Latest / Made of Stars / Recapping Space News of 2025 Part 2

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Recapping Space News of 2025 Part 2 · Made of Stars

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Warning.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: that's your own risk.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Go ahead.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: When made of stars, made them stars.
• 0:26
  Speaker 5: Made sizes. When made of stars, you could be from
• 0:34
  Speaker 5: high they would New Mexicomus, where all.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Stars?
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  Speaker 1: When we are made of stars.
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  Speaker 6: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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  Speaker 6: Cruisin from Lamba State University's Coca Cola Space Signed Center.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: Hey Sean, Hey, we's good to be here this morning.
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  Speaker 6: We are in part two of our look back at
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  Speaker 6: the biggest space news stories of twenty twenty five, at
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  Speaker 6: least month by month. We've gone last week from January
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  Speaker 6: to June, and we will pick things up here in July.
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  Speaker 6: But first and foremost, I hope everyone had a great
• 1:27
  Speaker 6: holiday period, whichever one you're celebrating. And as we've gotten
• 1:32
  Speaker 6: through the Christmas holiday, and the one thing that I
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  Speaker 6: did not have on my Christmas list this year was
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: catching some kind of a bug that I guess I
• 1:44
  Speaker 6: got from my dad.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: So it's there. I've got some congestion going on.
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  Speaker 6: I don't know how. I don't know how much you
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  Speaker 6: can hear it or not, but it's there. I can
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  Speaker 6: hear it in my own head.
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  Speaker 1: But anyway, but.
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  Speaker 6: That's just the way things go sometimes in the holidays,
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  Speaker 6: everybody gets together. And I would say it was cold,
• 2:01
  Speaker 6: not where we were. It wasn't cold over Christmas. It
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  Speaker 6: was quite warm, but it may have been a little
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: cooler where you were.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. I know you were visiting family.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, we went out to Colorado because that's what we
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  Speaker 7: do every Christmas, and we go out to see the
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  Speaker 7: snow and ski and all that stuff.
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  Speaker 4: And it was seventy degrees.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, well there you go. So you had a equally
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  Speaker 1: not so Christmas Eve.
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  Speaker 6: Christmas Jill felt like she was back in Australia for
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  Speaker 6: Christmas here, so she's like, wow, we could go swimming.
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  Speaker 6: I know I have friends who were in the pool
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  Speaker 6: Christmas Day here in Georgia.
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  Speaker 7: So it's true that it was a bit warmer than
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  Speaker 7: usual and there was not enough, not enough snow to
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  Speaker 7: really ski well at.
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  Speaker 4: The ski areas that we'd typically go to but it
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  Speaker 4: was kind of nice to play outside too. And then
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  Speaker 4: on the day we left, it snowed, because that's the
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  Speaker 4: way life works.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, yeah, been there, I get it.
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  Speaker 7: I get that we had to get to the airport
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  Speaker 7: so that, you know, they decided to snow on us.
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  Speaker 1: That seems about right.
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  Speaker 6: And my dad got some kind of a bug and
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  Speaker 6: I don't I'm the my I guess there's two of
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  Speaker 6: us maybe that have fallen because of that, and I
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  Speaker 6: don't know if anybody else is gonna catch whatever he had.
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  Speaker 6: The good news is he's feeling better and now we
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: are carrying it around. So anyway, that's just the way
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  Speaker 6: it goes sometimes, and that's you know, one of those
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  Speaker 6: concerns that we go through this time of year.
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  Speaker 1: When everybody's all gathered together.
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  Speaker 6: But it doesn't mean that you and I can't do
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  Speaker 6: this and run through July through December. Because some really
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  Speaker 6: great space stories that happened in the second half of
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  Speaker 6: the year. And one of those stories, much like a
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  Speaker 6: story we had last week, because we talked about Jared
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: Eisacman on last week's show and while he was you know,
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  Speaker 6: up for the administrator for NASA, didn't actually officially become
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  Speaker 6: a thing until, you know, December. This is another story
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  Speaker 6: that kind of has lasting effects. Will start in July
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  Speaker 6: with Comet three I Atlas because that was the beginning
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  Speaker 6: of the hype.
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  Speaker 1: And is it an alien? And why are the aliens here?
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  Speaker 1: And oh my.
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  Speaker 6: Gosh, you know, what does Avi Lobe have to say
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  Speaker 6: about it? And clickbait and all that fun stuff. But
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  Speaker 6: the adventures began, well it actually began before that, but
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  Speaker 6: we became.
