syzygy

122: Syzygy Live! — The Power of Seeing It For Yourself Jul 19, 2024

Live from York's Festival of Ideas*, in front of an audience of ... what, had to be a few hundred thousand people, right? ... Emily and Chris discuss some awesome astronomy that you can go outside and see with your own eyes. In particular, they go deep on the incredible May 2024 aurora, and show what the 2024 total eclipse across the USA looked like, with a preview of amazing eclipses to look forward to in the coming years. Chris finishes with a song, as he does. Watch on YouTube!

(* Apologies for the audio quality, it was a big echo-ey space and it didn’t record as well as I’d hoped)

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced byChris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web:syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Some of the things we talk about in this episode:

• Watch this live show on YouTube

• York Festival of Ideas

• The May 2024 Aurora

• Solar Cycle 25

• The Solar Dynamics Observatory

• timeanddate.com

• The 2024 total solar eclipse

• Upcoming eclipses

121: Dark Bubbles of Weakness Jun 04, 2024

A huge team of astronomers — and their even-huger team of tiny, fibre-obtic-wielding robots — are zeroing in on one of the great questions of cosmology: just what the heck is going on with Dark Energy? We know the Universe is expanding. Apparently, it's expanding faster. But maybe it is expanding faster, slower? Tiny robots measuring breathtakingly-huge cosmic bubbles may give us an answer.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced byChris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web:syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Some of the things we talk about in this episode:

• Announcement of the DESI results

• A good video about the results

• The DESI home page

• Dark Energy

• Heat Death or Big Rip

• The 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics

• BAO bubbles

120: Biggest Small Black Hole Apr 29, 2024

This week, a new Black Hole Record (kinda), and with it a nice conundrum. the GAIA mission has found the biggest black hole ... of the stellar-mass variety ... in our galaxy. A lot of caveats there, but the fun thing is, it's just next door, which makes us wonder if that's coincidence or a harbinger of more big black holes to come in GAIA's data dumps! Plus, a riddle: why do we keep spotting black holes that are too big to make? Did we break physics? Emily has a few explanations.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Some of the things we talk about in this episode:

• The Biggest (small) Black Hole (in our galaxy)

• The rapid-release paper

• The GAIA mission

• GAIA’s data release schedule

• Types of Black Hole

• LIGO gravitational wave telescope

• Quasi-stars

• Syzygy Episode 116: Black Hole Sun

119: Astrocampus Turns Ten! Apr 18, 2024

We're live from the 10th birthday celebrations for the University of York's Astrocampus, Emily's home turf and all-round fabulous teaching and outreach space. Emily fields some amazing questions from kids and adults attending the event, and gives some of Astrocampus's highlights and achievements over the past decade, as well as some plans for the future!

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

118: Sextuplet Symphony Jan 30, 2024

After some lengthy follow-up (the Bennu sample is open at last! And SLIM is alive!), Emily investigates possibly the most podcasty story we’ve had on the show: six planets around distant star HD110067, all locked into resonances that play beautiful music. Turns out if you leave a planetary system alone for long enough, gravity tends to pull everything into simple harmonies. Maybe our own solar system has a song to sing in the far future?

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The Bennu asteroid sample is open!

• JAXA SLIM updates

• First SLIM images

• Sextuplet symphony: The Nature paper

• A good article about the discovery

• Blog post by Dr Hugh Osborn with exoplanet music video

• Trappist-1 system

• Orbital resonances

• Multiple star systems

• JWST finds methane in exoplanet atmosphere

• A breathless headline

117: SLIM chance of Moon landing? Jan 23, 2024

Emily and Chris tune in to JAXA’s livestream of SLIM — the Smart Lander for Investigating and Moon — as it attempted to slick the landing on the lunar surface on Friday 19 January 2023. We were prepared for success and champagne, or failure and lessons-learned. What we didn’t expect was … ambiguity, uncertainty and WE ARE STILL CHECKING THE STATUS SO PLEASE WAIT. Did SLIM and its fabulous little transformer rovers make it to the Moon OK or not?! Join us for all the anticipation, the wonder, and the confusion in this special syzygy episode.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• JAXA’s SLIM mission

• YouTube livestream recording and press conference

• Update article from 3 days later

• Mission success!

