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Deep Space Alcohol and Blue Milk... Shaken, Not Stirred · Made of Stars

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Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
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space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
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phenomenon the scientific method, and expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and
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uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. When made of
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stars, made them stars, madies. When made of stars, you could
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be from high they would New Mexicomus. Where are stars? When we are
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made of stars? I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Seawan,
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cruising from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Hey Sean,
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good morning. We's good to be here with you today. Let's jump straight
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into James Webspace Telescope because we have yet another cool discovery as another win for
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James web and it's discovered some deep space alcohol and other life chemicals deep space
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alcohol, Like, how does that mix with blue milk? I mean,
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that's a really great question. When I read this headliner, I wondered if
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the you know, the DEA was involved with some kind of you know,
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bust of some sort. Yeah, we got space alcohol and drugs. I
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don't know if that was on the radar, But no, it's actually the
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kinds of chemicals you need in order to have a world capable of supporting or
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possibly producing life forms. So what you're saying is, what you're saying is
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for a world to be capable life forms, they need some booze, they
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need food, and apparently they need adult beverages and some sort of painkillers.
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That's what I'm taking from this, all of those things. No, this
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is pretty cool, and I mean, like you say, this is important
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for life. Therefore, it's certainly something that we have to now pay attention
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to exactly, so, you know, beyond the silliness that Wes and I
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bring to this podcast, the actual story which appeared on Universe today dot Com
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is probably other places, but that's where I saw it. The headline is
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the web Telescope finds deep space alcohol and other life chemicals. That's the important
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part. So recently astronomers took some data with the James Webspace Telescope. They
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did this in the infrared part of the spectrum. They pointed this particular telescope
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and camera at a region that was not a massive protostar itself, but the
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environment immediately surrounding the massive protostar. So if you don't know what a protostar
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is, that's the star that's in the process of becoming. It's becoming a
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star, and so it's a big object that is mostly shining because of the
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heat of collapse. So think about like a cloud of hydrogen gas that is
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now under its own gravitational influence squeezing itself down, becoming hotter. It's going
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to eventually push the material in the center of that clump to a high enough
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temperature that fusion will kick on. That's when it actually becomes a star.
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It hasn't gotten there yet, but it's soon to be. So it's soon
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to be a star. So think about like our Sun and our Solar system
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in the earliest stages of that of the evolution of the Solar system that we
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live in. So we can look off into space and see other systems that
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are at this stage of their process of coming alive as a sun and solar
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system. So we're not looking at planets, we're not looking at a star.
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We're really looking at a net that's becoming. And what they did is
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they didn't point the telescope at the protostar itself, but in that surrounding gas.
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Right, So think about material in the same cloud. It's just not
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near enough to the center to participate in the star itself becoming a star.
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It's orbiting around that centralized mass. And in that cloud of that interplanetary medium
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in the Solar system information they found some really important things. They found some
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life chemicals that are organic compounds that are complex. And see, that's the
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thing about when we look in the infrared spectrum, we typically see materials that
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are already formed into molecules. So when we look in the visible spectrum or
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in the ultraviolet, we're typically only looking at individual atoms. They're not very
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complex, and that's because they're at such a high temperature that molecules simply can't
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hold together. So they kind of have to exist at that high temperature in
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order to be putting off light in the ultra violet or in the visible part
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of the spectrum. All right, Well, this is obviously a little bit
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cooler region, so the temperatures are a little lower. So when these atoms
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find each other and they bond, they can actually stay bonded together and form
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these more complex molecules because they're just not in an area that's at a temperature
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that's that high, and we can see those regions in the infrared part of
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the spectrum. It's one of the reasons why the instruments aboard the James Webspace
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Telescope are so important, in particular to study the process by which stars become
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stars and which solar systems become solar systems. So the object they're looking at
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is called IRASRAS and then the number is twenty two thirty three eighty five.
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So IRAS was another infrared satellite from a couple of decades ago that was surveying
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the sky, and so there was a big catalog of i r AS IRAS
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objects out there. I rest stands for by the way, Infrared Astronomical Telescope
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is where that acronym comes from. The Infrared Astronomical Survey is why it gets
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an S. So that s right there tells us that it's a whole survey
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of objects out there, things that are glowing in the infrared. We put
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them in a catalog. The number after it is the catalog number. So
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this is something that that we knew about already, which is why it ended
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up being a James web Target. It's like, hey, this is an
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interesting solar system information. We know it's a young version of something like our
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sun and our planets. Let's point James web at it and see what we
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find. Well, what we found was ethanol and methyl form an asse.
