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Earth Will Likely Be Devoured by the Sun (Eventually) · Made of Stars

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Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
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space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
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phenomenon, the scientific method, and expand the vocabulary to include terms like quasar,
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asterism and uranus. Listen, that's your own risk, Go ahead?
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Whom made of stars? Made of stars? Star? Who starts? You?
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Could be from Highllywood, New Mexico? Mars? Where are stars?
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When we are made of stars? Joined by my good friend doctor Sean Cruizen
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from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Enter. I'm Wes Carol. Hey,
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Sean les. Good to join you this morning, my friend. Lots
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of fun space news today. We start today with a story that will,
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in theory, it seems, put us one step closer to something that we
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first talked about. It's been a while now, but the story about Tom
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Cruise being launched into space. Now, there have been a number of celebrities
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we thought that it would be fun to launch them into space. There were
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the people like you know, William Shatner and Michael Strayhand. Those were for
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good reasons, like let's launch them to space. Let's let them have this
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amazing experience. Of course, we found out later from Shatner it wasn't as
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great for him as we thought it was going to be because he's, as
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he's put it, he's getting towards the end of life. It was just
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too much for him to take in, to see that blank, open nothingness
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as he got up in it. But Strayhand, I think had a good
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time, you know. And then there's been some celebrities that we thought,
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man, wouldn't it be great? I mean, they were gonna send Pete
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Davidson up there, and you know, maybe could he get in, you
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know, one of those like Tesla's that shoots way into deep space, because
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you know, why not. So there's been you know, both sides of
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that. There's been some hey wouldn't be great to hear their experience. There's
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been some where you just go, can we just shoot him into space and
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get it over with? And I can name several others. It's just fun
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to pick on Pete Davidson because he was supposed to go on the third Celebrity
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Mission, But now Tom Cruise is supposed to go to space, and it's
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part of making a movie and the folks at Axiom were the ones that we're
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going to make this happen. Well, now their second mission to take civilians
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to space, right, it's a it's a good commercial astronauts to space,
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getting ready to go up on Sunday. Yeah. So so before we jump
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into a X two, which is the mission that's gonna maybe launch on Sunday,
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I'd like to address both the Pete Davidson and Tom Cruise issues. I
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remember the first time I ever heard of Pete Davidson. It's when I read
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the announcement that he might go to space. Prior to that, see,
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I didn't even know who he was, but apparently he's on a comedic show
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on Saturday Nights or something. He used to he used to be. Let
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me ask just at what point, like who was who was kind of one
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of the last high profile SNL people that you remember like watching, like you
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would tune in and go, hey there, I mean, was it was
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it back to Dana Carvey or was it will I do like that? We
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just like had the like anniversary or birthday or whatever for Joe Piscopo, I
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mean for Frank Sinatra and Joe Piscopo was doing all the rounds, like they
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had him on TV singing Frank Sinatra songs and I thought, well, that's
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just great, that's wonderful. So all right, so Piscopo, you go
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back that far. I mean, you know Kristen Wigg, I mean,
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I don't know, you know, I know I know some contemporary people.
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I think she would have. I think Kristin Wigg would have overlapped Pete Davidson
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a little bit. So yeah, you may have had some exposure. He
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just didn't leap off the page at you. Yeah, it's I knew of
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Christen Wig, not because I was watching Saturday Night Live. See that's the
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problem, right, I heard she was a Saturday Night Live person that I
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liked in other things. There you go. So you know that's why I
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don't know, you know. But good for Pete. I mean, you
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know, he had a shot. He failed, it didn't go. But
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you know whatever, he was busy in the Kardashians, and I mean sometimes
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when that and I mean quite frankly, they could have gotten a lot of
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seats for the deep Space mission with the Kardashians. I don't want it seems
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like low hanging fruit to make those jokes. But I mean, we could
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have just made it one quick. You know, how big of a tesla
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could they One of the trucks, maybe one of Elon's trucks they could have
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sent into I don't know, one of the cyber trucks. That's we could
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do that. I'm sure the Falcon heavy could lift the cyber truck off the
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ground. I mean, I'm pretty sure. I thought you were gonna say,
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it doesn't have to be like a return trajectory. Just get them out
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there, just get them up and out. There's all that anyway, No,
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we we love those fine entertainers. They are awesome people, and we
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are happy for them that they're famous. Anyway. The other one is Tom
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Cruise, and let me just say that allegedly he was working with Axiom.
