George's Random Astronomical Object
George's Random Astronomical Object is a biweekly astronomy podcast featuring science discussions about astronomical objects at randomly selected locations in the sky. The wide range of topics discussed in the show include stars, variable stars, variable variable stars, supermassive black holes, ultracool dwarf stars, exoplanets, howler monkeys, infrared radiation, acronyms, more acronyms, starbursts, measurements of less than 12 parsecs, jellyfish galaxies, diffuse ionized gas, and general overall weirdness.
- Update frequency
- every 14 days
- Average duration
- 10 minutes
- Episodes
- 157
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
Object 77: Another 90's Gamma Ray Flashback
GRB 980326 was the first gamma ray burst to be associated with a supernova, which was truly groundbreaking even if the astronomers who discovered it were probably using Netscape at the time.
00:10:30 |
Mon 11 Jul 2022
Object 76: A Modern Non-Comet
Sakurai's Object was discovered in 1996 by the amateur astronomer Yukio Sakurai, who had been searching for comets but who had instead found a dying star that had brifly undergone a final burst of fu…
00:08:43 |
Mon 27 Jun 2022
Object 75: The Completely Unconcerned Open Cluster
The open cluster NGC 3680 is 1.4 billion years old, making it unusually long-lived for such a cluster.
00:09:31 |
Mon 13 Jun 2022
Object 74: The Brightest Star on the Argo
As the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus is associated with many different myths, yet as the closest yellow supergiant to Earth, the star is also scientifically important.
00:12:33 |
Mon 30 May 2022
Object 73: A Very Distant Infrared Smudge
The hyperluminous infrared galaxy IRAS 10214+4724 was the most distant infrared object seen by astronomers in the 1980s.
00:14:04 |
Mon 16 May 2022
Object 72: No Face Masks Are Needed for Monocerotis
GX Monocerotis is a evolved star near the end of its life that is expelling its outer gas layers, and because the star is in orbit in a binary star system, those gas layers have formed a spiral patte…
00:08:43 |
Mon 02 May 2022
Object 71: The Black Hole That Didn't Get Its Morning Coffee
The center of the barred spiral galaxy Messier 71 contains multiple regions where stars are forming as well as an inactive supermassive black home that needs some caffeine.
00:09:07 |
Mon 18 Apr 2022
Object 70: The Uncredited Star
Eta Aquilae was the first Cepheid variable ever discovered, but this class of stars was named after Delta Cephei instead.
00:08:36 |
Mon 04 Apr 2022
Object 69: How To Avoid Photobombing Asteroids
The North Ecliptical Pole points to a location perpendicular to the plane of the Solar System, which makes it a unique place for certain types of astronomical observations.
00:11:15 |
Mon 21 Mar 2022
Object 68: Reflections in Quotation Marks
The spiral galaxy NGC 6814 is a source of strong but variable X-ray emission that astronomers are using to measure the mass of a supermassive black hole at its center.
00:09:52 |
Mon 07 Mar 2022
Object 67: The Weird Sphere
The abnormal-looking globular cluster Messier 71 is unusual in that its stars contain an excessive amount of heavy elements and in that it is being gravitationally shredded by the Milky Way.
00:12:37 |
Mon 21 Feb 2022
Object 66: This Episode Brought to You by the Letter B
The binary star system b Centauri contains an exoplanet named b Centauri b that, despite its confusing name, has changed astronomers' perspectives on how and where planets can form.
00:14:38 |
Mon 07 Feb 2022
Object 65: The Infrared Twin
Even though HD 106252 has an exoplanet orbiting it, astronomers are much more interested in the fact that HD 106252 looks very similar to the Sun.
00:10:30 |
Mon 24 Jan 2022
Object 64: An Actual Use for Einstein's Famous Equation
VER J0521+211 is a distant galaxy that produces gamma rays with such high energy that, when the gamma rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, the photons transform into electrons and positrons.
00:11:44 |
Mon 10 Jan 2022
Object 63: A Rant About Variable Star Classifications
UX Ari is an RS CVn type variable star system, which is a confusing way to classify variable star systems but which means that UX Ari contains two stars very close together with complex, interacting …
00:09:49 |
Mon 27 Dec 2021
Object 62: Imaged Before the Hubble Space Telescope Was Fixed
NGC 7457 was one of the first things imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, which meant that the images of it were relatively blurry, but this is not the most interesting fact about this lenticular ga…
00:08:43 |
Mon 13 Dec 2021
Object 61: Greater Than One
SPT-CL J0546-5345 is an abnormally large cluster that formed very quickly after the Big Bang, which places some strong constraints of models of the formation and evolution of the universe.
00:13:24 |
Mon 29 Nov 2021
Object 60: Conclusively Inconclusive
UM 425 could be either a pair of very similar quasars at the same distance from Earth or a single quasar that has been gravitationally lensed so that it appears twice in the sky.
00:09:23 |
Mon 15 Nov 2021
Object 59: Do Not Confuse With VV Cephei
VW Cephei is an eclipsing binary star system containing two stars that are so close that they share an outer gas layer.
00:07:41 |
Mon 01 Nov 2021
Object 58: Insert Guitar Riff Here
Chi Cygni is a Mira-type variable star with some of the most extreme variations in brightness among any variable stars in the sky.
00:10:26 |
Mon 18 Oct 2021
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