The Wow! Signal Podcast

By Paul Carr

The Wow!Signal Podcast examines a wide range of issues from a scientific perspective through the lens of the search for intelligent life from other worlds.... more

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FAQs about The Wow! Signal Podcast:

How many episodes does The Wow! Signal Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 87 episodes available.

The Wow! Signal Podcast episodes:

May 19, 2016 Burst 17 - The Where's The Flux Kickstarter
Released: 18 May 2016

Durations: 3 minutes, 33 seconds

A short Burst to briefly explain today's development and to ask listeners to seriously consider donating to the new Kickstarter to monitor KIC 8462852 with a network of telescopes using standardized photometry. The hope is that we will reliably catch the star in the act of dimming. Please share this and the link to the kickstarter widely. Together, we can catch Tabby's Star in the act.

Links:
The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe

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

Interview With Tabetha Boyajian (Season 3, Episode 4)

Interview with Stella Kafka of the AAVSO (Season 3, Episode 5)

Credits:
Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Jason Robinson

Postprocessing: Auphonic.com

Hosting: Libsyn.com

The Wow! Signal is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license
...more
4min
May 03, 2016Season 3, Episode 5 - Catching Tabby's Star in the Act
Released: 3 May 2016
Duration: 35 minutes, 43 seconds

Stella Kafka, director of the American Association of Variable
Star Observers (AAVSO) tells us about how her organization observes
variable stars and how they hope to catch Tabby's Star (KIC
8462852) in the act of dimming. Also, a brief update on Bradley
Schaefer's work.
Intro music: Dark Skies by DJ Spooky
Intro announcement
Welcome and quick summary
Brief update on Bradley Schaefer's updated preprint
Stella Kafka bio
Interview with Stella Kafka
Wrap up interview
Nagging, begging, pleading
Thanking Patrons
Outro music: Ockham's Shaving Kit by George Hrab
Links
please see wowsignalpodcast.com for a full set of links
AAAVSO.org
Donate to the AAVSO
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 1
The Fast and Slow Dimming of Tabby's Star
Interview with Tabetha Boyajian
Script for this episode
Support us on
Patreon
Credits:
Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, Erika Lloyd, George Hrab
Announcer: Erin Carr
Hardware: Shure, Pro Art, Focusrite, Apple
Software: Skype, Reaper, Loopback, OS X Yosemite
Postprocessing: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com
...more
36min
April 07, 2016Season 3 Episode 4 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 3
Released: 6 April 2016
Duration: 43 minutes, 45 seconds
Thread: Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Tabbys' Star for the Perplexed Part 1, we explained why this is puzzling star. In Part 2, we talked about some of the explanations put forth and their weaknesses. In the third and last (for now) part of the series, we talk to Tabby herself, and she answers several reasonably informed questions about her team's work, past, present and future.
Introduction
Interview with Yale's Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian concerning KIC 8462852
Frequently Asked Questions
Some of the better speculative solutions
Wrap up
Thanking Patreon Subscribers
Nagging, Begging
We want to hear from you
Outro
Links:
Boyajian, et. al., Planet Hunters IX: KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux?
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed (blog post)
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 2

Schaefer, KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165 +/- 0.014 Magnitudes Per Century from 1890 to 1989.
LCOGT
The Swift Mission
The AAVSO
Planet Hunters

KIC8462852 Subreddit
Centauri Dreams

Credits:
Host and Producer: Paul Carr
VO: Erin Carr
Music: DJ Spooky and Sleep Research Facility

The spoken content of the Wow! Signal is distributed under the
...more
44min
April 01, 2016 Burst 16 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 2.
Released: 31 March 2016
Duration: 13 minutes, 21 seconds

Paul Carr continues with our series explaining just what is so puzzling about Tabby's Star, aka KIC 8462852. In this part we talk about some of the candidate explanations, including alien megastructures, including a Dyson Swarm.