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Allegedly, so there had been reports of the possibility that he was working with
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Axiom, and you know, I mean, they were out there, they're
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out there in the media, and so we thought maybe even this flight.
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There was a time after the first Axiom totally commercial astronaut mission went up to
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the International Space Station that that would result in the next round being you know,
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Tom Cruise, who was going to take his director and videographer with him
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two Space to actually shoot footage for a motion picture in Hollywood that would eventually
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end up as a Hollywood motion picture. Maybe it's a better way to say
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it anyway. So so then so we were thinking, Wow, maybe they'll
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go. But then then the AX two crew was announced and Tom's name wasn't
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on there. So so now you and I are speculating, Wow, does
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that mean he's in AX three. I mean, it seems like it would
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be to the advantage of Axiom to take him to space because it's a lot
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of free publicity, and I'll bet he could pay the ticket price. So
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I don't know, we'll we'll see how, you know, how it goes
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with the next the next all commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station hosted
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by Axiom, Space and SpaceX. All of that that you said, Plus
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he's just come off of all of the you know, fighter pilot training.
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You would think he's kind of ready for this, right, I mean,
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I know, he did the fighter pilot training for the first top gun,
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then he did the set and now he's jumping off cliffs, you know,
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I mean, he's doing all kinds of stuff. I think he's probably as
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ready as you can be to go. Just think that that would at least
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be able to get him to mission specialist status something. I mean more one
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of these commercial missions would think that's true. I think that that, you
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know, that may put him ahead of some of the folks that went up
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on a X one. You know, maybe I would think, right,
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yeah, you know, I don't know, and I don't know so anyway,
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but let's not speculate that. Let's just go ahead and talk about a
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X two because there's some cool people going up on a X two and two
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of those people happen to be from Saudi Arabia. One of them is named
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Ali al Karni and the other one's name is Rihanna Barnawi. And Rihanna Barnawi
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if the if the mission is successfully launched to the International Space Station, Barnawi
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will become the first ever Saudi woman to go to space, Saudi Arabian female
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to go to space, which is a big, big milestone. And you
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know, I'm not going to speculate on any cultural kinds of situations, but
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it's just a big milestone that is a female from from that part of the
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world engage in space flight is a really cool thing. That is really Yeah,
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that's a significant glass sea that's like bulletproof glass ceiling in a lot of
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ways. And to be able to to make that that's that's a pretty huge
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milestone. It is a very huge milestone. And she would be traveling to
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space with one of the most famous film female astronauts of all time, who
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is Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut, record setting astronaut leader of you know,
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the Astronaut Corps for a period of time. And then also John Schaffner,
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who's an American private astronaut, but he's a pilot, flies both military
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and stunt aircraft, and so he's gonna be the pilot of the AX two
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mission and serve in that capacity. Peggy Whitson would be the commander of that
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mission, and then mission specialists would be ali Alcarney and Rayanna Barnowie. So
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this is a crew that's waiting to go. As we record the podcast,
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it's just a few days away. They're planning to launch on Sunday, and
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Sunday is May twenty first, So as we're recording to this podcast, it's
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the next upcoming Sunday on the calendar. They're gonna be launching if it goes
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on time, They're gonna launching in about five thirty seven pm Eastern Time on
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Sunday evening and then arriving up to doc with the International Space Station on May
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twenty second, about nine thirty in the morning, again Eastern time, so
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referencing to the time zone that we're in those those two times right there.
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So so it's it's a really exciting thing. They have a very small launch
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window, however, and so if they don't make their launch window, they
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do have another opportunity to launch the next day. But if they can't make
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that launch window, then there's a lot of other missions that are in the
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way. This is a Joel Montalbano, from NASA's International Space Station Program Manager,
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a quote on a space space news dot com where he says this,
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if we don't get off by the twenty second, and that's May twenty second,
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If we don't get off by the twenty second, we'll stand down with
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the a X two mission and turn our focus to SpaceX's twenty eight mission,
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the SpaceX twenty eight mission. So this is according to to Joel malt a
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month and apparently they'll have to reschedule the launch sometime after June third. It
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says Axium, NASA and SpaceX will get together and look for the next best
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opportunity. You see. What's happening is there are a variety of launches coming
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up. It's kind of a crowded schedule on the launch schedule. So there's
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a June third mission for a cargo mission up to the International Space Station.
