Feature Guest: William Rapin
Welcome to Sutton Island, here in the middle of a beautiful and rugged landscape consisting of shallow lakes filled with salts and minerals. It’s a common vista on this world, and while the world in question is not our home, ancient Mars may well have been someone’s home. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by William Rapin, with reports from the latest discoveries of the Mars Curiosity rover and why one of the Principal Investigators of NASA’s Viking mission is now convinced we found life on Mars back in the 1970s,
Current in Space
Amelia and Tony share exciting news: the most powerful radio dish telescope in the world will soon be ready for widespread astronomical use! Then Joseph excites even more with a stunning discovery: the presence of water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, making it the most prominent target yet in the search for habitable worlds. And once again on the subject of habitable worlds, in her debut, Dunja wonders if the size of planets matters to their potential for being habitable. Finally, Amelia and Priyanka report on a remarkable new technique for estimating the mass of black holes!
About Our Guest
William Rapin is postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech. His research investigates the surface geochemistry of planets to improve our understanding of their origin, evolution, and habitability. Previously he worked as Research Assistant at NASA Ames Research Centre and was Assistant System Engineer with the Centre National d'Études Spatiales
Episode 185: Did a Supernova Cause a Mass Extinction?, with Brian Fields
Episode 184: The Milky Way's First Fast Radio Burst, with Sandro Mereghetti
Episode 183: COVID-19 Meets the NASA Space Apps Challenge, with James Slifierz
Episode 182: Planet Nine or Black Hole One, with Jakub Scholtz
Episode 181: Reports of Betelgeuse’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated, with Emily Levesque
Episode 180: Wormholes through Space and Time, with John Cramer
Episode 179: Dreams of Floating Cities, with Geoffrey Landis
Episode 178 Sibling Rivalry at the Centre of the Galaxy, with Smadar Naoz
Episode 177: The Case of the Missing Dark Matter, with Guo Chi
Episode 176: Second Genesis, with Jay Melosh
Episode 175: The Truth is Out There (at the University of Manitoba)
Episode 174: Fuzzy Dark Matter, with Lachlan Lancaster
Episode 172: The Hubble Not-So Constant
Episode 171: Ploonets: When Moons Go Rogue, with Jorge Zuluaga
Episode 170: The Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts, with Vikram Ravi
Episode 169: Science at the Limits (Part 2)
Episode 168: Celebrating Apollo + Science at the Limits (Part 1)
Episode 167: Current in Space + The Best of The Star Spot: Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt
Episode 166: Nanodiamonds are Forever, with Jane Greaves
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