Links
Please see wowsignalpodcast.com
The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star
AstroWright

Credits:
Written, Produced, and Voiced by Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson

...more
14min
March 17, 2016 Burst 15 - Nick Nielsen on the Social Context of SETI
Released: 16 March 2016
Duration: 13 minutes, 25 seconds

Science does not occur in a vacuum, and this is doubly true in the case of SETI, which is said to suffer from a "giggle factor." How does social context shape the scientific research program of SETI? The public at times shows great interest in SETI, but this attention can cut two ways, both benefiting and harming the discipline. Nowhere is this more true than in funding for SETI research.

Credits:
Written and Read by: Nick Nielsen
Producer and VO: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson
...more
14min
March 14, 2016 Burst 14 - Jason Hessels on the Repeating Fast Radio Burst
Released: 14 March 2016
Duration:22 minutes, 55 seconds

We talk to Netherlands astronomer Jason Hessels, corresponding author on a recent paper in Nature describing a repeating fast radio burst. For more information please visit wowsignalpodcast.com

Links:
A Repeating Fast Radio Burst
The Unseen Podcast Discussion of FRBs
Credits:
Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson
...more
23min
March 10, 2016 Burst 13 - Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1
Released: 10 March 2016

Duration: 18 minutes, 1 second

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?

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

Written, Produced and Read by Paul Carr

Music by Jason Robinson
...more
19min
February 13, 2016 Burst 12 - Nick Nielsen on SETI as a Process of Elimination
Released: 13 February 2016

Duration:20 minutes, 35 seconds

Nick Nielsens's show notes:
In so far as SETI is a science -- and it aspires to be a science even as its critics argue that it falls short -- should its emphasis fall upon confirmation or disconfirmation? I argue that the falsification of narrowly formulated hypotheses about exocivilizations can both demonstrate the scientificity of SETI as well as refine our conception of exocivilizations, hence refining our idea of the exact nature of the object of our search. The origin of this Wow! Signal Burst (now revised and updated so that little remains of the original except the central idea) is a blog post that I wrote some time ago, SETI as a Process of Elimination, which was part of a series of posts about SETI, including Methodological Naturalism and the Eerie Silence, Why the Fermi Paradox Must be Taken Seriously, Addendum on the Fermi Paradox, The Visibility Presumption, and Searching the Sky.

Credits
Written and Read by: Nick Nielsen

Producer and VO: Paul Carr

Music: Jason Robinson
...more
21min
February 06, 2016 Burst 11- DASCH Photometry with Dr. Josh Grindlay
Released: 6 February 2016

Duration: 22 minutes, 18 seconds

An edited interview with Dr. Josh Grindlay concerning the use of measurements of star brightness from the Digital Access to a Sky Century @HArvard to measure the dimming (or not) of Tabby's Star over a Century. Grandly critiques Hippke's paper that found dimming in several stars in the DASCH data, and also Schaefer's claim that Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) is slowly dimming.

Links:
Boyajian, et. al. Planet Hunters X. KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux?

Schaefer: KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165+-0.013 Magnitudes Per Century From 1890 To 1989

Hippke and Angerhausen: KIC 8462852 did likely not fade during the last 100 years

Digital Access to a Sky Century at Harvard

Landolt Standard Stars
Credits:
Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Jason Robinson and Erika Lloyd

...more
23min
January 15, 2016 Episode 27 - The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star
Released: 14 January 2016

Duration: 62 minutes 4 seconds

Host Paul Carr talks to Dr. Bradley Schaefer about his research showing a dramatic dimming of Tabby's Star over a century. This all but rules out any explanation anyone has put forth so far for the short term dimming of the star found in the Kepler data by Boyajian, et. al.

Links

KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165+-0.013 Magnitudes Per Century From 1890 To 1989

Credits
Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: Dj Spooky, Jason Robinson, Mike Griffin, George Hrab

...more
1h 3min

FAQs about The Wow! Signal Podcast:

How many episodes does The Wow! Signal Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 87 episodes available.