• The SLIM Rovers LEM 1 and LEM 2

• Buy your own LEM-2 rover! (Or buy us one, we’d love you forever!)

• Upcoming missions to the Moon

• India’s Chandrayaan-3 landing

• Israel’s failed moon landing

• Moss Piglets on the Moon?

116: Black Hole Sun Jan 15, 2024

Long-time Syzygy listener Jack asks: "Hey Emily — what's the deal with quasi-stars?" (We're paraphrasing). Quasi-stars are hypothetical, enormous stellar-object-thingies that might have formed shortly after the Big Bang. They're so huge they might have formed with black holes at their cores. If they existed at all, it would explain why astronomers keep finding intermediate-mass black holes in gravitational wave experiments. And as a bonus for you, Jack, Emily presents Hawking stars: otherwise ordinary stars that could be hiding a tiny black hole deep in their core. Could the Sun be a Hawking star? The mind boggles.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• Quasi-stars

• (… as opposed to Quasars)

• Types of black hole

• Intermediate-mass black holes and LIGO

• Hawking stars

• The research paper that seeded this episode

• Asteroseismology, the music of the stars

115: Zevatron in the Void Dec 08, 2023

Astronomers routinely detect cosmic rays, the high-energy particles from space that collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a shower of secondary particles that rain down on the earth below. But every so often — like, less than once a decade — they spot a cosmic ray smashing into the planet with just stupid amounts of energy. The sort of energy you associate with hitting a golf ball or maybe dropping a brick on your foot, but definitely NOT a single subatomic particle. Not only do astronomers have no idea what could produce these Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays, one was spotted recently that seems to have originated in one of the emptiest regions of the universe. Emily explains the Strange Mystery of the Cosmic Zevatron.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The recent UHERC paper

• A good article about the discovery

• The Utah Telescope Array

• The Oh My God Particle

• Cosmic Rays

• The Local Group

• The Virgo Supercluster

• The Local Void

114: A Burst of Tellurium Nov 21, 2023

We've talked BOATs before — cosmic events that are the Brightest Of All Time — and it's always a favourite topic on the show. Recently astronomers analysed the runner-up BOAT in the Burster category, an astoundingly violent, weirdly long-lasting, and oddly-located neutron star merger, and measured the amount of afterglow Tellurium to learn more about fast neutron processes. What?! As Emily patiently explains, with a brief cameo from Tom Lehrer, it's all about a deeper understanding of where all the chemical elements in the universe come from.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• Research paper

• Overview of the research

• Syzygy episodes with BOATS:

— Episode 30: Stardust or Cosmic Poo

— Episode 61: Biggest Bag Ever!

— Episode 107: Biggest Bang Ever! (Again)

• Nucleosynthesis

• The rapid neutron capture process

• … as opposed to the slow neutron capture process

• Tom Lehrer’s Elements song

• Binding Blocks

• The actual BOAT

113: White Dwarf Destiny Nov 06, 2023

We love it any time a listener gets in touch — but the *best* is when a listener suggests a topic for an episode of the podcast. So when Zofia Szczesna got in touch (through the Syzygy website, natch) and asked about white dwarf stars, Emily put her research hat on and dug into the amazing astrophysics of these amazing little entities. In this episode she lists her three favourite things about white dwarfs: a cheeky supernova loophole, wibbly-wobbliness, and our white dwarf (or more accurately, black dwarf) future.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• Osiris Rex’s recent little problem

• White dwarf stars

• Degenerate electrons and neutrons

• The Chandrasekhar limit

• Types of supernovae

• Variable stars

• Proton decay

• Black Dwarfs

112: Unexpected JuMBOs Oct 09, 2023

JWST is flinging out Just Wonderful observations at great speed, many already leading to new astronomical insights. Here's one that was really unexpected: the Orion Nebula is full of JuMBOs! Jupiter-Mass Binary Objects, that is — pairs of giant planets (or planetty-things, the definition isn't terribly clear ...) floating free in space, in quantities that aren't possible based on what we *thought* we understood about planet formation. New observations that seem to break astrophysics? We're always up for that discussion!

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The Fibonacci Sequence

• The JuMBOs papers: overview, and JuMBO-specific

• The Orion Nebula

• JWST gets a good look at the Orion Nebula

• Where is the Orion Nebula, exactly?

