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Liquid Water on Mars... Could That Mean? · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
0:04
Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
0:07
Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
0:10
Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
0:15
Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead. When made of stars, made them stars? Mad sizes.
0:29
Speaker 3: When made of stars.
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Speaker 2: You could be from high they would New Mexicomus.
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Speaker 4: Where are.
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Speaker 1: Stars?
0:43
Speaker 4: When we are made of stars?
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Speaker 3: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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Speaker 3: Cruising from columb State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
1:02
Speaker 3: Hey Sean, Hey, well, it's good to be here this morning.
1:06
Speaker 3: Let's talk about water on Mars. This is potentially a
1:15
Speaker 3: game changer in a very very big way because we've
1:18
Speaker 3: discussed obviously they say, oh, well, we're going to go
1:22
Speaker 3: to Mars and we're gonna study an area where we
1:25
Speaker 3: think water once was and maybe there's some ice there.
1:29
Speaker 3: And we've always on the show talked about the importance
1:32
Speaker 3: of water, the importance of ice, the importance of remnants
1:37
Speaker 3: of where water was, and the significance of that as
1:41
Speaker 3: it could pertain to life. Without water of some kind,
1:47
Speaker 3: no life, all right. So they've done a lot of studying,
1:52
Speaker 3: a lot of testing on Mars, and they've gone okay, well,
1:55
Speaker 3: you know ice. But now it seems perhaps there could
1:59
Speaker 3: very well be liquid water on Mars. That makes it
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Speaker 3: a big game changer, doesn't it.
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Speaker 2: It does make it a game changer. We have to
2:10
Speaker 2: go into this story with caution, right because once we
2:14
Speaker 2: say not just a little water, but a significant amount
2:18
Speaker 2: of water has been detected below the surface of the
2:21
Speaker 2: red planet, that automatically opens up a myriad of ideas.
2:28
Speaker 2: And if you just serve headlines, you probably saw the
2:33
Speaker 2: story this week because it's been out there on very
2:36
Speaker 2: mainstream media outlets across the spectrum, which is great, by
2:40
Speaker 2: the way.
2:40
Speaker 3: Most of those headlines, by the way, say uh, astronauts
2:44
Speaker 3: stuck water on Mars, question Mark, Like that's the way
2:48
Speaker 3: they usually work, yes, or some of them just stalk
2:55
Speaker 3: with astronauts still stuck, still suck, No other space story matters.
3:00
Speaker 2: So yeah, there are those headlines out there. Well, we'll
3:03
Speaker 2: get the stuck astronauts.
3:04
Speaker 3: Here in a minute, but yeah, that's another story for later.
3:08
Speaker 2: Let's just say, if you were Mark Wattley and you
3:10
Speaker 2: were stuck on Mars. You Mark Whatley, by the way,
3:14
Speaker 2: the lead character in The Martian. For those in the
3:16
Speaker 2: unknown out there, if you were on Mars, you might
3:21
Speaker 2: be very interested in sources of liquid water. How about that?
3:25
Speaker 2: So this is an important story for potential colonization. This
3:28
Speaker 2: is an important story for those who study the past
3:31
Speaker 2: history of Mars and whether or not Mars had life.
3:34
Speaker 2: Let's remember that on the very last podcast we just
3:37
Speaker 2: had a story about organic materials being discovered in Gale
3:41
Speaker 2: Crater by Marsh Perseverance Rover. So there's all of these
3:44
Speaker 2: stories coming together, right. So when you see this headline
3:47
Speaker 2: that says oceans of water beneath Mars' surface, you might think, wow,
3:54
Speaker 2: I can imagine like just if I dig down a
3:56
Speaker 2: little bit, I'm gonna hit an ocean. Okay, So that's
4:01
Speaker 2: a reasonable assumption from the headline, And the important part
4:05
Speaker 2: of the story really is that using the data from
4:10
Speaker 2: a now defunct spacecraft called the Mars Insight Lander, which
4:16
Speaker 2: in past episodes of this podcast we talked a lot
4:18
Speaker 2: about Insight because it did all kinds of really cool things,
4:21
Speaker 2: including monitoring Mars weather. By the way, not just a
4:25
Speaker 2: deploying its seismograph, but it's a seismograph that measured ground
4:29
Speaker 2: vibrations within the Red planet.
4:32
Speaker 3: By the way, just for the record, we've been doing
4:34
Speaker 3: the show a version of this show so long. We
4:37
Speaker 3: remember when this was a new craft.
4:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, we do. We remember when the insight Lander
4:43
Speaker 2: first landed on Mars.
4:44
Speaker 4: That was the day of the art.
4:47
Speaker 3: This sucker was like, wow, what is this thing gonna do?
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Speaker 3: And now we know what it's done, but hey, we
4:54
Speaker 3: may be doing some more things that are important.
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Speaker 2: You and I were talking about this when it was
4:58
Speaker 2: on its way, like, while we hope this thing lands
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Speaker 2: and deploys okay on the Red surface, and then it
5:05
Speaker 2: got up there and had some problems and it was like, oh,
5:09
Speaker 2: this isn't gonna work quite the way. But then it
5:10
Speaker 2: was rescued and it's all these it's an adventure story
5:14
Speaker 2: that you now have to go read on Wikipedia or
5:16
Speaker 2: some source. But anyway, so but now scientists are mining
5:20
Speaker 2: the data archive from this now defunct spacecraft up there
5:23
Speaker 2: on Mars, and what they found is they found seismic signature.
5:26
Speaker 2: So when when actual geophysicists began to look at the
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Speaker 2: seismic data in the archive from the Insight Lander, they
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Speaker 2: found indications of large amounts of water trapped beneath the
5:39
Speaker 2: Martian surface. So all of that is taking us down
5:42
Speaker 2: that road of imagination. But here's the part we have
5:45
Speaker 2: to be very very careful about. This water that was
5:49
Speaker 2: just reported in the story is somewhere between eleven and
5:54
Speaker 2: twenty kilometers below the surface. In other words, it's down there,
6:02
Speaker 2: and drilling a one kilometer hole on Earth is a challenge.
