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India's Lunar Lander Lands, Russia's Does Not · Made of Stars

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Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
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space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
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phenomenon the scientific method and expand their vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism
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and uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. Where made
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of stars? Made of stars? May stars? Who starts? You could
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be from high? They would New Mexico, Mars? Where stars? When
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we are made of stars? I'm West Carroll joined, I'm a good friend.
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Doctor Sean Cruizen from Columbus State Universities, Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Morning, Sean, good morning, lest good to be here. We do
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the show on Thursdays. We referenced that often occasionally we have to do it
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on different day, but typically Thursday morning is when we do the show.
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Last night was a presidential debate. No, we're not going to talk about
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politics, really, but we're going to address this because it's news. It
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came up last night and it's only appropriate that we discuss it in that capacity.
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We're not here to endorse a candidate. We're not here to talk anything
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about who won the debate and that kind of stuff. We're here to discuss
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the fact that at a Republican primary debate the subject of aliens came up.
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I guess this isn't the first time it's come up in a debate format,
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but this time, as we've pointed out many times, it's just a little
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bit different because the subject of UAPs the term that was used last night by
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Martha McCallum from Fox News, who was one of the two moderators, she
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and Brett Bear, and she asked a question. She called them UFOs erroneously.
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Apparently she doesn't have the updated info, but maybe it was just so
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that everybody would know what she was talking about, because I guess not everybody
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knows this UAP term, and she really should get to listening to me the
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stars. But the question came up last night and she directed it to former
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christi and she basically, I'm going to paraphrase it,
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but she said, with all the discussion these days about UFOs, if you
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were to become president of the United States, would you be forthcoming with the
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American people about the information that the government has about UFOs. And I thought
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he handled the question well. He basically said, really, I'm getting the
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UFO question. Is it because I'm from New Jersey? Anyway, I just
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thought it was worth mentioning that it's come up in a presidential debate. Now
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this is the year that we're living in, twenty twenty three. Whatever do
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you think about politic ticks and about Chris Christie in particular. The dude can
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be funny, and I think that that's an actually clever answer to that question
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in a humorous way, right, Like, I'm getting the UFO question because
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I'm from Jersey. I just think this is hilarious. And I'd like to
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point out too, he pointed out that Martha McCallum is also from New Jersey,
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so there was a little bit of He's like, is that what we're
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doing here? We're having this SYNCD up New Jersey thing. Yeah, I
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was. What it did for me, though, is it took me out
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of that moment where I thought, I wonder if one of the others had
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gotten the question, how might they have answered it differently? Because I mean
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it was almost like a question Taylor made for him, because yes, he
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was funny about it, and he didn't really I mean, he just said
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it's important to be forthcoming to the American people all the time, which is
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the right answer, by the way, Yeah, it is, no matter
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what, no matter what you think about UAPs or UFOs or you know,
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or Chris CHRISTI dogs or whatever we're doing. Yeah, that's still the right
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answer. Yeah, yes, humming, it's a nice thought. It's yes,
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it is. It's and I think that probably most of the others would
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have done the same thing. I would have hopefully gotten to that answer.
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But anyway, so let's talk about something that doesn't involve politics in any way,
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shape or form. We'll talk about two countries. We've been addressing the
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fact that we have India and Russia launching with the intentions of putting something on
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the moon, and we have differing success stories with this. We'll start with
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the wind. Spoiler alert, Russia failed. We'll start with the wind.
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India is on the moon. India is on the moon. And I would
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like to say that it's not political, but since we have representatives in our
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own federal government that don't believe we've ever landed anything on the moon before,
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that's true. Baby just spills over into the political arena. West. I'm
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just saying, ladies and gentlemen, Get science, That's all I'm saying.
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Gets science people. Yeah, all right, so yes, having said that,
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Yes, an amazing accomplishment by the Indian Space Agency in India's Chandra Yon
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three spacecraft touched down yesterday, August twenty three, as we're recording the show,
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near the Moon's south pole. Ladies and gentlemen. That makes this the
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first ever mission to touch down at the bottom of the Sun. I'm sorry,
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I said the Sun. I mean the Moon the bottom. Then I
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can understand why it's so hard if you're trying to land on the Sun.
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That seems like it would present challenge when at night. So that's why it
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was easier because it was at night. Now, I'm sorry, these are
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terrible jokes and I just got distracted. It is the moon, ladies and
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gentlemen. So the Moon's bottom has been landed upon nice as shown in the
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Google doodle that's out there today. Check that out. It's kind of fun.