• The definition of “planet"

111: Special Asteroid Delivery Oct 02, 2023

Earth got a special delivery recently: a little pod plonked down in the Utah desert, containing a few hundred grams sampled from the surface of an asteroid. This isn't the first sample return mission, but it's definitely the biggest. The little parcel of asteroid dirt inside is now being very carefully handed out to researchers across the globe, and we're going to learn loads of important stuff, like what asteroids are made of, how we might stop one from hitting us ... and even, maybe, just maybe, whether they contain the building blocks of life.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The OSIRIS-REx mission

• Landing in the desert (NASA video stream)

• Grabbing the sample in 2020

• Sample return missions

• Asteroid Bennu

• OSIRIS-APEX

• Asteroid Apophis

• The Asteroid Belt

110: Euclid's Five Big Questions Sep 13, 2023

It’s always nerve-wracking waiting for a very expensive new space telescope to launch — the whole mission can literally end in a highly explosive blink of an eye. Fortunately for the Euclid mission team, their gleaming new spacecraft left the Earth in one piece, and made its way to L2 to begin it's new job. It’s mission? Oh, just to solve five huge mysteries of the universe, from the nature of dark matter and dark energy, to unravelling the threads of the cosmic web.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• Telescopes up a mountain in Hawaii

• The Euclid Mission website

• The Launch!

• Euclid’s Big Five

• Streaming data from L2

• Euclid’s first test images

• Dark Matter & Dark Energy

• The Cosmic Web

• Fly-through of the Cosmic Web

109: Something From Nothing? Jun 25, 2023

Every so often, a Syzygy listener writes in with a cracking question that sends Emily and Chris off spelunking down the deep, deep sinkholes of astronomy and cosmology. This time, listener Eve asked an absolute cracker, to wit: Just how much energy is there in the universe right now? A simple question at first glance. At second glance (and every glance thereafter) it's not simple at all. We need to first consider, what is energy? What is the universe? And even, what is "now"? It's very confusing.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• Feynman’s discussion of energy

• Dark matter

• Dark energy

• The observable universe

• Critical energy density

• Is the energy in the universe zero?

• The Big Bang Singularity

• The fates of the universe

108: Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Jun 08, 2023

Everyone's favourite bonkers red giant is back in the news again, and it has the supernova spotters in a froth. Last time we talked about Betelgeuse, it had gone unusually dim. Never fear, it's back with a vengeance — not just brighter, but pulsing twice as fast! Is the end nigh? Can we expect it to go boom soon? Well ... define 'soon'. Emily has all the answers.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The Betelgeuse paper

• A good article on what’s going on with Betelgeuse

• The Great Dimming

• The brightest stars in the sky

• Indigenous peoples have known about variable stars for a very long time

• Could we spot a supernova coming?

107: Biggest Bang Ever! (Again?) May 28, 2023

Astronomers have spotted what seems to be a supermassive black hole devouring a huge gas cloud — and in the media it's being claimed as the Biggest Explosion in the History of Explosions. Except, is it though? And didn't we already talk about this, way back in Episode 61? And anyway, what does "biggest" even mean? Or "explosion", for that matter? Or "time"? It's all very confusing. Emily's here to make sense of it all.Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The research paper

• A good article about the story

• The OG Episode 61: Biggest Bang Eva!

• Energy units, including ergs and joules

• Gamma Ray Bursts

• The Gamma Ray Burst of 2022

• BOATS (and GOATS)

• Vale D Alexander Kann

106: Star Eats Planet May 08, 2023

Like many of us, as some stars get older, they get bigger. Like, really big. Big enough to swallow up any planets orbiting near by. Astronomers have known this for a while now, but they'd never actually seen it happen ... until now. Emily explains what's going on, what's been observed, why a planet-gobbling star seems the only real explanation, and what it all means for the Earth's distant future.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The original paper by De et al

• A good article about the research https://time.com/6276702/star-eating-a-planet/

• The Zwicky Transient Facility https://www.ztf.caltech.edu

• NASA's NEOWISE telescope https://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu

