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Aurora Aftermath · Made of Stars

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism and uranus. Listen,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, mad sizes. When
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: made of stars, you could be from high they would
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: New Mexicomus, where all stars.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: When we are made of stars.
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  Speaker 5: I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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  Speaker 5: Cruisin from Lamba State Universities, Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: Hey Sean, Hey.
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  Speaker 2: Wess good to be here this morning.
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  Speaker 5: All right, we're gonna go back and talk about radiation
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: and the Aurora's the amazing phenomenon that happened now in
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: the last two years. Three times we're here as far
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: south as Columbus, Georgia, where we record the show. We
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: were able to see aurora in the sky, further south
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: than us were able to in some of those occasions.
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  Speaker 5: And we're at the point now where like it's fun,
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: you go out, you see it, you experience it, and
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: then the science takes over and says, all right, well,
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: let's talk about what was actually going on then, And
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: because you know, you and I both watched a video
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  Speaker 5: I sent it to you and I stumbled into it
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  Speaker 5: where it was someone talking about, hey, the auroras are
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: all fun and everything, but you know, if we had
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  Speaker 5: maintained hours of radiation at the level we were at,
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: it would have destroyed all of our communications. And I
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: think he said, uh, you know, blew us back to
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  Speaker 5: the Stone Age or whatever. Obviously we weren't anything close
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  Speaker 5: to that. That's just one of those clickbait kind of things,
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: I guess. But anyway, so what was actually going on?
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  Speaker 5: Because we've got some info here on research done on
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  Speaker 5: the ground, right, I mean it's not.
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  Speaker 2: That we're entirely allergic to clickbait on this show.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely well.
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  Speaker 5: Part of what we do, though, is we try to
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  Speaker 5: kind of explain some of that so that you don't
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: have to fall for it later. I mean, that's we've
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: touched on that before, and you know, so I guess
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: that means we have to, you know, click it so that.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: Other people don't have to.
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: Maybe I don't know, so you don't have that's right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: It kind of feels a little bit of that.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: But but now.
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  Speaker 2: The other thing where you know, if you if you've clicked,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: were the antidote, right, we already clicked and you already
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: read it. You're really worried you're losing sleep. Yeah, you're welcome.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: We're the medication to sort you out. That's that's what
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: we like to be.
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  Speaker 4: We try to do that.
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  Speaker 5: And I guess we can start with this, you know,
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  Speaker 5: actual science being done on the ground.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird. The world's ending. That's crazy. Well, I
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  Speaker 2: mean at some point, but not today, friends, not today,
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  Speaker 2: not for this reason anyway. All right, let's get to
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the real stuff. Here's what happened. Hey, you remember that
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: really cool aurora phenomena that happened on Veterans Day and
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: on November eleventh, twenty twenty five, where they saw man,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: they saw all. They saw Aurora all the way down
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to El Salvador, which is just crazy. Right. As Wes mentioned,
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  Speaker 2: it's the third time in like eighteen months. There's a
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: reason for that, friends. We are at solar maximum. That's
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the Sun's period of maximum activity, the most sunspot's, the
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  Speaker 2: most solar layers, the most twisted up and wound up
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: magnetic field. Soon the sun will begin sorting itself out.
