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Feature Guest: Shawn Bishop
We’ve long known we’re made of star stuff, but now it turns out that life on Earth might be even more intimately connected to events in deep space than we imagined. Scientists recently reported the first ever discovery of supernova ash – atoms forged in the catastrophic explosion of dead stars – found buried in fossils created by bacteria right here on Earth. And most surprising of all these findings hint at a possible role for supernovae in bringing about mass extinctions, events which have changed the course of life on Earth and may do so again in our future. Today we’re joined at The Star Spot by the discovery team’s Professor Shawn Bishop.
The Star Spot is now on the Radio!
The The Star Spot podcast is now The Star Spot podcast and radio show. That’s right. Your favourite astronomy program is now travelling through space, specifically the 1280AM frequency. Our broadcaster, CJRU The Scope at Ryerson, is now available on the radio dial, which means you can join us at The Star Spot at 1280AM every Sunday 8PM and Tuesday 6PM Eastern Time.
Visit http://www.thescopeatryerson.ca/ to learn more about our partner radio station.
Current in Space
We worry whether our search for extraterrestrial intelligence is looking in the right place. Tony tells us a better question might be whether we’re looking at the right time. But might we be able to catch life ejected into space? Dave shares exciting evidence of enormous water jets coming from Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Finally Anuj provides an update on an exciting future space telescope that might just be built by little, green… robots.
About Our Guest
Shawn Bishop is an experimental nuclear astrophysicist at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. Bishop studied at McMaster University and the University of Victoria and received his PhD from Simon Fraser University in 2003. He has worked at TRIUMF National Laboratory in Vancouver and the RIKEN National Laboratory in Saitama, Japan. He studies nuclear physics, nucleosynthesis and supernovae.
Links
In 2004 a research team found iron-60 in a ferromanganese crust which provided evidence that the radioactive element was present on Earth as well as some indication of where to look in geological time.
For more information please read the research paper: Time-resolved 2-million-year-old supernova activity discovered in Earth’s microfossil record (9232–9237 | PNAS | August 16, 2016 | vol. 113 | no. 33).
Supernova Ashes Found in Fossils Hint at Extinction Event (space.com)
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The Star Spot is also broadcast on The Scope at Ryerson. The show airs every Sunday at 8:00PM and Tuesday at 6:00PM Eastern Time. Listen live here
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