Latest / Made of Stars / Auroral Fireworks! Happy New Year!

Transcript

Auroral Fireworks! Happy New Year! · 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: expand to vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk. Go ahead.
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Speaker 2: When made of stars, made them stars.
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Speaker 3: Made sizes.
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Speaker 4: When maida stars, you could be from high they would
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Speaker 4: New Mexicomus.
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Speaker 2: We're all.
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Speaker 4: Stars when.
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Speaker 3: We are made of stars. I'm Wes Carol, joined by
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Speaker 3: my good friend doctor Sean Cruis from Columbus State University's
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Speaker 3: Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 2: Happy New Year, Sean, Happy new year, Wes, and to
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Speaker 2: all of our listeners.
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Speaker 3: As well, thanks for joining us in twenty twenty five
1:12
Speaker 3: as we get into another year of covering all of
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Speaker 3: the fun stuff that happens in space and on Earth
1:19
Speaker 3: relating to space, and we've talked about some of the
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Speaker 3: things we're optimistic about with the new year and some
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Speaker 3: possible changes coming at the top at NASA. We just
1:29
Speaker 3: did our recap shows and if you listened to our
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Speaker 3: biggest space news stories of twenty twenty four, two parter
1:39
Speaker 3: episodes the last two shows that we did, and it's
1:43
Speaker 3: going to be relevant in a little bit because we
1:46
Speaker 3: do record those a little in advance. Part of why
1:49
Speaker 3: we do it because of the holidays, we do take
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Speaker 3: a little break.
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Speaker 2: We provide a show every week.
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Speaker 3: I mean, we've done that consistently, every single week, you know,
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Speaker 3: every now and then, we have to record a little
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Speaker 3: in advance, and that's what we did. That will be
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Speaker 3: important to note when we come up and talk a
2:07
Speaker 3: little bit about SpaceX in just a few minutes. But
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Speaker 3: first we're going to start with one of those big
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Speaker 3: stories from twenty twenty four was a two parter in
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Speaker 3: that we had this incredible run with two instances of
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Speaker 3: Aurora borealis in our view here in Georgia and other
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Speaker 3: parts even further south than us, and it was remarkable
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Speaker 3: to see it once and then for it to happen
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Speaker 3: a second time five months later. Again you're going, what
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Speaker 3: are the odds of this? Well, we get a little
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Speaker 3: on the cusp of New Year's Eve, we're almost there
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Speaker 3: and I get a text from my good friend Sean
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Speaker 3: and says, oh, could it happen again?
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Speaker 2: So, I mean, it's unusual to see Aurora Oreoalis at
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Speaker 2: latitude thirty two point five, and that's where we are.
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Speaker 2: We're a long ways from the pole, and so typically
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Speaker 2: while other people are enjoying northern lights in places like
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Speaker 2: Finland and other parts of Scandinavia, Alaska, Canada, Iceland, we're
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Speaker 2: not really seeing them here because this interaction between the
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Speaker 2: Sun's particles streaming in and our own magnetic field around
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Speaker 2: the Earth that's usually happening up at high latitudes near
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Speaker 2: the poles, and so you get what's called a rural ring.
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Speaker 2: It's around well, or oval, an interaction zone between the
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Speaker 2: Sun's incoming particles and the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere,
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Speaker 2: all combining to create northern lights over these places. Well,
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Speaker 2: occasionally there's so much strong radiation coming from the Sun
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Speaker 2: that that auroral oval will dip down into what we
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Speaker 2: call the lower forty eight states here in the US,
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Speaker 2: and maybe sometimes even as far down as we are
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Speaker 2: here in Georgia. Now, that did happen a couple of
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Speaker 2: times last year, and we got some great pictures on
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Speaker 2: our cell phones West. I mean, you can just walk
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Speaker 2: outside with your cell phone and take pictures of the
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Speaker 2: sky glowing in some amazing colors, and that was a
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Speaker 2: pretty cool thing. I thought maybe in the last seventy
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Speaker 2: two hours that might happen again. Because the Sun is
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Speaker 2: very very active both last year and this year as
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Speaker 2: it approaches something called solar maximum. The solar maximum is
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Speaker 2: the part of the sunspot cycle. It's an eleven year
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Speaker 2: cycle of activity on the Sun. It's peaking this year
4:48
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, in what we call solar max, and
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Speaker 2: that'll be its maximum period of activity. So it's not
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Speaker 2: totally surprising to have giant storms occurring on the Sun
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Speaker 2: that throw enough radiation at the Earth that the auroral
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Speaker 2: effects the northern lights Aurora borealis here in the northern hemisphere,
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Speaker 2: they're enhanced. And so that's why we saw the two
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Speaker 2: last year. That's why we almost saw one on New
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Speaker 2: Year's Eve into New Year's Day, and so that's why
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Speaker 2: I was texting you. There was a giant coronal mass
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Speaker 2: ejection off the surface of the Sun, which is a
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Speaker 2: big explosion that casts many, many millions of charged particles
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Speaker 2: at the Earth, and you have this very strong interaction
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Speaker 2: between those incoming charged particles, the Earth's magnetic field, and
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Speaker 2: ultimately the Earth's atmosphere. We call that a geomagnetic storm.
