Space Nuts

Join us for an intergalactic conundrum that will stretch your mind to the far reaches of the universe! In this enlightening episode of Space Nuts, your hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson are navigating the cosmic highways and byways, tackling some of the most perplexing questions out there.First stop: the mysterious Lagrange points. Listener Jim from Texas is puzzled about how gravity is balanced at these points, especially L2 and L3. Fred serves up a celestial explanation that involves not just gravity but centrifugal force, too. It's a cosmic balancing act that keeps our space missions on course and our minds in awe.Next, we're zooming into the heart of galaxies where supermassive black holes reign supreme. Kerry's burning question leads us to differentiate the gravitational effects of these cosmic giants from the elusive dark matter. How do astronomers measure their impact separately, and could we have misjudged their mass? Fred illuminates the dark corners of this astronomical puzzle.And for t