6:08
Speaker 2: Like if we're trying to drill a well that was
6:12
Speaker 2: going to taple water source one kilometer or you know,
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Speaker 2: over half a mile deep, that would be nearly impossible
6:19
Speaker 2: on Earth, let alone on Mars, where you have many
6:23
Speaker 2: other complications and hazards and just difficulties with different gravity
6:29
Speaker 2: and lack of air and all kinds of stuff. Anyway,
6:30
Speaker 2: So so this water is not going to be readily
6:34
Speaker 2: accessible to future astronauts. Addition, in addition to that, it's
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Speaker 2: also not collected in one giant lake. It's all down
6:44
Speaker 2: between the cracks and crooks and pores and and embedded
6:51
Speaker 2: basically in the rock formations on Mars rather than a
6:55
Speaker 2: giant ocean. Now there's an ocean's worth of this water.
7:01
Speaker 2: So there's lots and lots and lots of it. It's
7:04
Speaker 2: just not all together. So for the colonization part of this,
7:11
Speaker 2: and for using it for future fuels and breathable air
7:14
Speaker 2: and all those kinds of things that you can do
7:16
Speaker 2: from water, it's not that great of news because of
7:19
Speaker 2: where it's at and how it's stored. However, it is
7:22
Speaker 2: good news because it's very clear evidence that past water
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Speaker 2: on Mars was very likely, and that the standard model
7:33
Speaker 2: that everybody's been thinking that it all just evaporated off
7:36
Speaker 2: into space is probably not entirely correct, which means there
7:42
Speaker 2: could be other water reservoirs on Mars that are not
7:45
Speaker 2: as deep and that are not as hard to get to.
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Speaker 2: So it leads even on the colonization aspect, it still
7:53
Speaker 2: leads to some positive outcomes, just not for tapping this
7:57
Speaker 2: particular water source. That's one thing that we have to consider.
8:01
Speaker 2: The other thing that is really interesting, of course, about
8:03
Speaker 2: the story is that it confirms, basically, or it very
8:07
Speaker 2: strongly suggests, the very watery past that Mars once had.
8:12
Speaker 2: Now we have all kinds of surface geological evidence of
8:15
Speaker 2: past water on Mars, but now this water it still
8:19
Speaker 2: is kind of there in some form. It looks like
8:22
Speaker 2: this is enough to cover Mars, the entire planet, to
8:27
Speaker 2: the depth of about a mile. So it's a lot
8:32
Speaker 2: of water. And so all if all of that is true,
8:39
Speaker 2: clearly there was enough water on Mars to support past life.
8:44
Speaker 2: So then you combine this piece of evidence with last
8:47
Speaker 2: week's story about Mars perseverance rover uncovering organic materials, and man,
8:54
Speaker 2: you have some very shall we say, accumulating evidence of
8:59
Speaker 2: the correct environment for past life to exist on Mars
9:03
Speaker 2: and the correct chemistry to be present on the service
9:07
Speaker 2: of Mars, indicating the possibility of past life on Mars.
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Speaker 2: So this is becoming a more intriguing story literally by
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Speaker 2: the day.
9:15
Speaker 4: This is one of those stories.
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Speaker 3: It kind of covers a lot because obviously we start
9:20
Speaker 3: getting into the geology components of this and the importance
9:23
Speaker 3: of the need, if you will, for us to actually
9:26
Speaker 3: get someone there to be able to do the study
9:29
Speaker 3: necessary in a much more rapid time. And I know
9:34
Speaker 3: it probably you think about how long it's been since
9:38
Speaker 3: you know, up to this discovery, and then you think, well,
9:41
Speaker 3: this was just to get here, and how much sooner
9:44
Speaker 3: maybe we could have gotten here if we had someone
9:46
Speaker 3: there and what other things like this, we're going to
9:49
Speaker 3: find down the line how long it's going to take
9:52
Speaker 3: us to get to that point. But you a couple
9:54
Speaker 3: things and you talk about like this is tying into
9:57
Speaker 3: our theories about you know, where water may have been
10:00
Speaker 3: before and how much of it there might have been.
10:03
Speaker 3: And then it's also the other side of it is
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Speaker 3: it's like, well, maybe now we can find more water
10:10
Speaker 3: to actually be able to put someone there, to be
10:13
Speaker 3: able to do these kind of studies and look for
10:14
Speaker 3: past life that was there. This is like a it's
10:17
Speaker 3: like it's like Forrest Gump, Like there's a little bit
10:19
Speaker 3: of everything in this as far as stories go, when
10:21
Speaker 3: it comes to science, you know.
10:24
Speaker 2: Life is like a box of chocolates, and apparently studying
10:28
Speaker 2: Mars is also like a box of chocolates. You'll never
10:32
Speaker 2: know what you're gonna get. But when you go take data,
10:36
Speaker 2: apparently we find out that Mars is an increasingly interesting place.
10:41
Speaker 2: And that's that's really the the crux of this story is, hey,
10:46
Speaker 2: it's a very watery world and not just in its
10:49
Speaker 2: past but right now right So that's that's something that's
10:55
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of a game changer, and so this
10:58
Speaker 2: This story made a lot of headline. I heard it
11:00
Speaker 2: on various electronic media outlets, including TV news and and
11:05
Speaker 2: you know, they do the best they can, you know,
11:08
Speaker 2: so the commentators or the announcers are trying to make
11:11
Speaker 2: this story as important sounding as possible, But really you
11:15
Speaker 2: have to kind of scratch out it a little bit
11:17
Speaker 2: to fully understand what this means. This means that Mars
11:21
Speaker 2: may be the most interesting place in our entire solar
11:24
Speaker 2: system besides Earth. Now, there is this moon out there
11:28
Speaker 2: called Europa that I tend to think it's a really
11:31
Speaker 2: interesting place too, And and you know it's interesting. These
11:35
Speaker 2: things are interesting because they're the possible harbingers of other
11:38
Speaker 2: life in our solar system. Right, That's what makes them.
11:41
Speaker 2: That's how I'm qualifying my interest in these other sites.
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Speaker 2: But Mars may have life today because there's water under
11:50
Speaker 2: the surface, there's the right chemistry. And they certainly are
11:56
Speaker 2: not saying that in this story. This is just Sean talking.
