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Once a month, Purdue University's Professor Paul Duffell discusses astronomy and astrophysics with experts from around the world. Duffell and guests discuss supernovae, galaxies, planets, black holes, and the nature of space and time.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ astronomy/astrophysics expert interviews • black holes: detection, binaries, tidal disruptions, environments • neutron stars: mergers, gravitational waves, fast radio bursts • supernovae, remnants, JWST forensics • planet/solar-system formation, astrochemistry, exoplanet imaging • white dwarfs, binaries, turbulence • galaxies, clusters, early structure formation • simulations, big data, machine learning, time-domain astronomyThis podcast is a monthly interview show hosted by Purdue University astrophysicist Paul Duffell, featuring conversations with researchers about how the universe works across a wide range of scales, from planets and stars to galaxies and black holes. The discussions often connect physical theory with the practical ways astronomers gather evidence, emphasizing how scientists infer the properties of distant objects from light, radio signals, and gravitational waves.
A recurring theme is stellar life and death. Episodes explore how stars evolve in isolation and in binary systems, how supernovae are analyzed from their changing brightness and spectra, and how supernova remnants continue to shape their environments long after an explosion. Related topics include compact objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars—what their interiors are like, how phenomena such as pulsations, convection, and neutrino emission reveal hidden physics, and how extreme density and magnetic fields can produce dramatic transient signals.
Black holes are another central focus, including how astronomers detect objects that emit no light directly, how gas and stars behave in their vicinity, and what happens during tidal disruption events when a star is torn apart. The show also examines supermassive black holes in galactic centers, what might orbit around them, and how binaries of massive black holes could be identified.
Planet formation and exoplanets appear frequently as well, with attention to the early stages of building planetary systems, the role of astrochemistry in protoplanetary disks, and the observational and data-analysis methods that enable direct imaging of planets around other stars.
Across many conversations, the podcast highlights modern astrophysics as a computational and data-intensive enterprise: large-scale simulations used to model complex systems, machine learning and “big data” approaches for upcoming survey observatories, and time-domain astronomy that repeatedly scans the sky to capture cosmic events as they change. Occasional Q&A-style episodes broaden the scope to fundamental and offbeat questions related to astrophysics.