Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the Supermassive podcast where we tackle more of your questions.

This time we're recording in person at the UK's National Astronomy Meeting, 2023 in Cardiff.

Woo!

I am astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smethers and with me is the deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr Robert Massey.

Robert, this lovely to actually physically see you.

It's amazing, isn't it?

I'm so, you know, I'm sitting there completely exhausted at preparing for this conference, but I get here and it's great because there are hundreds of people milling around all talking about astronomy and fusing about it. You know, people like Becky, obviously, but lots and lots of others as well. So it's really great. I mean, we have maybe, I think we had to close it because there were too many people coming. So we had to close it to in person registration. So we got another couple hundred online, maybe 800 people, which is a record for us.

It's the one we run in our own. That explains. It's brilliant. Lovely atmosphere. That explains why I've already met like three people I haven't seen in five years in the space of half an hour because there's just so many of us here this year. It's fab. Izzy, however, can't be with us. She's fine, but she just couldn't make it to Cardiff. So instead,

our editor, Richard Hollingham, will be putting your questions to us. Richard, you are no longer the disembodied voice. No, I'm a real person. I do really exist. Yeah, is he apologises? She's

still stuck in the time vortex from last month's podcast. Now, our June 2023 edition was about the history of

astronomy. So let's start with this question from Sarah. And I like this particularly because

she says such nice things. This is probably one for both of you, I would say. Hello, says Sarah.

I'm going to ask you a question, but first, I just want to say how much

I adore the podcast. She shouts, adore. Back in 2009, I got a D in my A-level maths and gave up all

sciencey things because I thought it just wasn't for a girl like me. But over the past couple of years,

I've listened religiously to the

Supermassive podcast and read both of Becky's books. Oh, thanks, Sarah. Nowadays, I'm a writer-editor

in my early 30s, but I spend quite a bit of my free time learning about physics and maths,

something I thought I'd never do. And the Supermassive podcast has played a big part in that.

Probably because I identify with loving space and Taylor Swift. This is like your perfect listener.

I was like, Sarah, where have you popped out of the ground from my name? Anyway, my question regarding

history of astronomy is that I've heard lots of different cultures sorted the stars into similar shapes and patterns. Do we know the reason for this? Well, it's a really great question. And if you had to ask the question, are they the same in different cultures? It turns out it's sort of yes and no. So the intriguing thing is, I go into this, I thought, oh, there's all these different groupings, and of course people in different parts of the world have different constellations.

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