11:59
Speaker 2: But I can tell you, friends, that we continue to
12:02
Speaker 2: accumulate various small pieces of evidence that make me, as
12:07
Speaker 2: a you know, a somewhat casual but knowledgeable observer saying, man,
12:11
Speaker 2: this is a lot of stuff adding up, and you know,
12:14
Speaker 2: of course scientists like to be careful, and I try
12:17
Speaker 2: to be careful on this show, but I'm also doing
12:19
Speaker 2: a podcast. I got to tell you this is why
12:22
Speaker 2: we're interested, right, Yeah, they might not have life in
12:25
Speaker 2: its past, it might have life today in subterranean environments.
12:30
Speaker 2: Wouldn't that be an interesting thing to find? So sometimes
12:34
Speaker 2: we have to discuss what the question actually is. And
12:37
Speaker 2: to me, nobody's saying that that's true. But that's the question.
12:42
Speaker 2: Is Mars harboring life in twenty twenty four Earth time.
12:47
Speaker 4: And has been the this whole time? Right? And that's
12:50
Speaker 4: the possibility exactly.
12:51
Speaker 3: So you know, there was this, you know, was a time,
12:54
Speaker 3: you know, long time ago when they would say, well,
12:58
Speaker 3: maybe there's life on mare ours and they say, well
13:01
Speaker 3: we've you know now that we know we can't see
13:03
Speaker 3: anything there, and say what if the life is below
13:05
Speaker 3: the surface? And I think that was even played out
13:08
Speaker 3: in some story movies comic books like oh well they're
13:10
Speaker 3: hiding below the surface. They're there, they're humanoid and they're
13:14
Speaker 3: hiding below the serface. That could actually be real. I mean,
13:18
Speaker 3: this could really be life below this. They're not humanoid,
13:22
Speaker 3: but it could be some sort of life below the surface,
13:24
Speaker 3: and I think that's what's so great about it. And
13:26
Speaker 3: that's what you know, we always talk about those ties
13:28
Speaker 3: between science fiction and science in the way sometimes uh,
13:31
Speaker 3: science fiction leads to science and sometimes uh, you know,
13:35
Speaker 3: science fiction isn't as far off maybe as it thought
13:38
Speaker 3: it was.
13:38
Speaker 2: Well, that's why you and I are such fans of
13:40
Speaker 2: science fiction, because science fiction, science fiction is not afraid
13:43
Speaker 2: to go ahead and ask the question. Scientists have to
13:46
Speaker 2: be very very careful as particularly in the media, about
13:49
Speaker 2: leaping to conclusions because then they're then they're thought of
13:53
Speaker 2: as not serious, right, and so that's why they're the
13:56
Speaker 2: the official scientists on this project are like, wow, we
13:58
Speaker 2: just found some water and and it's not going to
14:01
Speaker 2: be available, and we're not it doesn't it's no indication
14:03
Speaker 2: of life. And they're very careful, right, But we're on
14:06
Speaker 2: a podcast, yeah, and we're sci fi fans and you know, yes,
14:09
Speaker 2: I'm a scientist, but I'm also just I've moved into administration,
14:13
Speaker 2: so I'm not publishing papers on this.
14:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, so i don't really.
14:15
Speaker 2: Care about my scientific career in that respect. So I'm
14:17
Speaker 2: gonna go ahead and ask the question, are there critters
14:20
Speaker 2: on Mars, and there may be these guys from Mars attacks.
14:23
Speaker 2: You don't remember those guys with a helmet, They might
14:26
Speaker 2: be in those lava tubes tied out that I don't know. No,
14:28
Speaker 2: I'm not really I'm not really seriously considering that question.
14:31
Speaker 2: I would say, are there micro organisms in these micro
14:36
Speaker 2: channels of water below the surface. That is a question
14:38
Speaker 2: I'm very willing to ask. I think it's a valid question.
14:41
Speaker 2: I think it's a serious question, and it would be
14:44
Speaker 2: amazing to find that out and to see how differently,
14:50
Speaker 2: what a different route life has taken on Mars, if
14:53
Speaker 2: it's there, compared to the life on Earth. Really really
14:57
Speaker 2: really important and interesting topic.
15:00
Speaker 3: I like that you kind of paint the picture too
15:02
Speaker 3: of the scientists where you know, they have to just
15:04
Speaker 3: be very what they put forth in the in the
15:08
Speaker 3: press conference or in any discussions about it has to
15:11
Speaker 3: be the utmost professionalism. And then you know, as soon
15:15
Speaker 3: as they go, like they turn the cameras off or
15:17
Speaker 3: they walk away, and then they're just you know, taking
15:19
Speaker 3: their shirts off and running around because they're excited, because
15:21
Speaker 3: you know they are. It's it's got to be like
15:23
Speaker 3: you know, the jets getting Aaron Rodgers, you know, while
15:27
Speaker 3: we're looking forward to a great season and seeing what
15:29
Speaker 3: he can do, and then they you know, run on
15:30
Speaker 3: and take their shirts off. However, we know how that
15:33
Speaker 3: turned out the first season, so he got injured, like
15:35
Speaker 3: on the first second play, first play, something like that.
15:37
Speaker 2: So maybe Aaron Rodgers taking his shirt off, you know,
15:41
Speaker 2: as long as he does it in total darkness, I
15:43
Speaker 2: think it's okay.
15:43
Speaker 3: It's fine.
15:44
Speaker 4: I'm sure there'd be people.
15:45
Speaker 2: Who like to do they do that at the total
15:47
Speaker 2: darkness thing, I'm not really sure.
15:48
Speaker 3: I don't know.
15:49
Speaker 2: You could probably have one of those on Mars.
15:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's talk.
15:53
Speaker 3: Let's let's let's move from Aaron Aaron to Steve because
15:59
Speaker 3: you know where Steve.
16:01
Speaker 4: Steve is back. We talked about Steve a couple of times.
16:05
Speaker 3: It's been a while since our last Steve discussion.
16:09
Speaker 2: I mean, I like Steve when he was one of
16:10
Speaker 2: the hosts of Monday Night Football. I really did.
16:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, he did a great job, he did.
16:15
Speaker 4: But this is a different Steve.
