Latest / Made of Stars / It's a Good Tiime for Looking Up

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It's a Good Tiime for Looking Up · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning.
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Speaker 2: The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 2: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 2: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 2: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 2: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 1: Go ahead.
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Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes.
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Speaker 4: When made of stars, you could be from high they
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Speaker 4: would New Mexicomus.
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Speaker 3: Where are.
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Speaker 1: Stars? When we are made of stars?
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Speaker 4: I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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Speaker 4: Us from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
1:03
Speaker 3: Hey Sean, Hey, we's good to be here with you today.
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Speaker 1: We got some.
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Speaker 4: Stories that basically involve staring up at the sky and
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Speaker 4: in a lot of ways, right, I mean, we got
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Speaker 4: several planet stories, we got some starlink stories. But first
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Speaker 4: and foremost, we got a story that will for some
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Speaker 4: I guess they'll get a chance to look up at
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Speaker 4: the sky and witness it. And it's scheduled for tonight
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Speaker 4: and it's a big announcement, a big launch for Blue Origin.
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Speaker 4: The New Glen set for its first ever lift off
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Speaker 4: at one am tonight, Eastern time. Weather permitting. Always got
1:45
Speaker 4: to say weather permitting, because you know that's always the thing.
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Speaker 3: Well in the weather's a little strange here in the
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Speaker 3: southeast right now too. It's very looking at it, some
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Speaker 3: very cold temperatures on a forecast of snow within the
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Speaker 3: next still less than twenty four hours where we're sitting.
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Speaker 3: But anyway, Florida is a little further south than us,
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Speaker 3: and hopefully their weather will be warm enough to be
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Speaker 3: able to launch. So if you are one of the
2:07
Speaker 3: people that listen to our podcast regularly and you've got
2:10
Speaker 3: it set up to where you get a notification when
2:13
Speaker 3: we post the new podcast, first of all, congratulations, you're
2:17
Speaker 3: one of the cool people.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you're let's just like say that, right. You're riding
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Speaker 4: the wave of information as it's being delivered exactly.
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Speaker 3: And so if you are one of those people, congratulate
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Speaker 3: yourself because you're hearing the story right now. If you
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Speaker 3: didn't know this already, that this is going to take
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Speaker 3: place within less than twenty four hours of this recording
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Speaker 3: and the time that it gets posted up, so it's
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Speaker 3: going to be happening at one am Eastern Standard Time
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Speaker 3: on January tenth, which is basically in the overnight hours
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Speaker 3: after we're recording the show on January ninth, right now,
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Speaker 3: So this is the lift off of the Blue Origin
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Speaker 3: New Glen rocket. And you might say, well, wait a minute,
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Speaker 3: don't does some Blue Origin already have rockets? Yeah, they do,
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Speaker 3: and they've been launching whether it's called the New Shepherd
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Speaker 3: rocket on mostly sub orbital missions. Right so you know
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Speaker 3: about William Shatton are going to space for instance, in
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Speaker 3: Michael Strahan and a few other people that have various
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Speaker 3: notoriety going up to space on commercial tourism kind of flights.
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Speaker 3: These are sub orbital flights. In other words, they're getting
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Speaker 3: up high enough to be in space, but they're not
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Speaker 3: going all the way around the Earth. And part of
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Speaker 3: that is because the load capacity of the New Shepherd
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Speaker 3: rocket is not sufficient to be able to put these
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Speaker 3: payloads into space. Well, this new rocket called New Glenn
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Speaker 3: and by the way, New Shepherd named after Alan Shepard,
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Speaker 3: New Glenn named after John Glenn, two of the original
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Speaker 3: Mercury seven astronauts for NASA. The New Glenn rocket is
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Speaker 3: among the heavy payload capacity rockets. A new wave of
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Speaker 3: rockets being built and used. SpaceX has a couple of those.
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Speaker 3: You know, they have the Starship, which is the newest
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Speaker 3: one that they're catching with giant pairs of tweezers out
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Speaker 3: of the air as it comes back into land at
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Speaker 3: least the booster for that rocket. And then there's also
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Speaker 3: the Falcon Heavy, which is a heavy payload capacity rocket.
4:16
Speaker 3: Another rocket that we've talked about a lot on the
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Speaker 3: show recently is the Space Launch System. That's another heavy
4:23
Speaker 3: lift rocket. We're defining this class, or actually we don't
4:28
Speaker 3: define the class. The industry defines this class as being
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Speaker 3: able to take heavy payloads and put them not only
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Speaker 3: in Earth orbit, but potentially out of the Earth's gravitational field. Right,
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Speaker 3: And that's the big thing is if you're going to
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Speaker 3: take a payload of any kind of reasonable size to
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Speaker 3: say the Moon or Mars or some orbit that's out
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Speaker 3: of the low Earth orbit of our own planet, you
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Speaker 3: need one of these heavy lift rockets. So that's what
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Speaker 3: this test is. It's the first ever test of Blue
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Speaker 3: Origins heavy lift rocket called New Glenn. Now, there is
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Speaker 3: a component of this rocket that is reusable, and they
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Speaker 3: are going to try to land that booster on a
5:13
Speaker 3: platform at sea. Where have we heard that before? Yes,
5:16
Speaker 3: you're right, it's SpaceX, right. So we've seen SpaceX do
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Speaker 3: this many times. SpaceX has some cleverly, you know, clever
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Speaker 3: names for their for their floating platforms, and one of
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Speaker 3: the ones that Wes and I were just laughing at
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Speaker 3: on our recent show was one of the platforms called
5:32
Speaker 3: just read the instructions. We think this is funny. Of course,
5:35
Speaker 3: obviously Elon probably thinks this is funny too. So there's
5:39
Speaker 3: a variety of interesting names that SpaceX has come up
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Speaker 3: with for their floating platforms. Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin
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Speaker 3: named their floating platform after Jeff's mom. So that's that.
