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SpaceX Crew-8 Wasn't Stuck Either · 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. When made of stars,
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Speaker 1: made them stars.
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Speaker 2: Made sizes. When made of stars, you could be from
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Speaker 2: high they would New Mexicomus.
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Speaker 1: Where are stars?
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Speaker 3: When we are made of stars? I'm Wes Carol, joined
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Speaker 3: by my good friend doctor Sean Cruisin from Columbus State
1:00
Speaker 3: University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 2: Hey Sean, good morning, Wes. Could to be here today.
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Speaker 3: So the SpaceX Crew eight, this is not the crew nine.
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Speaker 3: The crew nine is the one that getting all the attention,
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Speaker 3: sucking up all the oxygen in the room because of
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Speaker 3: obviously the stuck, not stuck, stuck, not stuck, definitely not
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Speaker 3: stuck anymore, even if they weren't stuck. But they're not
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Speaker 3: now I don't know, taking up all the oxygen and
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Speaker 3: all the conversation. But they will not be coming home
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Speaker 3: Crew nine until February or so, assuming they don't get
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Speaker 3: stuck while they're there. But Crew eight, the previous mission
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Speaker 3: that had gone up, is they're on their way home.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's important to note that a few, just
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Speaker 2: a few, but a few of the headlines I read
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Speaker 2: about the Crew eight story, not Crew nine, like you
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Speaker 2: pointed out, also said these astronauts had been stuck a
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Speaker 2: board to the International Space Station since August. Now, I'm
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Speaker 2: just personally getting a little tired of that. I'm just
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Speaker 2: it's just a little bit, it's just a little bit taxing.
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Speaker 2: So what did happen was they really were scheduled to
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Speaker 2: come back in September, but what happened was we had
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Speaker 2: a couple of hurricanes, and there's been weather events, and
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Speaker 2: there's been some other NASA traffic and things like that
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Speaker 2: that have delayed their mission. So now the Crew eight,
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Speaker 2: SpaceX's Dragon Crew eight, which consists of NASA astronauts Matt Dominic,
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Speaker 2: Mike Barrett, and Jeanette Epps, along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gribenkin,
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Speaker 2: are coming home. They've been up there since March, so
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Speaker 2: they have been up there a good long time, over
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Speaker 2: six months. They're coming home now. They were scheduled to
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Speaker 2: come home back in September, making it almost an even
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Speaker 2: six months, But it was impossible because things happen. That
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Speaker 2: does not mean they were stuck. It just means that
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Speaker 2: it's not advisable to bring them back during a hurricane.
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Speaker 2: So are you stuck up there or is your flight delayed?
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Speaker 2: I mean, I guess maybe if my flight out of
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Speaker 2: the Atlanta Airport was delayed, I would feel stuck in
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Speaker 2: the Atlanta Airport, So I guess that's true. But there's
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Speaker 2: just been so much drama around Crew nine that I
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Speaker 2: guess it's good for, you know, maybe people to get
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Speaker 2: clickbait headlines saying something about another stuck crew. Anyway, they
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Speaker 2: were slightly delayed in their return, but now they're on
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Speaker 2: their way back home. They should be home by about
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Speaker 2: three twenty am Friday morning as we're recording the show here.
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Speaker 2: That's tomorrow, so in the overnight hours tonight, they should
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Speaker 2: be coming home. They undocked yesterday at five pm as
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Speaker 2: we're recording the show here on Thursday. So anyway, it's
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Speaker 2: it's just a well, it's a great event that they're
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Speaker 2: coming back home. Just a little annoying that I keep
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Speaker 2: seeing headlines about stuck astronauts. Aboard iss, I'm just kind
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Speaker 2: of over that.
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Speaker 3: Well, let me and I'll just we we refer to
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Speaker 3: ourselves with what we do here as you know, being
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Speaker 3: part of the space media. I mean, this is sort
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Speaker 3: of a you know, we're not doing heavy hitting journalism
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Speaker 3: with this, but we approach things from that perspective. We
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Speaker 3: try to approach things within those lines of giving you facts.
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Speaker 3: I sit over here to the side, I give commentary.
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Speaker 3: It's a little you know, I play the play the
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Speaker 3: role of asking those questions that maybe people are wondering.
