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Join astronomer Dr Emily Brunsden and enthusiastic not-astronomer Dr Chris Stewart as they explore the universe.
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Recent Episodes
S3E4 s3e4: What IS Life, Anyway?
Finaly — finally! — Chris and Emily get to the meat of the matter in this season on life in the universe. Very special guest Dr Kelly Redeker from the Department of Biology at the University of York…
S3E3 s3e3: Solar System Sanctuaries
In this season on life in the universe, it's time to look closer to home: what are the chances we will find evidence of life — present or past-tense — in the Solar System, our own back yard? Emily's…
S3E2 s3e2: Habitats in the Void
Having established that the hunt for life in the galaxy ought to begin with an appropriate star, Emily turns our attention towards suitable planets. But what makes a hospitable home for life? It’s…
S3E1 s3e1: First, You Need Light
We're back with Season 3! For the next six episodes we're talking life in the universe, and so far we have N=1: we know there's life on Earth, but nowhere else as yet. Those are challenging…
S2E6 s2e6: Experimental Extraterrestrial Exo-Observatory
According to one survey, around one-third of Australians think aliens not only exist, but have actually visited Earth. That's ... a bit fraction. In this final episode of season 2, we ask how we'd…
S2E5 s2e5: Exotelescope Expeditions
Exo-planets, sure. Exo-moons and -comets? Fine. But exo ... telescopes?! Emily is going out on a limb in this episode, expanding the definition of telescope to include things that measure stuff in…
S2E4 s2e4: Exoplanet Extrapolation
We know, we know — we did exoplanets last time. But that was the current state-of-play and a 2024 exoplanets wrapped update. In this episode, Emily looks to the future! She does a deep dive into the…
S2E3 s2e3: Exoplanets ExoWrapped
It couldn't be a season of exo-stuff without taking a good hard look at the current state of exoplanets, the OG exo-thing. Emily sums up the state of exoplanet research in 2024 — her Exoplanets 2024…
S2E2 s2e2: Exocomet Excitation
Exoplanets, sure. Exo-moons too, apparently. But exo ... comets?! Yes indeed, they're a real thing, and we've known about them for ages! How do you spot something so tiny around another star, so far…
S2E1 s2e1: Exomoon Expectation
Way, way back in the early epochs of Syzygy (ep 19 in Oct 2018 if you must know) we talked about the exciting prospect of spotting the first exomoon — a moon orbiting a planet orbiting a star that is…
S2 Introducing Syzygy Season Two!
A short announcement: Syzygy is now seasonal! From now on we're going to release the podcast in seasons, and we're excited to announce the imminent release of the first episode of Syzygy Season Two.…
S1E122 122: Syzygy Live! — The Power of Seeing It For Yourself
Live from York's Festival of Ideas*, in front of an audience of ... what, had to be a few hundred thousand people, right? ... Emily and Chris discuss some awesome astronomy that you can go outside…
S1E121 121: Dark Bubbles of Weakness
A huge team of astronomers — and their even-huger team of tiny, fibre-obtic-wielding robots — are zeroing in on one of the great questions of cosmology: just what the heck is going on with Dark…
S1E120 120: Biggest Small Black Hole
This week, a new Black Hole Record (kinda), and with it a nice conundrum. the GAIA mission has found the biggest black hole ... of the stellar-mass variety ... in our galaxy. A lot of caveats there,…
S1E119 119: Astrocampus Turns Ten!
We're live from the 10th birthday celebrations for the University of York's Astrocampus, Emily's home turf and all-round fabulous teaching and outreach space. Emily fields some amazing questions from…
S1E118 118: Sextuplet Symphony
After some lengthy follow-up (the Bennu sample is open at last! And SLIM is alive!), Emily investigates possibly the most podcasty story we’ve had on the show: six planets around distant star…
S1E117 117: SLIM chance of Moon landing?
Emily and Chris tune in to JAXA’s livestream of SLIM — the Smart Lander for Investigating and Moon — as it attempted to slick the landing on the lunar surface on Friday 19 January 2023. We were…
S1E116 116: Black Hole Sun
Long-time Syzygy listener Jack asks: "Hey Emily — what's the deal with quasi-stars?" (We're paraphrasing). Quasi-stars are hypothetical, enormous stellar-object-thingies that might have formed…
S1E115 115: Zevatron in the Void
Astronomers routinely detect cosmic rays, the high-energy particles from space that collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a shower of secondary particles that rain down on the…
S1E114 114: A Burst of Tellurium
We've talked BOATs before — cosmic events that are the Brightest Of All Time — and it's always a favourite topic on the show. Recently astronomers analysed the runner-up BOAT in the Burster category,…
Frequently Asked Questions
syzygy has published 139 episodes since April 2018, covering topics in Astronomy, Nature.
syzygy is currently sporadic with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 50m.
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