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  Speaker 1: Aware of all of this in the beginning of July.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: So the fun part about these stories is they are
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  Speaker 7: big stories. They may not be by any kind of
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  Speaker 7: statistical means or any kind of you know, numerical methods,
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  Speaker 7: the biggest stories, they're just the ones we liked best.
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  Speaker 7: So that's what we're doing. We're picking the stories that
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  Speaker 7: we like talking about best. However, this particular story probably
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  Speaker 7: was the biggest story.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, this is one of those ones that's both right.
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  Speaker 6: It overlaps both categories.
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  Speaker 7: The for sure, it would have been in the top
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  Speaker 7: three for space stories in twenty twenty five. Commet three
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  Speaker 7: I at Liss, Clickbait three iye Atlas.
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  Speaker 4: As we might want to say.
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  Speaker 7: It was actually a very interesting comment, and that's what
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  Speaker 7: what I kind of hate about when things go like this.
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  Speaker 7: But it was a very interesting comment in its own right.
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  Speaker 7: It came from another star system. It was moving way
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  Speaker 7: too fast to be part of our own solar system, right,
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  Speaker 7: so it was traveling at escape velocity as it came
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  Speaker 7: through our own solar system. So that's the way we
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  Speaker 7: knew it. It didn't come from the Milky Way. It
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  Speaker 7: was king from outside. It got designated three I because
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  Speaker 7: it was the third interstellar object ever discovered. The previous
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  Speaker 7: two or one eye, which is Omuamua back in twenty seventeen,
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  Speaker 7: and two I boris off detected for the first time
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  Speaker 7: in twenty nineteen. The neat thing about three Eye at
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  Speaker 7: Liss is it was much older. It's an object that's
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  Speaker 7: much older than our solar system, almost twice as old
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  Speaker 7: as our solar system. That's an estimate based on where
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  Speaker 7: it came from and the star system we think it originated,
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  Speaker 7: or the part of the galaxy we think it originated in.
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  Speaker 7: And so of course all of those things, you know,
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  Speaker 7: interesting in their own right immediately tell some astronomers that
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  Speaker 7: it's an alien spacecraft.
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  Speaker 6: And that's where many of them jump to I think
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  Speaker 6: in excitement, and obviously that's not really the way science works.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, you had a couple of people that kind
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  Speaker 6: of went to, it must be an alien craft.
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  Speaker 1: Under the guys.
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  Speaker 6: Well, it could be, and that's a little closer to
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  Speaker 6: how science works, because it could be. But you know,
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  Speaker 6: you have to kind of start at let's start maybe
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  Speaker 6: you know Occam's razor, or let's go with the simplest
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  Speaker 6: solution and then work our way from that is often
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  Speaker 6: a good strategy for it. But it was fun to
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  Speaker 6: speculate for a little while. And I mean people were
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: basically all but standing on the roof of the buildings
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  Speaker 6: in the movie Independence Day, just waiting on the laser
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  Speaker 6: beams to start blasting down on them, versus some of
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  Speaker 6: us who were like, uh, oh, let's hope it's not
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  Speaker 6: what it is.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I know I had my poster board sign
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  Speaker 4: created indeed, please come.
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  Speaker 7: And be our alien overlords. I think it's what I
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  Speaker 7: put on there with a sharpie.
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  Speaker 6: But yes, what's the song We'll make great pets, right
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  Speaker 6: you know?
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  Speaker 1: Anyway?
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  Speaker 7: Yes, well you know, so all right, can we just
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  Speaker 7: go ahead and just say auvi lobe Harvard University.
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  Speaker 4: He was the one who kind of led the charge
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  Speaker 4: on those things an alien spacecraft.
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  Speaker 7: Of course, it turned out that all of the data
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  Speaker 7: that came back really indicated that no.
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  Speaker 4: It was not, it was a comet, and so it
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  Speaker 4: was a really really interesting comment.
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  Speaker 7: And Wes, again, this is the part that I'm kind
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  Speaker 7: of disappointed that part of the story gets lost in
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  Speaker 7: all the.
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  Speaker 4: Alien spacecraft clickbait that happened.
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  Speaker 7: Around three iye Atlas three eye outlasts was probably one
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  Speaker 7: of the most interesting objects found in our sky in
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  Speaker 7: quite some time. But no, that part of the story's
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  Speaker 7: gone forever except here on this podcast.
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  Speaker 4: Will We'll keep reminding you that that was the case.
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  Speaker 7: So anyway, yep, there's there's our July edition the discovery
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  Speaker 7: of Commet three Eye Atlas.
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  Speaker 6: Now we move our way into and again this is
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  Speaker 6: a story that rolls over actually from from last week's show.
