Podcaster: Beth Johnson, Franck Marchis, and Simon Steel (alternate hosts); Guest: Dr. Nathalie Cabrol
Title: SETI Live: The Slow-Spinning Star Mystery
Organization: SETI Institute
Link: https://sites.libsyn.com/462636 ; Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06202-5
Description:
An enigmatic cosmic entity has been consistently beaming radio waves to Earth every 22 minutes for over three decades, perplexing the scientific community. Identified as GPM J1839−10, this celestial body is believed to be a fading star emitting energy from its poles.
Yet, intriguingly, its spin is so leisurely it seems implausible for its existence, marking it both incredibly stable and unusually slow. We’re thrilled to have Dr. Natasha Hurley-Walker, the leading radio astronomer from Curtin University in Australia, who spearheaded the research in conversation with the SETI astronomer and Chief Scientific Officer at Unistellar, Dr. Franck Marchis.
Together, they’ll delve into this baffling find, initially spotted in archival data from 1988 and later confirmed through 2022 observations using the MeerKAT array. Could this star be something new? Maybe it changes what we think we know about other stars. Or could it be a signal from aliens?
Bio: Beth Johnson is a communications specialist and social media manager with a degree in physics and master’s work in planetary science. She specializes in meteor showers, icy moons, and anything with volcanoes.
Franck Marchis is a senior planetary astronomer and chair of the exoplanet group at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute and Chief Scientific Officer and Founder at Unistellar. He has dedicated his work to the study of our solar system, specifically the search for asteroids with moons, using mainly ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics.
Simon Steel is Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute. As an observational astrophysicist, he specialized in optical spectrophotometry, with an interest in the star formation histories of galaxies.
Dr. Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the SETI Institute’s Carl Sagan Center
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365 Days of Astronomy
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