Quarks, quasars and a toast to the night sky.
Mike, Liz and Brandon bring real astrophysics and a round of drinks to Cosmos with Cosmos, and the puns tend to arrive faster than the definitions. The range is wide: quark flavors and quantum chromodynamics, a quasar bright in neutrinos, spring galaxy clusters in Leo and Virgo, and Spiro Agnew's space station dreams.
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Cosmos with Cosmos is a space show built on three voices and a round of drinks. Mike, Liz and Brandon introduce themselves in turn, and what follows mixes working astrophysics with puns, pop-culture detours and corrections made on the fly. The drinks are part of the structure. Early in the primordial black holes conversation, Brandon lists what is in his glass: orange liqueur, sparkling water, cranberry mango juice. The episode is jokingly credited to a sponsor, the Big Bang, on the grounds that without it there would be no black holes and no show. Then the physics arrives. The hosts name all six quarks, sort out that a quark's flavor and its color are different properties, and arrive at quantum chromodynamics, with a 'semi-charmed kind of life' gag hung on the charm quark. They bill it, fairly, as brain-melting quantum stuff. The SHOT is the other format. Its installments tend to open with a toast to their subject and stay with a single story. 'The SHOT: The Eye of Sauron & the Ghost Particle' covers quasars as early-universe galaxies whose central black holes are feeding hard, neutrinos that shift between electron, muon and tau flavors, and one quasar bright in gamma rays and, according to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, in neutrinos. A host admits the story was picked for the nickname. 'The SHOT: Galaxy Season' makes an easy starting point: it explains how Earth's tilt turns spring skies away from the plane of the Milky Way and toward the galaxy clusters of Leo and Virgo, mentions the Messier challenge, and calls galaxies the wildflowers of the universe, no permit required. History gets a turn as well. 'The SHOT: Spiro Agnew' follows Nixon's vice president into the years when public support for space waned, and credits him with chasing a large space station and a pathway to Mars through the space task group. Along the way it stalls, happily, on how to pronounce Gemini. 'Attack of the Killer Space Rocks - The Revenge Tour' is announced as Didymo Strikes Back, the hosts bicker over who shot first, and one of them jokes that Earth moved into the asteroids' neighborhood. Beneath the jokes: friction heat through the atmosphere, kinetic energy turned to heat on impact, tsunamis from ocean strikes, and the giant collision that gave Earth its Moon. High in the Sky editions are tied to a calendar month, and the April 2026 edition finds a host newly moved into a house with a west-facing view, no moonrise, and a busy road out front. Tolkien keeps wandering in, from the Eye of Sauron to Brandon appearing 'live from the Shire' on the video version to a Spiro Agnew tangent about Frodo and a video game dragon. Sign-offs run to cheers, live long and prosper, and a reminder that everyone shares a universe made of star stuff.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants real astrophysics vocabulary, such as quark flavors, neutrino oscillation and galaxy clusters, delivered with running jokes, a drink on the table and plenty of Tolkien and sci-fi asides. It also fits a backyard stargazer looking for a nudge to go outside and look up.
What sets it apart: It keeps genuine physics (quark flavors, neutrino oscillation, quantum chromodynamics) inside a loose structure of toasts, puns and three-way interruptions. It also moves between hard theory, backyard observing and space-policy history, such as Spiro Agnew and the post-Apollo years.
A fellowship of planetarians discussing all things spacey and sci-fi...with drinks. Hosted by Brandon Riddle, Liz Davison, and Mike George
An asteroid revenge tour gives you impact physics with your pun quota already exceeded.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose, irreverent tour from the Big Bang to the strange possibility of primordial black holes passing through Earth.
Primordial black holes give this single episode a useful path into the Big Bang, quarks, and the odd language physicists use to make sense of matter.
A porch, a bus stop, and the pink moon bring April skywatching down to earth.
High in the Sky for April 2026 keeps astronomy grounded in the limits of an actual home: mountains, porch overhang, trees, a busy road, and even a bus stop all affect what the hosts can see.
A loose, physics-led tour of asteroid impacts, from atmospheric heat to the planetary consequences of a massive collision.
Asteroid impacts are framed as physics first and spectacle second. The hosts move from orbital speed and the small nudge an incoming body can give a planet to the heat produced in the atmosphere and at impact, then follow that energy into tsunamis and even the possibility of…
A relaxed March skywatching chat, with a lunar eclipse, WOH G64, and enough casual chemistry to keep it companionable.
Cosmos with Cosmos makes March 2026 feel like an easygoing skywatching month, moving from the March 3 total lunar eclipse and the March 18 new moon into the broader pleasure of darker skies.
A loose, funny tour of Artemis, from Orion refreshes and astronaut snacks to the politics of NASA's budget.
Artemis comes through as a story about hardware, bodies, and the politics that can shape whether a moon mission gets to fly. The hosts move from a possible July timing concern, with Orion systems needing refreshes and life-support scrubbers due for replacement, into the…
Rotating StarTalk scientist-hosts and a comedian co-host tackle listener-submitted cosmic questions.
Cosmic futures, argued from constraints.
Patient answers for enormous space questions.
The hosts discuss space and sci-fi topics while enjoying drinks, with a casual and humorous tone.
The hosts wrap up season six with a high-in-the-sky episode, previewing a special guest and upcoming astronomy shots.
Cosmos with Cosmos opens on Mike, Liz, and Brandon joking about primordial black holes as "brain melting quantum stuff" before tying the topic to a paper that came out last year.
The hosts discuss quasars and blazars, explaining their nature as bright galactic nuclei with supermassive black holes.
Cosmos with Cosmos' April 2026 episode opens with Liz, Mike, and Brandon trading drink names like "Ghost of Jupiter" and "Backbone of the Serpent" while Brandon appears live from a Shire-themed backdrop.
The hosts discuss how Earth's tilt and revolution cause galaxy season in spring, changing our view of the universe.
Cosmos with Cosmos uses its 150th episode to explain asteroid impacts as inelastic collisions, not pool-ball bounces, and the hosts compare them to car crashes, bat cracks, and a Randy Johnson bird-strike joke.
Cosmos with Cosmos' March 2026 "High in the Sky" centers on Canis Major and Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky at 8.6 light years.
Richard Carrington's 1859 solar observations and a newly surfaced portrait anchor this Cosmos with Cosmos episode.
Cosmos with Cosmos episode 148 breaks down NASA's Artemis program as a Moon return plan, from Artemis 1 to Artemis II and beyond.
Liz and Brandon's February 2026 "High in the Sky" highlights the Columba constellation, first depicted by Petrus Plancius in 1592 as Columba Noachi, "Noah's dove." The sky guide covers a February 17 annular solar eclipse visible only from the Indian Ocean or Antarctica, a February 28 "planets on parade" with six planets, and a March 3 total lunar eclipse.
Mike and Liz state that Earth is 4.54 billion years old and that, in their words, "there is no debate," setting this against the young-Earth figure of 6,000 years.
Hosts discuss what's up in the night sky for May and recent astronomy news while enjoying themed drinks.
The hosts discuss the concept of order from chaos in the universe while enjoying themed cocktails.