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There's also the Boeing Starliner that's going to be launching on July twenty first,
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and they're making preparations for that mission. And there's also the regular NASA crew
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Rotation Crew seven going up sometime in July. So all of these upcoming missions
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they have to prepare for them on the ground before they can launch them.
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So it's it's gonna just be a little bit of a crowded launch schedule.
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And so Axium to the AX two mission. If it gets off the ground
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on the twenty first or twenty second, we'll see this mission carry out.
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But if not, they may have to wait a few months actually to get
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those astronauts up to the International Station aboard the axiom Ax two mission. Okay,
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so um, there's a study that says and this is one of those
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like you read the headline and you say, oh my gosh, this study
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says that maybe Saturn's rings are a relatively new phenomenon. But you have to
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remember that when we're talking about new or time or anything to do with space,
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that you know, new is a very relative term. So but according
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to this they're not as old as maybe we once thought that they were.
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But you know, I'm I'm seeing Okay, it's a newer phenomenon, but
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it's it's still pretty old. I mean, if i'm if I'm adding you
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know, the millions of years up correctly, they've still been around for a
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while, just maybe not as long as we thought before. That's exactly right.
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So, uh, you know, when you talk about things out in
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the universe, you know there are extremes, right, and so to say
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something is young means not young relative to your dog, you know, it's
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it's young relative to the rest of its surroundings. The Solar system itself is
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thought to have formed as the Sun formed, about four and a half billion
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years ago. So the rings of Saturn, we think, oh, well,
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Saturn just kind of formed and there was rings around it, and maybe
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it was a moon that didn't quite get to form as the rest of the
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planet was forming, and so those rocks have just been orbiting Saturn, the
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main body, four four and a half billion years. Well, no,
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as it turns out, that's not what recent studies are showing. And by
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the way, the study we're about to talk about today is not the only
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one that's kind of indicating that this is true. It's just the latest one.
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And so there's a study from University of Colorado at Boulder, And by
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the way, you can read about this on space dot com, or you
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can just go to the University of Colorado at Boulder's website, which is Colorado
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dot evu and you can check out their news release section there. So there's
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a scientist, a physicist by the name of Sasha Kemp, who is the
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lead on the new study. And this new study examined the dust that was
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in the in the Saturnian system. The data came from the Cosmic Dust Analyzer,
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which was aboard the Cassini spacecraft when Cassini went up there and flew around
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Saturn. Now that spacecraft is no longer, however, the data, the
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data archives are still there and scientists are still analyzing all that great work done
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by the Cassini spacecraft, and so this is a result of that. And
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so Kemp and his colleagues have examined the dust that accumulated on the particles that
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make up the rings of Saturn. So think about this like you could probably
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tell the last time you dusted the furniture in your house, right, you
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just kind of walked by and you do the finger swipe method. See,
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I have a different I have a different method for it. I've never dusted
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my house, so that's another way to do. So. Then if you
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compared your dust with Carol with the dust of somebody who was, shall we
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say, obsessive about dusting their house and maybe even compulsive, and maybe even
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they dust at their house two or three times a day, their their furniture
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on a finger swipe would have very little dust on it, whereas the same
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finger swipe at your house according to your reports, No, no, no,
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I'm dust I'm reporting my dusting frequency. My lovely bride takes care of
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the dusting. I make this joke on her birthday of all days. But
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yes, my lovely bride handles the dusting. I'm just pointing out when you
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say, when I dust my house, and it's it's it's very infrequent,
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is what I'm getting at. Well, And for the sake of my story
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here, let's just imagine the man cave from which you record this podcast.
