An excellent Astronomy podcast for beginners, explained in easy terms for a general audience. If you are interested in Astronomy or think you may be this is great listening.


Astronomy Cast
Astronomy Cast brings you a weekly fact-based journey through the cosmos.

Ep. 195: Planetary Rings
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
20 Jun 2010 at 8:00pm
Saturn is best known for its rings. This huge and beautiful ring system is easy to spot in even the smallest backyard telescope, so you can imagine they were a surprise when Galileo first noticed them. But astronomers have gone on to find rings around the other gas giant worlds in the Solar System ? the differences are surprising.
Ep. 194: Dwarf Planets
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
13 Jun 2010 at 8:00pm
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto out of the planet club. But they also started up a whole new dwarf planet club, with Pluto, Eris and the asteroid Ceres as charter members. Let?s find out what it takes to be a dwarf planet, and discuss the current membership.
Ep. 193: Astronomy with the Unaided Eye
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
6 Jun 2010 at 8:00pm
We talk a lot about telescopes here on Astronomy Cast, but you really don't need any special equipment to appreciate what the night sky has to offer. Just head outside with some sky charts, maybe a planisphere, some friends and hot chocolate, and you're good to go. Let's talk about what kinds of things you can see with just your eyes.
Ep. 192: Chandra X-Ray Observatory
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
30 May 2010 at 8:00pm
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is the third of NASA's Great Observatories, sent into space aboard the space shuttle to view the Universe in high energy X-ray radiation. This is the territory of supernovae, supermassive black holes and neutron stars; some of the most extreme places in the Universe.
Ep. 191: Chandrasekhar
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
23 May 2010 at 8:00pm
The first half of the 20th Century was a productive time for astronomy, with theorists working out much of the science that we take for granted today. One of these astronomy stars was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who determined the maximum mass of a white dwarf star.
Ep. 190: Kepler Mission
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
16 May 2010 at 8:00pm
Last week we studied Kepler the man, and this week we take a look at Kepler, the mission. Launched in March, 2009, this is a spacecraft designed to search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Let's take a look at the history this mission, the launch and the science gathered so far.
Ep. 189: Johannes Kepler and His Laws of Planetary Motion
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
9 May 2010 at 8:00pm
Nicolaus Copernicus changed our understanding of the Universe when he rearranged the Solar System to put the Sun at the center, with the Earth becoming just another of the planets orbiting it. But the movement of the planets didn't really match the theory; not until Johannes Kepler came along with his ellipses, and everything finally worked.
Ep. 188: The Future of Astronomy
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
2 May 2010 at 8:00pm
We spent 5 episodes telling the story of astronomy so far, how we got from the work of the Babylonians to the modern discoveries made in the last decade. But now we want to look forward, studying the current space missions and experiments to uncover the mysteries that astronomers hope to solve.
Ep. 187: History of Astronomy, Part 5: The 20th Century
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
25 Apr 2010 at 8:00pm
Many of the modern ideas in astronomy happened in just the 20th century: dark matter, the Big Bang, inflation, quasars, black holes. So many discoveries in one important century.
Ep. 186: History of Astronomy, Part 4: The Beginning of Modern Astronomy
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
18 Apr 2010 at 8:00pm
With our proper place in the Universe worked out, and some powerful telescopes to probe the cosmos, astronomers started making some real progress. The next few hundred years was a time of constant refinement, with astronomers discovering new planets, new moons, and developing new theories in astronomy and physics.
Ep. 185: History of Astronomy, Part 3: The Renaissance
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
11 Apr 2010 at 8:00pm
Now we reach time with names that many of you will be familiar: Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus. This is an age when the biggest names in astronomy used the best tools of their time to completely rearrange their understanding of the Universe, putting the Earth where it belonged - merely orbiting the Sun, and not the center of everything.
Ep. 184: History of Astronomy, Part 2: The Greeks
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
4 Apr 2010 at 8:00pm
With the earliest astronomers out of the way, we now move to one of the most productive eras in astronomy; the ancient Greeks. Even though they didn't have telescopes, the Greeks worked out the size and shape of the Earth, the distance to the Moon and Sun, and even had some accurate ideas about our place in the Universe.
Ep. 183: History of Astronomy, Part 1: The Ancient Astronomers
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
28 Mar 2010 at 8:00pm
We know you love a good series. This time we're going to walk you through the history of astronomy, starting with the ancient astronomers and leading right up to the most recent discoveries. Today we're going to start at the beginning, with the astronomers who first tried to understand the true nature of the Earth, the planets and our place in the cosmos.
Ep. 182: Astrometry
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
21 Mar 2010 at 8:00pm
Astronomers have been cataloging star positions for thousands of years, from the first calculations made by Hipparchus, to the more recent star catalogs made by the spacecraft named after him. This is astrometry; another way to find our place in the Universe.
Ep. 181: Rotation
by info@astronomycast.com (Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay)
14 Mar 2010 at 8:00pm
Everything in the Universe is spinning. In fact, without this rotation, life on Earth wouldn't exist. We need the conservation of angular momentum to flatten out galaxies and solar systems, to make planets possible. Let's find out about the physics involved with everything that spins, and finally figure out the difference between centripetal and centrifugal force.