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Speaker 3: People may not be wondering this particular question, but you know,
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Speaker 3: I also have another life where i'm you know, sometimes
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Speaker 3: playing journalists, sometimes playing opinion guy. This is the opinion guy,
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Speaker 3: maybe just asking some questions. And I, I guess I
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Speaker 3: look at it and it's easy to say my first reaction.
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Speaker 3: And I don't know if this is the Okham's razor.
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Speaker 3: I don't know what, but the clickbait thing seems the obvious, right.
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Speaker 3: It just seems like it's an easy way to get
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Speaker 3: people to click on a story and you know, having it,
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Speaker 3: Oh they're stuck, Oh my gosh. Uh part of me
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Speaker 3: and this is maybe the cynic side that comes on
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Speaker 3: the opinion side of it. But I guess I wonder
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Speaker 3: whether or not we've had this sort of this attitude,
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Speaker 3: this sort of almost storyline playing out a little bit
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Speaker 3: in the ether in the media, in the world where
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Speaker 3: they say the space stuff is for these rich people
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Speaker 3: to get out there and spend their money, and they're
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Speaker 3: not cureing cancer, and they're not doing all these things
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Speaker 3: down here on Earth. And I guess part of me
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Speaker 3: kind of wonders a little bit, are we getting a
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Speaker 3: little bit of you know, boy, it's so dangerous? Should
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Speaker 3: we be doing this? I mean, I guess I kind
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Speaker 3: of wonder if if that's maybe option two, and then
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Speaker 3: option three is I think maybe Lewis and the News
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Speaker 3: are doing something just trying to get people on Spotify
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Speaker 3: to listen to Stuck with You. I don't one of
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Speaker 3: those three things is playing out. I just don't know
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Speaker 3: which one it is.
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Speaker 2: I mean, my immediate suspicion goes to Huey, because how
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Speaker 2: else are you going to generate traffic for that particular song.
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Speaker 2: I'm not sure a lot of.
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Speaker 3: Effort to get to a Huey Lewis in the News joke,
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Speaker 3: but I got there. But no, I just did that
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Speaker 3: middle thing. There is just a little intriguing and I
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Speaker 3: don't want to jump to that, but I kind of
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Speaker 3: wonder a little bit as we're hearing the whole you know,
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Speaker 3: these billionaires and their space stuff, and it's so dangerous
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Speaker 3: should we be doing it? And I just wonder if
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Speaker 3: that's part of it a little bit.
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Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, I guess I can't answer
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Speaker 2: that question in a data driven way, right, I don't
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Speaker 2: have data to say, you know, yes, I've done this study.
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Speaker 2: But but my knee jerk answer that question is yes,
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Speaker 2: of course, that's it, right, So take that as opinion
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Speaker 2: and not a data driven answer. Friends, Well, I'd like
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Speaker 2: to try to stick with data driven answers, but yes,
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Speaker 2: of course that's what it is. Well, in sience, you
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Speaker 2: take space and want to see more of it. There
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Speaker 2: are people who don't like the fact that humans are
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Speaker 2: exploring space and think that money should be spent better places.
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Speaker 2: Let me just remind those folks that we are actually
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Speaker 2: working on cancer cures in low earth orbit. How are
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Speaker 2: we doing that? Well, cancer cells, once you remove them
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Speaker 2: from the human body, don't behave the same way in
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Speaker 2: a laboratory that they do inside the human body because
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Speaker 2: you're in a gravitational and pressure and non pressure neutral environment.
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Speaker 2: If you take them up into space and have them
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Speaker 2: be in a microgravity environment, then they act the same
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Speaker 2: way that they do act in a pressure neutral interior
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Speaker 2: environment to the human body. So yeah, there's a lot
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Speaker 2: of cancer research actually being done aboard the International Space Station.
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Speaker 2: Thanks Elon for getting us there. Okay, So anyway, I
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Speaker 2: just want to say that, just as it all off
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Speaker 2: the cuff comment and again not a data driven comment,
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Speaker 2: I do think also that the simple dollars are involved. Right.
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Speaker 2: It gets people's attention when you have the phrase, you know,
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Speaker 2: astronauts stranded in any headline, it's like, oh, astronauts are stranded.