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I knew acetaldehyde. Ascetaldehyde is what was going to roll off my tongue.
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I was sitting here thinking what was the pneumonic device by which I remember the
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name of this organic compound? I can't remember? Well, I have,
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I have my methods, but yeah, al hide there you go. You're
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a professional, you know, name reader at university graduations, and I'm just
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a guy that stumbles over organic compounds. So that's fine. But yeah,
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acetl to hyde anyway, all of these things. Acetic acid is another one.
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By the way, we find these kinds of compounds in our food,
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in our plants, and in our body right and produced in part by biological
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processes. Now that's not what's happening. I'm not suggesting that biological processes are
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producing these compounds in the cloudy gas formations around this forming star. But what
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I am suggesting is that natural processes are providing these complex compounds that when planets
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do begin to form around that very young star, these compounds will be available,
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and so you'll find these maybe in the atmospheres or on the surfaces of
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some of the planets that will eventually form around IRS twenty three three eighty five.
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So that's an interesting discovery, but because it tells us a little bit
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about something about our own solar system. We can't see our own solar system
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when it was that young. We see it in a mature phase. So
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in order to study our own solar system when it was very young, we
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have to look out into the into the universe or into the galaxy surrounding us
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and find other much younger solar systems that are going through a process that we
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believe is similar to what our own solar system went through in order to get
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where it is today. So in the same way that we look for liquid
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water because we know, okay, liquid water could could obviously it's important need
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it to find life, and that's where we look. This is sort of
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looking kind of almost back in time at a situation to kind of understand how
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life got there and those sorts of things. Yep. Yeah, so one
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of the first things you need is liquid water to have the right chemistry.
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But then you need some Then you need some you know, life stuff floating
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around. You need some floaters in that water, right, that's that are
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capable. They're more advanced along the organic chain of molecules, so that those
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things which are essentially organic molecules that form the building blocks of life, it's
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it's important to have those in those interstellar ices so that the planets that form
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have a ready availability of those more complex molecules that also are in an area
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where you have liquid water that can also help form chains which may end up
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being life forms at something. Yeah, it's a. It's a and you
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need a certain amount of ACETL to hide and if you don't have that,
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you're you're not going to go anywhere with it. I would recommend two tablespoons
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every day, but you know that's me. We are not medical professionals.
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Please do consult with your own doctor exactly before taking any Aceatel dyde. Please.
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So last week we talked about this almost launch for Ross Cosmos and they
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were just you know, right there, man, they're counting down, it's
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about to happen. And then at the last second they had to pull the
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plug on this thing, and you know, twenty seconds. That's cutting it
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really close. That's insanely close. Actually, I can only and we talked
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about the fact that we had sort of history in the making as far as
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this woman from Belarus who was going to be going up, and she was
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a spaceflight participant, not necessarily an astronaut prior to going up. I guess
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she can check that box now. But they have launched, and I just
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and we talked last week about the fact, and please go back and revisit
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that show if you missed it, But how maybe the experience might have been
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different for experienced astronauts versus someone who had never been up before. And then
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at twenty seconds to go going, we know you're adrenalines already, everything is
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ready for you to go, but we're going to scrap this thing. We
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got a problem. But now they've launched and she's gone through it, and
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she's now I guess officially an astronaut. Yeah, I think I think this
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is true. I think once you're at you know, once you're in the
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capsule and you're at T minus twenty five seconds, I think you're pretty much
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prepared to go right right. I mean, you're you're thinking, okay,
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this is real, this is happening, maybe even all the way down to
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twenty one, you know, and then all of a sudden, somebody pumps
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the brakes at twenty You're like, well, well what wait, I was
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all ready to go. So yeah, that's what happened to them, you
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know last week. In fact, it was last Thursday as we were,
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you know, preparing to do the show. Right. So, and I
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guess just as a question, like because we often talk about and we've now
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we've got SpaceX who launch is so frequently, and you know, if they
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if they have a complication, it's almost like, and it's not quite to
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this point, but it almost feels like we had to, uh, we
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couldn't launch at eight this morning, We'll launch it to nine thirty. I
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mean, that's almost how it feels for them. It's just like they had
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to like if if they run into that problem. But it's one of those
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things we've all we joked over the years about we'd say, oh, this
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launch is going to happen weather permitting. We would kind of you know,
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joke about the fact that there could be complications from that and the fact that
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it's not very common to scrap it twenty seconds to go. So maybe you
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could make the case that a week ago, when she had the launch scrapped
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at twenty seconds to go, she was as much an astronaut as anybody.