• Really big stars

• Comet Shoemaker-Levy-9

105: Back To The Moon (2023 Edition) May 02, 2023

In 2023, the Moon is where it’s at — so many rockets taking so many little orbiters and landers and rovers and boxes full of weird trinkets ... just in the coming few months! And that’s before you even count the missions aimed at pushing human footprints into the lunar dust for the first time since the early 70s. Everyone and their dog is sending stuff to the moon, and Emily is here with all the details of six missions set to launch in the coming Northern Spring-Summer launch season.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• Missions to the Moon — past, present and future

• JUICE

• Astrobiotic’s Mission One

• The Lunar X Prize

• Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 mission

• Chandrayaan 3

• Luna 25

• JAXA’s SLIM

• The Artemis program

104: Biggest Black Hole Apr 25, 2023

The biggest black hole ever has been found — not supermassive, but *ultra*massive. Emily takes Chris on a tour of all the types of black hole, from the speculative minis, through the solar and intermediate mass kinds, to the stonking supermassive and frankly ludicrous ultramassive. And we ask, how exactly do you see a black hole when it's ... you know ... black?

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The ultramassive black hole paper

• Article about the research

• Mini black holes

• Will the LHC destroy the Earth?

• Stellar mass black holes

• Intermediate mass black holes

• LIGO and Black hole mergers

• Supermassive black holes

• That black hole photo

• Squeezars

• The biggest black holes

• Hubble Space Telescope

• Gravitational lensing

• Euclid, LSST and the SKA

103: Red Dwarf Paradox Mar 18, 2023

In the hunt for life in the universe, astronomers are looking hard at the catalogue of potentially habitable exoplanets. The ones orbiting Red Dwarf stars seem promising — Red Dwarfs are really common, and we've just launched a shiny new space telescope that's perfect for observing them, their planets, and even their planets *atmospheres*. Trouble is, Red Dwarf stars are ... nasty. Like, really mean. Emily gives all the details on why we might not be discovering signs of life near a Red Dwarf any time soon.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• What tThe Red Dwarf paper

• Article about the research

• Red Dwarf stars

• Flares, sunspots and coronal mass ejections

• CMEs are terrifying

• Everyone’s fave spectrograph, HARPS

• JWST & exoplanets

102: Breaking The Universe Mar 14, 2023

"These six galaxies break cosmology!" scream the headlines. Yeah, nah — yeah, astronomers have found some galaxies in the JWST data that are crazy old, and yet seem to be just way too big. But nah: this doesn't mean cosmology is broken. As usual, the scientists ignore the click-baity headlines, roll their eyes and get on with figuring it all out. Plus, what time is it on the Moon? Not a simple question.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· What time is it on the Moon?

· Universe-breaking galaxies (Nature paper)

· Guardian article about the research

· JWST, our second favourite space telescope

· Redshift, distance and time

· Lyman Break Galaxies

· The Hubble OG, Ultra and eXtreme Deep Fields

· JWST: Hold-My-Beer Deep Field

101: Spin Down Earth Mar 06, 2023

The Earth's core has been acting weird for at least 70 years now. We're not sure why, but sometimes it's spinning faster than the surface, sometimes slower. Emily explains how we know what's happening down in the core, which is impressive enough ... but then she shows how astronomers do the same for very distant stars, and Chris's head explodes. Plus, it's been a big week for aurora fans, and there's even some bonus Einteinian weirdness at the end.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· The Earth’s core rotation speed paper

· A good article about it

· Big week for aurora fans

· Changes in the Earth’s magnetic field over time

· Different definitions of a day

· Asteroseismology (SciShow Space video)

· The Doppler Effect for sound and light

· Relativity and GPS (MinutePhysics video)

100: Just Wonderful To Be Back! Jan 23, 2023

Emily's back from New Zealand, Chris is ... still just around, really. And Syzygy returns from hiatus with Episode 100, looking back on a huuuuuge year for the Just Wonderful Space Telescope. Emily takes us through the five "first-light" images released from JWST several months ago — plus one little bonus image that they found behind the couch. (Oh, and sorry for the audio quality on this one — for boring technical reasons we had to share one microphone ... Back to our usual high-quality production values for 101!)

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• JWST on the web: NASA and ESA

• JWST launch video

• Lagrange points

• JWST’s orbit at L2

• JWST first images

• Image 1: Webb’s First Deep Field

• Image 2: Carina Nebula

• Image 3: Stephan’s Quintet

• Image 4: Southern Ruing Nebula

• Image 5: WASP-96 b

• Surprise extra image: Jupiter!

