Dr. Beatriz Villarroel is a researcher at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics who is the brains behind the VASCO project - a study of Vanishing and Appearing Sources During a Century of Observation. The project asked a stunningly simple question - if we compare photographic plates of the cosmos taken in the 1950s with photographs taken in the last few years, would there be much of a difference? To their great surprise, Villarroel and colleagues discovered more than 100,000 mismatches between the two datasets. We talk to her about the missing objects, the art of astronomical observation, how to stay creative in a system that rewards incremental progress, and her ambitious goal of identifying and recovering an extraterrestrial object from within our solar system. Support the scientific revolution by joining our Patreon: https://bit.ly/3lcAasB Tell us what you think in the comments or on our Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub The VASCO project: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.05068.pdf Nine Transients: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92162-7 VASCO Citizen Science: https://vasconsite.wordpress.com/ml-blink-2/ Dr. Villarroel on the violin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWLjGWzeTCY & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe31lEoUPsU 00:00:00 Go! 00:05:55 The Vasco Project 00:13:45 Long timescale observations 00:19:58 Vanishing Stars & Failed Supernovas 00:29:05 Incentivizing risky exploration 00:41:21 SETI & UAPs 00:50:52 Searching for ET Probes 00:59:29 9 Missing Objects 00:59:32 Marker 13 01:05:54 Marker 11 01:05:55 Exopro Mission 01:16:05 Making Theories 01:34:07 Closing thoughts #vasco #vanishingstars #astronomy Check our short-films channel, @DemystifySci: https://www.youtube.com/c/DemystifyingScience AND our material science investigations of atomics, @MaterialAtomics https://www.youtube.com/@MaterialAtomics Join our mailing list https://bit.ly/3v3kz2S PODCAST INFO: Anastasia completed her PhD studying bioelectricity at Columbia University. When not talking to brilliant people or making movies, she spends her time painting, reading, and guiding backcountry excursions. Michael Shilo also did his PhD at Columbia studying the elastic properties of molecular water. When he's not in the film studio, he's exploring sound in music. They are both freelance professors at various universities. - Blog: http://DemystifySci.com/blog - RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/2be66934/podcast/rss - Donate: https://bit.ly/3wkPqaD - Swag: https://bit.ly/2PXdC2y SOCIAL: - Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DemystifySci - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DemystifySci/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/DemystifySci MUSIC: -Shilo Delay: https://g.co/kgs/oty671