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  Speaker 6: It's about one of those stuck astronauts that.
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  Speaker 7: Some astronauts who were stranded and we felt really bad
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  Speaker 7: for them because they were just like almost like in.
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  Speaker 4: Jail, I mean or the International Space Station.
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  Speaker 6: Suffering on the mission that they were there to be
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  Speaker 6: on with the condition that they might have to stay longer,
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  Speaker 6: because you know, it's kind of always the condition when
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  Speaker 6: anyone goes up and then they're forced to eat these
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  Speaker 6: you know, freeze dried meals or whatever, these mries that
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  Speaker 6: they eat when they're up there. Oh my gosh, they're
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  Speaker 6: being forced to eat the food that's provided for all
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  Speaker 6: of the astronauts up there. They don't have a they
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  Speaker 6: don't have a grill, they're not up there with a hibachi.
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  Speaker 6: You know, they're just forced to eat these pre made
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  Speaker 6: meals that they have every intention of eating the entire
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  Speaker 6: time that they're there, but they were forced to eat those.
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  Speaker 4: Can somebody please get these people an.
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  Speaker 7: Uber eats but just I don't know, a falafel or something.
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  Speaker 7: I don't know, what could they do that's different. I'm
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  Speaker 7: not sure, right, So, anyway, Sunita Williams, one of the
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  Speaker 7: two stranded astronauts, of course, was the commander for the
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  Speaker 7: International Space Station. Anyway, all right, so we did all
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  Speaker 7: of that in the earlier part of the part one
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  Speaker 7: of the Year in Review, but this part is with
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  Speaker 7: the other astronaut, Barry Butch Wilmore, who rarely goes by
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  Speaker 7: Barry anymore. He's Butch, so Butch Willmore in August announced
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  Speaker 7: his retirement from now after twenty five years. He says,
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  Speaker 7: I'm done. I've had enough.
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  Speaker 4: I don't think he said that. I didn't really see
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  Speaker 4: him say that, but anyway, so a direct quote, now
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  Speaker 4: it's a paraphrase.
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  Speaker 7: Here is a quote from Steve Coroner, acting director of
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  Speaker 7: NASA's Johnson's Space Center in Houston, who had this to
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  Speaker 7: say about Butch Wilmore. Butch's commitment to NASA's mission and
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  Speaker 7: dedication to human space exploration is truly exemplary. His lasting
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  Speaker 7: legacy of fortitude will continue to impact and inspire the
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  Speaker 7: Johnson workforce, future explorers, and the nation for generation. On
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  Speaker 7: behalf of NASA's Johnson's Space Center, we thanked Butch for
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  Speaker 7: his service and there he went off out of NASA
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  Speaker 7: after joining the Astronaut Corps in two thousand. He'd previously
• 10:48
  Speaker 7: been a naval aviator, which is pretty exceptional task in itself.
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  Speaker 7: He was a captain and a test pilot in the
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  Speaker 7: US Navy, both in peace time and in wartime, and
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  Speaker 7: so he brought that experience to NASA. He was interesting
• 11:03
  Speaker 7: because he was a person that flew on four different
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  Speaker 7: spacecraft on three missions, and that of course had to
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  Speaker 7: do with the stranded astronaut thing, the Boeing Starliner that
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  Speaker 7: took him to space but couldn't take him back home,
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  Speaker 7: so he rode back home in a SpaceX Dragon. He
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  Speaker 7: had also been on both the Space Shuttle and the
• 11:23
  Speaker 7: soy Use on a space vehicle from Russia, so those
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  Speaker 7: are all fantastic experiences. I think he might be the
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  Speaker 7: only astronaut ever to have flown four spacecraft on three missions.
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  Speaker 6: And while you weren't giving a direct quote on him
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  Speaker 6: saying I am done and I just offer this up
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: just so that we have the complete story, he did.
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  Speaker 6: Now this is a paraphrase, but he did at some
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  Speaker 6: point say we kind of were stuck, which is interesting
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  Speaker 6: because I mean that's not the full quote, that's not
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  Speaker 6: exactly what he said. But he did point out some
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  Speaker 6: of the politics behind it. We covered all of that though,
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: back when they were coming home, and I mean it's.
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  Speaker 4: Safe to say that that mission didn't go as.
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  Speaker 1: Planned, correct.
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  Speaker 6: It's just interesting that after all of the talk about
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  Speaker 6: stock not stuck, he came home and went we were.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of stuck, and it's like, yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, for you know, for the first couple of weeks.
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  Speaker 7: Until they figured out that Starliner wasn't going to be
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  Speaker 7: able to bring him back. Then they started making contingency plans.