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That's a pretty significant thing to have experienced as a spaceflight participant. When she's
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going to be asked to speak at the Lions Club or whatever, it's pretty
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much yep. So so to your point, to your point, it's a
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substantial experience because it almost never happens. You were talking about the reliability of
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SpaceX and just how you know, like clockwork, or how our anticipation of
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their success has become right, we just we just know SpaceX is going to
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launch and they're going to launch successfully and they don't really have problems, and
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we just it's dangerous to get this complacent. But you know, we as
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fans, right can afford to be a bit complacent. We're not actual engineers,
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and we just have gotten used to the rhythm of success. Well,
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that's very much the way the soy Use is. So the soy Use is
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a very reliable vehicle and system, and so the soy Use aborting at T
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minus twenty is not a common experience. And again we did talk about this
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last week. It's good to know that everything was okay. If you have
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to abort, it's better to abort then have some kind of a major engine
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problem. So that's all good. The good news is they were able to
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lift off on Saturday, so all that aboard happened Thursday of last week over
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the weekend. This MS twenty five crew, that's the mission number of the
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SOYEZ and now they've made it to the International Space Station on Monday, and
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they were greeted by a couple of other folks from Russia, ISS commander Odleg
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Codonenko, cosmonaut Nikolai CHUBBD no relation to Nick chub LINERSTA and Alexander Gribenkim.
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So these are all folks from the Russian contingent aboard the International Space Station.
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There are also some NASA astronauts aboard. Of course, we have the Crew
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eight team, which is Laurel O'Hara, Matthew Dominic, Michael Barrett, and
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Janet Epps. So these are all NASA astronauts that are also up there aboard
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the International Space Station right now. And then you add three more well friends,
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that's ten. So typically the crew load for the International Space Station is
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seven astronauts and cosmonauts. Right now, there are ten shall we call them
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all spaceflight participants. They're all participating in space flight. They are, they
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are, And I can tell I can tell you this. When there's ten
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people on the International Space Station, I understand, it really starts to smell
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like acetaldehyde. There's the faint aroma of acetaldehyde up there. It's just in
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the air. It goes through the vent systems. I mean, you have
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those carbon filters, and I'm sure they're doing the best they can, but
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just once in a while you pick up a faint hint of acetalde. Yeah,
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it's just kind of there every now and then. So it's a full
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house. It's not the fullest it's been, but that's a pretty full house.
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It's getting up there, right And so then an interesting fact is that
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the Chinese have three people aboard their space station. We have thirteen people in
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orbit right now, right, So you know that's a baker's doesn't I'm just
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saying, so sure, there's a lot of folks up in space right now.
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So this is a pretty full team. That's true. Well, good
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that they were able to get this this mission underway. We got another mission.
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I guess we should say, you mean, this is finally gonna happen
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because on the subject of getting missions underway Boeing star Liner, is this finally
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gonna happen? Is it going to actually fly? Because may Day? Is
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this really? Like? Can we get justin Timberlake to help sponsor this and
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and let everybody know that this might actually happen? I mean, is it
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maybe a Russian holiday? I'm just I don't know. I'm just sliding that
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out. There's no meaning behind that whatsoever. Listen, friends, Boeing.
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I love I love going to Seattle and going to the Museum of Flight in
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Boeing Country up there, because Boeing has been an American staple in the aerospace
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aviation industry, right they are. They are a company that had a huge
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role in getting us to the Moon, for instance, those kinds of things.
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So Boeing is just a very important American company. But they haven't had
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a good decade. It's not been the best decade in the history of Boeing.
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There have been some issues, and one of those is that back in
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the year twenty twenty, they accepted four point two billion dollars from NASA at
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the same time that on the same contract, SpaceX only got two point six
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For those of you accounting, that's just a little bit more than half.
