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Studying Medicine In Space · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead.
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Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes. When
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Speaker 3: made of stars, you could be from high they would
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Speaker 3: New Mexicomus, where all stars?
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Speaker 4: When we are made of stars.
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Speaker 5: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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Speaker 5: Cruising from Columbus State Universities, Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 5: Morning Shawn, Good morning Wes.
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Speaker 2: We have some really interesting topics to discuss this morning.
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Speaker 4: We're gonna get a little deep.
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Speaker 5: Like with some shows we do, it's very science y.
1:12
Speaker 5: Some shows we do is kind of more like, here's
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Speaker 5: what's going on in you know, kind of a commercial
1:18
Speaker 5: space aspect. We dip into those. Sometimes we hit into
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Speaker 5: these very deep, deep sciencey ones. This one goes a
1:25
Speaker 5: little more sciencey. So for folks that enjoy that, this
1:28
Speaker 5: is going to be your kind of show. If you
1:30
Speaker 5: want to hear us talking about you know, Elon musk
1:33
Speaker 5: a lot. You're probably not going to hear his name
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Speaker 5: a whole lot. That may be the only one for
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Speaker 5: the for the show.
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Speaker 4: I don't know.
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Speaker 5: He may come up again at some point, but.
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Speaker 2: We have some just all be honest with you, I
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Speaker 2: just hope not.
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Speaker 5: It's just nice to get a little break from some
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Speaker 5: of that every now and then. The only thing really
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Speaker 5: that we should in any way address about him is that,
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Speaker 5: you know, we talked about the fact that he and
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Speaker 5: the President had their spat and then they kind of unspatted.
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Speaker 5: Who knows what the current status of things is. That's
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Speaker 5: kind of as diplomatic as we can be about it.
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Speaker 5: We don't know what's going on with that. What we
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Speaker 5: do know though, is as we get into the actual
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Speaker 5: show is that this is a really cool story as
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Speaker 5: it relates to medicine in space. And we have talked
2:20
Speaker 5: about this before. We just recently did the show where
2:24
Speaker 5: we talked about fruitflies. We talked about DNA of fruitflies
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Speaker 5: and some experiments and things that will I guess eventually
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Speaker 5: be happening as it relates to fruitflies and things like
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Speaker 5: that similar DNA with humans. But our first story today
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Speaker 5: from space dot Com is actually about studying cancer cells
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Speaker 5: in space, So before we can.
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Speaker 2: Have that wonderful conversation, because wouldn't it be great if
2:52
Speaker 2: we could help move toward curing cancer simply by having
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Speaker 2: a space program. Let us not forget the Currently, the
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Speaker 2: International Space Station is scheduled to be deorbited in twenty
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Speaker 2: thirty and there are you know, famous owners of rocket
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Speaker 2: companies who come out recently saying they should deorbit it
3:14
Speaker 2: even faster. So okay, so let's let's take that factoid,
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Speaker 2: put it in our back pocket, sit on it where
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Speaker 2: it belongs, and we'll move on with the story, which
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Speaker 2: is this that researchers are now beginning to understand that
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Speaker 2: the low gravity environment provided by the International Space Station
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Speaker 2: is a fantastic place to work on potential cancer tests
3:40
Speaker 2: and treatments, perhaps even being able to cure cancer someday
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Speaker 2: based on the research taking place in the space environment.
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Speaker 2: Space may be the perfect place to study and even
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Speaker 2: treat cancer, so says space dot com, And so says
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Speaker 2: a group of researchers both out of Wake Forest University
4:05
Speaker 2: and the University of Notre Dame. So these are two
4:10
Speaker 2: fairly high powered institutions. So tumors grown in the laboratory
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Speaker 2: on Earth are heading up for the International Space Station
4:23
Speaker 2: as part of a new research project to use artificial
4:27
Speaker 2: organs for testing the way that cancer grows in space. Okay, now,
4:34
Speaker 2: why do we have to do all that in space?
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Speaker 2: Why can't we just do that in the lab here?
4:37
Speaker 2: Why are we wasting all that money on rockets? Why
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Speaker 2: are all these billionaires going to space? It's because, friends,
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Speaker 2: that once you take the tumor out of the human body,
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Speaker 2: it is no longer in an environment of hydrostatic equilibrium.
