Ground Control #1

Announcing Celestial Citizen's new bi-weekly rundown of space podcasts!

Welcome to Ground Control. This is our 1st edition of a brand-new newsletter that was born out of our love for the intersection of space + podcasting!

As much as we love to write and talk about space – we also love to listen to space…news. Because you can’t listen to space. Unless it’s a ripple of hot star gas.

You know that feeling when you pop on to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts (yes, you should absolutely read that in the podcasting voice), and you suddenly encounter a paradox of choice? The fact that there is so much out there to feast our ears on is exciting, but it’s overwhelming, too. To help with any analysis paralysis, we decided to start a biweekly list of our favorite current space-focused episodes. With Ground Control, we’ll pick the proverbial needles out of the haystack – er, specks of cosmic dust out of the ever-expanding universe?

Today, we have 5 episode recommendations for you - so buckle up!

Ground Control is exclusively for paid subscribers - so if you want to get past the paywall…well, you know what to do.

As a heads up, in the future we will have an opening or two for ads. If you’re interested, give us a holler at info@celestialcitizen.com.

Let’s get into it.

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Astronomy

Credit: NPR

NPR’s Short Wave

"The JWST Is Fueling Galactic Controversy" 

This week, our top astronomy podcast episode was from NPR Short Wave. In "The JWST Is Fueling Galactic Controversy," show host Regina Barber poses the (loaded) question: do we need to revise our understanding of how the universe is expanding? We found Barber’s guest, astrophysicist Dr. Jorge Moreno to be quite helpful to those who don’t speak cosmos fluently. Moreno uses analogies like the changing pitch of an ambulance siren to help explain how the distance to faraway galaxies are measured using light waves. As JWST provides us with a new and more refined window into deep space, old theories are challenged – and that means astronomer drama. And Moreno spills all the tea on the various theories that are currently being combined — even ones that are not accepted. 

Here’s how to access:

Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Credit: StarTalk Radio

StarTalk Radio

“The Most Famous Eclipse In History”

This week, our runner-up astronomy podcast episode was Startalk Radio’s “The Most Famous Eclipse in History,” which was released a few days before the annular eclipse on October 14th, 2023. If you experienced the ring of fire this month and can’t get enough eclipse content – or if you didn’t and you’re having major FOMO – check out this episode. Perhaps it’s more than you ever wanted to know about solar eclipses, but the rare nature of these phenomena warrants discussion (in our humble opinion). Meteorologist Joe Rao informs the show’s host Neil deGrasse Tyson about the lesser-known eclipse viewing methods, such as observations one can make on the ground instead of the sky, and how to use a saltine cracker to view the eclipse. 

And for what it’s worth, we also enjoyed deGrasse’s follow up “Exploring Dark Skies,” which asks how less access to the night sky might impact peoples' view of the world.

Here’s how to access:

Spotify | Apple Podcasts

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Space Exploration