Listen to This Asher Isbrucker

Astronomers are perplexed by a mysterious star in the constellation Cygnus. Comet swarm? Dyson sphere? We just don't know. This is the story behind Tabby's Star.

This episode was produced independently by me, Asher Isbrucker.

Tabby's Star is also commonly referred to as the WTF Star (WTF comes from "Where's the Flux?", the name of Tabby's paper and a common expression of disbelief), and also its Kepler catalog number KIC 8462852.

I’d like to thank all of the people who gave their time and lent their voices for this episode: Tabetha Boyajian (@tsboyajian), Jason Wright (@Astro_Wright), Andrew Siemion, Brad Schaefer, Ross Andersen (@andersen), and Daryll LaCourse. Big thanks to all of you. Thanks as well to Professor Jaymie Matthews.

Music by Lee Rosevere, Corsica S, Chris Zabriskie, Sergey Cheremisinov, Little Glass Men, Lee Maddeford, and Ketsa.

You also heard excerpts from “CTA 102” by The Byrds, the X Files Theme, the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, & Michio Kaku’s appearance on CBSN. With files from NASA’s archives.

Planet Hunters credited with first flagging Tabby’s Star, setting this whole thing off: Andrew Szewczyk, Sam Goodman, and Abe Hoekstra.

Check out Planet Hunters & other citizen science projects — www.zooniverse.org

More information & updates on Tabby’s Star — www.wherestheflux.com

Tabby’s paper about the star: https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03622

Ross’ Atlantic article about the star: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

And a follow up article: http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/10/maybe-its-a-dyson-sphere/410974/

Tabby’s TED Talk about the star: https://www.ted.com/talks/tabetha_boyajian_the_most_mysterious_star_in_the_universe?language=en

NASA’s interview with Jocelyn Bell Burnell: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/bell.html

Fact-checking Twitter account for Tabby’s Star: @BoyajiansStar

Is it possible to find a stranger given only their name and photograph?

In 2005, that question sparked a search that's still going to this day.
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CREDITS:

This episode was independently produced by me, Asher Isbrucker. With music by Yusuke Tsutsume, Chris Zabriskie, Kai Engel, and Dana Boulé. Special thanks to Laura Hall & Adrian Hon for lending their time and voices to this episode. Thanks to Steven James for recording a bit that didn't make the final cut. Thanks to Charlie Mitchell, Matthew Willis, and my mom for editorial advice.