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Speaker 3: Take take that for what you will.
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Speaker 4: It shows a very different, uh, the very different personalities
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Speaker 4: of these two guys. Right, it's a different approach.
6:09
Speaker 3: It is.
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Speaker 4: It's an and but it's it's sweet, right, I mean
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Speaker 4: that's not nice. Yeah, it's nice. He's naming it after
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Speaker 4: after his mom. If if Elon was naming it after
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Speaker 4: like one of his kids, it would still be it
6:23
Speaker 4: could potentially still be really hard to pronounce. So, you know,
6:28
Speaker 4: they're just they have very different approaches to this. But
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Speaker 4: that's kind of sweet. That's nice.
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Speaker 3: I didn't mean that as an editorial comment. Yeah, no,
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Speaker 3: I'm just pointing out some of the differences between the two,
6:42
Speaker 3: you know, space launch companies. You know, it's it is
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Speaker 3: some differences that is different. You know.
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Speaker 4: I would kind we kind of got to know not
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Speaker 4: you and me personally, but the country kind of got
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Speaker 4: to know Elon's mom a little bit during the during
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Speaker 4: the election cycle, so you know, and maybe if you
7:00
Speaker 4: know now that everybody kind of knows what she looks like,
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Speaker 4: maybe something he'd be named after her at some point.
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Speaker 4: I don't know, but that would have to that would
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Speaker 4: be up to Elon, so.
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Speaker 3: It will, but it might be Jeff Bezos that's more
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Speaker 3: likely to name it after Elon's mom. I don't know.
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Speaker 4: That would also be a really nice, nice gesture since
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Speaker 4: he's you know, trying to land and reuse a booster.
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Speaker 4: But that's that's a good sign for basically saying, hey, Elon,
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Speaker 4: you you've done a good thing. This is a positive thing.
7:32
Speaker 4: And for us that are, you know, spending our own
7:34
Speaker 4: money as a company, we need to look into being
7:37
Speaker 4: able to do this and everybody looking to sustainability. These
7:42
Speaker 4: are all reasons for obviously Blue Origin to do this.
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Speaker 4: So yeah, and I'm just kind of realizing as when
7:52
Speaker 4: you and I were at Kennedy not very long ago,
7:55
Speaker 4: just months ago, we on a number of occasions wrote
8:00
Speaker 4: right past the Blue Origin building there, so all of
8:05
Speaker 4: this plotting was going on in that building as we
8:07
Speaker 4: were passing it. I suppose you know.
8:09
Speaker 3: The thing that really did honestly impress me the last
8:12
Speaker 3: time we were down at Kennedy Space Center was how
8:15
Speaker 3: much that complex has grown. And it's not kind of
8:19
Speaker 3: on a main route into Kennedy. We had to go
8:21
Speaker 3: over to a badging office and to a press area
8:25
Speaker 3: to get some credentials, and so it kind of took
8:27
Speaker 3: us down one of the roads you don't normally travel
8:29
Speaker 3: just going to the visitor center or whatever at Kennedy
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Speaker 3: Space Center. So I hadn't seen the Blue Origin complex
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Speaker 3: for a while. It is a massive, massive complex. They
8:39
Speaker 3: are really serious about that, and so you know, obviously
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Speaker 3: they're spending lots and lots of resources. This rocket system
8:48
Speaker 3: is one of the products that's being produced in there. Honestly,
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Speaker 3: I'm pro space, so I actually am wishing Blue Origin
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Speaker 3: the very best of success in their launch and they
8:59
Speaker 3: can bring their booster component down on Jackeline out in
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Speaker 3: the Ocean, which is Jeff's mom's name. That's the name
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Speaker 3: of the barge. Anyway, it's kind of funny the booster.
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Speaker 3: They gave it kind of a clever name to in
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Speaker 3: my opinion, which is so the individual name for this
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Speaker 3: first booster that they're trying to land on the platform
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Speaker 3: called Jackeline. The name of the booster is so you're
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Speaker 3: saying there's a chance.
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Speaker 4: And that sounds more SpaceX right, that's a little bit.
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Speaker 4: That's a little more in that vein. So I don't know,
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Speaker 4: do we know for a fact that Elon hasn't named
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Speaker 4: a booster after his own mom? I mean, I don't know.
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Speaker 3: Anyway, we're gonna put our research department on that. We're
9:37
Speaker 3: going to see if we can figure that out.
9:38
Speaker 4: Wes our crackpot research team.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a crackpot team of researchers behind us.
