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The Star Spot


The Star Spot, with Justin Trottier, is a space themed podcast and radio show focusing on all aspects of astronomy and space exploration. Episodes feature timely news along with fascinating interviews with guests of wide-ranging background: scientists, engineers, artists, politicians, and entrepreneurs. Topics are broad, from the latest space mission to how the universe began to why humans explore.

Feb 22, 2016

Feature Guest: Gil Holder

Have you heard of the Great Attractor or the Great Wall? The universe evolved from a hot dense not quite perfectly uniform state to now contain galaxies in sheet-like structures separated by huge voids. These clusters and superclusters of galaxies make up the largest scale structure in the observable universe. How exactly did they emerge, what role does dark matter and dark energy play in the evolution of structure and just where is our universe headed? To help us answer those questions today we’re joined at The Star Spot by cosmologist Gil Holder.

Current in Space

With the building of the James Webb Space Telescope coming along quickly, Anuj explains how the successor to Hubble will open a new window on the universe? And following the recent 40th anniversary of the Apollo 1 disaster, Tony reflect on three major tragedies in the history of space exploration and reflects on why it’s still worth the risk. Finally Dave reports on the groundbreaking discovery of gravitational waves via one of the most powerful phenomena in the universe: binary black hole mergers. 

About Our Guest

Gil Holder is Canada Research Chair in Cosmological Astrophysics at McGill University and a Scholar at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Dr. Holder received his PhD from the University of Chicago and was a Keck Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study from 2001 to 2004. His research focuses on unique methods of studying structure formation in the universe.