4 Aug 2010 at 1:25pm This is the washing procedure for the primary mirror, as it is done in place (without removing it from the telescope).
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20 Jun 2010 at 5:00pm Saturn is best known for its rings. This huge and beautiful ring system is easy to spot in even the smallest backyard telescope, so you can imagine they were a surprise when Galileo first noticed them. But astronomers have gone on to find rings around the other gas giant worlds in the Solar System ? the differences are surprising.
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13 Jun 2010 at 5:00pm In 2006, the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto out of the planet club. But they also started up a whole new dwarf planet club, with Pluto, Eris and the asteroid Ceres as charter members. Let?s find out what it takes to be a dwarf planet, and discuss the current membership.
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6 Jun 2010 at 5:00pm We talk a lot about telescopes here on Astronomy Cast, but you really don't need any special equipment to appreciate what the night sky has to offer. Just head outside with some sky charts, maybe a planisphere, some friends and hot chocolate, and you're good to go. Let's talk about what kinds of things you can see with just your eyes.
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30 May 2010 at 5:00pm The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is the third of NASA's Great Observatories, sent into space aboard the space shuttle to view the Universe in high energy X-ray radiation. This is the territory of supernovae, supermassive black holes and neutron stars; some of the most extreme places in the Universe.
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23 May 2010 at 5:00pm The first half of the 20th Century was a productive time for astronomy, with theorists working out much of the science that we take for granted today. One of these astronomy stars was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who determined the maximum mass of a white dwarf star.
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16 May 2010 at 5:00pm Last week we studied Kepler the man, and this week we take a look at Kepler, the mission. Launched in March, 2009, this is a spacecraft designed to search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Let's take a look at the history this mission, the launch and the science gathered so far.
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9 May 2010 at 5:00pm Nicolaus Copernicus changed our understanding of the Universe when he rearranged the Solar System to put the Sun at the center, with the Earth becoming just another of the planets orbiting it. But the movement of the planets didn't really match the theory; not until Johannes Kepler came along with his ellipses, and everything finally worked.
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2 May 2010 at 5:00pm We spent 5 episodes telling the story of astronomy so far, how we got from the work of the Babylonians to the modern discoveries made in the last decade. But now we want to look forward, studying the current space missions and experiments to uncover the mysteries that astronomers hope to solve.
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25 Apr 2010 at 5:00pm Many of the modern ideas in astronomy happened in just the 20th century: dark matter, the Big Bang, inflation, quasars, black holes. So many discoveries in one important century.
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