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Musk and Bezos Go to Washington · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead.
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Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, madies, When maida stars,
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Speaker 3: you could be from high they would New Mexicomus where
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Speaker 3: all stars?
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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: Cruising from columb State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 6: More than Sean.
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Speaker 2: Morena West good to be here today.
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Speaker 4: The world's trying to get back to normal.
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Speaker 5: And by the world, I just mean our immediate vicinity
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Speaker 5: because in the Southeast not a lot of experience driving
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Speaker 5: in severe weather and snow and things. But I will
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Speaker 5: say this, the Carroll family has made the most of
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Speaker 5: having a couple of snow days and we plan to
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Speaker 5: very soon go back out and venture into it before
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Speaker 5: it finally all goes away. I know it's caused some
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Speaker 5: disruption with you guys there at the Co Cola Space
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Speaker 5: Science Center. We'll talk more about that coming up at
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Speaker 5: the end of the show, sort of what you guys
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Speaker 5: are looking at for the next few days. I feel
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Speaker 5: like the first thing we should address and these two stories,
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Speaker 5: we have a story that it kind of ties into
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Speaker 5: all of this. And we don't really dip into the
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Speaker 5: world of politics on this show unless it relates to
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Speaker 5: something to do with space news, and in this case
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Speaker 5: it absolutely does.
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Speaker 4: We have an up date on.
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Speaker 5: The two really big rockets that we've been talking about
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Speaker 5: for the past few weeks. But the two people responsible
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Speaker 5: for those two rockets were just at the presidential inauguration
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Speaker 5: in one of those very surreal moments where you're watching
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Speaker 5: the inauguration there and of course they had to move
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Speaker 5: it indoors because of this severe weather, and they're standing
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Speaker 5: there right there, you know, all all standing all there,
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Speaker 5: and you have Elon Musk, you have Jeff Bezos, you
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Speaker 5: have Mark Zuckerberg, you have the guy from Google I
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Speaker 5: don't remember his name, but you have all these this
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Speaker 5: unbelievable display of wealth across just standing there, like some
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Speaker 5: of the richest people on the planet, just standing there.
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Speaker 5: But we'll specifically address Bezos and Musk being there because
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Speaker 5: they are the two guys responsible ultimately for these two
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Speaker 5: big rockets, and there was a moment. There were a
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Speaker 5: couple of moments. The first moment was, you know, Bezos's
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Speaker 5: fiance question whether her fashion sense was appropriate or not
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Speaker 5: wearing just a bra a lah sue ellen On Seinfeld.
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Speaker 5: You know, it's not a top, it's a bra to
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Speaker 5: the inauguration, but hey, you know, appropriate or not, That's
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Speaker 5: what she did and certainly got some discussion. But one
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Speaker 5: of the other big moments from the event was when
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Speaker 5: the new president of the United States, Donald Trump, the
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Speaker 5: once and current president, spoke about us going to Mars,
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Speaker 5: and he talked about how we were going to plant
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Speaker 5: our flag, our colors on Mars, and needless to say,
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Speaker 5: a lot of eyes went to Elon Musk, who quickly
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Speaker 5: found the camera and gave a first kind of a
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Speaker 5: fist pump and then a couple of thumbs ups, big
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Speaker 5: goofy face, says only Elon can do. And that certainly
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Speaker 5: has been some of the discussion, because I don't know
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Speaker 5: that it was quite you know, Kennedy, it wasn't quite
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Speaker 5: that moment, but there was certainly kind of, you know,
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Speaker 5: a little bit of a flavoring to that, right, there's
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Speaker 5: just a little bit of we have a president of
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Speaker 5: the United States who says, hey, we're going to Mars,
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Speaker 5: we're working our way to Mars, and two of the
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Speaker 5: people trying to help us get there were in the room.
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Speaker 5: So that's a little different than the Kennedy moment at least. So, yeah,
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Speaker 5: I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. I
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Speaker 5: don't think I think you told me that you didn't
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Speaker 5: actually watch it. I know you've seen some of the
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Speaker 5: images from it, but kind of a cool moment to
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Speaker 5: witness at an inauguration.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's so much to unpack here. Let me
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Speaker 2: start by just saying that I'm not sure if TikTok's
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Speaker 2: a platform anymore. I don't know what's going on with
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Speaker 2: TikTok lately. I'm not really on TikTok. But perhaps you
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Speaker 2: shouldn't get your inauguration fashion advice from TikTok. That might
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Speaker 2: be a mistake.