• Conference info: First Science Results from JWST, Dec 2022

99: Black Holes & Big News May 13, 2022

Not wanting to overshadow this week's exciting supermassive black hole image release or anything, but Emily has news of her own. A short episode, in which Chris delves into the new Sag A* image a bit, before dropping the news bomb you've all *really* been waiting for ...

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· Article about the SagA* image — and that’ll do, you can find the rest from there 😁

98: New Nova Apr 29, 2022

You've heard of supernovae, the just stupidly big explosions that mark the end of some stars' lives. Maybe you know there are different kinds of supernovae — type 1a, type II ... Did you know that, smaller than a super nova, there's just a plain, vanilla nova? Or that, even bigger than super, there's hyper-novae? Well, hold onto your hats, because there's a new nova in town, and it's ... really quite small. On the nova scale, anyway. Emily gives all the goss on cute little micronovae. Plus, we school astronomers on the tricky subject of communicating large quantities of energy.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· The micronova paper

· A good article (with a bad analogy) about the research

· Novae types: classical, recurrent, and dwarf

· Supernovae and their types

· The Cosmic Distance Ladder and Standard candles, and Dark Energy

· Hypernovae!

· TESS, everyone’s favourite space telescope

· Phobos, potato moon

97: Biggest Comet Ever! Apr 22, 2022

Astronomers have spotted the biggest comet ever! And it's heading for Earth! Except (a) it's not heading towards Earth — it's closest approach to us will be beyond Saturn's orbit — and (b) it's not technically the biggest. But it's still cool! Emily's here with loads of info about comets, big comets, things that are sort of comets, how many tails they have (hint: it's more than one), and heaps more besides.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· The original paper, and the latest results

· Article about Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein

· Syzygy episode 50: Imposter Comet!

· Syzygy episode 64: Almost a Good Comet

· The Dark Energy Survey

· Dirty snowballs

· How many tails does a comet have?

· The Oort Cloud

· Famous comets: Halley, Hale-Bopp, Shoemaker-Levy 9

· Centaurs

96: Space Particles Probe Pyramids Apr 15, 2022

A very different story this week: using high-energy particles, originating from violent supernovae and supermassive black holes, to scan the insides of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Physicists are teaming up with Egyptologists to check some tantalising results from 2017 thaty suggest there just might be a previously unknown cavity — an open space — inside the Great Pyramid. Could it be a new, hidden room? A vault filled with ancient treasure? Or just somewhere they kept all the heating ducts and old pain cans? Plus, Syzygy is officially setting the agenda for astronomy research, and Emily unwraps some baby presents!

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· The oldest galaxy ever found

· Get your Syzygy merch here

· ScanPyramids misson in 2017

· Explore Great Pyramid mission

· The Pyramids of Giza

· The Great Pyramid

· Cosmic rays

· The solar wind

· Active Galactic Nuclei

· Cosmic rays causing havoc in computers

· Muons and relativity

· Air showers of particles

· The IceCube neutrino detector

· Brian Cox makes a cloud chamber

95: Baby Planets (& Moons!) Apr 10, 2022

For the latest — and last? — baby-themed episode, we talk baby planets and how they're made. And sure, we've talked about this before in previous episodes, but this time Emily comes with brand new research that shows an actual protoplanet forming from the stellar disk. And even better, the possibility that we can even spot a proto*moon* forming around a protoplanet. Plus, for any astronomers looking for ideas, she's got her Top 5 list of unsolved planet questions.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· Oldest star ever seen!

· Gravitational lensing

· Syzygy 26: How to build a solar system

· Syzygy 68: Birth of a Planet

· And just for fun, Syzygy 19: Moons, exomoons & moonmoons

· Far-our Super Jupiter AB Aurigae b

· Nice article about AB Aurigae b

· AB Aurigae in the movies

· Protomoon around protoplanet?