16:18
Speaker 2: Oh this is not the same Steve.
16:19
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, this is uh, this is a
16:23
Speaker 3: different Steve. So we had a situation a long time
16:28
Speaker 3: ago where people went Oh my gosh, I'm I'm in
16:31
Speaker 3: Georgia and I can see Aurora borealis. There's some solar
16:36
Speaker 3: activity that's producing this, And of course everybody went crazy
16:41
Speaker 3: and it was one of those deals where you know,
16:43
Speaker 3: everybody's running outside. I got to see this, I got
16:46
Speaker 3: to take pictures. I have to experience it. And I
16:48
Speaker 3: even had a few of my friends go, why didn't
16:51
Speaker 3: you text me? Like and I was like, I was,
16:53
Speaker 3: I was chasing on myself. What are you talking about?
16:56
Speaker 4: Usually you tell.
16:57
Speaker 3: Me and I'm like, I'm sorry.
16:58
Speaker 4: And I felt like such a jerk.
17:00
Speaker 3: But anyway, and then we had another incident here just
17:03
Speaker 3: in the last couple of days where it's like, oh
17:05
Speaker 3: my gosh, it's happening again, but not here. It didn't
17:07
Speaker 3: get to Georgia, I guess, but it did get pretty
17:10
Speaker 3: far south into Texas and and I guess also Mississippi, Arizona.
17:15
Speaker 3: But not It's not all Aurora. There's something else going
17:19
Speaker 3: on there.
17:20
Speaker 2: It's Steve. Steve has nothing to do with BYU or
17:26
Speaker 2: the San Francisco forty nine ers. By the way, Steve
17:32
Speaker 2: difference is the strong thermal emission velocity enhancement.
17:36
Speaker 3: How do we know that Steve Young isn't a strong
17:40
Speaker 3: thermal emission velocity enhancement. Maybe this whole left arm was
17:44
Speaker 3: was it could.
17:46
Speaker 2: Be sometimes I forget he was a lefty.
17:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.
17:53
Speaker 2: So Steve has you know, his own following. Yeah, and
18:00
Speaker 2: I mean the strong thermal emission velocity enhancement has its
18:04
Speaker 2: own following. There are people who who just go out
18:07
Speaker 2: and follow Steve around and they try to, you know,
18:09
Speaker 2: take pictures of Steve, and they look for Steve in
18:12
Speaker 2: the nighttime sky and this is, you know, it's kind
18:15
Speaker 2: of a Steve cult. I don't know if that's in
18:17
Speaker 2: Utah or everywhere, but there are folks who really want
18:22
Speaker 2: to see Steve. We didn't even know Steve existed one
18:28
Speaker 2: hundred years ago, not even really a couple of decades ago,
18:34
Speaker 2: because you see, Steve was a new scientific phenomenon that
18:39
Speaker 2: appeared within the last couple of decades after his playing
18:45
Speaker 2: time with the forty nine ers.
18:46
Speaker 3: I think I was waiting on you just slide that
18:50
Speaker 3: I knew it was coming.
18:52
Speaker 2: So though, there was an incredible event, ladies and gentlemen,
18:57
Speaker 2: that took place in between an interaction between the Sun
19:00
Speaker 2: and the Earth. It happened back on May tenth of
19:03
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, the year we're recording this, and what
19:06
Speaker 2: happened was there was a severe geomagnetic storm that was
19:11
Speaker 2: the result of an interaction between a large set of
19:15
Speaker 2: flares and I say set of flares because it was
19:16
Speaker 2: a couple of flares that it took place on the
19:18
Speaker 2: Sun and they arrived simultaneously, and they overwhelmed the Earth's
19:22
Speaker 2: magnetic field, and they caused the air to glow from
19:26
Speaker 2: the north pole of the Earth all the way down
19:29
Speaker 2: into southern Puerto Rico and latitudes in the in the
19:34
Speaker 2: teens in the northern hemisphere. The same night, the same
19:38
Speaker 2: phenomenon was also taking place in the southern hemisphere, and
19:42
Speaker 2: this was a really rare event. In fact, it's kind
19:45
Speaker 2: of like a hundred year storm. And what I thought
19:49
Speaker 2: was very sad about this is that you and I
19:51
Speaker 2: both saw this. We were you know, we did happen
19:53
Speaker 2: to text each other and we were trying to tell
19:55
Speaker 2: as many friends as we could and get the word out.
19:57
Speaker 2: I posted something on Facebook, but you know, people don't
20:00
Speaker 2: take me seriously on Facebook, which I can't blame them for,
20:02
Speaker 2: but you know, because I tell jokes about Steve anyway,
20:05
Speaker 2: But So the notion is though, that a lot of
20:07
Speaker 2: people came to be like the next morning and said, Okay, well,
20:11
Speaker 2: what time should we go look for this again tonight?
20:14
Speaker 2: And I had to tell them it's a once an
20:18
Speaker 2: one hundred years storm. You're not gonna it's not gonna
20:21
Speaker 2: the same. I mean, it could happen, we don't know,
20:24
Speaker 2: but it's not really gonna happen again the next night, right, Yeah, Well,
20:28
Speaker 2: guess what it did just happen again. It kind of
20:33
Speaker 2: happened again on August the twelfth, a couple of days ago,
20:40
Speaker 2: and it didn't get quite to the level of the
20:43
Speaker 2: May tenth event, but it was a severe G four
20:47
Speaker 2: class geomagnetic storm again because two solar flares arrived simultaneously.
20:54
Speaker 2: The results of the Corona mass ejections from those solar
20:56
Speaker 2: flares arrived at the Earth at the same time, and
20:59
Speaker 2: they kind of overwhelmed the Earth's magnetic field again and
21:02
Speaker 2: there was a giant aurora display. But in the midst
21:06
Speaker 2: of that aurora taking place, which is by the way
21:08
Speaker 2: seen in Texas, Mississippi, Arizona, and New Zealand. And you
21:11
Speaker 2: can go see the photographs on spaceweather dot com. Check
21:15
Speaker 2: the archive for spaceweather dot com for August fourteenth. That's
21:20
Speaker 2: the day where this story is appearing. In the middle
21:22
Speaker 2: of all those beautiful aurora pictures, there was this giant
21:25
Speaker 2: pink ribbon. And it turns out that that giant pink
21:30
Speaker 2: ribbon is not an aurora. It's not it's not northern lights.
