syzygy

Jan 16 2025 134 ep. 47 mins 181
syzygy Podcast artwork

Join astronomer Dr Emily Brunsden and enthusiastic not-astronomer Dr Chris Stewart as they explore the universe.

  Science
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


s2e5: Exotelescope Expeditions

Jan 16 2025 56 mins  
Exo-planets, sure. Exo-moons and -comets? Fine. But exo ... telescopes?! Emily is going out on a limb in this episode, expanding the definition of telescope to include things that measure stuff in space, and we're here for it! Which means we really do have a few telescopes out there beyond the Solar System, in the shape of Voyagers 1 and 2, with a few more waiting in the wings.

s2e4: Exoplanet Extrapolation

Jan 03 2025 50 mins  
We know, we know — we did exoplanets last time. But that was the current state-of-play and a 2024 exoplanets wrapped update. In this episode, Emily looks to the future! She does a deep dive into the promise of the just wonderful JWST, as it prods exoplanets in ways they’ve never been prodded before.

s2e3: Exoplanets ExoWrapped

Dec 19 2024 56 mins  
It couldn't be a season of exo-stuff without taking a good hard look at the current state of exoplanets, the OG exo-thing. Emily sums up the state of exoplanet research in 2024 — her Exoplanets 2024 Wrapped, if you like — then lines up her top three exoplanets of the year, and considers what's coming up next in this exo-ploding field.

s2e2: Exocomet Excitation

Nov 28 2024 57 mins  
Exoplanets, sure. Exo-moons too, apparently. But exo ... comets?! Yes indeed, they're a real thing, and we've known about them for *ages*! How do you spot something so tiny around another star, so far away? Emily has the insider knowledge, because it's something she's genuinely investigating in her job as an actual, real-life astronomer.

s2e1: Exomoon Expectation

Nov 13 2024 55 mins  
Way, way back in the early epochs of Syzygy (ep 19 in Oct 2018 if you must know) we talked about the exciting prospect of spotting the first exomoon — a moon orbiting a planet orbiting a star that is not our own. It seemed reasonable to expect that six years later exomoons would be a thing we've discovered, and maybe even started a catalogue. But turns out, observing a minute sig

Introducing Syzygy Season Two!

Nov 08 2024 1 mins  
A short announcement: Syzygy is now seasonal! From now on we're going to release the podcast in seasons, and we're excited to announce the imminent release of the first episode of Syzygy Season Two. Yep. Two. Season One is everything we've done so far. Trust us, it's easier this way. Season Two is all about Exo-Stuff — exo-planets, exo-moons, exo-comets ... are they a thing? Appa

122: Syzygy Live! — The Power of Seeing It For Yourself

Jul 19 2024 63 mins  
Live from York's Festival of Ideas*, in front of an audience of ... what, had to be a few hundred thousand people, right? ... Emily and Chris discuss some awesome astronomy that you can go outside and see with your own eyes. In particular, they go deep on the incredible May 2024 aurora, and show what the 2024 total eclipse across the USA looked like, with a preview of amazing eclip

121: Dark Bubbles of Weakness

Jun 04 2024 49 mins  
A huge team of astronomers — and their even-huger team of tiny, fibre-obtic-wielding robots — are zeroing in on one of the great questions of cosmology: just what the heck is going on with Dark Energy? We know the Universe is expanding. Apparently, it's expanding faster. But maybe it is expanding faster, slower? Tiny robots measuring breathtakingly-huge cosmic bubbles may give

120: Biggest Small Black Hole

Apr 29 2024 48 mins  
This week, a new Black Hole Record (kinda), and with it a nice conundrum. the GAIA mission has found the biggest black hole ... of the stellar-mass variety ... in our galaxy. A lot of caveats there, but the fun thing is, it's just next door, which makes us wonder if that's coincidence or a harbinger of more big black holes to come in GAIA's data dumps! Plus, a riddle: why do we kee

119: Astrocampus Turns Ten!

Apr 18 2024 47 mins  
We're live from the 10th birthday celebrations for the University of York's Astrocampus, Emily's home turf and all-round fabulous teaching and outreach space. Emily fields some amazing questions from kids and adults attending the event, and gives some of Astrocampus's highlights and achievements over the past decade, as well as some plans for the future!