9:44
Speaker 3: I keep looking behind us. I don't see them. But anyway,
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Speaker 3: we'll find that out. But but yeah, so I shouldn't
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Speaker 3: say that because the closest we have to a research
9:52
Speaker 3: department is Scott Norman, right, So we run things by
9:56
Speaker 3: Scott once in a while. As the actually Scott who's
10:00
Speaker 3: sent me the link to the story where I saw
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Speaker 3: that they named the platform after Jeff's mob, So thank
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Speaker 3: you Scott for sending me that fact right now, you know,
10:07
Speaker 3: I'd just like to say good on you, Scott for
10:11
Speaker 3: pointing me in that direction. And actually the name of
10:13
Speaker 3: the booster was in there as well, so it's a
10:16
Speaker 3: it's hard to land a booster on the first attempt,
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Speaker 3: and that's where they went. So you're saying there's a
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Speaker 3: chance they went with that, you know, to say, yeah,
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Speaker 3: it's a difficult task to be able to land a
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Speaker 3: rocket booster on a floating platform the very first time
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Speaker 3: you try. So anyway, we'll see what they'll see what
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Speaker 3: they do. Now. Listen, friends, if you want to watch
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Speaker 3: this launch and you have to happen to be you know,
10:39
Speaker 3: up at one am, there's actually a three hour launch window,
10:44
Speaker 3: so it's anytime between one am and four am in
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Speaker 3: the overnight hours tonight, so you might have to hang
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Speaker 3: around for a while. So if insomnia is your thing
10:55
Speaker 3: or you're working the night shift, go to Blue Origin
10:59
Speaker 3: dot com and they will be streaming the launch live
11:03
Speaker 3: on their own website, blueorgin dot com. They also have
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Speaker 3: a YouTube channel. You can check it out there. A
11:08
Speaker 3: couple of different places to watch that launch live. I
11:12
Speaker 3: think probably sites like Spaceflight Now, which cover a lot
11:16
Speaker 3: of rocket launches. They will probably also have the stream,
11:19
Speaker 3: so anyway, some of the typical ones. But this Blue
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Speaker 3: Origin hopes that this launch will enter into a new
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Speaker 3: era where they have a reusable workhorse rocket for heavy
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Speaker 3: lift payloads for many years to come. And again, we're
11:35
Speaker 3: pro space on this show, so we really wish them
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Speaker 3: the best of success.
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Speaker 4: Night Shift and underrated Michael Keaton movie. All right, let's
11:43
Speaker 4: look to the sky. This has been a great time
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Speaker 4: for just getting a really we talked about this in
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Speaker 4: past shows. We're at this point where we've got Jupiter
11:54
Speaker 4: and Mars really given us something to look at in
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Speaker 4: the nighttime sky. There has been this story floating around
12:01
Speaker 4: people going, oh my gosh, the planets are aligning. They're
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Speaker 4: all lining up for us in the sky. And on
12:08
Speaker 4: this show, much like Hey, the astronauts are stuck a
12:13
Speaker 4: number of other stories that we have no problems to
12:15
Speaker 4: borrow a phrase from another show, a TV show. We
12:20
Speaker 4: have no problems busting myths. So let let's talk about
12:25
Speaker 4: the fact that things aren't aligning. Now, something is aligning,
12:29
Speaker 4: but it has nothing to do with all of the
12:31
Speaker 4: planets lining up.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, we like to tamp down the hot fires
12:37
Speaker 3: of hot take headlines in the areas of space exploration
12:41
Speaker 3: and astronomy. That's what I would say. We you know,
12:45
Speaker 3: we're not fans of word twisting for clickbait. We we
12:49
Speaker 3: actually like proper scientific interpretations of things so that people
12:54
Speaker 3: quite frankly, a aren't afraid or B don't get their
12:57
Speaker 3: hopes up for something that doesn't turn out to be
13:00
Speaker 3: what they think it's going to be. Right, So that's
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Speaker 3: what we were. It's just a good old bucket load
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Speaker 3: of just good old common sense reality, that's what I
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Speaker 3: like to say. So here it is. If you read
13:13
Speaker 3: the headline, a rare alignment of seven planets is about
13:17
Speaker 3: to take place in the sky. That's just one of
13:19
Speaker 3: many headlines similar to this that I have read in
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Speaker 3: the past ten days. Friends. A planetary alignment is typically
13:29
Speaker 3: referring to something called a conjunction, where as we look
13:33
Speaker 3: out into space along our line of sight, those planets
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Speaker 3: are actually lining up, or I think people kind of
13:40
Speaker 3: think of a god's eye view right where you're somehow
13:43
Speaker 3: floating way above the Earth and you can see a
13:45
Speaker 3: straight line out from the Sun to at least Neptune,
13:51
Speaker 3: and all the planets are lining up along this straight line. Well,
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Speaker 3: neither of those things are happening. So I hate to
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Speaker 3: be the one to just crush your dreams. Yeah, but
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Speaker 3: those things are simply not happening.
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Speaker 4: It's a strange dream to have anyway, for those things
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Speaker 4: to be. Like, I mean, I get it, it's a
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Speaker 4: cool astronomical event, but why why so much emphasis in it.
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Speaker 4: I've heard people speculate, Oh, the planets will line up
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Speaker 4: when the universe comes to an end. I've heard people
14:20
Speaker 4: say that before, And well, that's a weird uh decision
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Speaker 4: to make by somebody, whoever's in whoever's in charge, whoever
14:27
Speaker 4: you believe is in charge. That would be a strange
14:29
Speaker 4: way to draw it all to a close, right.