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  Speaker 7: And that's what that's what you do on spaceflight. That's
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  Speaker 7: what is going to be required. You know, I think
• 12:33
  Speaker 7: about pioneering any new territory or uh, you know area. Uh,
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  Speaker 7: you got to you know, taking some risks. Right, things
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  Speaker 7: are going to happen and you have to figure figure
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  Speaker 7: it out from there. And that's certainly what NASA did
• 12:45
  Speaker 7: in this case. Uh, it was pretty readily available in
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  Speaker 7: terms of a plan that they can bring them back
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  Speaker 7: on the actual Dragon that was docked to the side of.
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  Speaker 4: The space station.
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  Speaker 7: So they figured that out in pretty short order, and
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  Speaker 7: then ultimately got a a whole another vehicle up there
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  Speaker 7: that was suited to bring them home by only flying
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  Speaker 7: two astronauts up so four it could come back anyway.
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  Speaker 7: All of that, Yeah, check it out in last year's
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  Speaker 7: New Story. But that was certainly one of the larger
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  Speaker 7: news stories of the year, both the being stuck, also
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  Speaker 7: the getting home and finally Butcher retiring from the astronaut core.
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  Speaker 6: More made of Stars right after this, all right, we
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  Speaker 6: move into around Labor Day, and there were some really
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  Speaker 6: really big black holes discovered.
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  Speaker 7: There was some great black hole stories this year, like
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: there were too many. I almost tried to like summarize them,
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  Speaker 7: but that I just kind of settled on one.
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  Speaker 4: There were a lot of.
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  Speaker 7: Really cool stories about black holes and includes the farthest
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  Speaker 7: away black hole ever discovered. And I'm not going to
• 14:08
  Speaker 7: get into that because what I really have is the
• 14:10
  Speaker 7: largest black hole ever discovered. So the Royal Astronomical Society
• 14:15
  Speaker 7: back in September reported the distronomers that uncovered what might
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: be the most massive black hole ever found, and it
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: was warping space and whipping stars around at an incredible speed,
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: is how we found it. We don't actually see black holes,
• 14:31
  Speaker 7: we have to see their effects. And so from the
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: rapid rate at which these stars were orbiting around something
• 14:38
  Speaker 7: that was not there invisible, which means it is there,
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: it's probably just something truly exotic like this object. The
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  Speaker 7: scientists involved calculated that this black hole must have thirty
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: six billion times the mass of our Sun hidden inside
• 14:55
  Speaker 7: what they call the cosmic horseshoe galaxy, located about five
• 15:00
  Speaker 7: billion light years away. This ultra massive black hole bends
• 15:05
  Speaker 7: life into a perfect Einstein ring. So that's another indication
• 15:09
  Speaker 7: you have a perfect Einstein ring. You know, something very
• 15:12
  Speaker 7: massive is there bending space time, not really bending light,
• 15:16
  Speaker 7: but bending space time so that light travels in this
• 15:19
  Speaker 7: pattern that creates what's known as an Einstein ring. So incredible,
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  Speaker 7: ten thousand times heavier than the black hole at the
• 15:26
  Speaker 7: center of our own Milky Way galaxy.
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  Speaker 4: Just for some perspective, so.
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  Speaker 7: Professor Thomas Collette of the University of Portsmouth discover of this.
• 15:35
  Speaker 7: One of the researchers involved said, quote this, this is
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  Speaker 7: amongst the top ten most massive black holes ever discovered,
• 15:42
  Speaker 7: and quite possibly the most massive. It is likely that
• 15:46
  Speaker 7: all of the super massive black holes that were originally
• 15:49
  Speaker 7: in the companion galaxies have also now merged to form
• 15:54
  Speaker 7: the ultra massive black hole that we have detected. So
• 15:57
  Speaker 7: we're seeing the end state of a galaxy formation and
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: the end state of black hole formation unquote. So really
• 16:04
  Speaker 7: interesting object, a crazy weird object found out there in
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  Speaker 7: the cosmic horseshoe galaxy.
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  Speaker 6: Let's jump a little closer to Earth from that black
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  Speaker 6: hole to Saturn, one of Saturn's moons specifically, and in October,
• 16:21
  Speaker 6: some favorable conditions for life, possibly there.
