The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu

How do we find exoplanets? What is the Milky Way’s “Thick Disk” and what makes it so special? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Harvard astronomer Dr. Victoria DiTomasso, who has discovered an exoplanet system that includes exoplanet HD60079 b, which she sometimes calls “Bubbles.” As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a paper just recently published about the exoplanet Teegarden Star b. Dr. DiTomasso explains the difference in exoplanet research between the observational studies she does and the theoretical modeling represented in the paper. She goes on to discuss recent, exciting theoretical work coming out of UCLA that posits that rather than have our water brought to Earth by comets, we started out as a larger, sub-Neptune planet with a larger hydrogen-helium envelope that we’ve lost over time. This is a pattern seen in some exoplanets, especially given the fact that Super Earth and sub-Neptune planets are the most common types of planets we’ve found, yet we have none in our solar system. After we find out why a planet Chuck studied was called Flagellan, it’s time to find out how Victoria goes looking for exoplanets, and how she found Bubbles – with an assist from a team of citizen scientists. You’ll learn about using the transit method for discovering exoplanets and identifying potential targets with TESS, the Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite and other instruments. Dr. DiTomasso explains the differences between the Milky Way’s younger “Thin Disk,” the older “Thick Disk,” and the oldest of all, the Milky Way’s “Halo.” Victoria studies the chemistry of stars to categorize them and their planets by age. She’s found 4 stars in the thick disk that have “Hot Jupiters” so far, which is more impressive when you learn that we only knew about one before her work. Then it’s time for a question from the audience. Grace asks, “Has the environment ever been as bad as it is now, and can it heal by itself?” Chuck, Allen and Victoria discuss changing environments on exoplanets and on Earth, the difference between long and short term change, and the possibility of recovery. Finally, Chuck asks Victoria what she does outside of astronomy, and we learn all about her new hobby, crocheting. Don’t miss her show and tell, which includes Fred, the cutest crocheted dinosaur to ever appear on The LIUniverse. Victoria also talks about her other hobby, visiting museums – especially art museums. If you’re watching this episode on YouTube, you get to see one of her current favorite exhibits, which consists of semi-abstracted felted wool sculptures of creatures and supernatural beings (yōkai) at the MassArt Museum (MAAM) in Boston. If you’d like to know more about Dr. Victoria DiTomasso, you can find her on LinkedIn . But to see her latest telescope photos that she took during her observing trip to the Canary Islands, check out her Instagram @victoriaditomasso. (We’ve included some of those photos in the episode - just another reason to watch on YouTube!) We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Radial velocity measurements graphic depicting the Radial velocity method to detect exoplanets. – Credit: ESA. Artist concept of the exoplanet Teegarden's Star b, also known as Teegarden b. – Creative Commons/ Bubblesong. Illustration comparing sizes of sub-Neptune exoplanets with Earth and Neptune. – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Dani Player (STScI). Transit method for discovering exoplanets (animation). – Credit: NASA PlanetQuest. All-sky image showing the flat plane of the Milky Way galaxy. – Credit: E. L. Wright/UCLA, The COBE Project, DIRBE, NASA. Illustration of the Milky Way’s halo. – Credit: Halo stars: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, T Donlon et al. 2024; Background Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds: Stefan Payne-Wardenaar. Masako Miki's "Midnight March" features semi-abstracted felted wool sculptures of creatures and supernatural beings (yōkai) at the MassArt Museum (MAAM) in Boston. – Credit: Masako Miki/MAAM Photos from Victoria DiTomasso’s observing trip to the Canary Islands. – Credit: @victoriaditomasso on Instagram.   CHAPTERS 00:00 - Intro and Let’s Meet Dr. Victoria DiTomasso 03:53 - Joyfully Cool Cosmic Thing of the Day: Exoplanet Teegarden Star B 06:20 - Super Earth and Sub-Neptune Exoplanets 12:46 - The Discovery and Naming of Bubbles the Exoplanet 20:32 - The Difference Between Milky Way’s Thin Disk, Thick Disk, and Halo 27:58 - Audience Question: Has the Environment Ever Been this Bad? 36:51 - Crocheted Dinosaurs and Giant Felt Museum Creatures 45:14 - Victoria DiTomasso’s Observing Trip to the Canary Islands   #LIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AstronomyPodcast #VictoriaDiTomasso #Exoplanets

How do stars die? And what happens when they do? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Ashley Villar, who teaches astronomy at Harvard and whose team studies supernovas as they happen. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the release of a set of new Hubble Space Telescope images of the Crab Nebula and the pulsar at its center. Needless to say, it’s a great start to an episode about a team of scientists who actually study the moment a star explodes and the immediate aftermath. Ashley explains how they have been able to use LIGO, the gravitational wave detector, as a sort of early warning detector that twice gave them enough time to set up their instruments to observe the explosion over the next few hours and days as it unfolds. Professor Villar talks about how neutron star mergers and magnetars may be the source of heavy elements like gold and uranium. Or, as Chuck says, “A gold-filled smoke ring puffing off of a highly spinning, highly magnetic neutron star - what a great picture that would be.” Ashley is looking forward to how the Vera Rubin Observatory is going to change the observation of these events. In the process of explaining, Professor Villar answers an audience question from Jamison, who asks how often stars explode in space. It turns out, in our observable universe, there’s a supernova every 2 seconds! We currently detect about 10,000 of these explosions every year - Vera Rubin will be able to detect 10,000 of these explosions in just two weeks. In order to get a handle on this flood of data, Dr. Villar and her team will be looking for these exotic physics needles in a haystack using machine learning models to look for patterns and abnormalities and “go fishing.” Charles asks Ashley for her take on AI and whether we should be afraid of it or not.(And yes, take the opportunity to plug co-host Allen Liu’s forthcoming book, “The Handy Artificial Intelligence Answer Book.”) Allen and Ashley discuss the difference between how a chatbot like ChatGPT operates and how she trains her models. There was a second part to Jamison’s question about exploding stars: Are we in any danger. Dr. Villar explains that when we just look at our Milky Way, supernovas occur only once a century, so we’re not in any danger. Next, Jessie asks, “How do we know the universe is infinite?” Our answer is, we don’t. That doesn’t stop us from discussing it, though, and the conversation takes us to, among other places, the Nazca lines in Peru and the quantum effect that creates iridescent blue butterfly wings. (You can read the scientific research mentioned in the episode here: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8959) We end with a discussion about supernovas, neutrinos, space dust, gamma ray bursts, and what kind of event it would take to interrupt the normal activities of space telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope or the Vera Rubin and hijack them for a disruptive observation. And we get a book recommendation from Ashley, “Katabasis” by R. F. Kuang, about a grad student who journeys to hell to get a letter of reference from her deceased advisor. If you’d like to know more about what Professor Villar is up to, you can check out her lab’s website at http://astrotimelab.com/. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: New Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula. – Credit: William P. Blair et al 2026 ApJ 997 81 Previous Hubble photo of the Crab Nebula. – Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University) The Vera Rubin Observatory. – Credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/P. Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava), CC BY 4.0 Nazca line “The Condor”. – Credit: Photo by Roger Canals Blue butterfly wings in an electron microscope. – Credit: Radislav A. Potyrailo et al. Aragonite plates in a shell. – Credit:  Fabian Heinemann SN 1987A (Bright central “star”). – Credit: European Southern Observatory Artist’s illustration of Gamma Ray Burst jets. – Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva; Image processing: M. Zamani (NSF's NOIRLab) CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Welcome to The LIUniverse 02:14 - Joyfully Cool Cosmic Thing of the Day - Hubble Crab Nebula Images 07:06 - Neutron Star Mergers, Magnetars, and Space Gold 09:18 - How Often Do Stars Explode? 12:35 - Can AI Help Us Find Supernovas? 17:11 - Are We In Danger From Exploding Stars? 19:48 - How Do We Know the Universe Is Infinite? 24:01 - How Does Quantum Physics Impact Color in Butterflies and Supernovas? 31:16 - How to Hijack a Space Telescope

How do planetary systems form? If you wanted to observe them, where would you look and what would you look for? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Luke Keller, professor of Astronomy and Physics at Ithaca College, who together with his team has identified 9 of these early solar systems. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: a recently published paper that determined that at any given time, it is likely that a couple of extrasolar objects like 3I/ATLAS and Oumuamua would be present in our solar system. The real issue is detecting them. For context, Luke, whose science has focused over the years on finding debris from solar systems, explains how protoplanetary discs can eject matter that ends up orbiting that star. He’s especially fond of cosmic dust, “the catalyst for the formation of planets and asteroids and comets…” Then it’s time for a question for Luke from the audience, from Elisa: “I heard that the James Webb Space Telescope sees infrared light. How does that work? Does that mean it couldn't see the Sun?” Luke breaks down the various wavelengths of light and our Sun. He also explains how the JWST works and why it never looks at the sun. It turns out that Luke has built a variety of astronomical instruments including imaging and spectroscopic tools with for large observatories. He’s also used information from instruments like JWST in his studies of the formation of stars and solar systems. Luke explains how his teams search for preplanetary solar systems, what they’re looking for, and where they’re currently looking: associations of stars in the direction of the constellations Taurus, Scorpius and Chamaeleon. All told so far Luke and his team have identified 9 of these early solar systems. He then breaks down the current thinking on how planetary systems form from clouds of dust. He explains some of the processes that involves, along with the types of planets that may form. For our next audience question, Joan asks, “What do you think is the most interesting constellation?” Luke picks two: first, Ursa Major, aka “The Big Dipper,” because he grew up in Alaska and saw it all the time – along with “auroras all the time.” The second constellation he picks is Orion, aka “The Hunter,” because it contains some of the closest star forming regions of our galaxy. Luke unpacks the difference between “watching the sky” and “observing the sky” – and why he encourages the latter to both his students and the general public. And before the episode is over, we get to hear about Luke’s live show, Spacetime, where he collaborates with poet David Gonzalez and guitarist Álvaro Domene in a stage performance that’s equal parts astrophysics, poetry, and music. If you’d like to know more about Luke’s show, Spacetime, check it out at https://spacetimeshow.org/. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Image of a young sun-like star encircled by its planet-forming disk of gas and dust. – Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech edited by Invader Xan. Artist's impression of the interstellar interloper 1I/ʻOumuamua making a visit to our solar system. – Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Olmsted and F. Summers (STScI). Spectral distribution of sunlight. – Credit: Creative Commons / Rhwentworth. The Taurus-Auriga association, also known as the Taurus-Auriga molecular clouds, is a stellar association located around 140 parsecs (420 ly) from Earth in the constellation of Taurus. It is the nearest large star formation region to Earth. – Credit: ESA/Herschel/NASA/JPL-Caltech; acknowledgement: R. Hurt (JPL-Caltech) The constellation Taurus as seen by the naked eye. The constellation lines have been added for clarity. – Credit: Creative Commons/ Till Credner - Own work, A Visual Guide to the Constellations. Artist’s impression of a young star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk in which planets are forming. – Credit: European Southern Observatory. Illustration comparing the sizes of various exoplanets with Earth, Mercury and the Moon. – Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The constellation Ursa Major as it can be seen by the unaided eye.– Credit: Creative Commons / Till Credner - Own work: AlltheSky.com. Composite image comparing infrared and visible views of the famous Orion nebula and its surrounding cloud, an industrious star-making region located near the hunter constellation's sword. The picture at left was taken with the Infrared Array Camera on board NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and the picture at right is from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, headquartered in Tucson, Ariz. – Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Toledo/NOAO. Image showing Betelgeuse (top left) and the dense nebulae of the Orion molecular cloud complex. – Credit: Creative Commons / Rogelio Bernal Andreo

How can a helicopter fly in space? How does LIGO detect gravitational waves? How do quantum electronic devices like Josephson junctions work? Could AI turn evil and destroy humanity? What about those grabby aliens? In this episode of Chuck GPT, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu answer audience questions about the technology of astronomy, astrophysics, and the future. To read those questions, we welcome back our executive producer Leslie Mullen, community director Stacey Severn, and intern Eleanor Adams. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the ESA’s new Deep Space Antenna in Australia. This fourth antenna in ESA’s network will be used to manage communications for their slate of upcoming missions. For our first audience question, Anna asks, “How is it possible that a helicopter can work in space? I heard that NASA launched a helicopter to Mars and is going to send one to Saturn in a few years.” Leslie, who worked at JPL, talks about the Perseverance Rover and its helicopter, Ingenuity. She explains that they’re not actually flying in space, but in the atmospheres of a planet or a moon. Even so, the thin atmosphere of Mars (less than 1% of Earth’s) created unique problems that don’t exist on Earth. Leslie got to interview the inventor of Ingenuity, Bob Balaram, in her JPL podcast episode, “Flying with Ingenuity.” She describes how JPL tested the helicopter here on Earth, and what it was like the moment Ingenuity actually took flight. The team discusses Dragonfly, the helicopter that will be flying on Saturn’s moon Titan, and how Titan’s thick methane atmosphere creates an entirely different set of engineering problems than Ingenuity faced on Mars. Stacey reads our next question, from Joe: “Gravitational wave detectors like LIGO are said to detect changes in the length of space by less than the width of a proton. But how is that possible, if all the atoms that make up LIGO are so much bigger than protons?” Chuck explains interferometry (the I in LIGO!) and Allen offers a great analogy using a ruler. Eleanor reads a question from TikTok, which Esmeregildo asked in response to our video about Josephson Junctions and the Nobel Prize in Physics: “What is the purpose of the insulating barrier?” Chuck’s answer takes us down a quantum tunneling rabbit hole, filled with superconductors, insulators, and quantum computing. Diane asks: “Professor, you say that astronomers have used AI for a long time so you're not afraid of AI. But AI isn't being used by just scientists anymore, and corporations are using AI to make money now rather than to make scientific advances. So should we be afraid of AI today? Could AI turn evil soon and destroy humanity?” Allen, co-author of a soon-to-be published book about AI, offers a mostly hopeful answer, although Chuck compares AI to nuclear power and Leslie brings up real world problems AI is already creating. Our last question from our audience is, “Hi Dr. Liu, I heard you talking about grabby aliens recently. Could you explain the concept a little more? For example, would humans be grabby aliens if we explore space and colonize Mars and we find there's life there? Would we have to destroy grabby aliens right away if we find them, or would we have to hide from them?” It’s the perfect way to end this edition of Chuck GPT! We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Image Credits: ESA’s first and fourth Deep Space Antennas. Credit: European Space Agency Map showing locations of ESA tracking (Estrack) stations as of 2017. Credit: European Space Agency Video of Perseverance landing on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Ingenuity on the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Anatomy of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Ingenuity’s Test Chamber. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Ingenuity in the Test Chamber. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Video of Ingenuity altimeter data and the first flight as seen from Perseverance. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Dragonfly space probe concept art. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins-APL Titan’s thick methane atmosphere gives it a fuzzy yellow look. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Tuned Mass Damper used to stabilize buildings during earthquakes. Credit: CC Josephson Junction. Credit: Public Domain Josephson junction array chip developed by the National Institute of Standards & Technology. Credit: Public Domain CHAPTERS 03:08 - Joyfully Cool Cosmic Thing of the Day –New ESA Deep Space Antenna 07:36 - How Can the Ingenuity Helicopter Fly on Mars? 16:26 - How Can the Dragonfly Helicopter Fly on Saturn’s Moon Titan? 19:44 - How does LIGO detect gravitational waves? 26:01 - Josephson Junctions, Quantum Tunneling, and Superconductors Explained 36:00 - Could AI Turn Evil Soon and Destroy Humanity? 44:48 - Would Humans Be Grabby Aliens if We Explore Space and Colonize Mars?   #LIUniverse #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #LIGO #ArtificialIntelligence

Is universal expansion slowing? What is the Bubble Universe Theory? Will we control AI, or will AI control us? In this special Chuck GPT episode of The LIUniverse, we answer questions from the Annual Global Summit in Erie, Pennsylvania where Dr. Charles Liu gave a talk on “2050 - The Future of Humanity.” To help ask those questions, Chuck and co-host Allen Liu welcome Stacey Severn, our Social Media Manager/Community Director; and physics student Eleanor Adams, our first intern. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, suggested by Stacey: the recent discovery of one of the most distant and earliest known galaxies observed, existing just 570 million years after the Big Bang. It’s got a supermassive black hole 20 times the mass of ours and was found via gravitational lensing by the Canadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS) using the James Webb Space Telescope. Then it’s time for the main event. Eleanor reads the first Erie audience question from William W., age 13, who asks, “In Bubble Universe Theory, is the force splitting universes apart the same force causing the expansion of the universe, also known as dark energy?” Chuck explains Bubble Universe Theory, aka “Eternal Inflation,” and then how dark energy is different than the forces that cause expansion. Next question: “Have you seen the latest research from South Korea stating universal expansion is actually slowing, thus reducing greatly the amount of dark matter? If it's correct, what are the implications?” Chuck explains the current state of research around the issue, starting with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey at the Kitt Peak National Observatory telescope. DESI gave indications of a change in the amount of dark energy being produced; this new study raises questions about how we measure the expansion of the universe using type 1a Supernova. Next question: “What percentage of our global warming does science attribute to man-created activities vs. a natural progression? Even though the world is getting warmer, wouldn’t it be worse if the temperature were getting colder?” Chuck looks at the natural progression of the increase of carbon dioxide and compares it with the larger and more rapid increase in CO2 levels since the Industrial Revolution began. As to whether warming or cooling is better, Allen says that while it’s a question of magnitude, neither extreme is desirable. Mark M’s question is next: “Will we achieve control or effective management of AI, or will it control, or even define, our daily lives? Allen, whose book on AI is coming out soon, says the answer is far from clear cut. He explains that while there are many efforts to ensure we maintain control, there’s no guarantee that we’ll succeed. Next question from Erie: “How do we prepare our young children to be successful in the Age of AI?” Eleanor talks about how, like social media, you can’t stop or avoid AI, but also, like social media, parents can give their children the tools to help them use it. Next: “Many advanced countries have declining populations, while third world countries are gaining population. How do we get tomorrow’s scientific leaders from third world education systems?” Chuck says the best way to ensure an ongoing stream of scientific leaders is for advanced countries to continue to welcome immigrants, while Allen points out it is also important to improve the educational systems and opportunities for research in those third world countries. Stacey reminds us about the impact the internet is having on this issue. With time running out, we squeeze in one last question from Erie: “How can the average person influence science policy in a positive direction?” Our consensus answer: people need to participate, speak out, and support others when they do, too. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse. Please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Location of CANUCS-LRD-z8.6. – Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Rihtaršič (University of Ljubljana, FMF), R. Tripodi (University of Ljubljana, FMF) Type 1a Supernova. Shown: G299.2-2.9, a type 1a supernova remnant in the Milky Way.  – Credit: NASA/CXC/U.Texas Concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 40,000 years, from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present day. – Creative Commons / Renerpho Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome – Call Me Chuck 01:02 - Joyfully Cool Cosmic Thing of the Day – CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 08:25 - Chuck Answers Questions from Annual Global Summit, Erie, PA 09:58 - Bubble Universe Theory and Dark Energy 14:17 - Is Universal Expansion Is Slowing? 19:30 - Global Warming 27:28 - Will We Control AI or It Will Control Us? 30:14 – How Can We Prepare Our Children To Succeed in the Age of AI? 36:28 - Where Will Future Scientific Leaders Come From? 42:09 - How Can Individuals Influence Science Policy?