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  Speaker 2: It'll reverse polarity on the polar the poles of its
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  Speaker 2: magnetic field, so it doesn't actually flip over. It reverses
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  Speaker 2: polarity as the north pole becomes the south pole. South
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  Speaker 2: pole becomes the north pole of the magnetic field, not
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  Speaker 2: of its rotation axis. And so when that happens, then
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  Speaker 2: everything begins to quiet down and we have eleven years
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  Speaker 2: until we're back. So enjoy your aurora phenomenon now while
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: we're at solar max. We won't be back to solar
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  Speaker 2: max again until around twenty thirty six. Okay, So all
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  Speaker 2: that's kind of just in the category of understood. Now,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: this is a story about the November eleventh aurors that
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: lots of people photographed, and good job out there photographing
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: and all those auroras and posting them up on Facebook,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: so I didn't have to everybody was out there doing that.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I actually missed this one. I think I told West
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: this offline, but I just sleeping. Let's just be honest anyway,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: So I missed this one, but I saw her Bridi's pictures,
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  Speaker 2: thank you very much. Okay. So on that night, there
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  Speaker 2: were a couple of coronal mass ejections from the Sun
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  Speaker 2: that managed to arrive at the Earth at the same time.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: One was moving a little faster than its predecessor, caught
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  Speaker 2: up to it and had a double coronal mass ejection
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  Speaker 2: or CME impact on the Earth that was more or
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  Speaker 2: less simultaneously, and so it triggered aurora phenomenon that lasted
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: for hours and was visible in all fifty states of
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  Speaker 2: the US, including Hawaii. That just doesn't happen every day.
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  Speaker 2: So a group of UK researchers began to look into
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  Speaker 2: this event, and they began to look at the radiation
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  Speaker 2: monitoring stations around the world, and that tells us Okay,
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  Speaker 2: we saw the aurora in the sky. We know these
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  Speaker 2: coronal mass ejections hit our magnetic field, but how much
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  Speaker 2: of that radiation actually made its way down to what
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: we call the ground level? And yes, the ground level
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  Speaker 2: includes thirty thousand feet where airplanes fly. That's more or
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  Speaker 2: less ground level in our thoughts about the atmosphere and
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: the surface of the Earth.
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  Speaker 5: Okay, this is exactly what Einstein was talking about about relativity, right.
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  Speaker 2: It is event that is a relatively thin layer compared
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  Speaker 2: to the size of the universe. Okay, So the idea
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  Speaker 2: is that these UK researchers from the Surrey Space Center
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  Speaker 2: and the UK Met Office that's not the Metropolitan Opera
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: by the way, that is the Meteorological Office. The UK
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  Speaker 2: Met Office began to measure all this aviation and otherwise
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  Speaker 2: monitoring stations for the radiation effects, and they found that
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  Speaker 2: the radiation at aviation altitude during that event on November
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  Speaker 2: eleventh jumped to its highest level in two decades, so
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  Speaker 2: it had not been that high. Again, Remember, this is
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  Speaker 2: large particles managing to get through our or i should
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  Speaker 2: say sub atomic particles. Not all of them are charged
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: because neutrons aren't, but sub atomic particles making it through
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  Speaker 2: that both the atmosphere and the magnetic field are protective
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  Speaker 2: shields down to the ground, so that we can say
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  Speaker 2: we've had radiation doses. This is the highest ground level
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  Speaker 2: radiation dose event since December thirteenth, two thousand and six. Thus,
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  Speaker 2: as Professor Clive Dyer of the Surrey Space Center, he
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  Speaker 2: went on to say that neutron monitors around the world
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  Speaker 2: also detected it, so it was detected at monitoring stations
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  Speaker 2: around the globe. So this event began as an X
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  Speaker 2: five class solar flare. If you follow the show, that's
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  Speaker 2: a strong one. It's not among the strongest ones, but
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  Speaker 2: it's a pretty good one. Right. But again, what then
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  Speaker 2: happened is you had two coronal mass ejections, two solar flares.
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  Speaker 2: Those CMEs caught each other and arrived simultaneous. And as
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  Speaker 2: that happened, Dire and his colleagues found that elevated radiation
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  Speaker 2: doses were at rates were at elevated dose rates at
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  Speaker 2: forty thousand feet that's up there where the airplanes fly.
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  Speaker 2: So certain high altitude transatlantic flights may have received twice
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  Speaker 2: the normal amount of radiation than the ambient cosmic ray
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  Speaker 2: radiation doses. So you're gonna get any time you fly,
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  Speaker 2: you're gonna get a little bit of a dose of radiation.
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  Speaker 2: But this dose of radiation was about twice the normal level.
