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The Urban Astronomer Podcast

The Urban Astronomer Podcast

By: The Urban Astronomer Podcast
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Summary

 The Urban Astronomer Podcast explains science and interviews South African astronomers. Now with extra Science Explainy Bits!Allen Versfeld and Constellation Online Media. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Astronomy Astronomy & Space Science Physics Science
Episodes
  • Impossible exoplanets and Rhetoric

    Impossible exoplanets and Rhetoric
    Jan 12 2022
    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.
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    26 mins
  • Interview with Dr Julia Healy

    Interview with Dr Julia Healy
    Oct 26 2021
    This episode features an interview with Dr Julia Healy, a post-doctoral fellow at Astron, working on the MHONGOOSE survey
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    39 mins
  • How do we know what things in space are made from?

    How do we know what things in space are made from?
    Sep 10 2020
    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!
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    21 mins
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