Latest / Made of Stars / Ammonia, Sun Spots, Space Lasers, Waffles and Betelgeuse

Transcript

Ammonia, Sun Spots, Space Lasers, Waffles and Betelgeuse · Made of Stars

0:00
Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
0:04
space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
0:08
phenomenon, the scientific method, and expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar,
0:12
asterism and uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. We're
0:22
made of stars. Made them stars, madies. When made of stars,
0:32
you could be from high they would New Mexico, maas where am stars?
0:43
Womens? We are made of stars? Joined by my good friend doctor Sean,
0:56
cruising from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space I'm Wes, Carol morning Sean,
1:02
Good morning, Wes. Good to be here today. We have another
1:07
ammonia incident involving the Russian Space Agency. What's the deal with these guys in
1:14
ammonia? I don't know, is do we know if there's a pattern?
1:17
Is there some sort is there that they have different ammonia than us here?
1:22
Do they take a lot of those little ammonia packs when they go up there?
1:25
I don't know, you know, do they pass out a lot maybe
1:26
when they're going up? Do they need them when they're in Kazakhstan? Cue
1:30
the music. I don't know. I don't know what's going on with them.
1:36
In ammonia, this seems to be a regular problem. I know we
1:38
haven't had one in a little while, but I guess I'm going full Jerry
1:42
Seinfeld. What's the deal with the ammonia am tabs? You've popped an am
1:49
tab under your nose. You know you don't want to breathe a whole lot
1:53
of ammonia, right, I mean breathing ammonia is not recommended, particularly when
1:57
you're in space and have a limited air environment. Seak only once. I
2:00
had to have one of those in my soccer playing careers, which any of
2:04
my teammates would probably tell you it means I wasn't going up for enough headers.
2:08
Yeah, well, not to you know, criticize your soccer plaguabilities,
2:15
but you know I played football and you know I got hit in the head
2:16
a little bit more often, and I think I had three or four of
2:20
those dam tabs up my nose at one point or another, plus a couple
2:23
more just trying them out. It's like, what is this like? Oh,
2:25
that's what that's like. Okay, So so all right, So the
2:30
Russians have had kind of a a difficult run, shall we say, with
2:37
the ammonia bearing components of their various spacecraft in space station. So in the
2:42
last year they have had three giant coolant leaks aboard various components of the Russian
2:52
spacecrafts or space station. And so the third one in less than a year
3:00
that we're talking about now, which is a big ammonium Well big is one
3:05
thing you have to kind of parse out. This is actually a measurable ammonia
3:09
leak on one of their radiator segments. Now what's a radiator. Well,
3:15
the radiator is something that they cycle the ammonia through so that it can release
3:22
the heat off into space. So you're trying to keep the spacecraft both heated
3:25
and cooled simultaneously. This is one way to dissipate built up heat is with
3:30
these radiator ammonias. So they're part of the cooling system for the space station,
3:36
all right. So they cycle this ammonia through closed system inside the station
3:40
and then through these radiators out in space, so it takes the heat,
3:44
radiates it off in this space and the cooled ammonia runs back through the International
3:49
Space Station and therefore allows it to stay at a comfortable temperature for human beings.
3:54
So the problem comes in when somewhere in the system something springs a leak,
4:02
and that's exactly what happened. First of all, you don't want to
4:05
lose all your coolant because then your spacecraft is going to become uncomfortably warm.
4:12
But the other thing is you also just don't want random ammonia spewing out of
4:16
your spacecraft or space station because that built up ammonia ice on the outside of
4:21
the spacecraft can be a problem. And if anybody's doing a spacewalk, they
4:26
might get contaminated by this toxic coolant that is primarily ammonia based. So there's
4:31
all the there's all the problems, all right. So recently a leak was
4:35
detected on one of the radiator segments. On Wednesday of this week, two
4:41
Russian cosmonauts went outside the International Space Station to try to find and repair the
4:46
leaking radiator. Those two those two cosmonots were Oleg Conanenko and Nikolai Chubb.
