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Explore every episode of the podcast George's Random Astronomical Object
Dive into the complete episode list for George's Random Astronomical Object. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Object 1: Not the Pope | 12 Aug 2019 | 00:08:46 | |
The Leo IV Dwarf Galaxy is one of several ultra faint dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. Galaxies like this are weird relics of when the universe first formed; they contain very old stellar populations and abnormally large amounts of dark matter. | |||
| Object 2: Variable Variability | 26 Aug 2019 | 00:09:00 | |
HS Hydrae is a variable eclipsing binary star, which sounds more unusual than it actually is. However, it's precessing, which is not only unusual but also causes the variability to vary over time. | |||
| Object 11: Howling Fast Differential Rotation | 30 Dec 2019 | 00:09:06 | |
Psi Capricorni was the first star other than the Sun where the phenomenon of differental rotation was ever measured. | |||
| Object 101: Warm and Cold | 26 Jun 2023 | 00:11:48 | |
The star Eta Corvi is surrounded by a disk of dust with a rather complex structure and rather complex origin. | |||
| Object 102: Another Ring Thing | 10 Jul 2023 | 00:07:14 | |
The spiral galaxy NGC 7552 is best known for its relatively small but bright starburst ring. | |||
| Object 103: The Pulsar within the Cosmic Hand | 24 Jul 2023 | 00:08:35 | |
PSR B1509-58 is a relatively young pulsar that sits within a supernova remnant that looks like a giant hand. | |||
| Object 104: Going Cross Country for a Supermassive Black Hole | 07 Aug 2023 | 00:09:15 | |
Observations with a telescope as large as the Untied States were needed to prove that J16021+3326 is a blazar, a type of galaxy containing a supermassive black hole. | |||
| Object 105: Super-Slow Star Formation | 21 Aug 2023 | 00:11:21 | |
Located at the edge of the Local Group, the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy has some of the stars with the fewest elements other than hydrogen or helium in the known universe. | |||
| Object 106: A Tale of Two Binary Star Systems | 04 Sep 2023 | 00:12:09 | |
While some astronomers are interested the globular cluster NGC 6712 because it appears to have been severely tidally disrupted by orbiting too close to the center of the Milky Way, other astronomers are interested in the cluster because it contains a couple of weird yet similar binary star systems. | |||
| Object 107: The Red Rectangle | 18 Sep 2023 | 00:10:57 | |
The Red Rectangle (yes, the Red Rectangle) is a uniquely weird protoplanetary nebula formed by a uniquely weird binary star system. | |||
| Object 108: Objects in the Mirror May Be More Complicated Than They Appear | 02 Oct 2023 | 00:10:43 | |
The protostellar object PDS 70 has a very complicated protoplanetary system that includes a disk of gas and dust and two protoexoplanets. | |||
| Object 109: A Water World without Kevin Costner | 16 Oct 2023 | 00:12:14 | |
The Kepler-138 star system contains at least four exoplanets, one of which may be a "water world" covered in a very deep ocean. | |||
| Object 110: We Came, We Saw, We Measured | 30 Oct 2023 | 00:10:01 | |
The spiral galaxy Markarian 766 contains an active galactic nucleus with a supermassive black hole, which means that everyone needs to apply their favorite technique to measure the black hole's mass. | |||
| Object 12: Watching Infrared Paint Dry | 13 Jan 2020 | 00:11:00 | |
ELAIS N1 is a extragalactic deep field selected specifically for identifying many distant, faint galaxies at infrared wavelengths. | |||
| Object 111: The 1925 Classic | 13 Nov 2023 | 00:07:23 | |
The classical nova RR Pictoris was one of the brightest and closest to ever appear in the sky. | |||
| Object 112: Imagine Marilyn Monroe in a Movie Named the Great Attractor | 27 Nov 2023 | 00:09:37 | |
The Norma Cluster lies near the center of a giant supercluster of galaxies that is pulling in everything else in the local universe, including our galaxy. | |||
| Object 113: The Mystery Spot | 11 Dec 2023 | 00:08:10 | |
The white dwarf GD 394 seems to have an abnormal amount of heavy elements in its outer atmosphere and also varies in brightness with a period of 1.146 days, and no one understands why. | |||
| Object 114: George's 2020 Data Processing Project from Hell | 25 Dec 2023 | 00:15:51 | |
