Back to Show
PBS Space Time
How An Extreme New Star Could Change All Cosmology
Season 7
Episode 25
A new white dwarf has been discovered (poetically named: ZTF J1901+1458) that’s doing some stuff that no white dwarf should ever be able to do. In fact, it has multiple properties that are so extreme that it almost certainly did NOT form in the way that we thought all white dwarfs formed. This one peculiar point of faint light may change our understanding of all cosmology.
Support Provided By
18:33
The universe thrums with quantum fields, except something may be missing: the sterile neutrino.
18:42
Gravitons, the particle of quantum gravity, may be impossible to detect.
25:02
2025 was the international year of quantum science, but today we examine its origins.
21:17
We’ve found lots of “habitable” worlds but we don’t know what factors are needed for life.
21:31
What is the graviton, and does it even exist?
19:52
Antimatter drives sound like science fiction, but they may not be as far as you think.
23:22
Does quantum mechanics allow the future to retroactively influence the past or not?
19:14
Life on mars could result in humanity’s destruction via Fermi Paradox.
19:01
How to build a particle collider the size of the solar system.
12:39
One of the most important reasons we go to space is to know our own planet better.
16:18
Is there evidence for the existence of an enormous number of other universes?
17:14
Can something that exists be bad science?