INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT

When The Sky at Night joined Curious Cases for a special episode, George Dransfield was there to answer your burning questions. Here she dives deeper into her favourite

- George Dransfield

A lot has happened since I last wrote this column a month ago. Taylor Swift released new music, I submitted observing proposals for both JWST (two hours before the deadline) and the VLT (seven minutes before the deadline), and I had a chat in Spanish with Dara Ó Briain. At least one of those events has the potential to shape the direction of my research in 2026.

Why was I in Dara's vicinity? It's because for the final Sky at Night episode of the year we did a crossover with Curious Cases, the awesome science podcast he co-hosts with Hannah Fry. Filming took place 48 hours before the JWST deadline, so it's honestly some sort of miracle I got that in with two full hours to spare. I wasn't filming before the VLT deadline though, so no excuses there!

There's a lot that's brilliant about this special episode of the show, but I'll boil it down to my top two. First, I finally got to talk about asteroseismology, the study of stellar oscillations, the periodic vibrations of stars. For years, I shared an office with the asteroseismologists at the University of Birmingham, and there was always a friendly rivalry between the 'wobbly star people' (them) and the 'slimy rock people' (us exoplanet folk).