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  Speaker 7: So there's a moon around Saturn called Enceladus, and Enceladus
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  Speaker 7: has already had some indications that it might be an
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: interesting place to go search for life, and those indications
• 16:38
  Speaker 7: largely were around hydrocarbons that had formed on the surface
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: of this moon or could be found on the surface
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: of this moon. But now more specifically, in this story
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  Speaker 7: from October October second of this year, space dot Com,
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: good story. There, Saturn's moon Enceladus is shooting out organic
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  Speaker 7: molecules that could help create life. So we actually detected
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  Speaker 7: the organic molecules themselves in the spray of these watery
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: geysers that are blasting off the blasting material.
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  Speaker 4: Off the surface of Enceladus.
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  Speaker 7: And almost twenty years after the plumes were first sampled
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  Speaker 7: by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, we now had detected complex organic
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: molecules in those geyser plumes. So that's something that's very interesting.
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  Speaker 7: We've talked a lot about finding life or possibility of
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: life on moons in our own Solar system, but largely
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: that's been Europa and Titan. Europa is one of the
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: most interesting moons around the planet in Jupiter. Titan is
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: a larger moon around the planet Saturn that also has
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: organic molecules on its surface. NASAs right now preparing the
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: Dragonfly spacecraft to go out and explore Titan. But meanwhile
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: this discovery had and sell it us really makes it
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: one of the more intriguing areas now to go and
• 18:04
  Speaker 7: search for potential things like these organic molecules, which is
• 18:09
  Speaker 7: the precursors for amino acids, which lead us to think
• 18:12
  Speaker 7: that maybe there's more complex, possibly even life generating or
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: life supporting chemistry taking place. On this really interesting story.
• 18:25
  Speaker 7: You can check it out on many sites. We found
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: this story on space dot Com.
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: Our next story in November has another tie in for
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: something else. Two things that happened in early November. One,
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: we had our first ever Made of Stars live at
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: Columbus State University's Cocola Space Science Center there inside the planetarium,
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: which was a lot of fun. And one of the
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: stories that we talked about that night was this next
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: story in our Journey through twenty twenty five. And this
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: goes back to these mysterious flashes of light in the fifties,
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: some photos that were taken and questions about UFOs back
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: then they were still UFOs now UAPs, but and could
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: they be that? And we talked about that Made of
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: Stars Live.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: So two things.
• 19:13
  Speaker 7: First of all, clearly the biggest space story in twenty
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: twenty five was Made of Stars Live at the Coca.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Cola Space Side.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Come on, right.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: How do you beat that?
• 19:23
  Speaker 7: You know, it's just a couple of knuckleheads doing a
• 19:25
  Speaker 7: podcast in front of people.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: Mean, that's it for the audience that grew as the
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: show went on.
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: So setting that aside, because it's an obvious example of
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: the greatest space story of twenty twenty five. Setting that aside,
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: this one, actually, west is my favorite space story from
• 19:46
  Speaker 7: twenty twenty five. Now I'm not saying it's the biggest
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: news story. I'm saying it's my personal favorite. And I
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: will have to admit I kind of stole this one
• 19:55
  Speaker 7: from October because we did the story in November. So
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: I'm letting it be the biggest news story in November
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: just because we'd presented it in November. But really it
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: was kind of like a end of October kind of
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: halloweenish story. And again, our friends at space dot Com
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: one of the places where I saw the story. It
• 20:15
  Speaker 7: was actually published in many locations because it's just pretty
• 20:19
  Speaker 7: darn interesting. A what we call portfolio publication from the
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: megajournal Nature, which is in fact a peer reviewed scientific journal,
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: and so is This portfolio publication called Scientific Reports, came
• 20:37
  Speaker 7: out with a story about objects called transient star like objects.
• 20:46
  Speaker 7: Transient star like objects. There should be an acronym for that.
• 20:49
  Speaker 7: I don't really see it. We can just make one
• 20:52
  Speaker 7: up the tslos anyway, we won't do that.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: The transient star like objects. These interesting objects first appear.
• 21:01
  Speaker 7: In photographic plates from Mount Palomar Observatory.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Just outside Los Angeles, California.
• 21:09
  Speaker 7: And what's really interesting is these objects that appeared in
• 21:13
  Speaker 7: the sky surveys from Mount Palomar were photographed around the
• 21:20
  Speaker 7: time of the first launch of our artificial satellite, Sputnik.
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: When I say ours, I mean human beings, right, not
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: United States.
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: But it turns out that these objects were photographed in
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: Palmar observatory plates. They seem to have a very interesting
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: statistical correlation. They showed up around the time of nuclear tests,
• 21:47
  Speaker 7: and a secondary correlation was they also showed up around
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: the time where military personnel at nuclear test sites were
• 21:55
  Speaker 7: reporting seeing unidentified flying objects or as we know them.