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Speaker 5: One of the things that like, the first lady was
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Speaker 5: wearing this, you know, Carmen san Diego style hat.
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Speaker 4: I mean it was very.
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Speaker 5: Almost a Bond villain what do they call the Bond
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Speaker 5: the Bond women. It was almost had that sort of
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Speaker 5: looked like she's going to look up from that hat
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Speaker 5: and say take it off, mister Bond. And some people
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Speaker 5: thought it was this amazing fashionable hat. Some people were like,
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Speaker 5: you look at this thing, it looks like Carmen San Diego,
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Speaker 5: which was my initial reaction. But the hat was nice.
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Speaker 5: I just thought, why didn't she wear it all day?
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Speaker 5: So between the hat and then the bra top, which
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Speaker 5: I don't think got nearly enough attention, I mean, I.
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Speaker 6: Feel like that should have been discussed more.
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Speaker 5: And I felt like I'm like, am I the only
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Speaker 5: one who saw that she's just wearing a bra like
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Speaker 5: I couldn't tell if maybe a button came loose anyway,
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Speaker 5: So there were some fashion decisions that were made that day.
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Speaker 4: That's all I'm saying.
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Speaker 2: Jackie Oh, I can't believe that JACKIEO would be anything
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Speaker 2: but disappointed. I'm just I just have this feeling. I
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Speaker 2: don't know, it's just me. It's twenty twenty four, I
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Speaker 2: get it.
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Speaker 5: Anyway, it's twenty twenty five updates, you're a little over
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Speaker 5: three weeks behind my friends.
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Speaker 2: It's still January. I get no slack. I'm actually looking
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Speaker 2: at a screen that says twenty twenty five right in
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Speaker 2: front of my face, and I I make that line. Yea,
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Speaker 2: all right, so there's me. I'm still stuck. I'm stuck
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Speaker 2: in the past. I'm still about twenty twenty four guy,
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Speaker 2: you know whatever. Anyway, So the other thing I would
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Speaker 2: say is this our official stance here at Space Science
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Speaker 2: Center is we're pro space. We want space to be explored,
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Speaker 2: we want rockets going up. So we favored no rocket
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Speaker 2: company like in this commercial era. You know, we're we're
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Speaker 2: not religiously for or against any rocket companies. So it
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Speaker 2: but it does seem kind of weird that when two
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Speaker 2: big rockets did manage to go up since the last
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Speaker 2: time we recorded this podcast, that it seems political like
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Speaker 2: there seems to be party affiliations for each of these
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Speaker 2: two rockets. How does that work, West, I'm not sure
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Speaker 2: how that goes. Like can rockets vote? I don't think
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Speaker 2: they can vote, you know, I don't. But there seems
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Speaker 2: to be a democratic rocket and a republic Republican rocket,
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Speaker 2: or at least, you know, a progressive rocket and a
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Speaker 2: conservative rocket. I don't know something like that. I'm not
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Speaker 2: sure how these rockets can acquire these political affiliations. But
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Speaker 2: it seems that they have.
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Speaker 5: And yet both of the owners were at the inauguration,
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Speaker 5: And I think that says a little bit about you know,
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Speaker 5: where things are going, and the anticipation and expectation about
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Speaker 5: how quickly all of these things are going planning to
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Speaker 5: possibly happen.
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Speaker 4: Over the next four years.
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Speaker 5: We're sort of in that mode of I mean, maybe
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Speaker 5: once upon a time time, if you're not in align
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Speaker 5: with the views of the current administration, then maybe you think, well,
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Speaker 5: we can wait four years. But in this case, a
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Speaker 5: lot happens in four years, especially when you've got someone
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Speaker 5: like Elon Musk and really to a degree, you know,
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Speaker 5: Blue Origin not quite firing the number of rockets at
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Speaker 5: the at the pace that SpaceX is, but still Blue
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Speaker 5: Origin its own company. They don't have to wait around
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Speaker 5: the way NASA does. So this is and it's a
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Speaker 5: president who established Space Force. So I think that it's
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Speaker 5: an indication that there's an expectation for things to happen
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Speaker 5: pretty rapidly.
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Speaker 4: That was my impression.
