Milky Way's origin story revealed by 250,000 stars
Nature Podcast
podcast@nature.com
4.5 • 893 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2022
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode:
00:45 Accurately ageing stars reveals the Milky Way’s history
To understand when, and how, the Milky Way formed, researchers need to know when its stars were born. This week, a team of astronomers have precisely aged nearly a quarter of a million stars, revealing more about the sequence of events that took place as our galaxy formed.
Research article: Xiang and Rix
News and Views: A stellar clock reveals the assembly history of the Milky Way
09:53 Research Highlights
Archaeologists reveal an ancient lake was actually a ritual pool, and how the Moon’s phase affects some birds' altitude.
Research Highlight: Ancient ‘harbour’ revealed to be part of fertility god’s lavish shrine
Research Highlight: These birds fly high when the full Moon hangs in the sky
12:34 Uncovering Yellowstone’s hot water plumbing
Yellowstone National Park’s iconic geothermal geysers and volcanic landmarks are well studied, but very little was known about the ‘plumbing system’ that feeds these features. Now a team of researchers have mapped the underground hydrothermal system, showing the specific faults and pathways that supply the park.
Research article: Finn et al.
19:27 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, 0why an Australian university has been suspended from winning a research foundation’s fellowships, and the ongoing debate about the cause of ‘COVID toes’.
Nature: Funder bars university from grant programme over white-male award line-up
Nature: Are ‘COVID toes’ actually caused by the coronavirus?
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Transcript
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| 0:55.5 | The Open University, the future is open. |
| 1:02.6 | Nature. |
| 1:06.9 | An experiment. |
| 1:07.8 | We have known yet. |
| 1:08.7 | Why is it so far? |
| 1:10.6 | Like, it sounds so simple. |
| 1:11.9 | They had no idea. |
| 1:13.4 | But now the data's... |
| 1:14.5 | I find this not only refreshing, but at some level, astounding. |
| 1:22.3 | Nature. |
| 1:26.2 | Welcome back to the Nature podcast this week, putting a date on our galaxy's earliest stars. |
| 1:32.5 | And the pipes that feed Old Faithful. I'm Nick Pert-Chi-Chow. And I'm Charmany Bundell. If you're lucky enough to be living somewhere not blighted by light pollution, |
| 1:52.4 | on a clear night you can see a smudge of stars crossing the sky. |
... |
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