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: In twenty twenty five, unide and Unidentified aerial phenomenon UAPs.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: So the correlations are.
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: Actually quite strong, with sixty eight percent more likely to
• 22:15
  Speaker 7: be imaged within twenty four hours of a nuclear test
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: and also more likely to be detected in the Mount
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: Palomar plates when human beings had actually reported seeing crazy
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: lights in the sky, not at Palomar at nuclear test
• 22:33
  Speaker 7: sites shortly after nuclear testing. This is a crazy story.
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: And then the interesting thing is once we flew Sputnik,
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: and I say we, I mean human beings. Once the
• 22:44
  Speaker 7: Russians flew Sputnik in November of nineteen fifty seven, all
• 22:50
  Speaker 7: of these transient starlike objects seem to simply disappear.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: From the Palomar Sky surveyed plates.
• 23:00
  Speaker 7: The initial transient starlike object data set consisted of one
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: hundred and seven eight hundred and seventy five of these objects,
• 23:10
  Speaker 7: so we're not talking about a handful. Over one hundred
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: thousand of these occur between November of nineteen forty nine
• 23:19
  Speaker 7: and April of nineteen fifty seven, and suddenly they simply
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: just disappeared. So there's a story.
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: That is yes, and the reaction we had a great
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: reaction with that story. While we were doing Mata Stars
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: live and a lot of people had questions once we
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: finished about that particular story. So it's one of those stories.
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: It's a long lasting one, and that it obviously has
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: a lot of history to it. And then it's got
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: some teeth to it though, because you know, here we
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: actually have some weird, unexplained things that we still kind
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: of scratching our heads about.
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, and one of the other things you
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: and I talked about this when we did the show live,
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: and of course, folks, you can go back into our
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: archive and hear that show because we did record it
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: for posting on the podcast as well, so you can
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: hear that show. But one of the interesting things we
• 24:12
  Speaker 7: discussed is that on most nights at Mount Palomar Observatory,
• 24:17
  Speaker 7: none of these objects were observed.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: On eighty eight and.
• 24:21
  Speaker 7: A half percent of all nights in that span of years,
• 24:25
  Speaker 7: there were no transients observed, which means it's not just
• 24:30
  Speaker 7: some mechanical air or some air and like a light
• 24:35
  Speaker 7: leak or something like that. It's not just some kind
• 24:39
  Speaker 7: of local phenomenon of fireflies or something. Because it just
• 24:44
  Speaker 7: isn't seen on most nights. It's only on a very
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: rare eleven and a half percent of nights that these
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: things showed up, and they happened to be highly correlated
• 24:55
  Speaker 7: with nuclear tests and human beings observing UFOs around nuclear
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: test sites, a double correlation. Now, I am not saying, friends,
• 25:05
  Speaker 7: that there are aliens.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: That's not what I'm saying about the way we do science.
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: But we do science by saying, hey, here's some interesting data,
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: let's do statistics on it.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: Oh wow, look what these statistics show, and.
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: Then we publish it in peer review journals like Nature,
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: and we go look at those journals and go, huh, well,
• 25:25
  Speaker 7: this is a this is a really interesting thing, and
• 25:28
  Speaker 7: that the process of publishing journals opens up this story
• 25:33
  Speaker 7: and stories like it to hard testing by the scientific
• 25:37
  Speaker 7: community worldwide, which is what I'm sure is going on
• 25:40
  Speaker 7: right now since the late October publication of these of
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: these data. It's going to be very interesting to see
• 25:47
  Speaker 7: what all the follow up science is on the transient
• 25:50
  Speaker 7: lunar I'm sorry, transient lunar phenomens. Something else, transient star
• 25:54
  Speaker 7: like objects from the Palamar Sky surveys.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: More made of stars.
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: Right after this, we're now into December, and here we go.
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: This is a story that it's a big news story
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: for December, but it's also going to be a big
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: news story next year, and we'll be talking about it,
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: I know, in the coming months, and probably again around
• 26:38
  Speaker 6: this time next year, maybe a week earlier, since it's
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: probably going to really get started in the first half
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: of the year.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: But here we go. This is kind of a big deal.
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: As Elon Musk is preparing, getting things together, getting things
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: in order, it seems SpaceX will be going public with
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: an initial public offering in the coming year. So that's
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: kind of a big deal.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: And you know, Happy New Year friends. By the way,
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: Happy New Year. It's going to be a new year.
• 27:12
  Speaker 7: I know so many people out there just anytime Elon's
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: name comes up, they just their eyes just catch on
• 27:18
  Speaker 7: fire and their ears begin to bleed.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: I get it, I get it.