How do supermassive black holes actually form in the early universe? Is the Cosmological Constant not so constant after all? And what would be on the astrophysical menu at a Cosmic Brunch? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astrophysicist Thresa Kelly, who is a second year grad student working on her PhD at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, one of the recent studies made using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, aka DESI, located at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. According to the DESI team’s research, there is a about a 95% chance that the dark energy levels in the universe have changed over cosmic time. This “Dynamical Dark Energy model” offers the first, tiny hint that the Cosmological Constant may not be so constant after all. Thresa, who is using DESI and other sources for her work putting together a catalog of AGNs, or active galactic nuclei – the supermassive black holes found at the center of galaxies, tells us about what DESI is trying to do and why it’s so important. The end goal of Thresa’s project is to estimate the black hole masses of AGNs, and she’s gotten spectra data on over 2,000 objects that have been observed using DESI. Thresa can’t get into the details of her catalog, which hasn’t been published yet and includes about 14,000 objects, but Allen and Chuck join her in a discussion of what’s going on with black hole masses, accretion discs, Eddington Luminosity, black hole growth, galactic evolution, and more. Our first audience question comes from Kathryn, who asks, “When we look through a standard telescope looking at "past" versions of planets/stars/etc., how far back in the past are we observing?” Thresa explains how we use red shift to measure how long light from a galaxy takes to reach us to help us determine how far in the past the objects are. For instance, an AGN with a red shift of 7 can reach back to the period of “Cosmic Dawn” or, as Thresa puts it, “Cosmic Brunch” taking place 12 billion years ago. Thresa talks about her experience in an REU, or “Research Experiences for Undergraduates,” funded by the NSF, which enabled her to spend time studying at the University of Hawaii and cemented her desire to go to grad school, get a PhD, and become a “real scientist.” She explains how each step of her career brought her from Kansas to where she is today. Our next audience question comes from Walter: “If a quasar's jets are aimed directly away from Earth, would we then not be able to see the supermassive black hole?” Thresa says that depends on how you define “seeing” a black hole, and that even without visible light, you can discern black holes by looking at other wavelengths like x-rays and ultraviolet rays which are generated by different component areas of the black hole like the corona, accretion disk, or the torus. Chuck notices a shelf of games behind Thresa and asks her about them. She pulls out Stardew Valley, a farming simulator she plays with her fiancé and her fellow grad students. It’s not long until Chuck, Allen and Thresa are geeking out about Dungeons and Dragons. Finally, Chuck asks Thresa to speculate on a specific scientific discovery that may come out of her PhD thesis work. Her answer: figuring out how supermassive black holes actually form in the early universe. If you’d like to know more about Thresa Kelly, you can find her on LinkedIn. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: DESI - The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. – Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld DESI data map of celestial objects from Earth to billions of light years away.. – Credit: Claire Lamman/DESI collaboration. Montage of dwarf active galactic nuclei candidates. – Credit: DESI collaboration. Map of galaxies based on redshift data. – Credit: Creative Commons / M. Blanton and Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Quasar PKS 1127-145, a luminous source of X-rays and visible light. – Credit: NASA/CXC/A.Siemiginowska(CfA)/J.Bechtold(U.Arizona). Model of AGN. – Credit: Creative Commons.

What were our joyfully cool cosmic things of 2025? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome three members of The LIUniverse production team: Jon Barnes, our Editor and self-proclaimed “#1 LIUniverse Fan,” Stacey Severn, our Social Media Manager/Community Director, and physics student Eleanor Adams, the show’s first intern. Unlike nearly every episode so far, this time, rather than limit ourselves to one joyfully cool cosmic thing, the team is going to each share their individual joyfully cool cosmic things of 2025. Chuck’s saving his for later, so instead, we’re just going to jump right into everyone’s favorite “cosmic thing of the year”, starting with our co-host, Allen Liu. Allen picks the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Allen and Chuck, who is also on the Rubin’s Science Advisory Committee and has been involved in the development of the Observatory for over a quarter century, discuss how truly amazing the images are in terms of detail and resolution. Allen shares that he’s most excited to see images of transients like asteroids and gravitational lensing, since the Rubin will be taking images of the same areas twice with a gap of one week. Chuck talks about the citizen science aspect of the Rubin and encourages each of you in our audience to try and discover something on your own. We hear about some of Allen’s published papers, including one on using VR for scientific research. The group talks about VR (including Beat Saber) and Jon shares his experience using VR technology to record his senior project at the Harold Ramis Film School at Second City, and the difficulty he had with the audio. For Eleanor, this year’s cool cosmic thing was highly personal: her studies in modern physics this year, learning more than ever about what we don’t know, like the gap between classical and quantum physics! As she puts it, “the matter-antimatter asymmetry…broke my mind.” She also shares a little inspiration from Cal Sagan’s Cosmos. Stacey’s cosmically cool thing of the year is relatively current: Comet C/2025 K1 ATLAS, which recently broke into 3 parts. The team compares this with the breakup of all breakups: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which broke up in 1994 on its way to a collision with Jupiter. Jon’s joyfully cool cosmic year end thingamabob is about the new science fiction show Pluribus created by Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), and he’s got a question for Chuck. How long would it take a signal like the one in Pluribus to travel from a star 600 light years away, like Betelgeuse or Antares? Without dropping any spoilers, the team ponders why an alien race would have reached out to Earth based on what they might have seen around the time of Charlemagne, and whether being subsumed in a hive mind would be good or bad. This is a bittersweet episode, though, because we officially bid farewell to the show’s long time editor, Jon Barnes, who is moving on to a gig as a full-time content creator for a meal prep company that will involve lots of Jon cooking and filming himself while he does. Finally, it’s time to wrap up the episode with Chuck’s Picture of the Year, which is related to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, but not in a way you might expect. It’s a photo of Vera Rubin when she was 10 years old. As Chuck puts it, “Who would have known that 25 years later, she would change our understanding of the cosmos itself?” Happy New Year from The LIUniverse crew! If you’d like to know more about what Jon’s up to post-LIUniverse, you can check out his TikTok @iheartjonbarnes. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images and Music Used in this Episode: Galaxies imaged by the Vera Rubin Observatory. – Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Artist illustration of gravitational lensing. – Credit: Public Domain Comet C/2025 K1 ATLAS. – Credit: Creative Commons / Dimitrios Katevainis Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. – Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Weaver and E. Smith (STScI) Impacts on Jupiter from the broken-up comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. – Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team and NASA Image collage of Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. – Credit: ESO, P.Kervella, Digitized Sky Survey 2 and A. Fujii Image of astronomer Vera Rubin, age 10. – Credit: Vera Rubin family, used with permission Music Used In This Episode: Goin' Home, derived from Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, performed by the United States Air Force Band. – Credit: Public Domain. #LIUniverse #AstronomyPodcast #CometC2025K1ATLAS #CometShoemakerLevy9 #VeraRubin