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There you go that Jill is afraid to go into for you know, physical
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safety, you know, and there's that coarse shelf back there that we always
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see, you know, the Star Wars characters on. Imagine that shelf,
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like the amount of dust that may have built up there because it relied on
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you to dust it there. So there will be a lot of dust there
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because it's been a long time. And see time is the key aspect here,
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right, So there, dust builds up at a certain rate, and
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if a dusting process isn't undertaken for a period of time, a long period
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of time, you get more dust that builds up. Whereas out in the
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remainder of your house, where you're possibly or not OCD wife maybe is dusting
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more frequently, then there is less dust that builds up there because the time
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elapsed has not been long enough for sufficient dust build up. This is the
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comparison I'm trying to make with the rings of Saturn, because you see the
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cosmic dust analyzer was actually able to kind of measure how much dust was building
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up on the particles that make the rings of Saturn, and they only found
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one hundred and sixty three grains. Think about that. That's not very many,
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ladies and gentlemen. One hundred and sixty three. Now you'll have to
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go ahead and read the space dot Com story to figure out all of the
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research processes in all the ways that they look for these one hundred and sixty
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three grains. But just imagine with me that one hundred and sixty three grains
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of dust, if you can count them, it's not that many, right,
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And so that leads them to the conclusion that because dust sort of moves
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through the Solar system out from the Sun in a steady stream, that if
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they didn't find very much dust on these particles around the rings of Saturn,
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then those particles haven't been there long enough for the dust to build up.
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You see. It's back to that time argument. So if they had been
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building up dust for four point five billion years, kind of like Wes's shelf
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where the Star Wars characters are, then there would be a plentiful supply of
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dust. However, if they're you know, very few dust grains, very
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few dust greens on these particles around the rings of Saturn. They just haven't
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been there long enough for the dust to build up. That is the latest
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piece of evidence to suggest that we live in a very special time in the
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Solar system's history where Saturn has rings. Wow, that's weird, right,
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Yeah, So for most of the history of that very famous ringed planet,
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it has not had rings. It's only had rings for something like point oh
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one percent of its lifetime. But that just happens to be the same epoch
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in which we're living as human beings. So we've never known Saturn without rings.
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In fact, the rings of Saturn were one of the very first discoveries
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by Galileo that suggested that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. And
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likewise, it also tells us that perhaps the rings of Saturn won't be around
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that much longer either. Now. I'm not worried about them going away in
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my lifetime or even in my children's or grandchildren's lifetime, but within say a
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few hundred thousand years, Saturn may not have the big bright ring system anymore.
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We are seeing a highly transient, short term phenomenon, that Saturn has
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rings. That's the interesting part of the story, right, And so again,
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this is one story from the University of Colorado, one piece of research,
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but it is contributing to a growing mounting collection of evidence that the rings
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of Saturn are a short term in the scale of the life of the Solar
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System phenomenon, and the rings of Saturn are probably going to be going away
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long before the Solar System goes extinct. It's a great story. We got
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another story from another planet, and it just seems like you're setting me up
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when you hand me a story that talks about the major moons of Uranus.
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Anytime all those words come together, you go from a Saturn story to the
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four major moons of Uranus. But possibility of liquid water on four of the
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major moons Urans that's pretty exciting. Yeah, that's a really cool story.
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And so there are computer models that are being carried out. So this is
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not direct observational evidence. And by the way, you can read about the
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story on Universe today dot com. So the new study is released by JPL,
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SETI and MIT scientists all working together. Project was led out of JPL,
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but it is a collection of computer simulations and models for the interior of
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some of the moons around the planet Uranus. And they include the moons named
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ariel, Umbrel, Titania, over Ron, and Miranda. And if you're
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if you're really hip, you might recognize those as Shakespearean characters. All those
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people, all those names came from works from Shakespeare. So those moons around
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Uranus are are modeled by these computer simulations. And they say, you know,
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given their density, given their proximity to both the Sun and the planet
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Uranus, the Sun providing certain amounts of heating, the planet Uranus through gravitational
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effects providing certain amounts of heating, it's really likely that four of the five
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of those have what we would call subterranean water or water below the surface of
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those moons Aerial, Umbreal, Titania, and Oberon. Only Miranda, which
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is substantially smaller than the other four, probably does not have interior oceans.
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So that would mean though, if that's true, that would mean that now
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we have four more places in our own solar system that are very interesting venues
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to go out and look for the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, in other words,
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life not living on the surface of the Earth, and so a really
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interesting study. The principal investigator on this project, her name is doctor Julia
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Castillo Rogues, and she has this quote. She says, when it comes
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to the small bodies dwarf planets and moons, planetary scientists previously have found evidence
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of oceans in several unlikely places, including the dwarf planets series and Pluto and
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Saturn's moon mimas. So there are mechanisms at play that we don't fully understand.
