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Isaacman Says He's Aiming for Mars · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk. Go ahead.
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Speaker 2: When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes. When
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Speaker 2: made of stars, you could be from high they would
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Speaker 2: New Mexicomus, where all stars?
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Speaker 3: 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: crue In from Columba State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 5: Hi Sean, Hey, well it's good to be with you
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Speaker 5: this morning.
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Speaker 3: Let's start today.
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Speaker 4: We're going to get to Jared Isacman in just a minute,
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Speaker 4: because he's working his way towards being the guy running NASA.
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Speaker 3: But he's I.
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Speaker 4: Guess, a step closer to all that as we're recording,
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Speaker 4: but not quite there yet. But we want to start
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Speaker 4: with something else, So I want to start with the
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Speaker 4: fram too.
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Speaker 6: Now.
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Speaker 4: You said something before we got started today about this
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Speaker 4: being having a Norwegian like being named after a Norwegian
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Speaker 4: and as it named after the mission that was in
1:36
Speaker 4: the movie The Thing, John Carpenter's The Thing, because because
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Speaker 4: that's where the whole Shenanigan started, right the Wolf and
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Speaker 4: all that it was.
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Speaker 3: It was Norway, wasn't it.
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Speaker 6: It seems like it was you know, that was at
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Speaker 6: the South Pole if I recall, huh.
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Speaker 5: And not necessarily the North Pole.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Apparently there was a North Pole polar explorationship called FRAM
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Speaker 6: that when a group of you know, future space floorers,
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Speaker 6: we're trying to decide what to name their mission that
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Speaker 6: would fly over the polls, they referenced this Norwegian polar
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Speaker 6: exploration vessel and they called their spacecraft the FRAM two mission.
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Speaker 4: So it's a nod to the FRAM one or just
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Speaker 4: it wasn't a one.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a sequel like Police Academy, you know
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Speaker 6: two basically, I mean.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, if you're going to dive into Police Academy sequels, Uh,
2:30
Speaker 4: my personal favorite is for Citizens on Patrol, the screen
2:35
Speaker 4: debut of David Spade, but you know that's a whole
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Speaker 4: other deal anyway.
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Speaker 3: Uh, And I've just got do we need.
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Speaker 6: A Gladiator too? By the way, do we need to?
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Speaker 6: Because it was pretty good the one, you know, it
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Speaker 6: was the.
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Speaker 4: Number one was, uh, yeah, I didn't think we needed
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Speaker 4: it too, and then two was all right, it was it.
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Speaker 6: It was okay, yeah, okay, but I just don't know
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Speaker 6: that we actually needed it because i'd seen one gladiators
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Speaker 6: were in an arena.
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Speaker 4: It's rare we get the kind of classic New Yorker
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Speaker 4: accent out of somebody in Ancient Rome and from Denzel,
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Speaker 4: you know, I mean.
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Speaker 3: He's a great actor. I mean, he's as good as
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Speaker 3: he gets.
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Speaker 4: Honestly, I don't know that there is a better actor
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Speaker 4: working period. But you know, I mean he was coming
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Speaker 4: straight you know, South Bronx or whatever he was doing
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Speaker 4: there in Ancient Rome. But I mean we can't prove
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Speaker 4: that they didn't speak that way.
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Speaker 5: So it's a very good point.
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Speaker 6: And you know, maybe it was the South Bronx version
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Speaker 6: of Roman accent from South Rome or something. I don't know.
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Speaker 3: I know, we got to get back on topic.
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Speaker 4: But in all of his movies, he's got that one
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Speaker 4: scene where he kind of adjusts his pants like at
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Speaker 4: the belt and then and I don't know how you
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Speaker 4: do that when you don't have pants on, you know,
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Speaker 4: you're just wearing those just so I don't know, I
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Speaker 4: mean that was my one concern. I thought, how's he
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Speaker 4: going to hike up his belt a little bit? But anyway,
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Speaker 4: those are always the best scenes in the movie. So
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Speaker 4: maybe that's all it was missing. Is just one one
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Speaker 4: belt hike, all right, FRAM two, which, by the way,
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Speaker 4: the FRAM two is not the part number for the
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Speaker 4: oil filter I use.
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Speaker 3: I use a different.
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Speaker 5: FRAM number, so different frame. It's an entirely different frame.
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Speaker 6: So so we should not detongrate this mission, because this
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Speaker 6: mission's actually pretty cool.
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Speaker 5: But you know, we joke here, that's what we do,
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Speaker 5: all right.
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Speaker 6: So SpaceX This is a story from SpaceNews dot com.
