This podcast episode is a bit of a copy of my 3-year-old blog post on the topic, but it revises the subject a bit and serves as an introduction to my Intro to 2012 month (December 2011).
This month will feature four podcasts. The first is on the history of the term Planet X, and is this episode. The second will be an interview with a really truly live Mayan scholar and should come out December 8. Third will be about galactic alignments, coming out December 16. Finally, one will come out on December 21 about what the sky looks like on December 21 … 2012.
I expect all of these to be shorter than the ~40-minute episodes that have been the norm since October. For example, this one is only about 20 minutes. The interview will probably be closer to a half hour, though. It’s someone else talking and it’s not scripted.
There will be a lot of 2012 episodes coming out over the next 13 months. Many of them I have talked about on this blog before for the simple fact that I have written this blog for over three years and done the podcast for only four months.
In another bit of podcast news, the Q&A section is almost DOA. I’ve had two so far in regular episodes, and no one has asked a question for Q&A since the last. I have no problem with making it an irregular segment except then it kinda has the feeling of I’m someone’s go-to guy for that rare case they have a question (Jeff …). So, I’m soliciting questions for that.
Also, now that you know something of the topics coming up this month, if you happen to have a puzzler to suggest for the Dec. 16 episode, feel free to send it in. Coming up with these suckers is hard and help won’t be ignored.
Exposing PseudoAstronomy 
yo stuart! I’m a big fan thanks for another great podcast^^ . first of all I consider a planet to be anything that is massive enough to become spherical because of its own gravity , there is some technical term for this i think , but i have also heard of the star trek test in which you look at the object as they do in star trek on the view screen and you say , hey! thats a planet … many of the moons in our solar system would pass both of these tests so i see how my reasoning is flawed or this would cause confusion hehe . i think you should try to get some theme music for the intro and end of podcast that is more hip and edgy but I have no specific suggestions , and I would also like if you added a small section where you discuss news items , i would just like to hear your comments on current astronomy news . maybe things that you read that the general public probably don’t know are happening or maybe your thoughts on astronomy news items that end up making network nightly news broadcasts , while astronomy is rarely discussed on network news shows , i find that when it does happen network nightly news broadcast discussion of astronomy stories is incomplete , completely worthless , or in some cases misleading … or at least they leave out many interesting details . thanks a lot! Keep up the good work!
Comment by Walter Walkie — December 6, 2011 @ 3:51 am |
Thanks. As for news items, someone else sent me an e-mail recently about actually doing a separate podcast on astronomy news. My response to him is the same to you: There are so many other websites out there that discuss astronomy current events that any effort I make would be (a) duplicated and (b) well after the fact.
Comment by Stuart Robbins — December 9, 2011 @ 3:00 pm |