Cosmic Coffee Time with Andrew Prestage

• #85 Skywatch December 2025. Geminid Meteor Shower, Supermoon vs. Pleiades and Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

  Send us a textAs the year winds down, let’s take a look at what the night sky has on offer in December 2025. The highlight has to be the Geminid Meteor Shower. Over a couple of nights this month, Earth crashes through the debris trail of asteroid 3200 Phaethon, producing a spectacular meteor shower. There’s a Supermoon in close proximity to the Pleiades star cluster, and we say goodbye to an interstellar traveller in 3I/ATLAS.Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special contentX.com/CosmicCoffTimeEmail us! [email protected] can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!We'd love to hear from you.

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• #84 Before exoplanets comes a protoplanetary disc, we’ve found heavy water in one of these. What does this mean for the history of planetary water?

  Send us a textWe’ve detected many exoplanets and exoplanetary stems, they orbit stars in other parts of the galaxy. These planets form the same way our planetary did, they coalesce from a protoplanetary disc of gas and dust. Scientists have recently found a useful kind of substance - heavy water in one of these protoplanetary discs, and it’s told us a lot about how water might end up in planetary systems.Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special contentX.com/CosmicCoffTimeEmail us! [email protected] can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!We'd love to hear from you.

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• #83 Two black holes collided a billion light years away, we detected it on Earth just this year, and it was the biggest ever recorded.

  Send us a textA billion light years away, a billion years ago, two black holes spiralled toward each other and collided, we detected its gravitational waves in January 2025. We’ve detected many of these before, but this one was different. It was such a strong, clear signal that we could test laws of physics that had been proposed many decades earlier. It even put Einstein to the test.Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special contentX.com/CosmicCoffTimeEmail us! [email protected] can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!We'd love to hear from you.

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• #82 Apollo-Soyuz at 50! It’s been a half century since this incredible project. The first international space mission.

  Send us a textIn 1975, an incredible and unlikely partnership resulted in the docking of a NASA Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit. The cold war opponents worked together to overcome not only engineering challenges, but the rivalry and suspicion of the cold war. This cooperation led to the Shuttle-Mir program in the 90s and the present day International space station. They all began with the spirit of cooperation from Apollo-Soyuz.Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special contentX.com/CosmicCoffTimeEmail us! [email protected] can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!We'd love to hear from you.

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• #81 After centuries of Earth’s rotation slowing down, it’s now speeding up and making the days shorter. But you’d never notice.

  Send us a textEarth’s days had been getting longer since observations began. Every century, the length of the day would increase by about two milliseconds. Like… clockwork. In recent years, something strange has been happening, the days have started getting shorter as the rotation of the Earth has been speeding up. Even more strangely, we don’t really understand why.Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special contentX.com/CosmicCoffTimeEmail us! [email protected] can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!We'd love to hear from you.

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