Comets, Eclipses and Auroras: The LIUniverse Looks Back at 2024

What were the coolest science and sci-fi events in the LIUniverse in 2024, and what’s in store for us in 2025? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome three members of our production team: Leslie Mullen, our Executive Producer making her first on air appearance, Jon Barnes, our Editor, and Stacey Severn, our Social Media/Patreon Community Director, both of whom are familiar to longtime fans.

But first, as always, we start with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the latest development in the dispute that astrophysicists call the “Hubble Tension.” Over the past 20 years, the two different methods of measuring the Hubble Constant, which is used to calculate the rate of universal expansion, have led to two different conclusions. Leslie points out that the universe isn’t confused, we are, leading to a conversation about why accurate measurements matter in helping us expand our limited understanding.

Then we begin our look back at the year in astronomy – or rather, our look up. Stacey takes us on a tour, from a Geminid meteor hitting the moon, to the spectacular aurora borealis visible in the Northeastern US, to Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, to, of course, the Great North American Eclipse. The team share their viewing experiences while Chuck explains the impact of solar max on both the eclipse and the auroras.

Next, Jon Barnes is back to talk about “The Three-Body Problem” science fiction series on Netflix. He asks Chuck to explain what we really know about cosmic particles (aka cosmic rays), because, in the series, the aliens use sophons, a supercomputer combined with a photon, to communicate across long distances at or near the speed of light. You’ll also hear about the recent detection of a surprisingly large number of very high energy cosmic rays that are hitting us right now.

Our fan question comes from Pshemo on Patreon and concerns an experiment to measure the dynamics of a local system relative to spacetime by using light as a way of gauging the background nature of the universe. And if you think that sounds pretty geeky, it’s nothing compared to the conversation between Allen, Chuck and Leslie that ensues, encompassing Einstein, the Michelson–Morley experiment, gravitational waves, LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and LISA.

There’s plenty more in this episode, including a discussion of the recent wave of drone sightings, their similarity to the past UFO sightings, and the likelihood that they are all explained by less exotic causes than aliens. Moving on to the coolest “identified flying objects” of 2024, Leslie tells us about the Europa Clipper, which launched in October. It will reach orbit around Jupiter in 6 years in order to search for alien life in the subsurface oceans of its icy moon Europa. Chuck reminds us all that NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will make its closest approach to our Sun on Christmas Eve 2024.

Finally, it’s time for the team to share what they’re looking forward to in 2025. Jon is psyched for “Mickey 17,” a film by director Bong Joon-ho about a clone on a space colony. Allen is excited for Rocket Lab’s Venus Life Finder, the first private interplanetary space probe, which launches in January to search for organic compounds within Venus' atmosphere. Stacey is looking forward to Axiom Space’s fourth mission to the ISS in 2025, an international trip to conduct scientific experiments commanded again by Peggy Whitson. Leslie is most excited for the discovery nobody is expecting, whatever that may be.

And what is Chuck looking forward to most in 2025? The long-awaited start of scientific operations at the Vera Rubin Observatory, which will take a full picture of the sky every 30 seconds for ten years and deliver an unprecedented level of data for astronomers to feast upon!

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

 

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

• Illustration of the Hubble constant – NASA/ESA/StSci, Public Domain
• Gianluca Lombardi Geminid meteor shower video podcast – ESO, Public Domain
• Northern Lights over the Northeastern US in 2024. – Elliot Severn, All Rights Reserved
• Northern Lights over the Northeastern US in 2024. – Allen Liu, All Rights Reserved
• Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS – Elliot Severn, All Rights Reserved
• Map showing total solar eclipse viewing in US in 2017 and 2024. – Ernest Wright/NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, Public Domain
• Total solar eclipse, April 8, 2024. – Elliot Severn, All Rights Reserved
• How LIGO achieves steadiness – Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab, Public Domain
• Europa Clipper construction – NASA/JPL, Public Domain
• Artist rendering of Europa Clipper traveling to Jupiter – NASA/JPL, Public Domain
• Artist concept of the Casini spacecraft flying through the water/ice plumes of Enceladus – NASA/JPL, Public Domain
• Artist concept of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flying close to the Sun. – NASA, Public Domain