Latest / Made of Stars / Artemis II Is On the Launchpad Ready for Tests

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Artemis II Is On the Launchpad Ready for Tests · Made of Stars

0:00
Speaker 1: Warning.
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Speaker 2: The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
0:04
Speaker 2: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 2: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 2: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 2: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 3: Go ahead. When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes.
0:29
Speaker 2: When made of stars, you could be from high they
0:35
Speaker 2: would New Mexicomus.
0:39
Speaker 3: Where are.
0:41
Speaker 2: Stars?
0:43
Speaker 4: When we are made of stars?
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Speaker 5: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
0:59
Speaker 5: Cruise in from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Hey, Sean, Wes,
1:05
Speaker 5: good to be here today. All right, we have a
1:07
Speaker 5: little bit of a follow up. It's not a whole
1:09
Speaker 5: lot of new information about the crew eleven returning home early.
1:14
Speaker 5: We the past few weeks, we've talked about the fact
1:17
Speaker 5: that there was some sort of a medical emergency, first
1:20
Speaker 5: of it's kind in twenty five years of the International
1:23
Speaker 5: Space Station. For at least for our side, I don't
1:27
Speaker 5: know that we're keeping or have a full press conference.
1:30
Speaker 5: And maybe like the old Patriots' injury reports when Belichick
1:34
Speaker 5: was there, you know, we don't really know what we
1:35
Speaker 5: were getting or when we were getting it. We'll just
1:38
Speaker 5: assume everybody was being above board on everything though. But
1:41
Speaker 5: first of it's kind as far as having to actually
1:43
Speaker 5: send a crew home with some sort of medical emergency,
1:47
Speaker 5: and it wasn't just sending them home. They had a
1:49
Speaker 5: spacewalk plan they canceled that something was going on up there.
1:54
Speaker 5: We said, we probably will never know who the astronaut was,
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Speaker 5: which part of the crew had the medical emergency, and
2:02
Speaker 5: that's for different legal reasons, privacy reasons and all that.
2:06
Speaker 5: But we knew there would be a little bit of
2:08
Speaker 5: information slowly starting to come in. And this morning I saw,
2:14
Speaker 5: I guess a story from yesterday out of the Seattle
2:17
Speaker 5: Times was where it was published, and it basically I
2:20
Speaker 5: shared it with you Immediately I thought, well, we could
2:23
Speaker 5: talk about this this morning. And what we know is
2:28
Speaker 5: that the training paid off, at least according to one
2:32
Speaker 5: of the astronauts on board.
2:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. So we had mentioned the last time we would
2:37
Speaker 3: discuss the story that every time there's a crew that
2:40
Speaker 3: goes up, somebody is designated as the official medical officer
2:46
Speaker 3: and so but on every crew that goes up, they're
2:51
Speaker 3: also given kind of a broad spectrum medical training enough
2:55
Speaker 3: at least to be a first responder, because you obviously
2:59
Speaker 3: can't call an ambulance company to the International Space Station, right,
3:02
Speaker 3: So you need your own version of paramedics when you're
3:04
Speaker 3: up there. So that's what they became, their own version
3:07
Speaker 3: of paramedics, and so they have a certain amount of
3:12
Speaker 3: things that they can do to diagnose medical situations on board.
3:16
Speaker 3: Now now that they've come home and some of the
3:19
Speaker 3: astronauts are actually talking about the experience, they're telling us
3:23
Speaker 3: things like, hey, there's an ultrasound aboard the International Space
3:27
Speaker 3: Station and in this case that came in quote very handy, right,
3:33
Speaker 3: And so what that tells us is they were able
3:36
Speaker 3: to help diagnose and figure out the severity of the
3:40
Speaker 3: situation based on data from an onboard ultrasound machine aboard
3:46
Speaker 3: the International Space Station. So so again it kind of
3:48
Speaker 3: gives us a feel for what kind of medical training
3:54
Speaker 3: those astronauts must have and what kind of systems they're
3:58
Speaker 3: capable of using and sharing data with the doctor's on
4:01
Speaker 3: the ground to diagnose and to potentially treat some types
4:07
Speaker 3: of medical conditions and then obviously determine which ones they
4:10
Speaker 3: can't treat a board iss and then call for an
4:13
Speaker 3: emergency evacuation like the one we just saw. Now, one
4:16
Speaker 3: of the other things the astronauts are saying is they're
4:19
Speaker 3: saying that, hey, this is a really good dress rehearsal
4:22
Speaker 3: for maybe potentially a more severe medical condition that could
4:27
Speaker 3: happen in a scenario like well, maybe the exploration of Mars.
4:33
Speaker 3: Right if we're going to be or an inhabiting colony
4:38
Speaker 3: on the Moon, if we're going to be in one
4:39
Speaker 3: of those kinds of situations where we're separated from the
4:43
Speaker 3: Earth in a significant way, we do have to know
4:45
Speaker 3: what our capabilities are and that in fact, our emergency
4:49
Speaker 3: protocols do work, and we can't actually take care of
4:54
Speaker 3: these kinds of situations that are somewhere between an all
4:57
Speaker 3: out emergency and just a minor health problem. Clearly, this
5:01
Speaker 3: one was kind of in the boundary between those two things,
5:04
Speaker 3: and so anyway, it ended up being a very positive
5:09
Speaker 3: set of outcomes and giving the astronauts a little bit
5:13
Speaker 3: more of a case study and some experience on how
5:15
Speaker 3: to handle these kinds of situations in space.
5:19
Speaker 5: It is certainly would go without saying that if we're
5:24
Speaker 5: talking about a long term mission or colonizing in those
5:27
Speaker 5: type situations, probably have to have at least two designated
5:33
Speaker 5: medical I mean knowing that they all had some sort
5:36
Speaker 5: of training helps. But in the cases of a long
5:40
Speaker 5: term mission, especially one that involves, you know, actually colonizing
5:45
Speaker 5: some sort of permanent base, yes, you're gonna not have
5:50
Speaker 5: an easy way to turn around and come home. Because
5:52
Speaker 5: it's the International Space Station. They were able to just
5:55
Speaker 5: come back home. But it is interesting hearing the Japanese
5:59
Speaker 5: Space Agency, he's an astronaut who's part of the crew,
6:02
Speaker 5: saying that he was surprised at how well the pre
6:05
Speaker 5: flight training paid off concerning health concerns, and he said,
6:09
Speaker 5: we can handle any kind.
