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Did Quipu Come from Uranus? · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead.
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Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, madies. When made
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Speaker 3: of stars, you could be from high they would New Mexicomus,
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Speaker 3: where all stars?
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Speaker 4: When we are made of stars. I'm West Carol, joined
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Speaker 4: by my good friend doctor Sean Cruising from Cologne State
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Speaker 4: Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 2: Hey Sean, Hey, we's good to be here today.
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Speaker 4: We have we have. We're gonna get to the astronauts
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Speaker 4: in a minute. But I'm just telling you right now,
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Speaker 4: I'm ready for the astronauts to come home, so the
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Speaker 4: story's over, right, I'm just ready for the stuck astronauts
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Speaker 4: story to be over. They're probably ready for their adventure
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Speaker 4: to be over, but we'll get to that one in
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Speaker 4: just a second. I want to start with Boeing because
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Speaker 4: obviously there is a lot hanging in the balance with
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Speaker 4: what's going on with Boeing as the company is talking
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Speaker 4: about layoffs. Is it a real possibility of some layoffs
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Speaker 4: at Boeing? Is it a bad sign for SLS moving forward?
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Speaker 4: Or is there a little bit of gamesmanship going on
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Speaker 4: here as far as wanting some federal money? Like where
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Speaker 4: are things with these potential layoffs or what do we know?
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Speaker 4: At least you probably don't have all the inside info.
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Speaker 4: But what do we know about what's going on with
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Speaker 4: Boeing and the potential layoffs and what it could mean
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Speaker 4: for us headed back to the moon.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So here's the thing I can tell you, and
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Speaker 2: that's that on Friday, February seventh, Boeing called in all
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Speaker 2: the SLS workers. There's about eight hundred of them, and
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Speaker 2: they had a meeting. And this meeting went for about
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Speaker 2: six minutes. So it's not a long meeting.
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Speaker 4: These kinds of meetings tend to be short.
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Speaker 2: It was a very short meeting. Yeah, and the meeting.
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Speaker 2: In the meeting, Boeing officials announced to their employees who
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Speaker 2: were working on the Space Launch System. Remember, folks, this
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Speaker 2: is our ride back to the moon. This is the
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Speaker 2: main project that NASA has been working on in human
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Speaker 2: spaceflight since the Shuttle program closed down in two thousand
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Speaker 2: and eleven. So when that happened, they switched. They transferred
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Speaker 2: to the Space Launch System Program, the ARTEMIS program take
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Speaker 2: astronauts back to the Moon. Boeing the main contractor on SLS,
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Speaker 2: with its eight hundred employees. They announced to those eight
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Speaker 2: hundred employees that four hundred of them could lose their
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Speaker 2: jobs as the new administration considers canceling the program. Now
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Speaker 2: we've not heard as as we're recording the show today,
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Speaker 2: we've not heard from NASA, We've not heard from President Trump,
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Speaker 2: from Elon Musk, from any of the apparent insiders on this.
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Speaker 2: All we know is that Boeing officials had this very
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Speaker 2: brief meeting and told their eight hundred employees that possibly
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Speaker 2: four hundred of them may be gone because the administration
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Speaker 2: is considering canceling the Artemis program. So so Boeing employees
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Speaker 2: were in form February seventh the company was making preparations
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Speaker 2: to cut up to four hundred jobs from the program
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Speaker 2: because of quote, revisions to the ARTOMIS program and cost
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Speaker 2: expectations unquote. This line I just read to you is
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Speaker 2: from SpaceNews dot com. You can read the article on
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Speaker 2: SpaceNews dot com Also, Space News has an exclusive quote
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Speaker 2: from a Boeing spokesperson, but they did not name the
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Speaker 2: Boeing spokesperson, but the quote is this quote to align
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Speaker 2: with revisions to the Artomist program and cost expectations. Today,
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Speaker 2: we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential
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Speaker 2: for approximately four hundred fewer positions by April twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 2: The quote further went on to say this will require
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Speaker 2: sixty day notices of involuntary layoffs be issued to impact
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Speaker 2: employees in the coming weeks in accordance with the Worker
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Speaker 2: Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act unquote. So what they're saying is, hey,
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Speaker 2: you know, we have these federal regulations we have to follow.
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Speaker 2: We are required to give our employees sixty days advanced
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Speaker 2: notice of an involuntary layoff so that they can retrain
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Speaker 2: and be prepared to do a different job. And if
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Speaker 2: the new administration is going to cut this program as
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Speaker 2: soon as April, we have to tell our people right now.
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Speaker 2: So that's what we're doing now, Wes. As you mentioned
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Speaker 2: at the top of the story, could it just be
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Speaker 2: that Boeing is trying to pressure politicians into coming out
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Speaker 2: and saying, oh, We're not canceling that program. The Artemis
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Speaker 2: program is far too important. Well, I don't know, we'll see,
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Speaker 2: but you can kind of see the handwriting on the
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Speaker 2: wall that since SpaceX is developing what would effectively be
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Speaker 2: the challenger to the Space Launch System, the competitor of
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Speaker 2: the Space Launch System in the fact that they're making
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Speaker 2: a big moon capable vehicle called Starship, and then Boeing
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Speaker 2: is coming out and doing this, And of course we're
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Speaker 2: none of us are immune to the headlines that are
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Speaker 2: going on where cuts are happening throughout the federal government. Anyway,
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Speaker 2: it's an interesting time. It's an interesting time for all
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Speaker 2: of us in America, but again particularly here in the
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Speaker 2: space program as major industry components are trying to figure
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Speaker 2: out what to do with their workforce ahead of possible rearrangements.
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Speaker 4: And you said the staff of eight hundred, so this
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Speaker 4: is cutting them in half, I mean.