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Speaker 3: It's like, you know, it's like concentric spinning roulette wheels,
14:37
Speaker 3: and when red nine comes up lined up on every
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Speaker 3: one of those concentric spitting roulette wheels, the universe is
14:44
Speaker 3: gonna end. Well, it's like at the you're at the
14:46
Speaker 3: casino and you get the triple cherries and then the
14:48
Speaker 3: world ends.
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Speaker 4: That's not good. It's it's supposed to be a jackpot.
14:52
Speaker 4: What are we doing here? Right?
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Speaker 3: It'd be like on the office when that little screensaver,
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Speaker 3: that box finally hit the corner and then the world
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Speaker 3: just explodes. It's this is not good.
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Speaker 4: I wouldn't see that coming at all.
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Speaker 3: So don't worry. That's not what's happening.
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Speaker 4: That's good, it's really good. And then that's not happening.
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Speaker 4: So what is happening?
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Speaker 3: Well, so there is a line to be thought about,
15:15
Speaker 3: and the line is actually created by the fact that
15:19
Speaker 3: all the planets orbit around the Sun in the same plane.
15:25
Speaker 3: That plane has a name, it's called the ecliptic. It's
15:28
Speaker 3: the ecliptic plane of the Solar System. So, in other words,
15:31
Speaker 3: you don't have planets orbiting at ninety degrees to one another.
15:35
Speaker 3: They all orbit more or less in the same flat
15:39
Speaker 3: plane around the Sun. So sometimes all of those you
15:46
Speaker 3: know planets, sometimes they're on the same half of the
15:50
Speaker 3: pie wedge, where you can kind of see them lining
15:54
Speaker 3: up in a tangential line or in a right to
15:57
Speaker 3: left line across the sky. Again, remember, the line itself
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Speaker 3: is created because everything's orbiting in a plane, so there's
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Speaker 3: no magic there. And by the way, gravity of the
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Speaker 3: planets do not add together to cause tidal shearing forces
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Speaker 3: on the Earth that will rip it apart just because
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Speaker 3: they're in this plane, because they're always in this plane,
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Speaker 3: always every day. It's just that they all happen to
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Speaker 3: be the All the red nines on the concentric roulette
16:26
Speaker 3: wheels are on the same half of the circle at
16:30
Speaker 3: the same time. So if you happen to step out
16:33
Speaker 3: in the nighttime sky, you're going to see a whole
16:35
Speaker 3: lot of planets, which is a really fun and great thing.
16:38
Speaker 3: We highly encourage you to do it. Just don't think
16:41
Speaker 3: that the planets are in a straight line out from
16:44
Speaker 3: the Sun and the gravitational shearing effect of all those
16:46
Speaker 3: planets lining up is going to pull the world apart,
16:49
Speaker 3: because that's not going to happen. And by the way,
16:52
Speaker 3: it never would happen. So there you go.
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Speaker 4: All right, So that's not happening. But there is an
16:58
Speaker 4: alignment that is taking place. Now I'm just gonna we're
17:01
Speaker 4: going to talk about what that is. But I want
17:03
Speaker 4: to stress because I've been saying this for a number
17:07
Speaker 4: of years and our good friend and someone who shared
17:13
Speaker 4: this particular when we did this segment as a radio segment.
17:16
Speaker 4: Scott Miller and I would always say this on our
17:19
Speaker 4: shows together. We don't know why people are afraid of
17:22
Speaker 4: Friday the thirteenth, because at least it's Friday. Monday the
17:25
Speaker 4: thirteenth would be much worse. So this actual alignment is
17:31
Speaker 4: happening on Monday the thirteenth, So, if anything, we should
17:34
Speaker 4: be concerned about that one.
17:37
Speaker 3: I don't disagree at all with your assessment. I think
17:40
Speaker 3: that Monday the thirteenth must surely be more evil in
17:45
Speaker 3: some context than a Friday the thirteenth, were you going
17:48
Speaker 3: to go into the weekend. I mean, at least Garfield
17:50
Speaker 3: would have a problem with Monday the thirteenth, right, and
17:52
Speaker 3: it would probably spill as lasagna or whatever. But so
17:56
Speaker 3: what's happening on Monday the thirteenth. So on Monday the thirteenth,
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Speaker 3: there is actually going to be an alignment of two
18:04
Speaker 3: of the Solar System bodies. Now, one of these Solar
18:08
Speaker 3: System bodies orbits the Earth and not the Sun. That's
18:13
Speaker 3: because it's the Moon, and so the Moon actually moves
18:17
Speaker 3: all the way around that line that we call the
18:21
Speaker 3: ecliptic in the last story every month. So if planets
18:26
Speaker 3: are also aligned along that ecliptic, and I hate to
18:30
Speaker 3: use the word aligned configured. If planets are also configured
18:33
Speaker 3: somewhere on that ecliptic and the Moon moves around there
18:37
Speaker 3: every month, chances are the Moon's going to move in
18:40
Speaker 3: front of these planets. And it does. It's not that uncommon.
18:42
Speaker 3: In fact, there have already been the episodes of the
18:47
Speaker 3: Moon moving in front of planets this month. By the way,
18:51
Speaker 3: just to sound scary, we call those incidents and occultation.
