The Supermassive Podcast · The Royal Astronomical Society

BONUS - Lumpy Space Potatoes

·14 min·1 clip

Becky reveals why pulsars flash like lighthouse beams from Northern Canada, not wobbling as we might think.

This bonus episode of the Royal Astronomical Society's Supermassive podcast features Izzy Clark, Dr. Becky Smethurst, and Dr. Robert Massey answering listener questions sent to the podcast mailbox. On pulsars, Dr. Becky explains that pulsar jets do not wobble, but the magnetic poles of the spinning neutron star do not align with the geographic poles — just as Earth's magnetic north is in northern Canada, not at the actual North Pole — so as the star spins, the jets trace a cone across the sky like a lighthouse beam, which is why we detect regular pulses. Pulsars inherit the angular momentum of their progenitor stars but spun up dramatically when the star's mass was crushed down, like an ice skater pulling in their arms. On the question of whether NASA's black hole sound recordings are legitimate, Dr. Massey explains the process of sonification — mapping data values like brightness and wavelength to sound frequency and intensity — as a valid scientific and artistic tool. He notes the Perseus galaxy cluster recording actually corresponds to real pressure waves in hot X-ray gas detected by the Chandra telescope. Dr. Becky adds that sonification is particularly valuable for making astronomy accessible to visually impaired researchers and audiences. On what holds planets together beyond gravity's initial gathering, Dr. Becky explains it is still gravity, supplemented by the strong nuclear force at atomic scales and chemical bonding forces for molecules — and offers the aside that planets are technically oblate spheroids (lumpy potatoes), not perfect spheres, and that even black holes represent about as close to a perfect sphere as astronomy offers. On aurorae beyond Earth, Dr. Massey lists Venus (faint flashes), Mars (localized over magnetized rock remnants since Mars lost its global magnetic field), Jupiter, its moon Io, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (with Hubble and JWST imagery). He reports that LOFAR, the low-frequency radio telescope array spanning Europe, has now detected aurorae around exoplanets, which can reveal the presence, atmosphere, and magnetic field of those worlds. JWST is less suited for exoplanet aurorae detection because they emit little infrared.

As heard by us

A breezy Q&A that makes sonification feel practical, not mystical.

Supermassive's bonus mailbox builds a friendly, easygoing discussion around a listener question and keeps the focus on why astronomers turn data into something audible.

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Why you'd press play

Dentist-chair nerves, black-hole shock waves, and why astronomers turn data into audio.

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