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Speaker 2: In other words, a cancer tumor and its associated cells
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Speaker 2: outside the human body can't grow the they do inside
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Speaker 2: the human body because you don't have all of the
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Speaker 2: structures in place and the dynamic pressures in place that
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Speaker 2: you do inside the human body that give it a
5:10
Speaker 2: hydrostatic equilibrium environment. In other words, gravity smashes them flat.
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Speaker 2: How about that? Is that Is that the sinct enough?
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Speaker 6: Yeah?
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Speaker 5: No, it makes sense, I'm following you.
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Speaker 4: Yep, yep, yep.
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Speaker 2: So then once you take them to space and you
5:28
Speaker 2: put them in a microgravity environment, it turns out that
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Speaker 2: research there has shown that all of these kinds of
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Speaker 2: materials like the squishy, sloshy cell clusters that make up
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Speaker 2: cancer cells or cancer tumors just form bubbles like grapes.
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Speaker 5: Like like water, like liquids do.
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Speaker 2: In yeah, like many people have seen those videos of
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Speaker 2: astronuts playing either with juice or water or hopefully something
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Speaker 2: that has a non sticky characteristic, and they let the
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Speaker 2: liquid loose and it just pulls itself round because the
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Speaker 2: only pressure or the only forces acting on the liquid
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Speaker 2: are the surface tensions which pull inward on those water
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Speaker 2: droplets and pull them into spheres. Now, because you don't
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Speaker 2: have gravity.
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Speaker 5: Now, it's a common question people ask, I know you
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Speaker 5: guys at the Cocola Space sit Center. Sorry this is
6:19
Speaker 5: a little tangent, but they'll ask about astronauts using the
6:22
Speaker 5: bathroom in space on the International Space Station. Let the
6:26
Speaker 5: liquid loose, I think should be what they say whenever
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Speaker 5: they're using it, or in the.
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Speaker 2: Case of you know, bodily functions, don't let the liquid loose.
6:37
Speaker 2: Contain that liquid, friends, We got to contain it. We
6:40
Speaker 2: use a vacuum system and a very tight fitting, if
6:43
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, in order to curtail the
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Speaker 2: spread of certain bodily fluids so they don't turn into
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Speaker 2: little floating spheres and float all over the space station
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Speaker 2: like you know, some kind of sentient being shaped like
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Speaker 2: a grape anyway. So so yeah, if you have that
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Speaker 2: picture in mind, now imagine kind of the fatty, slushy
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Speaker 2: characteristic of a cancer tumor and it pulling itself round
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Speaker 2: like those balls of water let's say in space that
7:13
Speaker 2: you've seen the astronauts experimenting with. And now you have
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Speaker 2: the cancer cell in an environment that is more similar
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Speaker 2: to the net pressures and forces it experiences inside the
7:26
Speaker 2: human body. So that's why you want to grow cancer
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Speaker 2: cells in space. Now. The other thing is that because
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Speaker 2: it's in that environment, it also grows substantially faster than
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Speaker 2: cancer cells do in the laboratories of Earth. So if
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Speaker 2: you're wanting to study a specific tumor or a specific
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Speaker 2: cancerous sample, if you take it to space, it's going
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Speaker 2: to develop much more quickly and you'll be able to
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Speaker 2: tell how it's growing in a much short time than
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Speaker 2: you would be able to hear on the Earth. Again,
8:03
Speaker 2: says the experts at Notre Dame Wake Forest and the
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Speaker 2: International Space Station National Laboratory. So David Moroda is the
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Speaker 2: program director for in space Biomanufacturing at the International Space
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Speaker 2: Station National Laboratory, and David has this comment, micro gravity
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Speaker 2: is an accelerator of conditions, every disease, every phenotype, everything
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Speaker 2: we want to study can happen faster and in less time.
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Speaker 2: The quote continues, Instead of waiting ten months, you can
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Speaker 2: go up to space and grow the same sample in
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Speaker 2: ten days to see the same biological effects that you
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Speaker 2: would see in Earth based laboratories in just a much
8:52
Speaker 2: shorter time. So these researchers actually imagine a time that
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Speaker 2: a doc could find out that you have cancer, could
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Speaker 2: take a sample, could send it to space, and within
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Speaker 2: something less than two weeks, know exactly what kind of
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Speaker 2: cancer you're facing, have a really good signature of the
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Speaker 2: DNA of that cancer and how it's replicating, and use
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Speaker 2: that very specific information about your cancer, not just that
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Speaker 2: kind of cancer in general, but the cancer growing actually
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Speaker 2: in your body to go attack those cancer cells specifically.
