#50 - August 2016

The Discussion: We’re cheering Jeni’s graduation with a first
class masters in astrophysics and looking at the PhD options she
has as she chases the dream of becoming Dr Millard! Paul &
Ralph make preparations for September’s dark sky AstroCamp
stargazing event and educate Jeni on computers from the 80s.


The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we
have:


A new dwarf planet is discovered in our solar system

The doomed Hitachi spacecraft reveals streams of
intergalactic plasma

A new moon around Earth discovered

Detective work reveals what caused the moon’s Imbrium Basin

Tatooine gets outshone by a planet with three stars

The first observation of a snowline in a forming solar system



Woobusters: Continuing our quest to debunk the myths and
conspiracy theories that persist in every dark corner of the news
and the internet. This month’s topic, picked at random from
Paul’s festering Hat of Woo: Chemtrails – those quite normal jet
exhaust trails that some people think are spraying mind control
agents


The Interview: For the interview this month we visit Dr Helen
Sharman from Imperial College London, who because Britain’s first
astronaut in 1991:


Tim Peake’s slight embarrassment at often being called
Britain’s 1st astronaut

An unconventional route to space

Training to be an astronaut at Russia’s Star City

The Mir space station compared to the International Space
Station

Excitement for the future of human spaceflight

Uncertainty over space and science funding in the Brexit era.

The full interview with Helen will be available as a podcast
extra later in the month



Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter
take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always
plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month
we get a question that follows the theme of our introduction and
looks directly at the point Helen Sharman raised in this month’s
interview:


What does Brexit mean for the UKs involvement in things like ESA
and ESO? Andrew Burns, United Kingdom