David.R.Gilson

Favourite Audio Podcast #1: AstronomyCast

Feb 9

Editorial David No Comments
astronomy, astrophysics, audio, cosmology, Education, mp3, podcast

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Thought I’d start a little series of posts sharing the things I like to watch and listen to. So, the next few Mondays will have my favourite audio podcasts, and Wednesdays shall be my favourite video podcasts (which I like to call Internet TV).

AstronomyCast

So, since this is the international year of astronomy, I thought honour of first mention should go to AstronomyCast. This is one of the great rare few podcasts for which you really need your thinking cap on. It is presented by Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L Gay. What I like most about this podcast is summed up in the show’s slogan, “a weekly fact based journey through the cosmos, helping you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know“. Emphasis needs to be placed on that last part. It is one thing to laud and lecture on the achievements of any branch of science, but actually backing that up with how such conclusions were reached supplies a degree of tangibility. This is something sadly lacking on our mainstream television and radio, and is why science is so badly understood by the general public.

AstronomyCast usually produces an approximately 30 minute episode twice a week. One episode is dedicated to talking about a particular subject in either; astronomy, astrophysics or cosmology or space technology; the other episode is a question & answer session where the presenters answer questions sent in by listeners.

If you are interested in listening to AstronomyCast, you can visit their website, or subscribe to their RSS feed.

For good measure, at the time of writing, this was their latest episode:
[audio: http://media.libsyn.com/media/astronomycast/AstroCast-090122.mp3|titles=Question Show - January 27th 2009|artists=Fraser Cain and Dr Pamela Gay]