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Speaker 2: So why do we study science in outer space? Why
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Speaker 2: is a space based laboratory and that kind of a
9:40
Speaker 2: research platform important. Well, there are many, many, many reasons, friends,
9:46
Speaker 2: but this is just one more of them.
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Speaker 5: And this is a big one. You're talking about a
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Speaker 5: ten Basically, what nine eight month head start, almost eight
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Speaker 5: and a half month had start or so on being
10:00
Speaker 5: able to know quickly what that progression might be as
10:03
Speaker 5: far as cancer and being able to get treatment started
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Speaker 5: for it. I anyone I think that's encountered cancer up close,
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Speaker 5: they understand time is important. And most everyone has obviously
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Speaker 5: had someone in their life who's been in in this fight,
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Speaker 5: been in this struggle, and yes, getting an eight month
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Speaker 5: head start on treatment would be incredible in so many cases. So, yeah,
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Speaker 5: it's kind of important that we have something up there,
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Speaker 5: isn't it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So I'm not making the case that hey, we should
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Speaker 2: go to space just so that we can cure cancer,
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Speaker 2: but I'm not not making the point that was a
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Speaker 2: double negative. But I think it's an important consideration among many, yeah,
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Speaker 2: of all of the reasons why we should be experimenting
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Speaker 2: in the space environment and in the microgravity environment provided
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Speaker 2: by an orbiting laboratory platform like the International Space Station.
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Speaker 2: As we get better at doing a diagnosing cancers here
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Speaker 2: on Earth and we have access to that microgravity environment
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Speaker 2: of that laboratory in space, why should we not use
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Speaker 2: it for these kinds of purposes? And why should we
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Speaker 2: not continue our space presence so that we can get
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Speaker 2: better at taking care of ourselves, of our planet and
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Speaker 2: of the shall we say, orbital environment.
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Speaker 5: And I just approached it from the perspective of treating individuals,
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Speaker 5: which is important, but also here on Earth we've been
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Speaker 5: for a very long time looking for cures. I mean,
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Speaker 5: this is all part of that sort of research. There's
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Speaker 5: a lot to be learned from all of this, and
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Speaker 5: time being such an important aspect of it.
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Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you want this exactly? So, the University of
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Speaker 2: Notre Dame there specific research. They're working on an in
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Speaker 2: space cancer test that will tell them all the things
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Speaker 2: like this that they need to know about your specific
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Speaker 2: cancer that only requires a single drop of blood. So
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Speaker 2: if they can just get so well, imagine this, If
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Speaker 2: it's only a single drop of blood per patient. How
12:19
Speaker 2: many samples of patients could they send up on just
12:21
Speaker 2: one dragon capsule, just one dragon capsule, and I'm talking
12:27
Speaker 2: about the cargo one, not the human rated one. Just
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Speaker 2: one cargo vehicle, one dragon capsule through the International Space Station.
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Speaker 2: How many cancer cells could we send up there or
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Speaker 2: how many drops of blood to do cancer tests could
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Speaker 2: we send up there? And how many people could be saved?
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Speaker 2: Because we get very specific information very quickly about individual
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Speaker 2: cases of cancer.
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Speaker 5: Let's talk about the Sun. We often talk about the
12:54
Speaker 5: Sun with sunspots, we talk about solar activity, we talk
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Speaker 5: about oh my god, we got things blasting our way.
