syz·y·gy (sĭz′ə-jē)
noun : an alignment of three celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, and earth during an eclipse.
also : a podcast wherein real-life, actual astronomer Dr Emily Brunsden from the University of York and not-astronomer but enthusiastic science nerd Dr Chris Stewart explore the universe.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"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.
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.
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!)
