Archive for the 'astronomy' Category

Second 365 DoA Appearance

Friday, May 1st, 2009

Those of you who follow the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast will have noticed that todays episode is a Brains Matter production. Listen here

089 – Dr Daniel Price – Stellar Formation

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

I talk to Dr Daniel Price, Monash Fellow from the School of Mathematics at Monash University in Melbourne Australia, about how stars form. We discuss: – Star formation – What constitutes a star? – The first stars in the universe – Current star formation – For a given gas cloud, how many stars typically form? […]

088 – Dr Ross Church – Binary Star Formation

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Dr Ross Church is a PhD from Cambridge, and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Monash University. I talked to him about binary stars: – What are binary stars? – How common are they? – Can stars exist in triple or more systems? – How big are most binary stars? – How do binary […]

087 – Science Songs

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Chemistry, biology, physics, climate change – the list of science topics are too numerous for me to mention them all here. And each subject has someone singing about it in some fashion. That’s right – the episode that a lot of you have been waiting for – the show on science songs. Marc West, from […]

086 – Dr Ross Church – Hypervelocity Stars

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Have you heard of hypervelocity stars? These are amazingly fast stars. How fast? I talk to Dr Ross Church, from Monash University, who tells us all about them. Topics of discussion include: What are hyper velocity stars? How do they form? The relationship between binary stars and hypervelocity stars The interactions between supermassive black holes […]

083 – 365 Days BM Podcast (Astrobiology)

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

I was lucky enough to provide this audio to the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast (Official Podcast of the International Astronomical Union) – it’s an extract of episodes 81 and 82 on the topic of astrobiology. If you’re interested in the 365 Days podcast, go to http://www.365daysofastronomy.org Download MP3 of Ep 83 This episode of […]

082 – Dr Allie Ford – Introduction to Astrobiology

Monday, January 26th, 2009

In this episode, continue my talk with Dr Allie Ford of Monash University about Astrobiology. We cover the following topics: – Extremophiles – Could life exist deep inside the Jovian planets? – Why would it be beneficial to find life elsewhere? – Europa as a possible candidate for life – How likely is it that […]

081 – Dr Allie Ford – Introduction to Astrobiology

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

In this episode, I talk to Dr Allie Ford of Monash University about Astrobiology. We cover the following questions: – What is astrobiology? – The Urey/Miller experiment – Do amino acids lead to life? – What is life anyway? – What conditions are required for life? – The possibility of life elsewhere in our solar […]

076 – Dr Richard Stancliffe – First Stellar Generations Part 2

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Dr Richard Stancliffe is a postdoctoral researcher from the UK (Oxford and Cambridge) who is currently working at Monash University, Australia. He is an expert in stellar evolution, and talked to me about First Stellar Generations. This is the second of a two-part series – if you missed part one, please go back and listen […]

075 – Dr Richard Stancliffe – First Stellar Generations Part 1

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Dr Richard Stancliffe is a postdoctoral researcher from the UK (Oxford and Cambridge) who is currently working at Monash University, Australia. He is an expert in stellar evolution, and talked to me about First Stellar Generations. What are they? How can we determine what generation a star belongs to? What does it mean? Listen into […]