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Speaker 5: One of the things that's been an ongoing thing relating
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Speaker 5: to the Sun is the Sun's poles, not something that
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Speaker 5: we can see from Earth, but we now have a
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Speaker 5: little bit better understanding about the Sun's poles.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So, just to be clear, there are rotational poles
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Speaker 2: on the Sun, kind of like our Earth's north and
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Speaker 2: south pole. We have a north and south pole on
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Speaker 2: the Earth because our planet is rotating and those are
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Speaker 2: the semi stationary points in that rotation. Right, So we
13:35
Speaker 2: also have a magnetic pole on the Earth, a north
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Speaker 2: and south pole, and that has to do with a
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Speaker 2: generated magnetic field inside the Earth that more or less
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Speaker 2: aligns with the rotational poles, not exactly. Well, the Sun
13:51
Speaker 2: has a similar thing, right, so near its rotational axes,
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Speaker 2: that's the headquarters for the Sun's northern pole, north and
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Speaker 2: south pole of its magnetic field. Except the Sun's magnetic
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Speaker 2: field frends is so complicated because it goes it's first
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Speaker 2: of all, It's not a solid, right, It's not a
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Speaker 2: solid like the Earth, or even with a solid liquid
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Speaker 2: core like the Earth. It is a plasma. And so
14:17
Speaker 2: this plasma is very complicated, and because of that complicated
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Speaker 2: magnetohydrodynamic set of processes that take place in the plasma
14:27
Speaker 2: of the Sun, you get weird things that happen. And
14:30
Speaker 2: one of the weird things that happens on the Sun
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Speaker 2: is every eleven years, you get the field of the Sun,
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Speaker 2: the magnetic field of the Sun, just absolutely losing its mind,
14:41
Speaker 2: coming apart, becoming unstable, forming all kinds of sun spots,
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Speaker 2: generating all kinds of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, massive
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Speaker 2: storms on the Sun as that Sun's magnetic field breaks
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Speaker 2: down into some kind of incoherence. Wait, how often does
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Speaker 2: that happen again? Every eleven years? Wait, so where are
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Speaker 2: we right now? We are at solar maximum. In other words,
15:11
Speaker 2: right now we are at a period of time very
15:14
Speaker 2: close to the maximum amount of chaos in that magnetic
15:19
Speaker 2: field of the Sun. And right when that was happening,
15:23
Speaker 2: the European Space Agency has a spacecraft called the Solar
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Speaker 2: Orbiter that, through a set of interactions with the planet
15:31
Speaker 2: Venus received some gravity assyst to take it out of
15:36
Speaker 2: a orbit that's kind of in the equator of the
15:39
Speaker 2: Sun and down toward a more tilted orbit where it
15:44
Speaker 2: can see the poles of the Sun, the North pole
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Speaker 2: and the South pole. And what it did first is
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Speaker 2: image the south pole. Now, these pictures have just come
15:53
Speaker 2: back here very recently, and they're out there all over
15:55
Speaker 2: the internet. And I've had at least two or three
15:57
Speaker 2: friends tell me, yeah, I saw those pictures of the sun.
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Speaker 2: All pull of the Sun looks just exactly like the
16:02
Speaker 2: rest of the Sun. It's pretty hard to argue that
16:06
Speaker 2: that's the case or that's not the case. It looks
16:09
Speaker 2: exactly like I mean, it's hard. You don't see like,
16:12
Speaker 2: you know, Santa and reindeer, and you know, there's the
16:15
Speaker 2: Antarctic and you don't see any of that stuff.
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Speaker 5: There's summer stripe pole on both sides, is what you're
16:22
Speaker 5: barber poles, nothing like that.
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Speaker 2: That's right, but so okay, So, but that's just taking pictures,
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Speaker 2: and which they certainly did, and they released those pictures
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Speaker 2: and they said, here's the first pictures of the cell
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Speaker 2: poll of the Sun. All my friends who love to
16:34
Speaker 2: make fun of me because I'm a science geek, which
16:36
Speaker 2: I appreciate them, by the way, because somebody's got to
16:39
Speaker 2: keep me in check anyway. So as they have all
16:42
Speaker 2: made fun of me, I've said, yeah, you're right, pretty
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Speaker 2: much looks like the rest of the Sun. But here's
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Speaker 2: what I have to tell for you people. You you
16:50
Speaker 2: all are the insiders. You're the you're the the next
16:53
Speaker 2: level geeks that are listening to a podcast about space.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for listening, by the way. For you, I
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Speaker 2: have this treasure. They also have a magnetometer on board.
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Speaker 2: In other words, they also have instruments that can in
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Speaker 2: great detail measure the magnet and measure and map the
17:09
Speaker 2: magnetic field of the Sun. And they pointed that at
17:12
Speaker 2: the south pole of the Sun. And here's what they
17:14
Speaker 2: found out. That there is no clean magnetic south pole
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Speaker 2: of the Sun. There are dozens of south magnetic polarity locations.