Are Coronal Mass Ejections dangerous to life on Earth? When are we finally going to plunge through the sulfuric acid clouds to measure the atmosphere of Venus. And what’s up with 'Oumuamua and 3I/Atlas? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astrobiologist Dr. David Grinspoon, aka Dr. FunkySpoon. As always, we start with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the arrival at Earth of two consecutive Coronal Mass Ejections on Nov. 11, 2025, creating an amazing display of Northern and Sothern Lights. In the US, aurora were seen as far south as Texas and even Central America, and yet Chuck, Alan and David were all frustrated by clouds in their own attempts to see them! Luckily, they’ve each already seen auroras with their own eyes, a viewing event David likens to seeing a total solar eclipse. David discusses how solar flares can impact human technology, but that while solar flares from other stars could be dangerous for life on their planets, at this point in our sun’s lifetime, they are unlikely to wipe out life on Earth. Chuck shares aurora images that were taken by our previous guest, astrophotographer Elliot Severn. For our audience questions this week, we’re answering questions given to Chuck while he was presenting at an event in Erie, PA. The first question Chuck asks David is, “When we have interstellar visitors like 'Oumuamua and 3I/Atlas, [1] why are they moving so fast in our space? They seem to defy gravity [2] How can they know what 3I/atlas is made of but not the density or materials?” David explains why the extreme speed at which they are moving is actually proof that they are interstellar objects and not something else. He also discusses how we use spectroscopy to determine what they’re made of the same way we determine what distant stars and exoplanets are made of. Our next question from Erie, PA is, “Is there a mathematical probability or formula to predict the likelihood of life existing int he universe? In other words, has someone developed a model to predict how many unique things need to happen for life to evolve?” David explains the Drake Equation, a series of questions that help astrobiologists assess the probability of intelligent life in the galaxy. Our last question from Erie is, “If humans find life on a different planet, would we actually understand how to coexist with the information, or will world leaders hide the truth from us?” David points out – as someone who has helped devise astrobiology policy – that the response depends in part on the specifics of the discovery, like how far away that life is. But would the government be able to hide it? David says that the scientists who discover it would be shouting it from the rooftops: “How long would it take to type it and hit send?” And as Chuck points out, the very act of the government trying to censor it would turbocharge the speed at which scientists would get the news out. The real problem, David says, is the potential of each discovery being overhyped by journalists, leading to public burnout. He brings up two examples of overhype: the discovery of possible biosignatures in iron nodules on the Martian rock Cheyava Falls in 2024 by the Perseverance Rover, and the presence of dimethyl sulphide in the atmospheric composition of exoplanet K2-18 b. Next, we turn to David’s “second favorite planet,” Venus, which he has studied and written about extensively. David shows us the first book he ever wrote, “Venus Revealed” and talks about upcoming missions to Venus: two from the US, DAVINCI and VERITAS; a European Space Agency mission named EnVision; a Venus Orbiter Mission by India’s ISRO, and a private Rocket Lab mission to Venus. David, who is involved with the DAVINCI mission, tells us about the plan to plunge through the sulfuric acid clouds to measure the Venusian atmosphere and surface with modern instruments for the first time. We end with a discussion of the anti-science cycle we’re going through, and David shares why he thinks this moment is so unusual and scary, but also why there is reason for hope. Chuck talks about why scientists take the long perspective, and David reminds us of the huge worldwide support for the exploration of space. If you’d like to know more about David, you can check out his YouTube channel @DrFunkySpoon, or @DrFunkySpoon on Blue Sky and Instagram. We hope you enjoy this episode, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Image Credits: Images of aurora over Connecticut. Credit: Elliot Severn Coronal Mass Ejection. Credit: NASA Orbit of ‘Oumuamua. Credit: CC Orbit of 3I ATLAS. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Radar map of Venus made by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS Nodules on Mars rock Cheyava Falls. Credit: NASA James Webb Space Telescope – Atmospheric composition of exoplanet K2-18 b. Credit: NASA, CSA, ESA, J. Olmstead, N. Madhusudhan Venus viewed from orbit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #LIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #DavidGrinspoon #DrFunkySpoon #Oumuamua #3IAtlas #InterstellarObjects #CoronalMassEjections #aurora #solarflares #DAVINCI #VERITAS #EnVision #antiscience #spaceexploration

Can an ultra-compact dwarf galaxy have a supermassive black hole at its center? Are there galaxies with supermassive black holes that are offset from their galactic centers? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome “the other” Dr. Matt Taylor, an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Calgary, who joins us from the control room of the largest astronomical telescope in Canada, at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory (RAO) in Alberta, Canada. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, which starts with the discovery of a supermassive black hole in the middle of an ultra-compact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1 located in the Virgo galaxy cluster. That led to the discovery of more 4 UCDs in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster and 1 in the Fornax galaxy clusters, but then the limits of technology prevented the discovery of any additional UCDs. But now, by using the James Webb Space Telescope, Matt and his fellow researchers (including Dr. Vivienne Baldassare, our former guest for Black Holes and Space Junk with Vivienne Baldassare) have just published a paper about their discovery that in the smallest, lowest mass UCD yet found, they found a roughly 2,000,000 solar mass black hole. Basically, that’s a tiny galaxy to hold a supermassive black hole, and Matt is sure there are many more of these waiting to be discovered. After that Matt tells us about his atypical journey to astronomy, including his first career – as a professional chef. When cooking stopped being fun, Matt enrolled at a local community college and “moved from gastronomy to astronomy” as Allen puts it. Our first audience question comes from our Patreon Patron Taylor L, who asks, “Is it possible dark energy and the acceleration of the universe's expansion could be explained by the idea that the black hole we live in is constantly devouring matter from outside?” Matt passes on determining whether or not we live inside a black hole. But, he explains that while at the galactic level expansion is happening on a really large scale, at a smaller scale like our local group of galaxies (Milky Way, Andromeda, and local dwarf galaxies), our mutual gravitation counteracts that expansion. Matt goes on to discuss how accretion disks are what makes it possible to “see” a black hole, but that ultra-compact dwarf galaxies don’t have gas and dust forming accretion disks. Instead, they use stellar velocities to find black holes in UCDs. Next up, Matt tells us about some of the research he’s doing into archetypal compact elliptical (cE) galaxies, which have the mass of a giant galaxy put into the volume of a dwarf galaxy, and how black holes appear in these systems. And Matt dangles another upcoming paper about galaxies with supermassive black holes that are offset from their galactic centers. For our next audience question, Pshemo asks: “We often say gravity is weak compared to other forces. But in the right regimes, like near black holes and neutron stars, or on large cosmic scales, it dominates every other interaction. Should we stop calling gravity a weak force?” It’s a thought-provoking question with an even better answer, so please watch or listen to the episode to hear it yourself from Matt. If you’d like to know more about Matt, you can check out his website, mataylor5128.github.io. (The 5128 comes from the famous and very cool galaxy NGC 5128, aka Centauras A) We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.   Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Virgo and Fornax galaxy clusters. – Credit: Creative Commons / Atlas of the Universe/ Richard Powell Southern portion of the Virgo Cluster as imaged by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in very high resolution, taken on June 5, 2025. – Credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA Ultra-compact galaxy M60-UCD1. – Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, and J. Strader (Michigan State University) Diagram of a black hole accretion disk. – Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman Hubble image of Messier 32, an archetypal compact elliptical (cE) galaxy. – Credit: NASA/ESA Centaurus A (NGC 5128) – Credit: ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)   #LIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #MattTaylor #UltraCompactDwarfGalaxy #UDC #SupermassiveBlackHole #BlackHole #AccretionDisk #M60UCD1 #ArchetypalCompactEllipticalGalaxy #UltraCompactGalaxy  

How do very small galaxies form? What’s going on inside them? And what happens when black holes collide? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astrophysicist and “Galaxy Detective” Dr. Charlotte Olsen from New York City College of Technology – and you can call her Chuck, too! As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the latest announcement from LIGO about the detection of a gravitational wave event in 2023 from the loudest collision we’ve heard so far. In this case, the wave was caused by the collision of two black holes that created one new black hole about 60x the mass of our Sun and released an entire sun’s worth of energy. Charlotte explains why there are many black hole collisions going on, and how LIGO detections are now being combined with data from other gravitational wave detectors to give us more precise measurements. You’ll also hear about Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and their negative impact on Charlotte’s research. Charlotte talks about what she looks for in her research, and why it all comes down to “wanting to see more photons” to better validate her modeling. Our first question from the audience comes from Joe, who asks, “What does it mean for the Milky Way to have a bar? Why does it have a bar? And how can such a long bar form?” It turns out that many spiral galaxies like ours have bars, and Charlotte explains a little about bar structure. She brings up the current debate about the stability of these bars, and points out that they actually come in slightly different configurations and that star formation at the ends of the bar has an impact, too. Unlike previous thinking, these bars can develop earlier in galactic evolution and can last a very long time. In other words, as Charlotte puts it, “The bar is always open.” Next, Chuck asks what got Charlotte into astronomy. She describes the inspiration she drew from both the dark skies of Northern California, where she grew up, and from the science fiction she read. She shares a few of her “million and one jobs” she did, including her stint as a bassist in a band. That tees up our next audience question, from Shivani, who asks, “How do you mix music and science? I can't decide if I want to be a scientist or a musician someday – can I be both?” Yes, Charlotte says, and explains why doing both might actually be better. She talks about the value of music, and passion, and hobbies that are more than just hobbies, as well as some of the live music she’s been seeing in Brooklyn, Long Island and Queens. Finally, Chuck asks Charlotte about the current passion project she’s working on. She tells us how she’s looking at a handful of galaxies in multiple wavelengths and comparing them to each other to figure out “what’s going on under the hood.” If you’d like to know more about Charlotte, you can connect with her on Bluesky at @charlotteeureka.bsky.social or on her GitHub page charlotteolsen.github.io. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.   Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Visualization of a binary black hole merger consistent with the gravitational-wave event called GW250114. (Note: this is to illustrate the collision of 2 black holes and the subsequent gravity waves generally, it is not specific to the GW230814 event Chuck mentions in the episode) – Credit: H. Pfeiffer, A. Buonanno (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), K. Mitman (Cornell University) Animation of an active galactic nucleus. – Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team. Hubble Space Telescope image barred galaxy NGC 1300. – Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA Data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) used to trace the shape of the Milky Way's spiral arms. – Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #charlotteolsen #blackholes #ligo #gravitationalwave #blackholecollisions #activegalacticnuclei #agns #milkyway #spiralgalaxies #barredgalaxies