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: You might be saying to yourself, why it is one
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: of the richest human beings on planet Earth need to
• 27:28
  Speaker 7: have an IPO on their company so they can just
• 27:31
  Speaker 7: make more money.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: I've heard, I've heard all this. You know.
• 27:36
  Speaker 7: I was at the holidays with families too, you know,
• 27:38
  Speaker 7: and I had to discuss these subjects with them.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: So why is SpaceX going public?
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: Why are they offering an IPO a likely event in
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: the in the coming year.
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Twenty twenty six.
• 27:51
  Speaker 7: The announcement came out in December, which is why we're
• 27:54
  Speaker 7: talking about it. That was the That was the December
• 27:56
  Speaker 7: news story.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: You might think, well, they're trying to build that starship
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: and they're trying to get to the Elon to set
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: foot on Mars, and I mean all those things are
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: probably true, right yeah, I mean sure that's part of
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: their thinking.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: But friends, they have this global satellite internet company embedded
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: in SpaceX.
• 28:19
  Speaker 7: Called Starlink, and really the biggest part of this IPO,
• 28:25
  Speaker 7: which its valuation could then be shoved up to one
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: point five trillion dollars. That money's not just going in
• 28:32
  Speaker 7: Elon's pocket, it's going in for the development of Starlink,
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: which has the potential to provide connectivity to people around
• 28:42
  Speaker 7: the world where other Internet connectivity sources are not available.
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: And in addition to that, it also has the ability
• 28:54
  Speaker 7: to potentially link your cell phone no matter are where
• 29:00
  Speaker 7: you are climbing Mount Everest. Need someone to know who
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: you are, where you are, what you know, we have
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: some vital communication with business. Your cell phone could be
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: connected via Starlink. Now that's probably not interesting to all
• 29:18
  Speaker 7: the people not climbing Everest, But where will you the
• 29:21
  Speaker 7: last time that you had no cell service and you
• 29:23
  Speaker 7: really needed to call somebody or talk to somebody, Where
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: are you going to be? Well, you have the potential
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: of being connected all the time via starlink. Now, some
• 29:35
  Speaker 7: people might argue that that is an evil in itself.
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: I might be on that bandwagon myself.
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, well let me let me just inject interject
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: right here. This one little because I was at a
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: dinner party once in an area that did not have
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: cell service, and at the time, my particular phone carrier
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: was offering it for free with the connection to starlink.
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: They now charge for it, but it was they were
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: in the that was in the beta testing phase of it,
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: and at this particular dinner party where I did not
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: necessarily want to have conversations with everyone there, it was
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: a bit of a lifesaver for me, and that my
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: phone was allowing me to stay connected to, you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: people that were trying to reach me and text me,
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: including my kids. So I'm just pointing out there can
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: be some pluses to it. It's not just a benefit
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: when you're on Mount Everest.
• 30:27
  Speaker 7: You know there's a person out there who wanted we'll
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: solve some problems in the world, right, yep, fossil fuels
• 30:36
  Speaker 7: driving cars.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Hey, let's make battery operated.
• 30:38
  Speaker 7: Cars and get it right for the first and get
• 30:41
  Speaker 7: it right and actually make them viable. Hey, we're dumping
• 30:45
  Speaker 7: rockets in the ocean and never reusing. Let's build reusable
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: launch systems.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: Hey we have these.
• 30:52
  Speaker 7: The vast majority of Earth's population cannot access wealth creation
• 30:56
  Speaker 7: because they can't access the internet. Hey what if we
• 30:59
  Speaker 7: demand for tize internet access and make it available to
• 31:03
  Speaker 7: everybody everywhere.
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: Also, there was a time where we didn't have a
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: ride to space from the US soil, and someone was
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: able to take.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Care of that.
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: As a matter of fact, that shoe is now on
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: the other foot. As you know, the Russians blew up
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: their launch site, so they kind of need a ride
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: to space from US now. And what do you know,
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: this guy figured out a way that we could provide
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: a ride to space for Russia.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: That was definitely a contender for the November story.
• 31:30
  Speaker 7: By the way, is that the Russians, who it's going
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: to be a minute before they can launch anything from
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: from Kazakhstan again. So yeah, they kind of made a
• 31:37
  Speaker 7: mess out of that. Certainly a contender for one of
• 31:39
  Speaker 7: the top news stories. It just got you know, it
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: just got nipped out by alien spacecraft showing up in
• 31:46
  Speaker 7: Mount Palomar plates or something like that.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: I don't know if that's really the story, but anyway, Yeah,
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: so so Starlink.
