#137 – Alex Filippenko: Supernovae, Dark Energy, Aliens & the Expanding Universe

Alex Filippenko is an astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at Berkeley. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Alex’s Website: https://astro.berkeley.edu/people/alex-filippenko/

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(06:36) – Universe expansion
(08:00) – Dark energy
(15:28) – Scientific revolutions
(27:18) – Asteroid hitting Earth
(30:50) – Giant solar flares and the power grid
(37:50) – Elon Musk and space exploration
(42:41) – Exoplanets
(50:03) – Traveling close to the speed of light
(52:13) – Traveling faster than the speed of light
(1:00:39) – Intelligent life in the universe
(1:04:14) – Fermi Paradox
(1:13:52) – Finding alien life would be bad news
(1:18:49) – UFO sightings
(1:31:58) – Universe expansion speed
(1:36:42) – The universe is infinite
(1:40:58) – What happened before the Big Bang?
(1:45:14) – Roger Penrose
(1:48:48) – Nobel Prize for the accelerating universe
(2:10:23) – Supernova
(2:21:47) – The greatest story ever told
(2:25:44) – Richard Feynman
(2:32:37) – Meaning of life