6:10
Speaker 1: Of difficult situation. This is a quote.
6:13
Speaker 5: This is actually a very very good experience for the
6:15
Speaker 5: future of human spaceflight. So tying into what you said there,
6:18
Speaker 5: so you know, you would think as many times as
6:22
Speaker 5: they've done all this training in preparation, at least from
6:25
Speaker 5: a medical standpoint, to be ready for whatever, it probably
6:29
Speaker 5: does start to become routine and you're going, okay, well
6:32
Speaker 5: we're showing us how to do that, and they're all right, yeah,
6:34
Speaker 5: I got it, got it, got it. Never going to
6:36
Speaker 5: use this, but yeah, we know it, We're good to go,
6:39
Speaker 5: and then they had to use it. So I guess
6:41
Speaker 5: maybe that's why you get a reaction like, hey, kind
6:44
Speaker 5: of surprised at how well it all went.
6:47
Speaker 3: You never want to be on the flight where the
6:49
Speaker 3: masks actually drop. That's right, that's right. But it is
6:53
Speaker 3: good that everybody knows what to do with their masks
6:56
Speaker 3: before you go.
6:58
Speaker 5: There's no flight crew to look for during the turbulence
7:02
Speaker 5: to say, how are they reacting exactly. So a few
7:05
Speaker 5: weeks ago, our friend, longtime area broadcaster Chuck Leonard, who
7:10
Speaker 5: passed away. I went to his funeral and I the
7:15
Speaker 5: morning of the funeral. There was a possibility of severe
7:18
Speaker 5: weather around the time of the funeral, and I assured
7:23
Speaker 5: my two boys, who did not attend the funeral, Jill
7:26
Speaker 5: and I did that I would be sitting very near
7:29
Speaker 5: meteorologists who work with Chuck, and I would be keeping
7:32
Speaker 5: a close eye on how they were reacting. And our
7:35
Speaker 5: good friend Derek Kincaid, who's the chief meteorologist at one
7:38
Speaker 5: of the TV stations here, he took off his jacket
7:42
Speaker 5: at one point and I went, uh, oh, what are
7:45
Speaker 5: we doing when you and he rolled his sleeves up
7:48
Speaker 5: and I said, we're going to have a problem, aren't we, Derek,
7:50
Speaker 5: and he goes, no, no, no, it's just hot in here.
7:52
Speaker 5: I was like, all right, just know we're looking for
7:55
Speaker 5: those clues. But yes, you're right to your point. You
7:58
Speaker 5: don't want to be on the one wear the mask
8:00
Speaker 5: come down. And that's basically this was the one where
8:05
Speaker 5: the mask came down and they had to return home.
8:07
Speaker 5: So it's good, and we talked about this last week.
8:10
Speaker 5: You know, it's good to know that, yes, the protocols
8:12
Speaker 5: are there, and it's reassuring hearing it from one of
8:15
Speaker 5: the actual astronauts that was on board.
8:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's it's not surprising to me that
8:22
Speaker 3: they already had these contingencies thought through. You know, we
8:25
Speaker 3: we on the outside go wait a minute, what will
8:27
Speaker 3: they do if this happens. They've already thought of that. Yeah, right,
8:31
Speaker 3: they've thought of at times ten.
8:33
Speaker 5: I wonder if I wonder if one of the crew
8:35
Speaker 5: of the Americans that were on board would have used
8:37
Speaker 5: the word surprised, like is this because it's like someone
8:41
Speaker 5: from another country that's going on. I was kind of
8:43
Speaker 5: surprised at how good and I would think that maybe
8:46
Speaker 5: you know, you get your pressers down, you know, like
8:48
Speaker 5: in sports, like ah, we just you know, try try
8:51
Speaker 5: to do our best out there and want to get
8:52
Speaker 5: better for next week. Those generic answers that you give.
8:56
Speaker 5: You just kind of wonder what an American have said.
8:58
Speaker 5: I don't know, man, I thought we be up there
9:00
Speaker 5: just stabbing in the dark.
9:01
Speaker 1: But yeah, it worked out.
9:02
Speaker 3: I guess maybe less to do with the country of origin,
9:06
Speaker 3: more to do with first time to space, yeah, versus
9:10
Speaker 3: a veteran spaceflyer. Right, So that's that's probably a little
9:13
Speaker 3: bit more of that.
9:13
Speaker 1: More made of stars.
9:15
Speaker 5: Right after this, so speaking of space and longer term
9:38
Speaker 5: missions and things, and the Moon came up, so let's
9:41
Speaker 5: talk about Artemis two because Artemis two is now on
9:45
Speaker 5: the pad.
9:46
Speaker 3: Well, so if you say, hey, it's interesting that we
9:50
Speaker 3: had this medical emergency because it gives us more experience
9:54
Speaker 3: from when we actually go up and try to colonize
9:56
Speaker 3: the Moon or Mars, well that's what this next story is.
9:59
Speaker 3: We're trying to call it the Moon and then Mars, right,
10:02
Speaker 3: and we're right now moving that program forward using a
10:07
Speaker 3: giant rocket called the Space Launch System the SLS, And
10:11
Speaker 3: so the SLS rocket. Its next mission is to perform
10:17
Speaker 3: a mission to the Moon called Artemis two, and Artemis
10:20
Speaker 3: two is in fact kind of still a test mission.
10:23
Speaker 3: It's the first time that human beings will be aboard
10:26
Speaker 3: the Orion spacecraft, which now sits a top of the
10:31
Speaker 3: SLS system that is part of Artemis two. Now, the
10:36
Speaker 3: story that we have for you today is where it's sitting.
10:39
Speaker 3: So it had been sitting inside what's known as the
10:42
Speaker 3: Vehicle Assembly Building, the giant kind of hangar for rockets
10:46
Speaker 3: that's down there at the Kennedy Space Center. But they've
10:49
Speaker 3: rolled it out friends the space launch system for Artemis two.
