Episodes
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AstroMcGill Episode 70 – Tom Prince
Tom Prince visited McGill as part of the opening of the new McGill Space Institute. We talk to Tom about his work with the Palomar Transient Factory and the upcoming Zwicky Transient Facility. Guest: Tom Prince(California Institute of Technology). Hosts: Robert Archibald and Emilie Parent....
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AstroMcGill Episode 69 – Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell
We were visited by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered pulsars during her graduate studies in the 1960s. She talks to us about the still highly active field of pulsar astronomy and her varied career since their discovery. We also discuss her tireless advocacy for women in physics and...
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AstroMcGill Episode 68 – Chiara Mingarelli
Chiara talks to us about how timing the rotation of pulsars can be used to detect gravitational waves–ripples in the very fabric of the cosmos. Guest: Chiara Mingarelli (California Institute of Technology). Hosts: Erik Madsen and Chitrang Patel. Duration: 19 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
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AstroMcGill Episode 67 – Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz
Enrico talks to us about the formation of heavy elements in the Universe through processes such as neutron star mergers. Guest: Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz (University of California Santa Cruz). Hosts: Robert Archibald and Chitrang Patel. Duration: 17 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
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AstroMcGill Episode 66 – Bryan Gaensler
Bryan talks to us about magnetic fields in the Universe (and a little bit about cows). Guest: Bryan Gaensler (University of Toronto, Dunlap Institute). Hosts: Erik Madsen and Gabrielle Simard. Duration: 21 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan.
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AstroMcGill Episode 65 – Beth Wilman
We discussed how astronomers can studied cosmology, the formation and evolution of the Universe, by observing nearby dwarfs galaxies, instead of extremely distant galaxies at the edge of the Universe. Guest: Beth Willman (Haverford College). Hosts: Erik Madsen and Gabrielle Simard. Duration: 23...
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AstroMcGill Episode 64 – Jason Wright
We talked about exoplanets, detecting exoplanets through measurements of radial velocities, and what we can look forward to from this field in the near future. The two websites mentioned during the podcast are exoplanets.org and the Habitable Zone Planet Finder. Guest: Jason Wright Hosts…
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AstroMcGill Episode 63 – Kendrick Smith
We discussed the large-scale structure of the Universe and how we can understand it from observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background emission, the relic light from the formation of the Universe. Guest: Kendrick Smith Hosts: Robert Archibald and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 13 minutes…
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AstroMcGill Episode 62 – Sara Ellison
The topic of this week’s podacst with Sara Ellison was the merging of galaxies. Guest: Sara Ellison Hosts: Sean Griffin and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 19 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
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AstroMcGill Episode 61 – Laurens Keek
In this podcast, we talked about the nuclear explosion happening on the surface of neutron star, and how these objects located thousands of light years away can be used to better understand nuclear physics. Guest: Laurens Keek Hosts: Sebastien Guillot Duration: 20 minutes Production: James...
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AstroMcGill Episode 60 – Gilles Fontaine
We talked about white dwarf stars, and the possible existence of planets around them. Guest: Gilles Fontaine (Université de Montréal) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 22 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
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AstroMcGill Episode 59 – Sara Seager
Sara Seager was one of the invited guest of the Lorne Trottier 2014 Public Science Symposium, and we had the chance for record a podcast with her. The topic of this episode was the search for planets outside of our Solar System, including planets that could be hosting life, and how we would…
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AstroMcGill Episode 58 – Jim Bell
During his visit for the Lorne Trottier 2014 Public Science Symposium, we had the chance to sit with Jim Bell for an AstroMcGill podcast We talked about exploration of the Solar System, and his involvement with Mars exploration missions. Guest: Jim Bell (Arizona State University and Planetary...
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AstroMcGill Episode 57 – Marc Delvin
We discussed galaxy clusters, the growth of large scale structure in the Universe, and Marc’s work on the MUSTANG 2 detector at the Green Bank Telescope. Guest: Marc Delvin (U. of Pennsynvania) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Robert Archibald Duration: 24 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan
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AstroMcGill Episode 56 – Kyle Story
During this episode, we talked about his PhD research work on the observations of the gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background with the South Pole Telescope. Guest: Kyle Story (U. of Chicago) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 15 minutes Production: James...