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Speaker 2: I think across the government and commercial space programs that
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Speaker 2: things are going to move forward, and you know, we're
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Speaker 2: in case in case you haven't been on this planet
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Speaker 2: for the last several years. We're talking about SpaceX and
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Speaker 2: Blue Origin. SpaceX primarily owned well exclusively owned by Elon Mush,
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Speaker 2: Blue Origin exclusively owned by Jeff Bezos. So that's what
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Speaker 2: we're discussing. They both launched rockets last week. They were
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Speaker 2: both at the inauguration, and they have one more thing
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Speaker 2: in common, which is they're both under investigation by the
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Speaker 2: Federal Aviation Administration. So you know, they maybe they chatted
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Speaker 2: about that, maybe they chatted about FA regulations at the
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Speaker 2: inauguration because other than fashion, I'm not sure what they
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Speaker 2: what else they had to discuss. But anyway, so the
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Speaker 2: thing that's happened is the Blue Origin New Glen rocket,
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Speaker 2: that's their heavy lift rocket. It did launch quote unquote
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Speaker 2: successfully for the first time on January sixteenth. The mission
9:41
Speaker 2: objectives to reach orbit and to test out there in
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Speaker 2: flight hardware and electronics. That all worked great. What didn't
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Speaker 2: work great is that their main booster came back down
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Speaker 2: to a sea based platform and did not land successfully.
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Speaker 2: Now it's not entirely surprising that that happened, but the
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Speaker 2: problem is because it didn't land successfully, it triggered an
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Speaker 2: FAA investigation. So they're being investigated for you know, a
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Speaker 2: secondary goal not being reached and will it pose any
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Speaker 2: kind of danger to the public whatever problem happened there.
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Speaker 2: At the same time, SpaceX just a day or two later,
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Speaker 2: launched their Starship launch vehicle and their main booster came
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Speaker 2: back to the platform was captured successfully. But it's the
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Speaker 2: starship itself, it's the vehicle going to space. It had
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Speaker 2: a rapid, unscheduled disassembly. In other words, it blew up.
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Speaker 2: It made some great videos out there. You can check
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Speaker 2: out videos of the starship streaking across the sky and
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Speaker 2: lots of pieces, you know, those those videos are out
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Speaker 2: there online. But the thing to remember is that it's
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Speaker 2: still a vehicle in testing, and so they're trying to
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Speaker 2: figure out all of the things that could go wrong
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Speaker 2: with it. According to Elon Musk in a statement from him,
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Speaker 2: he says, quote, the problem was quote and an oxygen
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Speaker 2: fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall
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Speaker 2: that was large enough to build up pressure in excess
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Speaker 2: of the vent capacity unquote, So that building up of
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Speaker 2: the oxygen caused to fire. The fire triggered an explosion,
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Speaker 2: and it was you know, colorful fireworks across the sky.
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Speaker 2: Oh guess what that does. It triggers an FAA investigation.
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Speaker 2: So there you go. So now the two billionaires have
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Speaker 2: this one more thing in common. They're being simultaneously investigated
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Speaker 2: by the Federal Aviation Administration.
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Speaker 5: Maybe that's a reason to show up at the inauguration.
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Speaker 5: I mean that alone could be a reason to just
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Speaker 5: kind of be there and you know, shaking hands. And
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Speaker 5: I mean I don't know that there were any babies
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Speaker 5: to kiss, but at least be there to shake hands
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Speaker 5: and get in good with that new administration.
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Speaker 2: I mean, perhaps the new you know, direct or the
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Speaker 2: Federal Aviation Administration might be around somewhere there, right, so
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Speaker 2: you know, perhaps you can talk to actual FAA officials
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Speaker 2: in person at the inauguration and go, hey, see the
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Speaker 2: guy in the big suit in front of the mic.
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Speaker 2: We're buddies with him anyway, So who knows. Yeah, we'll
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Speaker 2: see if that speeds up that investigation.
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Speaker 5: Any one of those moments where you go, I was
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Speaker 5: certainly here. I was definitely here for that event for
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Speaker 5: the inauguration. Let's talk quickly about before we take our
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Speaker 5: first break, but about the comet Atlas. As my Australian
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Speaker 5: relatives are getting a nice view down there in the
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Speaker 5: Southern hemisphere.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, these are both follow up stories. We talked about
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Speaker 2: these on last week's podcast. So we're just as promised
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Speaker 2: last week, giving you a follow up. And so the
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Speaker 2: comment which is called C twenty four G three, that's
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Speaker 2: its catalog designation. It's called atlas. There's been another common
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Speaker 2: atlass recently. Don't get them confused. This is the new one.
