#78 - December 2018 Part 1
Episode description
The Discussion: Arthur Eddington, the Caldwell catalogue and a round-up of emails to the show.
The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:
- Waiting for a Gamma Ray Burst
- Watching the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole feeding
- Finding a massive meteorite under 1km of ice in Greenland
- The discovery that the Milky Way has another satellite galaxy
- The Hyades is bigger than we thought – much bigger!
- Silica dust from supernovae discovered
Main news story: The discovery of an exoplanet around Barnard’s Star just 6 light year away.
The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on offer to amateur astronomers in December:
Ralph: Mars & Neptune conjunction, The Geminds meteor shower & Comet 46P Wirtanen at perihelion
Paul: Venus, Uranus, Mercury & Jupiter
Jeni: The Hyades in Taurus
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 take a look USAF’s rocket funding decision:
What makes a galaxy? When is it a galaxy rather than just a cluster of stars? Wullie Mitchell, Scotland.