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So in other words, SpaceX's contract for the commercial crew program was just a
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little bit more than half of what Boeing's contract was. SpaceX is flying people
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to space, people and supplies by the way to space so often that it's
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almost like a yawn when they launch Boeing's Starliner, paid for under the same
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contract with almost double the money hasn't gone anywhere. The only I mean,
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let me be fair with people on board. Yeah, it'd have you know,
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a flight, an uncrewed flight back in twenty nineteen, but it didn't
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work right. It had they had to abandon their mission, and it was
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an unpiloted vehicle, which is good, I means nobody was on board.
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It did manage to come down on its own parachutes. Okay, so there
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were some successes. But after that flight, NASA identified dozens of problems with
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Boeing Starliners, which was supposed to be, again based on the size of
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their contract, the lead vehicle to take Americans back to space after the Space
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Shuttle retirement to date, in twenty twenty four, they've taken no astronauts to
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space, whereas SpaceX has not only taken NASA astronauts, but they've also taken
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commercial astronauts up to the International Space s space flight practice. Yeah, yes,
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more more of those space flight participants. Well, there are a couple
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of of Space Shuttle era astronauts and International Space Station era astronauts. Butch Wilmore
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and Sonny Williams who joined over onto the commercial crew program as NASA astronauts to
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be the first astronauts to fly on star Liner. Well, they've been waiting
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for years and haven't gone to space yet because they're not the SpaceX astronauts.
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They're the Boeing star Liner astronauts. It's important to note that other astronauts chosen
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for the Boeing star Liner program have since moved on. They've simply retired from
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NASA's astronauts. I am not here to kill Boeing, but to praise them.
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I think that they've had a little bit of a rough patch, but
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they're about ready to fly. They're finally ready to go, and that will
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give us an important second vehicle if all goes successfully. Here's why. If
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there ever was an issue with the Dragon spacecraft that would ground NASA's astronauts unless
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they flew with the Russians. But if there's a second vehicle, then a
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systematic problem with the SpaceX vehicle would not necessarily ground NASA astronauts. They could
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just jump over and ride to space on the Boeing vehicle. So the deployment
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of a second system capable of taking astronauts to low Earth orbit is actually really
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important, which is why it's been a bit disappointing that Boeing has run into
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these obstacles. As a you know, a space flight enthusiast, a guy
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on the in the peanut gallery, in other words, I'm very happy to
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see that Starliner is getting their stuff worked out and maybe gonna fly. So
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so here's to them go. Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams flight schedule no sooner
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than May first, but hopefull maybe not long after May first of this year
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we'll finally get to see the Boeing Starliner take astronauts to the International Space Station
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at the earliest. You know, justin Timberley could just sound off and let
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everybody know. Make it all just part of the meme coming up after a
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quick break, we're going to talk about a couple stories, one follow up
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on the Dart mission, as well as whether or not communication can be resolved
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with Voyager one. We'll get into that right after this. It's just always
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this time of year, especially like late April, when I just for some
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reason, I got en Sync songs stuck in my head and I can't get
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them out of my head. It just happens. Thanks a lot to the
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meme world. It's just how it goes. All right, let's talk about
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Voyager one. This sucker has been in space a long time and anytime we
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hear the stories and we go, they've lost communication, there's a computer issue,
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they've dropped out, we don't know if we're going, and they always
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get it back. It feels like they always resolve it and work it out.
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So now I guess they're optimistic because we've been in a bit of a
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problem with the computer for a little while. Now. Is this the longest
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gap of lack of communication board? I don't know what the record is,
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but I don't know what that is either. It's probably among the longer blackouts
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though in our communication with Voyager. But they say they think they can work
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it out. So what's the latest on Voyager one and whether or not we're
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gonna be able to, you know, find out what's going on in the
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world of deep space. So, first of all, Voyager one launch long
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enough ago that when they were looking for songs to put on the Gold Record,
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which is actually physically attached the spacecraft, there were no instinct songs on
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there. None, none whatsoever, not instinct not boys to men, you
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know, none of the boy bands. It was more like what you know,
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Tchaikowsky and Elvis and the Beatles count as a boy band? I mean,
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can we can we? And it's yeah, man, that's a great
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question for another podcast we should have. Maybe that could be a bonus content.