· Gravitational Microlensing

94: A Star Is Born Apr 02, 2022

We’ve done the baby universe, and baby galaxies, and the very first baby stars ... and *those* were a bit nasty, a bit grumpy. So this week, we're talking baby stars again, but in the modern era — stars being born now, as we speak. Mind you, just because they've got more than H and He to buiold with, doesn't mean they're any less temperamental. Emily takes use from the interstellar medium, through interstellar clouds and collapsing proto-stars, to the birth of a cute little pre-main-sequence star.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

· The Interstellar medium and Interstellar clouds

· Proto-stars and their windiness

· Brown dwarfs

· Main sequence stars

· T Tauri stars

· Herbig Ae/Be stars

93: Baby Galaxies Mar 26, 2022

This week, it's baby galaxies — the very, very ancient, and the surprisingly brand new. Emily looks back at the earliest things-we-might-consider-galaxies, and the competing models for how they formed. Then we take a peek into the beautiful M81 galaxy, which is, as we speak, sloughing off some of its stars and galaxy stuff, thanks to an ongoing fight with M82 next door. The fun part is, the extra stuff seems to be forming into a new galaxy — albeit one with a difficult future ahead ...

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

• The first galaxies

• Globular clusters

• Dwarf galaxies

• Galactic tides

• The tidal galaxy paper

• M81 and M82

• The Dragonfly Telescope

• WASP telescope

• Where’s JWST at now?

92: Baby First Stars Mar 19, 2022

Continuing our theme of baby-related astronomy, Emily picks up the story from last episode — we'd just finished making the universe and watching its insane growth spurt, and then ... the first stars turned on! And wow, were those first stars weird. Even weirder, there might still be some of them about, 13 billon years later!

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

Where is the JWST?

Laporte et al’s paper on the earliest stars

A good article about the paper

The cosmic web

Stellar populations (I, II and III)

Redshift

91: Baby Universe Mar 11, 2022

We're back! Emily has some exciting news, and in regonition of this, we're starting a series of episodes on a theme — starting with the birth and infancy of the Universe! From the earliest physically-sensible moments, through the explosive growth spurt of Inflation, to the creation of forces, particles, nuclei and — eventuallly — atoms, we track the adorable and exciting early development of the cosmos.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

The Big Bang

Physics and Singularities

Hubble’s law

The Cosmic Microwave Background

Unification in physics

Planck time

Cosmic Inflation

Epochs in the early Universe

Big Bang nucleosynthesis

Matter-antimatter asymmetry

The Dark Ages

90: Touching The Sun Dec 21, 2021

While the James Webb Space Telescope waits patiently for its new scheduled liftoff on Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe has been doing amazing things, whizzing through the outer edges of the Sun's corona for the very first time. Emily explains what we do — and staggeringly don't — know about our nearest star, and how Parker is going to help plug some of the more embarrassing gaps in our knowledge.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

JWST still set for launch

The Parker Solar Probe

The Photosphere

The Chromosphere

The Corona

Coronal Mass Ejections

The Carrington Event of 1859

The Solar Storm of 1989

Parker touches the Sun!

First images from inside the corona (feat. Milky Way!)

Spaceguard!

89: Diverting Dimorphos with DART Dec 05, 2021

Every year, thousands of decent-sized chunks of rock hurtle past — and often into — the Earth. Of the ones that do hit, most burn up leaving a pretty trail. Occasionally, a bigger one explodes with a boom that shatters windows. More rarely, a big one wipes leaves a large smoking crater and widespread local destruction. Then there was that huge one that devestated the planet, wiping out the dinosaurs. Wouldn't want one of those again/ Fortunately, loads of astronomers are watching the skies to spot any asteroids getting too close for comfort. But what if they find one — what do we do about it? This month, a small spacecraft called DART began its mission to crash into a distant asteroid, to see if maybe we can shift it's orbit a little. It's a test, for sometime in the future, when we might need to do that for real, to save the planel.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The DART mission

Dimorphos & Didimos

LICIAcube

NASA’s Asteroid Watch

Big asteroid impacts in history

Sentinel space telescope

Spaceguard!