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Speaker 2: Last week. It had a very close pass by the sun.
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Speaker 2: It managed to make it out, but apparently that close
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Speaker 2: pass did some serious structural damage to the main component
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Speaker 2: of the comet that we call the nucleus, the actual
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Speaker 2: ice ball, Because that nucleus has now disintegrated, it broke up,
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Speaker 2: it left material streaking out from it, so that comet
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Speaker 2: is is now without a head. So it's a headless comet,
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Speaker 2: all right. Well that's okay if you are currently in
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Speaker 2: the Southern hemisphere, because all of the material that was
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Speaker 2: in the nucleus of that comet has now spread out
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Speaker 2: into this gigantic tale and so really it's the tail
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Speaker 2: of the comet that you mostly see when looking up
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Speaker 2: into the sky and seeing a comet. Anyway, and friends,
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Speaker 2: it is so there right now. So it's a according
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Speaker 2: to one witness. This is from spaceweather dot com. They
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Speaker 2: quote someone from New Zealand named Ian Cooper, and Ian
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Speaker 2: Cooper tells us I could see a full sixteen degrees
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Speaker 2: of tail by eye, in other words, without a telescope.
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Speaker 2: Friends and I go back to ving Ian Cooper. It
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Speaker 2: shows up at sunset just after the twilight fades to
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Speaker 2: cobalt blue. So there you go if you're down under,
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Speaker 2: and I know we have some people who listen to
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Speaker 2: us down there. This is a spectacular site. I've shared
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Speaker 2: a picture with Wes so we can get an idea
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Speaker 2: of the scale. That picture came from Argentina. So don't
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Speaker 2: cry for me, but check out spaceweather dot com. Go
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Speaker 2: to the archive of necessary pull it up from a
14:23
Speaker 2: couple of days ago, which have been the twenty second
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Speaker 2: or twenty third of January in twenty twenty five, by
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Speaker 2: the way, January of twenty twenty five, and you can
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Speaker 2: check out images of this commet.
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Speaker 6: Now.
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Speaker 2: One cool thing about the photograph from South America is
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Speaker 2: it has it also captured a Starlake train going by
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Speaker 2: and see you see this long chain of Starlink satellites
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Speaker 2: also passing in the same shot as the comet spectacular image.
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Speaker 2: It's on spaceweather dot com for January twenty third, twenty
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Speaker 2: twenty five. Check it out on their archive. If you're
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Speaker 2: in the Southern Hemisphere, check out the comet for yourself.
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Speaker 5: Two quick notes one first eva perone reference I think
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Speaker 5: we've ever had in all the years we've been doing this.
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Speaker 5: And then to leave it to Elon Musk to photobomb
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Speaker 5: a comet that's just out of the way it goes sometimes.
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Speaker 2: I mean, he photo bombed the presidential inauguration with two
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Speaker 2: thumbs up. He might as well photobomb a comet simultaneously
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Speaker 2: in the Southern Hemisphere, because if you're Elon Musk, you
15:26
Speaker 2: can actually pull that off. You can do it.
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Speaker 5: Coming up after a quick break, is the universe expanding
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Speaker 5: too fast?
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Speaker 7: We'll talk about that next.
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Speaker 5: This sounds rather ominous. If the scientists are saying that
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Speaker 5: the universe is expanding too fast, what does that mean exactly?
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Speaker 5: What's too fast? How do we know what's too fast?
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Speaker 5: How do we know what the speed is supposed to be?
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Speaker 5: Am I asking the right questions? How do we know
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Speaker 5: slow down?
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Speaker 2: Universe? You've passed the speed limit. No, wait, not the
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Speaker 2: speed limit of light. That's the ultimate physical speed limit.
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Speaker 2: But there's something called the Hubble constant. The Hubble constant
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Speaker 2: is a measurement of how fast the universe is expanding.