10:53
Speaker 3: That giant rocket with the Orion space capsule on top
10:57
Speaker 3: is now sitting at launch Pad thirty nine. It rolled
11:01
Speaker 3: out over the weekend. It had a nearly twelve hour
11:04
Speaker 3: journey to go, you know, not very far, just a
11:10
Speaker 3: few miles, so it was very kind of a very
11:13
Speaker 3: low speed of something less than one mile per hour.
11:17
Speaker 3: And so so it moved out there on NASA's crawler,
11:21
Speaker 3: which they call the Crawler Transporter two. It conducted a
11:25
Speaker 3: four mile trek and it did so at a very
11:28
Speaker 3: slow speed. So the whole journey took about twelve hours.
11:31
Speaker 3: That included, by the way, kind of a check of
11:33
Speaker 3: systems once it came out of the VAB and it
11:37
Speaker 3: rolled down to the launch pad so that it can
11:39
Speaker 3: be ready for some launchpad testing. And if all of
11:43
Speaker 3: that testing goes well, I think they're going to go
11:46
Speaker 3: ahead and put people on it and send it to
11:48
Speaker 3: Space West. I think that's the next step. They will
11:50
Speaker 3: not roll it back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. They
11:54
Speaker 3: will go ahead and launch it. Now if tests don't
11:57
Speaker 3: go well, then maybe they will roll it the VAB.
12:00
Speaker 3: So that's that's kind of the next set of hurdles
12:04
Speaker 3: to cross for the Artemis two mission. So engineers and
12:08
Speaker 3: technicians are preparing to perform some important tests on the
12:12
Speaker 3: Artemis two mission rocket, and that's something that they call
12:16
Speaker 3: a wet dress rehearsal, and it's wet in terms of
12:20
Speaker 3: they fill the fuel tanks right, so they're actually going
12:24
Speaker 3: to fuel the rocket. They test how that rocket fuels are,
12:27
Speaker 3: all the valves working, are all those kinds of things.
12:30
Speaker 3: They also do a removal of the fuel, so they
12:33
Speaker 3: have to make sure that they can actually do that,
12:36
Speaker 3: and this is super cold cryogenic fuel, so it's not
12:39
Speaker 3: easy stuff to deal with. It's treacherous, it's tricky, and
12:43
Speaker 3: it's caused problems on previous missions, including the last Artemis
12:48
Speaker 3: one mission that they were working on. All right, So
12:50
Speaker 3: but if they if they're able to perform these tests
12:53
Speaker 3: and go through their countdown procedures in a mock fashion
12:58
Speaker 3: and everything checks out, okay, they're going to be looking
13:01
Speaker 3: at launching the Artemis two crew in fairly short order
13:05
Speaker 3: after that, it seems. So we don't know, you know,
13:08
Speaker 3: an exact number of days or anything, but they're hoping
13:11
Speaker 3: to complete the wet wet dress rehearsal no later than
13:14
Speaker 3: February second. So that means that possibly sometime in the
13:20
Speaker 3: month of February February twenty twenty sixth, that the next
13:24
Speaker 3: crew of Moon astronauts will return to the Moon for
13:29
Speaker 3: the first time since the early nineteen seventies.
13:33
Speaker 5: It's pretty remarkable at that. I have a question, and
13:38
Speaker 5: I know we'll probably talk more about all this in
13:42
Speaker 5: some capacity, maybe at least even if in passing next week,
13:47
Speaker 5: because we're coming up we're a week less than a
13:49
Speaker 5: week away from the anniversary of the Challenger explosion, and
13:54
Speaker 5: I'm just curious about you know, NASA has these windows
13:59
Speaker 5: when they can do launch for things that they want
14:01
Speaker 5: to do. Do you know if there's a protocol in place,
14:05
Speaker 5: like not renaming a storm, do they not launch even
14:09
Speaker 5: if it's in the window on certain anniversary dates of
14:11
Speaker 5: things like that. I know this isn't scheduled to take
14:14
Speaker 5: place obviously on that anniversary day, But would would they
14:18
Speaker 5: have avoided that? Do you know, to not do a
14:21
Speaker 5: launch on that day?
14:22
Speaker 3: You know, I don't actually know that protocol. I would
14:26
Speaker 3: I would think that they would avoid that. They actually
14:29
Speaker 3: recognize what they call the NASA Day of Remembrance, and
14:34
Speaker 3: this year it's scheduled for today. It's scheduled today is
14:38
Speaker 3: NASA's Day of Remembrance, the twenty second of January. That's
14:41
Speaker 3: a joint commemoration, and I'm sure that day moves around
14:45
Speaker 3: because of just what's going on in NASA, but it's
14:47
Speaker 3: a joint commemoration of the Apollo one accident, which occurred
14:51
Speaker 3: on January twenty seventh of nineteen sixty seven, the Challenger accident,
14:56
Speaker 3: which occurred on January twenty eighth of nineteen eighty six,
15:01
Speaker 3: and the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, which occurred on February
15:05
Speaker 3: first of two thousand and three, so all clustered within
15:08
Speaker 3: a very few days. I would think that they would
15:12
Speaker 3: probably try to avoid that three day window of.
15:16
Speaker 5: Time, and that's in today being that remembrance day. For
15:22
Speaker 5: that is kind of what made me think about all that,
15:24
Speaker 5: just knowing how close this particular launch is to of
15:27
Speaker 5: those things, and it's you know, it's a little time
15:29
Speaker 5: after it, but I was just curious. You know, they've
15:31
Speaker 5: got these windows where they're able to launch, and it
15:33
Speaker 5: just made me wonder, and I assumed that they probably
15:37
Speaker 5: would avoid those days certainly if possible. But obviously if
15:40
Speaker 5: it was an emergency situation and they had to launch
15:43
Speaker 5: something on one of those days, obviously they would.