As the second closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, Messier 33 has been a very popular observing target for both amateur and professional astronomers, and even I have made images of the galaxy. | |||
| Object 115: Oyster? | 08 Jan 2024 | 00:09:35 | |
While the planetary nebula NGC 1501 is a popular amateur astronomy target, the newly formed, hot, pulsating white dwarf at its center is much more interesting to professional astronomers. | |||
| Object 116: The Really Really High Expectations Exoplanetary System | 22 Jan 2024 | 00:08:40 | |
47 Ursa Majoris is a nearby Sun-like star that astronomers have intensely studied in an effort to find an Earth-like exoplanet, and while three exoplanets have been found orbiting the star, none of them are remotely similar to the Earth. | |||
| Object 117: No Shockingly Dumb Jokes in This Episode | 05 Feb 2024 | 00:06:38 | |
Kappa Cassiopeiae is a large blue variaable star that is most potentially interesting because of the bow shock between its stellar winds and the interstellar medium. | |||
| Object 118: The Golden Standard | 19 Feb 2024 | 00:10:50 | |
The Type Ia supernova SN 2005cf was observed at multiple wavelengths for three months after its appearance, allowing astronomers to create templates of its spectrum that could be used to measure distances to other Type Ia supernovae. | |||
| Object 119: Alpha Table | 04 Mar 2024 | 00:08:49 | |
Even though Alpha Mensae is in one of the faintest and dumbest constellations in the sky, it's an intriguing star system because it is very close to the Earth, because one of the stars is very Sun-like, and because it may contain an exoplanet or a disk of dust in orbit around that Sun-like star. | |||
| Object 120: A Possible Source of the Cosmic Rays that Gave the Fantastic Four Their Superpowers | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:11:14 | |
The Monogem Ring, which is one of the largest sources of X-rays in the Earth's sky, was created by a supernova explosion about 86000 years ago, and the core of the star that exploded has been identified as the pulsar PSR B0656+14 at the center of the ring. | |||
| Object 13: Stellar Companion Facial Reconstruction | 27 Jan 2020 | 00:07:55 | |
BV Centaurus is an unusual example of a class of U Gem cataclysmic variable stars in which a white dwarf is stripping gas from a companion star. | |||
| Object 121: Can You Find the Supermassive Black Hole? | 01 Apr 2024 | 00:08:53 | |
NGC 34 (also known as NGC 17) is a chaotic-looking galaxy that formed from two smaller galaxies merging together, and it is a place where astronomers have easily found lots of stars forming in a starburst but where they have had difficulty concluding whether the galaxy also contains a supermassive black hole. | |||
| Object 122: Wait For It... | 15 Apr 2024 | 00:12:57 | |
The cluster of galaxies MACS J1149.5+2223 is so massive that it has gravitationally bent (or lensed) the light from multiple things behind it, including one of the most distant galaxies in the universe and a supernova. | |||
| Object 123: More Dampness | 29 Apr 2024 | 00:11:09 | |
The quasar QSO 1331+170 is best known for having a darker galaxy in front of it that is absorbing its light. | |||
| Object 124: 6 > 2 | 13 May 2024 | 00:11:16 | |
Most people would associate Castor with Pollux, which are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini, but Castor by itself is very interesting because it is actually a very complex system containing six stars. | |||
| Object 125: The Business Form Variable Star System | 27 May 2024 | 00:07:39 | |
HR 1099 (also known as V711 Tauri) was instrumental in showing that magnetic fields play a major role in causing the variability of stars within the RS CVn class of variable star systems. | |||
| Object 126: Do Not Mention Exoplanet b Again | 10 Jun 2024 | 00:10:10 | |
HD 181433 has three exoplanets, two of which are gas giants with very unusually elongated orbits that have been very challenging to properly measure. | |||
| Object 127: The Nebraska Blue Straggler Special | 24 Jun 2024 | 00:12:59 | |
The open cluster NGC 188 is peculiar not only because it is very old for an open cluster but also because it contains an unusual number of blue stars for a cluster of its age. | |||
| Object 128: The Dwarf Living Inside the Bridge | 08 Jul 2024 | 00:06:58 | |
