[Sara's blog] Why?

Today’s episode focuses on a surprising result found by a NASA balloon-borne experiment. We chose this story because it highlights the excitement and uncertainty in any scientific experiment – you never know what you’ll find. Will your data support your predictions, contradict them, or point you in an entirely new direction? ARCADE was launched to look for the radio signals of the first stars in the Universe, but their detector found a strange, strong signal coming from deep space. What is it? Good question.

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[podcast] Confounding Cosmic Questions

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This episode features a strange signal from deep space, which could be a plot straight out of a Hollywood film. But this radio signal was detected by a NASA mission called ARCADE, which flew above the atmosphere suspected from a balloon to capture light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the Universe. When data showed something totally unexpected, that’s when things got interesting.

We interviewed Al Kogut and Dale Fixsen about this discovery, ARCADE, and how you can also detect this mysterious radio signal from outer space with any FM radio.

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