Our Universe - Delta College Public Radio

Dark spots in the night sky will still give off a faint glow of microwave light. Scientists call this light the Cosmic Microwave Background. Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

Neutrinos are the most abundant particle with mass in the universe. Trillions of them pass through you every second, yet they are harmless since their interaction with other matter is so unlikely. Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

If your city decided to build a nuclear power plant a few miles from your home, how would you feel? Today, we’re going to explore what goes on inside one of these energy production machines to help us answer this question. Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

The Artemis program is NASA’s current multi-mission campaign to return humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972. The Apollo missions were about visiting the Moon, while Artemis is designed for long-term presence on the Moon. Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

We already know about how certain wavelengths of high energy light from a cell phone can disrupt sleep and concentration. But what about the radiation that we can’t see? Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

While Saturn’s rings are best known, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune each have their own rings. They’re just a lot harder to see. Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

How do we know the age of fossils? Today we’ll focus on how radiocarbon dating works and explore a couple other methods for figuring out how long something has been around. Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

We used to think atoms were the smallest unit of matter, but they are made up of smaller particles which are, in turn, made up of even smaller particles. Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

Could this planet beyond our solar system support life? Support this podcast: https://www.deltapublicmedia.org/donate/

We live in the Milky Way galaxy, a member of a collection of around 80 galaxies known as the Local Group.

An asteroid called 2024 YR4 currently has a small chance of hitting Earth in December of 2032. While it’s not massive enough to be considered a planetary threat, it is capable of leveling a city.

How long would it take to fly to Mars? What about Pluto? Let’s look at how long interplanetary travel takes.

Right now, in a nebula not so far from you, new stars are forming. How do stars form, and how close to Earth does star formation happen? In this episode, we’ll take a look at a region of stellar birth that’s about as close to Earth as it gets.

Earth is always moving through the Solar System, and the Solar System is always moving through the galaxy, so just how fast are we moving through space?

The universe is expanding, but how different methods for measuring its expansion give us different results. We call this the Hubble Tension.

How many stars can you see with the naked eye at night? 40 or 50 thousand? Or is it 100,000 stars? Have you ever tried to count? Well, a few astronomers have counted, and the number is pretty… disappointing.

Computers, tablets, and phones have become very fast. The latest multicore processors are capable of an incredible number of calculations each and every second. Yet, we are changing the way we do computing thanks to our ever-increasing knowledge in the field of quantum physics. How does quantum computing work, and are quantum computers faster than classical computers?

Let’s study the mystery of magnetism, exploring the tiny particles and invisible fields that govern this powerful interaction.

Have you ever squinted at a shimmering lake or felt blinded by the reflection off a wet road? That's glare, and it's not just uncomfortable – it can make it difficult to see clearly.

A nova called T Coronae Borealis erupts every 80 years and your only chance to see it is sometime between right now and September of 2024.

Imagine sending massive amounts of data from our spacecraft and receiving high-res video in minutes, not hours or days. It might sound like science fiction, but that's the reality NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications Demo, or DSOC, is aiming for.

The radio spectrum is a fascinating realm of invisible energy carrying everything from your favorite radio station to your Wi-Fi connection and beyond. So how does it work?

We’ve all heard this number before – 9.8 m/s² – But what does that really tell us? And what does it have to do with our weight?

Most of the universe is made of a type of matter that doesn’t interact with light—dark matter. This is a big deal—throughout history we’ve studied and learned about the universe by observing it, yet we can’t directly observe most of the universe!

Physicists have finally detected the elusive oxygen-28 isotope, but the observations are surprising and unexpected.

In 1942, a team working on the Manhattan Project were the first scientists to build a nuclear fission reactor, but it was only the first *man-made* fission reactor on Earth.

How many planets do we know of outside of our own Solar System? Are any of these planets habitable? How do we even find them?

There is a moon in our Solar System that is considered to be the most volcanically active world that we know of. This Moon is one of Jupiter’s 90+ known moons, and is called Io.

On Sept. 1, 1859, the most intense geomagnetic storm on record caused a planetwide disturbance.

Every now and then the news picks up on something interesting going on with the Moon. We often hear about a supermoon, or a harvest Moon, or my personal favorite the Super Blood Wolf Moon! Let’s dive into what all these terms mean.

Earth orbits the Sun in the habitable zone – a place where liquid water can exist in great quantities on our surface. But how would things change if Earth revolved around two suns, and do we know of any real-life planets that orbit more than one star?

Have you ever noticed how the siren of an ambulance sounds higher in pitch when it’s approaching, and lower when it’s driving away from you? That shift in pitch is related to the Doppler effect – an observed change in the length of a wave due to relative motion between the source and the observer.

In September of 2022 NASA conducted the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test demonstrated asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact.

There are four fundamental forces that govern every interaction that happens in the universe and the strong nuclear force is responsible for keeping the nucleus of an atom together.

Never before in Earth’s history have we seen such a dramatic increase in the number of artificial satellites, and potential future debris, in orbit around the planet.

Whether or not you realize it, many things you do in your day-to-day life rely on laser technology. Let’s go through how lasers works and some potential applications.

What determines how long a star like our Sun lives? It’s been around about four and a half billion years, so why hasn’t it burned out yet? Also, what about all the other stars in our galaxy? How long will they live? Let’s take a look at the lifecycle and lifespan of these celestial powerhouses.

The universe is vast, and our place in the universe has been the subject of a large amount of research. Let’s take a close look at Earth’s place in the universe.

How practical is solar energy and putting solar panels up on your roof? What exactly will that accomplish for the environment and for your finances? Today, we’re going to look at the practical aspects of powering your home and community with solar.

Earth has a pretty large range of temperatures, but make no mistake about it, even with the extremes from Death Valley to the South Pole, it’s still mild here compared to any other world.

To take a closer look at the wonderous nature of the night sky, you may have considered getting a telescope at some point. Today, we look at different telescope types and a couple potential ways to see deeper into the universe.

Stars are so ridiculously distant that it’s hard to understand just how far-off they are. But how do we know, really, how far away stars are?

How may planets do we know of outside of our solar system… beyond the influence of our Sun? When a planet is found to orbit a star other than the Sun, it is called an exoplanet. Currently, there are around 5,000 known exoplanets.

While the Hubble Space Telescope continues to operate, NASA, The European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency have collaborated to build, launch, and successfully deploy the most powerful and complex space telescope ever built.