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Speaker 2: That's terrible. Let me click on it and find out
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Speaker 2: that I'm going to be disappointed by this story because
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Speaker 2: they're not actually stranded. But okay, so I think that
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Speaker 2: is another component to the whole thing too. So those
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Speaker 2: two things adding together, Yeah, sure, I think that's that's
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Speaker 2: an influence in the coverage of space exploration, and just
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Speaker 2: from the scientific approach to it, it's fair to ask
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Speaker 2: the question and wonder, right, I mean, you have to
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Speaker 2: have some sense of wonder with this, and I think
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Speaker 2: it's fair to at least ask the question, is that
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Speaker 2: what's going on? If nothing else, it's fair to ask
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Speaker 2: the question is space exploration by humans worth the money
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Speaker 2: we're spending on? Yeah, that's a fair question. It's it's
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Speaker 2: not like I'm allergic to that question, and I just
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Speaker 2: get mad because I'm a space enthusiast and I don't
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Speaker 2: think anybody should be questioning our exploration of space. That's
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Speaker 2: not true. I will point to where there have been
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Speaker 2: numerous economic studies by various independent firms that say that
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Speaker 2: NASA produces about somewhere between five and seven dollars to
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Speaker 2: the US economy based on every one dollar that goes
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Speaker 2: into NASA's budget, and that is from all of the
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Speaker 2: spinoff technology plus the research they are engaged with. They
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Speaker 2: return about somewhere on the order of six dollars for
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Speaker 2: every one dollar in the US budget that goes to NASA.
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Speaker 1: So there is that.
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Speaker 2: I think that's a pretty good record compared to other
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Speaker 2: federal agencies. I will just say so again, I like
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Speaker 2: to be a bit data driven on these things. When
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Speaker 2: I try to discuss it a reasonable question, a fair question,
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Speaker 2: I do have my opinions, and some of them are
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Speaker 2: definitely data driven.
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Speaker 3: Let's talk about the super heavy booster. SpaceX has rolled
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Speaker 3: the next one out. So after having this incredible run
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Speaker 3: in the month of October, here we go again.
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Speaker 2: So speaking of speaking of space entities receiving NASA dollars
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Speaker 2: that are returning ridiculous technologies back to the economy, think
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Speaker 2: about what SpaceX as a company has been able to
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Speaker 2: develop and how far it's pushed the space travel endeavor
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Speaker 2: over the entities that were previously existing in the aerospace
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Speaker 2: industry in the US. How many incredible forward steps has
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Speaker 2: SpaceX taken using NASA dollars to return technology back to society. Well,
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Speaker 2: this is another one of them, and we did talk
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Speaker 2: about it last week. We said that, Wow, it was
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Speaker 2: absolutely one of the most mind blowing things that Sean
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Speaker 2: has ever seen. To watch this giant mechanism called Mechazilla
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Speaker 2: use these fork like chopsticks on the launch tower to
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Speaker 2: grab the main stage booster out of the air so
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Speaker 2: it didn't actually have to come back down and finish
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Speaker 2: landing on its own, so it could be turned around
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Speaker 2: and reused quicker. That was astounding. Friends, If you haven't
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Speaker 2: seen that yet. Go look that flight up. It happened
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Speaker 2: on October thirteenth, which is a Sunday. It was SpaceX
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Speaker 2: starship and the main stage booster or what they call
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Speaker 2: the super heavy booster was just snatched out of the
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Speaker 2: air by giant chopsticks on their launch tower and that's
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Speaker 2: the way it returned to Earth so that it could
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Speaker 2: be reused more easily and be lighter weight to have
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Speaker 2: more payloadlaun.
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Speaker 3: And this is another opportunity to replicate that.
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Speaker 2: So what our story today is SpaceX down their book
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Speaker 2: at Cheka Text has just rolled out another super heavy booster,
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Speaker 2: which tells us all they're getting ready to do it again.
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Speaker 2: They have another test of their starship vehicle and main
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Speaker 2: stage booster. They call that starship flight test number six.