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This paper investigates what those could be and how they could be relevant to
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the many bodies in the Solar System that could be rich in water but have
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limited internal heating. So that was the quote from doctor Rogues. And so
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they're looking at other places that you know, they may not be They may
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not have a giant radioactive core like the Earth, but there are other mechanisms
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which can heat their interior. And if there's any frozen underground ice, it
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could thaw that ice into these liquid oceans and if there's liquid water. If
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there's liquid water, it's that becomes a very important place to look for signs
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of life in the Solar System. It's possible that someday the Earth will be
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eaten by our own son. We'll talk about that right after this. I
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feel like, with the amount of sunscreen that I have had on me just
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in my years of coaching soccer, I will be ready for whatever happens in
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the future if the Earth is swallowed up by the Sun one day. But
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this is a really cool story. It was actually shared by one of our
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regular listeners, Colin. He sent this to me a couple of weeks ago
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and he was like, Hey, this is kind of cool, isn't it.
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I was like, Yeah, the scientists that actually observed a star swallowing
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a Jupiter sized planet. That would be, you know, the big one
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for us, at least in this Solar system. I assume it would have
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been a large, one large planet in the Solar System where this took place.
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But this could be ultimately, what would happen to the now This isn't
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happening like next week or anything, right, I mean, if so,
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it's time to run up those credit card bills. Well, I mean this
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thing already happened to this other No, no, it happened to them.
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I'm talking about us. Yeah, Because if it's happening to us, like
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in a week or even a couple of months. It's time to you know,
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really enjoy those credit cards, is all I'm saying. Yeah, I
23:57
know, I wouldn't run up the credit card bills yet, I would,
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you know, sell housing, buy coronas and watch the flame. No,
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it's that's we're not ready for that yet. We're not ready for that in
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our solar system, thank goodness. But you know, we did have just
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a minute ago, or in the first segment of the broadcast here, we
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had a story about the rings of Saturn being relatively young compared to the age
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of Saturn, And so when we talk about ages of planets, you know,
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stars can live a very long time, which means the planets around them
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can exist for a very long time. But there is an end point,
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and the endpoint happens when the star itself begins to burn out, which is
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what we're seeing in the story that we're talking about a different star with the
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planets around it, that the star reached the end of its lifetime. It
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used up all the hydrogen fuel in its core, and it began to expand
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out to a ridiculously large size. We call this phase the red giant phase,
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and it's a phase of that stars go through when they're reaching the end
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of their life cycles. Now, someday our own son is going to go
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through the red giant phase, and when it does, it will expand out
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beyond the orbits of both the Earth and Mars, let alone Mercury in Venus.
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And so all of those planets could suffer the same fate as this planet
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that we saw around this other star, which is that they are well,
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they succumb to the expanding envelope of atmosphere of their parents star. In other
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words, the star eats them, ladies and gentlemen. That's what happens,
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right, So that's that's your ultimate fate for planet Earth. We're gonna get
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eaten by our own son someday probably. And so that's what we saw.
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When I say we, I mean we as human beings. That's what MIT
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astronomers saw and reported in the May third issue of the journal Nature that they
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saw a star swallow a Jupiter sized planet that happened orbiting around it, because
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they saw the flash of energy that the star gave off as all of that
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material was converted from mass to energy and gave off a big bright burp of
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radiation as the star swallowed that planet. So in a statement from the authors,
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they say, if some other civilization was observing us from say, oh
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ten thousand light years away, while the Sun was engulfing the Earth, they
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would see the Sun suddenly brighten as it ejects some material then from the dust
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around it, before settling back to what it was. And so that's a
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similar kind of phenomenon that would take place. You know, if somebody was
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watching our solar system some period of time. The ten thousand by the way,
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the ten thousand light years away, that doesn't mean it's going to happen
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in ten thousand years. That just means that's roughly the distance we were from
26:52
this other star that we observed. The swallowing of Earth won't happen for at
26:57
least a few billion years, so you don't really have to worry about it
27:02
too much unless you've got that extended life insurance plan. And so we're probably
27:07
going to be okay in the short term anyway. So a very interesting study.
27:12
There's a good article on Live science dot com. You can see it.
