Surveys like ZTF and the LSST on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory are improving our understanding for nearly every area of modern astronomy. Sometimes, however, these large projects discover something truly unexpected…

James Davenport (UW research assistant professor, and the Associate Director of the DiRAC Institute) and Beatriz Villaroel (Stockholm University) were interviewed this April by the SETI Institute‘s Seth Shostak about the “VASCO” project to search for disappearing stars. In this hour-long discussion, Davenport and Villaroel discuss the importance of searching for intelligent life in the universe, and finding the unexpected in our data.