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  Speaker 2: Now that's elevated, but it's not to the point where
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  Speaker 2: we get super concerned about humans. But remember, you're flying
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  Speaker 2: in an aircraft and a machine. And in twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 2: that aircraft is more controlled by computer technology than ever before.
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  Speaker 2: It's a fly by wire kind of vehicle. In other words,
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  Speaker 2: it's not all mechanical systems. And just electricity flowing through wires. No, no, no,
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  Speaker 2: it has chips and it has it components that allow
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  Speaker 2: decisions to be made autonomously for the pilots. So the
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  Speaker 2: really interesting thing is that this radiation level, whereas it
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  Speaker 2: may cause some minor health effects for passengers, probably not,
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  Speaker 2: but it was much more of a concern for the avionics,
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  Speaker 2: the electronics on board because during the storm's peak, the
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  Speaker 2: researchers estimate that single event upsets. Now this is where
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  Speaker 2: like a bit flips on the computer memory. Right, it
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  Speaker 2: was a one, now it's a zero. Now the data
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  Speaker 2: doesn't mean the same thing it meant before. Now some
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  Speaker 2: processors are trying to read that data and they can't
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  Speaker 2: figure it out all because some kind of an electronic
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  Speaker 2: particle came in from the Sun during a coronal mass
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  Speaker 2: ejection arriving at the Earth. Okay, those single event upsets
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  Speaker 2: or data flips could have occurred at rates about sixty
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  Speaker 2: errors per hour per gigabyte. Sixty errors per hour, one
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  Speaker 2: per minute per gigabyte. So if you're on an eight
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  Speaker 2: hour flight, let's just say I don't know how many
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  Speaker 2: gigabytes the average aircraft has in its memory of you know,
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  Speaker 2: all the electronics on board. But that's a lot of flips,
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  Speaker 2: and you can actually have issues where the avionics of
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  Speaker 2: an aircraft could be overloaded. Now we're not aware that
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  Speaker 2: any of that happened on November eleventh, but let's just
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  Speaker 2: say the ground level event of radiation detected by the
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  Speaker 2: Surrey Space Center in the UK Met Office was beginning
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  Speaker 2: to be at a level of concern for avionics.
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  Speaker 5: So I think about it like this because, like you say,
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  Speaker 5: you don't know what this effect would have been or whatever,
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  Speaker 5: but typically when you fly take you have to take
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: your phone and turn it off or put it on
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  Speaker 5: airplane mode. That alone tells me it probably potentially couldn't
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: take much of anything, right, I mean, if you're just
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: talking about oops, I tried to send a text message, Eh,
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: you know, we got problems like that to me, says
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: you know, even mine ear, And I understand you got
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: a plane full of people. Everybody needs to do it.
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: So I guess that's maybe how I thought of this
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  Speaker 5: in those terms.
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  Speaker 2: You know, there are certain redundancies and there are certain
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  Speaker 2: protective measures built into these computer systems. It's not like
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the good engineers at Boeing have never thought about this.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: So so there are those measures on board. But Wes
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: is right. The fact that you're being asked to shut
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  Speaker 2: your cell phone off so that you're not sending out
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: radio frequencies from little transmitters in all the seats on
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  Speaker 2: the aircraft is due to the fact that they don't
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: want to disrupt any of the electronics on board the
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: aircraft or the communications with the ground. So those are
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: those are the reasons. And so random electrically charged particles
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: coming in from the Sun through an aircraft at higher
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  Speaker 2: and higher levels, it's just something that you've got to
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: be aware of and you might want to avoid them.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And I say when I say you, I don't mean you,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I don't mean you've got to be aware of it.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: I mean the airlines and the aircraft manufacturers and the
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: people who are whose job it is to ensure safe
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: travel across oceans. Those people need to be aware of
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: what's taking place on the Sun and what effects it
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: may have on their operations of the airlines. Now listen,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty six on I Worried the twenty third,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: there was an even more massive ground level event. That
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: ground level event. Back in nineteen fifty six, air travelers
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: would have received doses of radiation more than one hundred
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: times the normal level, and that is high enough to
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: potentially ground flights. So nineteen fifty six may feel like
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: a long way to you, as depending on how old
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: you are, it's a long time ago. But really in
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: the history of the Sun and of the human beings
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: on the surface of the Earth, that was like yesterday,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: all right.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: So the notion is.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: The Sun can indeed produce coronal mass ejections of sufficient
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: verocity that they become difficult for our modern electronics to
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: deal with. Okay, last week's gl or ground level event
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: was about two percent of what nineteen fifty six event was.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: But if scientists look at tree rings and ice cores