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Speaker 2: So flight test six is coming up soon. We don't
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Speaker 2: know when it's coming up, but they're already rolling out
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Speaker 2: the main stage booster and so they're getting ready to
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Speaker 2: do this soon. It should be a repeat of an
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Speaker 2: attempt to grab the main stage booster out of the air. Friends,
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Speaker 2: if they're able to do it again and make that
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Speaker 2: look routine, you, as space observers of space and space enthusiasts,
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Speaker 2: do not get numb to the staggering advance is being
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Speaker 2: made by SpaceX as a spaceflight company. Think what you
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Speaker 2: will about Elon Musk. I understand why there's a variety
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Speaker 2: of opinion opinion about him as a person or beliefs
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Speaker 2: or whatever, But you cannot discount all of those millennial
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Speaker 2: aged engineers that work for SpaceX. They're not all millennial age,
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Speaker 2: but a bunch of them are, and the chief operating officer,
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Speaker 2: Gwen Shotwell, and the amazing strides forward that that company
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Speaker 2: has made for all mankind in terms of how to
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Speaker 2: do spaceflight in a sustainable, reusable, and much less expensive manner.
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Speaker 2: You simply can't argue that that company has made gigantic
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Speaker 2: strides in that area, has pushed human understanding of how
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Speaker 2: to do that less expensively and more sustainably, has pushed
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Speaker 2: that forward. So so again, hats off to SpaceX at
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Speaker 2: this point. As far as I'm concerned.
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Speaker 3: At activity on the Sun and another X class solar
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Speaker 3: flare and cme not quite necessarily the direct hit we
14:10
Speaker 3: would need for us to all be outside looking for Aurora. However,
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Speaker 3: this region is starting to set its sites on us
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Speaker 3: of sorts like it's starting to put us in the scope.
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Speaker 3: So if another one happens soon, we could be maybe
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Speaker 3: looking at this thing that only happens once every one
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Speaker 3: hundred years, but it's happened twice in a five month stretch,
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Speaker 3: potentially have We don't want to get ahead of ourselves.
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Speaker 3: We're not saying it's going to happen, but there's already
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Speaker 3: been some issues with this thing, right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So first of all, when a giant magnetic storm
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Speaker 2: appears on the Sun, solar scientists assign it what they
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Speaker 2: call an active region number, and they catalog these active
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Speaker 2: regions based on those numbers. This is Active region number
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Speaker 2: thirty eight sixty nine, so that's the cat LUG number.
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Speaker 2: Active Region AR thirty eight sixty nine is a giant
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Speaker 2: sunspot group that's coming around. It's rotating around on the
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Speaker 2: disc of the Sun to where it's rotating in an
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Speaker 2: Earth facing direction. That will happen over the next couple
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Speaker 2: of days, but right now, as of yesterday, it launched
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Speaker 2: a giant X class solar flare, the most powerful category
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Speaker 2: of solar flares we have on our scale. It's an
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Speaker 2: X three point three, which is not you know, the
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Speaker 2: top X class flare, but it's in the X range,
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Speaker 2: so it's already a super powerful storm. It ejected a
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Speaker 2: lot of material and what's known as a coronal mass ejection.
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Speaker 2: It shot it away from the solar atmosphere kind of
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Speaker 2: semi in the direction of the Earth. What's going to
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Speaker 2: happen is it's going to largely miss us, but we're
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Speaker 2: going to get clipped by the outer wing of this
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Speaker 2: coronal mass ejection. And because it's so powerful, even just
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Speaker 2: that little exposure to this, to the periphery of this
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Speaker 2: giant coronal mass ejection is enough to possibly create G
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Speaker 2: one class geomagnetic storms. That means aurora somewhere, doesn't necessarily
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Speaker 2: mean aurora in you know, Georgia, where we are at
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Speaker 2: latitude thirty two and a half. But yeah, if you're
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Speaker 2: in Canada, you should probably be watching for some aurora,
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Speaker 2: especially in Northern Canada or Alaska, Finland, places like that.
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Speaker 3: Get they get it all the time. Come on, they
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Speaker 3: get plenty of aurora. They get plenty of that. They're
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Speaker 3: not even excited. They're just going, it's a little green
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Speaker 3: coming in.
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Speaker 2: It's all right. Thursday, Yes, Thursday, the aurora big deal,
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Speaker 2: just another day. What's what's the big deal about the
16:39
Speaker 2: sky glowing because of solar radiation bombarding our atmosphere. I mean,
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Speaker 2: happens all the time around here. This is just what
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Speaker 2: we do, ay, I mean, that's what they do. Come
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Speaker 2: on and then they eat things. About this particular flare.