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Speaker 6: By the way, SpaceX completes the FRAM two mission. It's
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Speaker 6: a private astronaut mission. FRAM two was sponsored by a
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Speaker 6: gentleman by the name of Chun Wang, who is a
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Speaker 6: cryptocurrency entrepreneur who says he has a lifelong curiosity about.
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Speaker 5: The polar regions.
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Speaker 6: Likes to think about what goes on at the North
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Speaker 6: Pole and at the South Pole. And as West pointed out,
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Speaker 6: you know that perhaps some alien spacecraft down there at
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Speaker 6: the South Pole.
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Speaker 5: You know, I don't know that they're not there. I
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Speaker 5: haven't been down there.
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Speaker 6: You can if they're not, I have no evidence that
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Speaker 6: they're not anyway. So it was a crew Dragon capsule
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Speaker 6: that flew the first ever crude flight in orbit or
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Speaker 6: about Earth's poles. So this is the first time that
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Speaker 6: human beings have ever gotten direct observations of the polar
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Speaker 6: regions from space, which is pretty cool. Now again, satellites
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Speaker 6: have flown over that imaged the North Pole and South Pole,
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Speaker 6: but this is the first time that a human crew
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Speaker 6: has ever flown a polar orbit. And it was an
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Speaker 6: all commercial mission called the FRAM two sponsored by Chun
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Speaker 6: Wang cryptocurrency entrepreneur. Also on board was Jenek Mickelson who's
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Speaker 6: a Norwegian photographer, Rabia Rogi who's a robotics engineer from Germany,
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Speaker 6: and Eric Phillips who's a professional polar explorer from Australia.
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Speaker 6: I'm guessing mostly the South Pole there, but what do
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Speaker 6: I know. Maybe he's gone to the North Pole too anyway,
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Speaker 6: So that together they formed the crew with Chun Wong
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Speaker 6: of the FRAM two mission. And so here is some
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Speaker 6: quotes from Chung Wong on social media. He said this
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Speaker 6: the ride to orbit was much smoother than I had anticipated.
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Speaker 6: He did acknowledge that the crew suffered from a quote.
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Speaker 6: The first few hours in microgravity weren't exactly comfortable. They
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Speaker 6: had a little bit of space sickness while they were
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Speaker 6: up there, as astronauts would do, right, So, I mean
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Speaker 6: that's probably something that most NASA astronauts are familiar with.
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Speaker 6: But they were able to launch on the thirty first
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Speaker 6: of March and return on the fourth of April. They
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Speaker 6: had a splash down in California. Let's remember that SpaceX
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Speaker 6: is now working toward splashing down all of their dragon
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Speaker 6: capsules off the coast of California rather than in the
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Speaker 6: Gulf of whatever country it's Mexico, I believe Gulf of Mexico,
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Speaker 6: but anyway, so they're working on making their splash downs
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Speaker 6: happen in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
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Speaker 6: So there you go. Fram two mission, first ever commercial
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Speaker 6: or otherwise first ever crude mission to fly over the
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Speaker 6: poles of the Earth.
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Speaker 4: This is not the same Chun Wang that's saying dance
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Speaker 4: all days, right, that's a different group.
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Speaker 5: I can neither confirm nor deny.
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Speaker 4: Let's talk about Jared Isaacman. He's a step closer to
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Speaker 4: being the guy.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, that's yeah, this is a really interesting development. Of course,
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Speaker 6: Jared Isiacman himself a veteran commercial astronaut, two different flights
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Speaker 6: to space, the first ever commercial spacewalk performed by Isaacman,
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Speaker 6: an EVA extra vehicular activity. Now he is on Capitol Hill,
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Speaker 6: so hopefully all those experiences going to space have prepared
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Speaker 6: him for the grilling that he's getting up on Capitol
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Speaker 6: Hill right now. So he is, of course a billionaire
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Speaker 6: entrepreneur himself. But Presidentald Trump reached out to Isaacman to
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Speaker 6: be the next director of NASA, or they call that
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Speaker 6: the NASA administrator. And so today we have the news
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Speaker 6: in of some of his quotes that he said yesterday
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Speaker 6: in front of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
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Speaker 6: Transportation where he was testifying that would have been on
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Speaker 6: April the ninth. Some of the comments he made. He
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Speaker 6: said this first, this is a quote from Isaagan. First,
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Speaker 6: American astronauts will lead the way in the ultimate high
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Speaker 6: ground of space, as the President stated, we will prioritize
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Speaker 6: sending American astronauts to Mars.
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Speaker 5: There you go.