21:36
Speaker 2: It is a flowing ribbon of gas somewhere around three
21:41
Speaker 2: thousand degrees celsius, which is super hot. It's flying through
21:46
Speaker 2: the Earth's magnetosphere at some speed around thirteen thousand miles
21:51
Speaker 2: per hour. None of this is the behavior of aurora phenomenon,
21:55
Speaker 2: by the way, which is just a fluorescence in the atmosphere.
21:59
Speaker 2: This thing is Steve, that pink ribbon of glowing gas
22:05
Speaker 2: is a strong thermal emission velocity enhancement, something that can
22:09
Speaker 2: also occur as the result of the interaction between the
22:13
Speaker 2: Sun and the Earth's magnetic fields. But it's just not
22:17
Speaker 2: quite the same thing as an aurora. And we didn't
22:20
Speaker 2: know that until after Steve Young quarterbacked for the San
22:25
Speaker 2: Francisco forty nine ers.
22:30
Speaker 3: Oh, just brilliant watch, and you work your way right
22:33
Speaker 3: back to it.
22:34
Speaker 4: I like it very well done.
22:37
Speaker 3: So when's it gonna happen again, Sean, I'm sorry.
22:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's gonna happen again exactly at the time
22:46
Speaker 2: that two kernal mass ejections at traveling at different velocities
22:51
Speaker 2: simultaneously arrive at the Earth at the same time and
22:53
Speaker 2: trigger a rare G four class geomagnetic storm. Yeah. Maybe
23:00
Speaker 2: go look for Steve Yeah nice, or you know whatever
23:03
Speaker 2: sports cast he's doing now. I'm not sure.
23:06
Speaker 3: Something else that happened this week, that's kind of cool.
23:08
Speaker 3: We had two planets kind of get really close together,
23:15
Speaker 3: and I guess they still are here as we're doing
23:18
Speaker 3: this for Thursday, but it was especially apparent a couple
23:23
Speaker 3: of days ago.
23:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, these two bright planets have been hanging out together
23:27
Speaker 2: in the morning sky really all month, for about a month,
23:31
Speaker 2: and they had their closest approach on Wednesday morning, August fourteenth,
23:36
Speaker 2: And people say, oh, darn, I missed it, and you
23:38
Speaker 2: guys are not telling me ahead of time on the podcast. Well, friends,
23:41
Speaker 2: they're still together, right, Planets don't move quite that fast,
23:45
Speaker 2: so yes, you've potentially missed their very closest approach, but
23:50
Speaker 2: they're right there next to each other. Go out and
23:52
Speaker 2: look in the next several days, and you'll see them
23:55
Speaker 2: in that pre dawn sky. The two brightest objects up
23:58
Speaker 2: in that direction, which is least the direction of the
24:01
Speaker 2: rising sun. Those are not stars, they're planets. So look
24:09
Speaker 2: to the east see the brightest two objects. You'll see
24:11
Speaker 2: them very close together. The brighter one is the planet Jupiter.
24:15
Speaker 2: The less bright one is the planet Mars. Jupiter is
24:19
Speaker 2: moving quickly, because it's not really moving that quickly. It's
24:23
Speaker 2: because of the Earth's relative position to Jupiter moving fairly quickly.
24:27
Speaker 2: Mars is kind of moving along with us a little
24:29
Speaker 2: bit more so. What that does to the relative motions
24:31
Speaker 2: in the sky, it's going to make Jupiter look like
24:34
Speaker 2: it's moving fast in the morning sky, Mars not quite
24:38
Speaker 2: moving as fast. They're both climbing upwards. They're both going
24:41
Speaker 2: to rise earlier and earlier to be more visible as
24:44
Speaker 2: we move into the fall, and they're going to stay
24:47
Speaker 2: together and roughly in the constellation of Tars for a while.
24:50
Speaker 2: But right now they're really really close, so make sure
24:53
Speaker 2: you check them out and see them. While those two
24:55
Speaker 2: planets are very close together.
24:57
Speaker 3: Coming up after a quick break, we're going to talk
25:02
Speaker 3: about Boeing and this isn't just about a starliner. It's
25:06
Speaker 3: about Boeing in general, and we'll get into that right
25:10
Speaker 3: after this. So we have at risk of being called fanboys.
25:36
Speaker 3: Whenever the folks at SpaceX have successes, we talk about
25:40
Speaker 3: their successes. When they've had complications or failures, we've talked
25:44
Speaker 3: about those as well. So I think we cover everything
25:47
Speaker 3: that's here. We just know the story that has been
25:50
Speaker 3: SpaceX and them having a lot of wins. As same
25:53
Speaker 3: goes for James Webb. We were frustrated for a long
25:56
Speaker 3: time about the James Webspace telescope. We've joked and laugh
26:00
Speaker 3: when they dropped it, even though that was probably not
26:02
Speaker 3: funny to any of them at all until they got
26:05
Speaker 3: it into space and then it worked just great, and
26:07
Speaker 3: it's been win after when after win, and they're probably
26:10
Speaker 3: looking back at the drop, there's probably a few of
26:13
Speaker 3: them still going, yeah, it's still not funny, but at
26:16
Speaker 3: least they know that they survived the fall. Now, Boeing
26:21
Speaker 3: in general, they've had a rough stretch here, and it's
26:27
Speaker 3: not just confined to one mission. It's not just confined
26:33
Speaker 3: even to Space. There's just a lot going on with Boeing.
26:37
Speaker 3: So yesterday Boeing having a press conference, or it was
26:43
Speaker 3: Boeing's press conference right yesterday, and we'll talk about that
26:47
Speaker 3: more on next week's show. But what we already knew
26:52
Speaker 3: before the press conference was this story about a need
26:57
Speaker 3: for some quality control improvements at Boeing. I mean that's
27:05
Speaker 3: the public statement. Do you think that they got it
27:07
Speaker 3: in those words that nice from NASA when they were
27:11
Speaker 3: told we need to improve quality control.
