Galaxies carry the evidence of their past. When the Milky Way captures a dwarf galaxy or tears apart a globular cluster, it leaves behind long, ghostly ribbons of stars called stellar streams. These…
The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered hundreds of tiny red points in the early universe. They are extraordinarily compact, unexpectedly bright and strangely quiet in the X-ray and radio…
The Milky Way looks permanent from our place inside it, a great band of stars stretching across the night sky. But new research suggests our galaxy may once have been oriented in a completely…
What happens when a black hole spins? According to general relativity, it doesn't simply rotate in space, it actually drags spacetime around with it.This episode explores the strange phenomenon known…
Most amateur astronomers spend their nights collecting light. But what if you could study our galaxy without looking through a telescope at all?In this episode, we sit down with amateur astronomer and…
What if the mysterious "Planet Nine" isn't a planet at all?In this episode, we journey to the distant frontier of our Solar System to explore one of astronomy's strangest modern hypotheses: the…
For generations, we've pictured the Solar System as a stable and orderly place: planets forming where they are today and quietly orbiting the Sun for billions of years. But what if that picture is…
Summer is almost here, and with it comes one of the richest observing seasons of the year. In this episode, we take a road trip through the summer sky, exploring the constellations, deep-sky objects,…
Back in November of 2024, I attended a star party hosted by the Midlands Astronomy Club and recorded what became one of my favorite episodes of Star Trails. This week, while taking a short break to…
This week we conclude our month-long journey through galaxies by exploring one of the biggest questions in astronomy: how galaxies are born, evolve, and eventually die. We begin in the aftermath of…