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Speaker 6: That's really the headline that we're covering, that we're focused
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Speaker 6: on today is the fact that the direction of NASA
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Speaker 6: in terms of commercial or crewed spaceflight will be trying
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Speaker 6: to get human beings to the red planet Mars. Now
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Speaker 6: why is that important, Well, because there's already this on
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Speaker 6: going program called Artemis, and that's getting astronauts to the Moon.
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Speaker 6: So then Senator Ted Cruz, who is from Texas, remember
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Speaker 6: Texas a very big NASA state, particularly for the human
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Speaker 6: space flight program, which is headquartered at the Johnson Space
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Speaker 6: Center in Houston. So Ted crew says, well, Ted Cruz
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Speaker 6: warned against abandoning the Artemis steppingstone approach in favor of
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Speaker 6: a quicker, more direct route to the Red planet. Here's
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Speaker 6: a quote from Senator Cruz. We must stay the course,
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Speaker 6: and extreme shift in priorities at this stage would almost
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Speaker 6: certainly mean a red Moon seding ground to China for
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Speaker 6: generations to come. I am hard pressed to think of
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Speaker 6: a more catastrophic mistake we could make in space than
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Speaker 6: saying to communist China the Moon is yours, unquote Ted Cruz,
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Speaker 6: Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
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Speaker 6: So Jared Isaacman then addressed this. He replied that he
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Speaker 6: would not let that happens, saying that NASA can work
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Speaker 6: toward accomplishing multiple goals at once. Quote from Isaacman, NASA
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Speaker 6: is an extraordinary agency that can do the near impossible.
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Speaker 6: We can chart a course for Mars in line with
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Speaker 6: the President's vision to return to the Moon before the
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Speaker 6: Chinese get there, and figure out the space economy, and
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Speaker 6: do the other things unquote. So the other things meaning
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Speaker 6: charting a course to go to Mars while doing all
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Speaker 6: those things on the Moon. All right, So Isaacman said
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Speaker 6: he does not intend to cancel Gateway or any other
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Speaker 6: aspect of the Artemis program at the moment. Now, what
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Speaker 6: is Gateway, Well, let's just remind our listeners. The Gateway
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Speaker 6: is an orbiting space station around the Moon, similar to
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Speaker 6: the International Space Station around Earth, not as big, but
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Speaker 6: yet an orbiting platform from which astronauts can come and
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Speaker 6: go to the lunar surface, dock their views at the
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Speaker 6: Gateway orbiting platform, and then use that to come and
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Speaker 6: go to Earth rather than going directly to the surface.
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Speaker 6: Rather than going directly from the surface of the Earth
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Speaker 6: to the surface of the Moon, astronauts would come and
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Speaker 6: go on this orbiting platform eventually. Okay, so it sounds
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Speaker 6: like Isaacman is intending to stay the course with that plan.
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Speaker 6: That was already in place from a previous administration. However,
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Speaker 6: he had this to say about the Artemis platform in general,
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Speaker 6: which includes the Orion space capsule and the Space Launch
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Speaker 6: System rocket. A quote from Jarediagman quote, I believe it's
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Speaker 6: the best and fastest way to get there. I don't
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Speaker 6: think it's the long term way to get to and
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Speaker 6: from the Moon and to Mars with great frequency. But
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Speaker 6: this is the plan we have now, and we've got
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Speaker 6: to get this crew around the Moon and the follow
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Speaker 6: on crew to land on the Moon.
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Speaker 5: Now.
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Speaker 6: When he says this crew, so the Artemis two crew
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Speaker 6: was actually at the Senate hearing and so they were
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Speaker 6: on site. They were present, So he's literally gesturing to
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Speaker 6: the crew that was right there. They are the next
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Speaker 6: four astronauts slated to go around the back side of
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Speaker 6: the Moon on the Artemis two mission, completing fundamentally what
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Speaker 6: we did in Apollo eight back in nineteen sixty eight.
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Speaker 6: So there you have it, friends, So.