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Speaker 4: On Monday the thirteenth, Oh my goodness, dabbling in the colt.
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Speaker 3: So there will be something associated with the occult. By
19:03
Speaker 3: the way, the occult the root word simply means to
19:06
Speaker 3: hide or something that's hidden, all right, So there's going
19:13
Speaker 3: to be something hidden on Monday the thirteenth. It's going
19:16
Speaker 3: to be the planet Mars. What is doing the hiding.
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Speaker 4: It's the moon.
19:23
Speaker 3: As the Moon moves on its monthly journey all the
19:26
Speaker 3: way around the ecliptic circle, it's going to make a
19:30
Speaker 3: pass in front of the planet Mars. It just so happens, though,
19:34
Speaker 3: that it's going to happen when the moon is full
19:37
Speaker 3: and Mars is very near its point of opposition. In
19:41
Speaker 3: other words, they're both almost diametrically opposite in location in
19:45
Speaker 3: the sky from the Sun, so that means they're up
19:49
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night. Mars is at a
19:52
Speaker 3: very bright appearance or apparition is what we call that.
19:56
Speaker 3: So the bright apparition of Mars will be occulted by
19:59
Speaker 3: a full on Monday, January the thirteenth, I have to midwest.
20:03
Speaker 3: It does sound a bit scary to me when I
20:05
Speaker 3: say it, like all of that.
20:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does have a very intimidating So and how
20:10
Speaker 4: often does something like this happen? I mean, is this
20:13
Speaker 4: a regular occurrence or I mean, is it that big
20:17
Speaker 4: of a deal, or like, how often are we talking?
20:21
Speaker 3: Because of the variations in the angles of the planets
20:25
Speaker 3: from the ecliptic, In other words, the orbits of the
20:28
Speaker 3: planets are tilted just a little bit relative to each other,
20:32
Speaker 3: so the Moon doesn't swipe by them every month and
20:34
Speaker 3: perfectly block them out. It gets nearby all of the
20:37
Speaker 3: planets every month, but it doesn't completely block them out
20:41
Speaker 3: in a very convenient time of night, as it's going
20:44
Speaker 3: to do this time, and so rare to the point
20:48
Speaker 3: where it's you know, once or twice a year. Again,
20:52
Speaker 3: it just occulted Saturn a few days ago, so it's
20:57
Speaker 3: going to cult Jupiter sometime over the weekend. So occultations happen.
21:04
Speaker 3: The Moon blocks out the planets. But because of the
21:07
Speaker 3: location of the full moon in Mars as I just
21:09
Speaker 3: described moments ago, and the fact that it's going to
21:12
Speaker 3: happen around nine pm Eastern Standard Time, for those of
21:15
Speaker 3: us here on the East coast of the United States,
21:18
Speaker 3: it's an early convenient event. It's not happening at two am.
21:22
Speaker 3: In other words, it's not happening at one am like
21:25
Speaker 3: a Blue Origin rocket launch. It's happening at nine pm,
21:30
Speaker 3: so you can show the kids before they go to
21:31
Speaker 3: bed the Moon passing in front of the planet Mars.
21:35
Speaker 3: The whole event on the East coast of the United
21:37
Speaker 3: States lasts between nine and about ten to fifteen pm
21:42
Speaker 3: nine oh six pm to ten thirteen pm, specifically for Atlanta,
21:46
Speaker 3: Georgia and those areas nearby. But this event is also
21:51
Speaker 3: conveniently visible from all forty eight of the contiguous states
21:55
Speaker 3: and a large part of North America in general. So
21:58
Speaker 3: it's a really well timed and well placed event for
22:01
Speaker 3: people in our hemisphere of the Earth to be able
22:04
Speaker 3: to see this and so go check it out. That is,
22:09
Speaker 3: Monday night, January thirteenth, Eastern time, beginning around nine pm,
22:14
Speaker 3: you'll see a very very bright Mars slide behind the
22:18
Speaker 3: full moon. Spaceweather dot com is a place where you
22:21
Speaker 3: can go check this out. If you want to know
22:24
Speaker 3: the specific details for your location, check out the Thursday,
22:27
Speaker 3: January ninth edition of the web page spaceweather dot com.
22:30
Speaker 3: They have an archive in the upper right hand corner.
22:33
Speaker 3: They have all of the circumstances for the major cities
22:35
Speaker 3: across the US on that infographic. But then also they
22:40
Speaker 3: recommend using a pair of binoculars because then you can
22:43
Speaker 3: really see right when the planet Mars moves behind the moon,
22:47
Speaker 3: and you can kind of see that rusty red color,
22:50
Speaker 3: kind of an orangish color of Mars, which is unique
22:53
Speaker 3: among the planets in the Solar System. So there, it
22:55
Speaker 3: is a great event for Monday, January thirteenth.
22:58
Speaker 4: Coming up after a quick break. Could lowering the orbit
23:01
Speaker 4: of Starlink satellites make astronomers happy. We'll talk about that next.
