Episode 33 - Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder

Released: 8 August 2016
Duration:47 minutes 44 seconds

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Ben Montet

Host Paul Carr talks to astronomer Ben Montet,who has, with his colleague Joshua Simon, just published the result that Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) dimmed considerably over the four year course of the Kepler Space Telescope prime mission.

Guest Bio:

Ben Montet recently defended his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology, where his thesis work focused on understanding the properties of low-mass stars and their companions. During his thesis, he led teams which measured the occurrence rate of Jupiter-sized planets in wide orbits around low-mass stars, developed the first catalog of confirmed transiting planets from the K2 mission, and characterized the first non-inflated brown dwarf with a directly measured mass, radius, and atmospheric properties. In September, he will begin a Carl Sagan Fellowship at the University of Chicago.

Links:

Montet and Simon, KIC 8462852 Faded Throughout the Kepler Mission
Interview with Bradley Schaefer on Dimming of Tabby's Star
Boyajian, et. al., KIC 8462852 - Where's The Flux?
Interview with Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian.

Aliens, perhaps, but not the Aliens of the Gaps.

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Announcer:Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd

Burst 13 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1

Released: 10 March 2016
Duration: 18 minutes, 1 second

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In Part 1, Paul Carr provides a non-technical explanation of why the star informally known as Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) is so perplexing after all. What was observed, and why doesn't it fit a conventional explanation?

The Dips observed by Kepler, numbered

Links

Please see our companion blog post at Dream of the Open Channel.

Boyajian, et. al., Planet Hunters X - Where's the Flux? (aka B2015)

Planet Hunters
I'm not saying it was Aliens…
The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star.

Credits

Written, Produced and Read by Paul Carr
Music by Jason Robinson

Two new Bursts out soon

In a day or two, we'll have Nick Nielsen's thoughts on SETI as a Process of Elimination. This will be Burst 12. It's recorded, and is just awaiting its show notes.

The numbered dips in Tabby's Star

Burst 13 will be part 1 of "Tabby's Star for the Perplexed." You can read the companion blog post, which itself is still under construction, but is mostly there, especially the first part. That should be out a few days after Burst 12. Stay tuned.

The Dream of the Open Channel is Also Covering Tabby's Star

It's not complete yet, but I would appreciate both people who are knowledgable in astronomy and those who aren't to have a look at this latest post (which I may split into two parts). Astronomers should help me fact check, and non astronomers - please tell me how understandable it is. I am trying to make it as jargon free as I can and rely on only the most basic knowledge of astronomy that you also should have had in middle school. What is not clear to you?

When done, it will probably be edited down into a Burst.

Episode 18 - The Habitability Lab

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Abel Mendez

We talk to planetary scientist and astrobiologist Abel Mendez about what is presently understood about the habitability of exoplanets, and the habitable exoplanet catalog.

Music by DJ Spooky and Ahleuchatistas.


The Detailed Show Notes





The Habitability Lab by Paul Carr is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://traffic.libsyn.com/wowsignal/S2_E6_The_Hab_Lab.mp3.

Episode 12 - The Golden Age of Exoplanets

Released 19 March 2014

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Geoff Marcy

Searching for Earth-like exoplanets with the Kepler telescope and trying to find laser pulses from distant civilizations with planet hunting legend Geoff Marcy. ESA's Ana Heras tells us about the science goals of ESA's proposed PLATO mission.

See Detailed Show Notes

Episode 4 - All the Lonely Planets

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A conversation about alien life with Dr. David Grinspoon, author of Lonely Planets.  We talked about

David Grinspoon

his career as an astrobiologist, about habitability of environments throughout the solar system from Venus to the moons of Saturn, a proposed Venus balloon, the Curiosity rover on Mars, his upcoming book, his band, and more.

We also play a little music by the House Band of the Universe, and introduce a new feature of the Wow! Signal podcast - the Wow! Signal Podcast Seal of Approval for Podcasting, the first of which goes to: Big Picture Science.

Links

Download the .mp3 file
Subscribe to the Wow! Signal Podcast

David Grinspoon's website, funkyscience.net
Lonely Planets - the Natural Philosophy of Alien Life
The Episode 4 Script

The Drake Equation (SETI Institute)
Carl Sagan on the Drake Equation (video)

Co-host this podcast
Be on the Podcast

Musical Contributors:

Jason Robinson
Ahleuchatistas
Cuneiform Records
George Hrab (via Meevio Music Alley)
Mike Griffin