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The Beatles the first boy band. That's a really great question. I
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mean I think maybe, I think we. I think I did talk about
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this on another podcast with somebody else, but you and I can definitely delve
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into this on maybe a little bit had their own movies, right, Yeah,
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like a boy band thing at the very least. Then you got to
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go to the Monkeys. You know that we're based on the and they definitely
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were. So I mean, if you're based on the anyway, it's a
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well, well we'll do that. We'll do a bonus content episode at some
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point on that one. Well, it's been a hard day's night for boys.
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After seventeen thousand days in space, which they just celebrated last week.
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Seventeen thousand days in space, I think they're up to like seventeen thousand and
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six as we're recording this episode. That's more than forty five years. It's
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a little over forty six, So they've had over forty six years in space.
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That's a harsh environment, and the fact that that thing is out there
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still sending data back is stunning, really a stunning success. Now, it's
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a stunning success in part based on simplicity. Right, there's some pretty ultra
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basic engineered computers on that spacecraft. You know, they launched in nineteen seventy
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seven, so it was, you know, the best of mid seventies technology
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that the board that vehicle out there flying around. It's already done its flybys
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of Jupiter and Saturn, and then it's crossed into interstellar space back in twenty
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twelve, so that even that's twelve years ago, right, It left our
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Solar system twelve years ago, I mean, still working for a full perspective,
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think about how much your phone has changed year to year. They make
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a new one every year, and it's like that other one that's a piece
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of garbage, so year to year. Or a computer. I'm pretty sure
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a nineteen seventy seven computer was the cow says ooh right, I mean that's
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a computer in nineteen seventy seven. I mean, it's a good question.
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How many cell phones have you been through in your lifetime? Right? Cell
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phones were an early two thousands thing, right, So I mean since seventy
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seven, it's still going. It's really impressive. It's seventeen thousand, seven
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or eight cell phones in my lifetime. I don't know. I'd have to
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think about that, but mostly because I break them. I'll be honest,
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I'm responsible. It's not all a technological issue. Some of it's just physical
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mechanical. You know, me falling when I'm out climbing on some rock face
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somewhere and oh yeah, my phone was in my back pocket. That was
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a dumb move. And so yeah, I've broken a few along the way.
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But you're right that technology has improved so vastly also. All right,
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so now here's what happens. This mid seventies computer aboard a spacecraft that left
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our solar system. There's no way anyone could put hands on it. It
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fails. And we know it fails because, I mean maybe a bit like
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a human being that has a stroke when they start at losing language skills,
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you think, oh, gee, something's wrong. Well, the spacecraft kind
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of went through that. It just started talking gibberish, and it's like,
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oh, something's wrong with the CPU up there, something's wrong with this processor.
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And so they have like some kind of a corrupted memory unit aboard the
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computer up there on Voyager. Well, they can't go like just install new
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components, new hardware. What they actually have to do is a software fix.
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Friends, I sometimes can't get my laptop to do what I needed to
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do. But at JPL they can install a computer patch on a computer that's
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outside of our solar system since twenty twelve and get the thing to work again.
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So that's kind of what they're facing right, a nearly fifty year old
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spacecraft dauntingly losing sectors of its memory where things are just not running correctly.
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How can you come up with a software patch to fix that problem? Well,
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Joseph Westlake, director of NASA's Heliospheric Division, while speaking at a meeting
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of the National Academy's Committee on Solar and Space Physics. Pause, why is
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a heliophysics person talking about Voyager? Well, because Voyager left the Solar System
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and now it's studying the most outer reaches of theffects of our own son.
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Okay, so that's why this heliophysics guy is talking about Voyager one. He
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says this at the meeting. I feel like we're on a path now to
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resolution. They're on the right path, and I think we're going to get
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to the point where Voyager one is going to continue alive and kicking in space.