4:54
Now I do wonder if Nikolai Chubb is related to Nick Chubb. I don't
4:59
have any reason to believe he's not, but I don't know. I mean,
5:01
he's kind of the Russian Nick Chubb. I mean, his name is
5:06
Nick Chubb. He's got one less B, but that may just be the
5:11
Russian spelling. I mean. So he can do a spacewalk, he can
5:15
repair a leaking radiator, and he can pick up a first down in short
5:18
yardist situations. So these are the important parts of the biography of Nikolai Chubb,
5:27
Russian cosmonaut. These are the things we need to know. So Nick
5:29
Chubb's got the ball and they go outside and they're trying to repair this leaking
5:33
radiator when all of a sudden, some of the leaking residual ammonia that's building
5:42
up into basically a toxic blob on the outside of this radiator, some of
5:46
that ammonia comes into contact with old egg Kononenko's tether strap. Now, this
5:54
is what keeps a spacewalking astronaut or cosmonaut from simply floating away from the space
6:00
station and off into space. So it's an essential piece of equipment. But
6:03
the problem is once that ammonia comes it's frozen ammonia. Once that frozen ammonia
6:10
comes into contact with that piece of equipment, the thing is you can't bring
6:14
it back inside because you cannot bring any measurable amount of ammonia from the outside
6:21
leaking radiator back into the spacecraft because then you contaminate the breathable air on the
6:28
closed system that is the International Space Station, and so then you have a
6:34
problem. Right, So now you have a cosmonaut who's outside doing a spacewalk,
6:41
whose tether back to the space station has now become toxic. So now
6:46
they have to go through procedures. So I will say that they were able
6:49
to repair the leak. They were able to get Oleg Cononenko safely back into
6:57
the spacecraft. It was very important for them to determine whether he had any
7:01
of that a frozen ammonia on his actual space suit or not. So they
7:08
they were able to determine that he did not, which is good. And
7:11
what they did is they simply bagged up that tether and connected it to the
7:15
outside of the space station. So you know, imagine things at your house
7:21
that you don't necessarily want to be inside. You kind of just bag them
7:26
up, and you know, you place them either in a waste bin or
7:29
some kind of a storage facility on the outside of your house until trash day.
7:33
That's kind of what they've done with this tether that's now contaminated with ammonia.
7:38
All right, So leak number three. The other two, of course,
7:45
last December, a soy You spacecraft was disabled when it apparently was struck
7:49
by a micro meteorite right on the ammonia system and spewed a beautiful fountain of
7:56
ammonia that made a lovely frozen ice sculpture out of the Solu spacecraft. Back
8:01
in December. That leak caused Frank Rubio to be America's longest space flown astronaut
8:07
on a single spaceflight because that was his ride home and he couldn't take it.
8:11
Another league that was very similar in nature and also blamed on a possible
8:16
micro meteorite impact, happened on one of their Russian Progress cargo ships. That's
8:22
an unpiloted craft, last earlier this year rather, And so this is ammonia
8:26
leak number three in less than twelve months for the Russians. Two of them
8:33
blamed on wayward micro meteorites. Third one as yet unknown what the cause is.
8:41
Could there just be some sort of systematic problem with the ammonia systems.
8:46
The coolest systems on both the Russian component of the International Space Station and they're
8:54
visiting spacecraft. Well, this is kind of the question that Wes posed a
8:56
minute ago. That's a good question, Yeah, like is there something wrong
9:01
with their ammonia or and I guess it probably the better question is is there
9:05
something wrong with the housing system? For a couple of things and everything that
9:09
you said, And my role here, of course is to be, you
9:13
know, the everyman. I'm here to cover a couple of things that we've
9:18
discussed before. Now because you mentioned this happened in the craft that we're going
9:22
up, and then now this one has happened inside the International Space Station.
9:26
But it's important to note when the craft docks with the International Space Station,
9:30
it becomes part of the International Space Station, right and you know sometimes you'll
9:33
have astronauts sleeping in those things, so it is part of the craft.