How does a star form? How does the universe form? And how can we use every bit of astronomical data to answer those questions? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astrostatistician Sabrina Berger, all the way from Melbourne, Australia, where she’s currently pursuing her PhD. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the new radioastronomy photographs of Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter, taken by ALMA. Sabrina talks about her own low-frequency radio astronomy research looking for hydrogen in the very early reionization period of the universe when the first galaxies were forming. (Be warned: we dive into the difficulties ionization poses for trying to discern these early processes, including a side trip into quantum mechanics, the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen at 21cm depicted on the plaque attached to the Pioneer spacecraft, and even the Cosmic Background Radiation.) You’ll also hear how Sabrina is innovatively using GPS satellites to help calibrate large radioastronomy telescope arrays. For our first student question, Derek asks, “I heard that black holes can form right after the Big Bang, before stars do. How is that possible?” Sabrina describes these primordial black holes, and, although none have been confirmed yet, that there have been a number of papers published recently on the subject. In fact, one paper suggesting that the as-yet-undiscovered “Planet 9” could even be one of these primordial black holes. And then, finally, we get to the subject of astrostatistics, Sabrina’s area of expertise. She explains that it allows you to harness every piece of information that you’re observing in astronomy and to answer questions like “How does a star form?” or “How does the universe form?” You’ll hear about huge data sets, the use of artificial intelligence, field level inferences… and the MCMC, or the Markov chain Monte Carlo used in statistics. (If you don’t know what that is, you’re not alone, and our own resident mathematician Allen helps Sabrina untangle the complexity with a cotton ball analogy that blew Chuck and Sabrina’s collective minds!) For our next student question, Wally asks, “Why is redshift one like nine billion years ago, bur redshift two only two billion years before that, and redshift three only one billion years before that?” As Chuck says, “that’s a little complicated,” just before he, Allen and Sabrina proceed to explain how we measure universal expansion, the passage of time, and the “stretching” of light. Our next conversation is one of the most controversial we’ve ever had and revolves around who Sabrina thinks makes the best espresso, Australia, Italy or a “Third Wave Coffee Shop” like we have here in the US. You’ll hear about why there’s an ISSpresso machine on the ISS – and how the Italian Space Agency invented a way to make an espresso in zero-g! Plus, you’ll hear a little about the work-life balance in Australia and how wonderful astronomy down under is. (Check out our Patreon for the story behind the Australian Aboriginal "Emu-in-the-sky" constellation.) If you’d like to know more about Sabrina, you can find her on Twitter and Blue Sky @sabrinastronomy or check out her research on her website. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: An image of Jupiter's icy moon Callisto, photographed by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in 2001. – Credit: NASA/Galileo Photograph of Jupiter taken in 2019. The four fainter objects are four of its moons (left to right): Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa. – Credit: Creative Commons / Rehman Abubakr ALMA images of Callisto – Credit: Maria Camarca et al 2025 Planet. Sci. J. 6 183. See the ALMA/Callisto paper: “A Multifrequency Global View of Callisto’s Thermal Properties from ALMA”: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ade7ee Timeline of the universe. – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The Pioneer plaques, attached to the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. – Credit: NASA Sedna orbit with solar system (Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto visible) and positions on Jan 1, 2017 – Credit: Creative Commons / Tom Ruen Redshift and universe expansion. As light travels from great distances to Hubble's mirrors, it is stretched to longer and longer red wavelengths, or cosmologically redshifted, as the universe expands. – Credit: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI) The ISSpresso machine on the International Space Station.– Credit: NASA Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti drinking espresso out of the cup on ISS, 2015 – Credit: NASA #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #sabrinaberger #astrostatistician #astrostatistics #redshift #blackholes #primordialblackholes #callisto #alma #planet9 #sedna #universeexpansion #isspresso

Have we discovered life on Mars? What does the center of our galaxy taste like? To find out, and to kick off Season 5 of The LIUniverse, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu have reached out all the way to Tokyo to chat with Dr. Kelly Blumenthal, the Director of the International Astronomical Union Office for Astronomy Outreach. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a rock found in Sapphire Canyon by the Mars Perseverance Rover containing potential biosignatures. Allen explains why this rock is different: iron and sulfur nodules that exhibit indications of layers which, on Earth, could only be formed by bacteria. Kelly points out that there needs to be more investigation before we can say anything for sure. Chuck asks Kelly, who when she was 12 told her dad that she wanted to study galaxy evolution, to describe the research she did at the start of her career. She talks about studying with pioneering astronomer Joshua Barnes in Hawaii during her Masters projects and PhD. For her first project, she studied star formation rates in Jellyfish Galaxies, which are being ram-stripped of their gases and so appear to have tendrils. She ended up looking at the history of merging galaxies through cosmic time using large cosmological simulations. Then it’s time for our first student question of Season 5, from Jeannie, who asks, “Now that we’ve found so many planets outside of our solar system, should Pluto be promoted as a planet again?” (Pluto’s “demotion” nearly 20 years ago was traumatic for some.) According to Kelly, though, the “demotion” was really a reclassification, and at least for the time being, Pluto is going to stay a dwarf planet, a new category of which it was the first of its kind. She contrasts Pluto to the moons of Jupiter and reminds us of the new rules about what’s a planet and what’s not. Kelly brings up Star Trek and therefore gives Chuck permission to geek out over “Devil in the Dark” from the Star Trek: The Original Series, and “Silicon Avatar” from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Kelly talks about bingeing sci-fi in high school including 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the Foundation series, and more recently, The Expanse series, which she’s listened to three times as audio books! Chuck and Kelly discuss communicating about science, and even the role science fiction can play. Kelly talks about the importance of understanding your audience. She uses the example of explaining what nebulas look like through the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to a blind and low-vision audience. Kelly also talks about how you can approach science through poetry, music, dance, theatre and art – even smell. She recalls a talk where someone working with incarcerated kids, who was limited in what props they could bring, made the universe come alive for them using the scent of raspberries, which have a similar chemical signature as the center of our galaxy. For our next audience question, Bridget asks, “So is that comet actually an interstellar spaceship?” Kelly debunks the notion that Comet 3I/ATLAS is anything other than a rock that’s come from outside our solar system and explains why extrasolar asteroids are amazing things. We end with a discussion of the IAU’s upcoming, worldwide “100 Hours of Astronomy” on Oct. 2-5, 2025, including a 24-hour live stream on Oct. 4 from the oldest functioning planetarium in Japan. Watch it live on YouTube via the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach @IAUoutreach here.  You can also visit their website at https://iauoutreach.org/, follow IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach on Facebook and LinkedIn, and on Instagram @oao_iau. If you have any questions, email them at public@oao.iau.org. You can follow Kelly on LinkedIn.  We hope you enjoy the Season 5 premiere of The LIUniverse. Please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Observatory History Museum at NAOJ in Mitaka – Credit: おむこさん志望, CC BY 3.0 “Sapphire Canyon” sample – Credit: NASA Perseverance Rover Iron Bacteria in Scotland – Credit: Roger Griffith Jellyfish Galaxy ESO 137-001 – Credit: NASA/ESA/CXC Jellyfish Galaxy JO201 – Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gullieuszik, CC BY 4.0 New Horizons probe before launch – Credit: NASA Pluto’s “Heart”, Tombaugh Regio – Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute Chandra X-ray Observatory (Illustration) – Credit: NASA/CXC/NGST Interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas – Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist, CC BY 4.0 Artist’s illustration of interstellar asteroid 1I/'Oumuamua – Credit: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI) Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov – Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA) 100 hours of Astronomy! – Credit: IAU, CC BY 4.0 #liuniverse #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #kellyblumenthal #lifeonmars #bacteria #jellyfishgalaxy #pluto #interstellarasteroid #comet3iatlas #iau #officeforastronomyoutreach #startrek #theoriginalseries #thenextgeneration #theexpanse

