#55 - January 2017

AWESOME ASTRONOMY

The Discussion: As we welcome in the New Year Paul’s been mixing science with art, Jeni’s professional astronomy looks to be taking her to South Africa or Mexico and we read out some of our listeners’ emails

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• The death of John Glenn – a true pioneer and legend
• ESO’s Very Large Telescopes glimpses something from nothing
• And we take a look at NASA latest release list of its spin-out technologies

Hat of Woo: In our latest and final Hat of Woo we put Astrology under the magnifying glass.

Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we’re tackling a question about a recent news story covered in a previous episode:

The number of bodies in the Solar System featuring subsurface oceans seems to increase with every planetary mission sent out there. Many of these are bodies of water of great depth, with Europa and Ganymede possibly having oceans 100km deep. Given that the deepest part of our own ocean is a 'mere' 11km deep and barely studied, what kind of conditions could future explores expect at such depths? Would the enormous pressure at a depth of 100km cause the water to act differently and what implications would this have for life in these oceans? Steve Brown, Yorkshire, England.