9:37
So it does become that. Now you mentioned that they're heating and cooling it
9:41
simultaneously. Wouldn't that cause a thunderstorm? Your thoughts? Well, I guess
9:48
if the proper atmosphere conditions existed and you had enough uplift within the thunderhead,
9:52
it could potentially spawn a thunderstorm or possibly even a tornado. I mean,
9:58
I'm not aware of any reported cases of thunderstorms or tornadoes aboard the International Space
10:03
Station, but you know, I'm not ruling it out. They would need
10:05
an excessive amount of moisture probably in there, I guess, and as far
10:11
as we know, that hasn't been the case. I do remember years ago
10:15
we had a story about a wayward sausage floating through that they had to deal
10:18
with to deal with sausage floating through, which is one of my favorite stories
10:24
that we ever did. Ever. All right, let's talk about the Sun,
10:28
because sunspot counts dropping, And of course the first question, like,
10:33
we're in this solar cycle, were in, we got into solar maximum early,
10:39
So does this mean it's going to end early or does this mean we
10:45
just happen to have a coincidence and they drop a number of sunspot counts.
10:50
Yeah, So first of all, let's talk about what it is that's actually
10:52
happening, which is this. The Sun goes through an eleven year cycle of
10:56
activity. So every eleven years it reaches something called solar maximum, and we
11:01
shrink that down to solar max just so we don't have to say maximum.
11:07
Apparently that's too many syllables. I guess, wait, are too many syllables.
11:11
So solar max. Solar max is the time when the Sun is most
11:16
active in terms of its solar storms, solar flares, prominences, eruptions,
11:24
sun spots, all that kind of stuff. We get the most of that
11:26
kind of behavior at a period of time we call solar maximum. This has
11:31
to do with a variation in the magnetic field of the Sun that occurs over
11:33
this eleven year cycle. Okay, so we were heading towards solar max and
11:39
we started seeing a lot more sun spots solar flares, and that caused the
11:46
solar forecasters to kind of repredict when they thought solar max was going to happen.
11:50
They first thought it was in twenty twenty five, but then they said,
11:52
well, maybe even next year, in twenty twenty four, we'll get
11:56
to the solar maximum. Because of sunspot activity and solar flares was increasing so
12:03
rapidly that they thought they maybe were gonna get a little bit of an early
12:07
solar max. Then all of a sudden, in just the last couple of
12:11
months, the sun spots have just vanished. We're down to almost no sunspots
12:18
on the Sun today, for instance. And there's a group that actually monitors
12:22
this very carefully. It's the Royal Observatory of Belgium and they have an organization
12:28
called the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center, and basically that is just a group
12:33
of scientists who are keeping very careful track of what's going on on the Sun
12:37
in terms of solar activity. And they have reported that the sunspot counts are
12:41
heading for zero as of at October twenty third, which is now, and
12:46
as we're coming to the end of that month. So this shouldn't be happening
12:52
in the middle of solar maximums. So does this mean we didn't hit solar
12:56
maximum early? Is that where this is starting to suggest. So this is
13:01
what the scientist that studies the sunspot cycle have to do. They have to
13:05
look back at historic data and they have to say, gosh, have we
13:09
seen this happen before? And then what happened after that? Right, So
13:16
they're trying to use history as a predictor for the future. And so when
13:20
they look back at previous sunspot cycles, they realize that in the midst of
13:28
increasing solar activity, heading for this time of solar maximum they've actually come across
13:31
things called sunspot lulls. Lulls a lull in the sunspot count, and it
13:39
is just a statistical drop off, or another way to think about it is
13:43
it's a beat in the statistical fluctuations where they all seem to kind of align
13:48
toward negative and you get just a quiet period for a short period of time.
