Weekly Space Hangout - Small — But Powerful — Micronovae with Dr. Simone Scaringi

https://youtu.be/eqT3j2LIpoY Host: Fraser Cain ( @fcain )Special Guest: Astronomers recently announced that, with the help of the ESO VLT, they had observed a new type of small — yet powerful — stellar explosion: a Micronova. The study, which was published in "Nature" on April 20 [https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso22...], was led by Dr. Simone Scaringi, astronomer at Durham University in the UK. We are pleased to welcome Simone to tonight's WSH to tell us more about this exciting discovery.   Simone earned his undergraduate BSc in Mathematics with Astronomy at the University of Southampton, after which he obtained both a M.Phil and PhD also from Southampton in the Astronomy group (2010). He spent the next two years at Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands, as a postdoctoral fellow before moving to KU Leuven, Belgium, in 2012 with a FWO Pegasus Marie Curie fellowship. In 2015 Simone joined the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany where he held a Humboldt fellowship.   In 2017 Simone was appointed lecturer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and in 2018 he moved to the United States as an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, USA. Since 2020 he has been an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy at Durham University.   Simone's primary research interests are accretion physics across the scales, compact objects, time-series analysis, machine learning, and Galactic photometric surveys.   You can learn more about Simone and his research by visiting his faculty website at Durham University [https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/simone...] as well as his personal website [http://www.astro.dur.ac.uk/~simo/].   You can also follow him on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/frozensimo] as well as Twitter [https://twitter.com/AstroSimo], although he admits to rarely using Twitter! Regular Guests: Dr. Morgan Rehnberg ( http://www.morganrehnberg.com/ & @MorganRehnberg ) Dr. Leah Jenks ( https://leahjenks.com/ / @leahgjenks ) C.C. Petersen ( http://thespacewriter.com/wp/ & @AstroUniverse & @SpaceWriter ) This week's stories: - A new Hubble competitor from China. - Perseverance lost contact with Ingenuity! - What will the EHT be announcing? - What you can do with lunar soil. - CO2 frost avalanches on Mars.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].