23:22
Speaker 4: So this has been one of those kind of ongoing things,
23:25
Speaker 4: the Starlink satellites and the Starlink network obviously doing some
23:30
Speaker 4: really good things for people all over the world, whether
23:34
Speaker 4: it's Ukraine, whether it's the Carolinas and North Georgia during
23:39
Speaker 4: the hurricane season. I assume they will definitely be utilized
23:44
Speaker 4: with what's going on in California right now as time
23:49
Speaker 4: moves forward. We've talked in the last couple of weeks
23:52
Speaker 4: about the fact that this is now possibly going to
23:57
Speaker 4: be the next way that even cell phones will be used,
24:01
Speaker 4: you know, in the coming really couple of years, if
24:04
Speaker 4: even that far off. So starlink obviously has its benefits,
24:08
Speaker 4: there's some good to it, but from the very beginning
24:11
Speaker 4: there has been this concern about, well, wait a minute,
24:14
Speaker 4: if you start putting these satellites into orbit that are
24:18
Speaker 4: constantly moving around, that's going to definitely cause a problem
24:22
Speaker 4: for astronomers and folks trying to look up at the sky. Hey,
24:26
Speaker 4: what's that flying by? Oh those are the starlinks. Just
24:29
Speaker 4: ignore those. Oh here comes some more. Oh just ignore
24:31
Speaker 4: those two. Here comes some more, and well let's just
24:34
Speaker 4: go to bed.
24:35
Speaker 3: You know.
24:36
Speaker 4: That's kind of where I feel like people are concerned,
24:39
Speaker 4: and that's a valid reason to be concerned. We have
24:41
Speaker 4: talked about that off and on over the years. So
24:45
Speaker 4: I guess this is a possibilities, a suggestion as some
24:49
Speaker 4: are asking the question, well, what if they were a
24:51
Speaker 4: little bit lower in orbit, would that be of benefit?
24:55
Speaker 3: So elon Musk SpaceX. They want to do good things, right.
25:00
Speaker 3: The companies were founded to try to solve world problems.
25:07
Speaker 3: And if you think about Tesla, they're trying to solve
25:09
Speaker 3: the use of fossil fuels with battery operated cars. If
25:13
Speaker 3: you think about SpaceX, they're trying to solve the problem
25:17
Speaker 3: of non reusable rockets and the high cost of getting
25:22
Speaker 3: objects into space. If you think about Starlink, they're trying
25:25
Speaker 3: to provide conductivity to not just telephones but also broadband
25:30
Speaker 3: data for people all around the world who may have
25:33
Speaker 3: no other way to access these services. As West just
25:36
Speaker 3: pointed out, gave some great examples of some temporary situations
25:39
Speaker 3: where that's been true. But certainly there are people who
25:42
Speaker 3: live in data deserts, so to speak, in all parts
25:47
Speaker 3: of the world, and so can a system be created
25:51
Speaker 3: that allows people to access community telecommunications and also data. Well,
25:57
Speaker 3: when you solve one problem, it just as some weird
26:00
Speaker 3: Murphy's law of life probably has something to do with
26:03
Speaker 3: the second. Law of thermodynamics and entropy. You simply can't
26:08
Speaker 3: solve one problem without creating another problem. It just feels
26:11
Speaker 3: that way. And so as SpaceX with starlink was trying
26:15
Speaker 3: to fix the connectivity problem, they got in the way
26:19
Speaker 3: of astronomers literally, And so these large constellations of satellites
26:25
Speaker 3: pass over observatories and literally light pollute the sky. In
26:29
Speaker 3: other words, they streak across the areas of the night
26:33
Speaker 3: time sky that astronomers are trying to image so that
26:36
Speaker 3: we can figure out more things about our universe. And
26:39
Speaker 3: so yeah, it made the astronomers unhappy, shall we say,
26:44
Speaker 3: and it gave them cause for concern. It actually cost
26:47
Speaker 3: people nights of data. And if that doesn't seem like
26:52
Speaker 3: a lot to other people, I can tell you as
26:54
Speaker 3: an astronomer myself, it's very difficult and challenging to get
26:58
Speaker 3: time allocated to your ideas to be able to get
27:02
Speaker 3: on these large telescopes and observe objects in space. You
27:05
Speaker 3: might get four or five nights in an entire year.