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It's a little cartoon of the Moon getting its bottom landed on. Anyway,
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all right, So now there's a spacecraft on the south pole of the
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Moon. Why is that important because that is largely an unexplored region of the
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Moon, and it's important in this sense. There are a lot of craters,
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both on the south pole and north pole of the Moon that could be
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packed with water from commentary collisions in the past that have stalked water into those
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craters into which the sun rarely, if ever shines. In other words,
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there could be stockpiles of water in those regions through collisions of bodies that carry
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water with them and they simply hit in a place where the sun doesn't shine
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into those deep craters. So this is a very interesting and different part of
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the Moon than a lot of missions have explored before. Certainly we've explored these
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from orbit, but now we actually have a land or on the Moon.
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And that's an important thing to out is that the Indian mission has both a
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lander vehicle called the Vikram. You might know somebody named Vicram. I didn't
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know this. That word means valor in the Indian language. I didn't realize
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that. And then the solar powered rover named prag Yon is Sanskrit for wisdom.
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So there's a little rover car. So in other words, the vehicle
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landed and then immediately gave birth to a car dropped it out from underneath and
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now the little car's driving around up there. That's called the prag Yon.
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That's again Sanskrit for wisdom. So there is a lander vehicle that will take
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measurements at the site. There is also a solar powered rover once again solar
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powered at the south poll of the Moon. Maybe not the best idea,
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but okay, all right, we'll see how it works. And so then
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it's gonna try to drive around and take some data. So successful mission so
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far. It's designed to be on the Moon and operating for a lunar day
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or the sun is actually kind of shining on where they landed about fourteen days,
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about two weeks, and then the lunar darkness will happen in that location
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and it'll be not as good so anyway, so that's what they're doing.
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The aim of the mission is to collect scientific data ranging from thermal conductivity and
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temperature readings to detecting moonquakes and looking for elements in the lunar soil and rocks.
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You can read about this fantastic mission on the great article on space dot
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com. Check it out. Go to space dot com and look for India
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on the Moon Ladies. So the bottom of the Moon is really where the
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sun don't shine, that's what you're saying. I said it was the bottom
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of the sun. I don't know what what was I think I had that
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whole idea of sunshine. I don't know what. Hey, I actually read
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an article that was addressing something about It wasn't this particular story, but it
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was a different story, and it was an interview with an astronaut who had
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been on the Moon, and it actually as a headline, said that he
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was one of the last people to set foot on the Sun. So it
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happens to other people, is what I'm saying. It is an easy oopsie,
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and I do it with months. I'm pretty regular doing it months.
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I'm shocked that I haven't called I don't think referred to August as April yet,
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but that's something that I often knew because they both start with A.
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So you know it happened sometimes. Okay, So a win for India and
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we address this in the last few weeks, really about Russia's hope to finally
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get this right with landing something on the Moon. They got to lunar orbit,
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which is a success obviously, but the goal wasn't just to get to
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lunar orbit. It was to actually set something down on the Moon, and
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they have not really had any success with this and that continues on. Yeah,
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So the last time that the Russian Space Agency successfully landed something on the
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Moon, they had a different team name. They were called USSR, so
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like that Beatles song. So anyway, that was back in nineteen seventy six.
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That was when the Lunar four missions successfully landed and then actually returned about
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six ounces of lunar material back to the Earth. Okay, so now they're
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called Russia because they've gone through that name change, and they've not really landed
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anything on the Moon since that time. So it's been a pile of years
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since they had a successful Moon landing. And had they landed that vehicle,
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the Lunar twenty five, their follow up, their sequel, had they landed
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that vehicle on the cell pole of the Sun, the result would have been
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the same, which is no data from the Moon. So there's that.
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Anyway, the Lunar twenty five apparently had a problem see as it was coming
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in. According to the head of the Russian Space Agency Uri Borisov. He
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reported that the main cause of the Lunar twenty five crash was quote an anomalous
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engine burn unquote. Well they're all anomalous if they arter your spacecraft into the
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surface of an alien planet. And that because that's not really the intency.
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So as the as the vehicle was approaching, it's you know, it's lunar
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insertion orbits. They had a planned correction of an orbit. They call it
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a nudge of about eighty four seconds. So the engine was supposed to fire
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for eighty four seconds and it fired for about one hundred and twenty seven seconds.