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Speaker 4: A few things, and just going back to you know,
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Speaker 4: over the past years we have interviewed, especially last year,
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Speaker 4: and I guess that's probably the more direct time we
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Speaker 4: can talk about it. You and I were down at
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Speaker 4: Kennedy Space Center, and we were talking with various people
12:42
Speaker 4: that are involved, especially in the Artemis mission. That's what
12:45
Speaker 4: we were down there for the arrival of the booster,
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Speaker 4: and a pretty common question something that we were asking
12:53
Speaker 4: sort of each person involved in some capacity, whether you know,
12:57
Speaker 4: it's a former astronaut, whether it's one of the engineer
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Speaker 4: team that was there, we would talk and we've talked
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Speaker 4: about it a lot on the show over the past
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Speaker 4: several years, but we would ask them about this space
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Speaker 4: race that has now begun. We got varying responses from them,
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Speaker 4: right Some were talk about it and someone would acknowledge, yes,
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Speaker 4: we have this going on now, especially with China that's
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Speaker 4: where things are, and they would acknowledge it. Some kind
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Speaker 4: of kept to there. They would give almost a like
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Speaker 4: an athlete who's been instructed. Hey, we're just trying to
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Speaker 4: get better, you know that kind of the answer that
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Speaker 4: you get from athletes sometimes, and they say, look, we're
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Speaker 4: focused on our mission in front of us, which is
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Speaker 4: the correct answer, just like it's the correct answer for
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Speaker 4: an athlete to say, I'm just trying to get better
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Speaker 4: every week. But it should not be a surprise from
13:46
Speaker 4: us to hear certainly not Ted Cruz, but to hear
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Speaker 4: all of this coming up in this idea from Isaacman
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Speaker 4: and others, that we're in this position now where yes,
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Speaker 4: there is a space race going on all over again,
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Speaker 4: and you and I I have talked about how that's
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Speaker 4: kind of one of those things that's been missing to motivate.
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Speaker 4: You know, Americans have a tendency to, you know, maybe
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Speaker 4: if there's not if there's nobody to compete with, you know,
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Speaker 4: maybe we're not necessarily going to drive quite as hard
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Speaker 4: as we need to. And it definitely feels like this
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Speaker 4: race to the moon with China is certainly a big
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Speaker 4: factor in getting us more motivated to speed things up
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Speaker 4: a little bit more, just making that as an observation,
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Speaker 4: and it's not a surprise to hear that discussion during
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Speaker 4: his confirmation.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know, it's certainly geopolitically important. Right as
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Speaker 6: we look at all of the current events taking place,
14:44
Speaker 6: we can just we can just say there seems to
14:47
Speaker 6: be a somewhat troubled relationship right now between the United
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Speaker 6: States and China.
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Speaker 5: I doubt if that's news to any.
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Speaker 6: Of our listeners, but I think it's intensified here in
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Speaker 6: recent weeks and therefore, you know, this is one aspect
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Speaker 6: of that, but it's the aspect that relates directly to
15:04
Speaker 6: NASA is how do we plan our programs around trying
15:10
Speaker 6: to have space superiority as well as accomplish all of
15:14
Speaker 6: the good and noble scientific missions of NASA. You know,
15:19
Speaker 6: there's always going to be a geopolitical factor involved with
15:23
Speaker 6: what NASA does. So yeah, so it's interesting to hear
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Speaker 6: this discussion about you know, hey, if we if we
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Speaker 6: turn our focus and go directly to Mars and skip
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Speaker 6: all the things we've been planning to do on the Moon,
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Speaker 6: what does that mean for our geopolitical future, particularly in
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Speaker 6: the case of China, who is being very successful right now,
15:42
Speaker 6: by the way, with their space program and accomplishing their
15:45
Speaker 6: goals to get their Tycho knots to the Moon soon.
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Speaker 6: So so this' it's an important issue.
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Speaker 4: Coming up after a quick break, we'll talk about auroras
15:56
Speaker 4: on Neptune. We'll get to that next. When we talk
16:22
Speaker 4: about the saga that was getting the James Webspace Telescope
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Speaker 4: off the planet and in place.
16:30
Speaker 3: It was a long it was.
16:32
Speaker 4: A storied series of complications and dramas, including dropping it
16:37
Speaker 4: at the last minute before launching it. But man, it
16:40
Speaker 4: keeps getting when after when after when, and it's like,
16:45
Speaker 4: you know, you go through the drama and then you
16:47
Speaker 4: get It's almost like a Disney movie, you know, and
16:50
Speaker 4: you go like, oh man, all the struggles to get there,
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Speaker 4: but the victory it just makes it so much sweeter.
16:55
Speaker 4: Here's another big win for the James Webspace Telescope.
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Speaker 6: Yeah. I happened to be a big fan of sappy
17:01
Speaker 6: sports movies. I just love them. I know how they're
17:04
Speaker 6: going to turn out because it's a sappy sports movie
17:08
Speaker 6: and they usually turn out the same and which is
17:11
Speaker 6: why I like them, I think.
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Speaker 4: Right, So, something about that overcoming all obstacle, something about
17:18
Speaker 4: it just hits you right in the right spot, right.
17:22
Speaker 6: It does. It does, And I'm a sucker for those
17:24
Speaker 6: So yeah, I'm a sucker for those stories in real
17:26
Speaker 6: life as well. We're seeing that play out here with
17:29
Speaker 6: the James Webspace Telescope because we did Wes, You and
17:33
Speaker 6: Me on radio and on the podcast Chronicle for many years.