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Speaker 2: That's what produces the aurora. And people saw northern lights
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Speaker 2: as far south as Mexico. So you might say, okay, well,
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Speaker 2: if they're seeing them as far south in Mexico, how
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Speaker 2: come we didn't see them in Georgia. Well, the truth
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Speaker 2: is that these waves were kind of asymmetric. They don't
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Speaker 2: come in at once, all the same at all latitudes.
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Speaker 2: They come in pulses or in waves, and so it
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Speaker 2: depends on what part of the Earth has rotated into
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Speaker 2: the direction of the oncoming particles, the manner in which
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Speaker 2: these particles are interacting with the Earth's magnetic field. There's
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Speaker 2: factors involved. So the truth of the matter is Europe, Scandinavia,
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Speaker 2: and even in the southern hemisphere New Zealand were all
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Speaker 2: treated to aurora phenomenon. Then it led up for a
6:38
Speaker 2: while as we were facing the right direction here in Georgia.
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Speaker 2: Then it intensified again as the Western United States was
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Speaker 2: facing into the proper direction, and so people in Colorado
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Speaker 2: and Arizona and California and all the way down to
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Speaker 2: Baja California in Mexico were able to see the light phenomenon.
7:01
Speaker 2: Here in the US while we on the East coast.
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Speaker 2: We simply got jipped. How do I know? I went
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Speaker 2: out and looked. That's why I went out and looked
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Speaker 2: multiple times. I do subscribe to spaceweather dot COM's text
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Speaker 2: alert system, and so I get lots of texts from
7:17
Speaker 2: spaceweather dot com saying, Hey, you might want to go look. Hey,
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Speaker 2: the conditions are looking favorable. Hey might want to check
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Speaker 2: out the sky, which I was doing, and that's why
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Speaker 2: I was texting Wes and it simply skipped us. So
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Speaker 2: I'm very happy for all the people that saw the
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Speaker 2: brand New Year ring in twenty twenty five with glowing
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Speaker 2: aurora over their skies. It's pretty cool. We just didn't
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Speaker 2: happen to be among them here in Georgia, at least
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Speaker 2: not that I saw.
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Speaker 3: We are an audio podcast. I'm going to share a
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Speaker 3: photo that I have not shared with you, and I
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Speaker 3: can kind of describe it here. But we have friends
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Speaker 3: who were in the Laplands in Sweden for the New Year,
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Speaker 3: so proof that it really did happen, and this is
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Speaker 3: them and their view of the aurora as it happened
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Speaker 3: in the Scandinavia area. So yeah, they have this gorgeous
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Speaker 3: green Aurora above them, and yeah, I mean as they
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Speaker 3: pointed us, as they pointed out with the photos that
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Speaker 3: they shared, it was, you know, like fireworks in the sky,
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Speaker 3: but the very very natural kind, but pretty remarkable, just
8:26
Speaker 3: like tears, green tears in the sky and like cgi
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Speaker 3: that the Hulk is being formed, those sorts of just
8:34
Speaker 3: those waves of something that's going on there, but pretty
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Speaker 3: remarkable photos that they were able to capture.
