George's Random Astronomical Object

Recent episodes

1. Object 179: Ear of Wheat from George's Random Astronomical Object

   Jul 20, 20269 min

   Spica in the constellation Virgo is a well-studied binary star system that also ionizes the interstellar gas that surrounds it.

2. Object 178: As Flat as the Argentinian Pampas from George's Random Astronomical Object

   Jun 22, 20268 min

   The Fourcade-Figueroa Galaxy is another example of a very flat disk galaxy seen edge-on from Earth, but that's not the only thing that makes this galaxy unusual.

3. Object 177: Low from George's Random Astronomical Object

   Jun 8, 202610 min

   The gravitationally lensed quasar SBS 1520+530 has been used in a unique way to measure the Hubble constant, but the derived value is rather low.

4. Object 176: The Star Hidden Behind the Interstellar Equivalent of Complicated Tax Forms from George's Random Astronomical Object

   May 25, 20267 min

   HD 210121 is a fairly ordinary blue star located behind a relatively thick cloud of interstellar gas and dust, providing astronomers with a unique opportinity to study that dust.

5. Object 175: Counterintuitive Supernova Explosions from George's Random Astronomical Object

   May 11, 20269 min

   The Cepheus Flare is a nearby regions where a series of supernova explosions have counterintuitively triggered the formation of stars.

6. Object 174: Toy Exoplanets from George's Random Astronomical Object

   Apr 27, 202610 min

   The red dwarf TOI-700 has at least four exoplanets orbiting it, and two of them are Earth-sized exoplanets lying within the star system's habitable zone.

7. Object 173: The Hot Calibrator from George's Random Astronomical Object

   Apr 13, 202610 min

   G191-B2B is a hot white dwarf with a layer of nearly pure oxygen that has been used as a flux calibration source for one particularly famous telescope.

8. Object 172: Lego Minifigures with Masers from George's Random Astronomical Object

   Mar 30, 20269 min

   VY Canis Majoris is not only much, much larger than the Sun but is also ejecting blobs of gas that are forming molecules and dust.

9. Object 171: Guess Again from George's Random Astronomical Object

   Mar 16, 20268 min

   3C 324 was once identified as a possible gravitational lens where one galaxy was bending the light from a galaxy behind it, but it turned out to be something different.

10. Object 170: Don't Forget the Feedback from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Mar 2, 20268 min

    NGC 2639 may look like an ordinary spiral galaxy, but it contains an active galactic nucleus with jets of gas that have emerged from that nucleus in four different directions, which is, to use the technical term, quite weird.

11. Object 169: No Longer a Suspect from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Feb 16, 20269 min

    LGS 3 (also known as the Pisces Dwarf Galaxy) is a nearby but faint dwarf galaxy that has provided some interesting clues as to how stars formed in the early universe.

12. Object 168: A Very Good Looking Scientific Footnote from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Feb 2, 20267 min

    While not many professional astronomers have spent much time looking at the open cluster Messier 103, it is still a spectacular object to see in an amateur astronomy telescope.

13. Object 167: Controversial Radiowaves from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Jan 19, 20269 min

    Astronomers have been studying the radiowave emission from the cluster of galaxies Abell 4038 quite intently and have provided both conventional and unconventional explanations for its origin.

14. Object 166: An Overlooked Cluster from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Jan 5, 202610 min

    The southern open cluster IC 2602, also known as the Theta Carinae Cluster or the Southern Pleiades, may not be as famous as some open clusters visible from the Northern Hemisphere, but it is still a good place for professional astronomers to study young stars, and it's also a good amateur astronomy target.

15. Object 165: A Hole in the Clouds from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Dec 22, 20258 min

    Baade's Window is an unusual hole through the interstellar dust in the Milky Way's disk through which astronomers can very clearly see the stars near the center of our galaxy.

16. Object 164: Not Just Any Quasar But The Quasar from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Dec 8, 202511 min

    Markarian 231 is now widely recognized not only as the closest quasar to Earth but also as a very bright ultraluminous infrared galaxy.

17. Object 163: Ludricous Rotation from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Nov 24, 20258 min

    The pulsar PSR J1022+1001 is one of a small subclass of pulsars named millisecond pulsars because they rotate one every few milliseconds.

18. Object 162: Slightly More Interesting Than a Medieval Anglo-Gallic Coin from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Nov 10, 20259 min

    The lenticular galaxy NGC 1172 contains two different populations of globular clusters, which indicates something about the history of the galaxy.

19. Object 161: More Subclassifications from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Oct 27, 20258 min

    Dy Pegasi is an SX Phoenicis type variable star, and SX Phoenicis type variable stars are a subset of Delta Scuti type variable stars, and this episode explains why that is confusing but what it also actually means.

20. Object 160: A Spiral Galaxy Using a Non-Standard Font from George's Random Astronomical Object

    Oct 13, 20258 min

    The spiral galaxy NGC 3718 has an unusually weird spiral shape, which belies its unusual history.