27:17
Speaker 2: You know, when your parents come in and they oversee
27:22
Speaker 2: the way you cut the lawn or the way you
27:25
Speaker 2: did the laundry or whatever chore you were supposed to
27:27
Speaker 2: do that day, think back to your you know, teenage
27:30
Speaker 2: years and and they issued a report on your work
27:36
Speaker 2: that said that your work does not meet international standards
27:40
Speaker 2: or agency requirements. I'm sure if your dad said that
27:43
Speaker 2: to you about the way you cut the lawn, it
27:45
Speaker 2: would sting among day. There probably would be you know,
27:52
Speaker 2: some follow up activities that you would have to engage in,
27:57
Speaker 2: you know, like perhaps restarting the and you know, maybe
28:01
Speaker 2: going and addressing some of those issues that your father
28:05
Speaker 2: recognized and left on the table for you. So Boeing
28:09
Speaker 2: as a subcontractor for NASA, and yes, they've had a
28:13
Speaker 2: rough summer at the Boeing company in general, and people
28:17
Speaker 2: will say, well, you know the space you know that
28:19
Speaker 2: that part of Boeing is not the same company as
28:22
Speaker 2: the Boeing aircraft. It doesn't matter if you're wearing a
28:25
Speaker 2: T shirt that says Boeing, you know, the seven thirty seven,
28:30
Speaker 2: the star Liner, that all these things. You don't need
28:33
Speaker 2: this story to add to those other things. And yeah,
28:37
Speaker 2: we're gonna we've been beaten the Starliner hammer here pretty
28:40
Speaker 2: hard on this podcast. We're gonna let that rest today.
28:44
Speaker 2: But we do have to address the NASA's Office of
28:48
Speaker 2: the Inspector General, which you know that's kind of their
28:52
Speaker 2: internal watchdog agency within NASA. That organization has reviewed some
29:00
Speaker 2: of the assembly procedures and outcomes with the Space Launch
29:05
Speaker 2: System's upper stage. Now, Wes, you and I got to
29:08
Speaker 2: go see the lower stage. The Big Boy, the main booster,
29:13
Speaker 2: arrived at Kennedy Space Center via a barge from New
29:17
Speaker 2: Orleans and that was a super exciting day and everything
29:21
Speaker 2: seems to be great with that first stage. You know,
29:25
Speaker 2: Jacobs and other companies being heavily involved in that. But
29:28
Speaker 2: Boeing been working on the upper stage. That's you know,
29:31
Speaker 2: that's where all the payload's gonna go. Right, that's where
29:34
Speaker 2: we're gonna actually carry things to space. And they're and
29:36
Speaker 2: they're using what they call the Block one B component
29:40
Speaker 2: to build a larger cargo area for SLS so it
29:45
Speaker 2: can carry all the twinkies and you know, ho hose
29:48
Speaker 2: and all that stuff to the Moon so that the
29:51
Speaker 2: astronauts canna have twinkies and hose when they're on the
29:53
Speaker 2: Moon and all the other camping materials that they need.
29:56
Speaker 2: So it's important to get that correct.
29:59
Speaker 3: Well.
30:00
Speaker 2: So what's happened is the NASA Office of an Inspector
30:04
Speaker 2: General has kind of been doing some oversight on that
30:07
Speaker 2: design and construction of the upper stage Block one B.
30:12
Speaker 2: I know that was a long story, but they found
30:15
Speaker 2: out that it does not meet international standards or agency requirements. Ouch.
30:21
Speaker 2: So when when Dad comes in and says, hey, I
30:24
Speaker 2: checked the lawn and not only was the blade not
30:28
Speaker 2: even you didn't even cut the weeds in the back,
30:33
Speaker 2: imagine that conversation happening at NASA's Micheaux assembly facility in
30:39
Speaker 2: New Orleans, where you're putting together the second stage for
30:42
Speaker 2: a rocket that's going to carry human beings to the
30:44
Speaker 2: Moon and they need their twinkies and ho hos and
30:46
Speaker 2: camping equipment while they're up there, and your container that
30:50
Speaker 2: you were going to strap to the top of the
30:52
Speaker 2: car on the camping trip just wasn't up to spec.
30:58
Speaker 2: That's you know, these are really trained analogies. I know that,
31:02
Speaker 2: but that's what we do on this podcast. So anyway,
31:04
Speaker 2: so this has led to in the in the words
31:07
Speaker 2: of space dot com in this article. Check it out
31:10
Speaker 2: on space dot com, great website for following space news.
31:13
Speaker 2: This has led to quote numerous corrective action requirements requests
31:20
Speaker 2: issued by the Defense Contract Management Agency more acronyms the
31:26
Speaker 2: d c m A. Right, they got some crs initiated
31:31
Speaker 2: initiated by the d c m A for the Block
31:36
Speaker 2: one B by the o I G. All right, so
31:39
Speaker 2: that's that's what we're talking about right here.
31:40
Speaker 4: Okay, that's some serious stuff.
31:43
Speaker 2: A CAR is It can vary in level of severity.
31:46
Speaker 2: This corrective action request can vary in level of severity.
31:50
Speaker 2: It indicates that work has not conformed to the specific
31:54
Speaker 2: contract requirements, so that boeing has to be added to
32:01
Speaker 2: Starliner stuck astronauts on the International Space Station and seven
32:07
Speaker 2: thirty sevens that they continue to find engineering problems with Man,
32:12
Speaker 2: I'm glad I don't live in Seattle. Although Seattle is
32:15
Speaker 2: a very nice place to live, I'm glad I'm not
32:17
Speaker 2: an aerospace engineer anywhere near the city of Seattle right now.
32:22
Speaker 2: That's all I can say.
32:23
Speaker 3: And that's the point, you know, going back to what
32:25
Speaker 3: you were saying about, saying, well, this isn't the same
32:27
Speaker 3: people that do this or the same people that do that.
32:30
Speaker 3: When the overall company, right, when your umbrella has this
32:36
Speaker 3: many holes in it, there's just a lot of people
32:39
Speaker 3: under there getting wet. That's the whole thing. And it's
32:42
Speaker 3: so much about really all of this. And we're talking
32:46
Speaker 3: about confidence in you know, what they're going to try
32:49
Speaker 3: to do to send people, you know, to the moon.