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AstroMcGill Episode 55 – Julie Lavacek-Larrondo
Following her lecture for the Physical Society Colloquium at McGill, we recorded this episode during which we talked about supermassive black-holes and active galactic nuclei. Guest: Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo (U. Montreal) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Gabrielle Simard Duration: 19 minutes…
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AstroMcGill Episode 54 – Wladimir Lyra
Welcome to the 4th season of the AstroMcGill Podcasts. This week with Wladimir Lyra, we discussed how gases and tiny rocks around a star combine to form the different objects of a planetary system. Guest: Wladimir Lyra (CalTech/JPL) Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and Dave Tsang Duration: 20 minutes...
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AstroMcGill Episode 53 – Emmanuel Fonseca
The discussion was focused on pulsars in binary systems, which are very useful to test different theories of gravity. General relativity – Einstein’s theory – wonderfully predicts the observations of pulsars in the highly-relativistic environments of binary systems. Guest: Emmauel Fonseca (UBC)...
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AstroMcGill Episode 52 – Dick Manchester
Guest: Dick Manchester (ATNF) We had the chance to receive Dick at McGill for a special visit. During this episode, we had a broad discussion about pulsars, these very compact objects that we still do not understand very well, but that are extremely useful to better understand some areas of...
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AstroMcGill Episode 51 – Sarah Burke Spolaor
Guest: Sarah Burke Spolaor (CalTech) The discussion of this podcast was centered on a new and unknown type of astrophysical phenomenon, called Fast Radio Bursts, very brief bursts of radiation disappearing as fast as they appeared. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 22 minutes...
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AstroMcGill Episode 50 – Coleman Miller
Guest: Coleman Miller (U. of Maryland) We had a great discussion about the formation of supermassive black-holes, and black-holes of all sorts. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 21 minutes Production: Mike Collicutt.
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AstroMcGill Episode 49 – Leslie Rogers
Guest: Leslie Rogers (CalTech) During this podcast, we had a general discussion about exoplanets. Host: Dave Tsang Duration: 11 minutes Production: James O’Callaghan.
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AstroMcGill Episode 48 – Mariska Kriek
Guest: Mariska Kriek (U. of California, Berkeley) Mariska’s work is focused on the study of galaxies. We discussed how galaxies formed, how they evolved across cosmic times, and how they form stars from the gas and dust they contain. Host: James Kennedy and Ryan Lynch Duration: 23 minutes...
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AstroMcGill Episode 45 – Matt Mountain
Guest: Matt Mountain (Director of STScI) We had a very interesting and inspiring discussion about the Hubble Space Telescope, and the many discoveries made by this telescope. We also talked about Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, and its potential to search for life outside of…
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AstroMcGill Episode 44 – Anna Frebel
Guest: Anna Frebel (MIT). Anna studies very old stars, almost as old as the Universe itself. We discussed the implication of their existence and how she is looking for these peculiar and very faint stars. She also posts videos sharing her experiences at some of the largest telescopes in the…
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AstroMcGill Episode 43 – David Nataf
Guest: David Nataf (Australian National University). David observes the stars in the bulge of our Galaxy to measure their abundance of helium and their ages, an important step to understand the history of our Galaxy. Host: James Kennedy. Duration: 22 minutes. Production: James O’Callaghan
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AstroMcGill Episode 42 – Daisuke Nagai
Guest: Daisuke Nagai (Yale) We talked about computational cosmology, and how computer simulations can help us understand many things about the Universe. Hosts: Sebastien Guillot and James Kennedy Duration: 22 minutes
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AstroMcGill Episode 41 – Andrea Ghez
Guest: Andrea Ghez (UCLA) Andrea visited the Physics Department to give the Anna I. McPherson Lectures 2013/2014 and it was our pleasure to record this podcast with her. We discussed her recent work on the supermassive black hole at the center of our Galaxy, and the observational techniques...
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AstroMcGill Episode 36 – Philip Muirhead
Guest: Philip Muirhead (Boston University). He is interested in the wide variety of exoplanets orbiting other stars, especially low-mass stars. We talked about the detection of exoplanets and the results from the Kepler mission. Host: Ryan Lynch. Duration: 18 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 35 – Andrey Timokhin
Guest: Andrey Timokhin (NASA/GSFC). We discussed his research on pulsars and their emission mechanism. Hosts: Robert Archibald and James Kennedy. Duration: 18 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 34 – Peter Martin
Guest: Peter Martin (CITA, UToronto). His current research focuses on the dust present in our Galaxy. We discussed what this galactic dust is, how it is detected, and what we can learn from it. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 25 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 33 – Robert Archibald
Guest: Robert Archibald (McGill) Robert Archibald published the first firm detection of an anti-glitch in a magnetar. An anti-glitch is a sudden decrease of the rotation period of a magnetar (a neutron star with a very large magnetic field), by opposition to the frequently-observed glitches which...