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: that they do some nature based forensics and look back
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: in time for evidence of radiation events in the past,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: they actually find them, and they find that they at
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: times have been far more intensive than either what happened
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: on November eleventh or back in nineteen fifty six. Tree
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: rings and ice coores reveal gls that were thousands of
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: times more intense than what have been reported in recent millennia.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: So these are interesting knowing that these are in the
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: historic record they're called Miyaki events. They have a name Miyaki,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: m i yak e, Miyaki events and modern society, And
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: when it's put in this context, it means society who
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: have a lot of their lives depending on electronics. Modern
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: society has not experienced a Mijaki event yet. However, Professor
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Dyer from the Sury Space Center says, big events are
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: coming and we need to be ready. So just kind
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: of justifying their science, why are they studying this, why
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: are they looking into it? Because it actually can have
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: a strong effect on your daily life. So yes, everybody,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: astronomy is relevant. Why you guys always look it up
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: in the sky, because sometimes giant radiation clouds just pop
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: out of the sky and knock out your cell phone.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: And sadly everything turns into eventually, uh oh, we got
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: to get ready for this, because there's just a lot
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: of that in science, right.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know what we do. I'm not
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: sure how exactly how we get ready for you know,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: that kind of level of event where every piece of
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: electronic I mean, you know you got to have like
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: your own water supply and you know, your own farm,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: your own cows. I mean this is how you get ready.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I encourage everybody just start prepping. Now. I'm joking, by
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the way, I'm just mildly joking about that, but those
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: who build aircraft are actually getting ready. Sorry, here we go.
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: Well, if you're listening Tomato Stars, there's a good possibility
• 16:14
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• 17:39
  Speaker 4: More Made of Stars.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: Right after this, well, let's talk about getting ready for
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: maybe finally having a new chief at NASA. And it's
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: one that was brought up once before and then removed
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: and then hey, maybe that should be the guy.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: And it looks like.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: We're now going to get an opportunity to maybe have
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: that move forward next month.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: It is almost twenty twenty six as we're recording the show.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: This is November of twenty twenty five, and there hasn't
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: been a director of NASA in the latest rendition of
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration. So NASA's been just I guess it's
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: like a fire hose with nobody holding the end. That's
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: not true. There have been some some competent interim people
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: who've jumped in and who headed up NASA and setting
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: the direction for NASA. But the NASA is a really
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: important agency. It has a lot of very important initiatives,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: both from a geopolitical standpoint, but also just from the
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: advancement of technology in our country standpoint. And so the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: fact that it's run for a while without a director
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: not great. Reuters dot Com friends, and it's all in
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: various other news outlets as well. But Reuters dot Com
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: is reporting that the US Senate has set a date
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: in December for a hearing for proposed NASA chief Jared Isaacman.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So they got to do He already did the hearings
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: ones passed them with flying colors, and then they he
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: got booted out of the process. I was back in April,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: so now we're about to do it again. That's the
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: last time he testified in front of the Senate Commerce, Science,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: and Transportation Committee was on April ninth, twenty twenty five.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Now Jared Isaacman is slated to meet with that same committee,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: give probably largely the same testimony and talk about some
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: of the same issues on December third of this year.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: So just within a couple of weeks or a few
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: weeks from right now, Jared Isaacman will be appearing again
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: in front of the US Senate Commerce Committee and will
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: be discussing why he is the best candidate to lead
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: NASA now. As Wes and I have outlined many times
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: on this show, he funded, organized, and commanded two flights
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: to ear or the two flights above Earth using SpaceX
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: rockets and capsules. That was the Inspiration four, which occurred
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: back in September of twenty twenty one, and the Polaris
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Dawn mission, which occurred in September of twenty twenty four.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: So Isaacman himself been in space twice. On Polaris Dawn,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: he actually did a spacewalk himself. He would be one
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: of the first ever directors of NASA to have that
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: much space experience. There have been a few other astronauts
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: that have headed NASA. I can't remember off the top
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: of my head if those other astronauts had done spacewalks,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: but Jared is it's in spacewalk was the farthest from
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Earth since the Apollo era. So so he's got some
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: street crab, he's got some accomplishments to hang behind. Just