13:54
Typically when we look back at the historic data, after these sunspot lulls
13:58
occur, the sunspot cycle energizes right back up again. So you're just sort
14:03
of seeing a statistical effect and we expect, or i should say the solar
14:09
scientists who are actually predicting this stuff, expect a return of a very strong
14:13
solar cycle. Now it's important to say that that's what's expected and not necessarily
14:20
what's going to happen. So it's you know, it's going to be an
14:24
interesting time now that those people who do science on the Sun and particularly the
14:28
sunspot cycle are really watching now to see if this sunspot lull enters, or
14:35
if it ends early, or is it really leading us into a time of
14:41
a quieter period on the Sun, which would mean there's a hiccup in the
14:46
typical sunspot activity cycle. And that's a very interesting thing. So all of
14:50
that tells us about some of the plasma behaviors of the Sun in general,
14:54
and whether or not they really are that predictable. Certainly we see these lungs
15:00
want term patterns, but there are sub patterns within the overall pattern, and
15:03
this could be one of those that's new and interesting and needs to be explained
15:07
by sun scientists. Sun scientists also known as sunologists, I think is the
15:15
that's the word I give for just you mentioned it was the Royal Observatory of
15:18
Belgium Solar Influences Data Analysis Center. That's a different department than the Royal Observatory
15:26
of Belgium's Waffle Data Analysis Center. Like, that's a different group of people,
15:31
right, or do they maybe share jobs? You know? I think
15:33
they moved back and forth. I personally would like to volunteer for the waffle
15:37
analysis. Yeah, I mean, if we eat waffles and stare at the
15:41
Sun, I think that probably sounds like a good day, you know,
15:45
maybe some chocolate the service of a waffle. There are various increases and decreases
15:50
across the surface of pretty much every waffle, and I would like to know
15:52
more about that. So yes, I would. I would happily volunteer for
15:56
their waffle analysis. Could we use sunspots to heat our waffles and get them
16:00
properly toasted? Those sorts of things. Those are questions that I like to
16:03
and maybe and how do the sunspots affect the melting of Belgian chocolate? Those
16:07
are things we need to get to the bottom of. We call all the
16:11
listeners that I know we have at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. I would
16:15
like to just volunteer the services of Wes and I too to engage in these
16:18
experiments. Can we influence the waffle production based on the solar cycle and the
16:26
appearance of sunspots or not? Just because we have a lull in sunspots does
16:30
not mean we have to have a lull in Belgian waffles. I'm gonna say
16:33
none. And cheese that's another thing for them, right, Let's talk about
16:37
this is a cool story. This is my favorite story of the day.
16:41
As much as I like talking about waffles, but this is my favorite story
16:44
of the day because I know this is an important one. This is a
16:47
big one for the future moving forward. When we start looking at trying to
16:52
colonize the Moon, or trying to colonize Mars and trying to do space missions
16:56
that maybe go really deep into space. Right, we haven't done that yet,
17:00
and start thinking about that. One of the things we have to be
17:04
able to do, and be able to do very quickly is communicate. NASA
17:10
now has worked on and I guess they're going to be demonstrating a two way
17:15
end to end laser communication system. How about that. It's a pretty cool
17:21
idea and it's a technology that, as you said, would really be able
17:25
to help out as we venture into these space environments and we want to you
17:30
know, live there long term, colonize Earth, orbit, colonize the Moon,
17:33
possibly colonize Mars. We need to be able to communicate with each other.
17:38
And based on the way that we do our electronics these days, the
17:44
Internet of Things, everything needs to transfer data. Right, So this is
17:48
you know, if you think about your own house, right, you you
17:49
have a certain bandwidth on your Wi Fi because it's a radio signal, and
17:56
radio signals are efficient, but they can only carry so much data. It
18:00
turns out that if you can connect a fiber optic cable, suddenly you have
18:03
a much higher bandwidth. Now, imagine a fiber optic cable. Without the
18:08
cable, imagine that information just being carried over laser light, which would basically
18:14
also be able to carry a higher capacity of data than simple radio transmissions.
18:19
But you didn't need the cable. Well, how could you pull that off?
18:23
Well, it turns out you can pull that off with laser light,
18:27
and so you can use lasers to communicate high bandwidth data over long distances.
18:34
And so there's an experiment that's going up to the International Space Station in November
18:38
where they're going to take up a device called the Alluma T. And if
18:44
you'd know what the acronym of illuminate means, your chances are you going to
18:49
want to just call it illumina tee because this acronym is well, I would
18:52
call this a strained acronym if not strained to the max in this case.