It’s the end of everything! Welcome back to Part 2 of our season finale featuring Dr. Charles Liu, co-host Allen Liu, and our guest archaeology expert and author, Hannah Liu, MEd. (If you haven’t caught up to Part 1, we highly recommend you do before embarking on the next leg of this journey! Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!) We pick right up where we left off, with the next question from our audience. Daniela asks, “If a black hole hits the Sun, will Earth be destroyed?” Chuck explains a few ways a black hole can mess with our day, including the fact that long before any actual collision took place, the Sun would start shedding material that would destroy us. He compares that unlikely event to the actual example of cosmic destruction we’re watching in NGC 4676 – aka “The Mice” – which are two galaxies swirling together in a death spiral playing out over hundreds of millions of years. Naturally, this leads Chuck to ponder what happens when civilizations fall apart here on Earth, and Hannah brings up the collapse of the Roman Empire. As she explains, “the fall of Rome happened a lot of times, and also, no time.” From 44 BCE and the assassination of Julius Caesar, to the 476 invasion and conquest of Rome by the Germanic tribes denoted by Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to the fact ever since nations have claimed to be the descendants or inheritors of Rome. Chuck points out the influence of Gibbon’s book on Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series, followed by a very quick romp through “Decline and Fall of America” literature including The Handmaid’s Tale, A Canticle for Liebowitz, Man in the High Castle, and the zombie apocalypse tour de force, World War Z. Then it’s time for another question from the audience: Michael says, “I heard that scientists brought back a dire wolf. Could they bring back dinosaurs or animals that could destroy us all?” It turns out, these resurrected animals are just gray wolves that have been engineered to have some characteristics of the extinct predator. It’s still a pretty impressive feat, though, and you’ll hear how they collected bits and pieces of dire wolf DNA to “resurrect them.” Allen also brings up similar modification experiments they’re doing on chickens to make them more dinosaur-like. Allen points out that bioengineered germs are far more likely to cause our destruction than resurrected dinosaurs, regardless of the world envisioned in the Jurassic Park franchise. And speaking of Michael Crichton, Chuck gives us a breakdown of his sci-fi classic, The Andromeda Strain, about bacteria from space that cause a biological outbreak here on Earth. Hannah points out that historically, some of the biggest killers of human beings have been plagues. She gives us a guided tour of the bubonic plagues, from the Black Death, which may have wiped out as much as 60% of the population of Europe, to the Plague of Justinian a thousand years earlier that killed as many as 100 million people, while also name dropping the Antonine Plague and the Spanish Flu!) And that’s it Season 4 of The LIUniverse. Stay tuned for Season 5 after the summer. If you want to find out more about what Hannah’s impending book, check out the Mixed Identity Project  We hope you enjoy this episode, and this season, of The LIUniverse. If you did, please support us on Patreon Credits for Images Used in this Episode: NGC 4676, aka “the Mice” are two galaxies swirling together.  – Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA; The ACS Science Team: H. Ford, G. Illingworth, M. Clampin, G. Hartig, T. Allen, K. Anderson, F. Bartko, N. Benitez, J. Blakeslee, R. Bouwens, T. Broadhurst, R. Brown, C. Burrows, D. Campbell, E. Cheng, N. Cross, P. Feldman, M. Franx, D. Golimowski, C. Gronwall, R. Kimble, J. Krist, M. Lesser, D. Magee, A. Martel, W. J. McCann, G. Meurer, G. Miley, M. Postman, P. Rosati, M. Sirianni, W. Sparks, P. Sullivan, H. Tran, Z. Tsvetanov, R. White, and R. Woodruff. Plaster replica of Statue of George Washington by Antonio Canova at the North Carolina Museum of History.– Credit: Creative Commons / RadioFan (talk) Dire Wolf Cover of TIME magazine, May 12, 2025. – Credit: TIME magazine Page Museum Display of 404 dire wolf skulls found in the La Brea Tar Pits. – Credit: Creative Commons / Pyry Matikainen The spread of the Black Death in Europe, 1346-1353. – Credit: Creative Commons / Flappiefh - Own work from: Natural Earth ; Cesana, D.; Benedictow O.J., Bianucci R. (2017). Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the Plague. Direct Fluorescent Antibody Stain (DFA), 200x. – Credit: CDC 2057 - US Government public domain image, Courtesy of Larry Stauffer, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory Little Ice Age Temperature Chart. – Credit: Creative Commons / RCraig09 - Own work #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #hannahliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #hannahliu #apocalypse #armageddon #doomsday #ngc4676 #themice #blackhole #romanempire #direwolf #bubonicplague #blackdeath #yersiniapestis #theandromedastrain #michaelcrichton #jurassicpark #littleiceage

As our fourth season draws to a close, we’ve got an apocalyptic, 2-part ending lined up. That’s right, we’re talking Armageddon, and we don’t mean the 1998 Bruce Willis blockbuster. And of course, if we’re going to delve into the end of everything, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu are going to need the help of our ever popular archaeology expert and author, Hannah Liu, MEd. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the failed Soviet-era Kosmos 482 lander that was designed to withstand entry into the Venus atmosphere but never actually let Earth orbit and finally just came crashing back home on May 10, just a few days after we recorded this episode! Chuck, Allen and Hannah ponder the possibilities of cataclysmic destruction that the more than half-ton object could produce. Then, without missing a beat, Hannah takes us all the way back to Greek mythology and the Titanomachy, the legendary fights between the Gods and the Titans that were possibly inspired by catastrophic volcanic eruptions that laid waste to the ancient Mediterranean. Chuck jumps continents to discuss the Norse apocalypse known as Ragnarök – casually dropping that is inspired the massively popular Baldur’s Gate 3 as he does. Not to be outdone, Hannah brings us all back to the original Armageddon itself: the final battle between good and evil that is foretold in the Book of Revelations to take place at Har Megiddo, the “Hill of Megiddo” in Hebrew. You’ll also hear about where the word apocalypse comes from, and why it’s become associated with the end of the world, as Hannah gives us all a quick lesson in eschatology, or the study of the end of the world. Our first question comes from Ahmed, who asks, “What are the odds that a killer asteroid will kill us all?” Allen gets a little excited about asteroid 2024 YR4, an asteroid the size of a 15-story building, that is predicted to pass safely by Earth in 2032 but at one point had as high a chance of hitting us as 4-5% – and still has about a 3% chance of hitting the Moon. Chuck explains that the odds of a true “dinosaur-killer” extinction event asteroid impact from an object at least a mile across is about 50 million to 1 in any given year. Hannah points out that it’s far more likely that Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that inundated Pompeii, will erupt again. The last one was in 79AD, and since it tends to blow its top every 2,000 years or so, we’re due. Moving back further, Hannah tells us about the Minoan Eruption that devastated the isle of Santorini in the Mediterranean, wiping out the city of Akrotiri, around 1600 BCE and was reported as far away as China. And that’s just a few of the disastrous historic collapses Hannah shares with us, including the Hekla 3 eruption in Iceland that had may have had something to do with the Bronze Age Collapse. It turns out that the apocalypse is too big for a single episode! Join us in two weeks for Part 2 of our journey into all things apocalyptic. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: The Kosmos 482 lander probe reentered Earth's atmosphere on May 10 at 06:24 UT over the Indian Ocean. Because the Russian probe was designed to withstand entry into the Venus atmosphere, it is possible it survived reentry, but has landed in the ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia.– Credit: NASA On March 26, 2025, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured images of asteroid 2024 YR4 that indicate the asteroid is about the size of a 15-story building. – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Andy Rivkin (APL) Santorini island, Greece. Satellite image of Thera. The bay in the center of the island is the caldera created by the Minoan eruption.– Credit: NASA EOS Excavation of Akrotiri in 2018– Credit: Creative Commons: By Rt44 - Own work The Bull-Leaping Fresco from the Great Palace at Knossos, Crete – Credit: Creative Commons / Gleb Simonov Detail of Abraham Ortelius' 1585 map of Iceland showing Hekla in eruption. The Latin text translates as "The Hekla, perpetually condemned to storms and snow, vomits stones under terrible noise". – Credit: Creative Commons / Abraham Ortelius #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #hannahliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #hannahliu #apocalypse #armageddon #doomsday #kosmos482lander #asteroid2024yr4 #titanomachy #ragnarak #baldursgate3 #bookofrevelations #harmegiddo #eschatology #mountvesuvius #pompeii #minoaneruption #hekla3 #bronzeagecollapse

Who are the “Redshift Wranglers” and what can they tell us about the evolution of our universe? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome back astrophysics PhD candidate Sadie Coffin from the Rochester Institute of Technology whose focus is galactic evolution, and in particular, the spectroscopy of galaxies and their lights. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the Lucy spacecraft fly-by of asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson, which was named after the American paleoanthropologist who discovered the Australopithecus afarensis “Lucy” fossil the spacecraft was named after. Then it’s time to learn a little about Sadie, who explains how questioning the unknown is what drove her to study astronomy. Chuck, Allen and Sadie talk about the awe embodied in the study of the universe and the universe itself. Like Chuck, Sadie studies galaxy evolution, but Sadie focuses on a galaxy’s light, spread into spectra, and dissecting different features in that light. You’ll hear about the citizen science project called “Red Shift Wranglers” that helps Sadie sift through all the spectroscopic data, and get an awesome explanation of the doppler effect and the way red shift, which measures speed, can be used to help build better maps of galactic evolution. Find out how you can get involved with the project and join the ranks of the 3,500 Redshift Wranglers who’ve participated so far in “Wrangling galaxies and the universe together.” (See below for links.) You’ll also hear about other citizen science projects on Zooniverse like Galaxy Zoo. Sadie talks about the value of non-experts engaging with experts in a community, and the surprising number of people who want to get involved. For our first audience question, Nina asks, “If nothing can go faster than the speed of light, why can galaxies have Z greater than 1?” Sadie’s explanation gets pretty technical, so we’ll let her do it in the episode. Our next question comes from Jerry, who asks, “Will we someday no longer need scientists and have AI do all our research?” Sadie, who gets similar questions all the time relative to citizen science, believes these two things can be complimentary, and that in the name of improving science we can’t forgo either for the other. We finish with a discussion about what defines an act of science and a work of art, the process of questioning, and the roles of humans and machines in these processes. Plus, Sadie tells us about the science-themed travel posters by Dr. Tyler Nordgren on her walls. Chuck also gets Sadie to talk about rowing and the lessons she’s taken from the sport into other aspects of her life and journey as a scientist. If you’d like to know more about the Redshift Wrangler project on The Zooniverse and get involved, or to reach Sadie, visit https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/jeyhansk/redshift-wrangler or find Redshift Wrangler on Facebook and X (Twitter).   Listen to the COSMOS project episode referenced in this show with Dr. Jeyhan Kartaltepe, an astronomer and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Watch Sadie’s previous appearance in this short video shot at the COSMOS Team Meeting 2023. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: The inner Solar System, with the Jupiter Trojan asteroids shown in green. – Credit: Mdf at Wikipedia/Public Domain. Lucy skeleton (AL 288-1) Australopithecus afarensis, cast from Museum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris. – Credit: Creative Commons. Absorption lines in the optical spectrum of a supercluster of distant galaxies (BAS11) (right), as compared to those in the optical spectrum of the Sun (left). Arrows indicating Redshift. – Credit: Creative Commons / Georg Wiora (Dr. Schorsch) created this image from the original JPG. Derivative work:Kes47. Color composite JWST NIRCam image of distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-0. – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), L. Hustak (STScI). Science: B. Robertson (UCSC), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), E. Curtis-Lake (Hertfordshire), S. Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore), and the JADES Collaboration. Dr Tyler Nordgren’s VLA NRAO travel poster – Credit: NRAO/Tyler Nordgren. #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #sadiecoffin #redshiftwranglers #citizenscience #zooniverse #galaxyzoo #spectra #dopplereffect #redshift #galaxyevolution #tylernordgren #jeyhankartaltepe  

