As our last podcast episode, Connor and Nik interview each other. We summarize the highlight of the observatory program and our scientific works.
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Why the Dark Age? There is certainly plenty of light to go around but there is no new light being made. We won’t see any new light until the stars start to form. Hence the dark ages. Where we left off, about 300,000 years after the big bang the universe is a balmy 3,500 degrees […]
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The Beginning of the Universe: Age of the Universe: 13.8 billion year It is just as easy to say “the universe was 1 second old” as it is to say “the universe was 10 billion degrees celsius” It’s called the “Big Bang” for a reason, this would have been the most cataclysmic explosion ever. The […]
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Looking for Extraterrestrial life: The Arecebo message: The numbers one to ten The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) The formulas for the chemical compounds that make up the nucleotides of DNA The estimated number of DNA nucleotides in the human genome, and a […]
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We interview Mike Smith, a PhD student, at University of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom. Hertfordshire in the UK He has also spent time in Kingston at Queen’s University, working with our group. He is also associated with the Alan Turing Institute in the UK as well. Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, […]
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Introduction: Plan today is to try and solve the paradox from Living Universe E1. If life should be everywhere and we don’t see it, then what happened? The Fermi paradox: Why don’t we see life everywhere? Simple Solutions: The “Rare Earth” solution just means that in some way, Earth-like planets are very rare. Maybe there […]
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We interview Dr. Charles Joseph Woodford, a knowledge translation specialist at Arthur B. McDonald Institute at Queen’s University. Recently moved to Kingston to work at Queen’s University with the McDonald Institute. From Newfoundland; Bachelor in Physics and Applied Mathematics. With also a minor in Russian studies from Memorial University of Newfoundland PhD. in Theoretical and […]
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Introduction: What is life? Life is considered a characteristic of something that preserves, furthers or reinforces its existence in the given environment This characteristic exhibits all or most of the following traits: Homeostasis, Organization, Metabolism, Growth, Adaptation, Response to Stimuli, Reproduction. It is important as well to specify what kind of life we are looking […]
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We interview Dr. Nathan Deg, a Software developer for the Canadian Institute for Radio Astronomy: Resides at Queen’s University and comes from Nova Scotia but was born in Kingston focuses on numerical simulations of isolated and interacting pairs of galaxies Achieved a bachelor’s from Saint Mary’s University and Astrophysics And then a Masters and PhD […]
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Last episode in the “Dangerous Universe” series, Cosmic Calamity today Next series Living Universe Content Warning: this episode can get a bit depressing, if that’s not something you need in your life right now, please feel free to skip this episode. Overview: What is the Cosmos or Universe? Currently, one part matter, five parts dark […]
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Introduction What is a Galaxy? Mostly a ball of dark matter, but really a whole bunch more Gas, dust, stars, black holes and other dead stars As a very rough gauge it’s dark matter, 1/10th stars, 1/100th gas, 1/1000th dust Often galaxies travel together, with one or a few big galaxies and lots of smaller […]
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Introduction: Dr. Mark Richardson is the Educational and Outreach Officer at the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute. Got his start at St. Mary’s University with an honours in Astrophysics, and Masters and Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Expertise in modelling galaxy formation and evolution using cosmological simulations. A big advocate for Equity, […]
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Asteroids: Asteroids are failed planets. During the formation of our solar system, there was a lot of dust cooling down and coming together due to gravity, called protoplanets. In these objects, heavy metals sank to the center, and lighter elements (carbon & silicates) remained on the surface. Some of these objects became planets, others became […]
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Asteroids: Asteroids are failed planets. During the formation of our solar system, there was a lot of dust cooling down and coming together due to gravity, called protoplanets. In these objects, heavy metals sank to the center, and lighter elements (carbon & silicates) remained on the surface. Some of these objects became planets, others became […]
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Introduction: Simran Nerval recently received her Masters Degree at Queen’s University She is very active in science outreach as a coordinator for Let’s Talk Science, GEMINI-P, and the IDEAS initiative. She has given several public talks including one for the Queen’s Observatory, Astronomy on Tap, and the Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club She studies observational signatures […]
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Introduction: NASA Dragonfly mission is an 8-blade drone on the Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Pencilled to launch in 2027 and arrive in 2035. Dragonfly will sample and examine dozens of promising sites around Titan and search for the building blocks of life. Dragonfly’s main aim is going to be to study the building block of […]
