On August 26, 2013 Monday host Brian Standing took us on a trip one and a half billion light years away. Out there, lie some round, green blobs that turn out to be galaxies very unlike our own Milky Way. These galaxies, dubbed the Green Peas due to their apparent color, turn out not only to be highly efficient star factories, but may hold some clues to the origins of the universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Anne Jaskot is a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Michigan, and recently authored the paper THE ORIGIN AND OPTICAL DEPTH OF IONIZING RADIATION IN THE “GREEN PEA” GALAXIES.