15:45
Speaker 3: Yes, And clearly this is not an emergency situation, but
15:49
Speaker 3: they do have launch window parameters that they're also trying
15:52
Speaker 3: to not miilate, right, so they they do want to
15:55
Speaker 3: launch within those launch window parameters. Also, you might expect
16:02
Speaker 3: there is a little political interest in launching this mission
16:08
Speaker 3: as quickly as possible, because Jared Isiacman, the new director
16:12
Speaker 3: of NASA, has come out and said that they would
16:14
Speaker 3: actually like to put boots on the ground on the
16:16
Speaker 3: Moon during the Trump administration. So there is a larger
16:21
Speaker 3: clock that they're looking at because this mission has to
16:25
Speaker 3: be successful before they would launch the next mission, and
16:29
Speaker 3: that next mission would be the one to put boots
16:31
Speaker 3: on the ground. So so yeah, there is a you know,
16:34
Speaker 3: there are we have. We have windows of time for
16:37
Speaker 3: these kinds of missions for reasons, and the reasons aren't
16:40
Speaker 3: always about the rocket and its performance. It's also about
16:43
Speaker 3: other factors that may play in. That's true for a
16:46
Speaker 3: lot of missions. By the way, it's not it's not
16:48
Speaker 3: just this one. It's also true for you know, for
16:50
Speaker 3: military missions. It's also true if you have to get
16:53
Speaker 3: people up to the International Space Station to relieve a
16:55
Speaker 3: crew that might have a medical emergency. You know, it's
16:57
Speaker 3: it's true for all these kinds of reasons, right, So,
17:00
Speaker 3: so certainly launch windows happened for lots of different reasons,
17:04
Speaker 3: this one being accelerated. We were at one point about
17:09
Speaker 3: a year ago, talking about in April of twenty twenty
17:11
Speaker 3: six launch. Now we're looking at maybe sometime even in February.
17:15
Speaker 3: Obviously that timeframe has moved up. That's just from NASA's
17:19
Speaker 3: own announcements and their own words. So yeah, we're kind
17:22
Speaker 3: of in that zone where it may happen quick, even
17:26
Speaker 3: if it's close to the window of time where some
17:28
Speaker 3: of these other accidents have occurred.
17:31
Speaker 5: And this is, for the record, not the first president's
17:34
Speaker 5: administration that has pushed very hard to make something happen
17:38
Speaker 5: with the moon.
17:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yes, exactly.
17:41
Speaker 1: This isn't an original story.
17:44
Speaker 3: NASA was born in such an era, right, and so yeah,
17:47
Speaker 3: that's that's true. All right.
17:50
Speaker 5: I want to talk a little bit about the latest
17:53
Speaker 5: solar radiation that we had. We had a pretty significant
17:56
Speaker 5: storm and we thought, oh my gosh, here we go again.
17:59
Speaker 5: How is this a possibility that we may get some
18:01
Speaker 5: stuff down our way again? But that was possibly in
18:05
Speaker 5: the cards. And by the way, you've done a great
18:08
Speaker 5: job of exciting at least one fourteen year old who
18:12
Speaker 5: lives in my house about all this because our experiences
18:15
Speaker 5: of even together being able to check out the aurora
18:19
Speaker 5: as it made its way this far south. So Luke,
18:22
Speaker 5: he's quite the fan of space weather, much like he
18:27
Speaker 5: is a fan of weather here on Earth. He's been
18:30
Speaker 5: tracking this huge storm that's about to hit the US
18:33
Speaker 5: this weekend. He's been tracking it for weeks and called
18:37
Speaker 5: a shot on that he called the snow that we
18:39
Speaker 5: got here last week. So anyway, while he's tracking all
18:44
Speaker 5: of those things, he's also tracking what's going on in
18:48
Speaker 5: space Weather News. And I sent you a message and said, hey,
18:51
Speaker 5: Luke says, maybe we need to check out the sky tonight.
18:54
Speaker 5: And that started to calm down a bit over the
18:56
Speaker 5: course of the day for us in this part of
18:59
Speaker 5: the country, part of the world. However, it was a
19:02
Speaker 5: pretty significant solar radiation storm.
19:06
Speaker 3: And we have a couple of different stories about this
19:08
Speaker 3: particular storm. So yeah, I love the fact that Luke
19:12
Speaker 3: is so interested in this really cool phenomenon. And just
19:16
Speaker 3: for our listeners in general, my friend Wes and I
19:19
Speaker 3: and West's two sons stood out on a dark country
19:24
Speaker 3: road and just watched the sky erupt into multiple colors
19:28
Speaker 3: back in October of twenty twenty four, So is that right?
19:34
Speaker 1: Yeah?
19:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, has it been that long?
19:36
Speaker 1: It happens, yeah.
19:38
Speaker 3: So anyway, So the point of that story, though, is
19:40
Speaker 3: that it happens once in a while, And if you
19:42
Speaker 3: really want to get your kids excited in things in science,
19:46
Speaker 3: go show them phenomenon that occur in the sky, right
19:49
Speaker 3: And hey, I'll even suggest one coming up. In addition
19:53
Speaker 3: to these great northern light displays, that have been taking place.
19:56
Speaker 3: We also have a lunar eclipse coming up at the
19:58
Speaker 3: first part of March. Get them out, let them see
20:01
Speaker 3: something real taking place, not on a screen. Let them
20:06
Speaker 3: see something taking place in the actual sky, and you
20:09
Speaker 3: will light the fires of imagination. And I think that's
20:11
Speaker 3: what's happened with Luke, and I really appreciate him being
20:14
Speaker 3: curious about this and wanting to communicate and explore it.
20:17
Speaker 5: Further, I love his interest interest in whether like you know,
20:22
Speaker 5: above and below the Carmen line. But as far as
20:26
Speaker 5: the as far as you talk about not looking at
20:30
Speaker 5: a screen, there are situations though with cloud cover sometimes
20:32
Speaker 5: they have to look at a screen to observe it.
20:34
Speaker 5: So we want to make sure we include that because
20:36
Speaker 5: I know sometimes you guys host events where people are
20:38
Speaker 5: doing that.
20:39
Speaker 1: But as far as.
20:42
Speaker 4: What's really cool about this to.
20:44
Speaker 5: Me when it makes its way as far south as
20:47
Speaker 5: you're talking about, you know, one of the natural wonders
20:50
Speaker 5: of the world and being able to experience that from
20:52
Speaker 5: your front yard is pretty remarkable. When you live where
20:56
Speaker 5: we are in west central Georgia, it's not something that
20:59
Speaker 5: you go, oh, oh my gosh.
