Single Malt Sky
109 episodes listed below
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Star Trails is a weekly astronomy podcast that begins in your backyard and expands outward to the edge of the universe. Each episode features a guide to the night sky visible across North America — constellations, planets, moon phases, and celestial events — along with deeper explorations of the science, history, and perspective that make astronomy one of humanity’s greatest adventures.From ancient skywatchers to modern spacecraft, from quiet stargazing to the violent deaths of stars, Star Trails reveals the beauty, mystery, and sometimes haunting reality of the cosmos.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Drew connects practical stargazing with simulations, calculations, and lucid explanations of how stars, planets, and spacetime behave.
Star Trails moves between what is overhead now and the physics that gives the sky its scale. Drew pairs practical observing reports with clear accounts of stellar evolution, planetary atmospheres, relativity, black holes, and the search for intelligent life.
Drew can turn your weekly sky check into a million throws of the galactic dice.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear sky guide that settles into the Fermi paradox and the uneasy silence between the stars.
The episode opens with a week ahead sky guide for October 26 through November 1, noting sharper autumn air, earlier nights, and the tail end of the Orionids, with a stray meteor still possible before dawn.
A moonlit sky report that turns astronomy's biggest unknowns into an easy, eerie listen.
Star Trails begins with the week of October 5th to the 11th, tying the harvest supermoon, Saturn in the evening sky, and autumn constellations to five unsolved mysteries of the cosmos.
A calm, clear lesson in why the sky only seems still.
Star Trails makes a clear, patient case that the night sky is always in motion, not fixed above us. Drew walks through Earth's spin and orbit, then moves into seasonal constellations, retrograde motion, precession, and the Moon-linked wobble called nutation.
Pluto's story unfolds as discovery, debate, and a New Horizons coda.
The piece follows Pluto from a telescope-built search on a family farm to the 1930 discovery, then into the later debate over bodies beyond Neptune that forced a rethink of what counts as a planet.
A skywatching update that turns into a calm, reflective look at distance, light, and time.
Star Trails opens on the week of November 16 through 22, when the moon steps out for a few nights and deep sky objects come forward, with dual meteor showers in the forecast.
Moons become a study in habitability, motion, and strange orbital behavior.
Drew's episode treats the moons of the solar system as a practical question, not a trivia parade. It starts with Pluto and moves outward to Saturn's stranger moons, asking which small worlds might actually have the right conditions for life.
A calm astronomy hour that turns the Arecibo message into a readable math puzzle.
Star Trails moves from a local club night under haze and high clouds to the Arecibo message, the radio signal humanity sent toward the stars more than 50 years ago. Drew opens with a fall cookout at a dark sky site, then settles into the message itself and the way it works.
Orion becomes a map of sky lore, stellar physics, and a few arresting surprises.
Orion is used as a way into the night sky, then the piece widens into lore and a theory tying Orion to the pyramids, deep-sky objects, and the stars that hold the constellation together.
Rotating StarTalk scientist-hosts and a comedian co-host tackle listener-submitted cosmic questions.
Patient space coverage with real mission context.
Host Drew guides listeners through a late-October night sky, highlighting planetary positions and the Orionid meteor shower, before delving into a listener question about common black hole imagery.
This episode segment introduces a journey to the edge of the solar system, exploring the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, and reflects on historical discoveries like Neptune and Pluto.
The host discusses the winter solstice, recent travels with cloudy skies, and a holiday gift, while highlighting astronomical features like Orion and Jupiter in the December night sky.
This episode of Star Trails provides a weekly astronomy guide for late July, highlighting planetary alignments and a challenging Pluto observation opportunity.
Host Drew guides listeners through the week's night sky events, highlighting planets and constellations, then delves into a fascinating thought experiment inspired by the recent discovery of a tiny new moon around Uranus.
Mars falls back, and the sun shrinks.
Nearby worlds sit in our own solar system, close enough to change the mood of the show.
Time travel starts with the movies.
This episode explores the dynamic motions of the universe, from Earth's rotation and orbit to the Moon's tidal locking and stellar proper motion, explaining how these movements shape our night sky.
Stars seem simple.
This episode of Star Trails combines a weekly astronomy guide with a deep dive into the Arecibo message, a 1974 radio signal sent to the stars.
This episode of Star Trails guides listeners through celestial events for late July, including dual meteor showers and planetary alignments, then reveals a groundbreaking astronomical discovery: astronomers have identified a companion star orbiting Betelgeuse, explaining its mysterious six-year brightness cycle and transforming our understanding of this famous red supergiant.
Drew opens with the week of October 26th through November 1st and the sharp, early-dark feel of late autumn.
Star Trails devotes this January 11-17 episode to Orion, using the constellation to point listeners toward Sirius, Aldebaran, the Pleiades, Gemini, and the Winter Triangle.
Drew’s Star Trails episode, “The Quiet Majority of Stars,” runs a Monte Carlo simulation of 500,000 stars and finds that nearly 98% are still alive after 10 billion years.
Star Trails: A Weekly Astronomy Podcast opens with Drew using the Drake equation to model more than a million versions of the Milky Way, seeded by a 128-bit random number from IBM's quantum hardware.
Star Trails uses the week of January 25 through 31 to step back from specific objects and talk about expectation.
Tom Bow starts as a faint moving dot.
Drew opens with the week’s night sky for October 5th to the 11th.
Drew starts with the week’s sky.
Host Drew guides listeners through mid-October stargazing opportunities including planetary observations and the Orionid meteor shower, then delves into the fascinating phenomenon of gravitational lensing—explaining how massive objects bend light to create multiple images of distant celestial objects like the Einstein Cross and Abell 1689 galaxy cluster.
This episode explores the diverse moons of the solar system, highlighting unique features like Europa's hidden ocean, Enceladus's geysers, and Titan's methane lakes, while discussing their potential for life and future missions.
This astronomy podcast episode provides a weekly stargazing guide while exploring the fascinating science of time in space.
This episode explores how stars actively shape their environments while they're alive, from sculpting nebulae like Orion and the Eagle Nebula to building planetary systems and defining galactic structure.
This astronomy podcast episode guides listeners through the week's celestial events including the Perseid meteor shower peak and planetary conjunctions, while exploring the surprising science behind what space actually smells like according to astronauts.
This astronomy podcast episode guides listeners through optimal stargazing conditions during a seasonal black moon weekend, then explores the Milky Way's hidden companion galaxies—dozens of faint dwarf galaxies orbiting our own that are reshaping our understanding of galactic evolution and dark matter.
A weekly astronomy podcast that guides listeners through the night sky and explores the science behind astronomy, with this episode focusing on the role of computers in astronomy.
A weekly astronomy podcast guiding listeners through the night sky and exploring astronomical science and history.
A brief update on the show's hiatus and a preview of upcoming celestial events.
A weekly astronomy podcast guiding listeners through the night sky, including moon phases, planets, and celestial events, with a deeper dive into a new world nicknamed Ammonite.
A weekly astronomy podcast guiding listeners through the night sky, including moon phases, planets, and the Perseid meteor shower, with a deeper look at how Earth appears from different parts of the solar system.
A weekly astronomy podcast that guides listeners through the night sky and explores astronomical concepts, starting with a listener question about mass.
This episode guides listeners through the week's night sky, including moon phases and a special anniversary segment on the cosmic calendar.
A guided tour of the night sky for beginners, covering planets, constellations, and tips for using telescopes and binoculars.
This episode provides a weekly guide to the night sky, highlighting a visible comet, meteor showers, and deep sky objects, with a discussion on light pollution.
This episode provides a weekly guide to observing the night sky, including planets, moon phases, and deep sky objects.