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Unquote Holy mackerel. Can I have that? It team? Those are
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the folks I want working for me, right, I mean, or are
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helping me out with my computer issues if they can fix I mean, there's
28:32
no Internet past the heliopause. It's all radio signals, right. If they
28:37
could use distant radio signals from Earth to reach out to this computer past the
28:44
heliopause out there in interstellar space and install a software patch that gets around a
28:48
bad sector on your membership, that's a win. And it's just another it's
28:55
another interrupt you. But it's another component of we we talk about how when
28:59
we talk about STEM careers, maybe you don't think about, hey, I'm
29:03
going to be doing software patches for a deep space aircraft, right, Like
29:07
that's not something that we probably think of as a possible career path when it
29:12
comes to working for NASA. But there you go. There's also an aspect
29:18
of like, well, why do I need to learn anything about like last
29:22
year's technology? I want to look, I want to work on the hottest,
29:26
cutting edge stuff. Well, the only way you fix this problem is
29:30
you know about computer systems that existed in nineteen seventy five. That is a
29:34
great point. Do you have to know not just how current computers work,
29:41
but how shall we call them computers from the distant past? How they function,
29:45
how they're set up, what is the architecture so that you have a
29:48
prayer of being able to solve this problem. I got a buddy who was
29:53
an actor on the show Halt and Catch Fire, which was you know,
29:56
set maybe eighties, not quite that far back. But you know, just
30:00
as an actor, maybe he picked up a few things terms that you know,
30:03
maybe he could have helped. But you have to be a history buff
30:07
when it comes to that old programming in those old systems, you have to
30:11
understand them in a different way. Yeah, it's diversity of knowledge is a
30:18
really important thing, right. Not only do you need to know the very
30:22
specifics to get your job done, but it's helpful if you know how people
30:26
get their jobs done in other areas, including the past, how systems used
30:32
to work, because you never know when you're going to get called into work
30:34
on it. And if you stand there and go, I've never seen this
30:37
before, then that's not all that helpful. Let me just say we talk
30:41
about with the telescopes and James Webb and going, oh man, they're literally
30:45
looking back in time seeing these things when we're looking into deep space. But
30:51
there you go, that's another way we're looking back in time. Pretty cool
30:53
stuff. Let's talk about Dart because we kind of tease this story last week
31:00
and it's just another I guess update on the successes of the Dart mission.
31:04
And basically, this was a mission that was, hey, let's see what
31:10
would happen if we punched an asteroid in the face, and we know a
31:14
little bit more about what happens. I mean, I never get tired of
31:18
talking about the story because that sock in the eye of an asteroid happened on
31:22
my birthday a couple of years ago. So I was celebrating my birthday by
31:26
texting all my geee former students who work at NASA at other places now,
31:30
and we were all watching it simultaneously as this, we shouldn't call it a
31:33
satellite, it's a probe. It's a spacecraft slammed full on right into the
31:40
face of an asteroid and said, here's one for the dinosaurs to take that.
31:44
So anyway, we now know how to swing back because everything that's come
31:49
out since then has all been reports of how much more impact, so to
31:55
speak, on this asteroid was had than what was expected. Okay, well,
31:59
now the story this week is an actual study by a navigation engineer at
32:06
JPL Hintu Naido. How about that you're you're the name pronouncer It works for
32:15
me. Nid As a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was the
32:20
lead author on a study of just how much affect the asteroid suffered because of
32:27
the dart hit. Now we know it's orbit changed and this is not This
32:30
has been something that's been known for a while. We've talked about it on
32:32
this show. The orbit changed by thirty three minutes fifteen seconds. It was
32:37
that it was something around twelve hours. Is now eleven hours twenty two minutes,
32:44
a half an hour change in how long it takes this one asteroid to
32:49
go around another one. That's already a pretty drastic difference in the orbital time.
32:53
But in addition to that, they use radio transmissions or radio data i
33:00
should say, gathered on the passing of the small asteroid in front of the
33:04
larger asteroid to figure out that the shape of the smaller asteroid is now substantially
33:09
changed as well. Think about it. This asteroid, which is called dimorphous,
33:17
formed in the gravitational field of its larger asteroid parent body called didymus.
33:22
It formed as a rubble pile, which means it just pulled itself together under
33:28
mutual gravitational attraction. Has the consistency kind of like balls at a ballpit in
33:32
McDonald's or one of those other famous restaurants that have ballpits anyway, so you
33:37
can think of it as a loosely aggregated collection of spheres, and those kinds
33:43
of systems tend to pull themselves into a larger spherical shape, much the same
33:47
way when you blow a soap bubble out of the little wand in the little
33:52
soap dipper and you blow that out into the backyard and it's drifting through the
33:54
air, it'll pull itself into a sphere. It pulls itself round because that
33:59
is the most stable configuration under what we call hydrostatic equilibrium. It wants to
34:05
be round. Well, so then this thing just pulled itself into a round
34:08
shape. Well it's not round anymore, friends, It's not round anymore because
34:14
it got a giant sock in the eye from the Dart spacecraft. And now
34:20
poor little dimorphous is triaxial ellipsoid, in other words, watermelon shaped. In
34:27
other words, it looks more like a pigskin on NFL Sunday than a basketball
34:31
in March Madness. All right, so you can think of it that way.