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AstroMcGill Episode 32 – Ryan Lynch
Guest: Ryan Lynch (McGill) Ryan studies neutron stars and in particular, pulsars. He was part a collaboration who discovered a massive pulsar in a binary system, which allows to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Hosts: Robert Archibald and Sebastien Guillot Duration: 25 minutes
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AstroMcGill Episode 31 – David Shoemaker
Guest: David H. Shoemaker (MIT). David is part of the advancedLaser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), and we discussed gravitational waves and how LIGO is expected to detect these ripples in the curvature of space-time predicted by Einstein. Hosts: Ryan Lynch, Sean Griffin…
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AstroMcGill Episode 30 – Lucy Fortson
Guest: Lucy Fortson (U. of Minnesota). While Lucy’s initial research interest were focused on high-energy astrophysics, she joined the Zooniverse collaboration (initially the GalaxyZoo project), an online citizen-science project. We discussed what the project its challenges are, as well as some…
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AstroMcGill Episode 29 – Dan Stinebring
Guest: Dan Stinebring (Oberlin College). The discussion was focused on gravitational waves and the NANOGrav collaboration. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sean Griffin. Duration: 17 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 28 – Aaron Parsons
Guest: Aaron Parsons (UC, Berkeley). We talked about the PAPER experiment, which is hoping to shed light on the end of the “dark ages” of the Universe, just as the first stars and galaxies started to form. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Sean Griffin. Duration: 19 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 27 – Maxim Lyutikov
Guest: Maxim Lyutikov (Purdue University). We discussed how and why pulsars emit radiation at radio wavelengths, and at higher energies in the gamma-ray and X-ray bands. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Dave Tsang. Duration: 19 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 26 – Brian Schmidt
Special podcast with 2011 Physics Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt (Australian National University). We had the honor of receiving Brian Schmidt for a podcast interview, during which we talked about his discovery that the Universe was expanding. Brian Schmidt, Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess received...
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AstroMcGill Episode 25 – Christian Ott
Guest: Christian Ott (CalTech). We discussed the death of massive stars, called supernova explosions, and how we can try to understand them with computer simulations. Here is a link to the YouTube channel mentioned during the podcast: SXS Collaboration YouTube Channel. Hosts: Ryan Lynch and Dave...
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AstroMcGill Episode 24 – Joanna Rankin
Guest: Joanna Rankin (U. of Vermont). In this episode, the discussion was focused on her work on the emission mechanism of pulsars, sometimes called “cosmic lighthouses”. Hosts: Sean Griffin, Ryan Lynch and Dave Tsang. Duration: 20 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 23 – Chris Thompson
Guest: Chris Thompson (CITA, U of Toronto). We discussed his research on gamma-ray bursts and magnetars. Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 19 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 22 – Chelsea Sharon
Guest: Chelsea Sharon (Rutgers University). We talked about the study of star formation in very distant galaxies. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 18 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 21 – Victoria Scowcroft
Guest: Victoria Scowcroft (Carnegie Observatory). We talked about her involvement in the Carnegie Hubble Program, a project dedicated to the measurement of the Hubble constant by calibrating the steps of the distance ladder. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 17 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 20 – David Tsang
Guest: David Tsang (McGill). We talked about neutron star mergers as emitters of gravitational waves. These waves are ripples in the curvature of space-time. Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 23 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 19 – Dong Lai
Guest: Dong Lai (Cornell). We discussed his research on hot Jupiters, a type of exoplanets on which tidal forces play an important role. Hosts: James Kennedy and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 22 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 18 – Ue-Li Pen
Guest: Ue-Li Pen (CITA, U of Toronto). We talked about his involvement with the rehabilitation of the Algonquin Radio Observatory, and how it was used for radio pulsar scattering observations. Hosts: James Kennedy and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 10 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 17 – Mathias Zaldarriaga
Guest: Mathias Zaldarriaga (IAS/Princeton). We discussed various topics of cosmology (the Big Bang, inflation, the Cosmic Microwave Background, etc…). Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 25 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 16 – Abby Vieregg
Guest: Abby Vieregg (Harvard CFA). We talked about her work on the detection of neutrinos (hard-to-detect fundamental particles) with the balloon-borne instrument ANITA at the South Pole. Hosts: James Kennedy, Ryan Lynch and Sebastien Guillot. Duration: 23 minutes.
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AstroMcGill Episode 15 – Abe Falcone
Guest: Abe Falcone (Penn State). The discussion was about cosmic rays, very energetic particles with cosmic origin. Hosts: James Kennedy and Ryan Lynch. Duration: 30 minutes.