18:57
So I'm going to tell you what illumina T he stands for, and then
19:00
we're just gonna call it ILLUMINATEE from now on. So ALLUMATEE stands for the
19:06
Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, Low Earth Orbit User Modem and amplifier terminal sounds
19:12
right, allumatee yes. Little known fact little known fact the wrapper iced tea.
19:22
His is a strained acronym to and I don't know, I don't know.
19:25
I've forgotten what his stands for. I don't know if it was assigned
19:27
by NASA specifically. But but you know, you can have a rapper called
19:32
Illuminaty. You could. That sounds like a good as well. You know,
19:36
it might not be a good idea because it it could be part of
19:38
the jay Z Illuminati family. I guess, I don't know. We could
19:42
try to. Probably it's not a good name for it, now that I
19:45
think about it. We're gonna be shooting lasers in this space and back so
19:49
that the Illuminati can shrunktrol things. They've named it the Illuminaty. Now that
19:55
I'm thinking about this, this has gone in a really bad direction. It's
19:59
taking a dark turn. The first first message they're gonna send is gonna be
20:03
that triangle with the eyeball in it. That's what they're doing. We can
20:07
see this coming. This is not good. Oh man, Can they use
20:11
this laser to burn that image on the moon? Can we do that?
20:18
I mean, if it got misdirected, you know, and fired to the
20:19
service of the moon, I'm not sure it wouldn't burn it. I don't
20:22
really know what its wantage is. But anyway, the point is, if
20:26
jay Z wants to transmit a higher bandwidth of data of his music up to
20:30
the International Space Station or colonies on both the Moon and Mars, he might
20:33
want the Illumina Tee to be able to do that. Okay, So what
20:37
Illumina Tee is going to do at the space station's payload that's going up in
20:41
space station, it's going to be a demonstration of how missions in low Earth
20:47
orbit can benefit from laser communications. So it's not it's not that they're installing
20:52
a new laser communication system. It's that they're doing a beta test of a
20:59
potential technology that could be long term sometime in the future aboard the International Space
21:06
Station. So laser communications in this case, they're using infrared lasers. So
21:11
these are lasers you can't even see. So if you want to talk about
21:14
the Illuminati and dangerous space based weapon, imagine lasers you can't even see.
21:21
But simply transmitting JAYZ music, that's all it really is. So these are
21:25
laser communication systems in the infrared band of the electromagnetic spectrum that send receive information
21:30
at high data rates. This type of data transfer system would provide spacecraft with
21:36
the capability to send more data back to Earth in a single transmission and expedite
21:41
to discover the discoveries of researchers, so says the article on NASA dot gov.
21:48
So if you want to read more about jay Z his Illuminati and their
21:52
infiltration of NASA to take over the world, check out NASA dot gov and
21:56
that story won't be there. But if you want to know more about Illuma
22:00
Tea, the Illumina Tea story is definitely on NASA dot go and you can
22:04
check it out. So by saying in laser communications system, so by saying
22:08
it won't be there, their story will be the illumin Nahti because it's not
22:14
there, right, It's not there, So yeah, yeah, I guess.
22:18
All right, this is our final show before Halloween, so it's only
22:22
appropriate that we have a beetlejuice story. Beetlejuice, beetlejuice. We'll talk about
22:26
that right after the break. So after a last week's show, we mentioned
22:52
a poet that I've known for a long time, and and then she sent
22:56
us a poem. How about that. It's really cool. Yeah, so
23:00
remind our audience her name again, Laura Johnson and Laura Johnson was it poetry
23:06
dot com or Laura Johnson poet dot com. I'm sorry I don't have it
23:08
in front of me, but yeah, no, she sent us a poem.
23:12
She was a flatter that we mentioned her on the and it was just
23:17
because she had made a comment on social media that basically referenced, you know,
23:22
the fact that we had the sombrero galaxy and we talked about you know
23:26
what that meant. She said, by listening to you explain it, she
23:30
understood more about that. And she said, well, maybe maybe they had
23:32
to take the picture a long time ago, if it's two galaxies colliding.