16:29
Speaker 2: And there was a recent study by Duke University looking
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Speaker 2: at a group of Type one A supernovas in something
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Speaker 2: called the Coma Cluster, which is a cluster of galaxies
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Speaker 2: that's somewhere on the order of three hundred million light
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Speaker 2: years away. Well, here's the thing. If you look at
16:48
Speaker 2: a type one A supernova, we know how bright those
16:51
Speaker 2: supernovas should be. So then if you say, okay, well
16:55
Speaker 2: how bright does it look in our images? Can use
17:00
Speaker 2: those two pieces of data to figure out how far
17:02
Speaker 2: away that object is. And so if you're seeing type
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Speaker 2: one A supernova in the Coma Cluster at about three
17:10
Speaker 2: hundred million light years away, which, by the way, on
17:13
Speaker 2: the scale of the distance of the size of the universe,
17:16
Speaker 2: is relatively nearby. If you can tie that down greatly,
17:22
Speaker 2: that gives you a very important first rung on a
17:25
Speaker 2: ladder that we call the cosmological distance scale. It allows
17:29
Speaker 2: you to calibrate the distances to everything else in the
17:32
Speaker 2: universe with more accuracy, and that gives us an idea
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Speaker 2: about how fast the universe is expanding. Okay, so that's
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Speaker 2: the chain of logic. Well, what's happened is these scientists
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Speaker 2: from Duke University they did this recent study of those
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Speaker 2: type one A supernova in the Coma cluster, and they
17:52
Speaker 2: found out that from those measurements, it gives us a
17:56
Speaker 2: value of the Hubble constant that's just a little bit
18:00
Speaker 2: too big. In other words, there's a little bit too
18:03
Speaker 2: much foot on the gas pedal, and it's accelerating beyond
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Speaker 2: the limits that have been reached by other studies of
18:13
Speaker 2: the Hubble constant. Thereby the acceleration rate of the universe
18:17
Speaker 2: or the speed of the universe. So the problem is
18:21
Speaker 2: here that our current estimates of the Hubble constant don't
18:25
Speaker 2: seem to match when taken from nearby observations like the
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Speaker 2: Coma cluster that we just discussed, versus other measurements looking
18:34
Speaker 2: at things like the cosmic microwave background radiation. And then
18:38
Speaker 2: so the current rate of expansion and also the acceleration
18:43
Speaker 2: that the universe must have gone through in the early
18:45
Speaker 2: period of time of its formation are not calibrated correctly
18:50
Speaker 2: given these different values of the Hubble constant. Now, friends,
18:53
Speaker 2: I will tell you this is a new study, it's
18:55
Speaker 2: a new problem. But really, this debate about the Hubble
18:58
Speaker 2: constant has been going on since Edwin Hubble figured it
19:02
Speaker 2: out the first time. So it is a literally century
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Speaker 2: old set of debates about what's actually happening and what
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Speaker 2: that number should be. It's just that we thought we
19:14
Speaker 2: had it tied down pretty good, and now this new
19:16
Speaker 2: study may throw out some of our some of our
19:21
Speaker 2: confidence in whether or not we understand the value of
19:24
Speaker 2: the Hubble constant. If you want to check out this story,
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Speaker 2: there's a great summary of it on science alert dot com.
19:30
Speaker 2: Science alert dot com headline scientists claim the universe is
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Speaker 2: expanding too fast. Check out that cool article, and you know,
19:37
Speaker 2: keep your eye on the expanding universe.
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Speaker 5: Scientists want to study the aurora phenomenon, and they're not
19:44
Speaker 5: afraid to strain an acronym to do it.
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Speaker 2: Scientists are never afraid to strain an acronym. It's a
19:50
Speaker 2: favorite hobby. I think maybe you know many a pub
19:53
Speaker 2: conversation among scientists has to do with figuring out really
19:57
Speaker 2: strained acronyms for various scientific project like Giraffe.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, this is a pretty good one.
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Speaker 2: So, so Giraffe is an it's a mission, it's an instrument.
20:09
Speaker 2: It's a set of missions actually, which stands for ground
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Speaker 2: imaging to rocket investigation of auroral fast features.
20:18
Speaker 4: There we go.
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Speaker 2: That's a f F Yeah, no, E could I'm why
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Speaker 2: didn't they come up It should have said like a mission.
20:26
Speaker 2: It should have just thrown an E word in there.