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Speaker 2: Basically would cut them in half, so approximately, right, So
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Speaker 2: these are approximate numbers. But but you know, I've read
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Speaker 2: other places where Boeing has about eight hundred people working
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Speaker 2: on the SLS system.
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Speaker 4: So and we know the now president at his inauguration
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Speaker 4: talk to about eventually going to Mars. And obviously we
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Speaker 4: had that moment with Elon, you know, having his kind
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Speaker 4: of goofy thumbs up moment. But I would think that,
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Speaker 4: you know, if we're thinking about thinking about Mars and
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Speaker 4: thinking about that is something that we're eventually planning to do.
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Speaker 4: You got to figure somewhere in all of this SLS
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Speaker 4: would place some sort of part in maybe the next
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Speaker 4: step towards the next step which will eventually get us
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Speaker 4: to Mars. So it'll be interesting to see how this
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Speaker 4: all plays out in the coming I guess by April
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Speaker 4: twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 2: There's two things to really think about in all of this.
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Speaker 2: Number One, Space launch System. The SLS is not a
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Speaker 2: reusable rocket. It's not the main booster lands in the ocean.
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Speaker 2: Even the solid rocket boosters, those two rocket boosters on
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Speaker 2: the outside that helped Space Shuttle go to space reformatted
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Speaker 2: now for SLS, even those are not planned to be
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Speaker 2: recovered where they were recovered throughout the entirety of the
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Speaker 2: Space Shuttle. So you're looking at an era in human
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Speaker 2: spaceflight or just in aerospace in general where reusable rockets
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Speaker 2: are becoming the norm. And this behemoth moon rocket was
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Speaker 2: maybe the last of a generation of vehicles that was
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Speaker 2: non reusable, and so you have that at play. You
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Speaker 2: also have at play that both President Trump and Elon
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Speaker 2: Musk have effectively equated Boeing with the failed efforts of
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Speaker 2: the Biden administration to retrieve a couple of astronauts from
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Speaker 2: the International Space Station. They've effectively made equivalencies with Boeing
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Speaker 2: as being kind of a legacy space company that let
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Speaker 2: America down. I mean, they're not saying those words directly
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Speaker 2: at Boeing. One could imagine why Boeing and the Trump
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Speaker 2: administration are not the best of friends. So you're having
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Speaker 2: all of these developments take place in a political climate
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Speaker 2: where that's true.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean I was really going to just
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Speaker 4: segue into the next story by saying and it completely
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Speaker 4: unrelated and story there's no clear metaphor to this or anything,
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Speaker 4: but no, I mean, you nailed it exactly. They seem
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Speaker 4: to have sort of laid that out by tying into
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Speaker 4: this specific failed mission of sorts of being able to
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Speaker 4: send up the crew of two on the test and
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Speaker 4: get them to the International Space Station and then get
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Speaker 4: them back home on the same spacecraft, which in retrospect
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Speaker 4: and just sort of kind of and I know, we
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Speaker 4: don't have to go through the whole story again. We
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Speaker 4: talked about this. By the time they actually were able
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Speaker 4: to send it back. Hey, they could have come home
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Speaker 4: on that, but they just weren't comfortable making that call
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Speaker 4: at the time, which has led to the long standing
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Speaker 4: conversation of they're stuck. They can't get home. Their ride
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Speaker 4: is there. The plan was, once the transition was made
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Speaker 4: to make them a part of the next crew was
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Speaker 4: to say, Okay, you're part of Crew nine. When it's
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Speaker 4: time for Crew nine to come back home, you'll just
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Speaker 4: come back with them. We'll take two people off of
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Speaker 4: Crew nine. You're now part of Crew nine. And that's
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Speaker 4: what they've done. And that's not necessarily common, but it's
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Speaker 4: not unheard of. This is sort of a procedure that's
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Speaker 4: in place, and once we were talking about it on
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Speaker 4: the show that that's what they were going to do.
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Speaker 4: It's not like we looked at that and went, oh
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Speaker 4: my gosh, this is crazy. Why would they do? It
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Speaker 4: made the most sense, so they have their ride. The
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Speaker 4: plan was to come home this month, and then that
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Speaker 4: was pushed back to later into March, but of course,
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Speaker 4: the President has said we got to get them home
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Speaker 4: as soon as we can, and Elon has said we'll
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Speaker 4: get them home as fast as we can, and which
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Speaker 4: was kind of already the case. I mean, nothing about
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Speaker 4: that really changed. Elon had sent up a ship to
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Speaker 4: bring them home anyway, So now it looks like they've
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Speaker 4: bumped it up a little bit sooner for the return.
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Speaker 4: So what's the story on that?
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Speaker 2: So yeah, can I just mention also, they've been in
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Speaker 2: space since June, it's now February. We've had American astronauts
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Speaker 2: that have spent an entire year in space, and no
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Speaker 2: one planned a planned year in space, and no one
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Speaker 2: was jumping up and down about them being stranded or
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Speaker 2: all the health effects or the terrible things happening to them,
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Speaker 2: or they're losing weight, their family members are lonely, whatever,
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Speaker 2: all these things they're having to eat, you know, freeze
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Speaker 2: dried food, using the restroom where there's no gravity. These
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Speaker 2: are terrible things. No, that's standard things. So it's okay.
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Speaker 2: So in the shadow of all of.
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Speaker 4: That, not to mention the fact, by the way, and
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Speaker 4: I don't I feel like we can't we can't talk
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Speaker 4: about this enough. And I mean, I understand they missed
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Speaker 4: they missed the holidays with their family. I get that
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Speaker 4: that would be like it wasn't planned. They're missing time
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Speaker 4: with their families. But they're astronauts. They want to go
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Speaker 4: to space. When they're there, they're like, hey, I get
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Speaker 4: to be in space longer.
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Speaker 2: I think we've forgotten that going to space is the
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Speaker 2: greatest possible thing that an astronaut can experience.
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Speaker 4: They all don't get to do that. There are many
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Speaker 4: of them that just kind of wait there on the bench,
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Speaker 4: going can can I no, No, okay, well all right,
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Speaker 4: well I was still an astronaut. They want to go
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Speaker 4: to space, but they're like, you know, when they're with
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Speaker 4: a space program, they don't even get to go to space.
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Speaker 4: They're in space. They get to be in space longer.
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Speaker 4: I think, you know, even cutting it short is probably
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Speaker 4: a little bit of a oh man, But anyway, sorry,
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Speaker 4: I just.
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Speaker 2: Feel like Williams just did an interview from space that's
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Speaker 2: right where she basically said I'm fine, I'm good. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: so yeah, Okay. In the shadow of all of that,
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Speaker 2: the Crew nine mission, which, as you said, butch willmore
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Speaker 2: Sooney Williams now part of the crew nine team was
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Speaker 2: slated to come back first at the end of this
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Speaker 2: month February, but then it got bumped off into March
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Speaker 2: because why nothing wrong with their vehicle. Their vehicle is fine.
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Speaker 2: It's attached to this International Space Station. This is not
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Speaker 2: the Boeing star Liner. This is a Dragon crew vehicle
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Speaker 2: from SpaceX. It's there, it's waiting. So but they were
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Speaker 2: waiting for the next team to come up. They're waiting
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Speaker 2: for the crew as the Crew ten astronauts to arrive
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Speaker 2: so that they can conclude their Crew nine mission, hand
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Speaker 2: off the baton and go back to Earth. It's a
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Speaker 2: delay in the Dragon capsule for the Crew ten team
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Speaker 2: on Earth. That was the problem. And so then in
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Speaker 2: the very dramatic speeches, well, yes they're not speech. I
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Speaker 2: think it just was like tweets.
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Speaker 4: Well he used to call yeah, yeah, they used to
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Speaker 4: be called tweet and now they're called conversations. So it's
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Speaker 4: kind of like a speech.
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Speaker 2: But yeah, X is on X or whatever or truth
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Speaker 2: I guess some of them. Never mind. Anyway, in text
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Speaker 2: messages between President Trump, Elon Musk and the rest of
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Speaker 2: the world, the President just said, can you Elon please
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Speaker 2: go save these poor stranded astronauts. Elon says, you've got it, sir,
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Speaker 2: count on me. Okay, So what he did is he
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Speaker 2: he just switched the dragon capsules on the ground. He
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Speaker 2: was going to use a new one. It has to
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Speaker 2: go through a battery of tests before it can be
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Speaker 2: used for the first time. There were some delays in testing.
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Speaker 2: He's just going to jump back to a previously used
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Speaker 2: one and just it's kind of like, you know, changing
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Speaker 2: quarterbacks in the fourth quarter when you're already winning the game.
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Speaker 2: That's pretty much the you know, we're okay, we're just
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Speaker 2: going to swap quarterbacks. We've got this one in the bag.
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Speaker 2: So that's what's going on. Crew ten will go up
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Speaker 2: two two weeks earlier than the projected date because of
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Speaker 2: the capsule swap. So they're saving a whole they're saving
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Speaker 2: these poor stranded astronauts an entire approximately fourteen days, so
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Speaker 2: that they can come home sooner.
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Speaker 4: Can you believe they stranded them up there without gravity?
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Speaker 2: I mean, what were they thinking. You can't send astronauts
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Speaker 2: up there and strand them with no gravity.
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Speaker 4: By the way I saw, and you mentioned the changing
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Speaker 4: the quarterbacks when the game has already won. Congratulations Kenny, Pickett,
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Speaker 4: You've got a Super Bowl ring coming.
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Speaker 2: Here, and tough luck for Carson Wentz.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 4: I mean I saw someone pointed out to someone I
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Speaker 4: knew that's a Cowboys fan, and they're like, Kenny Pickett
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Speaker 4: has taken more snaps in the Super Bowl than Dak Prescott,
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Speaker 4: and I was like, ouch, that hurts man.
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Speaker 2: That's alkay.
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Speaker 4: Have a bit of a zing there. But anyway, we're
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Speaker 4: not here to make fun of We're not here to
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Speaker 4: make fun of Cowboys fans. Coming up after a quick break,
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Speaker 4: we're going to talk about that. We're going to go
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Speaker 4: back to May of last year and talk a little
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Speaker 4: bit about the solar storm and what may have happened
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Speaker 4: because of that. We'll talk about that next. No, we're
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Speaker 4: not here to make fun of Cowboys fans. That's not
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Speaker 4: what we're here to do. That's never really been our
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Speaker 4: goal or objective. I just I was pointing out some
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Speaker 4: trash talking that I witnessed and it kind of fit
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Speaker 4: in with what we were talking about. All right, let's go.
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Speaker 2: It's not like we're immune to doing that, I would say.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if the opportunity arises, I mean,
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Speaker 2: we'll pretty much make fun of any fan base in
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Speaker 2: the NFL. That's true particular show, including the Denver Broncos.
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Speaker 4: And the New York Giants.
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Speaker 2: And there you go.
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Speaker 4: You know, we're not We're not above making fun of
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Speaker 4: our own teams. I think sometimes we're harder on them
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Speaker 4: than anyone else. But anyway, all right, let's talk about
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Speaker 4: the back of the solar storm back in May and
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Speaker 4: two new radiation belts from calls from that? How does
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Speaker 4: that work? And you know, is it possible to have
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Speaker 4: too many rate? I understand I'm being the pessimist here,
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Speaker 4: but can you have too many radiation belts on the earth?
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Speaker 2: I mean you need to save a few for a
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Speaker 2: rainy day, you know, so if you have a couple
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Speaker 2: extra ones, Oh no, that's just silliness.
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Speaker 4: All right.
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Speaker 2: So there was a beautiful event back in May. It
17:47
Speaker 2: was actually on May tenth, and my friend Wes and
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Speaker 2: I were texting each other, going, hey, are you seeing
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Speaker 2: these northern lights in the southeastern United States where we live. Yes,
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Speaker 2: I do see those. And they saw them all the
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Speaker 2: way down to southern Puerto Rico, all the way down
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Speaker 2: to latitudes that were beginning to approach the equator. I
18:12
Speaker 2: think I saw eighteen degrees is like latitude eighteen degrees
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Speaker 2: is one of the anyway.
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Speaker 4: It was just some very southern northern lights. Yeah, those
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Speaker 4: were very southern northern lights. And so it was a.
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Speaker 2: Great big geomagnetic storm that took place on May twenty fourth.
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Speaker 2: It was obviously because they all are started by some
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Speaker 2: kind of solar storm. There were actually multiple flares that
18:38
Speaker 2: took place. Their combined effect all arrived at the Earth
18:43
Speaker 2: about the same time in a giant wave of radiation,
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Speaker 2: and that was the most powerful geomagnetic storm that the
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Speaker 2: Earth has experienced since March of nineteen eighty nine. Okay,
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Speaker 2: so cool story on space dot com about all of this.
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Speaker 2: Something really interesting has happened as a result of that.
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Speaker 2: We have in our magnetic field around the Earth something
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Speaker 2: called the Van Allen Belts. Ellen. The Van Allen Belts
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Speaker 2: are trapped radiation pockets that are held in place by
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Speaker 2: Earth's magnetic field, and it just holds literally billions of
19:21
Speaker 2: charged particles in place in these kind of pools bounded
19:30
Speaker 2: by different layers of the Earth's magnetic field. So we're
19:33
Speaker 2: very familiar with the Van Allen Belts in general. But
19:36
Speaker 2: what's happened now a new experiment from NASA is called
19:40
Speaker 2: the Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment or SEARB. Why is
19:46
Speaker 2: it called Colorado because it's a Denver broncos fan, ladies
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Speaker 2: and gentlemen. That's why go bo nix. No, that has
19:56
Speaker 2: nothing to do with it. It's because the University of
19:57
Speaker 2: Colorado was the lead academ institution. It was designed at
20:01
Speaker 2: the University of Colorado. So this mission, Colorado Inner Radiation
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Speaker 2: Belt Experiment, designed to study erth van Allen belts. It
20:09
Speaker 2: launched back in April of twenty twenty three, but then
20:11
Speaker 2: the satellite just like died as soon as it got
20:14
Speaker 2: up there. Basically, it just went silent and it just
20:17
Speaker 2: wasn't working, wasn't sending back data for a year, which
20:23
Speaker 2: is weird because the weird part is not that it died.
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Speaker 2: That happens all the time. It came back to life.
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Speaker 2: So the SEERBE mission fired itself back up again in
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Speaker 2: April of twenty twenty four. Well what did that mean?
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Speaker 2: That means the SEERBE mission, which was up there studying
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Speaker 2: Earth's radiation belts. It took it kind of a year
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Speaker 2: long hiatus, but it was back online just in time
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Speaker 2: to see this giant radiation storm coming in in May
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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four, and it recorded thing really interesting.
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Speaker 2: It recorded the presence of two brand new radiation belts.
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Speaker 2: So in addition to the long lived radiation belts, the
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Speaker 2: Van Allen belts that we know about up there, there
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Speaker 2: were also two temporary belts. In other words, two more
21:18
Speaker 2: pockets of storage in the earth magnetic field that got
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Speaker 2: temporary filled with these high energy electrons and protons coming
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Speaker 2: in from the Sun a giant coronal mass ejection, a
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Speaker 2: giant explosion on the Sun, and they came and impacted
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Speaker 2: the Earth and filled up two new layers in our
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Speaker 2: magnetic field. Now one of them is actually gone now
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Speaker 2: it was very short lived, but the other one is
21:43
Speaker 2: actually still present. And this reawakened mission, the Colorado Inner
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Speaker 2: Radiation Belt Experiment was able to make measurements of these
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Speaker 2: two radiation belts after being silent for a year. So anyway,
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Speaker 2: really cool story. Check it out on space dot. And
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Speaker 2: it's just one more reminder that the Sun and the
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Speaker 2: effects of solar storms and solar radiation has a direct
22:08
Speaker 2: effect on our planet, but also on the satellites that
22:13
Speaker 2: we have in orbit in space as well.
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Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit about the magnetic field, because
22:21
Speaker 4: if they discovered a music a sound coming from it,
22:24
Speaker 4: because I listened to this earlier you sent it to me,
22:28
Speaker 4: and I mean, it sounds just like an evening, like
22:33
Speaker 4: out of the city in Australia with birds and things
22:36
Speaker 4: making noise or something. I don't know. It sounds like
22:38
Speaker 4: some sort of nature sounds, which I guess it would be,
22:42
Speaker 4: but it does sound musical in many ways. So yeah,
22:46
Speaker 4: what's the deal with the music coming from our magnetic field?
22:51
Speaker 2: So to be clear, And this is really cool, and
22:53
Speaker 2: we're gonna play this clip for you because it's pretty neat.
22:55
Speaker 2: But the interesting thing is this. These are electromagnetic waves
23:02
Speaker 2: called chorus waves that are produced by complex effects in
23:07
Speaker 2: Earth's magnetic field, which I will attempt to explain in
23:10
Speaker 2: just a moment. But sometimes for there's a word called visualization,
23:17
Speaker 2: but it's just it's another word just experiencing data. A
23:21
Speaker 2: way to experience data in the electromagnetic spectrum is to
23:25
Speaker 2: take those em waves and turn them into sound waves
23:29
Speaker 2: because you get an idea about how their frequency is
23:32
Speaker 2: changing over time, and you get an idea about their
23:35
Speaker 2: relative intensities, and so scientists often turn light waves into
23:41
Speaker 2: sound waves so that we can hear them, so we
23:43
Speaker 2: can learn new things about those electromagnetic waves. So that's
23:46
Speaker 2: the process. It's not actually sounds coming from space, it's
23:51
Speaker 2: light turned into sound. And so now always had that
23:55
Speaker 2: set up for you. We're going to share this clip
23:57
Speaker 2: which was on a link from Scientific American, and Wes
24:01
Speaker 2: is going to play the sound for you.
24:14
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean that sounds like birds, right.
24:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, or New York Giants fans one or the other.
24:19
Speaker 2: I can't tell.
24:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's don't talk like that. Let's don't talk about
24:23
Speaker 4: the evil Green Birds super Bowl with Saquon Barkley. Let's
24:28
Speaker 4: don't talk about that anyway.
24:31
Speaker 2: So so once again, you probably heard of data visualization.
24:36
Speaker 2: That's where if you plot data you can maybe visually
24:39
Speaker 2: see some patterns. Well, this is not visualization. This is audioization.
24:44
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know is that a word it
24:46
Speaker 2: should be. I'm gonna I'm gonna brand it, you know,
24:50
Speaker 2: as I'm not a Stars podcast.
24:51
Speaker 4: I'm not an audioization ologist. So I don't know, but
24:55
Speaker 4: I liked it. I liked what you said. I mean,
24:57
Speaker 4: that sounds pretty good.
24:58
Speaker 2: Neither am I My and neither am I. But anyway,
25:02
Speaker 2: so you can tell that if you can take these
25:06
Speaker 2: invisible electromagnetic waves and turn them into something that you
25:09
Speaker 2: can experience with your ears, you can get a better
25:12
Speaker 2: flavor for the behavior of what those waves are actually doing.
25:15
Speaker 2: And that's and you hear these things that kind of
25:17
Speaker 2: bird sounds, but they're low frequency going to high frequency,
25:21
Speaker 2: which gives them kind of a chirp effect. It's kind
25:23
Speaker 2: of whoo woo. You can hear that kind of effect.
25:27
Speaker 2: That has to do with the way that electrons are
25:32
Speaker 2: rapidly orbiting around the magnetic field lines of the Earth,
25:36
Speaker 2: and they get into smaller and smaller and faster and
25:38
Speaker 2: faster orbits as they're releasing this radiation, which is called
25:42
Speaker 2: synchrotron radiation, and therefore that radiation increases rapidly in frequency.
25:48
Speaker 2: And you if you could turn that light then into sound,
25:51
Speaker 2: you get that kind of chirping sound. And maybe West
25:52
Speaker 2: could play it one more time.
25:54
Speaker 4: Oh, I wasn't ready for that. You had caught me
25:56
Speaker 4: off guard.
25:56
Speaker 2: Here we go, all right, So those strange bursts of
26:12
Speaker 2: radiation that you again heard interpreted as sound waves. Physicists
26:16
Speaker 2: call these chorus waves and chorus waves again, are a
26:21
Speaker 2: phenomenon of the magnetic field of the Earth interacting with
26:25
Speaker 2: incoming radiation from space that happens in large numbers when
26:30
Speaker 2: it comes from the Sun like we just talked about
26:33
Speaker 2: in the previous story. That can also be bursts of
26:36
Speaker 2: radiation that come from deep space as well. Think about
26:41
Speaker 2: like colliding black holes or a supernova explosion. Those kinds
26:44
Speaker 2: of things can also generate these high energy protons and electrons. Okay,
26:48
Speaker 2: So NASAs Magnetospheric Multi Scalar Satellites, a series of satellites
26:55
Speaker 2: that is a mission to study Earth's magnetosphere, have picked
26:58
Speaker 2: up the fact that these chorus waves not only come
27:01
Speaker 2: from the front facing part of the magnetic field of
27:04
Speaker 2: the Earth, which running you know, radiation running from the Sun.
27:08
Speaker 2: You'd expect that, but also these things can come from
27:12
Speaker 2: the magneto tail in other words, the stretched out part
27:17
Speaker 2: of Earth's magnetic field that is being blown directly away
27:21
Speaker 2: from the Sun by the solar wind from the Sun
27:24
Speaker 2: and it forms a long streaming magnetic tail. And there
27:28
Speaker 2: are even chorus waves coming from that disrupted and stretched
27:33
Speaker 2: out part of the magnetic field, which means they can
27:37
Speaker 2: be produced from a lot more places which you might
27:39
Speaker 2: think is pleasant. Well, okay, well, we could hear bird
27:42
Speaker 2: songs from a lot of different parts of the magnetic field.
27:44
Speaker 2: Here's the problem. Remember that we're interpreting them as sound waves,
27:48
Speaker 2: but they are actually bursts of electromagnetic radiation, and those
27:52
Speaker 2: kinds of bursts of em radiation can actually be damaging
27:56
Speaker 2: to satellites. They can be harmful, and so satellite operators
28:00
Speaker 2: have to be careful to protect their satellites from chorus
28:05
Speaker 2: waves among all of the other dangers in the very
28:11
Speaker 2: harsh radiation environment that is orbit around the planet. So
28:15
Speaker 2: this is just one more thing that we need to
28:18
Speaker 2: know a lot about. And again this is pointing at
28:20
Speaker 2: a new study of that you can find out in
28:23
Speaker 2: a great article called is Earth's magnetic field Making Music?
28:27
Speaker 2: From space dot com. Also Scientific American has a great
28:30
Speaker 2: article on chorus waves. Check those articles out and see
28:34
Speaker 2: how NASA scientists are studying the magnetic field to make
28:38
Speaker 2: sure we understand the space environment as well as we can.
28:41
Speaker 4: And you can listen to the sound again on the
28:43
Speaker 4: link on the Scientific American site as well. And to me,
28:46
Speaker 4: it just sounds like the friendliest police car trying to
28:49
Speaker 4: pull you over. You know, it's not that abrasive. It's
28:53
Speaker 4: nothing like woop poo poo. It's not that. It's kind of,
28:56
Speaker 4: you know, a little more uplifting, a little more positive. Hey,
28:59
Speaker 4: coming up after one more quick break? What is keypoo?
29:03
Speaker 4: And did it come from uranus?
29:05
Speaker 5: We'll find out next.
29:25
Speaker 4: Every episode starts with a disclaimer. You might get a
29:28
Speaker 4: uranus joke. It might happen. It's not my fault. Well,
29:32
Speaker 4: it is my fault, but you've been warned. I guess
29:34
Speaker 4: is more appropriate if you're surprised. It's not our fault. Anyway,
29:38
Speaker 4: keep woo. It's not from uranus, but it's enormous and
29:42
Speaker 4: they've just discovered this thing. So what is keepoo?
29:46
Speaker 2: Sometimes when the shots there, you just gotta take.
29:48
Speaker 4: You gotta take it. You miss one hundred percent of
29:50
Speaker 4: the shots you don't take, and you gotta do.
29:55
Speaker 2: A great article from New Scientists is what we're gonna
29:57
Speaker 2: talk about, and we're not gonna we're gonna stop talking
29:59
Speaker 2: about uranus because, as a quote from New Scientist says,
30:03
Speaker 2: does it have anything to do with uranus? Quote?
30:05
Speaker 3: No?
30:10
Speaker 4: Fair enough?
30:11
Speaker 2: Okay, So in the article, what is this thing really?
30:14
Speaker 2: So keepoo? Well, so first of all, where did the
30:16
Speaker 2: name come from? Well, it was named by German physicist
30:22
Speaker 2: Hans Barringer from the mox Plank Institute of Physics and Munich,
30:26
Speaker 2: who spent a lot of time in South America and
30:29
Speaker 2: saw these ink and counting system ropes where they tied
30:33
Speaker 2: knots into ropes and those are called keep who knots.
30:38
Speaker 4: So there it is.
30:39
Speaker 2: The thing is the object we're about to describe resembles
30:43
Speaker 2: a keep who knot. It kind of looks like a
30:46
Speaker 2: long rope with knots tied in it, and astronomers believe
30:51
Speaker 2: that they have now found the largest known structure in
30:55
Speaker 2: the universe. So you have to zoom out a lot
30:59
Speaker 2: before it looks like an ink and knotted rope because
31:04
Speaker 2: it's really really large. It's stretching one point four billion
31:10
Speaker 2: light years across the nighttime sky. One point four billion
31:16
Speaker 2: light years. This is an object that's very complex, and
31:21
Speaker 2: so what I'd like to do is just do just
31:23
Speaker 2: a little bit of teaching. I don't try not to
31:24
Speaker 2: do too much of that on the podcast. But here's
31:27
Speaker 2: the thing. Galaxies like the Milky Way, which are themselves
31:32
Speaker 2: islands of stars, sometimes get bonded together with other galaxies
31:37
Speaker 2: like our galaxy, the Milky Way is hanging out with
31:40
Speaker 2: the Andromeda galaxy, and they are actually gravitationally connected, and
31:44
Speaker 2: they are spiraling around one another like two pieces of
31:47
Speaker 2: soap going down a drain, and they are bound gravitationally,
31:51
Speaker 2: so they are actually in falling to one another. Eventually
31:53
Speaker 2: they will merge and become one object. Okay, well, now
31:56
Speaker 2: if you can imagine like those two galaxies, maybe they
31:59
Speaker 2: have some friends. They do. The friends of the Milky
32:02
Speaker 2: Way and the Andromeda galaxy are called the local group.
32:05
Speaker 2: So now we have a group of galaxies. Does that
32:08
Speaker 2: group have any other friends? Yes, the Local Group is
32:12
Speaker 2: actually gravitationally bound to a group called the Virgo cluster,
32:17
Speaker 2: and so they're gravitationally interacting with those galaxies in the
32:22
Speaker 2: Virgo cluster. And then there, if you start connecting galaxy
32:27
Speaker 2: clusters that are gravitationally bound to one another, you come
32:30
Speaker 2: up with what we used to think was the largest
32:32
Speaker 2: object in the universe, a supercluster. Well, in the past
32:37
Speaker 2: thirty years we've realized that even superclusters, even these megagroups
32:43
Speaker 2: of galaxies that are gravitationally bound to one another, can
32:47
Speaker 2: also be structurally bound to each other. So now you
32:51
Speaker 2: have groups of superclusters and these are called megastructures. And
32:58
Speaker 2: I know this gets all kinds of weird, but you
32:59
Speaker 2: go from galaxies to groups to clusters to superclusters to
33:04
Speaker 2: mega clusters or megastructures out there, it sounds.
33:10
Speaker 4: It sounds a lot like serial marketing.
33:12
Speaker 2: It does.
33:13
Speaker 4: Actually, we got the mega clusters you want, the super
33:16
Speaker 4: mega clusters featuring the almonds.
33:20
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask if it had almends it is,
33:23
Speaker 2: or there are there crunchberries in there too.
33:24
Speaker 4: I don't know, there could be. I mean, if we're
33:26
Speaker 4: gonna those are the crunchberries super super mega I can't
33:29
Speaker 4: even get the second r in there. Uh, mega clusters.
33:32
Speaker 4: So that's what you gotta get. You gotta get anyway, Sorry,
33:34
Speaker 4: be real, go ahead.
33:35
Speaker 2: I mean, and you know, if you listen with various
33:38
Speaker 2: electromagnetic radiation detection devices, you might even hear the snapcraft
33:41
Speaker 2: the pop coming from the super mega clusters out there.
33:45
Speaker 4: It could, it could if.
33:48
Speaker 2: You convert that radiation to sound. Anyway. Okay, good, So
33:51
Speaker 2: so now you have the largest structures. We used to
33:53
Speaker 2: think we're the biggest things out there, superclusters. Well then
33:57
Speaker 2: just within the last game and a half we figured
34:01
Speaker 2: out that even superclusters are linked in even larger structures,
34:06
Speaker 2: these mega groups of galaxies. The largest one ever discovered
34:10
Speaker 2: was something called the Great Wall, and it got named
34:14
Speaker 2: the Sloane Great Wall. Not because mister Sloan built it himself,
34:20
Speaker 2: that would take a really long time. No, it's because
34:22
Speaker 2: it came from the Sloane Digital Sky Survey, So it
34:25
Speaker 2: was the name of the of the effort to actually
34:27
Speaker 2: observe the sky in which they found the structure. Okay,
34:31
Speaker 2: so the discoverer of the Sloane Great Wall is a
34:35
Speaker 2: gentleman by the name of Jay Richard got the third
34:37
Speaker 2: of Princeton University, and he's got a statement for Hans
34:42
Speaker 2: Barringer and his friends at the mox Plunk Institute because
34:47
Speaker 2: doctor Barringer has now discovered the Ink and Knot structure
34:51
Speaker 2: called Kipo, is even larger than the Great Wall, until
34:57
Speaker 2: very recently thought to be the largest structure in We're
35:00
Speaker 2: in the universe. And once you lose your title, I
35:04
Speaker 2: mean much as Travis Kelcey, you know, came out and
35:06
Speaker 2: congratulated the Eagles.
35:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then left in Taylor Swift's pajamas something like that.
35:14
Speaker 4: What it looked like he was wearing.
35:16
Speaker 2: I don't know what Jay Richard Got was wearing when
35:18
Speaker 2: he said this, but Jay Richard got a Princeton University
35:21
Speaker 2: came out and said, the Kipoo structure end to end
35:25
Speaker 2: is slightly longer than the slowne great wall unquote. He's
35:28
Speaker 2: so he's verifying, Yes, it's actually bigger. Okay, back to
35:31
Speaker 2: the quote again, Congratulations to them for finding it. Class
35:35
Speaker 2: is not dissimilar to what Travis Kelsey said to the
35:38
Speaker 2: Philadelphia Eagles.
35:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, classy on his part. Nice, nicely done, nicely done.
35:42
Speaker 4: I like that. That's you know, you've been beaten. You
35:46
Speaker 4: can make a big fuss about it. And like they say,
35:48
Speaker 4: all great athletes will say, well, not all of them.
35:50
Speaker 4: A lot of great athletes will say, hey, the records were,
35:52
Speaker 4: it was mine, but it's just there to be taken
35:55
Speaker 4: by somebody else. You know. That's that's class. I like it,
36:00
Speaker 4: says J. J.
36:02
Speaker 2: Richard, God and Princeton University.
36:04
Speaker 4: I'm sorry the third you don't want to confuse it.
36:07
Speaker 4: And also like athletes, god forbid, we think that Odell
36:10
Speaker 4: Beckham Junior's dad is playing somewhere in the NFL, and
36:14
Speaker 4: we have to remind everybody that he's a junior.
36:17
Speaker 2: And maybe Ja got the third's father is also an astrophysicist.
36:21
Speaker 4: I don't know that's more likely than Odell Beckham's senior
36:24
Speaker 4: playing in the NFL, just say it.
36:30
Speaker 2: Well, so here's the thing. There's one more problem with
36:33
Speaker 2: all of this, which is simply this. Scientists have made
36:37
Speaker 2: an assumption about the universe as they try to figure
36:40
Speaker 2: out cosmology, which is basically an explanation for how the
36:44
Speaker 2: entire universe works as a giant machine. And their assumption
36:49
Speaker 2: is something called the cosmological principle, which says that way
36:53
Speaker 2: over there to your left is really no different than
36:56
Speaker 2: that way over there to your right, which is also
36:59
Speaker 2: really no different than that direction down below your feet,
37:03
Speaker 2: which is really also no different than that direction straight
37:05
Speaker 2: up above your head. Physics works the same everywhere, and
37:11
Speaker 2: if you get if you zoom out enough, you might
37:14
Speaker 2: have local asymmetries in the distribution of mass. In other words,
37:18
Speaker 2: you can have some clumpiness to things, but if you
37:21
Speaker 2: zoom out far enough, really have a pretty even mass distribution.
37:25
Speaker 2: In other words, there are no special places in the universe.
37:29
Speaker 2: Everything looks to be distributed in mass about the same. Well,
37:32
Speaker 2: when you find these absolutely titanic gigantic structures, it begins
37:39
Speaker 2: to call into question whether our assumptions about the homogeneous
37:43
Speaker 2: nature of the universe in terms of an even mass
37:46
Speaker 2: distribution is actually correct. And so now some scientists are
37:50
Speaker 2: putting finger to chin and saying, hm hm, maybe we're
37:56
Speaker 2: not right about the cosmological principle if you're seeing these structures.
38:02
Speaker 2: But never fear. Doctor Behringer from the Mox Blong Institute says,
38:06
Speaker 2: oh no, no, it's okay. We could just zoom out
38:09
Speaker 2: more because this universe it's it's really really big. And
38:13
Speaker 2: so it's still even though we're finding this very, very
38:16
Speaker 2: large structure. He says, quote making observations in too small
38:20
Speaker 2: a part of the universe, which has been done earlier,
38:23
Speaker 2: can be misleading unquote, So even these giant structures are
38:29
Speaker 2: small in comparison to the overall size of the universe.
38:33
Speaker 2: Thus conjectures come from doctor Behringer from the Max Blunk Institute.
38:38
Speaker 2: So this is a this is an effort to say no,
38:43
Speaker 2: I think the cosmological principle still stands. It's still meaningful
38:46
Speaker 2: and relax. Oh wait, r e l ax, relax.
38:53
Speaker 4: That's what Frankie says. Uh. And just to also a
38:56
Speaker 4: side note, the cosmotological principle says that yes, it is
38:59
Speaker 4: possible to wear too much makeup. All right, let's talk
39:02
Speaker 4: about this weekend. I know we always like to mention
39:05
Speaker 4: whenever there is going to be an astronomy night, we
39:08
Speaker 4: have to sometimes say, like we do with launches, weather permitting. Right,
39:13
Speaker 4: And I know that we're offering a couple things up
39:16
Speaker 4: because we talked about how if you're able to go
39:20
Speaker 4: to Astronomy Night, it's a very cheap Valentine's weekend event.
39:25
Speaker 4: You could do that. And here's the other thing is
39:29
Speaker 4: if for some reason the weather does not permit, just
39:32
Speaker 4: keep it in your back pocket that you know, if
39:35
Speaker 4: you didn't make other plans, you can always tell your
39:39
Speaker 4: significant other, well, we weren't gonna I was going to
39:41
Speaker 4: take you to Astronomy Night and then weather didn't permit.
39:46
Speaker 4: But you should plan to go assuming that weather does permit.
39:50
Speaker 4: But there you go at Providence Canyon State Park, a
39:52
Speaker 4: great place for astronomy Night.
39:55
Speaker 2: I mean, even if you took your significant other down
39:58
Speaker 2: to Providence Canyon just on the chance that it might
40:02
Speaker 2: clear that's true. Yeah, yeah, I think it's worthwhile. So
40:06
Speaker 2: Astronomy Nights Ladies and Gentlemen are a program that we
40:09
Speaker 2: offer here at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center,
40:12
Speaker 2: where doctor Rosa Williams and our astronomy team from the
40:16
Speaker 2: West Rock Observatory take our telescopes outside, set them up
40:19
Speaker 2: for people under rode beautiful nighttime sky and show them
40:24
Speaker 2: the universe, including the planets, the stars, the galaxies, the
40:28
Speaker 2: Great Wall you know, keepo. I mean whatever we can
40:31
Speaker 2: see in there by the way. You can't see those
40:33
Speaker 2: through our telescope. I'm just kidding, So those last two anyway.
40:36
Speaker 2: So the notion is this that it's a really fun time.
40:41
Speaker 2: It's a relatively cheap date because when we have them
40:43
Speaker 2: here at Space Science Center, they're free ninety five, and
40:46
Speaker 2: when we have them out at state parks, they're simply
40:49
Speaker 2: the price of the parking pass for the state park,
40:52
Speaker 2: so they're also kind of a lower expense kind of item.
40:58
Speaker 2: And if you happen to take your significant other out
41:01
Speaker 2: to the park this weekend out to Providence Canyon for
41:04
Speaker 2: our Valentine's weekend Astronomy Night out there, and if it
41:08
Speaker 2: happens to be a little cloudy or maybe even raining.
41:12
Speaker 2: I mean, you're still in you're still at the park,
41:18
Speaker 2: it's still dark, and you still didn't pay anything. So
41:21
Speaker 2: I think that it's you know, roll the dice, you know,
41:24
Speaker 2: roll the bones, go see what happens. Check it out.
41:27
Speaker 2: But we will. We would love for you to join
41:29
Speaker 2: us at one of our astronomy nights where you can
41:30
Speaker 2: actually see the sky. Whether it's a little choppy this weekend,
41:34
Speaker 2: but you know, as Wes said, give it, give it
41:36
Speaker 2: a whirl, and so we can invite you back to
41:39
Speaker 2: one of our astronomy nights when we actually have our
41:41
Speaker 2: telescopes functioning under a nice clear sky as well. Check
41:45
Speaker 2: out all the information for our astronomy nights and also
41:48
Speaker 2: find out information on the music under the Dome concert series.
41:51
Speaker 2: And by the way, we have another very special event
41:53
Speaker 2: I want to let you know about, which is on
41:56
Speaker 2: March the eighth. We have a coming event here at
41:59
Speaker 2: Space Sign Center on a Saturday. It's called Georgia stem
42:03
Speaker 2: Day and Georgia stem Day is sponsored by the Georgia
42:06
Speaker 2: Department of Education. It's going to be a career exploration
42:10
Speaker 2: opportunity for middle and high school students. Really the whole
42:13
Speaker 2: family's welcome. We're going to be open and free to
42:16
Speaker 2: the public that day, but we're going to be focusing
42:18
Speaker 2: on introducing middle school and high school students to professors
42:22
Speaker 2: from Columbus State University. They can talk to you about
42:25
Speaker 2: how to go to college, what majors to take, and
42:28
Speaker 2: what great careers await you on the other side of
42:31
Speaker 2: a college adventure. Come check that out. March the eighth, Saturday,
42:34
Speaker 2: here at Coca Cola Space Science Center. Once again, I'm
42:37
Speaker 2: pointing to the website www dot cc SSC dot org. Charlie,
42:44
Speaker 2: Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
42:46
Speaker 4: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
42:48
Speaker 4: this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
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