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: You know, we don't give stock tips here, but they're
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: going to go public in twenty twenty six.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: I might buy a share or to if I can
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: afford them. Yeah, I might try that.
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: I mean, I own part of a share of Tesla.
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's how expensive it was when I got
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: on board.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: But you know, so there they go.
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: That's a pretty significant story to wrap things up with.
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: And again we'll be talking about space ex going public,
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: I'm sure in the coming months as we move forward.
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: So we get into the new year, and that means
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: at the Coca Cola Space Science Center, you guys will
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: be rolling into the I guess second half of.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: The Music under the Dome series.
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: Things get started again in March, I believe March the
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: third is the next date for Legends at the Omnosphere
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: Theater and three more shows for folks to come and
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: check out one of the most remarkable to me. It's
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: remarkable that we have this in Columbus, Georgia. Like, it's
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: such a cool, unique experience that when you come out
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: of there, you're going to go I just saw this
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: in Columbus, Georgia.
• 33:00
  Speaker 7: It's a fantastic concert experience and it wouldn't even be
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: a thing without the massive talents of many, many people.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: And first is the.
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: Conductor of the Columbus Philharmonic, which is Paul Hostedter and
• 33:18
  Speaker 7: his vast array of musical gifts and all of the
• 33:23
  Speaker 7: faculty and students who he helps arrange to perform in
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: this concert series. The second person I have to just
• 33:30
  Speaker 7: tip my hat to is Lance tankers Lead, the director
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: of our Atmosphere Theater. So Lance himself produces art for
• 33:37
  Speaker 7: the concert series, which features choreographed artwork to all the
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: performances from the talented people from the Shop School of Music.
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: There are other Space artists who also participate, and their
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: work has to still be managed by Lance.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: To get it into a format that can be displayed
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: on the dome.
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: So Paul Hast, Editor, Lance Tankers Lee, and all of
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: the performers and all of the artists and all of
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: the folks who actually come out and see the concert.
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: These are the folks really responsible for making one of
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: the most amazing concert experiences that I've ever had the
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: opportunity to be a part of or in the audience for.
• 34:13
  Speaker 7: And that's Music under the Dome. And as Wes said,
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: there are a few shows left for twenty twenty six.
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: There's three of them March, April and May. You can
• 34:21
  Speaker 7: pick up tickets by visiting the Space Science Center's website.
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: Go to visit www dot cc SC dot org. Charlie
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org. It's a little bit too
• 34:31
  Speaker 7: late for a Christmas gift, I guess, But who says
• 34:35
  Speaker 7: you can't give a New Year's gift? Buy somebody a
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: set of tickets and say, Mary, New Year's that's right,
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: and just give it to them in a red or
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: green card.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: I think that's fine.
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's possible there's someone that you didn't quite
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: you know, have the home run on that gift that
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: you thought they were going to like, and they're a
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: music lover or a space lover or both, and then
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: you go, hey, how about this? This was the other
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: gift I had for you, but had a hard time
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: I'm getting my hands on it, But here you go.
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: You know, there's always that make good gift.
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: I literally had a gift, you know, waiting to be
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: delivered on Christmas morning, when I heard the person say
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: just before, oh, I really don't like those in whatever
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: that thing was, and I knew under the tree, in
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: some very lovely wrapping was that exact thing. So yeah,
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: I might I might jump into that myself and pick
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: up some concert tickets. Who knows, maybe a good make
• 35:29
  Speaker 7: good gift.
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: As Wes said, Well, all the information on those shows
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: and then upcoming events will be added here soon to
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: the website there CCSSC dot org.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Sean and I thank you for listening.
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: We thank you for listening all year long in previous years,
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: and we hope you have a great start to twenty
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: twenty six. And who knows what amazing discoveries await I mean,
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: it could be another alien spacecraft flying through our Solar
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: System from deep space. It could be you know, more
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: aliens that we discovered were you know, actually around back
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: in the fifties and they've been hanging out the whole time.
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: We could not say the word alien at all in
• 36:10
  Speaker 7: twenty twenty six.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: That could be a thing too.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe I don't expect that to be the case. I
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: suspect we will.
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: We may not have to say stuck astronaut, although I
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: guess China's got stuck astronauts.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Never mind, they do. Yeah, they're actually stuck. They don't
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: have a ride home, so that's.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: More of a real stuck situation.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: They're basically just gonna have to jump and come back
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: via gravity if they wanted to come that.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: It was a good movie.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: It was a very good movie.
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: Well, thank you for listening, and we will be back
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: next week to.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Do this again.
• 36:49
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• 36:52
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