27:17
But really this story, as you said, you know, your friends
27:18
sent us in the reference and it made a lot of media out there,
27:22
so it's all over the place out there, you know, all about a
27:26
dying star swallowing up a planet. Something else pretty cool that was observed in
27:32
the skies, specifically over Europe Aurora blobs. I had to look up the
27:37
video of this and just see what these things were at almost it just just
27:44
my perspective on it. Then you can explain exactly what we were looking at
27:47
when I've watched I know you've seen it, but it almost looks like like
27:52
a thunderstorm that's happening up in the sky, except it looks like, you
27:56
know, northern lights versions of a thunderstorm happening in the sky. And they
28:00
were just and I just kept thinking, Oh, what would someone have been
28:04
thinking. You know, I don't know if hundreds of years ago, if
28:07
they saw that in the sky, would they have wondered if maybe, I
28:10
don't know, the Sun was about to eat our planet. It boggles the
28:15
mind to wonder what they would wonder about. Yes, it could be that,
28:19
or you know, is that the heavenly hosts come to Earth? Because
28:22
this looks pretty darn scary, right, so probably would have thought that first.
28:26
That probably would have come from it's the end of the world, as
28:30
we know it one way or another. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, do
28:33
yourself a favor. Even if you're listening to this in the future, go
28:38
back to today, which is May the eighteenth, May the eighteenth on space
28:44
weather dot com. Pull it up from the archive if you're listening on a
28:48
different day, and check out this series of photographs and the linked videos down
28:55
below in their story. Because this is if you imagine seeing this in your
28:59
own sky, it's truly frightening, right. Aurora phenomenon themselves are both beautiful
29:06
and awe inspiring. So if you've ever seen the Northern lights or the Southern
29:10
lights, they are incredible phenomenon. So imagine what you think of when you
29:17
see northern lights. There's rays of color and splashes of light, and the
29:21
skies glowing in reds and greens and oranges and pinks and a variety of colors.
29:26
Then all of a sudden, there are bright concentrations of light that look
29:32
like balls of fire in the sky, both white and green in color.
29:38
That's what these aurora blobs are. And then the aurora blobs themselves begins snapping
29:48
and crackling as if lightning was on the inside, and there's not a cloud
29:55
in the sky you can see. And I'm talking about that heat lightning,
29:59
which is really just thunderstorms over the horizon where the whole sky seems to flick
30:03
her. No, no, no, you're seeing bright flashes coming from these
30:07
circular blobs in the sky, as if Zeus himself had written down, you
30:14
know, on a segue and is floating over the over your continent, throwing
30:18
lightning bolts at you ladies and gentlemen. That's kind of what it looks like
30:19
to me. I don't I don't know about the segue, but anyway,
30:22
so it's kind of what it looks like to me. And so when these
30:25
were photographed by the people all over Europe back in April, they made for
30:32
quite an impressive set of photographs and videos that needed some well some splaining.
30:38
We have to we have to have some splaining on these what is going on?
30:42
So the April twenty third phenomenon has been explained by a variety of scientists,
30:48
including space physicist Toshi Nisha Mura from Boston University. And what Toshi Nishimura
30:56
said is these are not ordinary aurora. Yeah, no kidding, right,
31:00
absolutely true. He said, they are called proton auroras, and they come
31:06
from Earth's ring current system, so in other words, they're coming from something
31:11
that's not exactly the same location where we normally see aurora phenomenon. Protons are
31:18
dislodged from this, from this proton ring and come down and interact with the
31:23
lower part of the atmosphere in a way that is highly unusual. So this
31:29
doughnut shaped ring of current, it's basically an electricity ring around our planet,
31:34
has millions of amps of current running through it. All of that is just
31:41
loaded up with these protons, and these protons in certain storms, geomagnetic storms,
31:45
which are the Earth interacting with a wave of material coming from the Sun.
31:49
These geomagnetic storms can unleash these protons and they can, on rare occasions
31:56
produce these crazy looking proton auroras which are just so otherworldly as to frighten people
32:04
quite frankly. But then lots of skywatchers happen to get pictures of these.
32:08
Again. One of our favorite websites here on this podcast is spaceweather dot com.
32:13
Go check out the images on space weather, and they are absolutely beautiful.