34:36
It looks more like Leon Spinks's head after that ninety seconds fighting with Mike
34:39
Tyson. You know it's you know, one time Leon Spinks's head was perfectly
34:45
Leon Spink's head shaped, and then he fought Mike Tyson, and then suddenly
34:49
it just had a whole different shape to it. I mean I saw some
34:53
of those punches fly in that particular fight that you're mentioning. There weren't many,
34:59
there was there at least one that looked a lot like the Dart spacecraft's.
35:05
At least one of those probably felt like it too. So the whole
35:10
system is going to get a closer look with a vehicle that's scheduled to launch
35:15
in October of this year. It's the European Space Agency's Haramission HGRA. The
35:21
hair Mission is going to make a flyby of this double asteroid system and get
35:24
a much closer look at the damage done to poor little dimorphous out there by
35:31
a really intentional spacecraft collision with the Dart spacecraft. So this is fun to
35:38
keep talking about Dart. I'm gonna mention Dart every chance we get. I
35:42
can't wait until the next mission where we intentionally punch an asteroid in the eye.
35:45
Yeah, it seems like it would be another big event. And speaking
35:51
of big events, that's my segue into talking about the eclipse, because I
35:53
got very excited. I've got a friend who's the manager at tim O here
36:00
in Columbus where we do the show from, and her store got a remodel
36:06
job. They're reopening tomorrow. We're recording this on Thursday, the twenty eight.
36:09
They're reopening on the twenty night. And one of the big promo items
36:14
that they were giving away to like loyal customers in for this week was some
36:21
eclipse glasses. So I got in touch with her knowing that they were going
36:23
to be closed, and she got me some of their eclipse glasses. I'm
36:28
excited about that, and I was able to, you know, send you
36:31
some photos of my class. But they're pretty cool. I mean, they
36:35
were sunglasses but also had this eclipse lens that you put on the front of
36:38
them, just like you know, somebody might put sunglasses on the front of
36:43
their normal prescription glasses. But a nice little item. And I thought,
36:45
well, that just gives you an idea of how excited the country is about
36:50
this eclipse. I mean, I think that I'm fairly jealous at this point,
36:54
because I'm going to be I've got a nice pair of those little paper
36:58
ones from our gift show up here at Space Science Center, and that's gonna
37:01
be my primary optical look at this eclipse event. When I'm in the path
37:06
of totality, I'll be using paper glasses, so you know the clip on
37:09
thing. I'm a glasses wearer, so I would love to have some clip
37:14
on you know, eclipse glasses, you know. But I mean, I'm
37:15
not a T mobile customer. I might be by the end of the day.
37:19
So anyway, that's not an advertisement for T Mobile. That's just me
37:22
trying to count some eclipse classes. So so, no, the event is
37:25
on April the eighth, and friends, no matter where you're listening in the
37:29
continental United States, you're likely to be able to see some portion of this
37:31
eclipse just because of the vector of the shadow across the across the continent.
37:37
However, the path is actually very specific for totality. It's coming up through
37:42
the Nation of Mexico into the Great State of Texas, and then across portions
37:46
of Arkansas, Missouri, and other central states up into the New England area.
37:52
I'm gonna be in Waco, Texas, hanging out with Chip and Joanna.