21:00
Speaker 1: You know, the Grand Canyon is just going to pull
21:03
Speaker 1: up outside. You know.
21:04
Speaker 3: It's just kind of.
21:05
Speaker 1: One of those cool things where you go, what is
21:06
Speaker 1: it doing down here?
21:07
Speaker 3: But let's take it in, so okay, So to get
21:12
Speaker 3: everybody on board who may not know about this. Although
21:14
Speaker 3: if you're listening to this podcast and you don't know
21:17
Speaker 3: about this, what are you doing? I don't know what
21:20
Speaker 3: do you got going on in your life? Anyway? So
21:22
Speaker 3: all right, So there was a really really big geo
21:26
Speaker 3: magnetic storm that took place, a severe geomagnetic storm, and
21:31
Speaker 3: it kind of stretched out over really three days, three
21:34
Speaker 3: different days, and it was triggered by some coronal mass
21:38
Speaker 3: ejections on the Sun that were indeed Earth directed, and
21:41
Speaker 3: once those CME waves arrived, they did a pretty good
21:46
Speaker 3: job of reverberating in the magnetosphere of the Earth and
21:50
Speaker 3: trailing down into the atmosphere of the Earth and causing
21:53
Speaker 3: the skyglow that we know as the Northern lights or
21:55
Speaker 3: the Aurora borealis. Now. The first wave arrived on Monday
22:00
Speaker 3: and January nineteenth, and so this is when Wes and
22:03
Speaker 3: I were kind of exchanging texts and going, hey, maybe
22:06
Speaker 3: we should go look tonight. But there's something called the
22:09
Speaker 3: b Z b subz. Actually it's a component of the
22:13
Speaker 3: Earth's magnetic field, and to have some of the biggest
22:16
Speaker 3: northern light displays, typically that b sub z has to
22:20
Speaker 3: move into negative territory. Now listen, I don't want to
22:23
Speaker 3: go into the details of explaining that in all of
22:26
Speaker 3: its detail on our podcast, but check out space Weatherlive
22:31
Speaker 3: dot com and that's a great website to get a
22:33
Speaker 3: lot of these terms defined for you. So, so one
22:36
Speaker 3: of the things that we look at is we look
22:38
Speaker 3: at that b sub z. All right, So the b
22:40
Speaker 3: sb z stayed in positive territory, which means maybe not
22:44
Speaker 3: the best conditions for seeing northern lights all the way
22:48
Speaker 3: down south where we are here in the in the
22:51
Speaker 3: west central Georgia area. And so but it doesn't mean
22:55
Speaker 3: we didn't go look. So I actually went out and
22:57
Speaker 3: photographed the sky a few times, trying to capture whether
23:01
Speaker 3: or not the sky was actually glowing. I never did
23:04
Speaker 3: see it here, Okay, Now, there were reports of northern
23:08
Speaker 3: lights just north of us in Asheville, North Carolina, and
23:13
Speaker 3: into Kentucky, and so the latituo where they were seeing
23:16
Speaker 3: northern lights wasn't too far north of us, but it
23:19
Speaker 3: didn't quite get down to here, all right, So that's Monday.
23:23
Speaker 3: So then there's Tuesday, right, and what happens on Tuesday
23:26
Speaker 3: is the storm is still going on. This is a
23:30
Speaker 3: raucous G four geomagnetic storm that extended for about fifteen hours,
23:37
Speaker 3: and then the G three class geomagnetic storm actually stretched
23:40
Speaker 3: out into multiple days, and so this is an unusual phenomenon, friends.
23:47
Speaker 3: And during that during that twenty four hour period, at
23:50
Speaker 3: various times, people saw northern lights in forty of the
23:55
Speaker 3: United States fifty states, so reports at least forty states
24:01
Speaker 3: in the US reported seeing the northern lights, and that
24:04
Speaker 3: does include Georgia. So there were reports that did come
24:07
Speaker 3: in from Georgia over that sort of thirty six hour
24:11
Speaker 3: period that I'm describing Monday into Tuesday, starting on January nineteenth,
24:15
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. That's because we were experiencing the largest
24:22
Speaker 3: solar storm, the most severe solar storm that we have
24:25
Speaker 3: experienced in a couple of decades, right, And it compares
24:31
Speaker 3: to the Hollow, the famous it's famous in geek circles anyway,
24:36
Speaker 3: like we move in the famous Halloween storm of two
24:38
Speaker 3: thousand and three. And actually I was in our solar
24:41
Speaker 3: observatory taking pictures of some of those sun spots that
24:44
Speaker 3: took place in October of two thousand and three, some
24:47
Speaker 3: of those sun spots erupting into solar flares. We actually
24:49
Speaker 3: captured some of those with our telescopes here at Space
24:52
Speaker 3: Science Center. But anyway, that was the last time we'd
24:54
Speaker 3: had any a storm anywhere near the severe and so
24:58
Speaker 3: again the biggest sun spot event of this particular solar cycle.
25:02
Speaker 3: Remember that solar cycles are eleven years long, and we
25:05
Speaker 3: are currently in solar cycle number twenty five, So biggest
25:09
Speaker 3: event for solar cycle twenty five, most intense event at
25:12
Speaker 3: least since two thousand and three, maybe even LONGERAA has
25:17
Speaker 3: classified this as a severe storm, which is all the
25:20
Speaker 3: way up to again a G four storm. So this
25:26
Speaker 3: is really something that was noteworthy, right. What didn't happen, though,
25:32
Speaker 3: is it didn't turn into what's known as a ground
25:34
Speaker 3: level event. Now what's a ground level event? That's when
25:37
Speaker 3: there are so many charged particles that are moving through
25:41
Speaker 3: both our magnetic field and our atmosphere that they begin
25:45
Speaker 3: to have effects on objects on the ground, such as
25:49
Speaker 3: power grids such as the Alaskan Pipeline can carry a
25:53
Speaker 3: current for a while, such as you may have outages
25:56
Speaker 3: of communication systems or could even have computer glitches and things.
