Episode 79 - Przybylski's Star Stuff

Recorded: 15 September 2017
Released: 16 September 2017
Duration: 81 minutes, 31 seconds

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Przybylski's Star in the DSS vis Aladin

Host Paul Carr welcomes Adam Smith and Sam Lichtenstein to talk about Przybylski’s Star, or HD 101065, possibly the weirdest star in astrophysics - even weirder than Boyajian's Star, maybe.

Links

Przybylski's Star in Simbad
Jason Wright's blog series on Przybylski's Star
Antoni Przybylski (1961) - HD 101065-a G0 Star with High Metal Content
Antoni Przybylski (1977) - Is iron present in the atmosphere of HD 101065 ?
D.W. Kurtz (1982) - Rapidly oscillating Ap stars
Martinez and Kurtz (1990) - New observations and a frequency analysis of the extremely peculiar rapidly oscillating Ap star HD 101065
Cowley, et. al. (2000) - Abundances in Przybylski's star
Gopka, et. al. (2007) - On the possible nature of Bp-Ap Stars: an application to HD101065 and HR465
Renson and Manfroid (2009) - Catalogue of Ap, HgMn and Am stars
Joshi, et. al. (2016) - The Nainital-Cape Survey. IV. A search for pulsational variability in 108 chemically peculiar stars.
Chen et. al. (2017) -  A new photometric study of Ap and Am stars in the infrared.
Dzuba, et. al. (2017) - Isotope shift and search for metastable superheavy elements in astrophysical data

Jerry Pournelle

War is a Racket
RIP Jerry Pournelle
Episode 80 discussion thread

Recommendations

Paul - Alban Berg String Quartet - late Mozart quartets
Sam - Salvation
Adam - Witcher 3

Credits

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

Episode 78 - Alien Signal Stephen Hawking Clickbait Mystery

Recorded: 4 September 2017
Released: 4 September 2017
Duration: 70 minutes, 11 seconds

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Credit: exoplanets.eu

Host Paul Carr welcomes long-time panelist Nick Nielsen to talk about some of the latest news in radio astronomy - both the serious science and the lurid headlines. Radio Bursts (FRBs) have been know for some years now, but a the only known repeating FRB, 121102, has been acting up lately.

Links

FRB 121102: Detection at 4 - 8 GHz band with Breakthrough Listen backend at Green Bank
BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN DETECTS REPEATING FAST RADIO BURSTS FROM THE DISTANT UNIVERSE
Jason Siegel: Five Reasons Why The Signals From Stephen Hawking's Breakthrough Initiative Aren't Aliens
Scholz, et. al., Simultaneous X-ray, gamma-ray, and Radio Observations of the repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102
C.J. Law, et. al. -
A Multi-telescope Campaign on FRB 121102: Implications for the FRB Population
Astronomer Jason Hessels on the repeating FRB
Astronomers have found the source of a deep space radio wave burst for the first time: We finally know the galactic culprit

The Most Mysterious Star in the Galaxy
Almost certainly wrong: an alien megastructure speculation about KIC 8462852
exoplanets.eu

 

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky


The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike license.

Episode 77 -The Question

Recorded: 25 August 2017
Released: 26 August 2017
Duration: 93 minutes 16 seconds

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Mandelbrot Set Crop Circle

Host Paul Carr welomes panelists Nick Nielsen and Sam Lichtenstein, who soldier on when Paul's Thunderbolt 3 hub crashes. They engage in a discussion of whether mathematics is discovered or invented. How does this apply to efforts to communicate with distant technological civilizations? Could math be used to establish a common language?

Links:

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Science
The Mandelbrot Set Crop Circle Formation  by Joseph E. Mason
A Conversation with Edward Snowden (Part 1) (SETI at 33:00 and following)
Press Release: Carnegie Mellon Awarded $7.5 Million Department of Defense Grant To Reshape Mathematics

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

Episode 76 - 2017 Summer hiatus non Episode

Recorded: 11 August 2017
Released: 12 August 2017
Duration: 100 minutes, 41 seconds

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Host Paul Carr welcomes Sam Lichtenstein, Patrick Festa, Nick Nielsen and Mike Bohler to mark the end of the Summer hiatus. Since this is a non-episode, we have no find agenda, so it ranges from the Kennedy assassination to astronomical anomalies.
We also play the short promo for Oh No Ross and Carrie

Links

The Skeptics Guide to Conspiracy

Credits

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Dj Spooky

Unseen Pub #6

Our YouTube series, the Unseen Pubs, got its 6th addition just now. It's all about the tangents. Participating were Nick Nielsen, Patrick Festa, Mike Bohler, Dean Calahan, and Paul Carr.

Episode 75 - Fraser Cain

Recorded: 16 June 2017
Released: 17 june 2017
Duration: 80 minutes 44 seconds

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Host Adam Smith welcomes the publisher of Universe Today Fraser Cain to talk about (nearly)
twenty years of online space journalism.

Fraser chats with interdisciplinary artist Daniela De Paulis, Astronomy's Finest blogger Mateusz Macias, Paul Carr, and Astronaut Teacher Mike Mongo.

Links:

Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay of the Astronomy Cast

Universe Today 

CosmoQuest

Pamela Gay

Phil Plait

Tabetha Boyajian

Jason Wright

Brian Greene
Astronomers Without Borders

The Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox

We mentioned a lot of good YouTube channels:

Paul Matt Sutter

Sarah Pearson

Emily Lakdawalla

Scott Manley

nathan for you seven year old          

Ian O Neil :

Isaac Arthur  

Emily Graslie  

Amy Shira Teitel  

Veritasium

Vsauce

Credits:

Host: Adam Smith
Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.

Episode 74 - Exoplanet Atmospheres

Recorded: 2 June 2017
Released: 3 June 2017
Duration: 68 minutes 35 seconds

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Host Adam Smith welcomes Cambridge PhD student and Mars One astronaut candidate Ryan MacDonald, along with panelists Ciro Villa and Paul Carr. The main topic is exoplanet atmosphere science, but we also discuss Mars colonization.

Figure 11 from MacDonald and Madhusudhan

Links:

MacDonald and Madhusudhan: HD 209458b in New Light: Evidence of Nitrogen Chemistry, Patchy Clouds and Sub-Solar Water
Venus Express Searching for Life on Earth
Transmission Spectroscopy
HD 209458 b
Episode 69 on TRAPPIST-1

Blue Origin Technology

J. Serrano Graphics Design

Credits:

Host: Adam Smith
Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

The Unseen Podcast is distributed by Dream of the Open Channel under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.