In this fabulous episode we are speaking with Dr JJ Eldridge, who is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland.
Listen: https://soundcloud.com/astrophiz/astrophiz80-dr-jj-eldridge-binary-stars
Their general research concerns the lives and deaths of stars and particularly the effects of binary interactions on the lives of binary stars and how these change the appearance of galaxies, alter the rates of different types of supernovae and impact on gravitational wave events.
Then for observers and astrophotographers Dr Ian ‘Astroblog’ Musgrave , in ‘What’s Up Doc’, tells us what to look for in the morning, evening & night skies. And then Ian takes us on an astronomical tangent to talk about a ‘stream’ of 309 stars discovered by the Gaia spacecraft arcing out from Omega Centauri, and the tails and material shedding from Asteroid Gault,
In the news:
.1. LIGO Observation Run #3 started last week and has already detected a new gravitational wave event, the hunt is on for multi-wavelength counterparts. If it is, as indicated, a NS-NS event, the universe just got a whole lot more gold and platinum.
.2. NASA’s InSight robot detects first clear Marsquake, ushering a new scientific discipline. Martian Seismology.
.3. An international team of researchers led by Rolf Gusten of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn has now succeeded in clearly detecting the earliest building block of our universe, the helium hydride ion (HeH+) in the direction of the planetary nebula NGC 7027.
Listen: https://soundcloud.com/astrophiz/astrophiz80-dr-jj-eldridge-binary-stars
Astrophiz: An Astronomy Podcast 