The Urban Astronomer Podcast Podcast

The Urban Astronomer Podcast

The Urban Astronomer Podcast
Twice monthly show, explaining science and interviewing South African astronomers. Now with extra Science Explainy Bits!
Impossible exoplanets and Rhetoric
This is episode 62 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast, our first release of 2022. Happy New year! In this episode, we're doing something a little different. Traditionally we alternate between interviews and Science Explainy Bits, but the second segment here is a bit more philosophical than usual, and ran a bit short, so I've added something a bit more topical - some astronomy news! Impossible exoplanet 1:51 As covered previously on this website, the science media were very excited to report the discovery of an impossible exoplanet. I thought it was a bit silly to describe something as being "impossible" when you've literally just proved that it exists and is real, so I wrote a report - Giant exoplanet upsets theories on how planets form - to try and take a more balanced look at what's actually going on. I still had more to say, though, and you'll find it in the first half of the podcast. Rhetoric and the scientific method 11:05 Scientists and skeptics alike are often a bit scornful about rhetoric. They don't trust what they see as clever arguments and manipulative words to persuade an audience. Why stoop to such methods when you have truth, facts, and evidence on your side? But I think that's unfair, and try to explain why rhetoric not only has a place, but should actually be used when communicating science.
Jan 12, 2022
26 min
Interview with Dr Julia Healy
This episode features an interview with Dr Julia Healy, a post-doctoral fellow at Astron, working on the MHONGOOSE survey
Oct 26, 2021
38 min
How do we know what things in space are made from?
This is episode 60 of the Urban Astronomer podcast! Is that a milestone? Sure, but we'll save the party hats for episode 75. Today we'll just get on with the job at hand, and bring you a science explainy bit. Today's question: How can astronomers be so certain about what things in space are made from? On Earth it's relatively easy to send geologists out to different places with their hammers, and have them collect samples from interesting rock formations and bring them back to the lab for analysis, but astronomers hardly ever get to do that with planets, comets, the Sun and distant galaxies. So how do they know, and how can they sound so confident? Listen below to find out!
Sep 10, 2020
20 min
Interview with Imogen Whittam
This is the 5th episode of season 3 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast. Today we feature an interview we recorded earlier this year, before we went into pandemic lockdown, featuring Dr Imogen Whittam. Imogen studied for her PhD in the Cavendish Astrophysics group at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Dr Julia Riley. Her research used data from a range of telescopes to better understand the nature of faint, extragalactic radio sources.She then spent five years in Capr town, holding an SKA Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of the Western Cape. She is current back in the UK, with a Hintze Research Fellowship in the Astrophysics group in the Physics Department in Oxford.
Aug 8, 2020
25 min
Southern skies and Northern skies
It's another Science Explainy Bit episode, and today we answer a question asked by another podcaster while interviewing us for their show. The host wanted to know how the view of southern skies compares to that of the northern hemisphere. I gave a quick answer before we moved on to another topic, but I would have liked to give a more detailed and complete answer. Which brings us to this episode, in which I describe how there really isn't a single sky for the North or the South. But the sky in the USA does still look different to what we have here in South Africa, and I explain why.
Jul 9, 2020
17 min
Interview with Carol Botha
In this episode we interview Carol Botha, an amateur astronomer from South Africa who remembers seeing Sputnik as a little girl in a small town, and who currently serves as a product ambassador for the Slooh network of robotic telescopes
Jun 24, 2020
1 hr 3 min
What’s the deal with Leap Years?
Today's episode is the first Science Explainy Bit of the season, and it's another basic, classic topic: Leap Years. As a reminder, I love looking at the questions that seem simple because we think of them as the sorts of things that children ask their parents, but the thing about these questions is that they never are simple. These are things that took humanity centuries or longer to figure out, and that most of us still don't really understand because we first asked these questions as kids ourselves, and got the sort of answer which people give small kids, and nobody ever asked again! Last season we talked about about the tides and what happens if you shoot a gun in space, and why it is that we sometimes see the Moon during the day when we all expect to see it at night. And today, we talk about how leap years, how they relate to Easter and politics, and why they even exist. A few weeks back, we were featured as guests on Podcast Insider, the official podcast of the Blubrry podcasting platform. Although this show doesn't live on their hosting platform, we do use their software to make it all work on our own servers, and it was a bit of an honour to be invited onto their show. Give it a listen here.
Jun 9, 2020
17 min
Interview with Dr Tony Lelliott
At long last, the third season of the Urban Astronomer Podcast has kicked off! We thought the last season went so well that we've decided to keep things much as they are, with perhaps the occasional news segment added in whenever something interesting has happened. So for the most part, that means twelve episodes, alternating between interviews with people who have some sort of a connection to South African astronomy, and science explainy bits where I answer the questions that listeners like you have emailed to me at [email protected] Tony Lelliott 3:23 But this episode is all about the Interview with Dr Lelliott. Tony is an Honorary Assoc. Professor at Wits University. He has spent much of his career researching science communication, and has a special interest in astronomy, and human evolution. You can follow him on twitter at @drtoeknee
May 25, 2020
27 min
Season 3 launching next week
This is just a short note to let you know that we're still here, and that the new season launches next week! Long-time listeners have been waiting for this since February, but I don't think there's anybody left on Earth who couldn't guess which world-changing event caused our schedule to slip! Still, after eight weeks in lock-down, it's time to start delivering on our promises. Tune in next week to hear the first exciting episode of the new season of the Urban Astronomer Podcast!
May 18, 2020
2 min
Season Three coming soon…
A quick update for loyal fans who have been asking when they can expect season three: It's nearly here!
Feb 25, 2020
2 min
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