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: being an acquaintance of Elon Musk.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, you go that far, you stick your head
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: out of the window. It gives you a certain amount
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: of street cred, you know. I mean it's there and
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: that's what he did, and I would be We've talked
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: about this too. I would be pro. You know, when
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: he if we get to the point where he gets
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: approved and he becomes the chief and he's running NASA. Hey,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: when I go up to the International Space Station, see
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: how things are doing, you know, do one of those
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: like spot checks, one of those.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Hey, the boss is coming.
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: We got to clean things up a little bit. I mean,
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: why not get in there and go through his clipboard
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: and they're doing a good job, guys, and then he
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: comes back home.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: Why not he could do it?
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Or perhaps you have an episode of Undercover Boss. Yeah,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: maybe he just grows some facial hair and puts on
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: a ball cap. Yeah, then goes up there goes, oh,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I'm just a random astronaut they asked to come to
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: the space station. I'm not the director of NASA or
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: anything like that. What do you guys think about that
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: new director? Huh, He's a jerk, isn't he.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: And then listen to what they say, you could do
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: that and then he peels off the beer and they're like,
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: w we were pretty sure that was you the whole time,
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: Jared things.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Oh we never recognized you, not even with those giant ears.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: We never knew you were Jared isacman.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: For one second, let's give an update on Comet three
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: I Atlas. This is we got new photos to go
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: with this, as we've slowly been coming to the realization
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: that that comet that has come from beyond our solar
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: system and for the most part, did everything that a
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: comet would do, except for a couple of weird things
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: that didn't quite seem right and got people a little
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: worked up and excited, and then it started acting like
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: a comet again, and then you go, Okay, well it's
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: it's it's I guess I don't know. There's still some
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: people who won't give up on the dream. But these
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: new images look pretty good.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Though, so so listen. I get it. When people say
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: some shall we say, elevated comments about something in outer
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: space colickbait, perhaps clickbait. It turns things exciting for the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: average person who doesn't really have a burning passion for astronomy,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: but maybe they read the words is this comment an
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: alien spacecraft? And that turns on their fires of imagination.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: If you fall into that category. Welcome to the podcast. Friends,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: we've been missing you. We're glad you're here. But this
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: was never an alien spacecraft. In fact, in my world,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: that's not even why it's interesting that somebody said it
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: was an alien spacecraft. It's interesting because it's actually an
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: intergalactic visitor. It's an interstellar comment and I gotta be
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: careful myself. Intergalactic means it came from another galaxy. It's
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: a show. We call it a trans galactic It came
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: from a different side of our galaxy, right, So anyway,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: so in an interstellar object, this comet was born in the
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: cloud of a different star than our sun. It had
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: different chemistry, It formed in a different part of the
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Milky Way galaxy. It is speeding through our solar system
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: at a high rate of speed, and as it does,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: we're getting to check out the chemistry of a cloud
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: that birthed a solar system that is not ours, and that,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: to me, friends, is of course, the most interesting thing
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: about it. However, because of a lot of Internet speculation
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: about whether or not this comet was actually an alien spacecraft,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: then there began the drum beat of NASA's withholding its images.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: It's not releasing its images. It took images of this comment,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: it's not sharing them with the public. This is all
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: part of the conspiracy. No, they don't say conspiracy. This
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: is all part of the result of NASA knowing that
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: this thing is a spaceship from another solar system. Let's
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: not forget, folks, that the government has been shut down,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: that these people who are employed at NASA don't even
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: have a job to go to for a period of time.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Let us not forget, friends, that they couldn't release the
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: images because they were home due to the government shutdown.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: So now on Wednesday of this week, as we're recording
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the show, was very recently this particular set of images
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: from NASA was finally released. And as NASA released these images,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: they are, in my words, unspectacular. It's hard to tell
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: it's even a comet. It is just a little fuzzy ball.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's some hint of a tail and some of
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: the images. And I know it's hard to talk about
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: images on a podcast, but I've shared these with Wes.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: But you can actually check this out on the NBC
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: news dot com article. But we got what're you got?
