Jodcast Live! : Pints, Planets and Podcasts

Despite our best efforts with gigantic telescopes, the time when the first stars and galaxies formed is still shrouded in mystery. The more we try to observe the so-called "Cosmic Dawn", the more the mystery deepens! I will talk about our efforts to measure the temperature of the Universe during this early period of history, including by building a new radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. With any luck, taking its temperature will lead us directly to answers for some of the most profound questions about our cosmic origins.

Earth remains the only planet we know for sure that can support life. Just how unusual is a planet like Earth in our Galaxy? I'll discuss how an upcoming NASA mission, called Roman, together with the European Space Agency's Euclid mission, will allow us finally to answer this question

As soon as we could listen to the sky, astronomers inspired by the idea of technologically-capable life beyond earth hoped we might pick up an alien radio signal. Looking for these signals, however, is not an easy task, and 6 decades later we have only negative results. We live in a increasingly radio-contaminated environment and picking up such a beacon is as big of a challenge as properly identifying it. How do we filter radio frequency interference? How do we know what to look for? And how can AI help us find anomalous signals in the era of big data?