If a black hole shreds a star and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Professor Yvette Cendes, (aka u/Andromeda321 on Reddit), a Radio Astronomer studying transient radio signals from space. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a report by the Dark Energy Survey that seems to show that the amount of dark energy originally described as the cosmological constant by Albert Einstein might in fact be variable. As Prof. Cendes explains, the data indicates that universal expansion is still accelerating but the rate might be changing. After Yvette explains what she does, and how radio astronomy works in concert with optical astronomy to deliver a more complete understanding, Chuck asks her to explain Tidal Disruption Events, or TDEs, about which she’s a world expert. A TDE is when a star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole and ends up getting shredded. Yvette prefers to call them “Shredders.” Our first audience question comes from Nachama, who asks, “When will the black hole in the Milky Way eat the Sun?” The good news, according to Yvette, is that will never happen. As she explains, black holes actually don’t suck any more than anything that massive would, and we’re 25-30,000 light years away from Sagittarius A* – too far away to worry about. Next, Chuck asks Yvette about one of the most famous transient signals we’ve ever found, the so called “Wow!” signal detected in 1977 by Jerry Ehman at the now-defunct Xavier Observatory in Ohio. Because the signal looked exactly like what might be expected if it were of extraterrestrial origin, Ehman circled it on the printout and wrote, “Wow!” Unfortunately, it never repeated. The most likely explanation, according to Dr. Cendes, is that it was some sort of manmade interference, although the signal is currently being reinvestigated. Yvette recounts how she ended up ended up as a first-term professor at the University of Oregon after studying in the Netherlands and Toronto and working at Harvard. Then she answers an audience question from Yan Min, who asks, “Where is the best place in the world to study astronomy? I live in New York – Is it New York?” Unfortunately for Yankees fans, Yvette says it would most likely be Cambridge, Massachusetts thanks to Harvard, which has the biggest number of astronomers under one roof and operates the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and M.I.T. on the other side of town if you get bored. Chuck asks Yvette what happens after a black hole shreds a star. Shredders, she explains, are rare. In our own Milky Way, they probably happen once every million years. Once a TDE is classified by optical astronomers, Yvette and her team point their radio telescopes at the tidal radius outside of the event horizon to discern the outflows weeks, months and even years after the initial event. He also asks Yvette if she has any hobbies to help her decompress from thinking about violent events in the universe. She likes to cross stitch, the “original pixel art.” Yvette shows us a cross stitch she made of the James Webb Space Telescope complex mirror, another featuring an 8-bit Mario screen with the words “What doesn’t kill me makes me smaller,” and a third with objects in the Solar System. She also embroiders and shows us a hoop featuring the constellations visible in the northern hemisphere night sky. We end with Yvette and Allen schooling Chuck about Reddit’s immense reach and value in scientific discourse. One subreddit, called r/Space, has “27 million intelligent lifeforms” subscribed to it. On Reddit, Yvette’s username is u/Andromeda321, and she’s one of the top users on the platform over 1 million karma points. She’s known for starting her posts that explain or comment on recent discoveries with the phrase, “Astronomer here!” If you’d like to follow Dr. Yvette Cendes, you can find her on Reddit, where she’s u/Andromeda321, and her dedicated subreddit, reddit.com/r/Andromeda321. You can also follow her on Bluesky @whereisyvette.bsky.social. Links to the astronomy cross stitch kits shown in the episode: Wonders of the Solar System cross stitch by Climbing Goat: https://www.climbinggoat.co.uk/products/wonders-of-the-solar-system  Constellation Series Star Map by Kiriki Press: https://kirikipress.com/products/star-map  We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Artist's conception of a tidal disruption event (TDE). – Credit: Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". – Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO) Artist’s illustration of the material generated by a TDE or “Shredder” – Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Queen’s Univ. Belfast/M. Nicholl et al.; Optical/IR: PanSTARRS, NSF/Legacy Survey/SDSS; Illustration: Soheb Mandhai #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #yvettecendes #andromeda321 #astronomerhere #radioastronomer #transientradiosignals #darkenergysurvey #cosmologicalconstant #universalacceleration #wow!signal #6equj5 #tde #tidaldisruptionevents #supermassiveblackhole #shredders #sagittariusa #milkyway #crossstitch

Why is it so difficult to study the evolution of early galaxies? Are metallic D&D dice better than plastic ones? And can you have too many Pokémon tattoos? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Justin Cole, who is currently a grad student at Texas A&M studying the evolution of distant galaxies in pursuit of his PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing – the recent – and remarkable – discovery of four planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, a tiny star not much bigger than Jupiter with the highest measured proper motion of any star in our sky. Chuck and Justin discuss why the discovery of new exoplanets is so challenging, which leads to Justin explaining what he’s studying: galaxies in our universe that developed less than 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang – about 2.5 billion years before the birth of our own Milky Way Galaxy. We’ve got a handle on what’s going on with our neighbors like the Andromeda Galaxy, but when it comes to early galaxies, we have a very limited range of wavelengths and scant data to study. This makes it harder to derive understandings of galactic evolution and whether they support or conflict with the standard model of physics. Our first audience question comes from Ricardo, who asks, “What if we discover extraterrestrial plant life and find out it’s intelligent? Actually, what if we discover plants on Earth are intelligent? Would it be unethical to eat them?” After Chuck shares a little about Marvel’s intelligent, telepathic species of plants called the Cotati, and imitates Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, Justin weighs in on the ethics of eating intelligent plants and asks a critical question: Would we understand them enough to know? What would happen if we bit into a head of alien lettuce and it started screaming? The ensuing discussion is… tasty, albeit a little unsettling. Our next question is from Thomasina, who asks, “I read that the Big Bang theory is in trouble – what does that mean? And did the Big Bang never happen?” Justin, who is an early universe guy, clarifies what’s going on here. We occasionally find galaxies that seem to be too big for the amount of time that they’ve had to grow. We’re also finding black holes that with our current instruments, also appear to be too big. In each case, we’re finding better ways to simulate these situations, and it’s not that they’re too big, or that the Big Bang isn’t supportable, it’s that we’re using tools that are calibrated to “nearby and today” that aren’t as good at helping us assess early galaxies. Next up, Justin, who is getting ready to run a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition roleplaying session after the podcast recording, talks about using D&D Beyond to create his own campaigns (set in the World of Warcraft universe!). Chuck and Justin discuss the benefits of rolling metal dice, and Justin shows off a couple of his beautiful D20. Not to be outdone, Allen shares his 120-sided die, the largest die allowed by three dimensional Euclidean geometry in conventional space. Meanwhile, Chuck tells us the sad story of his old, worn plastic dice. As Allen points out, Chuck was in the hobby before it was cool! And as we run out of time, Justin shares his intention to get one Pokémon tattoo for every state he and his wife visit. If you’d like to know more about what Justin’s up to, he suggests you Google “Justin Cole Astronomy” or “Justin Cole A&M.” We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Size comparison between Jupiter, Barnard's Star, and the Sun. – Credit: Creative Commons. Diagram of evolution of the (observable part) of the universe from the Big Bang (left), the CMB-reference afterglow, to the present. – Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team. Evolution of the gas density overlaid with a transparency mask to only visualize regions with significant ionizing radiation in the Thesan-1 simulation. – Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. #TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #JustinCole #Astronomy #Astrophysics #BarnardsStar #GalacticEvolution #BigBang #StandardModelofPhysics #ExtraterrestrialPlantLife #IntelligentLife #D&D #Pokemon #Tattoos