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Which see, when that happens, that's not good because it provides too
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much acceleration to the vehicle and it starts to go and unplanned arcs of trajectory
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and it ends up slamming into the lunar surfaces. So that's what happened.
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They said it was quote more than the required value unquote, and so yeah,
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so it smashed into the Moon and I guess it landed, but it
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didn't land successfully. It wasn't a soft landing. And then to flip back
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to the Indian mission, that was a soft landing, which means it landed
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in a controlled manner so they could still take data with their spacecraft. The
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Indian mission was, making it one of only four countries that have ever had
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a soft landing on the moon. China, the US, the country formerly
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known as the Soviet Union, and now India. Right so, so the
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country currently known as Russia has had zero soft landings on the moon. And
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so, yeah, that's where we're at with the Russian mission. It's too
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bad, you know, I feel bad. Honestly. I know it's easy
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to pick on Russia right now because there are countries invading Ukraine and Vladimir Putin,
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That's all I have to say about that, all that kind of stuff.
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However, I've met some of the Russian scientists and engineers and even cosmonauts,
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and you know, they're very much like the scientists and engineers and astronauts
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here in the US. And you know, we even have pretty good relations
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with those kinds of folks through our scientific connections. It makes me feel bad
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for them. And apparently one of the leading consultants on this mission was a
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ninety year old Russian astrophysicist who had to then be rushed to the hospital right
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after this mission failed. So obviously some stress right there. That kind of
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makes me feel sad to hear those reports. So you know, people are
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people, and I've heard this saying people are hard to hate close up,
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and we've actually met some of the cosmonauts and some of the Russian scientists here
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at Space Science Center, and they're just they're just people, right, So
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it makes me feel bad for that mission and for the people involved in all
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the work and effort to see that mission go awry. But alas the Russian
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space program has had a failure on the Moon, and it basically just comes
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down to that over nudge, right, I mean, going it's supposed to
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be eighty four seconds. It was one hundred and twenty seven seconds. I'm
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not a mathologist, but I think that's one hundred and fifty percent of what
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they were aiming for. So if I'm doing that correct, my kids would
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have to come in and correct me on that if I'm wrong. But that's
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about yeah, that's where it should be. All right, Let's talk about
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the Falcon nine. The Crew Dragon is ready to go. There is a
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launch scheduled for tonight. Falcon nine and the Crew Dragon now sitting on launch
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Pad thirty nine A at the vaunted Kennedy Space Center, and Crew seven arrived
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at the Kennedy Space Center and getting ready to launch. Actually what amounts to
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the next several hours from now as we're recording this podcast, not very long
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from now. We are on a Thursday. The planned launch is at three
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forty nine am Eastern daylight time on Friday. That would be August twenty five
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as we're recording here, So so again just hours away from that launch.
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The US Space Force weather forecasters are now predicting that Crew seven going up to
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the International Space Station has about a ninety percent chance of acceptable weather for launch.
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In other words, it's been just hot and clear and not really raining
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all that much. There's a couple of cumulus clouds that down there that are
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taken away from being one hundred percent chance, but it's a really good chance
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in terms of weather. So that puts all the burden of responsibility basically on
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the equipment, and SpaceX has been phenomenally successful lately, so so things are
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looking pretty good for a goal on launch in the overnight hours tonight. If
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you're interested in watching that, by the way, and you hear this podcast
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soon enough, spaceflight now dot com a great website to go out and check
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out that launch. Who's on Crew seven. Well, that's a good question.
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Crew seven includes the commander Jasmine mog belly pilot Andreas Mogensen from Denmark,
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European Space Agency mission specialists, Satoshi Furakawa, he's a Japanese Space Agency astronaut
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and mission specialist, Constantine Borisov, one of the Russian Space Agency folks rose
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Cosmos. So those are the folks who are on Crew seven who will be
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heading up to the International Space Station. We wish them godspeed, We wish
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everything goes going well for them and a successful launch tonight in the overnight hours
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into tomorrow morning. For that Crew seven heading to the International Space Station.
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Coming up. After a quick break, we'll talk about sun spots and how
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they might have an impact on clouds on Neptune. We'll address that next.
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So let's talk about sun spots. We know that when their solar activity,
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it can have an effect on a number of things on us here on Earth,
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including communications. We've talked about some of the things that happened on the
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Sun and how it can have an impact on satellites and different things here on
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Earth. But let's go a little further out into the Solar system, out
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to the most distant traditional planet. I don't know. I know Pluto is
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a dwarf planet. What do you call the other planets? Are they traditional
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planets? Are they regular planets? Full size planets? What do they call
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them? They're non dwarf I mean, as with Disney, I'm really nervous
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about in the full conversation. They're they're magical people planets. Can we just
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say that is is that what it? Or is that still the for Pluto?