88: Galaxy Munchies Nov 23, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The research paper

A good article on the research

Galactic cannibalism simulation from NASA

The Magellanic Clouds

The Local Group of galaxies

Globular clusters

Stellar populations

Milkdromeda

87: Star Go Boom! Nov 16, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

Hubble’s had some trouble

The Supernova 2020fqv paper

A good article about SN 2020fqv

Type I and Type II supernovae (video)

Supernova naming conventions

Space telescopes: TESS and Hubble

The original Rosetta Stone

The Open Supernova Catalog

86: Extragalactic X-Ray Exoplanet Nov 02, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The paper in Nature Astronomy

A good article about the research

The Whirlpool Galaxy

NASA’s exoplanets page

Exoplanets in other galaxies

X-Ray binaries

Exoplanet transits

85: Lucy In The Sky With Trojans Oct 26, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The Lucy Mission

Jupiter’s Trojans

Earth’s own Trojan asteroid

Lucy’s gold plaque

Lucy the fossil

84: Spot Speeds Up Oct 19, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The Jupiter spot paper by Wong et al.

ESA site on the discovery

NASA’s Jupiter website

The Juno mission and images

The Cassini-Huygens mission

Voyager I visits Jupiter

Historical observations by Cassini & Hooke

83: James Webb Set For Launch (Honestly!) Oct 12, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

NASA’s JWST page

ESA’s JWST page

Canadian Space Agency JWST page

The Great Observatories

Lagrange points

JWST’s 4 Science Themes

Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Heritage Images

Visible vs IR astronomy

82: Billionaires In Space! Jul 19, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

Virgin Galactic

Branson goes to space

Blue Origin

Bezos is going to space

The Kármán Line

Definitions of the edge of space

81: To Infinity And Beyond! Jun 29, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

80: Mapping the Unseeable Jun 22, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

The Dark Energy Survey

Dark Matter & Dark Energy

Links to DES papers

The Planck mission

Galaxy on Glass

79: Voyager Hears A Hum Jun 01, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

China’s Mars mission

Voyager 1 hears a hum

The NASA Voyager mission site

The interstellar medium

78: Muons broke my physics! May 11, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

Ingenuity’s first flights on Mars!

The Fermilab g-2 experiment

A cartoon explainer of the muon g-2

The Standard Model of particle physics

Lattice QCD

Lattice results and the muon g-2

77: A Night In The Life Of An Astronomer Mar 18, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

Mt John Observatory

Emily’s telescope

Emily’s research

Cassegrain telescopes

76: Everybody's Going To Mars Mar 05, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

NASA Mars Robot Family t-shirt — get yours now!

The UAE’s Hope mission

China’s Tianwen 1 mission

Tianwen 1’s space selfie

NASA’s Perseverance mission

Perseverance on twitter: @NASAPersevere

Video of Perseverance's landing

Image taken of the landing taken from Mars orbit!

Perseverance’s first image from the surface

Searching for life on Mars

The non-discovery of Martian life in a meteorite

What does Mars sound like?

NASA Mars rover family portrait

The code in the parachute

75: Story of the Sun Feb 12, 2021

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Since you’re here, you might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

Missions to Mars in 2021

74: Vale Arecibo Jan 14, 2021

In this rather delayed episode, we say farewell to an old friend: the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, tragically destroyed at the start of December 2020 after 57 years of solid service. Wiping a fond tear from her eye, Emily recalls the scientific highlights and cultural importance of this great telescope dish.

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

You might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.

Things we talk about in this episode:

Sample-return missions

Video of Arecibo’s final moments — Nature

#WhatAreciboMeansToMe on Twitter

Arecibo’s scientific legacy

The SETI Institute

The Arecibo Message

73: Blanets & Squeezars Dec 15, 2020

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

The Blanets paper

On Interstellar and real physics

Black hole photo from 2019

The Snow (or Frost) Line

The recent Squeezar paper

S2’s orbit around the supermassive black hole in our galaxy

New speed and distance record holder S4714

72: Nobel Black Holes Oct 20, 2020

Syzygy Merch! Get it at the store.

Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypod

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

As of 2020, 57 women have won a Nobel Prize (Marie Curie got two — Physics and Chemistry!) That’s 57 — compared to 870 men and 25 organisations. We should celebrate those who have won, and try harder to recognise, encourage and reward women across the sciences — and all facets of human endeavour.

Female Nobel Laureates

The 2020 Nobel Prize announcement video

The Nobel Foundation’s 2020 Physics Prize page

The Physics Nobel Prize since 1901

A short history of black holes

Minute Physics video series on Special Relativity

Royal Institution video introduction to General Relativity

Schwarzschild and his radius

Quasars and AGN

Roger Penrose
Penrose tiling

MC Escher

Escher’s impossible constructions