32:52
Speaker 3: When you're talking about someone deciding I'm going to get
32:55
Speaker 3: on an airplane and I'd like to land safely on
32:58
Speaker 3: the other side without complications, I mean, you have to
33:01
Speaker 3: have that confidence. You have to have some sort of
33:07
Speaker 3: ability to know as you're going to get on that
33:11
Speaker 3: craft that you're going to get off of that craft
33:13
Speaker 3: safely at some point.
33:15
Speaker 4: And when you just.
33:16
Speaker 3: Have all of these little issues and then this is
33:19
Speaker 3: a pretty severe scarlet letter to be wearing around as
33:23
Speaker 3: a company to get this from NASA.
33:27
Speaker 2: And it's about the Boeing brand. Yep, you mentioned it,
33:31
Speaker 2: and what you just said confidence the Boeing brand has
33:37
Speaker 2: been a staple American industry for the last hundred years.
33:46
Speaker 2: It is it is very important that this company succeeds
33:52
Speaker 2: in these high risk ventures, and they have done so
33:56
Speaker 2: time and time and time again. Their record of success
34:00
Speaker 2: is phenomenal. If you've never gotten a chance to go
34:03
Speaker 2: visit the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, that basically
34:08
Speaker 2: is a history of the Boeing company, although it has
34:10
Speaker 2: lots of other vehicles from other companies out there. I
34:12
Speaker 2: understand that, but you can actually tour the original Boeing
34:16
Speaker 2: facility where they first started building airplanes. It's just really cool.
34:22
Speaker 2: And if there's anybody from Boeing who here's this podcast,
34:26
Speaker 2: we're pulling for you. Absolutely we want you to succeed.
34:31
Speaker 2: I for weeks was on this show saying, oh, Starliner,
34:34
Speaker 2: it's just not that bad. You know, this is clickbait,
34:37
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of not really fake news, but
34:40
Speaker 2: it's enhanced headlines and really everything's okay. Well, I had
34:45
Speaker 2: to quit saying that.
34:47
Speaker 3: So I still maintain at the time it was the
34:49
Speaker 3: right thing to say. It's not like we were we
34:52
Speaker 3: were in on some kind of conspiracy. No, no, no,
34:55
Speaker 3: we were reporting what was there to be reported. Now
34:58
Speaker 3: the other people, I guess just get asked correctly. I
35:00
Speaker 3: don't know, but they got there eventually.
35:03
Speaker 4: But no, you're exactly right. We're pulling for them.
35:05
Speaker 3: We want there to be as many options as possible.
35:09
Speaker 3: We want there to be. This is terrible. I mean, well, okay,
35:13
Speaker 3: they're stuck. They're going to have to get a different
35:15
Speaker 3: ride home. That's not good because what if there's a
35:18
Speaker 3: complication for some reason, God forbid with SpaceX, what is
35:21
Speaker 3: the option then you have to fly home with the Russians? Right,
35:24
Speaker 3: we don't want that. We don't want to go backwards.
35:26
Speaker 3: We want more progress and everything to move forward. So
35:29
Speaker 3: we're pulling for you, Boeing.
35:31
Speaker 2: We remember that nearly decade of time where we had
35:34
Speaker 2: no vehicles that could take astronauts to the space station
35:36
Speaker 2: and we were having to buy tickets on Russian spacecraft.
35:40
Speaker 2: We don't want that. So I could speak in an
35:44
Speaker 2: editorial sense for Wes and I on this show, this
35:47
Speaker 2: is not something that we're in favor of. We do
35:50
Speaker 2: not want to see Boeing fail. We sometimes come off
35:54
Speaker 2: as SpaceX fanboys, but that's just because we're reporting on
35:58
Speaker 2: the fact that they're succeeding. Will sound like that too
36:03
Speaker 2: with Boeing. I tried to with Starliner. I said, no, no,
36:06
Speaker 2: there's nothing to see here. Everything's fine. I was like
36:09
Speaker 2: Kevin Bacon an Animal House. Everything's fine, It's all fine,
36:14
Speaker 2: and then I had to quit saying it. So, yeah, well,
36:19
Speaker 2: well this story doesn't help. No, And I hope they
36:22
Speaker 2: get it cleaned up quickly. I hope, I hope that
36:25
Speaker 2: they can, you know, mitigate whatever the the corrective action
36:30
Speaker 2: requests are requiring of them, and they and they bring
36:34
Speaker 2: those specs back up to standard quickly at the the
36:38
Speaker 2: show facility down in New Orleans with all the Boeing subcontractors.
36:42
Speaker 2: So so, yeah, best wish is Boeing. But that's that's
36:46
Speaker 2: probably a troubling day.
36:48
Speaker 3: Let's talk primordial black holes and are they do they?
36:54
Speaker 4: Are they exist? Are they real?
36:55
Speaker 3: They? They haven't been proven yet, right, but if they
36:58
Speaker 3: did exist, wouldn't have been good for Stars, right.
37:03
Speaker 2: So the notion is that there are these black holes
37:08
Speaker 2: that were formed in a very different way than all
37:10
Speaker 2: the other black holes that we generally talk about on
37:13
Speaker 2: this show, which are either one of two classes. Either
37:16
Speaker 2: they're a stellar mass black hole, a star that turned
37:19
Speaker 2: itself inside out, or they are these super massive black holes,
37:22
Speaker 2: which are objects found at the center of most, if
37:26
Speaker 2: not all, galaxies that are on the order of a
37:29
Speaker 2: million solar masses. But these little guys, primorial black holes
37:35
Speaker 2: are tiny by comparison, way less than one the mass
37:41
Speaker 2: of one Sun, and they are thought to have originated
37:46
Speaker 2: at the formation of the universe, somewhere in the process
37:49
Speaker 2: of the Big Bang. The math tells us as we
37:53
Speaker 2: model the universe, and you know, we're not always right
37:55
Speaker 2: with those models, but the math tells us that these
37:58
Speaker 2: objects should have formed. Now, we don't have data from
38:04
Speaker 2: anybody actually locating one of these and going, oh, I've
38:07
Speaker 2: found one here it is, but the math is leading
38:11
Speaker 2: us to believe that they exist. Okay, So that's the setup,
38:13
Speaker 2: all right. So on Universe today dot com, great website
38:17
Speaker 2: for astronomical stories. We love Universe Today. It's a great website.