26:01
Speaker 3: So a space weather physicist has been quoted on space
26:04
Speaker 3: dot Com as saying, quote, this storm had a relatively
26:08
Speaker 3: soft particle spectrum, and what that means is just didn't
26:13
Speaker 3: have a lot of extreme energy particles reaching all the
26:16
Speaker 3: way down to the ground during this event. And we're
26:19
Speaker 3: glad about that because then that's when the kind of
26:22
Speaker 3: negative effects of a solar storm can really begin to
26:25
Speaker 3: take place and people lose their power, or you have
26:29
Speaker 3: problems with mechanical equipment, things like that. So it was
26:32
Speaker 3: fun for a large part of the world, including forty
26:36
Speaker 3: US States, to see the northern lights without having to
26:39
Speaker 3: worry about all the really serious effects that can take
26:42
Speaker 3: place because we had a weak ground level event or
26:45
Speaker 3: a non ground level event. So all of that was good.
26:49
Speaker 5: So I would imagine if it's a non ground level event,
26:52
Speaker 5: you'd probably still have a great perspective if you were,
26:54
Speaker 5: I don't know, flying an airplane. I just think about
26:57
Speaker 5: this guy Matt Melnick, who who got these photos of
27:02
Speaker 5: the Aurora, and thinking about probably an opportunity to talk
27:07
Speaker 5: to his younger self while he's training and getting his
27:09
Speaker 5: flight hours and all the things you got to do
27:11
Speaker 5: to be a pilot probably never crossed his mind that
27:14
Speaker 5: he may have an opportunity in his career as a
27:18
Speaker 5: pilot to take the greatest photos of Aurora ever taken.
27:26
Speaker 3: That sounds like hyperbole. Friends, if you've seen great Aurora
27:29
Speaker 3: photos out there, but unless you've seen these, you don't know,
27:32
Speaker 3: you don't understand the argument. These are epic. Now, I
27:35
Speaker 3: will just say quickly that the previous story about the
27:38
Speaker 3: solar storm in general, there's a lot of news outlets
27:41
Speaker 3: that covered that. We quoted Space dot Com from a
27:43
Speaker 3: quote there, but this story I have not seen anywhere
27:46
Speaker 3: but space dot com. So on space dot Com today
27:50
Speaker 3: as we're recording the show on the twenty second of January,
27:53
Speaker 3: there's a story about a pilot who was up in
27:57
Speaker 3: the very same severe geo Magna storm that we just
28:00
Speaker 3: talked about. And this pilot on numerous occasions, because they
28:06
Speaker 3: fly kind of a polar route which goes from Canada
28:09
Speaker 3: gat to very various parts of Europe, or flies routes
28:13
Speaker 3: through various parts of Europe, this particular pilots at northern
28:16
Speaker 3: latitudes a lot, and so he's seen a lot of
28:19
Speaker 3: northern lights, so many so that he started taking his
28:22
Speaker 3: camera with him on all of his flights and in
28:25
Speaker 3: the you know, not busy moments, and I'm sure there
28:28
Speaker 3: are only a few moments that that's not true. Has
28:31
Speaker 3: been able to take some amazing pictures of northern lights
28:34
Speaker 3: in the past, so much so that his photographs have
28:37
Speaker 3: already been featured on space dot com for other solar events. Okay,
28:42
Speaker 3: so that's the big setup, right. So you got a
28:44
Speaker 3: pilot not you know, not necessarily unaccustomed to seeing northern
28:49
Speaker 3: lights out the window, already takes great pictures. Okay, Well,
28:52
Speaker 3: so he apparently heard there was a geomagnetic storm coming.
28:56
Speaker 3: He took a camera with an extra wide lens, wide
28:59
Speaker 3: angle lens this time, because he was anticipating maybe getting
29:02
Speaker 3: some really epic pictures of northern lights. Friends, that is
29:06
Speaker 3: an understatement. I know that it's weird to talk about
29:10
Speaker 3: photographs on an audio podcast, but we're just pointing you
29:14
Speaker 3: to the right place to go. Look. Go look up
29:17
Speaker 3: the photographs from Matt Melnik. His name, his last name
29:20
Speaker 3: is spelled m E l Nyk. These pictures are in
29:25
Speaker 3: a story on space dot com, and they could be
29:30
Speaker 3: the greatest photographs of northern lights. Ever, the person who
29:36
Speaker 3: wrote the story for space dot com was writing from
29:39
Speaker 3: kind of a first person perspective, you referring to himself,
29:43
Speaker 3: and he even said, I have never seen I've worked
29:45
Speaker 3: for space dot com for many, many decades. I have
29:48
Speaker 3: never seen space weather photos, aurora photos in particular, that
29:52
Speaker 3: look anywhere near to this. I'm gonna add my own
29:55
Speaker 3: opinion to that, I have never seen aurora photographs like these. Now,
30:00
Speaker 3: Wes and I are looking at three different photos, and
30:03
Speaker 3: one through the cockpit glass you can actually see the
30:06
Speaker 3: interior of the cockpit. But I will tell you there
30:09
Speaker 3: were other photos on the space dot com article that
30:13
Speaker 3: were equal to these. These are like some AI generated
30:17
Speaker 3: science fiction auroras that you wouldn't even believe were real
30:21
Speaker 3: unless you knew the validity of this story. So it
30:24
Speaker 3: turns out that this gentleman we're talking about, the pilot,
30:27
Speaker 3: Matt Melnick, was on a route flying from Calgary, Canada
30:31
Speaker 3: to London, and when you fly that route, you fly
30:35
Speaker 3: in a northern direction. He was in the cockpit of
30:38
Speaker 3: a Boeing seven eighty seven Dreamliner, and he may have
30:43
Speaker 3: had the greatest view of this recent geomagnetic storm than
30:47
Speaker 3: anyone's ever had. I actually have another friend who is
30:50
Speaker 3: a pilot, who sent me pictures of northern lights from
30:52
Speaker 3: the cockpit before, which were pretty good, nothing compared to this.
30:58
Speaker 3: And again I've never seen any northern light pictures, including
31:01
Speaker 3: some of those awesome shots from Finland. You'll look anything
31:04
Speaker 3: like this.