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: Two that you sent me, though one is unspectacular. The
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: other one looks pretty spectacular.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So all of the NASA images were taken with
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: you know, spacecraft around the Sun or you know, like
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the Punch satellite, so the Solar and Healospheric Observatory, or
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: spacecraft around Mars like the Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Mission which is called MAVEN, or the Perseverance Rover from
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: the surface of Mars, and all of those are bad
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: pictures because they're just not those instruments are not made
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: not designed to take images of comments. So the image
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I shared with Wes, which is a fantastic image, actually
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: came from an amateur astronomer that posted it to spaceweather
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: dot com, and doctor Tony Phillips, who runs the website
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: spaceweather dot com, made an archive of these kinds of
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: images that are now coming in from amateur astronomers. The
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: amateur astronomers are indeed on Earth because this comet is
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: now finally visible in some twilight, and so amateur astronomers,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: being clever at getting great pictures, have figured out some
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: data management procedures to make these images really look good,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and so we're actually well in the words, of doctor
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Tony Phillips from Space Weather Quote. NASA's cameras reveal the
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: comet to be a fuzzy blob, but photos being taken
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: by amateur astronomers on Earth are far more informative. That's
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: just because you can see more structure in both the coma,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: which is the main part of the comet where the
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: nucleus is embedded, and in the tails. And this comment
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: has multiple tales. It has you know, twin tails out
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: the back when a dust tail, want a gas tail,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: it's the gas tail that's the most prevalent. But this
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: also as a forward facing sunpointing anti tail, and that
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: makes this interesting. Also, the colors of a comet obtained
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: by the amateur stromers show the difference in chemistry between
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: that tail, which is an eye on tail, and the
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: actual nucleus itself, which is letting go or sublimating large
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: amounts of volatile gases and pieces of ice. So so
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: there you go. NASA did release its images, so just
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: that everybody calmed out about the whole NASA won't release
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: their images thing, and what was on them not much,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: And what's being photographed by amateurstronomers with good telescopes and
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: cameras quite a lot. Check out spaceweather dot com.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: All right, so Star Wars is known for its you
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: twin star system.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: Now we've got this.