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Speaker 2: There are also dozens of north magnetic polarity locations at
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Speaker 2: the south pole, which means friends that the Sun's magnetic
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Speaker 2: field is currently heading toward chaos, which is exactly what
17:38
Speaker 2: we would expect as we move toward solar max because
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Speaker 2: the whole global magnetic field of the Sun is going
17:46
Speaker 2: to break down. It flips polarity. The Sun does not
17:51
Speaker 2: flip over, don't hear what I'm not saying. The magnetic
17:55
Speaker 2: field reversus polarity and then re establishes itself with a
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Speaker 2: relatively clean magnetic field. After solar maximum, we are nearing
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Speaker 2: the time of the pole flips. So within just a
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Speaker 2: few short months we're probably gonna be seeing the time
18:14
Speaker 2: of the pole flip and the end of this particular
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Speaker 2: period of solar max moving toward the next solar cycle.
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Speaker 2: So we have pictures now of the magnetic field of
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Speaker 2: the Sun and all of its behaviors right at this
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Speaker 2: time of maximum activity, which is going to give scientists
18:31
Speaker 2: a very good idea about the behavior of the magnetic
18:34
Speaker 2: field of the Sun in a place where we've never
18:37
Speaker 2: been able to look before. That's the important part. Check
18:41
Speaker 2: out the story on astronomy dot com, by the way,
18:43
Speaker 2: but it's out there in lots of places.
18:45
Speaker 5: Coming up after a quick break, we're gonna revisit something
18:48
Speaker 5: that goes back to the Apollo missions.
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Speaker 6: We'll get to that next, all right.
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Speaker 5: We go back to the Apollo missions. We go to
19:14
Speaker 5: human beings walking around on the Moon, and you know,
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Speaker 5: there were certain things I guess that were expected, and
19:22
Speaker 5: there were some things that weren't necessarily expected when they
19:25
Speaker 5: got there. One of the things that wasn't expected was
19:28
Speaker 5: to find little glass beads on the surface of the Moon.
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Speaker 5: And I guess now there's a little bit better opportunity
19:35
Speaker 5: for scientists to examine those and get a little bit
19:38
Speaker 5: better understanding. But these things are, you know, billions of
19:41
Speaker 5: years old.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is an interesting story. First of all, I
19:45
Speaker 2: would like to just make this analogy. If you share
19:48
Speaker 2: your home with another human being, I'm sure that you've
19:52
Speaker 2: had this conversation at one point, Like they look in
19:55
Speaker 2: the closet and they say, why are we saving this
19:59
Speaker 2: bar of stuff? You're the one that put this stuff
20:03
Speaker 2: in the box. You stuffed This has been in this
20:05
Speaker 2: closet for fifteen years, or maybe longer thirty five years,
20:09
Speaker 2: or maybe longer, in the case of the Apollo glass
20:14
Speaker 2: beads from the Moon, fifty years. For fifty years, the
20:18
Speaker 2: stuff's been in the closet. What are we gonna use
20:21
Speaker 2: this for? Someday that's gonna come in handy. Someday I'm
20:24
Speaker 2: gonna need that stuff, and I'm gonna get into that box,
20:27
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna pull that stuff out and it's gonna
20:29
Speaker 2: be important. Can imagine having these conversations at a place
20:34
Speaker 2: like the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
20:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, by the way, just this a side note. Something
20:40
Speaker 5: in my collection of things I get asked about regularly
20:43
Speaker 5: is something that I've intended to give you for about
20:45
Speaker 5: ten years. So I get asked, like, what are you
20:48
Speaker 5: doing with this? Exactly? It's for Sean. I'll give it
20:51
Speaker 5: to him. Just give me time. So anyway, by the way,
20:54
Speaker 5: just you know, maybe next time we're gonna definitely be
20:57
Speaker 5: in the same room together. Remind me, hey that you
21:00
Speaker 5: were telling me that Jill's been bugging you about.
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Speaker 1: You'll like it.
21:04
Speaker 4: I know you'll like it.
21:05
Speaker 5: I've had it for you, I mean seriously, for a decade.
21:07
Speaker 5: So anyway.
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Speaker 2: See, I'm one of those kinds of people that puts
21:10
Speaker 2: things in boxes and hides them in the closet. It's
21:14
Speaker 2: why during a recent show, like a whole cascade of
21:16
Speaker 2: things fell over in my office while we were actually
21:18
Speaker 2: recording the podcast. And I know, Wes, if you've got
21:22
Speaker 2: something for me, the time's gonna be right, it's gonna
21:24
Speaker 2: be Don't give me that thing before the time's right,
21:28
Speaker 2: you go ahead and wait, however many years you need
21:30
Speaker 2: to until the time is right.