23:36
And I say, well, yeah, most of that stuff was a long
23:37
time ago. But anyway, she sent us a poem called no Answers and
23:41
I shared that with you and anyway, so that was Laura. If you're
23:45
listening out there again now, I really enjoyed the poem. Thank you for
23:48
writing that and you know, sharing it with not just us but the world.
23:52
And she was one of my teachers, one of my teachers in high
23:56
school. And I got bold and I thought, oh, let me offer
23:59
one little criticism on your poll. I mean, I'm not sure that was
24:03
the best move, probably not, but it's only fair. She used to
24:07
do that with all my stuff. Come on, at least mine didn't involve
24:11
a red pen for crying out loud. I mean, you did graduate,
24:14
right, You're now at another level. I guess I graduated from a school
24:17
that doesn't exist anymore so, by all accounts, I was the valedictorian.
24:22
And just call them up and ask if you don't believe me, no,
24:26
And she she sent me the revision today. I guess she knew it was
24:30
show day again, but she didn't really take my advice. She she just
24:37
said her a vision. I didn't take it personally. She's the teacher.
24:40
I'm the student, right, I just know what you're saying is someone who
24:44
does poetry professionally didn't take your advice on the pull. Is this what I'm
24:47
hearing. I'm expecting maybe a long list of critiques on the podcast coming from
24:52
her, and that would only be fair at this stage. All right,
24:56
our final show before Halloween next week, and and we got a beetlejuice story.
25:03
Beetlejuice, beetle juice, you gotta do it three times anyway, or
25:07
did I just make him go away? I don't know. I did it
25:08
a minute ago. Either way, it's showtime Beetlejuice the star. We've been
25:15
talking about this for a while. It seemed like maybe Beetlejuice was going away,
25:21
which is juice, by the way, is an Arabic word for Armpit
25:23
of the Great One. So I'm not sure how that ties to Michael Keaton,
25:27
but you know, there's probably some kind of a six steps to Michael
25:30
Keaton through that translation. Anyway, So, the Armpit of the Great One
25:37
is actually a red super giant star. It's a massive, massive star.
25:41
It is going to go super nova someday. It is, in some sense
25:48
in its last throes of life over the life cycle of a star. Right,
25:55
So it could be thousands and thousands of years before Beetlejuice goes super nova,
25:59
or it could be tomorrow. We really don't know. We think it's
26:02
probably longer than tomorrow. So so what happened, though, was in early
26:10
twenty nineteen, something very strange began to happen, which is Beetlejuice just randomly
26:18
began to dim. I say randomly because to us here on Earth we didn't
26:22
know any reason or suspect any process that would make Beetlejuice just suddenly get a
26:26
lot dimmer in the sky. And friends, I am a long time skywatcher.
26:32
When I say it began to dim, you could walk out and with
26:36
your unaided eye, if you knew the constellation of a Ryan well as an
26:41
old friend like I did, you could tell the star was dimmer. I
26:45
mean you could. I could just physically see it. I'm like, wow.
26:48
So you and I had several conversations through our media connections here made of
26:53
Stars about the fact that the star was doing some very unusual behavior. Astronomers
27:00
around the world were keeping a very close eye on it, and we thought
27:04
we actually might see a supernova explosion of the grand star Beetlejuice, one of
27:11
the ten brighted stars in the entire sky, going supernova. That would be
27:17
incredible to be alive, you know, to just happen to line up with
27:22
our life window being at the same time that we saw the evidence of Beetlejuice
27:26
going supernova. That would just be an incredible thing and a kind of a
27:32
sad thing too, because I was thinking at the time, man, I
27:36
don't know if I want to live through the era where there's no more beetlejuice
27:38
hanging out as the shoulder of Orion. That would just be weird. Okay,
27:44
So that's where we were living back in twenty nineteen. Well, it
27:48
didn't happen. After a period of time, beetlejuice came back to its regular
27:52
brightness, and ever since then astronomers have been saying, basically, what the
27:56
heck was that? What just happened here? We need to know. So
28:00
as of Monday, October twenty third, the European Southern Observatory has released some
28:06
new data on the whole beetle juice incident, and they have a new study
28:10
that suggests that definitely dust was the cause. I don't mean the kind of
28:15
household dust that builds up on your television set, ladies and gentlemen. What
28:21
I'm talking about is cosmic dust or stellar dust. At this point. It
28:26
is a heavy element process that's being generated in the core of this dying star
28:33
where there are elements heavier than helium that are being generated through that thermal nuclear
28:37
fusion process, and they are just being ejected at certain moments in the star's
28:44
lifetime, and as they get ejected from the core. They pass through the
28:48
various layers of the star. They are involved with some fairly complex chemistry.