17:37
Speaker 6: Shall we say, the challenges along the way for JWST
17:41
Speaker 6: and and all of the things that were you know, surprising,
17:44
Speaker 6: like its budget and it's timeline and all the things
17:47
Speaker 6: that were not going well, and then the almost miraculous
17:52
Speaker 6: engineering that took place for when it had to deploy
17:56
Speaker 6: and had all of the moving parts that had to
17:58
Speaker 6: simultaneously single point of failure advance correctly, and they all did,
18:06
Speaker 6: and so then the thing actually worked well. Now we're
18:09
Speaker 6: at the stage where we have the greatest orbital platform telescope,
18:14
Speaker 6: the greatest space telescope ever produced by humanity out there,
18:17
Speaker 6: so of course it's seeing amazing things, right, and so
18:20
Speaker 6: this is another one of those stories.
18:21
Speaker 5: This is on the success side.
18:23
Speaker 6: This would be like you know at the end of
18:26
Speaker 6: the credits when it's talking about all, you know, the
18:28
Speaker 6: wonderful things that happened after the sappy sports movie ended.
18:31
Speaker 6: So Earth dot com is where this story comes from.
18:34
Speaker 6: James Webb space telescope spots something never really verified to
18:38
Speaker 6: be seen before, which are the northern and southern lights
18:43
Speaker 6: not on Earth, on the planet Neptune. That's right, friends.
18:48
Speaker 6: The Voyager two spacecraft back in nineteen eighty nine did
18:51
Speaker 6: a quick fly by of Neptune. During that quick pass,
18:56
Speaker 6: it had some images that hinted that Neptune might be
19:00
Speaker 6: having northern lights but no Earth based telescope has ever
19:04
Speaker 6: been able to confirm that sighting in nineteen eighty nine
19:08
Speaker 6: by voyage or two, and it never did so. But
19:12
Speaker 6: now we have confirmation from an orbital platform or a
19:15
Speaker 6: space based platform. The James Web Space Telescope is not
19:19
Speaker 6: actually orbiting the Earth. I call it an orbital telescope.
19:22
Speaker 6: It is actually a space probe that's out there observing
19:25
Speaker 6: the universe, but it is in space. So it is
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Speaker 6: now confirmed that Neptune's ionosphere is glowing in the same
19:33
Speaker 6: kind of way that happens on the Earth from energetic
19:36
Speaker 6: particles coming in mostly from the Sun but hitting the
19:40
Speaker 6: magnetic field around Neptune and then being brought into Neptune's
19:44
Speaker 6: atmosphere and causing the atmosphere to glow. We know that
19:49
Speaker 6: familiar glow here in the Northern Hemisphere as Northern Lights
19:53
Speaker 6: down in Australia as the Southern Lights or Aurora Australis,
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Speaker 6: and now we are seeing them on the planet Neptune,
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Speaker 6: which is pretty cool. So lead author of the new
20:03
Speaker 6: story from the University of Northumbria is Henrik Mellon.
20:08
Speaker 5: He has this quote.
20:09
Speaker 6: Quote turns out actually imaging the auroral activity on Neptune
20:13
Speaker 6: was only possible with Webb's near infrared sensitivity. It was
20:19
Speaker 6: so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the
20:22
Speaker 6: detail and clarity of the signature that really shocked me again.
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Speaker 6: Quote from Henrik Mellon, Northumbria University, lead author on the
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Speaker 6: new paper from James Webspace telescope, first ever imaging of
20:36
Speaker 6: the northern and southern lights from the planet Neptune.
20:41
Speaker 4: Let's transition to another telescope because NASA's sphere X. I
20:48
Speaker 4: want to say SPHEREx just because of the way it's
20:51
Speaker 4: spelled out, but their new infrared space telescope sphere X.
20:56
Speaker 4: Let's talk about it.
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Speaker 6: I mean, if you say SPHERX, I am certainly not
21:01
Speaker 6: going to correct you, because I don't really know if
21:03
Speaker 6: the engineers themselves or the scientists themselves on this particular
21:06
Speaker 6: mission don't call it SPHERICX. I mean, yeah, we've all
21:12
Speaker 6: just gotten into this kind of you know, rhythm and
21:15
Speaker 6: pattern of space X. Well.
21:18
Speaker 4: The fact that the X part is it's part of
21:21
Speaker 4: one of those acronyms where it's explorer. But you know,
21:24
Speaker 4: the guy who made the graphic interface Gifts pronounced it
21:31
Speaker 4: with a J. For some dumb reason and then some
21:33
Speaker 4: people won't give up on that. So I'm very much
21:37
Speaker 4: a gift guy rather than a Jiff guy because.
