The Open Universe

An unbounded journey through the archives of astronomy

Episode 16: The LEDA of the Rings 06/18/2025

Episode 16: The LEDA of the Rings Long ago, in a time before the age of Men, nine rings were made… when the galaxy LEDA 1313424 was smashed into by its neighbour in a near head-on collision. The result was a cosmic spectacle: a galaxy surrounded by nine concentric rings of starlight acting as a memoir of this great interstellar battle. In this episode, we take a closer look at the “Bullseye”, the most extreme “collisional” ring galaxy we have ever seen, and discuss what this might mean for the formation of galaxies in our Universe. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/37060025

Episode 15: Riding the solar wind: Eugene Parker’s “magnetic” legacy 04/21/2025

Episode 15: Riding the solar wind: Eugene Parker’s “magnetic” legacy On December 24, 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe shattered records: becoming simultaneously the closest a human-made object has ever approached the Sun, and, travelling at 430,000 mph, the fastest object ever built on Earth. This was the culmination of a 70-year long legacy of its namesake, Eugene Parker, who in 1958 transformed our understanding of the Sun from a static ball of fire to a dynamic, magnetic entity capable of ejecting extremely hot winds into vast reaches of space. In this episode, we revisit Parker’s seminal paper and its impact on exploratory missions of the Solar System for decades after. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/36243850

Episode 14: Could the movie Armageddon happen in real life? 02/14/2025

Episode 14: Could the movie Armageddon happen in real life? In 1998, “NASA” sent a team of rag-tag oil drillers to an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, averting an Armageddon. 24 years later, NASA is at it again – but this time, with a somewhat more delicate approach. In September 2022, the DART mission collided with Dimorphos, an asteroid in a binary orbit with its larger companion, Didymos, perturbing its trajectory just enough to show how future threats may be thwarted this way. In this episode of The Open Universe podcast, we revisit this amazing feat of engineering and space technology – and perhaps what the odds are for a blockbuster event worthy of Hollywood to occur in real life! /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/35286935

Episode 13: Minding the heavens: Sweeping the night sky with Caroline Herschel 12/11/2024

Episode 13: Minding the heavens: Sweeping the night sky with Caroline Herschel It is August 1st, 1786, and a starry haze zips through the night sky. As celestial phenomena go, this is just a fleeting event - but not one that evades Caroline Herschel’s Newtonian “sweeper”. Although she doesn’t know it yet, Herschel will soon be renowned as the great discoverer of comets, and one of the most eminent astronomers of her generation. Journey back in time with The Open Universe and meet the great Minder of the Heavens! /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/34393065

Episode 12: Is the Universe slowing down? 11/13/2024

Episode 12: Is the Universe slowing down? For 14 billion years, our Universe has been expanding. For 5 billion years, its expansion has been accelerating. But now.... is our Universe slowing down again? /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/33917342

Episode 11: The JWST Revolution, Part 3: Is the Universe Broken? 09/25/2024

Episode 11: The JWST Revolution, Part 3: Is the Universe Broken? Our exploration continues into the world of CEERS, one of the major flagship surveys of the early JWST data. Now, astronomers are confronted by yet more first generation galaxies that seem to defy scientific consensus -- a group of objects so luminous that their formation should not have been possible based on standard theories of galaxy formation. So, is the Universe truly broken? Or is it simply playing a cruel trick on our ability to locate how far these galaxies actually are....? /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/33204627

Episode 10: The JWST Revolution, Part 2: Remarkably Bright Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn 03/27/2024

Episode 10: The JWST Revolution, Part 2: Remarkably Bright Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn It’s July 2022, and JWST is now in full swing – its early images already captivating people the world over. In all this excitement, however, a team of astronomers is struck by one thing in particular... two beacons of light, shining out from the very depths of time: extraordinarily bright galaxies in existence so early as to defy all expectations. But how could galaxies so big exist so soon after the birth of the cosmos? Have we misunderstood galaxy formation all along? /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/30566393

Episode 9: The JWST Revolution, Part 1: A New Space Telescope 03/06/2024

Episode 9: The JWST Revolution, Part 1: A New Space Telescope Christmas Day, 2021 offered a once-in-a-lifetime present to the astronomical community: JWST, a revolutionary new space telescope with the potential to transform our understanding of the cosmos. But with every new innovation, there is always room for plenty of surprises…. In our new miniseries on the Open Universe Podcast, we delve into the world of JWST and the incredible observations it’s made in just the first year of its operations – some, perhaps, with the potential to break our understanding of the universe. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/30257723

Episode 8: Fiat Lux: Conversations on science and faith at the Vatican Observatory 01/31/2024

Episode 8: Fiat Lux: Conversations on science and faith at the Vatican Observatory The Open Universe goes on tour to Castel Gandolfo, Italy, home of the Vatican Observatory, where we chat with resident astronomer Richard D'Souza on astronomy, faith, and early efforts to map the Milky Way. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/29735173

Episode 7: A secret ocean beneath Pluto’s icy volcanoes? 09/29/2023

Episode 7: A secret ocean beneath Pluto’s icy volcanoes? Volcanic explosions and surface flows on a frozen world?! Join us on board the New Horizons spacecraft on its journey towards the edge of the Solar System as it uncovers a distant world full of geological surprises. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169957

Episode 6: The most epic journey in the lifetime of a photon 07/20/2023

Episode 6: The most epic journey in the lifetime of a photon Photons traveling through spacetime are cosmic messengers carrying with them rich stories of the past history of our cosmos. Find out how an otherwise innocuous observation of distant quasars in 1965 transformed our understanding of the composition of intergalactic space, and the phases of evolution our Universe underwent billions of years ago. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169717

Episode 5: What is that beeping in the night sky? 05/09/2023

Episode 5: What is that beeping in the night sky? For years, astronomers have been puzzled by the mysterious bursts of cosmic radio emission, until recently, two teams identified the origin of these events as extremely magnetic stars -- strong enough to disrupt credit cards on the moon! /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169720

Episode 4: The final voyage in the life of a star 10/24/2022

Episode 4: The final voyage in the life of a star Relive the story of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who, as a 19-year old, came to a remarkable realization on board a ship journeying to start his physics scholarship in England. This discovery would lead to a bitter spat with one of the most eminent luminaries in the world of astronomy, and eventually reveal an astonishing feature of time and space – the existence of black holes. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169723

Episode 3: How did a 1912 circular open up our Universe? 09/02/2022

Episode 3: How did a 1912 circular open up our Universe? The vastness of space was unfathomable until a pioneer of "Big Data" found a regularity in the way some stars change brightness, a discovery which has ever since allowed us to precisely measure distances to stars throughout the Milky Way and beyond. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169726

Episode 2: The ultimate fate of the Universe 07/29/2022

Episode 2: The ultimate fate of the Universe Our universe appears to be an ever-expanding, or an open universe. Join us on a journey into the future to discover what this means for all the planets, stars, and galaxies. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169729

Episode 1: Can seismic activity on stars help us discover the next Earth? 06/17/2022

Episode 1: Can seismic activity on stars help us discover the next Earth? Discovering small planets like the Earth orbiting other stars like the Sun is hard, but blobs of gas surfacing from stellar interiors can help. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169732

Episode 0: What's all this about?? 03/09/2022

Episode 0: What's all this about?? We hit our mid-life crises early and started a podcast about astronomy. /episode/index/show/5103f8e5-5781-488a-afff-011281dc4cb9/id/28169735

The Open Universe

TOPICS