Welcome to episode 38 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast. This episode features the last part of our physics feature on the lifecycle of a star from dust cloud to super nova, and the 3rd of the ScopeX 2018 public lectures.
Over the past few episodes we’ve been trying to understand how a random cloud of dust and gas can turn into a supernova. In this segment, we finally get to witness our supernova, but that’s just brought up more questions. What exactly makes a neutron star so weird?? Don’t supernovae also make black holes, and what even is a black hole, exactly?
Pieter presented a talk on space weather titled “Living in the shadow of a variable star, The Sun“. He works as a physicist for the South African National Space Agency, stationed at the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory.