Latest / Made of Stars / Artemis II Could Launch Within a Week

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Artemis II Could Launch Within a Week · Made of Stars

0:00
Speaker 1: Warning.
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Speaker 2: The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
0:04
Speaker 2: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
0:07
Speaker 2: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
0:10
Speaker 2: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
0:15
Speaker 2: that's your own risk. Go ahead.
0:22
Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes? When
0:29
Speaker 3: made us stars, you could be from high they would
0:36
Speaker 3: New Mexicomus.
0:39
Speaker 4: Where are.
0:41
Speaker 3: Stars?
0:43
Speaker 5: When we are made of stars? I'm Wes Carol, joined
0:58
Speaker 5: by my good friend, doctor Sean Crue, was an executive
1:01
Speaker 5: director of Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
1:05
Speaker 4: Hey Sean, Hey, Wes's good to be here today.
1:08
Speaker 5: This is our final show before Saturday's Made of Stars
1:13
Speaker 5: Live two that we'll be doing at Columbus State University's
1:18
Speaker 5: Coca Cola Space Science Center inside the Atmosphere Theater. We'll
1:22
Speaker 5: talk more about all that later in the show. I
1:25
Speaker 5: just want to make sure that we just kinda keep
1:28
Speaker 5: our minds clear and straight, because this is like the
1:31
Speaker 5: final regular version before we get to do the extra
1:34
Speaker 5: fun version. I think the regular version's kind of fun too, though,
1:37
Speaker 5: isn't it.
1:37
Speaker 4: You and I certainly enjoy it. We hope that others
1:40
Speaker 4: enjoy it.
1:42
Speaker 1: That's what we try to do.
1:43
Speaker 5: Make it enjoyable, make it educational, make it fun, make
1:49
Speaker 5: ourselves laugh. I mean, I can't lie the number of
1:52
Speaker 5: times that my wife tells me, well, at least you
1:55
Speaker 5: think you're funny, and I go, well, I do. So
1:58
Speaker 5: I've got an audience of one for everything. And my kids,
2:02
Speaker 5: you know, they about half the time they think I'm funny,
2:06
Speaker 5: and I'll take that. Every now and then she laughs,
2:08
Speaker 5: even if she's trying not to. It kind of slips out.
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Speaker 1: So we try to make this fun that's the goal, and.
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Speaker 5: Amuse ourselves, but we also hope that you're able to
2:19
Speaker 5: learn something along.
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Speaker 4: The way at the same level of humor. My friend,
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Speaker 4: my wife will laugh and then say, you're not funny. Yeah, hahaha,
2:28
Speaker 4: you're not funny.
2:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:31
Speaker 5: I get a hahaha, And then I get kind of
2:33
Speaker 5: like a moron, like I'll get that sometimes and I
2:36
Speaker 5: know it's it's meant nothing but in love, and that's
2:39
Speaker 5: that's what's so special about it.
2:40
Speaker 1: That's a fun pet name to have is.
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Speaker 5: I did something moronic this week and I got called moron.
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Speaker 1: So you know it, and it was completely deserved.
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Speaker 4: As long as you know love is behind it, it's
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Speaker 4: all good.
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Speaker 5: It is, it really is, and it basically, I mean,
2:59
Speaker 5: this is the short version of the story is we
3:01
Speaker 5: were at an event and we were sitting in an
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Speaker 5: auditorium and I got up and stepped out just to
3:06
Speaker 5: get some air for a minute as before things got started.
3:09
Speaker 5: And when I came back in, I sat next to
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Speaker 5: a different woman about five rows behind where I was
3:17
Speaker 5: supposed to be sitting, and then realized it and went, oh, yeah, sorry,
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Speaker 5: I'm sitting up there.
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Speaker 1: My bad.
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Speaker 4: What was the timescale on that one? Like? How long
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Speaker 4: from sit to realize?
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Speaker 1: About two minutes?
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Speaker 4: Oh gosh, it's moronic.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is.
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Speaker 5: In my defense, they were both wearing a green shirt,
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Speaker 5: and when I walked in, I just kind of saw
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Speaker 5: it out of the corner of my eye and I thought, oh,
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Speaker 5: this must be my seat, and it was not, and
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Speaker 5: I couldn't figure out. I thought, why has she moved
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Speaker 5: further back behind people we were sitting near. And that's
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Speaker 5: when I realized it and looked over at this horrified
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Speaker 5: woman who was like, why is this guy sitting in
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Speaker 5: my husband's seat, so.
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Speaker 1: I earned it, you know.
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Speaker 5: Anyway, that's one of those cases where I got a good, solid,
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Speaker 5: you know, all right moron, And then I thought, well,
4:08
Speaker 5: you know.
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Speaker 1: The lady back there didn't call me a moron, So.
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Speaker 4: Anyway, it was clearly her husband's fault, by the way,
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Speaker 4: for evacuating the seat in the first place.
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Speaker 5: And strangely enough, he and I were wearing the same
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Speaker 5: colored shirt, so it could have happened to anybody, is
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Speaker 5: my point. That's all, or I am, in fact a moron.
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Speaker 5: But anyway, so we have made a Star's Live coming
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Speaker 5: up on Saturday.
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Speaker 1: We're excited. It's gonna be fun.
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Speaker 5: We'll give the full rundown on that maybe tease a
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Speaker 5: little bit of some of the stories we're gonna be
4:37
Speaker 5: talking about then. And part of what will be certainly
4:42
Speaker 5: I think carrying us, fueling us, if you will, is
4:45
Speaker 5: what's been fueling us for a little while now, which
4:48
Speaker 5: is this whole idea of, hey, let's send some astronauts
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Speaker 5: back to the moon and our first story today. I mean,
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Speaker 5: we got to start with this because April first still
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Speaker 5: could be the day. I mean, as we're recording this,
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Speaker 5: the first opportunity for Artemis two to launch human beings
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Speaker 5: around the Moon and back is April one. And you
5:13
Speaker 5: know what, I just happen to be going to Florida
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Speaker 5: next week.
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Speaker 1: For the purposes of the tax man. You know, we're
5:22
Speaker 1: going to Florida next week.
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Speaker 4: And you know, just saying, I wouldn't want in any
5:28
Speaker 4: way try to bribe your wife into, you know, like
5:31
Speaker 4: taking a slight diversion on her vacation just to see
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Speaker 4: a big old rocket launch. But she should do that
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Speaker 4: and take you with her.
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Speaker 5: And the fact that we're not going to be very
5:44
Speaker 5: far from where the rocket's going to be launching. It's
5:48
Speaker 5: not a crazy out of the way place, but you know,
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Speaker 5: it's certainly something that could happen.
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Speaker 1: We could be there for that.
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Speaker 4: I mean, if I found myself somewhere near that coast
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Speaker 4: of Florida, anywhere near and just with like and just
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Speaker 4: an extra twenty four hours to see a historic Moon launch,
6:09
Speaker 4: I think I might have to do that.
6:10
Speaker 5: And you know, you could argue that for space nerds,
6:14
Speaker 5: this moon rocket would make wherever it's launching from at
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Speaker 5: the time the happiest place on Earth. So you know
6:21
Speaker 5: I would already I would already kind of in spirit
6:24
Speaker 5: be there anyway, right?
6:27
Speaker 4: You would? You would?
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Speaker 5: I mean, it's I mean, to go from one happiest
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Speaker 5: place on Earth to another happiest place on Earth.
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Speaker 1: It might just work out.
6:36
Speaker 4: But different things make different people happy, and Moon rocket
6:39
Speaker 4: launches certainly make a certain class of human beings happy.
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Speaker 5: You know, Space mountain, space mountain to Artemis. Those two
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Speaker 5: things kind of would fit, wouldn't they.
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Speaker 4: Isn't happiness what it's really all about? After all?
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Speaker 1: It is? That is definitely the case.
6:55
Speaker 5: So we have a few days I guess that it's
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Speaker 5: pot like from the first to the sixth, Is that right?
7:01
Speaker 5: Those are the possible days for this to happen for
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Speaker 5: the month of April. And but at this point, I mean,
7:09
Speaker 5: we're getting We're we're getting down to the wire. So
7:12
Speaker 5: at this stage it's it's certainly looking like this could
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Speaker 5: very well happen in the next week.
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Speaker 4: You're talking about the window of launch opening up less
7:22
Speaker 4: than a week from today as we record this podcast,
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Speaker 4: And to start talking like a podcast instead of a
7:27
Speaker 4: casual phone conversation between Wes and me, let me just
7:30
Speaker 4: try to dial it in and just say, hey, friends,
7:32
Speaker 4: the Artemis two mission has the SLS rocket with the
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Speaker 4: Orion spacecraft on the pad right now, and Lori Glaize,
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Speaker 4: NASA's acting Associate Administrator for Exploation System Development Mission Directorate,
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Speaker 4: It's Mouthful, gave the positive update during tuesday's NASA Artemis
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Speaker 4: Program Update and said this, we are working no major
7:54
Speaker 4: issues as of right now. So as of Tuesday, they're
7:59
Speaker 4: doing all the testing necessary to make sure the spacecraft
8:05
Speaker 4: is preparing or prepared to launch, and with less than
8:09
Speaker 4: a week to go, they are not working any major issues,
8:12
Speaker 4: which means things are going swimmingly. I did take a
8:16
Speaker 4: quick look at the weather. I know it's a little
8:18
Speaker 4: far out maybe for accurate predictions, but the weather looks
8:21
Speaker 4: pretty good. This mission will be the first time that
8:26
Speaker 4: human beings have been in lunar orbit or in the
8:29
Speaker 4: lunar sphere since nineteen seventy two, more than fifty years ago.
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Speaker 4: So it's really really important event to let your children
8:41
Speaker 4: see if they were on spring break or something like that,
8:44
Speaker 4: to let them see this event if you were anywhere
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Speaker 4: near Florida. So anyway, so the mission, though will have
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Speaker 4: will be a ten day test flight around the backside
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Speaker 4: of the Moon for four astronauts with the Orion spacecraft.
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Speaker 4: We've talked about it many times on the show. Here's
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Speaker 4: the spec. The launch window opens Wednesday, April first. The
9:03
Speaker 4: launches are evening windows of launch. The first launch window
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Speaker 4: is in the evening of the first of April, around
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Speaker 4: six forty two pm would be the you know, the
9:15
Speaker 4: I'm sorry six twenty four pm dsle like say for
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Speaker 4: a moment, there are at six twenty four pm April first, seven,
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Speaker 4: twenty two pm, possibly on April second, eight pm April third,
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Speaker 4: eight fifty three, April four, eight I'm sorry, nine to
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Speaker 4: forty pm April five, and ten thirty six pm on
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Speaker 4: April the sixth. So within this next set of launch dates,
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Speaker 4: we call this a launch window. Those are the possible
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Speaker 4: days and times that Artemis could be launched, the earliest
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Speaker 4: of which is next Wednesday, April first, six twenty four pm.
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Speaker 4: And as long as everything is going swimmingly, I'm pretty
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Speaker 4: sure NASA wants to hit the launch button on the
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Speaker 4: first of those dates, not fiddle fattle around, shall we say,
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Speaker 4: to the end of that launch window they want to
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Speaker 4: hit April first, six twenty four pm. So yeah, so
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Speaker 4: there's your there's your available launch dates for the Artemis
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Speaker 4: two mission during this particular launch window from the Space coast.
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Speaker 5: Top of my list would be Screaming Yellow Zonkers, then
10:20
Speaker 5: cracker Jack's, then fiddle Fattle, and it's no offense to
10:23
Speaker 5: fiddle fattle.
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Speaker 1: That's just my personal preference.
10:25
Speaker 5: And it may have something to do with the fact
10:27
Speaker 5: that I've you know, founded a soccer club called Screaming
10:30
Speaker 5: Yellow Sonkers. Just for perspective on all of this, because
10:34
Speaker 5: you mentioned this, this you know, nineteen seventy two thing,
10:38
Speaker 5: and I wasn't born yet. I mean, we talk a
10:41
Speaker 5: lot about the International Space Station and how you know,
10:45
Speaker 5: there's a generation of people, you know, college students that
10:48
Speaker 5: you go the entire the entirety of their lives, we
10:51
Speaker 5: have had people orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station,
10:55
Speaker 5: which is kind of a surreal thought when you think about,
10:58
Speaker 5: you know, the age they would be at in their
11:01
Speaker 5: early twenties and that kind of thing. The fact that
11:04
Speaker 5: I'm fifty one and like, in my lifetime we haven't
11:09
Speaker 5: gone out of Earth orbit is kind of a surreal
11:13
Speaker 5: thought because you just sort of have this mindset of,
11:17
Speaker 5: you know, we've done these lunar missions, and I learned
11:22
Speaker 5: about them in school, and I just think about, you know,
11:25
Speaker 5: the shuttle program, which was big when I was a kid,
11:28
Speaker 5: and then we've done so much and it just kind
11:31
Speaker 5: of feels weird when you really take a minute and
11:33
Speaker 5: just go, hang on, we haven't done this in my lifetime.
11:38
Speaker 4: It's it's unfortunate, but it's a truth, which is these
11:44
Speaker 4: kinds of things tend to go in spits and spurts, right,
11:46
Speaker 4: They tend to go great guns while there's enthusiasm and
11:51
Speaker 4: money flowing, and then we kind of leave it alone
11:53
Speaker 4: for a while, and then all of a sudden, there's
11:55
Speaker 4: another reason for us to have more enthusiasm, and we
11:57
Speaker 4: put energy and funding behind things, and then it goes
12:00
Speaker 4: for a while. If you look back in history, human
12:02
Speaker 4: beings have been like this for a long time. We
12:07
Speaker 4: tend to jump on these kind of hot trends, pursue
12:10
Speaker 4: them for periods of time, and then there are giant
12:13
Speaker 4: gaps in those those kinds of events. And certainly Europeans
12:18
Speaker 4: exploring the Earth could be an analog of this, right,
12:22
Speaker 4: People of European descent tend to go in spurts. Then
12:26
Speaker 4: they tend to have many many years where they didn't
12:28
Speaker 4: really go and explore the world. So you know, it's
12:31
Speaker 4: analogous to that in a sense. We weren't really hard
12:36
Speaker 4: in the nineteen sixties, then we waited half a century
12:40
Speaker 4: and now possibly next Wednesday. Right, So that's why this
12:45
Speaker 4: is such an important event. It really will be an
12:48
Speaker 4: historic marker as we look back on humans exploring their
12:53
Speaker 4: solar system, when future generations look back the next time
12:58
Speaker 4: we go, it will be a marker moment, it right,
13:00
Speaker 4: And so that's that's why it's such an important event.
13:03
Speaker 4: And we just started wishing NASA and all the folks
13:06
Speaker 4: involved with space Larnch system and artemists to all of
13:09
Speaker 4: the best success.
13:11
Speaker 5: And in reference to the Europeans, you know, coming here,
13:15
Speaker 5: once you've gone from Galway to Graceland, you know there's
13:17
Speaker 5: not really much further to go.
13:19
Speaker 1: You know, you can stop there. You don't have to
13:21
Speaker 1: keep pushing west at that point, you.
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Speaker 4: Know, you know, especially if you want to visit the King,
13:27
Speaker 4: I would say.
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Speaker 1: Yes, more made of stars. Right after this.
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Speaker 5: Last week we talked about an asteroid and now.
13:55
Speaker 1: We got another asteroid. So I mean, is what what's
14:00
Speaker 1: going on with you?
14:01
Speaker 5: Do we need to invest in like a remake of
14:04
Speaker 5: the old video game or you know what it was perfect.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be remade. Let's leave asteroids alone.
14:10
Speaker 1: But what's going on with the asteroids? What should we
14:13
Speaker 1: be concerned?
14:14
Speaker 4: If you're having made of stars whiplash deja vu, you're
14:21
Speaker 4: not mistaken. We did talk about a giant well maybe giant.
14:27
Speaker 4: It would be a giant metea right. Anyway, it was.
14:30
Speaker 4: It was a large fireball that came in over the
14:33
Speaker 4: Cotton mient, United States, in a fairly populated area and
14:38
Speaker 4: burst with such power that it rattled windows and scattered
14:43
Speaker 4: debris over major populated area. And it was daytime visible.
14:48
Speaker 4: That was last week's show. The state was Ohio, up
14:52
Speaker 4: near Lake Erie and the Cleveland area. Turns out, I
14:57
Speaker 4: got a good friend in Cleveland. I don't know if
14:59
Speaker 4: he's found any fragments from that particular air burst. I
15:02
Speaker 4: should ask him. Anyway. Today's story is that a large
15:08
Speaker 4: fireball entered in over the continental US during the daytime
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Speaker 4: and air burst and dropped debris over a major metropolitan
15:19
Speaker 4: area in the United States, this time though not in Ohio.
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Speaker 4: This time Houston, Texas. Friends. I've got family in Houston,
15:30
Speaker 4: Texas too. I don't know if they're out meteorite hunting
15:32
Speaker 4: right now what they should be, because this fireball dropped
15:36
Speaker 4: meteoritic debris all over the suburban areas of Houston, Texas,
15:41
Speaker 4: over a very large landswath, and some fragments were even
15:46
Speaker 4: large enough that a chunk came through someone's roof of
15:49
Speaker 4: their house and entered into their domicile. So that's a
15:54
Speaker 4: pretty big event. The booms that were reported were loud
15:58
Speaker 4: enough that people all over the city were reporting these
16:02
Speaker 4: very loud noises that took place. The roughly one ton
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Speaker 4: meteor that struck the atmosphere, it exploded with an explosive
16:12
Speaker 4: power of about twenty six tons of TNT. There's no
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Speaker 4: small amount. By the way. It actually was bright enough
16:20
Speaker 4: that it was detected by the lightning detectors aboard NASA's
16:25
Speaker 4: GOES satellite in orbit around the Earth, which is a
16:29
Speaker 4: weather satellite that monitors the various weather patterns on the
16:34
Speaker 4: on the surface of the Earth above the or within
16:36
Speaker 4: the continental the United States. So this was amazing. That
16:41
Speaker 4: same thing happened in the Ohio event. So once again,
16:46
Speaker 4: if you think that you're just I'm just reading off
16:48
Speaker 4: the details of a previous story, it just repeated itself,
16:53
Speaker 4: which is weird. Right, Well, then the obvious question comes up. Okay,
16:58
Speaker 4: wait a minute, but if you have two of those
17:02
Speaker 4: within about a week's time, are they connected? Is something
17:06
Speaker 4: going on? Do we have some period of activity that's
17:12
Speaker 4: causing fairly large at least meteors to streak in over
17:16
Speaker 4: the United States? Very small asteroids, but very large meteors. Right,
17:21
Speaker 4: So here's the thing. The two events were not connected
17:27
Speaker 4: in the way that you might think. They did not
17:30
Speaker 4: come from the same place or the same vector coming
17:34
Speaker 4: in from space. They came in from different orbits, different altitudes,
17:37
Speaker 4: different angles, different directions. The other thing is they're not
17:41
Speaker 4: even made of the same material, so they're not part
17:45
Speaker 4: of the same object that broke up and then is
17:48
Speaker 4: now reigning debris over the Earth within a very short
17:52
Speaker 4: period of time. So when one of our favorite people
17:55
Speaker 4: to consult on these things is Bill Cook. Bill Cook
17:58
Speaker 4: is legend if you followed or the Space program, because
18:01
Speaker 4: he's been the head of the Near Earth Environment Center
18:04
Speaker 4: at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for quite some time.
18:08
Speaker 4: He is also the NASA's Meteorite Environment Office. He's the
18:13
Speaker 4: head of that. And so Bill Cook from NASA says
18:16
Speaker 4: this quote the two fireballs had completely different orbits, Plus
18:21
Speaker 4: the meteorites they produced are quite different. The Ohio finds
18:26
Speaker 4: are probably euch rights, whereas the Texas meteorites that have
18:32
Speaker 4: been recovered appear to be ordinary chondrites unquote Bill Cook.
18:37
Speaker 4: Now that obviously means a little bit of interpretation. Chondrites
18:42
Speaker 4: are a more common type of rocky meteorite. A lot
18:46
Speaker 4: of the medias that fall on the Earth and we
18:49
Speaker 4: discover them making the meteorites end up having these little
18:52
Speaker 4: inclusions on the inside called chondrules. They are little circular
18:57
Speaker 4: geological formations within those meteorites, and they're very old material
19:02
Speaker 4: that were left over from the formation of the solar
19:04
Speaker 4: systems about four and a half billion years ago. Those
19:07
Speaker 4: are common that those are commonly the type, all right. Now,
19:11
Speaker 4: a eucrite is eucrites are different. They're not chondrites. In fact,
19:16
Speaker 4: they're a chondrites, which simply means they don't have those
19:19
Speaker 4: little circular chondrules on the inside. But that means that
19:23
Speaker 4: they formed in the interior of some rocky world that
19:29
Speaker 4: all the metal kind of settled down, or the more
19:31
Speaker 4: dense parts settled down into the interior of that world.
19:35
Speaker 4: We call that differentiation, and so you can think of
19:38
Speaker 4: like a volcanic or a molten state for this material,
19:42
Speaker 4: where all these particles differentiate out and mixed for a
19:45
Speaker 4: very different kind of rock to throw at the Earth.
19:49
Speaker 4: And so those eucrites are the center of something probably
19:53
Speaker 4: like the asteroid vesta, something that's been processed in a
19:58
Speaker 4: process of planetary for over the history of the Solar System,
20:02
Speaker 4: then broke apart then fall on the Earth. Those are
20:04
Speaker 4: not very common anyway, So that just tells us that
20:07
Speaker 4: they're very different materials. Okay, all right, But here's the
20:11
Speaker 4: thing that does actually maybe connect these two events to
20:16
Speaker 4: this period of time during the year. As it turns out,
20:21
Speaker 4: even though these rocks are unrelated physically, that there is
20:25
Speaker 4: a season of meteorite falls, particularly fireballs, a fireball season
20:33
Speaker 4: that happens to occur sometime around the vernal equinox. Friends,
20:39
Speaker 4: that's a spring equinox that just happened last week. So
20:44
Speaker 4: that vernal equinox, there's a period of weeks around it
20:46
Speaker 4: where the average of bright meteors climbs ten to thirty percent.
20:52
Speaker 4: And as Bill Cook says, for reasons we don't fully
20:55
Speaker 4: understand the rate of very bright meters climbs ten to
20:58
Speaker 4: thirty percent during we around the vernal equinox unquote, so
21:03
Speaker 4: weird and mystery of the sky. They don't know why,
21:07
Speaker 4: but they see it in their own data, and yeah, Wes,
21:10
Speaker 4: it is weird. So really the peaks occur more fireballs
21:14
Speaker 4: from kind of February to June with that peak of
21:17
Speaker 4: that Bell curve somewhere around the vernal equinox.
21:21
Speaker 5: I mean, and no understanding whatsoever. I mean they have
21:27
Speaker 5: to have some theories on it, but no complete understanding.
21:31
Speaker 5: I'm just wrapping my brain around. You have March madness,
21:33
Speaker 5: you got baseball season started and then fireball season. That's
21:37
Speaker 5: not something I even had anywhere in my sports calendar.
21:40
Speaker 5: So I guess I need to pencil that in.
21:43
Speaker 4: Is it somebody from space that what Yukon's in the
21:45
Speaker 4: tournament again, throw rocks at the Earth something like that.
21:49
Speaker 4: I don't know, Yeah, it could be so again, last
21:53
Speaker 4: word on this is there is no source. I'm sorry,
21:56
Speaker 4: there is no known source of extra bree that might
22:01
Speaker 4: be causing this elevated rate. But that you say, do
22:06
Speaker 4: people have ideas about that? That's one of the ideas. Well,
22:09
Speaker 4: what if there's some you know, long extinct comet or
22:13
Speaker 4: some broken apart asteroid that was in our path long ago,
22:17
Speaker 4: and and there's just a fragment of residual material that
22:22
Speaker 4: we're running into around the vern equinox each year, and
22:26
Speaker 4: that's causing the elevated rate. That's at least a possibility,
22:29
Speaker 4: but we don't know of that source or what that
22:32
Speaker 4: source was or could be.
22:35
Speaker 5: So they have spotted some baby planets forming around a
22:42
Speaker 5: young star. This is a pretty cool story.
22:46
Speaker 4: This is a very cool story. These are the moments
22:48
Speaker 4: where science gets to confirm its ideas and you know,
22:54
Speaker 4: talked about the word theory. Theory is theory is a
22:57
Speaker 4: hypothesis that got some data behind it, and we were
23:01
Speaker 4: able to verify it in many different ways. There's a
23:05
Speaker 4: hypothesis that our solar system formed out of a giant
23:10
Speaker 4: cloud of swirling gas and dust. That's called the solar
23:13
Speaker 4: nebula hypothesis. But now in our modern age of more
23:18
Speaker 4: sophisticated telescopes, we've actually seen this process in various stages
23:24
Speaker 4: of the evolution of solar systems around other stars in
23:28
Speaker 4: our own galaxy. And that's great. It's still just a
23:33
Speaker 4: little bit short of real hard proof. That planets form
23:40
Speaker 4: in those swirls of gas and dust. Well now, only
23:43
Speaker 4: for the second time ever, a pair of planets has
23:47
Speaker 4: been seen forming in the process of forming within the
23:52
Speaker 4: disk of material around a very young star. This discovery
23:57
Speaker 4: was made by the European Southern Observatories very large tele telescope,
24:01
Speaker 4: and that telescope has imaged two planets forming around the
24:05
Speaker 4: young star, which is called wisp It two. If you
24:08
Speaker 4: want more details on the story, by the way, check
24:10
Speaker 4: out Universe today dot com. They're the source of the
24:13
Speaker 4: story that I've drawn my material from Universe today dot com.
24:17
Speaker 4: Both of these planets have been confirmed to exist through
24:21
Speaker 4: direct spectroscopy. In other words, we take the light from
24:25
Speaker 4: those distant planets, we run them through a spectrograph which
24:29
Speaker 4: breaks it apart into the rainbow colors, and we can
24:31
Speaker 4: actually see the red shifting and blue shifting of spectral
24:34
Speaker 4: lines telling us the motion of these objects. It's confirmation
24:38
Speaker 4: that they are planets and that they are orbiting their
24:40
Speaker 4: parent star. The whispit to system is also important because
24:45
Speaker 4: the star that we found these baby planets around is
24:48
Speaker 4: very similar to our own Sun. Many times we find
24:52
Speaker 4: these exoplanets or planets around other stars. We find them
24:55
Speaker 4: in orbit around stars that are nothing like our Sun.
24:58
Speaker 4: They're either really tiny red stars are they're much bigger
25:02
Speaker 4: kind of white to blue stars. And we don't really
25:06
Speaker 4: expect the planet to evolve in a similar way to
25:09
Speaker 4: planets in our own Solar system, including in especially our Earth. However,
25:14
Speaker 4: when we find these planets around other stars that are
25:16
Speaker 4: similar to our Sun, we say, oh, wait a minute,
25:19
Speaker 4: there's a possible pathway for this distant planet to have
25:22
Speaker 4: a parallel lifetime that's similar to what the Earth has
25:26
Speaker 4: gone through in its early evolution. And then could it
25:29
Speaker 4: possibly be in the Goldilock zone? Could it possibly be
25:33
Speaker 4: a planet that ends up with life on it? So
25:35
Speaker 4: that's a very interesting question. Again, this is the only
25:39
Speaker 4: the second time ever that distant exoplanets have been found
25:44
Speaker 4: in the process of forming around the parent star. The
25:47
Speaker 4: first was a star called PDS seventy, and this is
25:50
Speaker 4: a star called wisp It to those are the weird
25:53
Speaker 4: names are both catalog references. That's how they get those
25:56
Speaker 4: interesting names.
25:57
Speaker 1: More made of stars.
25:59
Speaker 5: Right after this, all right, NASA ready to deploy a
26:23
Speaker 5: water hunting tool, and a big part of what we
26:27
Speaker 5: talk about all the time when it comes to the
26:31
Speaker 5: things that NASA wants to find as they're looking out
26:34
Speaker 5: beyond the Earth is water for different reasons. So this
26:39
Speaker 5: is an important, you know device, if they're going to
26:43
Speaker 5: start hunting for water.
26:44
Speaker 4: Right, as we know life on Earth, water is vital, right.
26:49
Speaker 4: We can't survive or the organisms on Earth can't survive
26:54
Speaker 4: without water because we are built to function on water. Okay,
27:00
Speaker 4: So we don't know if other life forms in other
27:03
Speaker 4: places function on water the same way that Earth life does,
27:07
Speaker 4: but it probably does. And so two things about finding
27:12
Speaker 4: water in other places in the Solar system. Number one,
27:16
Speaker 4: that makes those places a good place to look for
27:20
Speaker 4: extraterrestrial life, right. And I'm not necessarily not necessarily talking
27:24
Speaker 4: about the green aliens that came and visited us during
27:27
Speaker 4: War of the Worlds, but I'm not necessarily not talking
27:29
Speaker 4: about them either, right, So there's that one. But the
27:32
Speaker 4: other part is that, in addition to looking for life
27:36
Speaker 4: forms and even simple life forms like very simple single
27:40
Speaker 4: cell organisms or that kind of thing, if you find
27:44
Speaker 4: water on other worlds and we're planning to go there,
27:48
Speaker 4: you know, refer to point one, we still need water
27:50
Speaker 4: to survive. We need water to drink, Yes, but we
27:54
Speaker 4: also need water to breathe because one of the major
27:57
Speaker 4: constituents of H two O is the O, and that's
28:00
Speaker 4: the oxygen that we need to survive as human beings. Also,
28:03
Speaker 4: hydrogen and oxygen that make up water can be separated
28:08
Speaker 4: and then recombined to create rocket fuel or to do
28:11
Speaker 4: electrolysis or some of these kinds of things to generate energy.
28:16
Speaker 4: And so the idea is if there's water up there,
28:19
Speaker 4: future colonists can be using that water. Okay, well, where
28:24
Speaker 4: are we going first. Well, it turns out that if
28:27
Speaker 4: you come to NAT of Stars Live this weekend, you're
28:30
Speaker 4: going to hear us discuss NASA's new plant for colonization
28:34
Speaker 4: and exploration of both the Moon and Mars. I'm not
28:37
Speaker 4: going to tell you anymore because I really want you
28:39
Speaker 4: to come to the podcast and see it live this weekend,
28:42
Speaker 4: but I will give you a hint that the Moon
28:45
Speaker 4: is involved. So we might be going back to the Moon. Obviously,
28:49
Speaker 4: we are trying to go back to the Moon with Artemis,
28:51
Speaker 4: but if we start building habitats or colonies there or
28:55
Speaker 4: research stations there, being able to exploit local resources is
29:00
Speaker 4: going to be very important, and the most important local
29:03
Speaker 4: resource is water. Because water can provide drinking water, it
29:07
Speaker 4: can provide breathing air, and it can provide fuel and
29:10
Speaker 4: energy for our machines. So if we can deploy a
29:15
Speaker 4: water detector on the Moon, that would be great. Well,
29:18
Speaker 4: it just so happens that the Japanese Space agency called
29:22
Speaker 4: JACKSA and the Indian Space Research ORGANIZATIONSRO are sending a
29:28
Speaker 4: polar explorer to the Moon. It's called LOUPEX stands for
29:33
Speaker 4: Lunar Polar Exploration LOOPPEX. So the LUPEX mission is going
29:39
Speaker 4: to the Moon. And so NASA said, Hey, since you're
29:42
Speaker 4: going to the Moon anyway, do you I don't know
29:44
Speaker 4: if this is the way the conversation went. By the way,
29:46
Speaker 4: I'm just fly something like this. Since you're going anyway,
29:52
Speaker 4: do you mind taking up one of our very critical
29:55
Speaker 4: water hunting tools so that we can scout out new
29:58
Speaker 4: sources of water on the moon stell Pole. Because it
30:01
Speaker 4: turns out we happen to be going there. Now I'm
30:03
Speaker 4: playing this up as if you know these two things
30:05
Speaker 4: weren't related. Actually, the LUPEX mission is part of the
30:10
Speaker 4: NASA collaboration with other nations to explore the lunar South Pole.
30:14
Speaker 4: All right, so that tool is called the neutron spectrometer system.
30:19
Speaker 4: It turns out that it detects neutrons. That's what it does.
30:22
Speaker 4: It carries this stuff called helium three gas, and it
30:25
Speaker 4: turns out when neutrons strike helium three gas, it creates
30:30
Speaker 4: a little zap of electricity. The electricity can be detected,
30:33
Speaker 4: and we know there's a neutron stream. Okay, well, neutrons
30:37
Speaker 4: kind of stream up out of the lunar soil anyway,
30:39
Speaker 4: So there's kind of this ambient rate of neutrons streaming
30:42
Speaker 4: up out of the lunar regolith is what they call
30:45
Speaker 4: the lunar soil. However, if there's a drop in lunar neutrons,
30:51
Speaker 4: it could be and probably is, because there's some kind
30:54
Speaker 4: of a water barrier, some kind of an ice shield
30:58
Speaker 4: that's blocking the neutrons. So if you have this neutron
31:01
Speaker 4: spectrometer system that detects neutrons, if you had that driving
31:05
Speaker 4: around on the surface of the Moon and it was
31:07
Speaker 4: just detecting neutrons to its heart content, when suddenly, all
31:10
Speaker 4: of a sudden it quits detecting neutrons, or the rate
31:13
Speaker 4: of neutron detection drops sharply, Then the data says, oh, hey,
31:19
Speaker 4: this might be a good place to look for subterranean
31:24
Speaker 4: water on the surface of the Moon. So that's how
31:26
Speaker 4: this instrument is going to be identifying these locations. Fewer
31:30
Speaker 4: neutrons means more water. More water means breathable air, water,
31:36
Speaker 4: use rocket fuel, and more important things for the future
31:40
Speaker 4: astronauts to go up and use on the lunar surface.
31:43
Speaker 4: Check this story out, by the way at NASA dot gov.
31:46
Speaker 4: Great to Obviously, a great source for space stories is
31:50
Speaker 4: NASA dot gov.
31:51
Speaker 1: More Made of Stars right after this Saturday. It happens
32:17
Speaker 1: Made of Stars Live two point zero.
32:22
Speaker 5: We did this back on November the first. We had
32:26
Speaker 5: a great time. We did it there in the Omnosphere
32:28
Speaker 5: Theater and then it was the lead in to Astronomy
32:32
Speaker 5: Night that night and we had a I think a
32:34
Speaker 5: great turnout for our first time doing it, and we're
32:37
Speaker 5: looking forward to another night of Made of Stars Live
32:42
Speaker 5: and Astronomy Night. But there's more to this event, and
32:46
Speaker 5: I'll let you talk about dinosaurs.
32:48
Speaker 4: This is really kind of a special weekend for the
32:50
Speaker 4: Coca Cola Space Science Center. Over the years, we have
32:54
Speaker 4: debuted news shows in our Omisphere Theater, Planetarium, it's been
32:59
Speaker 4: a while since we've done that. I'll be honest, it's
33:02
Speaker 4: been several years since we've done that. We get to
33:06
Speaker 4: do that this coming weekend. Friends, a brand new show
33:11
Speaker 4: in our Amosphere Theater called Dinosaur a Survival Story. And
33:16
Speaker 4: you might think to yourself, wait, did the dinosaur survive?
33:20
Speaker 4: I mean, I did see that Jurassic Park movie with
33:23
Speaker 4: the amber and the mosquitos and stuff. But well, all friends,
33:27
Speaker 4: they survived in a way that you might not be
33:29
Speaker 4: thinking of. And if you need to know the answer
33:32
Speaker 4: to that question, come down and watch the show. By
33:36
Speaker 4: the way, I will tell you. This is a show
33:37
Speaker 4: that's aimed at our younger audiences. Bring the kids down,
33:39
Speaker 4: bring the grand kids down for Dinosaur a Survival Story.
33:42
Speaker 4: It's a very fun look at the history of dinosaurs
33:46
Speaker 4: on planet Earth and how they might still be with
33:49
Speaker 4: us in one form or another. So you can check
33:52
Speaker 4: out Dinosaur or Survival Story either at five pm this Saturday,
33:57
Speaker 4: March twenty eighth, twenty twenty six, at five pm or
34:01
Speaker 4: at six pm. And you can even buy your tickets
34:03
Speaker 4: online ahead of time. We have a special family bundle
34:07
Speaker 4: that you just pay the price for three people fifteen
34:10
Speaker 4: dollars and you can get the whole family in up
34:13
Speaker 4: to six people. So you know it's like half price
34:16
Speaker 4: if you use it all the way. So you can
34:18
Speaker 4: bring a whole family for only fifteen dollars. That's a bargain, right,
34:21
Speaker 4: that's a value. In between the two shows at five
34:24
Speaker 4: and six PM, a good friend of the Space Science
34:27
Speaker 4: Center and former student here at CSU, doctor Michael Secinginger,
34:31
Speaker 4: is going to be presenting a show and tell of
34:34
Speaker 4: dinosaur and other fossils. We have a fossil collection that
34:38
Speaker 4: belongs to our good friend, mister Neil Garner, and Neil
34:41
Speaker 4: has shared that collection so that doctor Seconder can present
34:45
Speaker 4: a Q and a about fossils and the different animals
34:50
Speaker 4: from which they came, particularly fossils that are centered here
34:52
Speaker 4: in the Southeastern United States, which is kind of a
34:54
Speaker 4: cool thing. So that's going to be happening in between
34:57
Speaker 4: the Dino shows thirty six thirty and then Friends It
35:02
Speaker 4: All Takes Flight seven PM. Made of Stars Live two,
35:09
Speaker 4: the sequel Better, Stronger Than Ever Better.
35:15
Speaker 5: I was always a fan of the Mannequin two tag
35:19
Speaker 5: was on the move on the second movie. For the
35:23
Speaker 5: second movie Mannequin, Yeah interviewed Christy Swanson once and you
35:28
Speaker 5: know you gotta mention Mannequin two on the move when
35:30
Speaker 5: you interview Christy Swanson. So yes, it's the second version.
35:36
Speaker 5: And now that we've done it, like we got in
35:38
Speaker 5: there the first time and we thought, how are the
35:39
Speaker 5: acoustics going to sound in here? And they were great?
35:43
Speaker 5: How is this going to work with an audience in here?
35:44
Speaker 5: The audience was great, So we got all that figured out.
35:48
Speaker 5: So now we're ready to get in and it's like
35:50
Speaker 5: we've we've done the test round, we've we've had batting practice,
35:54
Speaker 5: now we're ready to use a baseball, and now now
35:56
Speaker 5: we're ready for you know, the game. So and we
36:02
Speaker 5: have and you you mentioned, uh kind of teased one
36:05
Speaker 5: of our topics, which will be interesting, and I'm sure
36:07
Speaker 5: we'll talk about Artemis. I know obviously we'll have a
36:11
Speaker 5: little bit more info. Will be two days closer to
36:13
Speaker 5: possibly that launch, so that'll be great. And if there's
36:17
Speaker 5: any updates that we have on that. Uh, that feels
36:20
Speaker 5: like one of those you know, developing stories at all times,
36:24
Speaker 5: because you never really know, uh, when you're gonna get
36:26
Speaker 5: the want waw or the like. No, no, no, we're still
36:29
Speaker 5: good and you're like, all right, that's all we want
36:30
Speaker 5: to hear. So, uh, you know, we'll have as much
36:34
Speaker 5: of that information as we can have for that. And
36:36
Speaker 5: the other part of this is if you come, we're
36:39
Speaker 5: going to try it to We didn't take questions last
36:41
Speaker 5: time because we ran a little bit long. Again, it
36:43
Speaker 5: was batting practice. We were figuring things out. Uh, this time,
36:47
Speaker 5: we know we have to a lot some time for
36:49
Speaker 5: questions at the end. The first comment we got when
36:52
Speaker 5: we finished last time was.
36:53
Speaker 1: Oh, was really upset you guys didn't ask any questions.
36:56
Speaker 5: And I was like the first guy and I was like,
36:59
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry, and he didn't sound like that, but
37:01
Speaker 5: that's the way it feels when you go we've disappointed someone,
37:05
Speaker 5: and you know, we want to make sure we do
37:07
Speaker 5: that this time. So you know, we have you know,
37:11
Speaker 5: that component of it. We want to make sure that
37:12
Speaker 5: we do as well. So we're really looking forward to it.
37:16
Speaker 5: And if you do, if you're if we can get
37:18
Speaker 5: your question in, especially if the question is something that
37:22
Speaker 5: we're ready to answer. If you come in here with
37:24
Speaker 5: some you know, deep deep track star trek question, we
37:29
Speaker 5: might not be able to help you on that. But
37:32
Speaker 5: if you come in, you know, with actual questions that
37:35
Speaker 5: you could ask, you know, I don't know, an astrophysicist
37:39
Speaker 5: or just some goofy radio guy. We'll we'll handle it.
37:41
Speaker 5: We'll get that done for you. You could be on the
37:44
Speaker 5: on the podcast for next week. So the show that
37:47
Speaker 5: we record on Saturday will be next Thursday's episode of
37:50
Speaker 5: Made of Stars, and we just want you to be
37:54
Speaker 5: part of it there with us.
37:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'd like
37:57
Speaker 4: to just give just a quick and we talked about
38:00
Speaker 4: like the you know, the opening day or whatever. Let
38:04
Speaker 4: me give you a hint of the starting lineup. All right,
38:06
Speaker 4: here's the batting order. Here's some of the here's some
38:09
Speaker 4: of the stories where we plan to cover on Native
38:11
Speaker 4: Stars Live. How about the asteroid that may have hit
38:15
Speaker 4: twice or was there a double strike out in that
38:18
Speaker 4: Arizona desert where that big meteor crater is. That's an
38:21
Speaker 4: interesting thing. How about this one. We're going to invade
38:24
Speaker 4: Mars with nuclear helicopters. That's what I mean. I just
38:30
Speaker 4: want to know what a nuclear helicopter is. That's a
38:32
Speaker 4: good one right there. How about this one mysterious deep
38:35
Speaker 4: space explosions we're going to be looking at some of
38:39
Speaker 4: the strangest of deep space explosions and why we don't
38:44
Speaker 4: fully understand some of these yet. How about this one
38:47
Speaker 4: artificial intelligence finding alien worlds. There's a subject when world's
38:54
Speaker 4: glide and as Wes said, we previewed this earlier in
38:57
Speaker 4: the show, but NASA's released their brand new plan for
39:01
Speaker 4: Mars and lunar exploration, including moon bases. We will be
39:05
Speaker 4: discussing that and the latest on the Artemis to mission.
39:09
Speaker 4: So all of these things are talking points that will
39:12
Speaker 4: be we'll be sharing with you during Native Stars Live
39:16
Speaker 4: the sequel Saturday, March twenty eight in Columbus State University's
39:20
Speaker 4: Coca Cola Space Science Centers on the Sphere Theater.
39:24
Speaker 1: And Sean and I hope to see you there.
39:26
Speaker 5: We thank you for listening, and we'll do this again
39:30
Speaker 5: on Saturday. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all of
39:41
Speaker 5: your garage door needs covered, residential and commercial service and repairs.
39:45
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