27:09
Speaker 3: And if you have clear skies, great, If you don't
27:13
Speaker 3: have clear skies you just lose out. So let's say
27:16
Speaker 3: you're at the observatory. You got the time you have
27:19
Speaker 3: clear skies, you want to take pictures of this thing
27:21
Speaker 3: in space that's going to win you a Nobel Prize
27:23
Speaker 3: and solve some of the mysteries of the universe. And
27:25
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, four hundred Starlink satellites zip over
27:29
Speaker 3: your head and directly in front of the object that
27:32
Speaker 3: you're trying to image and ruin your opportunity to be
27:35
Speaker 3: able to observe. It's a problem to you, right, I mean,
27:38
Speaker 3: it may not be a problem to everybody, but it's
27:40
Speaker 3: a problem to you. And so there are large numbers
27:44
Speaker 3: of astronomers who have complained about the photo bombing starlink
27:48
Speaker 3: satellites getting in their way. And so there's an interesting
27:51
Speaker 3: article on PCMag dot com about how starlink and SpaceX
27:58
Speaker 3: are actually trying to work with the astronomer the astronomical community,
28:03
Speaker 3: specifically the astronomers at the Verra Reuben Observatory and the
28:06
Speaker 3: National Science Foundation in the US to see if they
28:10
Speaker 3: can do simple orbital changes of the satellites, just bring
28:15
Speaker 3: them down a little bit, just make them orbit a
28:17
Speaker 3: little bit lower, and see if that actually helps. You
28:20
Speaker 3: would think, well, why would that help? I mean, they're
28:22
Speaker 3: still going around, they're still in the same number. Well,
28:25
Speaker 3: there's three things really that happen. Number One, because they're lower,
28:31
Speaker 3: they have less time above the horizon at any given location,
28:36
Speaker 3: so they're simply not going to be in your way
28:38
Speaker 3: as long. Something else that adds to that. A second
28:41
Speaker 3: effect is they're going to go faster. Their orbital speeds
28:45
Speaker 3: will increase as you bring them close to the Earth,
28:48
Speaker 3: so they're not going to be in the sky for
28:49
Speaker 3: as long a time in general. The third factor that
28:53
Speaker 3: happens is if they're lower, they're less likely to be
28:57
Speaker 3: high enough to catch the Sun's rays above a nighttime
29:03
Speaker 3: side of the Earth. You see at their altitude, which
29:06
Speaker 3: is current, they orbit the Earth at something like three
29:09
Speaker 3: hundred and forty one miles. Well, if that kind of
29:11
Speaker 3: an altitude, it may be dark where you are, but
29:14
Speaker 3: the sun is shining around the curve of the Earth
29:16
Speaker 3: and hitting those satellites at that great altitude, making them
29:19
Speaker 3: glow very brightly in the twilight, evening sky and morning sky. Well,
29:25
Speaker 3: if you simply bring them down a little bit to
29:28
Speaker 3: IUT don't know, somewhere around two hundred and seventeen miles
29:31
Speaker 3: is what they're looking at, then they are catching a
29:34
Speaker 3: lot less of the Sun's rays, they're a lot likely,
29:38
Speaker 3: a lot less likely to be reflective in a manner
29:41
Speaker 3: that's going to shine back down onto the ground. They're
29:43
Speaker 3: simply not going to reflect the Sun as long. So
29:47
Speaker 3: interesting story. It did mention also that Starlink is actively
29:51
Speaker 3: looking at the shape of their satellites, the actual geometry
29:54
Speaker 3: of the satellites, trying to make them less reflective in
29:56
Speaker 3: that way. So we'll see going forward, can can SpaceX
30:00
Speaker 3: and the Starlink satellites be re engineered and their orbits
30:04
Speaker 3: reconfigured to make them less of a hazard for astronomers
30:08
Speaker 3: trying to see the nighttime sky?
30:09
Speaker 4: Coming up, after one more quick break, we'll talk about
30:12
Speaker 4: the Sungrazer comet and uh, will it be brighter than
30:17
Speaker 4: Venus next week? All right, let's talk about the Sungrazer comet,
30:39
Speaker 4: and I guess we're gonna be getting a little show
30:41
Speaker 4: there next week.
30:43
Speaker 3: So we've heard of comets named Atlas before, and that's
30:46
Speaker 3: because Atlas is a sky survey that's finding lots of
30:48
Speaker 3: things in the sky, including comets. So we have to
30:51
Speaker 3: refer to this one by its catalog number. This is
30:53
Speaker 3: Commet C four G three sometimes just getting a previous
31:00
Speaker 3: to G three.
31:01
Speaker 4: Gread thing about that is that's actually Jeff Bezos's mom's name.
31:05
Speaker 3: Which is weird, and you'll probably make a floating platform
31:08
Speaker 3: called Atlas at some point after Jeff Bezos's mom.
31:11
Speaker 4: No, I was saying C twenty twenty four G three
31:14
Speaker 4: is their name.
31:15
Speaker 3: I think that's her middle name. I do think that's
31:17
Speaker 3: her first name.
31:18
Speaker 4: I would believe it's more likely one of Elon's kids names.
31:21
Speaker 4: But anyway, I digress.
31:23
Speaker 3: She says, my name is Jacqueline, but you can call
31:25
Speaker 3: me C twenty twenty four G three. That's right, That's
31:29
Speaker 3: what I heard. Yeah, anyway, so this comment, so it's
31:34
Speaker 3: a sungrazer, what does that mean, Well, it's going to
31:36
Speaker 3: make a pass where it's very very close to the
31:38
Speaker 3: sun on what we call it's Perihelian or the closest
31:42
Speaker 3: point to the Sun. That closest point to the Sun
31:45
Speaker 3: is going to also happen on January thirteenth, Monday the thirteenth.
31:49
Speaker 3: Another thing taking place on Monday the thirteenth, so commet
31:52
Speaker 3: see twenty twenty four. G three, not known as Jacqueline
31:55
Speaker 3: but also known as Atlas, is going to make a
31:57
Speaker 3: pass by the Sun that's going to get it very
32:00
Speaker 3: very close to the Sun. Now, the first question will be, well,
32:03
Speaker 3: if it's so close to the sun, comets are giant
32:05
Speaker 3: ice balls, will the thing survive? Back in October, there
32:10
Speaker 3: was a very potentially bright commet that we were all
32:12
Speaker 3: looking forward to that did not survive. So it was
32:15
Speaker 3: another one of these sungrazers. It got in so close
32:18
Speaker 3: that it just fell apart, basically melted away, evaporated and
32:23
Speaker 3: was gone. So that could also happen to not Jeff's
32:27
Speaker 3: mom twenty twenty four G three, but it also could
32:32
Speaker 3: potentially survive that close pass, and if it does, those
32:37
Speaker 3: who predict what comets do, it's kind of like predicting
32:40
Speaker 3: what a cat will do, by the way, they're pretty unpredictable.
