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The Supermassive Podcast

Will the Next Space Telescopes Unravel Current Physics?

5/28/20261 hr 4 min

Nancy Grace Roman. Ariel. The next generation of space telescopes are here. Astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst and science journalist Izzie Clarke explore how they work, what they can tell us and why they might unravel our current understanding of the universe. Plus Dr Robert has your stargazing tips for June.

Thank you to Dr Tom Barclay from NASA's Roman telescope and Dr Chris Pearson from RAL Space.

The Supermassive Podcast is a Boffin Media production. The producers are Izzie Clarke and Richard Hollingham.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Clips

Standard Model Could Collapse
Roman’s Data Avalanche
A Thousand-Fold Speed Boost

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Izzie Clarke· Host0:00

    Do you wanna say that again, Becky?

  2. Becky Smethurst· Host0:01

    [laughs] I've just realized I've not brushed my teeth.

  3. Izzie Clarke· Host0:04

    Lovely.

  4. Tom Barclay· Guest0:05

    [laughs] [laughs] There's a real possibility that Rome tells us our standard model of evolution of, of the universe is very, very wrong.

  5. Robert Massey· Panelist0:15

    We've discovered around 6,000 exoplanets to date, but what we haven't done much of is actually look at what they're made of.

  6. Izzie Clarke· Host0:23

    Hello. Welcome to the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, science journalist Izzy Clark, and astrophysicist Mrs. Dr. Becky Smethurst. [laughs] Congratulations.

  7. Becky Smethurst· Host0:40

    Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I got married like 10 days ago, and I'm still on a high.

  8. Izzie Clarke· Host0:45

    Whee.

  9. Becky Smethurst· Host0:45

    But today it's all about the next generation of space telescopes.

  10. Izzie Clarke· Host0:50

    Ooh. I think we say it a lot, but I feel like we're living in a really exciting time for astronomy. In terms of observational astronomy, there seems to be so many ambitious missions- Mm-hmm ... and observatories on the horizon.

  11. Becky Smethurst· Host1:04

    Yeah, definitely. And I, I mean, maybe everyone says this through whate- you know, if you lived through, like, Hubble launching, like, oh, this seems like it's a great time, so ambitious and things. And we know JWST was a great time and so ambitious. But it does feel like we're coming to the end of the lifetime or have already come to the end of a lifetime of, like, the first generation of space telescopes.

  12. Izzie Clarke· Host1:25

    Mm.

  13. Becky Smethurst· Host1:25

    And now we're thinking, "Okay, that was great, but what can we do

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