Oh, Oh, Astronomy cast episode 717 how old is that thing in space?

Welcome to Astronomy Cast our weekly facts

based journey through the Cosmos,

where we help you understand not only what we know,

but how we know what we know.

I'm Fraser Kane, I'm the publisher

of the universe today, with me as always as Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary

Science Institute and the Director of Cosmo Quest. Hey Pamela, how you doing?

I am doing well. It is hayfivery, it is spring.

I do have a cool announcement to share out with all of our audience on the... I should have had these dates in front of me on Friday, May 24th.

I'm going to be doing a meet and greet in Baltimore at a cool old clock restoration place that has now been

turned into a bar and then on May 30th I'm going to do a meet and greet in Orlando at the East Side Market.

All of this information is going up on my social media and Cosmoquests social media and

it will go on Astronomy Cast social social media it's not there yet.

So if you are going to be in either of those places, come say hi. I'll be in Baltimore for the Balticon Convention. So if you want to hear me give

talks, that's your opportunity.

Right on.

How old is that star, that planet, that nebula? Figuring out the ages of astronomical objects is surprisingly challenging.

Fortunately, astronomers have developed a series of techniques they can use to work out the ages of stuff in space.

So this is going to be like a collection of

like techniques overlapping in some cases. It's like the distance ladder. Yeah, yeah. But it's the age ladder.

Which is kind of sort of like a different I don't know totally

...