21:31
Speaker 5: When that stuff fell in your office, I remember thinking,
21:34
Speaker 5: maybe it's just as well I haven't given it to
21:35
Speaker 5: you yet, because it sounds like you might be at
21:37
Speaker 5: max capacity off.
21:42
Speaker 2: Well, somewhere in the hollowed halls of the Johnson Space
21:45
Speaker 2: that or somebody went, hey, what is all this stuff
21:47
Speaker 2: over here? What are all these little tiny orange and
21:50
Speaker 2: black beads? Oh, don't throw those out. Those those are
21:54
Speaker 2: gonna be important someday. Well, today's the day, friends, check
21:59
Speaker 2: out the article on Universe today dot com because NASA
22:04
Speaker 2: finally broke out the little bag of orange and black
22:08
Speaker 2: glass beads and they gave them to scientists at the
22:12
Speaker 2: University of Washington and Saint Louis. Why. Because the scientists
22:17
Speaker 2: at the University of Washington Saint Louis have access to
22:20
Speaker 2: advanced microscopic techniques that didn't exist during the Apollo era.
22:24
Speaker 2: They have cutting edge imaging tools like high energy ion
22:29
Speaker 2: beams and electron microscopy that they could actually analyze those beads. Now.
22:35
Speaker 2: They couldn't do it all that long long years ago,
22:38
Speaker 2: back in the nineteen sixties and seventies, so a big
22:43
Speaker 2: sample of little, tiny, brilliant orange and black glass beads
22:49
Speaker 2: that were found glittering on the surface of the Moon
22:52
Speaker 2: by Apollo astronauts. These beads are somewhere on the order
22:56
Speaker 2: of one millimeter in size, so like the head of
23:00
Speaker 2: a pin. But apparently they were there in great abundance
23:04
Speaker 2: on the Moon, and scientists have estimated before this time
23:09
Speaker 2: that they probably formed three point six billion years ago,
23:14
Speaker 2: because that's when the volcanoes on the Moon were very active.
23:18
Speaker 2: And this is little bits of volcanic glass. So all
23:22
Speaker 2: of this stuff, if it had an atmosphere on the Moon,
23:26
Speaker 2: the stuff would have eroded long ago or would have
23:29
Speaker 2: weathered away. But because the Moon has no atmosphere or
23:33
Speaker 2: no erosion processes, these tiny glass spheres have survived there
23:37
Speaker 2: for over three billion years and they give us a
23:40
Speaker 2: way to sample the geological process is taking place on
23:45
Speaker 2: the surface of the Moon three point six billion years ago.
23:49
Speaker 2: And what they have found is that these little glass
23:52
Speaker 2: beads were not deposited just in one big volcano or
23:56
Speaker 2: even one series of big volcanoes, but they were deposited
24:01
Speaker 2: over time by waves of volcanic activity, and the different
24:07
Speaker 2: waves of volcanic activity created different kinds of beads, little
24:12
Speaker 2: different color, little different chemistry, all of these kinds of things.
24:16
Speaker 2: Ryan Ogliore, an associate professor of physics at Washington University
24:21
Speaker 2: of Saint Louis, has this quote, They're some of the
24:24
Speaker 2: most amazing extraterrestrial samples we have. The beads are tiny,
24:29
Speaker 2: pristine capsules of the lunar interior interior. It's like reading
24:35
Speaker 2: the journal of an ancient lunar volcanologist unquote, so says
24:40
Speaker 2: Ryan Ogliore, associate professor of Physics, University of Washington at
24:44
Speaker 2: Saint Louis. That's why you keep glass beads in boxes
24:49
Speaker 2: in your closet for fifty years. Friends, That's why you
24:51
Speaker 2: do it.
24:51
Speaker 5: Right there, by the way, the thing that I have
24:54
Speaker 5: to give you not orange and black, but it's orange
24:57
Speaker 5: and dark navy. If that gives you any hint what
25:00
Speaker 5: it might be or what it might be related to,
25:02
Speaker 5: I figure that might give at least part of it away.
25:04
Speaker 5: But ah, one more quick break, and when we come back,
25:09
Speaker 5: we're going to talk about the Milky Way and the
25:11
Speaker 5: significance of where we are after this, all right, So
25:35
Speaker 5: there's so many things as it pertains to life for us,
25:39
Speaker 5: our Goldilock zone where we are having a moon that
25:43
Speaker 5: is where it is and its size, and there's a
25:46
Speaker 5: lot of things that come into play for us being
25:49
Speaker 5: here for life. And it turns out it's also a
25:52
Speaker 5: good spot for us in the Milky Way, like we're
25:55
Speaker 5: where we need to be for life. Let's talk about that.
26:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, certainly the elements that were available to form
26:06
Speaker 2: the Sun and our solar system had to have components
26:11
Speaker 2: in them that made life possible on our planet. And
26:15
Speaker 2: if you're in a part of the Milky Way where
26:17
Speaker 2: you don't have access to those kinds of elements, you're
26:22
Speaker 2: probably not going to form a solar system that can
26:24
Speaker 2: support life. That's the idea, right, Okay, Well, here's a
26:28
Speaker 2: new study. By the way, again an article on Universe
26:30
Speaker 2: today dot com. A couple of a great week for
26:33
Speaker 2: Universe Today. By the way, go out and read that
26:34
Speaker 2: website often. They have great news stories there. A new
26:37
Speaker 2: study shows that the Milky Way's galactic center struggles to
26:42
Speaker 2: form massive stars. Now our part of the Milky Way,
26:46
Speaker 2: we're about two thirds of the way from the center
26:48
Speaker 2: out toward the edge. We live in a place that
26:51
Speaker 2: has no trouble forming massive stars. We look out at
26:54
Speaker 2: kind of the our diameter of the galaxy and in
26:58
Speaker 2: the spiral arms, and we see all manner of big
27:01
Speaker 2: star forming regions and star clusters that have the most
27:04
Speaker 2: massive kinds of stars in them. But scientists from the
27:10
Speaker 2: Seti Institute who have conducted a study looking for places
27:13
Speaker 2: in the solar system, sorry in the galaxy rather where
27:15
Speaker 2: life might be preferentially found, have found that toward the
27:20
Speaker 2: center of the Milky Way galaxy, you just don't have
27:24
Speaker 2: as many big stars. And if you don't have as
27:27
Speaker 2: many big stars, then you don't have the kind of
27:30
Speaker 2: chemical production that can come from the most massive stars.
27:33
Speaker 2: And if you don't have that chemical production, you don't
27:36
Speaker 2: have the abundance of the kinds of elements that are
27:40
Speaker 2: necessary to form solar systems in which life can be supported.
27:44
Speaker 2: All right, So that's the quick version of the story.
27:47
Speaker 2: For some reason, very few massive stars are found to
27:51
Speaker 2: be forming toward the giant molecular clouds or the giant
27:56
Speaker 2: hydrogen two regions that are near the center of the
28:00
Speaker 2: We call those H two regions, by the way. So
28:02
Speaker 2: H two is just a quick way to say, there's
28:04
Speaker 2: a lot of ionized hydrogen down there, and so H
28:08
Speaker 2: two regions are places where we find big stars forming.
28:13
Speaker 2: A very famous H two region that many people know
28:15
Speaker 2: about is the Great Nebula of Orion. You can just
28:18
Speaker 2: go out in the backyard and see that with your
28:20
Speaker 2: naked eye, but if you have a backyard telescope, it
28:23
Speaker 2: shows it as a beautiful cloud of space gas being
28:27
Speaker 2: lit up by some brand new baby stars that were formed.
28:30
Speaker 2: And those bouncing baby stars are among the largest kinds
28:33
Speaker 2: of stars we can find anywhere in the universe. They're
28:38
Speaker 2: called O and B stars, and that has to do
28:40
Speaker 2: with a classification system for stellar types. Well, O and
28:45
Speaker 2: B two letters of the alphabet O and B. Those
28:47
Speaker 2: types of stars are the largest known stars. We can
28:52
Speaker 2: find them in the Milky Way in places like the
28:55
Speaker 2: Orion Cluster, but we do not see them down toward
29:00
Speaker 2: the center of the Milky Way galaxy. And that fact
29:05
Speaker 2: was just confirmed and reaffirmed by a group of scientists
29:09
Speaker 2: from the Carl Sagan Research Center at the SETI Institute.