32:17
They're submitted from amateur astronomers and sky photographers all over Europe, including the
32:23
countries of France, Poland, Germany, Denmark and more so as we start
32:29
to really wind down the school year, we got a lot of schools in
32:34
the Chattahoochee Valley area where we're based that are wrapping things up, finishing up
32:38
their school years. Some I guess maybe you're already done by this point,
32:42
but a few others will be wrapping up into next week. You guys kind
32:45
of transition into a bit of a summer mode there at the Coca Cola Space
32:49
Sign Center, and I just want to remind because there's always and I know
32:52
you guys do summer camps. We've talked about summer camps. We've talked about
32:55
some of the different things that you guys will be doing during the summer.
32:59
But another thing that people can do. They're always looking for ways to keep
33:01
their kids engaged, trying to come up with things that they can do so
33:05
that kids don't completely shut down their brains for the entire summer. But something
33:10
that they're able to do with you guys is to come in, like during
33:14
the week, whenever you guys are open, come in, take a look
33:17
around. There's so much to see and do while you're there and enjoy free
33:22
air conditioning, because I know we've had an actual spring this year. We
33:24
don't always get a normal spring. We've had spring. It's actually cooler right
33:30
now than I could have ever imagined it would be on the eighteenth of May
33:32
here in the Chattahoochee Valley area. But they heat is coming, my friends,
33:37
It is coming in a big way. You know, winter is coming,
33:40
Summer is coming, and free air conditioning is always a good thing.
33:45
Yes, that's right West. You know, once people pay the door price
33:49
for the tickets to the Atmosphere Theater planetarium and to see all of our artifacts,
33:52
we do throw in the air conditioning for free. That's right on that.
33:55
So that's sorry, there is no additional charge. So so yes,
34:00
I would highly encourage people to come down the Star. That's exactly right.
34:06
Well, you can see unlimited shows. So during the day you can see
34:08
unlimited shows that our planetariums. So you can just hang out and just like,
34:12
yeah, I'm not outside, I'm indoors where free air conditioning is being
34:15
provided. Once I pay my ticket for admission, which is a very modest
34:20
price, I might add of eight dollars for admission and what that's going to
34:22
get you is unlimited shows in our Omnisphere Theater planetarium. Also, we do
34:27
tours throughout the day of all of our NASA artifacts in our exhibit gallery.
34:30
And we have an extensive collection of both Space Shuttle artifacts and artifacts from the
34:36
Apollo program, provided primarily by David R. Scott, commander of Apollo fifteen,
34:43
through his brother who is a donor and a benefactor of our facility here.
34:47
So we have a David Scott collection of artifacts here at Space Science Center
34:51
and they're really really cool. Come in and check all those out. We
34:53
also have Mars rovers and fund other exhibits like green screens and flight simulators and
35:00
all kinds of interactives in our gallery. And yes, if you're in the
35:02
greater Chattoochie Valley area, or even if you're not, come on down and
35:06
be in the greater Chattahoochie Valley area because we have a great museum here,
35:10
and we also have great affiliated museums throughout the Chattoochie Valley, including the National
35:15
Infantry Museum, which is just a few blocks away from us, just down
35:21
the roadaways. And so come down to Columbus and enjoy our facility and all
35:24
of the other great facilities, the National Civil War Naval Museums also in town,
35:31
and a variety of others, the Columbus Museum, which is a fantastic
35:34
art museum. Come enjoy all of their free air conditioning while you're here in
35:38
the area. And when you're here at Space Science Center, you know,
35:43
make sure you mention that you listen to this podcast, and you'd love a
35:45
tour of the observatory. And if I'm in the building, I will be
35:49
happy to walk you up and show you our telescope where we do our research
35:52
here at Space Science Center and train the next generation of students for astrophysics careers
35:59
at Columbus University and just in general space industry careers right here at the facility.
36:04
So so come on down, come see us. We do have a
36:07
lot of fun things going on all summer long. We also have our astronomy
36:10
programs where we're collaborating with Calawie Gardens to be out at Calawe Gardens their park
36:16
to do astronomy viewing sessions every Monday night all summer long. So, so
36:22
all kinds of fun things going on. If you want to know more information
36:25
about all of these things, check out our website www dot cc SSC dot
36:32
org. That's a lot of season ss so I like to say it this
36:36
way. Charlie, Charlie Sam Sam Charlie dot org, cc SSC dot org.
36:43
Thanks for listening, and we'll do it again next week. Overhead Door
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