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Speaker 2: Number one, the glancing blow maybe lights in the north.
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Speaker 2: But number two, that initial blast of X rays coming
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Speaker 2: out of this thing or short wavelength ultraviolet frequencies was
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Speaker 2: enough to really ionize the upper part of verst atmosphere
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Speaker 2: and cause ham radio blackouts for places like Australia and
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Speaker 2: Southeast Asia over the last twenty four hours, particularly the
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Speaker 2: thirty megahertz band. So this is a and they lost
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Speaker 2: signal for hours. So this thing for an hour. This
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Speaker 2: thing has been very powerful, even with a glancing blow.
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Speaker 2: Now that the story is only part of the story,
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Speaker 2: because the rest of the story is sunspot Group AR
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Speaker 2: thirty eight sixty nine is rotating around to face directly
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Speaker 2: at US. So while that was a glancing blow, that
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Speaker 2: was just the first warning shot over the bow. Now
17:49
Speaker 2: there you know. Now this set of sunspots is leveling
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Speaker 2: up the guns to face directly at us sometime in
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Speaker 2: the next two to three days and if there is
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Speaker 2: another powerful flare, we need to get back on our
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Speaker 2: podcast and say, hey, friends, there was another powerful flare.
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Speaker 2: You people in Georgia need to watch for northern lights.
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Speaker 2: I don't know that this will happen, but it could be.
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Speaker 2: It could be another time where we have one hundred
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Speaker 2: year storm for the third time in this calendar year. Now,
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Speaker 2: let me say something about that too, which is, you know,
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Speaker 2: these really are one hundred year storms in terms of Aurora,
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Speaker 2: particularly the one back in May that was definitely a
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Speaker 2: one hundred year storm. Let me just say that, if
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Speaker 2: you listen back through the archive of these shows, we
18:36
Speaker 2: were telling you about five to six months ago that
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Speaker 2: the activity with this particular solar maximum phase this eleven
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Speaker 2: year cycle is way up from what scientists were projecting
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Speaker 2: it to be. So, in other words, there's a lot
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Speaker 2: more sunspots, and they're a lot bigger, and they're a
18:53
Speaker 2: lot more energetic. We've known that for several months, and
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Speaker 2: now we're seeing the result of that, which is a
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Speaker 2: lot more powerful flares, a lot more earth directed flares,
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Speaker 2: and yes, a lot more Aurora borealis in weird latitudes
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Speaker 2: like thirty two point five Columbus Georgia.
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Speaker 3: Coming up after a quick break, we'll look a little
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Speaker 3: bit into how scientists are tracking maybe how bad the
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Speaker 3: storms can get or how maybe bad they've been, and
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Speaker 3: uh maybe a way that you're not thinking of when
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Speaker 3: it comes to tracking that. We'll talk about that right
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Speaker 3: after this. So I remember as a kid, uh, there
19:51
Speaker 3: was a point in our in my childhood where we
19:56
Speaker 3: uh my parents decided we'd love to have a fireplace
19:59
Speaker 3: in our home when they installed a fireplace, and that
20:01
Speaker 3: became not just wow, we have this great fireplace in
20:04
Speaker 3: our home and develop a love for that. It became
20:08
Speaker 3: the hey, we have to go collect firewood with dad,
20:11
Speaker 3: a part of life, which you know was hard work
20:15
Speaker 3: and all that good stuff, but for a kid with allergies,
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Speaker 3: it drove me crazy. But anyway, there were those moments,
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Speaker 3: of course where he's we're cutting trees and splitting wood
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Speaker 3: and we're looking at the rings on the trees, and
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Speaker 3: you know, going through all the things that you learn
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Speaker 3: in school about you know, what you can tell about
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Speaker 3: a tree based on those rings. I can tell you
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Speaker 3: this all those years ago. At no point, at any
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Speaker 3: stage did any teacher that I had tell me, hey,
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Speaker 3: they can find out about magnetic storms from the Sun
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Speaker 3: based on these rings.
