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Star Stories with Ian Lauer

by Ian Lauer
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Latest episodes

  • Auriga | The Fall of Phaethon

    October 5, 2026 · 29 min

    Tonight, we're looking at the constellation Aruiga, the Charioteer. And we'll be telling a tale from Greek mythology, about the famous fall of Phaethon. While many know this story as a lesson of the consequences of ego and hubris, the…

  • Orion | The Man Who Cut Off His Own Arm

    September 28, 2026 · 16 min

    Tonight we're going to the Philippines. More specifically, to the southern island of the Bukidnon people, a story which was written down in the early twentieth century. It's about a hunter named Magbangal. But what makes it fascinating…

  • Sun & Moon | The Thorny Road

    September 21, 2026 · 11 min

    Tonight we're looking at the Sun and the Moon. This story comes from the Hausa people of northern Nigeria. And it's a very simple story. But it answers a very strange question. Why does the Sun chase the Moon? And the incredible part about…

  • Northern Crown | A Ring in the Grass

    September 14, 2026 · 23 min

    Tonight we're looking at the constellation Corona Borealis, also known as the Northern Crown. And for more than a century, books, astronomy websites and planetarium stories have connected that circle with a Native American tale called The…

  • Big Dipper | A Monster in the Woods

    September 7, 2026 · 25 min

    Tonight we're looking at the Big Dipper. It's a story about the Cosmic Hunt, and it comes from the Haudenosaunee, who resided in what's now New York and southern Ontario. This story contains a tiny, very specific detail that, when you…

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  • Pleiades | The Sisters and the Thing That Follows

    August 31, 2026 · 22 min

    Tonight we're looking at the Pleiades. The one I want to tell you tonight is from the Kokatha people, who live in the Great Victoria Desert in South Australia. The tale I’m going to tell is just going to be my way of telling it in a modern…

  • Andromeda | The Chained Beauty

    August 24, 2026 · 31 min

    Tonight we're looking at a constellation called Andromeda. When most people in the astro world hear that word, they immediately think of the Andromeda galaxy, not the constellation. But this story’s focus is on the tale behind Andromeda…

  • Moon | The One Who Wanted to Be the Sun

    August 17, 2026 · 19 min

    Tonight's story comes to us from the Mexica, the people most of us call the Aztecs, a myth written down in the fifteen hundreds, based on a much older tradition. Many say there's a face on the Moon. But to the Aztecs, they saw a rabbit…

  • Solar Eclipse | The Creature that Chases the Sun

    August 10, 2026 · 22 min

    Tonight's story comes from the Nordic people. A story written down on the small island of Iceland. Almost everything we know about Norse mythology comes to us through two books that were written down in medieval Iceland. And inside those…

  • Milky Way | The Stars That Were Never Named

    August 3, 2026 · 26 min

    Tonight we’ll be telling a story about the stars and the Milky Way. A story about a Coyote, and how the stars in the sky came to be. We are looking at it through the eyes of the people most of us know as the Navajo, whose homeland…

  • Scorpius | The Bloody Fish Hook in the Sky

    July 27, 2026 · 43 min

    Tonight, we’re sitting under the band of light that we call the Milky Way, where we’ll be telling the tale of the legendary demigod Maui. He’s typically associated with the constellation Scorpius. But instead of a scorpion, the tail and…

  • South Star | The Missing Pole Star of the Southern Sky

    July 20, 2026 · 25 min

    Tonight we're looking at the skies of the southern hemisphere. And I'm going to tell you a story that is so remarkable, it proves this tale is not just a myth…but a memory. The focus of tonight’s story is in the southern sky, where the…

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About the show

Retelling ancient star myths and uncovering the knowledge within them. Every culture that has ever existed looked up at the same sky. The same Orion. The same Pleiades. The same river of stars cutting across the darkness. And almost every one of them, whether separated by oceans, language, or centuries, looked at them, and told a story about what they saw. Stories about hunters and lovers and gods and monsters. Stories that survived wars, migrations, and the collapse of entire civilizations. Stories that were passed down, generation after generation, for thousands of years. Star Stories brings those stories back to life. Each episode takes a constellation, a star, or a region of the night sky, and retells the ancient myths and legends that human cultures built around it. The storytelling is immersive and narrative, retold in a modern format. At the end, we decode what information these cultures were embedding into the story. From the deserts of Ancient Egypt to the frozen lands of the Nordic people, we tell the stories from cultures around the world, to reconnect you to the night sky. Hosted by Ian Lauer. A Stargazer Studios production.