20:27
Speaker 2: That didn't even make any sense to just or just
20:29
Speaker 2: throw eh you know, well, I mean, yeah, it's it's
20:34
Speaker 2: close to Canada. That's a good point. I could have
20:38
Speaker 2: done that just to include our Canadian friends. Anyway, So
20:41
Speaker 2: the Giraffe mission actually, so this is a couple of
20:44
Speaker 2: sounding rockets. These are rockets that are going to be
20:46
Speaker 2: fired into the sky the next time there are auroral
20:50
Speaker 2: phenomenon displaying certain properties. Because NASA is trying to get
20:54
Speaker 2: a handle on the near Earth environment which both their
20:58
Speaker 2: satellites and their astronauts ass through that are affected by
21:02
Speaker 2: the interactions between Earth's magnetic field and the uncoming oncoming
21:07
Speaker 2: waves of radiation coming from the Sun during large events
21:10
Speaker 2: like coronal mass ejections. So understanding how charge particles from
21:14
Speaker 2: the Sun interact with our magnetic field and how that
21:17
Speaker 2: radiation environment affects the space environment in our near planet area,
21:22
Speaker 2: in other words, where spaceships would be orbiting around the Earth.
21:27
Speaker 2: That's very important to NASA, as you can imagine. So
21:29
Speaker 2: so they're they're going to send up these two giraffes
21:32
Speaker 2: and I'm going to these two rockets, and they're going
21:36
Speaker 2: to test during times when the aurora are doing two
21:39
Speaker 2: really interesting phenomenon. The first one is something called fast
21:44
Speaker 2: pulsating auroras. This is where the auroras are actually flashing
21:50
Speaker 2: maybe a few times a second, you know, something like
21:54
Speaker 2: if you if you remember far, if you're if you're
21:57
Speaker 2: either a fan of antiques or you know you're my age,
21:59
Speaker 2: you remember that when a black and white TV on
22:01
Speaker 2: rabbit or is it used to kind of flicker a
22:03
Speaker 2: little bit. So this would be similar to the flickering
22:06
Speaker 2: of those old television sets. And then there's another one
22:09
Speaker 2: called actually called flickering auroras, which has a different definition.
22:12
Speaker 2: This is up to fifteen times per second, so this
22:16
Speaker 2: is a very rapid flicker. And so those are two
22:19
Speaker 2: different kinds of aurora phenomenon taking place that scientists do
22:24
Speaker 2: not understand. The mechanisms behind them. So these two Giraffe
22:29
Speaker 2: missions are designed to go and see if different kinds
22:32
Speaker 2: of electron acceleration processes could be behind both the fast
22:38
Speaker 2: pulsating versions of Aurora and the flickering versions of the
22:42
Speaker 2: northern lights. So that's a couple of upcoming missions we're
22:46
Speaker 2: going to be watching that. If you want to read
22:47
Speaker 2: more about that one, fizz dot org phys dot org.
22:52
Speaker 2: That stands for physics by the way, So fizz dot
22:55
Speaker 2: org is the American Physical Society. You can check out
22:57
Speaker 2: their publication on the rockets that are testing flickering and
23:03
Speaker 2: vanishing aurora phenomenon.
23:05
Speaker 5: A quick side note, I don't know that younger people
23:07
Speaker 5: these days will ever know how terrifying the movie Poltergeist
23:11
Speaker 5: was because of those old TVs and the and the
23:14
Speaker 5: static on those TVs. I don't know that the white noise.
23:17
Speaker 7: And all that.
23:17
Speaker 5: I don't know that they'll ever really be able to
23:19
Speaker 5: appreciate how unbelievably scary that was because they don't even
23:23
Speaker 5: know what that is. They just know when the TV
23:25
Speaker 5: goes off, it goes blue or black and it just
23:26
Speaker 5: sits there and waits to come back on again.
23:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, snow you know, we used to call it snow,
23:32
Speaker 2: ye And I was one of those children that sat
23:35
Speaker 2: and stared at snow for several minutes, you know, just
23:38
Speaker 2: like staring at the snow and the static and the
23:40
Speaker 2: television signal, you know. And I'm pretty sure I made
23:43
Speaker 2: contact with other civilizations in that period of time, but
23:46
Speaker 2: I can't, you know, I can't be positive.
23:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's entirely possible.
23:49
Speaker 5: Coming up after one more quick break, we'll talk about
23:52
Speaker 5: the parade of planets, not the alignment.
23:55
Speaker 6: The parade next.
24:14
Speaker 4: Enough, With the.