28:53
And what burst out of Beetle Juice back in twenty nineteen and caused it to
28:57
dim is this stuff called silicon monoxide. There was a giant burst of silicon
29:06
monoxide coming from the star's photosphere and this caused a cooling process that caused the
29:15
entire surface of the star to dim somewhat. But also the dust itself obscured
29:22
the light from Beetlejuice in the direction of the Earth at the time, which
29:27
was unusual, and so all of these things actually caused the star to appear
29:34
to get dimmer in our sky for a while. But there are safe to
29:40
say in a dying star like the star Beetle Juice, there are a lot
29:42
of unstable processes, and this was the result of an unstable process in the
29:48
nuclear fusion taking place inside the star that had an eruption that affected the environment
29:53
outside of the star, and silicon monoxide has been detected by the Europeans Southern
30:00
Observatory. They came out with a quote that says basically this the changes in
30:03
the structure of the photosphere and the silicon monoxide detected are consistent with the formation
30:11
of a cold spot on the star's surface and the ejection of a cloud of
30:15
dust, so says the European Southern Observatory, and they offer this up as
30:22
an explanation to the anomalous, mysterious, quite frightening dimming of this crazy star
30:30
up there in the constellation of Orion. I always like these stories that we
30:33
have that just take a long time. You have to just let them sort
30:36
of play out, be patient with them, and not really know everything that's
30:38
going on, and then eventually we get to some sort of an answer,
30:41
maybe a resolution, maybe they've got it worked out. But it's always fun
30:45
to kind of see, not directly, but we're just seeing the science play
30:49
out the way that it's supposed to work. Yeah, you know, astronomy
30:52
has a lot in common with forensics at that juncture, right, you're presented
30:59
with this evidence, you're trying to figure out what actually occurred. You employ
31:03
science to piece together a storyline. And I know that you and I have
31:08
a favorite memory together in discussing this event called Tabby's Star. Tabby Starr was
31:15
a mysterious star dimming that took place, and it appeared to be a very
31:19
regular kind of ultrasymmetric pattern that some people suggested was an alien civilization building a
31:26
Dyson sphere around their parents star, which later turned out to be also guess
31:32
what, dust, So that was another dust phenomenon, dimming a star that
31:37
was anomalous and hard to explain in terms of its geometry and composition. But
31:41
ultimately the forensic scientists who are astronomers piece together all those pieces of evidence and
31:48
explain Tabby's star as well. So that's an interesting read if you have.
31:51
If you don't know that story, do a Google search and check out Tabby's
31:53
Star, Tabby Tabby's Star. So you're what you're telling me is the similar
32:00
larities with forensics. There may be a David Caruso astronomer who took his glasses
32:04
off and said, it looks like this beetlejuice might be back from the dead
32:07
or whatever. Amusing the cue the who and then start playing them. Anyway,
32:13
let's talk about the Hunter's moon. We got some fun sky observations to
32:17
make over the next little time. Right, It's really like it's painting a
32:21
picture. God is painting a picture in the sky for us. It is
32:24
indeed true. I often have been quoted as saying that the sky gives us
32:30
those glimpses of heaven which we find hard to imagine in any other way.
32:35
I've seen a few sunrises and moon scenes here in just the last week or
32:37
so that have kind of reinforced that idea in my mind. And friends,
32:43
if you walk out, particularly under the morning sky over the next week or
32:46
so, you're gonna have some interesting things taking place. You're gonna be able
32:51
to see both the planet Jupiter when it is nearing opposition, where it's at
32:55
its closest point to the Earth, at the same time that you see the
33:00
planet Venus on the other side of the sky. Jupiter in the west,
33:02
Venus in the east. Remember this is a morning sky. You can see
33:07
them tomorrow morning if it's clear. They're already in this configuration. Venus is
33:10
also at one of its closest approaches to the Earth. But Venus can't be
33:15
at opposition because it's a planet that's closer to the Sun than we are.
