Why is There Plutonium in This Star? Przybylski’s Star with David Kipping
3,776Is HD 101065 or Przybylski’s Star salted with Plutonium?
David Kipping of Cool Worlds lab joins John Michael Godier to discuss the search for exomoons and technosignatures.
Science is full of mysteries, and in astronomy, new mysteries are to be expected. Many get solved, many remain open. But sometimes in the history of astronomy mysteries can go unsolved for so long that they fall into obscurity, even if the implications of what might be happening are profound. One such example is known as Pryzbylski’s star, which first came to my attention half a decade ago.
In 1961, Polish-Australian astronomy Antoni Przybylsky found star that had a very strange spectrum that he thought was very low in iron and nickel, very common metals in the universe, but very high levels of strontium, holmium, yttrium and a number of other rare elements. Since, the iron levels of the star have been found to be low, but not that low. But the presence of the strange elements in this star has only deepened in that work from five years ago hinted at the presence of transuranic elements in the star, which actually puts it on the table as a candidate for a technosignature if those elements are indeed present.
My guest and I have been trying to draw attention to this star with our youtube channels in hopes of encouraging further work into this star. If those elements are present, then whatever is causing them does not seem to be found anywhere else in nature, and may involve cutting edge science in either the formation of elements heavier than plutonium in a star, the island of stability concept in nuclear physics, and the potential for a detection of an alien civilization.
David Kipping links: https://www.youtube.com/@CoolWorldsLab
https://www.youtube.com/@UCJANYx_YLBQabIjy2yuSbaQ
https://www.youtube.com/@CoolWorldsPodcast
YouTube Membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw/join
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/john-michael-godier/subscribe
Apple: https://apple.co/3CS7rjT
More JMG
https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnMichaelGodier
Want to support the channel?
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EventHorizonShow
Follow us at other places!
@JMGEventHorizon
Music:
https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com/
https://migueljohnson.bandcamp.com/
https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/
https://aeriumambient.bandcamp.com/
FOOTAGE:
NASA
ESA/Hubble
ESO - M.Kornmesser
ESO - L.Calcada
ESO - Jose Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org)
NAOJ
University of Warwick
Goddard Visualization Studio
Langley Research Center
Pixabay