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But Neptune, h you know, our deepest neighbor in our solar system
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when it comes to planets. About that and uh so, how does sun
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spots? How does that solar activity have an impact on Neptune? West You
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and I've worked together for a long time, and I have to just say
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that we jumped right past Uranus to get the Neptune we did. I must
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point that out. The sun the sun uh does shine on Uranus as it
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does all the way to Neptune, but it definitely doesn't shine on the dark
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side of Uranus. But there'll be no deep dives into Uranus. Today's just
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got deep dive into Neptune. That's right. And we'll talk about clouds on
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Neptune because sunspots having an impact on the clouds. Apparently they are, so
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space weather dot com ladies and gentlemen, that's the place to go for this
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great article. They have highlighted some research that has come out in the journal
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called Icarus. Icarus is a Solar system exploration journal, and they in this
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article and if Icarus is offering some dramatic proof that solar activity, sunspots,
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solar flares and the like, curl mass ejections, those kinds of things,
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and mostly an abundance of ultra violet radiation coming from the Sun can have effects
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on planetary weather. That's the story, right, Not on Earth, not
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on Venus, not on Jupiter, not on Mars, not even on your
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Ranus, but all the way out to the planet Neptune, which, as
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West said, since we've ostracized the former planet, the planet formerly known as
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Pluto or Pluto formerly known as a planet because now a dwarf planet, Neptune
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then became planet number eight. It was already number eight, but it is
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now the furthest planet from the Sun when counting full on planets in our Solar
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system. So planet is the planet Neptune is two point five billion miles from
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the Sun. So you go down to the local convenience story, you take
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a left, and you go for two point five billion miles and you arrive
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at Neptune. So that's I mean, I think officially a long ways off
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is what you would say. So, but it's still even though it's a
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long ways off, Hubble Space Telescope can still get very good imagery of the
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planet Neptune and it's been doing that for the past twenty eight years. And
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what the analysis of twenty eight years of imaging of Neptune has shown and has
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been reported in this paper in Icarus, is that every eleven years or so,
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the clouds just seem to flare up on the planet Neptune. So what's
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happening, Well, the Sun goes through an eleven year activity cycle, so
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that's exactly the same time that more sunspots, more flares, more CMEs come
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around. And it turns out that these appearances of large amounts of clouds on
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Neptune are correlated with the times of higher activity on the Sun. Even though
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the planet Neptune only receives point one percent of the sunlight that we get on
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Earth. So even though the sunlight itself is very weak all the way out
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at Neptune. These variances in the ultra violet coming from the Sun, based
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on its activity, seemed to be having an effect over last forty years or
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so on the cloud activity on this planet. Now that's just really interesting,
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right, because then you could say, well, wait a minute, if
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it's having that effect on Neptune, is it really having no effect on all
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those plans queen or do we really need to look at that more. The
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lead author, one of the co authors on this paper, was talking about
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the effect of ultraviolet and made some reference to the fact that, yeah,
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Neptune is kind of special in this regard. So does he specify how it's
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special in that regard? I just don't understand, just being someone asking a
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question like, how how could Neptune be so special and different than all the
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other planets? Does he specify? Yeah? So, apparently it's it's due
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to the higher level of methane, the higher concentrations of methane in the atmosphere
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of Neptune, and it's the ultraviolet variability from the Sun due to solar activity
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that is interacting with that methane in the high altitudes of the atmosphere. Of
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Neptune and having these photochemical reactions that will then lead to clouds in the atmosphere
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of Neptune. So so there really are some differences in the atmospheres of planets.
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It's a good thing our planet is atmosphere is not loaded up completely with
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methane. We really would be having a dramatic and insane greenhouse effect here making
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our planet unlivable if we had anywhere near the concentrations of methane and our atmosphere
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that Neptune has. So there is a point to that, you know.
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But you know, it does open up a line of maybe some further investigations
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into the interactions between solar radiation and the atmospheres of planets. Since this action,
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this uh interaction has been so well documented by Hubble Space telescope. All
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right, well, speaking of telescopes, and it's easy to switch right over
23:03
into James Webb has given us yet another incredible image. This thing looks like
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and I often will equate this to uh, you know, movie special effects.