31:05
Speaker 5: You mentioned the cockpit shot, which is quite remarkable, and
31:09
Speaker 5: just for the perspective on these lights you're talking about
31:11
Speaker 5: the you know, because of the location, it's the greens,
31:14
Speaker 5: there's some mixes of some purples in there. They look
31:16
Speaker 5: like brushstrokes, like just painted in the sky, like you know,
31:21
Speaker 5: just a brushstroke going upward. What's quite remarkable though about
31:25
Speaker 5: the photos and like not necessarily even the one in
31:28
Speaker 5: the cockpit, although I guess you can kind of see
31:30
Speaker 5: that because as you pointed out, you can see all
31:32
Speaker 5: the all of the the cockpits, controls and screens and
31:38
Speaker 5: things that are there as far as the control board.
31:40
Speaker 5: But looking out through the window, and when you see
31:44
Speaker 5: the photos, if you've been in a plane and you've
31:46
Speaker 5: seen the ground below and then the clouds above, you
31:51
Speaker 5: just imagine it's not clouds and it's these brushstrokes of
31:54
Speaker 5: these purple and green lights above the ground below. And
31:57
Speaker 5: that's what makes it really quite remarkable. Just like you said,
32:00
Speaker 5: it looks like it's just an AI generation.
32:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again these so think of your the last
32:08
Speaker 3: time you saw pictures of northern lights. You have some
32:10
Speaker 3: kind of semi translucent curtains of light in the sky.
32:13
Speaker 3: You can even see stars through them. You can't see
32:16
Speaker 3: any stars through these curtains. These things are so bright.
32:20
Speaker 3: And what that tells me they are so much more
32:22
Speaker 3: intense than the light of the stars that they simply
32:25
Speaker 3: watch the starlight. Now right, these things were super super bright.
32:30
Speaker 3: And I would say this, well, let me read a
32:32
Speaker 3: quote from pilot Melnick. He said this, The show started
32:36
Speaker 3: as soon as we climbed above the clouds and continued
32:39
Speaker 3: on and off during the flight from Calgary to London, UK.
32:43
Speaker 3: It was a historical night, that's for sure. This was
32:48
Speaker 3: the most incredible display of aurora I've ever seen in
32:51
Speaker 3: my twenty years of flying. This flight I will remember
32:54
Speaker 3: for days to come. I imagine that that's true for pilot Melnick,
33:00
Speaker 3: maybe the rest of the days of his life. I
33:02
Speaker 3: would say, I'm going to add to that that if
33:04
Speaker 3: I was in the cockpit of that plane, or if
33:06
Speaker 3: I was one of the passengers kind of just looking
33:08
Speaker 3: out the window, I might be terrified, like this is
33:14
Speaker 3: enough radiation coming into the atmosphere that I might be
33:18
Speaker 3: thinking myself, how many doses of rads am I receiving
33:24
Speaker 3: through the aluminum skin of this aircraft right now? Are
33:29
Speaker 3: the cockpits electronics going to be able to stand up
33:33
Speaker 3: under the bombardment of these charge particles? I know I'm
33:36
Speaker 3: in a polar route, which brings me even closer to
33:39
Speaker 3: where those charge particles are coming into the lower atmosphere
33:43
Speaker 3: of the Earth. That's why we're seeing this ridiculous show. Terrifying,
33:48
Speaker 3: not to mention the fact that it looks like something
33:50
Speaker 3: straight out of a science fiction movie.
33:52
Speaker 5: Right it looks like possibly everyone on the plane would
33:55
Speaker 5: eventually become the incredible Holt. I mean, that's what it
33:58
Speaker 5: looks like. They're going through that kind of radiation and
34:01
Speaker 5: then coming out of it. So I don't know if
34:03
Speaker 5: anybody that was on that flight has gotten angry since
34:05
Speaker 5: the flight.
34:06
Speaker 1: But maybe that would need to be.
34:08
Speaker 5: Somebody should go test it out, see if they can
34:10
Speaker 5: make them mad.
34:12
Speaker 3: Why do these spoons keep bending every time I touch them.
34:15
Speaker 6: I don't understand that so confusing.
34:18
Speaker 3: How did my finger just light on fire? I don't
34:20
Speaker 3: know what was that.
34:21
Speaker 1: I don't know why am I nine feet tall and green?
34:23
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on? More made of stars.
34:26
Speaker 6: Right after this.
34:48
Speaker 5: Let's talk about this interstellar tunnel that has been located.
34:53
Speaker 5: When I first saw this, my first thought was.
34:55
Speaker 1: Oh cool, we got a wormhole. Who were we going
34:57
Speaker 1: to go visit?
34:59
Speaker 3: So the headline did sound like that, and you know, intentionally.
35:02
Speaker 3: So this is earth dot com, by the way, who
35:04
Speaker 3: gave us the headlines that drew us to the story.
35:06
Speaker 3: Earth dot COM's great source. Though, So the question is
35:10
Speaker 3: have astronomers located an interstellar tunnel that links us to
35:14
Speaker 3: other stars?
35:15
Speaker 6: Now?
35:16
Speaker 3: So that's a question that we kind of built out
35:18
Speaker 3: of their headline. By the way, that's not their verbatim headline.
35:21
Speaker 3: But I would say this, We're not traveling through this tunnel.
35:26
Speaker 3: This is not a This is not a like the
35:28
Speaker 3: chunnel that goes under the English Channel. We're not going
35:30
Speaker 3: to France. So but what this is is some kind
35:34
Speaker 3: of weird flowing river of hot charged gas that the
35:42
Speaker 3: authors of this of the story have described as a
35:44
Speaker 3: cosmic interstellar channel. It's where hot flowing gas can move.
35:50
Speaker 3: So so recent observations of our corner of the universe
35:54
Speaker 3: have suggested that we live inside a hot but less
35:57
Speaker 3: dense region of space, and it's kind of like we're
36:01
Speaker 3: right on the edge of a hot bubble that exists
36:04
Speaker 3: inside the Milky Way. So some new analysis of some
36:09
Speaker 3: data that was taken by an instrument called the E
36:12
Speaker 3: Rosetta I'm sorry, e Rosita, the eROSITA instrument. This is
36:17
Speaker 3: an instrument aboard a German Russian X ray spacecraft and
36:22
Speaker 3: it's been up there for a while. It launched in
36:24
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, so it's been extending things. And eROSITA is
36:28
Speaker 3: an acronym which stands for extended rontgen Survey with an
36:32
Speaker 3: imaging telescope array. So you probably won't want to remember that,
36:35
Speaker 3: but if you remember E Rosita, you know that's great. Okay.
