they have different colours and tells us if the Sun will ever stop shining.
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Tim O'Brien tells us how many stars there are in the universe (roughly), discusses the possibility of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds and the Andromeda Galaxy colliding with the Milky Way.
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Tim O'Brien explains what that bright thing in the sky is, what the furthest thing seem by the Lovell Telescope is and he tells us if he has personally discovered a star.