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The Ingenuity drone is a part of the Perseverance mission which landed on Mars in the middle of February 2021. The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is a technology demonstration to test powered flight on another world for the first time. This is very important for bringing samples back from Mars and thinking about round trips to […]
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Introduction: Prof. Judith Irwin is a professor at Queen’s University Judith Irwin is the Principle Investigator (leader) of the CHANG-ES collaboration Her team studies edge on spiral galaxies and their magnetic fields The magnetic fields can be seen in the halo of these galaxies. CHANG-ES has created award winning photos of these magnetic fields To […]
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Introduction: Prof. Sarah Sadavoy is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University She studies star forming regions and the dust within them Star forming regions are large clouds of gas that compress under their own gravity. The gas collects tor form stars and disks of material around the stars Dust in astronomy refers mostly to silicate […]
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Perseverance (aka Percy) launched on July 30th, 2020, and is scheduled to arrive on Mars on February 18th, 2021. It was named by Alexander Mather, a 13-year-old student from Virginia who wrote “Curiosity, Insight, Spirit, Opportunity. If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. […]
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The most recent expeditions to Mars has been NASA’s Mars Exploration Series which started with the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004 Here are some highlights of their findings: Opportunity found Hematite which typically forms in water. The opportunity found showed to have an acidic nature. Spirit, on the other hand, found chemicals that indicate […]
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Ultra-Fast Radio Burst: Perseverance and Mars Explorations. Some Basic Facts about Mars: 4th Planet in the solar system It takes about 687 days for one orbit around the sun with a martian day being 24hr 37 mins. Fun fact: if you weigh 100kgs on Earth, you only weigh 38 kgs on Mars because of the […]
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Introduction: Mary Beth Laychak is the Director of Strategic Communications for the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) The Canada France Hawaii Telescope is 4m in diameter and can see in optical/infrared wavelengths The CFHT resides on Maunakea in Hawaii This is one of the best locations on Earth for astronomy From on top of the […]
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In Space News: The Chinese Chang’e 5 lunar mission returned to Earth from the Moon on Dec 17 bringing back near 2kg of lunar material for examination. Space X’s starship SN8 exploded in a test on Dec 10th. In the ‘great conjunction’, Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth aligned visibly for the first time in 800 years. […]
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Introduction: Low Surface Brightness galaxies are a class of hard to find galaxies because they are so faint Ultra Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs) are a sub-category that are also very large These are very hard to find, but you can look for them in surveys like the DESI-Legacy-Imaging-Survey The Green Bank Telescope is what Ananthan Karunakaran […]
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In Space News: It is was recently decided that the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is being decommissioned. Space X crew launched a 6 month manned mission to the ISS. Now on to the main topic; “The Dimming Stellar Giant — Betelgeuse.” Introduction Betelgeuse is a red supergiant about 550 light-years away from us. It […]
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Introduction: Dark matter appears to be everywhere in the universe, yet we don’t know what it is One idea that many scientists think dark matter could be is a WIMP but there are many other ideas Asymmetric dark matter is a concept for dark matter that wouldn’t have an anti-particle. While this doesn’t seem far […]
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INTRODUCTION Black holes are essentially dead stars. There can be three kinds of BH; stellar black holes, intermediate-mass black holes, and supermassive black holes. You go up the mass axis via eating other stars or merging with other black holes. Black holes can be seen eating gas through observations of X-ray radiation. They can […]
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Introduction: The Algonquin Radio Observatory (ARO) is located in Algonquin Park and has been operating since the 1960s. Pulsars are a type of Neutron star that act like cosmic lighthouses, with spinning beams of radio waves. The Crab Nebula has a pulsar at its center which rotates very quickly and is connected with a supernova […]
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Introduction: Phosphine gas, a simple bio-indicator molecule consisting of 1 phosphorus atom and 3 hydrogen atoms, has been found in the atmosphere of Venus. Venus is the second planet in the solar system and is considered a sister planet to Earth. Its orbit is 2/3rds of the way between the sun and Earth (225 Earth […]
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Welcome to Queen’s Observatory’s Fast Radio Bursts! In this podcast series, we will explore exciting topics about the Universe. This is our introductory episode that walks through the mission of the Queen’s Observatory and this podcast series. We will have another podcast soon! Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac […]
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