36:38
Speaker 3: So the eROSITA instrument observing X rays has been collecting
36:43
Speaker 3: data for a while, and a group of researchers out
36:46
Speaker 3: of the mox Planck Institute in Germany, led by doctor
36:50
Speaker 3: ll Sala and his colleagues, have shared their findings in
36:54
Speaker 3: the latest Journal of Astronomy and astrophysics, and what they've
36:58
Speaker 3: found is they found that while we are near what's
37:02
Speaker 3: called the local hot bubble, that's a region of hot
37:07
Speaker 3: load density gas created by supernova explosions that move through
37:11
Speaker 3: our part of the Milky Way. While we're in this hot,
37:15
Speaker 3: low density environment, there are pathways or tunnels of hot
37:20
Speaker 3: gas that flow out from our region of the Milky
37:24
Speaker 3: Way and actually connect with other superbubbles. And the weird
37:30
Speaker 3: thing about that is that connects us with other young
37:32
Speaker 3: hot stars, and it also is being generated by a
37:36
Speaker 3: mechanism that is caused by old dying stars. So you
37:40
Speaker 3: kind of need the old dying stars and the hot
37:43
Speaker 3: new young stars working together generating hot plasma regions in
37:49
Speaker 3: our part of the Milky Way to create this weird
37:51
Speaker 3: superbubble structure frends and it looks like that that superbubble
37:56
Speaker 3: structure has created tunnels that connect us to stars in
38:00
Speaker 3: the direction of the constellation of Centaurus.
38:03
Speaker 5: That's also that's also how they make movies in Hollywood.
38:06
Speaker 5: They take the old dying stars and the hot new
38:09
Speaker 5: stars and they put them together and try to make
38:11
Speaker 5: magic happen.
38:12
Speaker 3: And some of those hot stars are less dense than
38:15
Speaker 3: others case is what I believe.
38:18
Speaker 5: In many cases that is sorry you started talking about
38:23
Speaker 5: hot new stars on all Wow, we've taken a turn
38:26
Speaker 5: on the show.
38:27
Speaker 1: Where are we going?
38:28
Speaker 3: So anyway, just to wrap this up, it turns out
38:31
Speaker 3: that something kind of interesting has happened over the last
38:34
Speaker 3: few million years, which is a long time for us,
38:36
Speaker 3: but a really short time in the lifetime of our Sun.
38:39
Speaker 3: Our solar system has moved through this local hot bubble
38:43
Speaker 3: a few million years ago, and so that that movement
38:46
Speaker 3: of objects in the Milky Way, our Sun moving into
38:49
Speaker 3: this hot plasma bubble, has helped to generate these bubbles
38:55
Speaker 3: and superbubbles and the tunnels of gas connecting them. And
38:59
Speaker 3: it's really changing our understanding of our cosmic neighborhood to
39:02
Speaker 3: know that all this stuff is going on in the background,
39:04
Speaker 3: and if you study how stars form and how they evolve,
39:07
Speaker 3: that's really important information, which is why we include it
39:10
Speaker 3: on today's podcast All Right.
39:12
Speaker 5: Coming up in about less than a month and a half,
39:15
Speaker 5: we'll go back into Music under the Dome the next
39:19
Speaker 5: edition of that. As far as folks living in our area,
39:23
Speaker 5: it's an easy trip for you if you want to
39:27
Speaker 5: come in from elsewhere. I'm sure, we could find you
39:30
Speaker 5: a nice hotel. You can come to town to check
39:32
Speaker 5: out music under the Dome, but folks in the area
39:35
Speaker 5: have to understand it is a music and visual experience
39:40
Speaker 5: unlike anything else you will experience.
39:43
Speaker 3: I like to think that we've developed something that's truly
39:46
Speaker 3: unique here at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
39:50
Speaker 3: It's the artists musicians, both faculty and students from the
39:54
Speaker 3: Schweb School of Music performing live inside our planetarium, and
39:58
Speaker 3: then we work with space artists to create original graphics
40:02
Speaker 3: shown up on the dome that are choreographed to the
40:05
Speaker 3: music of these concerts. It is a light and sound extravaganza.
40:09
Speaker 3: If you're in the sound of our voices and you
40:12
Speaker 3: can either get here or you just simply live in
40:15
Speaker 3: the community and you've not seen one of these concerts,
40:18
Speaker 3: you're missing out on one of the treats of life friends.
40:20
Speaker 3: It's kind of like knowing that there's Aurora in this
40:22
Speaker 3: guy and not bothering to go outside and look. Come
40:25
Speaker 3: down and check out one of the music and of
40:26
Speaker 3: the dome concerts. We have that going on. In addition
40:29
Speaker 3: to that, you can check out our website for more
40:31
Speaker 3: information on something else that's fun, that's happening here. On
40:35
Speaker 3: March the fourteenth, we'll be participating with the Georgia State
40:38
Speaker 3: Department of Education to host what's called Georgia stem Day,
40:42
Speaker 3: and that's a collection of industry professionals who are coming
40:47
Speaker 3: down to set up exhibits inside the Coca Cola Space
40:50
Speaker 3: Science Center to understand technical careers better. So if you
40:53
Speaker 3: have a middle school or a high school student, or
40:56
Speaker 3: you just know if you or you just want to
40:58
Speaker 3: invite some of the neighbors, bring them on down and
41:00
Speaker 3: check out that great event taking place at the Space
41:02
Speaker 3: Signed Center on March fourteenth, Georgia stem Day here at
41:06
Speaker 3: Columbustate University's Coca Cola Space Signce Center.
41:09
Speaker 5: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we will
41:11
Speaker 5: do this again next weeks. Overhead Door Company of Columbus
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Speaker 5: got your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven
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Speaker 5: oh six, three five, eight forty five hundred, seven oh
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Speaker 5: six three five eight forty five hundred odccolumbus dot com