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: Really cool image from James webspace telescope of a triple
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: star system. It's like a giant fry egg in the sky.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: It does look a little bit like that. It looks
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: one could say, it looks a bit like a pinwheel.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: You know, it's got a pin wheel kind of effect on.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, I went to fried egg just because,
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, who doesn't like a fried egg? But I
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: think the first thing I thought when I saw it
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: is it definitely looks like an eyeball.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Kind of looks a bit like an eyeball. Yeah, it does.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: And you know, it could be that we're recording the
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: show around lunchtime. So the whole idea of food is
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: a good thing.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: That's true.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So yeah, the more you say it, the more I
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: see a fried egg. By the way. Anyway, So all right,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: so once again here we are on a podcast describing
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: an image. This image is a lovely collection of multiple
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: colors of oranges, reds, purples, and blues. All false color
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: images by the way, obtained by the James Web Space telescope. Now,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: the colors mean things, but this isn't exactly what your
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: eye would see. Remember, the James Web is the JWSD
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: is taking pictures in the infrared part of the spectrum
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: where you can't even see anyway, So you wouldn't detect
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: any of these colors. Okay, but go check out the
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: images on space dot Com of this triple star system
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: because it's really really beautiful for one thing, and then
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: when you figure out what's going on on the inside,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: it's even more interesting. You see, when stars that are
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: similar to our sun live out their lifetime, in their
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: toward their final stages of life, they begin to lose
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: the outer layers of their atmosphere, and as that begins
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to happen, they move into a category of stars that
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: astronomers have defined as wolf Rea stars Wolfraya. That's rye
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: t is how that second word is spelled, wolf Rea stars.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: So a wolf Raya star is a massive star that's
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: just losing all of its outer atmosphere, shedding it off
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: into space. And what James Web is captured is one
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: of these systems of stars that have wolf raya stars
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: on the inside, and it has been nicknamed a pet
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: apep you see, was named after the Egyptian god of
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: chaos or in this case, cosmic chaos. What jwst has
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: photographed is a triple star system where two of the
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: stars in this three way star system are wolf Reya stars.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: They are both arriving at the end stages of their
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: life at the same time, and like all wolf Rea stars,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: they have powerful stellar winds which are blowing all this
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: material out into kind of a bubble. But they are
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: also injecting huge clumps of material and exposing a nitrogen,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: helium and carbon rich interior of that star. Those are
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: the elements made during the final phases of fusion in
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: these stars. So wolf Raya stars a really important step
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: in the evolutionary process of stars. Here's something interesting. In
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: all the universe so far observed by our telescopes, we
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: only know about about a thousand of these stars. That
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: may seem like a big number, but remember we know
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: about billions and billions and billions of stars, and there's
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: only about a thousand of those that are wolf Rea stars.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: That's because in part, stars don't live very long in
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: this stage. They don't spend very much time there, so
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: if they're not there for very long. When you look
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: out at a whole survey of stars out there in
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: the universe, there are just not many that happen to
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: be at that specific frame of time where you can
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: capture them in the wolf Raia stage. Well, that makes
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: this object then even more interesting that James Webb has captured,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: because not only have they found one new wolf Rea star,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: they have found two of them, and they are in
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: a gravitational dance with yet a third star, and they
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: are spewing their material out into this Frida egg or
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: eyeball shaped object. That makes if you just like the
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: art of things from space, it makes a lovely site.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful image from the James web Space Telescope.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: But it's also helping astronomers understand how stars evolve as
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: they go through the process of the end of their
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: lifetimes in the wolf Aa stage.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: More made of stars.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: Right after this, we are coming up on Thanksgiving one
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: week from today as we record, and I know you
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: guys have some adjusted hours to talk about there at
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Side Center.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we will be We will be closing for Thanksgiving
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: on Thursday and Friday, but we will reopen on the
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Saturday of the Thanksgiving weekend, So we're going to get
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: you past that Black Friday. Lets you go get all
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: those great deals, or stay home an online shop or
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: whatever it is you have to do. You know, just
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: get over the trip to fan overdose, whatever you need
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: to do on the couch, perhaps for some football games
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: on or things. But on Saturday, it's time to come
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: back and learn space again, friends, So we'll be reopening
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: the doors of the Space Science Center on Saturday as scheduled. Also,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: just follow us on Facebook or check out our website
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: for some additional modified hours as we go into the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Christmas holiday toward the middle of December. So that's it
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: for now. And by the way, friends, we are going
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: to be having some brand new exhibits in our exhibit gallery.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: We have a Mars Rover simulation game now up and running,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: where you can both drive the Perseverance Rover around specifically,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: or you can also fly the Ingenuity helicopter and go
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: out and check actual geological features on the surface of Mars.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: That's a really fun kind of video game simulation. We
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: are also modifying our flight simulators. We've been working on
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: that project and that is near completion. That should be
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: done also by the Thanksgiving holiday, So come down and
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: check out all of those new features in our exhibit
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: gallery at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we will
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: do this again next weeks. Overhead Door Company of Columbus
• 35:23
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