The NGC 6221/NGC 6215 Group of galaxies contains a bridge-like structure of hydrogen gas connecting the two spiral galaxies within the group as well as a dwarf galaxy that looks like it formed within the bridge. | |||
| Object 129: Rinky-Dink | 22 Jul 2024 | 00:09:15 | |
The very small Pyxis Cluster orbits the Milky Way in such an extremely extended orbit that it travels further away than many of the dwarf galaxies orbiting our galaxy. | |||
| Object 130: Putting It All Together | 05 Aug 2024 | 00:07:46 | |
NGC 4261 was made famous when Hubble Space Telescope observations in the 1990s showed that this elliptical galaxy contains a supermassive black hole. | |||
| Object 14: Exoplanetary Acronym 103b | 10 Feb 2020 | 00:10:18 | |
WASP-103 has an acronym for a name and also has a gaseous planet orbiting so close to it that the planet is in danger of being destroyed. | |||
| Object 131: Get To Know Your Ultrafaint Neighbors | 19 Aug 2024 | 00:09:45 | |
Hydrus I is a very small, ultrafaint dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way that was accidentally (or, to use the technical term, serendipitously) found by the Dark Energy Survey. | |||
| Object 132: I Need a 2002 Pop Culture Reference | 02 Sep 2024 | 00:11:21 | |
The radio source PMN J0134-0931 created a lot of excitement in 2002 when people discovered that it was a quasar gravitationally lensed by another galaxy in front of it, they were really excited. | |||
| Object 15: Calibrated Variability | 24 Feb 2020 | 00:13:36 | |
Despite the variability of the gamma radiation from J0510+1800, this blazar is used as a flux calibrator at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. | |||
| Object 16: Playing Golf on the Moon | 09 Mar 2020 | 00:13:55 | |
The extremely bright, point-like emission from J1955+5131 in visible light and radio waves makes it useful for matching up images from different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as an interesting object in its own right. | |||
| Object 17: Confusing U | 23 Mar 2020 | 00:09:22 | |
4U 1957+115 is a low mass X-ray binary, a binary star system with a normal star about the size of the Sun and a relatively small black hole three times the mass of the Sun, and it also has an unfortunately confusing name. | |||
| Object 18: 0.2 Seconds of Gamma Rays | 06 Apr 2020 | 00:07:34 | |
The short gamma ray burst GRB 100206A was found in a luminous infrared galaxy, which is very unusual place to find such gamma ray bursts. | |||
| Object 19: Probably Not the Y2K Bug | 20 Apr 2020 | 00:09:33 | |
Everything about the triple star system V505 Sgr looked normal aside from an abrupt change in the orbits of the stars sometime around the year 2000. | |||
| Object 20: A Classic Non-Comet | 04 May 2020 | 00:10:39 | |
Even though it may be rather ordinary from a scientific standpoint, the open cluster Messier 23 is a very popular with amateur astronomers. | |||
| Object 3: Room Temperature | 09 Sep 2019 | 00:08:19 | |
HD 85512 is a nearby star slightly smaller and more orange than the Sun. It happens to have an exoplanet that could be close to Earth-like. | |||
| Object 21: Retro Gaming and Star Formation | 18 May 2020 | 00:09:43 | |
NGC 281, which is also called the Pacman Nebula, is a place where star formation has been triggered two different ways, although the stars are not chased by any Ghost Nebulae. | |||
| Object 22: Above and Below or Something Like That | 01 Jun 2020 | 00:14:59 | |
NGC 55 has the interesting distinction of being the closest galaxy to Earth that is seen edge-on, and it also contains an ultraminous X-ray source (ULX) uncreatively named NGC 55 ULX. | |||
| Object 23: The Counterrevolutionary from Centaurus | 15 Jun 2020 | 00:10:00 | |
A number of peculiarities about the lenticular galaxy NGC 5102 indicate that a dwarf galaxy fell into it several hundred million years ago. | |||
| Object 24: Too Fast but Not Too Furious | 29 Jun 2020 | 00:09:27 | |
PSR 0820+02 is the second pulsar ever discovered to be in a binary star system. | |||
| Object 25: The Ultracool Neighbor | 13 Jul 2020 | 00:09:35 | |
The nearby star DENIS J104814.7-395606 is cool (in the sense that it is awesome) because it is so cool (in the sense that it has a very low surface temperature for a star). | |||
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