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ScienceAstronomy

Dr. Starkid

Dr. Dakotah Tyler

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler, a former Division-I college football player turned PhD astrophysicist, science communicator, author, and professor of physics and astrobiology.


Science is one of humanity’s most powerful tools for understanding reality. From the cosmos above us to the questions that shape our daily lives, every discovery offers a new way to see the world.


Through deep dives, interviews, conversations, and curiosity-driven storytelling, Dr. Starkid explores the ideas, discoveries, and mysteries that capture our imagination and expand our understanding of the universe. Featuring scientists, researchers, creators, and other fascinating minds, the show examines everything from space exploration and the search for life to the scientific discoveries reshaping how we understand ourselves and our place in the cosmos.


Lead with Curiosity.

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  • 24 episodes
  • Avg 56 min
  • English

Episodes 24

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  • S1 · E3
    June 21 · 59 min

    Your Future Might Already Exist According To Relativity

    What would alien astronomers see if they pointed an impossible telescope at Earth from millions of light-years away? This episode uses that thought experiment to explain light travel time, relativity, time dilation, the Andromeda paradox, and the strange idea that there may be no single universal “now.” We also get into the block universe, why GPS depends on relativity, and what all of this might mean for how we think about the future. Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler. Lead with curiosity.

    • Transcript
  • S1 · E2
    June 10 · 59 min

    My PhD Was About Alien Worlds

    This episode starts with the story behind the science: how a football injury, a lost sense of identity, and a Cosmos documentary helped send me toward astronomy and exoplanet research. From there, we get into what my dissertation was actually about: atmospheric mass loss for close-in exoplanets. That means planets getting blasted by radiation from their stars, losing gas over time, and sometimes leaving behind clues we can detect from Earth. We talk Mars, Venus, hot Jupiters, helium escape, WASP-69b, the radius gap, young planets, and why understanding atmospheres matters for the search for life. Lead with curiosity.

    • Transcript
  • S1 · E1
    June 6 · 49 min

    How We Went From 5 Planets To 5 Trillion

    How did we go from knowing a handful of planets in our own solar system to confirming thousands of worlds around other stars? This episode traces the story of exoplanets, from ancient “wanderers” in the night sky to the modern methods astronomers use to detect worlds we usually can’t see directly. We talk Galileo, Jupiter’s moons, hot Jupiters, pulsar planets, lava worlds, water worlds, rogue planets, Planet 9, and why the universe keeps handing us planets we never expected. Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler. Lead with curiosity.

    • Transcript
Showing 21–24 of 24 episodes