23: Syzygy Live! from YorNight 2018

A very special live event from YorNight 2018, the University of York's celebration of research at beautiful King's Manor. We talked about exoplanets — that is, planets around other stars — and Emily shared her top three exoplanets of all time. Chris finished by strapping on a guitar and going all Chris Hadfield with The Exoplanet Song. A wonderful, enthusiastic audience of young and old (many in astro-themed fancy dress for the occasion!) packed out the theatre, asked brilliant questions and cheered along.

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Syzygy is produced by Dr Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypod

Things we talk about in this episode:

YorNight 2018: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/

The Kepler mission: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler

Kepler runs out of fuel: https://www.space.com/41363-kepler-exoplanet-hunting-telescope-dead.html 

TESS: https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov 

NASA’s heart-tugging animation: https://nasaviz.gsfc.nasa.gov/20284 

NASA’s Exoplanet Travel Bureau: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/exoplanet-travel-bureau/ 

Kepler 78b: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/226/kepler-78b/ 

Kepler 186f: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/198/kepler-186f-the-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-artists-concept/ 

Kepler 64b: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/222/kepler-64b-four-star-planet/ 

Musical note: Chris would like to acknowledge that he now realises that The Exoplanet Song’s chorus melody is really quite similar to the verse melody from Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”. And by “quite similar” he means “almost identical to”. He’d like to point out that he had a sneaking suspicion there was a reason the song had come to him so quickly … So, you know, thanks Jason.