Kiss and Capture for Pluto and Charon and Dark Energy Remains Dark
Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, orbit each other with gazes lovingly fixed on each other, held in place by a romantic tidal attraction. But Charon's large size has always been difficult to explain. New simulations show that their love affair may have started at the beginning with a "Kiss and Capture" collision, much gentler than the devasting impact that formed our own Moon. Hear all about that, Centaurs, space news, space trivia, and a new way to explain away Dark Energy with your friendly neighborhood astroquarks.
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46:03
Quasi Particles, Pluto's Moons, and Cosmic Rays
We kick off 2025 with oddities from quasi particles, to cosmic rays, to the moons of Pluto. What has mass when it moves in one direction and doesn't when it moves in another direction? How do thunderstorms on Earth interact with cosmic rays? What is up with Pluto's moons? Join us as we tackle these questions as well as the stumper and special top quark trivia. It's all part of the package in an episode of Walkabout the Galaxy.
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45:25
Mysterious Dark Comets
We know about extinct comets and active asteroids, but now we've got something in between: dark comets, whose orbits indicate cometary activity, but we can't see it! We'll get the scoop on these interesting objects, a flare from a supermassive black hole, and a twist on the question of the age of Saturn's rings. Plus, we have our end-of-the-year rocket launch roundup, and a special astrophysical FLOD stumper for top quark Jim Cooney.Â
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39:22
Making Big Blobs is Hard
Top quark Jim Cooney explains why making big blobs is hard and how new observations are helping us understand how the universe made big immensely big blobs more commonly known as giant elliptical galaxies. Nature loves to make a disk, and we love to tell you all about the cool things nature does, including a solid state greenhouse on ancient Mars that may have produced a huge buried supply of water to create giant rivers near its south pole. Join us for this and more mind-blowing stuff. It's all part of our Walkabout the Galaxy.
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37:48
Neutrino Fog and the Hunt for Dark Matter
It's a good news bad news story with the detection of the neutrino fog. This signal from solar neutrinos may confound our search for certain dark matter candidates, but at least we know our detectors are very, very sensitive! We also take a look at magnetic fields in the outer solar system, specifically why Uranus's magnetosphere was so weird when we visited in 1986, and what tiny grains from a near Earth asteroid may be telling us about the magnetic field four and a half billion years ago. Join us for all that, and of course space news and stupid trivia.
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