Scientists say they don’t know what to make of a pattern of fast radio bursts that’s coming from space every 16 days. While it’s known that the signal is coming from a spiral galaxy 500 million light-years away, the exact source is a mystery. Some researchers speculate that the bursts could be sent by aliens.
Meanwhile, a massive asteroid that could have caused planet-wide devastation came close to Earth earlier this month. While scientists say there was no danger and that they know the asteroid’s orbit well, the news stands as a reminder of our precarious place in the universe.
This hour, we sit down with two physicists who discuss all of this and more. In studio:
- Brian Koberlein, astrophysicist and science writer with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- Roger Dube, experimental physicist, and professor emeritus at RIT