37:57
I'm gonna be out there, you know, picking mag No something and
38:00
watching the eclipse from Waco. So that's that's gonna be my my chosen path
38:06
of where to get into the path of totality. If you can't get away
38:10
from the city of Columbus, Georgia, where we record this show, and
38:14
you're in the greater you know, so shall we say West Central area of
38:19
Georgia or East central area of Alabama, and you just don't know how to
38:22
see the eclipse and you just didn't get your paper glasses in time. Well,
38:27
I have an announcement for you. We hear the Coke Cola Space Science
38:30
Center in Columbus, Georgia are not only going to have a supply of paper
38:36
glasses, we are also going to set up our own telescopes through which people
38:42
can view the sun. So, starting at one thirty pm on April the
38:45
eighth, which is a Monday, that's eclipse Day, we will begin our
38:52
event right about the time that the Moon starts to pass in front of the
38:55
Sun for approximately an eighty percent cove ridge as viewed from our location. That's
39:02
still a pretty darn substantial eclipse. It's going to be a really interesting event
39:07
to see. So if you're in our area and you're not planning on traveling,
39:13
you can either just go out in your backyard with a pinhole viewer or
39:16
something like that, or perhaps you got those paper glasses ahead of time.
39:21
By the way, make sure that are the ISO rated glasses and not any
39:24
of the knockoffs that happen to be floating around out there on the internet right
39:29
now. The actual glasses will have the ISO test numbers on printed on the
39:35
glasses themselves. If you're not sure if you're gonna getripped off or not,
39:38
we have the actual certified glasses down here at Space Science Center. Come by
39:44
the gift shop pick up your own pair. But we want you to see
39:46
this eclipse. If you can't do it on your own, come to Space
39:50
Science Center that afternoon and we will help you see the eclipse. We're also
39:52
going to have our big telescope on the Sun for part of that eclipse event,
39:58
and so we will have it up through the maximum coverage time and we
40:01
will be broadcasting that via our Facebook page. Also, we will be sending
40:08
images into our planetarium so you can come indoors. If you have trouble being
40:13
outside in the sun or standing up or those kinds of things, you can
40:16
come indoors into our planetarium and watch the eclipse from there. So all of
40:21
these things are are opportunities for you to see the eclipse here at Club State
40:25
University's Coca Cola Space Science Center and be as sure that we're going to give
40:29
you the safest view of that event possible. I was going to surprise you
40:31
in person with them, but I got you a pair of these glasses.
40:35
I did snag you a pair of the clip on glasses, so you're good
40:40
to go, man Io rated and everything. Yeah, I got your They're
40:45
not in my reach. I wanted to pick them up, but they're not
40:46
in reach where I'm at at the moment. But I got you, man,
40:51
I got you. I am appreciated. I thought of you immediately as
40:54
she's handing them, and I'm like, I'm going to need at least one
40:57
more. Oh man, I'm going to need it, at least one more.
41:00
So. Well, it's a big event and I'm looking forward to talking
41:07
with you about it again next week as we get closer. But before we
41:09
get to next week's show, we got one more thing to talk about,
41:12
which is I guess the final music under the dome with this time of this
41:19
season. When I say final, there'll be more. I didn't want to
41:22
leave it hanging there. That's a bad place to drop it. But final
41:25
one of this particular season with a brand new system in place for this thing
41:31
for our first time listeners. Music under the Dome is a concert series that
41:37
we host with the Clumbus State University Shoub School of Music. We ourselves are
41:40
part of Columbus State University, so this is a cross campus collaboration and the
41:47
musicians and singers from the Shop School of Music come in and perform live inside
41:52
our planetarium with visuals on our dome produced by a variety of artists secifically for
42:00
the show. So they are original graphics that are choreographed to the music,
42:06
produced by a variety of artists from literally around the world. And it's going
42:10
to be our last show of this concert season. As Wes just mentioned,
42:14
we go by the academic year, so this will be the last one for
42:17
our spring semester here. It's going to be April the second, and it
42:22
happens well. The fun starts about five pm. The concert kicks off just
42:28
a little after five thirty pm. There's a wine and cheese reception beforehand,
42:32
and then you get to go in and see this wonderful concert inside our planetarium
42:37
dome with live instruments and things. We generally sell tickets online, but we
42:43
also reserve a segment of tickets for day of the show sales. All of
42:47
the online tickets are already gone. It's in terms of buying your tickets ahead
42:51
of time. It's a sold out show, so the only way to get
42:53
tickets now just come down in person. But again April the second, opening
42:58
up about five pm, you can come down and get one of those in
43:01
person tickets and come join us for this wonderful concert event inside the Atmosphere Theater
43:07
here at Columbustate University's Coca Cola Space Science And that will do it for this
43:12
week's edition of the show. Sean and I thank you for listening, and
43:15
we will do this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all
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