Scoping Out the Universe

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Telescopes are like light buckets. The bigger the telescope, the more light collected for astronomers to observe. With recent advances in technology, amateur astronomers can join professionals for a chance to observe stellar nurseries and exoplanets many light-years away. But as our capabilities increase, so do the mysteries, including those around high-energy bursts coming from an otherwise unremarkable part of the universe. Understanding fast radio bursts could turn physics on its head. From the Vera Rubin Telescope in Chile to the backyard instruments of amateur astronomers, we share what new things we might learn about stars, the Earth, exoplanets, and the potential for life on other worlds. Guests: Clare Higgs – Astronomer working with the public outreach team for the Vera Rubin Observatory Franck Marchis – Senior astronomer and director of citizen science at the SETI Institute, chief science officer and co-founder of Unistellar Amanda Cook – Postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and member of the CHIME/FRB Collaboration Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:14.0	Using even a small telescope on a clear night, we can see thousands of stars.
0:19.5	But in addition to admiring the beauty of the Milky Way, we're looking back in time.
0:25.6	So by looking at those stars and looking at the distribution of planets around them, we can
0:30.6	basically see the past and the present and the future of our solar system.
0:35.6	Now, a group of amateur stargazers has helped confirm
0:39.4	some important discoveries. Welcome to Big Picture Science. I'm Seth Shostak. I'm Molly Bentley.
0:45.2	In this episode, we look at the first images coming from the Vera Rubin Observatory,
0:49.7	hear about collaborative research between citizen scientists and professional astronomers,
0:55.1	and examine strange energy bursts originating in a seemingly quiet part of the cosmos.
1:01.2	We are scoping out the universe.
1:07.6	Music Let's talk for a moment about what we're looking at when we peer into the night sky.
1:20.8	If we use a large telescope, we can see light coming from stars and galaxies that are both far away and far back in time.
1:28.3	Some of that light may have taken so long to reach us that the objects from which it comes
1:32.3	may have died long ago.
1:34.3	We see them in their relative youth.
1:36.3	And it's also true that even though light travels fast, there are things far enough away
1:41.3	that we haven't seen them at all yet.
1:43.3	One of the things always to raff your head around with astronomy,
1:46.0	the scale of what that means in distances is, quite frankly, mind-boggling.
1:52.0	Despite the challenges that great distances present to astronomers,
1:56.0	we've become quite adept at interpreting light reaching us from long ago.
	...

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