21:39
Speaker 5: I pretty much call it gift as well.
21:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense.
21:43
Speaker 4: So it makes sense if it's if explorer is that
21:46
Speaker 4: last part of the acronym, that it would be X right.
21:49
Speaker 6: And like you, I know that Giff is incorrect. Yeah, well,
21:53
Speaker 6: I still think at least from the originator, right, I
21:55
Speaker 6: think just because he named it, that doesn't mean it
21:57
Speaker 6: wasn't stupid.
22:00
Speaker 3: That's still I look at it.
22:01
Speaker 4: I mean he could still be wrong, right anyway.
22:04
Speaker 5: That's why I think in society, usage defines pronunciation.
22:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, those people that are still digging in and
22:10
Speaker 4: won't let go with Jeff, they need to get over it,
22:11
Speaker 4: That's all I'm saying.
22:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's the same as you know, like what kro
22:16
Speaker 6: you know, or yes, albini or you know. There's various
22:21
Speaker 6: things that we can point to. All right, So sphere
22:24
Speaker 6: X or SPHEREx Hey, by the way, it is a
22:28
Speaker 6: strained acronym and it does involve explorer. So here's what
22:31
Speaker 6: the acronym stands for. Spectro photometer for the History of
22:35
Speaker 6: the Universe, Epoch of reionization, and ICE's explorer just rolls
22:42
Speaker 6: off the tongue.
22:43
Speaker 4: It does, Thank goodness for sphere x.
22:47
Speaker 6: Do you think this is clearly one of the cases
22:49
Speaker 6: where they made up the acronym first and then try
22:52
Speaker 6: to fit all the science words in there to make
22:54
Speaker 6: like sphex is such a cool name. Let's figure out
22:57
Speaker 6: how we can make some words spell out SPHEREx.
23:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh. It's a classic NASA naming, isn't it.
23:06
Speaker 5: It seems to be so.
23:07
Speaker 6: Sphere X was designed to basically do three things. That is,
23:12
Speaker 6: to conduct an all sky spectral survey to measure the
23:16
Speaker 6: history of galaxy formation. There's that history of the universe
23:20
Speaker 6: part right, and the spectroscopy part number two. And investigate
23:25
Speaker 6: the origins of water and molecules in regions where stars
23:28
Speaker 6: and planets form. That's that epic of reionization bit and
23:34
Speaker 6: number three explore the distributions of interstellar ice. Hence that
23:39
Speaker 6: last part that's the ice ices explore. So see if
23:43
Speaker 6: you if you know that, then spectral photometer for the
23:46
Speaker 6: History of the Universe, Epic of reionization and ices explore
23:50
Speaker 6: makes perfect sense.
23:53
Speaker 4: I mean, if you know you know you alwayst want
23:56
Speaker 4: to scrap the whole the acronym and just call it
23:58
Speaker 4: by the long name once you know what all I mean.
24:00
Speaker 4: It tells you everything you need to know right there.
24:03
Speaker 4: We could call it Ted, Yeah, I could or call
24:06
Speaker 4: it you know, jeiff whatever, you could call it any
24:08
Speaker 4: or jiff jiff is good. However you want to pronounce it.
24:13
Speaker 6: Well, So about Jeff or Ted, I mean SPHEREx. About SPHEREx.
24:18
Speaker 6: It's returned its first images successfully. That's really the story here, friends.
24:21
Speaker 6: You can check this story out on science alert dot com.
24:24
Speaker 6: NASA's news Space telescope unveils its first images. This is
24:28
Speaker 6: the SPHEREx mission. They are in the microwave region from
24:32
Speaker 6: zero point seventy five two five microns in that region. See,
24:36
Speaker 6: this is the cool thing. That's a range of wavelengths,
24:40
Speaker 6: and SPHEREx is capable of imaging throughout that entire range
24:44
Speaker 6: of infrared wavelengths of light coming in from space. And
24:48
Speaker 6: so it's got six different cameras so they can it
24:54
Speaker 6: can scan the entire sky in these multitude of wavelengths
24:57
Speaker 6: in the infrared range, which is why it's going to
25:00
Speaker 6: be important. And so all of those six detectors worked
25:03
Speaker 6: correctly and sent back as of yet uncalibrated images, but
25:08
Speaker 6: there are verifying images. There are images that verify the
25:11
Speaker 6: correct function of all six of sphere ex's cameras. So
25:14
Speaker 6: that's a that's a good part of the new story.