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This looks like doctor Strange has or opened up a portal. Right,
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I mean, it does look like an eye, but it looks like doctor
23:22
Strange has opened up a portal into something else. This image of the Ring
23:27
Nebula, it so does. And you know, I realized we're on a
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podcast and this is an audio medium, and we oftentimes on this show because
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astronomy is just beautiful in terms of images, we oftentimes have to talk about
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pictures and I have to describe them in an audio format. So let me
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just say this. The image from the James Webb Space Telescope is so dramatic
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because it shows this ring shaped object, as West just described, looking very
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much like a science fiction portal to another dimension. It harken back to the
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City on the Edge of Forever from the classic Star Trek series. It's something
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along those lines. It's kind of an oval shaped object. It's it's blue
24:10
in the center, and again these are false colors because they're really from an
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infrared image, but it's it's detailed in terms of the materials that are located
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on on the center of that of that ring and on the outer edges of
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the ring there are there appeared to be pillars just ejecting material from the from
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the outside off into space, which really is what's happening. Because ladies and
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gentlemen, this object was created by a sunlike star, a star about the
24:34
same size as our sun, reaching the end of its life cycle and literally
24:38
shedding its outer layers off into space. That's what's known as a planetary nebula.
24:44
It happens during the carbon burning phases of the star's last life gasps,
24:51
and so all of this material is actually streaming out away from the center of
24:55
this object. For amateur astronomers, this is a familiar summertime object in fact,
25:00
on our astronomy programs here at Space Science Center and our collaborations with Callaway
25:04
Gardens, as we do every summer. Lais and gentlemen, make sure you
25:07
come out to Callaway Gardens next summer and enjoy some of those summer astronomy programs
25:11
that we offer public views of the nighttime sky because we can show you the
25:15
ring nebula with your own eye. However, it will not look like this
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James Webb Space Telescope picture, which is simply phenomenal. Now, if you
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want to see this for yourself, go to astronomy dot com. That's a
25:27
great place to see it. Or there's quite frankly, lots of places out
25:30
there online where you can see this thing. But it's a donut shaped object,
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glowing object in space that's about twenty two hundred light years from the Earth.
25:40
It consists of the materials of a dying star about the same size as
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the Sun being ejected off into space, and it looks absolutely phenomenal. But
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we don't take James Webb Space telescope pictures just to make beautiful posters, even
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though that is one of the results. It is also providing astronomers with a
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high detailed look at this object. In fact, the most detailed view of
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the Ring Nebula ever taken, which will help them understand the dynamics of what's
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taking place inside that cloud of shed material from this dying star in its death
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rows ejecting its material into space in a kind of a kind of a bubble
26:19
shaped object known as the as the Ring Nebula. You guys have a big
26:25
event coming up this weekend at the Coca Cola Space Science Center. We have
26:30
our Columbus Comic Book and Toy Show happening this Sunday, Ladies and gentlemen this
26:34
Sunday, and you can come and check out all of the vendors and comic
26:41
books and toys and all the fun science fiction paraphernalia that will be on display
26:45
and on sale here. And don't forget just the night before, at our
26:51
partner organization, Columbus's River Center for the Performing Arts, they will be having
26:56
a live concert a live orchestra playing all the soundtrack to Spider Man into the
27:03
Spider Verse. And you can buy a combo ticket still for that event.
27:08
If you jump on line right now and order that combo package, you can
27:12
both go to the concert and come to our Columbus Comic Book and Toy Show
27:18
Saturday night and Sunday morning. And if you're out of town, even better,
27:22
come stay the night, hang out in Columbus. It's a cool place.
27:23
Great restaurants, great theaters, cool space science centers. Come check it
27:29
all out, ladies and gentlemen. If you go to our Facebook page or
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our website for the Coca Cola Space Science Center, you will find all the
27:36
information you need to buy one of these combo pac tickets and come to a
27:40
great concert, live music performed to an actual motion picture. How cool is
27:45
that? And then the Columbus Comic Book and Toy Show the next day.
27:48
Ladies and gentlemen. Check it out www dot cc SSC dot org Charlie Charlie
27:56
Sam Sam Charlie dot org, and we thank you for listening and we'll talk
28:02
to you again next week. Plants Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all of
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your garage door needs covered. Residential and commercial service and repairs. If you
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need a new garage door, or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your
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current door, Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've got
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your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven oh six three five eight
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forty five hundred seven oh six three five eight forty five hundred o DC Columbus dot com