Episodes

  • #93 What can we do to stop another dinosaur extinction asteroid smashing into Earth?

    #93 What can we do to stop another dinosaur extinction asteroid smashing into Earth?
    May 31 2026

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    66 million years ago, an asteroid smashed into Earth and caused a mass extinction, including nearly all of the dinosaurs.

    What would we do if another extinction level asteroid was heading to Earth? The good news is we’re monitoring the skies to identify them early. And there are some incredible strategies for managing high risk objects, and we look at a dramatic test from 2022.

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    10 mins
  • #92 Particle physicist and author Dr. Sarah Alam Malik joins us to explore the history of astronomy and the universe. Her new book A Brief History of the Universe takes us from ancient astronomers to modern physics, and the future of the cosmos.

    #92 Particle physicist and author Dr. Sarah Alam Malik joins us to explore the history of astronomy and the universe. Her new book A Brief History of the Universe takes us from ancient astronomers to modern physics, and the future of the cosmos.
    May 19 2026

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    Particle physicist and author Dr. Sarah Alam Malik stops by for an expansive conversation about astronomy, the history of scientific discovery, and our endless fascination with the night sky. In her new book, A Brief History of the Universe, And Our Place in It, Dr. Sarah explores how our understanding of the cosmos has evolved from ancient observers tracking the stars, through the revolutionary ideas of Copernicus and Newton, to modern discoveries about dark matter and the origins of the universe itself.

    Why do humans feel compelled to explore? What does it mean to confront the scale of the universe, and how can astronomy change the way we see ourselves here on Earth. Dr. Sarah also reflects on her own path into physics, the moments of awe that still stay with her, and the discoveries she hopes for in the coming decades.

    This is a conversation about curiosity, perspective, and the incredible human need to understand where we came from, and what the distant future of the universe might hold.

    Check out A Brief History of the Universe at Harper Collins (USA)

    Check out A Brief History of the Universe at Simon & Schuster (UK)

    Check out A Brief History of the Universe at Simon & Schuster (Australia)


    sarahalammalik.com


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    29 mins
  • #91 What’s next for the Artemis program? Artemis 2 was incredible, but let’s take a look at what Artemis 3 & 4 will achieve in the next couple of years. (It’s amazing!)

    #91 What’s next for the Artemis program? Artemis 2 was incredible, but let’s take a look at what Artemis 3 & 4 will achieve in the next couple of years. (It’s amazing!)
    Apr 30 2026

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    Artemis 2 was was a breathtaking moment for us all. We were mesmerised by the four astronauts and the images they sent back to Earth. But so much lies ahead, and that’s the really exciting part.

    Artemis 3 will orbit the Earth and try out some of the equipment and manoeuvres that we just can’t test on Earth.

    Artemis 4 will be truly amazing. That’s the mission that’s going to take people back to the surface of the Moon for the first time since 1972.

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    7 mins
  • #90 An Australian backyard astronomer helped NASA find 100 planets! Astronomy award winner Chris Stockdale used his home observatory in Churchill, Victoria to track distant stars and find the planets in their orbit. What a chat.

    #90 An Australian backyard astronomer helped NASA find 100 planets! Astronomy award winner Chris Stockdale used his home observatory in Churchill, Victoria to track distant stars and find the planets in their orbit. What a chat.
    Apr 21 2026

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    Chris Stockdale is an award winning astronomer in the Gippsland area of Australia. His contribution to NASA's exoplanet research earned him the Berenice and Arthur Page Medal from the Astronomical Society of Australia. And he's an amateur.

    Chris uses an observatory in his own backyard to monitor candidate stars from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and studies their brightness over time. If the light dims by as little as half a percent, he's found another exoplanet, a planet that orbits a star in another part of the galaxy.

    His exoplanet data also helps guide the James Webb Space Telescope, 1.5million km away in solar orbit. Incredible!

    We had a chat with him about his observatory, NASA's TESS program, and some of the most fascinating planets in the solar system
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    24 mins
  • #89 Rogue planets! It's possible that most planets in our galaxy don't orbit a star, like we do with our sun. Rogue planets float through interstellar space in the cold darkness. How do they form? And how do we find a planet at interstellar distances?

    #89 Rogue planets! It's possible that most planets in our galaxy don't orbit a star, like we do with our sun. Rogue planets float through interstellar space in the cold darkness. How do they form? And how do we find a planet at interstellar distances?
    Mar 31 2026

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    We instinctively think of planets as rocky or gaseous bodies orbiting a star like our sun, with sunrise, sunset, heating and maybe even seasons. But what if a planet didn't orbit a light source? What if it just floated through space vaguely orbiting the centre of the galaxy, but tugged this way and that way by nearby stars and stellar systems. These are rogue planets. No sunrise, no sunset, no heat from an outside source. Just starlight and blackness as it wandered aimlessly through lonely interstellar space. And they just might be the most common type of planet in our galaxy.

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    11 mins
  • #88 Is the Universe Infinite? It’s almost an instinctive question, but maybe it’s unknowable.

    #88 Is the Universe Infinite? It’s almost an instinctive question, but maybe it’s unknowable.
    Feb 28 2026

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    Most people have looked to the skies and wondered if the universe has a boundary, or maybe it goes on for ever. The universe might be finite, with and end somewhere. Or, it might be infinite, with an infinite amount of space and matter. Both of thos throw up some mind bending questions, and maybe even real life duplicates of ourselves. Problem is, we would never be able to observe them, or even test for their presence, or even know if they exist. So does it matter?


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    12 mins
  • #87 The next crewed Moon mission is ready for launch. Let’s preview the historic Artemis II flight, sending humans to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.

    #87 The next crewed Moon mission is ready for launch. Let’s preview the historic Artemis II flight, sending humans to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.
    Jan 31 2026

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    The launch window for Artemis II opens on 6 February 2026. Humans will fly a test mission, swinging around the far side of the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. There won’t be a landing, but just like Apollo 8 tested systems in the lunar vicinity before Apollo 11, Artemis II will test the modern systems under the same conditions the landing missions. There will be a crew of 4 including the first person of colour, the first woman and the first non American to fly beyond low Earth orbit. It really is a historic flight in so many ways.


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    8 mins
  • #86 We all love the Moon, but it hasn’t always been there. Where did it come from, and when did that happen?

    #86 We all love the Moon, but it hasn’t always been there. Where did it come from, and when did that happen?
    Dec 31 2025

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    The Moon has a history longer than any of the features on Earth, but it isn’t as old as Earth. The Giant Impact hypothesis says that a Mars sized protoplanet collided with earth Billions of years ago and threw out enough of earth’s mantle to make the Moon. It’s an incredible story, and it might just have been the luckiest thing that ever happened for us. Without the Moon, life as we know it might never have existed.


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    10 mins