25:17
Speaker 6: And then now this now functioning verified to be functioning
25:20
Speaker 6: space observatory, it's going to spend the next little while
25:25
Speaker 6: couple of years scanning the entire sky four times over. Now,
25:30
Speaker 6: for telescopes that have any kind of magnification, scanning the
25:35
Speaker 6: entire sky is difficult. This is called the survey mission.
25:39
Speaker 6: So doing these giant surveys of literally everything in the
25:43
Speaker 6: sky is not an easy task for any space telescope,
25:48
Speaker 6: and so the fact that it's doing that, it's pretty
25:50
Speaker 6: pretty impressive. Glad all the cameras are working. So now
25:54
Speaker 6: it's going to be using spectrospy to examine the light
25:57
Speaker 6: from hundreds of millions of celestial objects across more wavelengths
26:02
Speaker 6: than any previous all sky survey. So there you go, friends,
26:06
Speaker 6: SPHEREx successfully functioning and on its way to giving this
26:10
Speaker 6: a very detailed map of the entire universe. In the
26:12
Speaker 6: infrared part of the spectrum.
26:14
Speaker 4: Coming up after one more quick break, we'll talk about
26:17
Speaker 4: comet swan. We'll get to that after this. It always
26:43
Speaker 4: is a good time when we can start we started
26:45
Speaker 4: talking about a newly discovered comet. It's anytime we can
26:49
Speaker 4: jump into that, it becomes it becomes fun. I mean
26:52
Speaker 4: sometimes it's kind of like hey, it's a new comment
26:54
Speaker 4: and then it's like eh, but comet swan starting to write,
26:58
Speaker 4: and that's a good sign.
26:59
Speaker 3: That's good, right, yeah it is.
27:00
Speaker 6: And listen, we're keenly aware that we speak to two
27:03
Speaker 6: different audiences here. One is just a general audience of
27:08
Speaker 6: people who like space, they're curious about it, and they
27:11
Speaker 6: want to know a little bit more. So thank you
27:13
Speaker 6: for listening. Yes, God bless you, God bless you for listening.
27:16
Speaker 6: That's right exactly. So the other audience, friends we know,
27:19
Speaker 6: are the true geeks who have their own backyard telescopes
27:22
Speaker 6: and are going to go out and find obscure deep
27:25
Speaker 6: sky objects and hello and welcome to you as well.
27:29
Speaker 6: So this story could be for both audiences, or may
27:33
Speaker 6: just be for the latter audience.
27:35
Speaker 5: We don't know yet.
27:36
Speaker 6: So the backyard telescope people ought to be at least
27:39
Speaker 6: ready to take their telescopes out and be ready to look.
27:42
Speaker 6: It may not reach naked eye visibility, but certainly could
27:46
Speaker 6: be bright enough to be seen with these backyard instruments. Now,
27:49
Speaker 6: if you want a great website for finding what cool
27:51
Speaker 6: things are going to be visible in the nighttime sky
27:54
Speaker 6: or in the daytime sky, there's hardly a better website
27:58
Speaker 6: out there than spaceweather dot com. That's one of my
28:00
Speaker 6: favorites for just kind of keeping track of what fun
28:04
Speaker 6: things might be visible in either the nighttime or daytime sky.
28:08
Speaker 6: So this story from spaceweather dot com. There's a newly
28:11
Speaker 6: discovered comet called Comet Swan. If you think, well, haven't
28:16
Speaker 6: there been comet swans before? Yes, that's because Swan is
28:19
Speaker 6: an instrument on the SOHO, and the SOHO is a
28:23
Speaker 6: space based telescope that observes the Sun, and we've used
28:26
Speaker 6: that telescope to discover other comets before. All right, So,
28:30
Speaker 6: but this comet Swan has a specific designation. It is
28:34
Speaker 6: C twenty twenty five F two. That's how the geeks
28:39
Speaker 6: talk about it. So those of you with the backyard telescopes,
28:41
Speaker 6: you know what I'm talking about. It's C twenty twenty
28:43
Speaker 6: five f two. So this is a new Comet Swan.
28:46
Speaker 6: It was discovered about a week ago on April first.
28:51
Speaker 6: The amateur astronomer who was digging through the archives of
28:55
Speaker 6: the Swan instrument and located the comet in the first place.
29:00
Speaker 6: He then went out and found it in his own
29:02
Speaker 6: backyard telescope and sent a set a great picture of
29:05
Speaker 6: that comet to spaceweather dot com, where you can check
29:08
Speaker 6: it out today. All right, So so he took that
29:11
Speaker 6: picture on April sixth, and he said this quote.
29:15
Speaker 5: I took this picture.