24:15
Speaker 5: Alignment of planets, I've seen a lot of discussions. I've
24:18
Speaker 5: seen the end of the world discussions. I've seen the
24:21
Speaker 5: people trying to talk about forcing a strained acronyms, straining
24:26
Speaker 5: biblical prophecy out of the planets just being in the
24:29
Speaker 5: sky together. But I've seen a number of those things
24:33
Speaker 5: going on. But yeah, we're going to get a nice
24:36
Speaker 5: look in the sky. But we can calm down on
24:38
Speaker 5: this whole alignment thing.
24:41
Speaker 2: Typically, Wes, I would get on my soapbox and I
24:43
Speaker 2: would say something about clickbait, and you know that's just me,
24:46
Speaker 2: and I've done that already on this subject, you know,
24:49
Speaker 2: in earlier podcast in twenty twenty five, the year we're
24:52
Speaker 2: in currently. But I'm not going to do that. I
24:55
Speaker 2: just want to I just want to have a teachable
24:56
Speaker 2: moment friends, a teachable moment for everyone, so we can
25:00
Speaker 2: all understand, and therefore we can have unity because we
25:03
Speaker 2: all understand the same thing. First of all, the Sun
25:07
Speaker 2: does not orbit the Earth. The Earth indeed orbits the Sun,
25:12
Speaker 2: as do the other planets in our Solar system. They
25:15
Speaker 2: all orbit the Sun. That's why we call them planets.
25:18
Speaker 2: Second of all, we live on a spherical world or
25:22
Speaker 2: you know, it's a spheroid, but roughly spherical world, and
25:25
Speaker 2: so it's not flat, and so we have day and night.
25:28
Speaker 2: And the thing is, the planets as we go around
25:32
Speaker 2: the Sun together in a single plane, like think of
25:37
Speaker 2: like a you know, a dish or a frisbee or something.
25:40
Speaker 2: All the planets orbit around the Sun in that same plane. Well,
25:44
Speaker 2: when we stand on the surface of our own roundish
25:47
Speaker 2: Earth and we look up there at the sky, you're
25:50
Speaker 2: gonna see the planets in that same plane. It's going
25:54
Speaker 2: to look like a line across the sky. See where
25:58
Speaker 2: I'm going, If you say enough attention, it really looks
26:01
Speaker 2: like a circle. But Okay, we could call it a line.
26:05
Speaker 2: That line has a name. It's called the ecliptic. That's
26:09
Speaker 2: because this is the line in the sky along which
26:12
Speaker 2: the Sun and the Moon also move, as apparently viewed
26:17
Speaker 2: by those of us on Earth. See what I did there.
26:20
Speaker 2: We're not really orbiting the Sun, but it looks like
26:24
Speaker 2: the Sun and the Moon are orbiting us, and so
26:27
Speaker 2: that's not really what's happening, is what I meant to say.
26:29
Speaker 2: But we as we look up in the sky, it
26:31
Speaker 2: looks like everything goes around us. That's why those ancient
26:34
Speaker 2: Greeks thought everything orbited the Earth, by the way, because
26:37
Speaker 2: that's what it looked like. We know, though, that everything's
26:40
Speaker 2: orbiting the Sun except for the Moon, which is orbiting
26:43
Speaker 2: the Earth. Okay, enough of that. Here's what I want
26:46
Speaker 2: to say. It's always in a line. There's always a line.
26:52
Speaker 2: The line's the same line. It's called the ecliptic, and
26:56
Speaker 2: that's the plane of the Solar System projected on our
26:59
Speaker 2: sky as viewed from Earth. That's not what's interesting. So
27:03
Speaker 2: the planets being on that line, they're always on that line.