29:14
Speaker 2: They have their lead author. His name is James. I
29:17
Speaker 2: don't know James, so I don't know exactly how he
29:20
Speaker 2: pronounces his last name, but I'm gonna go ahead and
29:23
Speaker 2: just say it as w Z. It's w Z. James
29:29
Speaker 2: Mwza from the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the
29:31
Speaker 2: SETI Institute had this to say, quote surveying the giant
29:36
Speaker 2: H two regions of the Milky Way with Sophia. Side note,
29:40
Speaker 2: Sophia is a infrared instrument that is born on an airplane. Okay,
29:46
Speaker 2: back to the quote. The galactic center regions of Sagittarius
29:51
Speaker 2: B one, Sagittaries B two, and Sagittarius C. These giant
29:55
Speaker 2: H two regions are home to some extremely massive young
29:59
Speaker 2: stars form O and B clusters, but they contain a
30:02
Speaker 2: significant fraction of most of the massive stars in the
30:05
Speaker 2: galaxy and therefore can dominate a galaxy's thermal emission. So
30:09
Speaker 2: some of these things have big OB clusters in them,
30:14
Speaker 2: but most of them do not, and so it's good
30:17
Speaker 2: to study these these stars, these in these in these
30:20
Speaker 2: massive clusters. It's interesting that there are some of those
30:24
Speaker 2: big stars towards the center of the Milky Way, but
30:27
Speaker 2: most of the giant stars that have the ability to
30:31
Speaker 2: produce the heaviest elements and therefore life bearing planets appear
30:35
Speaker 2: to be at a paucity toward the center of the
30:38
Speaker 2: Milky Way, which means we just don't find them there. Right,
30:40
Speaker 2: So it appears that the galactic center may not be
30:43
Speaker 2: the best place to look for life after all. Again.
30:46
Speaker 2: Read more about this interesting story at Universe today dot com.
30:51
Speaker 5: Why can't it just be James Debuser? I mean, you
30:54
Speaker 5: know you maybe you're overthinking it, that's all, speaking as
30:58
Speaker 5: a professional name reader. Maybe you're over you know.
31:01
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how he pronounces. That was
31:04
Speaker 2: my point.
31:05
Speaker 5: I like Debuseiah, That's probably what I would have gone with.
31:08
Speaker 6: All right.
31:08
Speaker 5: Let's talk about a little bit easier name to say
31:13
Speaker 5: an astronaut's name, David Scott. Let's talk about that.
31:16
Speaker 2: His name's Dave.
31:18
Speaker 5: That's easy, there's no overthinking it.
31:21
Speaker 2: I don't think I've stumbled over the word.
31:23
Speaker 5: Dave or Scott, So those are both easy, both easy.
31:28
Speaker 2: David Scott was the commander of APAOLLA fifteen. Friends and
31:31
Speaker 2: David Scott's brother, Tom lived right here in the city
31:33
Speaker 2: of Columbus for a number of years. We got to
31:36
Speaker 2: be very good friends with Tom. Tom has arranged for
31:39
Speaker 2: the donation of several pieces of memorabilia and a few
31:43
Speaker 2: space artifacts to the Coca Cola Space Science Center, so
31:47
Speaker 2: many in fact, that we don't have room to put
31:49
Speaker 2: them all on display. So this summer and this summer only,
31:52
Speaker 2: we have a collaboration with the very good friends of
31:55
Speaker 2: ours at the bo Bartlett Center for Art, which is
32:00
Speaker 2: just down the street here at Columbus State University from
32:02
Speaker 2: the Coca Cola Space Science Center. We share the same neighborhood,
32:05
Speaker 2: almost the same address, Front Avenue, Columbus, Georgia, but they're
32:09
Speaker 2: just down the street from us. They have on display
32:12
Speaker 2: twenty one pieces from the David Scott collection that were
32:15
Speaker 2: just so many we didn't have room to put them
32:18
Speaker 2: on display here. If you would like to see these
32:21
Speaker 2: artifacts and pieces of memorabilia on display, check it out
32:25
Speaker 2: at the bo Bartlett Center this summer. On display from
32:28
Speaker 2: June third through August second, twenty twenty five. The bo
32:32
Speaker 2: Bartlett Center is open from eleven am to four pm
32:35
Speaker 2: Tuesday through Saturday. You can check out more information here
32:38
Speaker 2: at the website for the Space Science Center on this
32:41
Speaker 2: really amazing opportunity to see these artifacts and memorabilia from
32:47
Speaker 2: the collection of David Scott himself on display. The rest
32:50
Speaker 2: of the summer. Check out our website www dot cc
32:54
Speaker 2: SSC dot org. Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot.
32:58
Speaker 5: Org, Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll
33:00
Speaker 5: do this again next weeks. Overhead Door Company of Columbus
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