29:16
Speaker 6: Using a remote point five meter telescope in Utah, says
29:20
Speaker 6: Michael Madiaso, the discoverer of Comet Swan, And then he
29:25
Speaker 6: went on to say, quote, at the time, Comet Swan
29:28
Speaker 6: had a total magnitude of plus nine point six. Now,
29:31
Speaker 6: if you don't know what that means, that's too faint
29:33
Speaker 6: to be seen.
29:34
Speaker 5: With the unaided eye.
29:36
Speaker 6: But it's getting into that backyard telescope range. You're getting
29:39
Speaker 6: close now. Space Weather reports that since the comet has
29:44
Speaker 6: since this time, it's doubled in brightness.
29:46
Speaker 5: And so if it's current trends.
29:48
Speaker 6: Hold, this thing's going to get up to magnitude maybe
29:51
Speaker 6: plus five, which means maybe unaided I visible. It's going
29:58
Speaker 6: to approach the sun close than the orbit of Mercury
30:02
Speaker 6: on May first, so it'll be you know, in the
30:06
Speaker 6: time just before and just after that that this object
30:09
Speaker 6: might actually be visible in the sky just before just
30:14
Speaker 6: after sunset. So stay tuned. We're going to keep you
30:17
Speaker 6: updated on the latest discovery of comet swan. It might
30:20
Speaker 6: be a good one to go out and show the
30:21
Speaker 6: kids in the backyard, or it might just be for
30:25
Speaker 6: the backyard geeks with their giant telescopes. We'll find out.
30:28
Speaker 4: Coming up very soon is the final for the season
30:32
Speaker 4: edition of Music under the Dome, and this is a
30:34
Speaker 4: special one coming up in May.
30:36
Speaker 6: So the coming Music under the Dome is unlike any
30:39
Speaker 6: that we've had in the concert series, and that's because
30:41
Speaker 6: we have a specialist by the name of Dan Tepfer
30:45
Speaker 6: coming in to perform in the Atmosphere Theater in this
30:49
Speaker 6: concert series.
30:50
Speaker 5: But Dan Tepfer is not.
30:51
Speaker 6: Only a concert pianist and musician, he is also an
30:55
Speaker 6: expert with electronics and computer programming. And it turns out
30:59
Speaker 6: that we have this amazing instrument sitting in the Atmosphere
31:03
Speaker 6: Theater here at the Coca Cola Space Science Center at
31:05
Speaker 6: Columbus State University. It's called a disc lavier, and a
31:09
Speaker 6: disc lavier is basically a starship of a grand piano
31:13
Speaker 6: manufactured by Yamaha that belongs to our Schwobes School of
31:17
Speaker 6: Music here at Columbus State University. It was donated by
31:20
Speaker 6: a very generous gift by Gail Greenblat, and so this
31:23
Speaker 6: instrument sitting in our planetarium can actually be directly interfaced
31:28
Speaker 6: with our digit Star planetarium system, our brand new system
31:32
Speaker 6: that we just installed just a little over a year ago.
31:35
Speaker 6: And so Dan Tepfer is an expert in interfacing the
31:39
Speaker 6: disklavier instruments with the planetarium. He's going to come in
31:44
Speaker 6: and play the disk lavier and control the theater simultaneously.
31:50
Speaker 6: He will be controlling the visuals on the theater dome
31:54
Speaker 6: from the keys of the piano.
31:56
Speaker 5: Friends.
31:57
Speaker 6: That is pretty darn cool, certainly unlike any of the
32:01
Speaker 6: previous concerts we've had in the atmosphere in our music
32:05
Speaker 6: End of the Dome series, which, by the way, all
32:07
Speaker 6: of the previous concerts have been the musicians and artists
32:11
Speaker 6: of the Shop School of Music, both faculty and students
32:13
Speaker 6: here at Columbus State. This is the first time we
32:16
Speaker 6: brought in an outside musician, but that's why we're doing it,
32:19
Speaker 6: because we are putting on display the full capabilities of
32:23
Speaker 6: this beautiful instrument donated by Gail Greenblatt to the Shop
32:27
Speaker 6: School of Music, and we're going to demonstrate how it
32:30
Speaker 6: can actually control the planetarium system. So don't miss out.
32:35
Speaker 6: First Tuesday in May, Dan tep for here at the
32:38
Speaker 6: Otmosphere Theater at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
32:41
Speaker 6: If you want to know more information about how you
32:43
Speaker 6: can get tickets and by the way, they're going fast,
32:48
Speaker 6: visit our website www dot cc SSC dot org. Charlie
32:55
Speaker 6: Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
32:57
Speaker 4: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
32:59
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