38:21
Speaker 2: There's a story about, well, if these black holes actually exist,
38:25
Speaker 2: they might be little celestial bullies. And if those little,
38:30
Speaker 2: tiny primordial black holes are anywhere in the neighborhood of
38:33
Speaker 2: a binary star system. Pause. A binary star system is
38:37
Speaker 2: two stars that form close enough together that they're gravitationally
38:41
Speaker 2: bound and the orbit around one another. Okay, push play again.
38:45
Speaker 2: So if a primordial black hole is anywhere near that
38:48
Speaker 2: binary star system, it could disrupt it. In other words,
38:52
Speaker 2: it can actually even kick out one of those stellar
38:56
Speaker 2: siblings and replace it with itself. So imagine like a
39:02
Speaker 2: little punk primordial black hole coming along, and these two
39:05
Speaker 2: twin stars that have been living together for their entire
39:08
Speaker 2: life are just fine and their you know, kind of
39:10
Speaker 2: delicate dance, their ballet of gravitational attraction to one another,
39:13
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, this little primordial black hole
39:16
Speaker 2: comes in and just says, hey, you out out of
39:19
Speaker 2: the picture. I'm taking over your spot. And it gravitationally
39:22
Speaker 2: boots out one of those one of those binary stars
39:26
Speaker 2: and simply replaces it in that gravitational orbit with the
39:29
Speaker 2: other star. This would be considered rude in most cultures.
39:32
Speaker 3: I mean, suddenly it comes in and just takes Jesse's girl.
39:36
Speaker 3: I mean that's what happens sometimes, you know.
39:38
Speaker 2: I mean, and Jesse was a friend. We've all been
39:40
Speaker 2: a good friend. So there's that. So the new study
39:47
Speaker 2: led by astronomers at the University of Oklahoma and a
39:50
Speaker 2: global team of astronomers have done some modeling and they
39:54
Speaker 2: think they have shown that if primordial black holes exist
39:58
Speaker 2: the way that they lose energy when they interact with
40:01
Speaker 2: binary star systems, one of the possible outcomes is one
40:05
Speaker 2: of those binary stars getting booted out and the black
40:08
Speaker 2: hole actually replacing it. So then you'd have some rogue
40:11
Speaker 2: star that used to be part of a binary system
40:13
Speaker 2: that's now just floating in a drifting in some random
40:17
Speaker 2: way throughout the galaxy. So that's the one bad outcome,
40:20
Speaker 2: and now you have the other poor binary star who
40:22
Speaker 2: has to put up with this new little primordial black
40:24
Speaker 2: hole that just moved into its apartment and took over
40:27
Speaker 2: the other bedroom. I think that's weird, by the way.
40:30
Speaker 2: So this is what this is what this new paper suggests,
40:34
Speaker 2: and it also suggests that that interaction with binary systems
40:39
Speaker 2: may be something that's detectable with our telescopes on Earth.
40:43
Speaker 2: So this could lead to an observation path where we
40:47
Speaker 2: can finally detect whether or not these primordial black holes
40:52
Speaker 2: actually exist, So to me, that's one of the cool
40:54
Speaker 2: aspects of the story. Again, read about the story on
40:57
Speaker 2: Universe today dot com.
41:00
Speaker 3: If they're able to validate the model, then they might
41:03
Speaker 3: actually be able to decide whether or not the planets
41:05
Speaker 3: have to have two Christmases, two Thanksgivings because things get
41:08
Speaker 3: complicated once that other star has to go somewhere else.
41:13
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's separations are never easy and all
41:15
Speaker 2: of these things have to be considered.
41:17
Speaker 3: It's complict It always hurts the kids the most. That's
41:19
Speaker 3: who gets hurt the most, one hundred percent. All right,
41:22
Speaker 3: let's talk about the co Cola Space Science Center. You
41:25
Speaker 3: guys have a few things on your calendar coming up,
41:27
Speaker 3: including the Columbus Toying Comic book Show and Astronomy Night
41:31
Speaker 3: coming up this So if.
41:32
Speaker 2: If you're on the list to get notified as soon
41:35
Speaker 2: as these podcasts posts and you're in the city of Columbus,
41:38
Speaker 2: we have one this weekend. We have an Astronomy Night
41:41
Speaker 2: this weekend at the Space Science Center August seventeenth, nine pm.
41:46
Speaker 2: Check out the website of the Space Science Center for details.
41:49
Speaker 2: If you don't hear it quite that quickly, don't worry.
41:51
Speaker 2: We have another one coming up on the thirty first
41:54
Speaker 2: of August. That's not here at the Space Science Center.
41:57
Speaker 2: It's out of one of our partner organizations, the FDR
42:00
Speaker 2: State Park, Franklin, Delano Roosevelt State Park. We'll be having
42:04
Speaker 2: an Astronomy Night at that location. And then in between, oh,
42:08
Speaker 2: by the way, that's on the thirty first of August.
42:10
Speaker 2: In between, if you're looking for some weekend fun, we
42:13
Speaker 2: do have what Wes just mentioned, our Columbus Toy and
42:16
Speaker 2: Comic Book Show that's happening on August twenty fifth. If
42:19
Speaker 2: you are a sci fi fan, or a comic book collector,
42:22
Speaker 2: or you just like geeky toys and comic books, come
42:25
Speaker 2: down and hang out with the crew on August twenty
42:28
Speaker 2: fifth here at Space Science Center and enjoy the Columbus
42:31
Speaker 2: Toy and Comic Book Show. If you want to know
42:33
Speaker 2: details about any and all of these events, visit the
42:37
Speaker 2: website for the Space Science Center here at Columbus State University.
42:39
Speaker 2: That website is www. I figure you'll probably remember that part.
42:43
Speaker 2: Here's the part you might not remember. CCSSC dot org.
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Speaker 2: Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
42:52
Speaker 3: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
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