33:17
Anyway, there's a lot of solar mechanics I could explain, but we don't
33:21
have that kind of time. You're gonna see two big bright planets in the
33:23
sky, Jupiter in the west Venus in the east, and throughout the next
33:28
week you're going to see the moon move through that configuration. It's gonna start
33:35
at a close approach to the planet Jupiter this Saturday, so that's kind of
33:40
a fun thing. It's gonna be Saturday, October twenty eighth. It's going
33:45
to be at a relatively close approach to the planet Jupiter as a relative position
33:50
in the sky at the same time that it reaches full phase. And so
33:54
the name of October's full moon for twenty twenty three is the Hunter's Moon.
34:00
The Hunter's moon is always the moon that follows the harvest moon. The harvest
34:04
moon can actually move around a little bit, so you got to watch the
34:07
date on what they call the harvest moon. There's another podcast segment there for
34:10
a future show. We're not going to go into it now, but the
34:13
Hunter's moon for twenty twenty three is occurring this Saturday, October twenty eighth,
34:19
and at the moment of the moon becomes full and rises beautifully in the east,
34:23
it's gonna be rising very close to that planet Jupiter. So to get
34:27
to see that near conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter in the evening sky right
34:32
after sunset. But again I'm gonna encourage you to get out in under that
34:36
morning sky. You'll see Jupiter in the Moon setting together over in the west
34:40
as the bright ultra bright planet Venus is rising in the east. And right
34:45
in the middle of that whole scene is what we call the winter Oval,
34:49
and that front and center is the constellation of Orion, and that upper right
34:54
shoulder Beetlejuice that we were just discussing, along with Tarus, the Bull,
34:59
and the Pleiad, along with several ten of the twenty brightest stars in the
35:04
entire sky are in that particular region of the sky. So it's just going
35:07
to be a phenomenal sky show in those morning hours. And you know,
35:12
the sun's rising a little later these days because we're moving toward winter solstice,
35:15
so it's a little easier to get out there under that morning sky, get
35:17
your cup of coffee, go out through the next several mornings throughout the next
35:22
week, and just enjoy the absolute show as West described that in the morning
35:27
skies taking place with Jupiter, Venus and the inconstant Moon passing through that particular
35:35
part of the sky. We are coming up on the final Music Under the
35:38
Dome of twenty twenty three on the seventh of November, November seventh, our
35:45
last Music under the Dome for twenty twenty three, as Wes said, but
35:50
only the second in this season. There'll be two more shows in the spring.
35:53
And we love our collaboration with the schwob School of Music here at Columbus
35:58
State University because those those artists and musicians and singers are so talented and when
36:02
they come in and perform inside of our planetarium at the Coca Cola Space Science
36:07
Center, it is a phenomenal show. Now, that would be enough all
36:12
on its own to make a really memorable experience, but we also have artists
36:15
who are doing original artwork that is choreographed to the music that we present on
36:22
our planetarium dome at the same time, so it is a sight and sound
36:27
extravaganza. If you've never seen a Music under the Dome concert, I don't
36:30
care where you are in the world, even if you're listening in Bulgaria,
36:34
fly in, come check it out. November seventh, Tuesday, It's a
36:37
Tuesday, Come check out that concert. Music under the dome here at Columbus
36:40
State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. It's Laura johnsonpoet dot com. I
36:46
was able to check that out and confirm that. All right. That'll do
36:52
it for this edition of the show. Thank you for listening, and we'll
36:54
do it again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all of your
37:06
garage door needs covered. Residential and commercial service and repairs. If you need
37:10
a new garage door, or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current
37:15
door, Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've got your
37:19
emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven oh six three five eight forty
37:24
five hundred. Seven oh six three five eight forty five hundred Odccolumbus dot com