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Speaker 2: But maybe someday teachers will be teaching that. Well, it
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Speaker 2: appears based on a new study art sciences led by
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Speaker 2: Amy Hessel from Embley College, it appears that you can
21:05
Speaker 2: actually look at tree rings from some ancient trees. And
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Speaker 2: these are ancient trees, friends, but they're ones that are
21:11
Speaker 2: still alive. Okay, So there are some trees in this
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Speaker 2: world that are both ancient and still living, and Bristol
21:19
Speaker 2: Cone Pines, I think are one of the best known
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Speaker 2: examples of these multi thousand year old trees that are
21:24
Speaker 2: still alive in places like Utah in California. So what
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Speaker 2: this group from Emberley College did is they say, well,
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Speaker 2: wait a minute, what if we could study the tree
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Speaker 2: rings from these really old trees and see if we
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Speaker 2: can match them up with historic solar events that we
21:39
Speaker 2: know about in the past. We know they have occurred.
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Speaker 2: I wonder if there's evidence from those solar storms in
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Speaker 2: the tree rings themselves. And yes, indeed, friends, it appears
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Speaker 2: that this group out of Everley College has found evidence
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Speaker 2: correlating to known past geome magnetic storms. In other words,
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Speaker 2: a blast from the Sun disrupts Earth's magnetic field and
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Speaker 2: radiation actually showers down onto the surface of the Earth.
22:10
Speaker 2: We have seen this twice this year, as Wes mentioned
22:12
Speaker 2: before the break. By the way, if you want to
22:15
Speaker 2: continue to watch that progression of solar activity, make sure
22:19
Speaker 2: and check out spaceweather dot com. That's our favorite website
22:21
Speaker 2: for following that. Anyway, this story is on Universe today
22:25
Speaker 2: dot com and it talks about this group that found
22:28
Speaker 2: radioactive carbon material correlated to the tree rings at year
22:36
Speaker 2: ages known to be when past geomagnetic storms have occurred.
22:41
Speaker 2: So this is a staggeringly cool discovery. And we can
22:46
Speaker 2: tell that the actual biology of the trees were affected
22:51
Speaker 2: by these giant geomagnetic storms from the past that we
22:55
Speaker 2: have found and discovered from other means. We have now
22:58
Speaker 2: correlated them in these tree rings and we can tell
23:01
Speaker 2: that they actually had effects on these living materials. Now,
23:05
Speaker 2: So why is this important? Why is it helpful? Well
23:08
Speaker 2: because it gives us an idea and helps us understand
23:13
Speaker 2: and assess the risk to living beings on the Earth.
23:16
Speaker 2: Now if these same giant magnitude storms were to happen today,
23:21
Speaker 2: like oh, I don't know, the Carrington event of eighteen
23:24
Speaker 2: fifty nine for instance, So what would happen to human beings. Well,
23:28
Speaker 2: we can get an idea of that based on how
23:31
Speaker 2: much of the carbon radioactive isotopes were absorbed by these
23:36
Speaker 2: trees during events from the past. And yes, these are
23:39
Speaker 2: the bristle comb pines from Utah, the bald cypress from
23:42
Speaker 2: northern California, and a lot of other trees that just
23:45
Speaker 2: live a really long time or they know how old
23:48
Speaker 2: they were based on their fossil record, like some trees
23:52
Speaker 2: that were discovered in Missouri. So anyway, these are really
23:57
Speaker 2: interesting correlations. I mean, when we know from other historic
24:02
Speaker 2: records when large solar activity has occurred, mostly based on
24:07
Speaker 2: reports of aurora in the ancient records, and then also
24:11
Speaker 2: correlating that with these living trees that have the remnants
24:16
Speaker 2: or the residuals of those giant storms actually embedded in
24:20
Speaker 2: their tree rings, in the living mass of these ancient
24:23
Speaker 2: trees that are still alive. So really cool stuff. You
24:26
Speaker 2: can check out that story on Universe today dot com.
24:29
Speaker 3: All right, first, a triple star system found containing a
24:32
Speaker 3: black hole. Always fun when there's this discovery like this.
24:37
Speaker 2: It is, and the cool part about it is there's
24:40
Speaker 2: never been one of these before, not a triple We
24:43
Speaker 2: found plenty of black holes that are in binary systems.
24:48
Speaker 2: And actually it's one of the favorite questions students like
24:50
Speaker 2: to ask me, like, hey, doctor Cruzin, if a star
24:52
Speaker 2: goes supernova and there's another star orbiting it, what does
24:57
Speaker 2: the supernova star do to the other star. Well, and
25:00
Speaker 2: the truth is, sometimes it just kicks it right out
25:03
Speaker 2: of the whole relationship, right, It just boots that star out.