27:07
Speaker 2: Nothing new, nothing to see here. Oh wait, but there
27:09
Speaker 2: is something to see. They all happen to be in
27:12
Speaker 2: the same pigh wedge part of the sky. Remember when
27:16
Speaker 2: I call that line really a circle, Well, if you
27:18
Speaker 2: imagine about oh something less than half of that circle,
27:23
Speaker 2: all the planets are on that side. And so it
27:28
Speaker 2: makes it interesting because you have the potential of seeing
27:31
Speaker 2: at least six planets simultaneously, and if you wait just
27:35
Speaker 2: a short period, you can see all of the other
27:37
Speaker 2: planets besides Earth along there. Now here's the final problem
27:41
Speaker 2: with all of that, which is some of those planets
27:44
Speaker 2: are not visible to the unaided eye, and those include
27:48
Speaker 2: the planets Uranus and Neptune. So if you go out
27:52
Speaker 2: under a night sky expecting to see six, seven, eight
27:56
Speaker 2: planets all at the same time, all lined up, No,
28:00
Speaker 2: what you're really going to see is for bright planets
28:04
Speaker 2: along what you could consider a line stretching out through
28:07
Speaker 2: the stars. That's the ecliptic. Those bright planets are Venus, Mars, Jupiter,
28:12
Speaker 2: and Saturn. And then if you have a backyard telescope,
28:17
Speaker 2: you can add the planet Uranus to your list, and
28:19
Speaker 2: then if you have a really big backyard telescope, you
28:23
Speaker 2: can add the planet Neptune to that list, making six.
28:28
Speaker 2: That's what's happening. So just for clarity, not an alignment.
28:34
Speaker 2: Astronomers use the word conjunction when planets actually get really
28:37
Speaker 2: close together in the nighttime sky, we say they're lining up. Well,
28:41
Speaker 2: that would be from the Sun outwards in a line
28:43
Speaker 2: through a line that goes through the Earth. So yeah,
28:46
Speaker 2: that's really not what's happening. What's happening is all the
28:50
Speaker 2: planets in the same part of the sky, at least
28:53
Speaker 2: those naked eye planets plus a couple, and you'll be
28:55
Speaker 2: able to see them. Now, if you're interested in seeing
28:58
Speaker 2: those friends, this multi planet viewing opportunity, you can do
29:03
Speaker 2: that this weekend, this Saturday night at Columbus State University's
29:06
Speaker 2: Coca Cola Space Science Center, because we were having our
29:09
Speaker 2: first Astronomy Night of twenty twenty five this year, not
29:14
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. I don't know who that guy was,
29:16
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. So this January the first Astronomy Night
29:23
Speaker 2: happening this weekend, Saturday night, the twenty twenty fifth, and
29:26
Speaker 2: it's going to be at Space Signce Center starting at
29:28
Speaker 2: six pm. Now it's going to be cold because there's
29:31
Speaker 2: still snow on the ground even today, so bundle up,
29:34
Speaker 2: but come on down with your bundles, come inside our planetarium.
29:38
Speaker 2: We're going to show you a virtual tour of the
29:39
Speaker 2: nighttime sky with doctor Rosa Williams, our observatory director here
29:43
Speaker 2: at Space Science Center. And then after that the astronomy
29:46
Speaker 2: team given clear skies mind, you will be setting up
29:49
Speaker 2: telescopes outside under that very chilly but clear nighttime sky.
29:53
Speaker 2: I've looked at the forecast. It looks like that's going
29:55
Speaker 2: to be a go. Come and join us at CSU's
29:58
Speaker 2: Coca Cola Space Science Center six pm January twenty fifth,
30:02
Speaker 2: twenty twenty.
30:03
Speaker 5: Five, And you guys have the next Music under the
30:07
Speaker 5: Dome coming up in March. Still opportunity for you guys
30:10
Speaker 5: to get tickets because there's going to be March, April,
30:13
Speaker 5: and May shows coming up for that, right.
30:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. The reason that Wes and I keep mentioning these
30:18
Speaker 2: concerts this far ahead of time is because the seats
30:21
Speaker 2: sell out as we get closer to the show. We
30:23
Speaker 2: want you to have the opportunity, if you're in this area,
30:26
Speaker 2: if you're a local listener to the show, to be
30:28
Speaker 2: able to get tickets and actually come to these concerts
30:30
Speaker 2: because they are absolutely superb and you get to see
30:35
Speaker 2: the musicians from the Schwob School of Music here at
30:37
Speaker 2: Columbus State University, both faculty and students performing in our
30:41
Speaker 2: atmosphere Theater Planetarium, with original graphics projected up onto the
30:46
Speaker 2: dome that are choreographed of the music. It's absolutely a
30:49
Speaker 2: spectacular experience. Check out the information now at our website.
30:54
Speaker 2: Go visit there for both information on the astronomy night
30:57
Speaker 2: and on the concerts. Www dot c c s SC
31:01
Speaker 2: dot org. Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org, Sean.
31:05
Speaker 5: And I thank you for listening, and we'll do this
31:07
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