32:42
Speaker 3: But comets, you know, can as they as they make
32:46
Speaker 3: this close pass, they liberate a lot of material through
32:49
Speaker 3: the melting process, and if that comet survives, it can
32:52
Speaker 3: become very very bright because there's just a whole lot
32:55
Speaker 3: more stuff that got loose from that icy comet to
32:58
Speaker 3: reflect the Sun's light. So it's going to take a
33:01
Speaker 3: quick pass above the northern hemisphere horizon after perihelion and
33:09
Speaker 3: you might be able to see it for just a
33:11
Speaker 3: very short time, but then it's going to duck back
33:13
Speaker 3: down again. It's never going to be very far from
33:15
Speaker 3: the Sun. It's mostly a Southern Hemisphere phenomenon. So for
33:19
Speaker 3: those of you, lots of our friends listening in Australia
33:23
Speaker 3: and New Zealand, thank you for listening. We appreciate you all.
33:26
Speaker 3: So know that you could get this comment and actually
33:29
Speaker 3: see it in your evening skies after it makes this
33:33
Speaker 3: pass within just eight million miles of the Sun and
33:35
Speaker 3: if it survives, right, So maybe this is a better
33:39
Speaker 3: warning for our friends than the Southern Hemisphere to kind
33:41
Speaker 3: of be on the lookout for this. But another fun
33:43
Speaker 3: thing is that's actually probably close enough that you can
33:47
Speaker 3: see this comment on what's known as a coronagraph and
33:50
Speaker 3: those instruments. You can see those images online. Let's check
33:55
Speaker 3: out spaceweather dot com and other websites that have coronagraph
33:59
Speaker 3: images and you might be able to see this video
34:01
Speaker 3: of the comment making a close pass by the Sun,
34:04
Speaker 3: maybe briefly see it in the Northern Hemisphere. And then
34:07
Speaker 3: we'll have to leave it up to our Southern Hemisphere
34:09
Speaker 3: friends to get a nice photograph of this thing if
34:12
Speaker 3: it survives and becomes the amazing brightest comment of twenty
34:15
Speaker 3: twenty five.
34:17
Speaker 4: Let's look to the events calendar for Columbus State University's
34:20
Speaker 4: co Cola Space Science Center. I know you guys have
34:23
Speaker 4: Music under the Dome getting ready to start back up again,
34:26
Speaker 4: but that's still almost a couple of months away, little
34:30
Speaker 4: less than two months away. The next Music under the
34:33
Speaker 4: Dome happening on March fourth.
34:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're going to have a great spring with
34:38
Speaker 3: our Music under the Dome concert series. Music under the
34:41
Speaker 3: Dome is a great concert if you're in the area
34:43
Speaker 3: and listening to the podcast. What Music under the Dome
34:46
Speaker 3: is is We're part of Columbus State University, and our
34:49
Speaker 3: professors and students and our Schwob School of Music come
34:52
Speaker 3: and perform live performances inside our Omnosphere Theater, and then
34:57
Speaker 3: we have visuals designed by graphic artists projected up onto
35:01
Speaker 3: the dome which are choreographed to that music. So it's
35:05
Speaker 3: a sight and sound extravaganza. And I'll be honest, it's
35:09
Speaker 3: one of the coolest musical events concerts that I've ever
35:14
Speaker 3: been part of, or been favored to be able to
35:17
Speaker 3: see or hear, and it's just a great venue for
35:21
Speaker 3: the concert and it's just a lot of fun. So
35:23
Speaker 3: you can come and check that out. You can pick
35:25
Speaker 3: up tickets now. I would encourage you to buy tickets
35:27
Speaker 3: ahead of time if you're interested in these concerts. We'll
35:29
Speaker 3: have concerts in March April, and may also coming up.
35:33
Speaker 3: In the meantime, we have our Columbus Toy and Comic
35:37
Speaker 3: Book Show that's going to be happening on Sunday, February
35:40
Speaker 3: the twenty third. If you're a person that just likes comics,
35:43
Speaker 3: toys and collectibles, science fiction, science fantasy, all of those
35:47
Speaker 3: kinds of things, this is a great time to come
35:50
Speaker 3: down to the Space Science Center and engage in your
35:52
Speaker 3: inner geekdom. And we know you have it because you're
35:54
Speaker 3: listening to this podcast already, So come check all that
35:57
Speaker 3: stuff out. For more information on all those events or
36:01
Speaker 3: just our day to day activities here at Space Science Center,
36:03
Speaker 3: visit us at the website cc SSC dot org that
36:10
Speaker 3: stands for Coca Cola Space Science Center dot org. I
36:15
Speaker 3: like to remind people to say Charlie, Charlie SamSam Charlie
36:17
Speaker 3: dot org, and remember we are part of Columbus State University,
36:20
Speaker 3: and thanks for coming down and supporting us.
36:22
Speaker 4: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
36:25
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