25:06
Speaker 2: It separates them from being gravitationally bound. So that's something
25:10
Speaker 2: we know happens. The other thing that can happen is
25:13
Speaker 2: it can just rip all the outer atmosphere off that
25:16
Speaker 2: other star, creating an exposed stellar core. So these are
25:19
Speaker 2: things we knew happen. But typically scientists have believed that
25:24
Speaker 2: if these kinds of star systems contain a third star,
25:28
Speaker 2: typically the third star in the system is further away,
25:32
Speaker 2: it's not very attached in a gravitational sense. It's not
25:36
Speaker 2: very strongly bound by gravity to these systems, so something
25:40
Speaker 2: as powerful as a supernova explosion should just knock that
25:43
Speaker 2: third star right on out of there. So, finding what
25:47
Speaker 2: they call an X ray binary with a black hole,
25:50
Speaker 2: this is where the black hole is pulling material off
25:53
Speaker 2: its companion star, and that material is flaring up in
25:57
Speaker 2: X rays as it goes down the drain of the
25:59
Speaker 2: black hole. It's basically like soap going down a drain
26:02
Speaker 2: and it kind of gives a last shout before it
26:04
Speaker 2: gets sucked into the black hole. That's what we know
26:06
Speaker 2: as an X ray binary. But no X ray binary
26:09
Speaker 2: has ever been found with a third companion star until now.
26:15
Speaker 2: And again, like the last story, this is on Universe
26:18
Speaker 2: Today dot Com. Check it out. It says the first
26:20
Speaker 2: triple star system found containing a black hole. That star
26:24
Speaker 2: system is catalog number V four four SIGNY. That just
26:30
Speaker 2: means it's in the constellation of Signus, located in the
26:33
Speaker 2: direction of the Milky Way. It's in our Milky Way,
26:35
Speaker 2: but it's also located in the direction that we see
26:37
Speaker 2: the Milky Way in the sky. It's around eight thousand
26:40
Speaker 2: light years from the Earth. But a team from MIT,
26:43
Speaker 2: led by a team member named Kevin Burge, have found
26:47
Speaker 2: that this star system, known to be an X ray binary,
26:51
Speaker 2: actually contains a third star, a companion star that most
26:55
Speaker 2: importantly was not blasted out of the system during the
27:01
Speaker 2: Supernove explosion that produced a black hole. That's called a
27:05
Speaker 2: natal kick like kicking a baby out you're birthing a
27:10
Speaker 2: black hole. Makes sense to me that you know you
27:13
Speaker 2: can do with twins, but you can do it with triplets.
27:16
Speaker 2: Usually knocks that third one out a natal kick. So
27:18
Speaker 2: what they're saying is based on this discovery, astronomers might
27:23
Speaker 2: need to rethink how strong of a quote unquote natal
27:28
Speaker 2: kick that a star exploding in a supernova turning into
27:33
Speaker 2: a black hole yields to its other stars in a
27:37
Speaker 2: bound system like a like a tertiary star system, a
27:40
Speaker 2: three star system, because now they've found an example of
27:44
Speaker 2: a system that has three stars. Now, that doesn't mean
27:47
Speaker 2: that black holes don't give a kick, or that sometimes
27:51
Speaker 2: they don't get very strong natal kicks, but apparently they
27:54
Speaker 2: don't always do that. And apparently sometimes a multi star
27:58
Speaker 2: system can actually survive as a group one of its
28:02
Speaker 2: stars exploding in a supernova. This is a really interesting
28:06
Speaker 2: both observational and theoretical achievement of astrophysics, helping us to
28:12
Speaker 2: better understand how the dynamics of these systems work.
28:16
Speaker 3: November fifth is the next round of Music under the Dome.
28:22
Speaker 2: Still some tickets on sale for the November fifth concert. Friends,
28:26
Speaker 2: If you don't know what the Music under the Dome
28:27
Speaker 2: concert is. We talk about it a lot on this podcast,
28:30
Speaker 2: but really there's only five of them a year. This
28:33
Speaker 2: is the second one for the fall. We're not going
28:35
Speaker 2: to do another one of these until the spring semester.