What’s it like to stand at the edge of human knowledge, where we don’t know what leap forward in understanding the next technological innovation will herald? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Melodie Kao, resident radio astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto back in 1930. (And if you’re scratching your heads saying, “What’s a radio astronomer doing at an optical observatory?” you’re not alone. Short answer: Melodie convinced them they wanted one, and that it should be her!”) As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the amazing discovery by the NEID Spectrograph at the WIYN telescope at Kitt Peak Observatory of a planet 9 times the mass of Earth orbiting a sun-like star 49 light years away with an orbital period of just 31 days. Melodie explains the precision of the measurement required to discover a planet at that distance, and shares one of her own recent discoveries using a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). In a groundbreaking effort she strung together 39 radio dishes across the northern hemisphere of Earth in a multi-observatory effort to create an Earth-sized telescope (similar to the technique that was used to create the first image of a black hole) and pointed it at a brown dwarf and measured its magnetic fields and radiation belts (like our Van Allen belts). For comparison, the effort was like measuring a pea perched on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco while standing on the Statue of Liberty in NYC. The trio discusses the importance of the discovery of the Van Allen belts, and how that allowed us to plot trajectories that avoided the worst of that radiation for Apollo astronauts on their journeys to the Moon. For our first audience question, Ari from North Greene High School in Tennessee asks, “What is the percentage of possible exoplanets that are similar to the earth’s atmosphere, placed in their solar system (within a similar area of their respective Goldilocks zone), gravity, etc.? And how long would it take to hypothetically get to them?” That turns out to be a very complicated question, and Melodie knows someone who has devoted her entire career to answering it. It’s one of the questions that drove the creation of the James Webb Space Telescope and is the basis of the Drake Equation. The bottom line, though, is that we don’t know yet, and until we find a rocky planet with an Earthlike atmosphere orbiting a sun-like star outside of our solar system, it will remain unanswerable. Next, Charles asks Melodie how she became an astronomer, especially since she’d always planned on being an architect. She even went to MIT to become one, but she missed studying physics, which she realized she truly loved. MIT had just finished constructing their Center for Theoretical Physics, and Melodie shares the story of how she convinced MIT to bend the rules and let switch her major to Physics while continuing to study architecture. When she attended a lecture by a grad student about galaxy clusters, and learned how you could back out the formation history of a cluster of galaxies by looking at the gradients of colors generated by starlight, she realized astronomy was a way to unlock the secrets of the universe. Our next question comes from Alex at North Greene: What are the conditions necessary for life in the universe? It’s a question without an easy answer, but the conversation it spawns is worth your time to listen to. It leads Melodie to talk about her love of exploring the natural world and how she co-created a Wilderness Astronomy class. She’s also a guide for off-trail, high route backpacking trips where you don’t know what’s coming next and you need to rely on your instincts, curiosity and bravery as you explore the world, and the universe, around you. If you’d like to know more about what Melodie is up to, she’s not on social media but you can check out her website. You’ve also got an invitation to visit her at the Lowell Observatory for a personal tour! We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Dome of the 3.5m WIYN telescope at Kitt Peak – Credit Jörg Weingrill/ Creative Commons A cross section of Van Allen radiation belts – Credit By Booyabazooka at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Creative Commons / Public Domain The NASA Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) network – Credit Creative Commons / C. García-Miró, I. Sotuela, C.S. Jacobs, J.E. Clark, C.J. Naudet, L. A. White, R. Madde, M. Mercolino, D. Pazos, G. Bourda, P. Charlot, S. Horiuchi, P. Pope, L.G. Snedeker MIT Center for Theoretical Physics – Credit MIT News Galaxy cluster IDCS J1426. – Credit NASA The Cirque of the Towers, popular with high route backpackers. – Credit Kylir Horton / Creative Commons

What will well-dressed astronauts be wearing on the Artemis III mission? Will AI destroy creativity? Can we actually make leather clothing out of mushrooms? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome engineer and futurist Alexia Stylianou, who is designing wearable biometric platforms that can measure human biomechanics to a resolution and degree far beyond what’s accessible to everyday people. Before we get to introducing our guest this episode, though, Charles whets our appetite about amazing developments coming out of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory where he’s on the Science Advisory Committee. Our joyfully cool cosmic thing of the day is Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 to the Moon. As Allen points out, it’s part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and is the most successful private Lunar landing to date – among other things, it landed right-side up! Alexa talks about the importance of giving engineers the freedom to solve problems and the uncertainty of programs like this continuing to be funded by NASA. Allen brings up the Viper, a NASA-funded lunar rover which was built, but lost its funding before testing was completed. Charles asks Alexia to tell us about an example of something on the horizon she thinks is really cool, and she mentions that Prada is designing the space suits for the Artemis III mission in partnership with Axiom Space. She explains that Prada has a history of using cutting edge materials and design that makes them an appropriate partner in the process. Then it’s time for our first audience question. Luis asks, “What is needed to create the next amazing space technology that will break all the conventions we have about space travel?” Alexia talks about the increasing importance of incorporating user-centered design or human-centered design, and how it’s revolutionizing the process. You’ll hear about the development of direct pressure space suits, as well as research into exoskeletons for use in industry and auto manufacturing – although sadly, Alien-style exoskeleton loaders like Ripley uses are still science fiction, for now. Looking even further out, Alexia talks about nuclear semiotics – the effort to come up with ways to communicate to societies that will exist hundreds of thousands of years in the future the danger of radioactive material we’re creating now? You’ll find out why the skulls and crossbones and other danger iconography we use now aren’t up to the task, and the universality of stick-figure iconography. Our next question comes from Johanna: “Will AI destroy creativity?” Questions like this are becoming more frequent, especially in areas like education. Chuck, Alexia and Allen jump into a thought-provoking conversation, and how there are ways to let students use AI as a tool like a calculator while simultaneously incentivizing and stimulating their creativity. Speaking of creativity, Chuck asks Alexia about her love of science fiction and the well-designed stack of books behind her (sorry, Podcast People!). She pulls out and describes “Gideon the Ninth,” the first book in a sci-fi fantasy series about immortal space necromancers by Tamsyn Muir. Alexia talks about speculative fiction and speculative design, and tells us about a team of designers that have created a room that smells like the pollution of the future in order to offer a tangible way to engage our senses now about a future we might yet be able to avoid. Finally, Chuck asks Alexia for one more cool futuristic development she’s wants us all to think about. She tells us about the development of mushroom leather (aka mycelium leather), an alternative, eco-friendly, and ethical textile made from fungi grown on apple waste. If you’d like to know more about Alexia, you can find her on LinkedIn. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory on Cerro Pachón in Chile. – Credit: NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory/AURA/B. Quint. Blue Ghost final descent and landing video. – Credit: NASA/Olivia Tyrrell. Prada and Axiom Space Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU). – Credit: Prada/Axiom Space (image provided for press coverage). The Space Activity Suit developed by Paul Webb and built under a NASA project (taken c. 1971). – Credit: NASA. Exoskeleton designed for the auto industry by Ekso Bionics. – Credit: Ekso Bionics. Proposed design for "small subsurface markers" to be buried randomly in great numbers across the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. – Credit: Department of Energy (Public Domain).

What is a transiting brown dwarf, why are they so rare, and how do you find them? Equally important, how do you make a good French macaron? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astronomer and astrophysicist Dr. Theron Carmichael. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: a recent paper in the Astrophysical Journal possibly linking a supernova that took place millions of years ago and bombarded Earth with cosmic rays and radioactive iron with a flurry of virus mutation that took place in deep ancient lakes on our planet. After Theron brings up the Chicxulub meteor impact (the one that spelled trouble for dinosaurs) and how astronomical events can affect the evolution of life here on Earth, we naturally turn to the effects of extreme radiation events and… the mighty Marvel mutants themselves, the X-Men! Then it’s time to talk about Dr. Carmichael’s bread and butter: detecting and categorizing transiting brown dwarfs, an exceedingly rare form of the “failed stars” which actually orbit other stars. Theron explains that while we know how stars and planets form, we don’t exactly understand the formation of brown dwarfs, which exist in the gray region between a star and a planet. Allen reminds us how protoplanetary discs form, while Theron points out that the distinctions may not be as clear as we used to think. Our first student question comes from Ani, who asks, “There are a lot more small, faint stars than big bright stars. Does that mean there are a huge number of brown dwarfs in the galaxy?” Yes, according to Dr. Carmichael. And not only are there more of them, but Theron explains that they last longer, too. Finding them is challenging, but it’s become easier thanks to TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission that’s been running for over 7 years, well past its operational lifespan. Our next student question comes from Josie, who asks, “Could there be life on brown dwarfs?” While brown dwarfs are colder than stars, they are still too hot to form and sustain the molecules we believe are necessary for life. And while those molecules are in fact present in the atmosphere of brown dwarfs – along with titanium oxide clouds – the pressure and temperature conditions of brown dwarfs make life as we know it unlikely. Theron explains that the atmospheric conditions of brown dwarfs are not dissimilar to Jupiter, as opposed to those on Jovian moons like Europa that we’re going to explore when the Europa Clipper reaches its destination in 2030. After that, Theron tells us about the annual MIT Mystery Hunt, his long-time love of baking, and the astronomical value of macarons. (For his French macaron recipe, please visit our Patreon page.) Allen shares how he has made cookies conforming to the Einstein tile, and Charles mentions a few scientists who also love to bake. Theron explains how baking and brown dwarf research use the same parts of his brain. We even get to see a video clip of him making macarons! To end the show, Theron tells us about the international working group he helps lead focused on learning more about transiting brown dwarfs. If you’d like to know more about Dr. Theron Carmichael, you can follow him on Twitter/X @TherBaer or his website, www.theroncarmichael.com. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago – Illustration credit: Lunar Planetary Institute/David King. Rendering representing the size of a Brown Dwarf compared to other celestials. – Illustration credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCB. Planets forming around a young star – a protoplanetary disc. – Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF. Illustration of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. – Credit: NASA. Rendering of Europa Clipper as it orbits Jupiter. – Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Animation showing the orbit of the TESS telescope relative to the Earth and the Moon. – Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio. Einstein Tile - a play on the German phrase "ein stein' or "one stone." – Credit: Creative Commons/University of Waterloo/David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, Chaim Goodman-Strauss. Video of Dr. Carmichael making macarons. – Credit: Theron Carmichael. #TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #TheronCarmichael #Chicxulubmeteor #BrownDwarf #protoplanetarydisc #TESS #EuropaClipper #exoplanets #EinsteinTile #macaron #failedstars #Jupiter #Europa #MITMysteryHunt