In this episode Sunna Withers and Dr. Elaina Hyde investigate some historical moons of Saturn, Pluto, and of course our own Earth’s Moon as well as the latest Moon news and discoveries from JWST.

image credit: 2025 03 08 The moon through the AICO Unistellar eVscope by Nakul Sethuram

Join us as we discuss everything from exploring our Solar System to the outermost regions of the Universe! Hosted by Paul Mackin and Sunna Withers, this week's episode highlights asteroid sample return missions and observing distant stars and galaxies.

Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco, and the COSMOS-Web team

This episode touches on transits of Venus and their historical and astronomical importance. It also looks a bit at how the observations of the solstice could also be used to gain an understanding of Earth. Your hosts Prof. Mary-Helen Armour and Dr. Elaina Hyde touch on more modern history looking at lunar investigation by the Surveyor and Hayabusa2 investigation of asteroids. In the news we look at recent JWST discoveries, like one of the most distant and youngest galaxies every imaged, amazing aurora and hot exoplanets.

Image credit: NASA (2012 transit) https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10996/#media_group_349107

Paul Mackin and Mary-Helen Armour describe Apollo missions and more. Sometimes big, sometimes small, sometimes personal, sometimes public… It is always great to have a project. Join in this episode to hear about some historical and very recent space projects.

Image Credit: Paul Mackin 2024 - The Apollo 10 command module - Charly Brown. A Soyuz which carried a British Cosmonaut to Mir. Courtesy of the Science Museum in London

This episode features a journey through past and present space telescopes with Sunna Withers and Dr. Elaina Hyde. Missions both large and small have contributed significantly to astronomy as we know it, and in the news now we can’t help but mention some of the latest from JWST.

Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn "Technicians successfully performed a critical test on Webb's 5-layer sunshield by fully deploying each of its uniquely sized layers to the same position that they will have while orbiting the Sun a million miles away from Earth."

Paul Mackin and Professor Elaina Hyde cover the science fiction film that changed it all as well as other items in space history and the most recent astronomy news. This episode looks at Venus, Mars, and the space program with a bit of a sci-fi tint!

Image credit: AICO, Elaina Hyde, 2023: The Allan I Carswell Observatory showing the dome during the day with the moon above

Paul Mackin and Julie Tomé discuss the beginnings of radio astronomy, pioneering astronauts, and wish astronomer Gibor Basri a happy birthday this week in astronomy and space history. In news, the Lucy Mission has done a flyby of Asteroid Donaldjohnson and New Horizons data were used to map the galaxy in Lyman-alpha radiation. As April winds down we get better weather and a preview of our summer skies!

Episode art: M13 Great Cluster in Hercules, image credit Conor Hayes, AICO, 2021

This week's episode features John Moores, Jesse Rogerson and Michelle Parsons, authors of "Daydreaming in the Solar System: Surfing Saturn's Rings, Golfing on the Moon, and Other Adventures in Space Exploration". Join as our host Robin Metcalfe leads an exciting discussion on how to daydream in the solar system, including ice skating on Pluto and Enceladus, falling through Jupiter's atmosphere, and spelunking on Saturn's moon Hyperion! Erratum: Robin's younger son is a 6'2" goalie (not 5'2")

Image Credit: Michelle Parsons