28:38
Speaker 2: So this is your chance before the holidays to see
28:40
Speaker 2: a Music under the Dome concert at Columbus State University's
28:43
Speaker 2: Coca Cola Space Science Center. The musicians and artists involved
28:47
Speaker 2: are the faculty and students from the schwob School of Music,
28:51
Speaker 2: which is an outstanding school of music. Friends literally musicians
28:56
Speaker 2: from all over the world come to study at the
28:59
Speaker 2: Schwobes School of Music here at Columbus State University. It's
29:02
Speaker 2: one of our premier programs at our institution. And those
29:05
Speaker 2: performers are coming into our planetarium and performing concerts under
29:10
Speaker 2: the stars. Yes they're virtual stars, but they are stars nonetheless,
29:14
Speaker 2: and so we have actually space artists and our own
29:18
Speaker 2: lance tankersly our planetarium director who does original artwork choreographed
29:22
Speaker 2: to the music of these artists from the schrob School
29:25
Speaker 2: of Music coming in and performing a site and sound extravaganza.
29:30
Speaker 2: That's what Music under the Dome is. This month's concert.
29:33
Speaker 2: The last one for twenty twenty four, as Wes just mentioned,
29:36
Speaker 2: is on November fifth. Tickets are still available if you
29:39
Speaker 2: buy your tickets, friend, it's only eight bucks. This is
29:43
Speaker 2: not eight dollars here in the US. It's not a
29:47
Speaker 2: very expensive concert. And it gets you a wine and
29:50
Speaker 2: cheese a pre show event, plus the concert, plus all
29:56
Speaker 2: the original artwork, and close encounters with some of the
29:59
Speaker 2: greatest music and singers you're ever gonna meet. How could
30:03
Speaker 2: you go wrong? Friends, don't go wrong, don't miss the show.
30:06
Speaker 2: Five pm wine and cheese reception five point thirty is
30:10
Speaker 2: concert time. Technically it begins at five point thirty eight
30:12
Speaker 2: pm because we decided it should. And then you're gonna
30:16
Speaker 2: get to sit back and relax in the Omosphere Theater
30:18
Speaker 2: planetarium at the Coca Cola Space Science Center and Clumbus, Georgia,
30:21
Speaker 2: and enjoy music under the dome, one of the greatest
30:24
Speaker 2: sight and sound experiences you will ever have as a
30:27
Speaker 2: human being. And I'll just.
30:28
Speaker 3: Quickly point out that happens to be election day, so
30:31
Speaker 3: by that point you will have voted, and then you
30:33
Speaker 3: can relax a little bit and enjoy wine and cheese
30:37
Speaker 3: and a fantastic show and then you can go home
30:39
Speaker 3: and worry about results, but you don't have that can
30:41
Speaker 3: be just a period of zen where you can enjoy
30:43
Speaker 3: this incredible, you know, a multi layered show where you're
30:48
Speaker 3: getting site and sound with it. So I'm just pointing
30:51
Speaker 3: that out. That's a good opportunity to kind of break
30:53
Speaker 3: up the day a little bit before you can go
30:55
Speaker 3: home and then you know, bite your nails or whatever
30:57
Speaker 3: you're going to do.
30:58
Speaker 2: And no matter what your political affiliation is, you definitely
31:02
Speaker 2: need this moment of unplugging that comes with the Music
31:07
Speaker 2: under the Dome concert. I personally am going to vote
31:09
Speaker 2: early and then I'm going to try to ignore all
31:11
Speaker 2: the coverage that day. But no matter what party you
31:14
Speaker 2: plan to vote for, and you might say, a wine
31:17
Speaker 2: and cheese reception and music under a planetarium dome should
31:20
Speaker 2: be the thing to console your soul that you did
31:24
Speaker 2: the right thing.
31:25
Speaker 3: You might even be a candidate in one of the
31:27
Speaker 3: local races. You're invited to come enjoy the show and
31:29
Speaker 3: you don't have to sit back and sweat it out
31:31
Speaker 3: so much. You can just kind of wait and let
31:33
Speaker 3: things happen from there. Sean, and I thank you for listening.
31:36
Speaker 3: We'll do this again next week. Overhead Door Company of
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