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Speaker 2: And that's incredible. Those are beautiful, beautiful photos. And we
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Speaker 2: are an audio podcast, and so if you're feeling left
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Speaker 2: out on that whole thing, there's something you can do
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Speaker 2: about it. Go visit spaceweather dot com and check out
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Speaker 2: their archive and go pull up the go pull up
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Speaker 2: the pages for January first of twenty twenty five, and
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Speaker 2: you will see lots of photographers from around the world,
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Speaker 2: including those places in Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Alaska, Scan, the Navy,
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Speaker 2: and New Zealand who all shared their photographs that wes
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Speaker 2: was similar to the ones that West was showing me,
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Speaker 2: and you can really see some beautiful shots of the
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Speaker 2: Aurora episode that started the new year twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 2: Check out spaceweather dot com. Go visit the archive in
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Speaker 2: the upper right hand corner. Check out the page for January. First,
9:29
Speaker 2: all right, let's transition over.
9:31
Speaker 3: You're talking about solar activity, another sun story, the Parker
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Speaker 3: solar probe, giving us another really close pass to the Sun,
9:42
Speaker 3: the closer than ever approach to the Sun.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we keep doing these stories about Parker solar probe,
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Speaker 2: but folks, is because it keeps getting closer. Right, So
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Speaker 2: every time we do one of these stories, it got
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Speaker 2: a little bit closer than the last time.
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Speaker 3: It's like the Mitch Hedberg joke about here's a picture
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Speaker 3: of me when I was young. Aren't all pictures of you?
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Speaker 3: Pictures of you when you were younger?
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Speaker 2: So it's kind of like that.
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Speaker 3: Every time it's a little bit closer, a little bit closer.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So it's made twenty one close passes by
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Speaker 2: the Sun, but this one was the closest ever. It
10:17
Speaker 2: happened on Christmas Eve. It made it to within just
10:20
Speaker 2: three point eight million miles. Now that might sound silly
10:25
Speaker 2: because it sounds like a really far distance until you
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Speaker 2: realize that the Earth is ninety three million miles away.
10:31
Speaker 2: Ninety three million miles away, and our skies are being
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Speaker 2: absolutely lit up by the radiation coming from the Sun
10:39
Speaker 2: during big events on the surface of the Sun. So
10:42
Speaker 2: even at this distance, we're still getting fairly heavily irradiated,
10:47
Speaker 2: at least in the upper parts of our atmosphere. This
10:50
Speaker 2: is four percent of that distance, for one hundreds of
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Speaker 2: the distance from the Earth of the Sun, well within
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Speaker 2: what we would consider the outer part of the atmosphere
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Speaker 2: of the Sun, which is the Sun's corona, and it's
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Speaker 2: hot in there, it's hot in there. West the surface
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Speaker 2: of the spacecraft got over fourteen hundred degrees and so
11:13
Speaker 2: this is a really burning hot flyby for this poor
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Speaker 2: little spaceship. But fortunately the spacecraft has been designed to
11:22
Speaker 2: handle those kinds of temperatures. But it's not just the
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Speaker 2: extreme temperatures, it's also the extreme radiation that the spacecraft
11:31
Speaker 2: undergoes when it flies that close to the Sun. So
11:34
Speaker 2: all of its electronics have to be space hardened so
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Speaker 2: that they can survive the radiation environment that near to
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Speaker 2: the surface of the Sun. That takes a very special vehicle,
11:45
Speaker 2: the Parker Solar Probe, is that vehicle. Why are we
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Speaker 2: flying spaceships that close to the Sun, Well, these very
11:51
Speaker 2: same solar phenomenon that we've been talking about, which includes
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Speaker 2: sun spots, solar plages, solar filaments and prominences, corona mass ejections,
12:01
Speaker 2: and just the nature of the interaction between the Sun's
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Speaker 2: magnetic field and its surface. All of these things are
12:07
Speaker 2: still fairly mysterious. There's lots of things about the inner
12:11
Speaker 2: workings of the Sun that we don't understand. We get
12:14
Speaker 2: a better understanding of that system by investigating the outer
12:18
Speaker 2: atmosphere of the Sun. That's what the Parker Solar Probe
12:21
Speaker 2: is doing. We want to understand the day to day
12:25
Speaker 2: workings of the nuclear fusion reactions that take place inside
12:28
Speaker 2: the Sun, but we also want to understand the extreme
12:31
Speaker 2: events like the Carrington event, the Great Solar Flare of
12:34
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty nine, what can generate and what can cause
12:37
Speaker 2: those kinds of phenomenon, because we actually need to duck
12:40
Speaker 2: and cover when those things are on their way here
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Speaker 2: to visit us on Earth. So hail to the Partner
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Speaker 2: Solar Probe. Great story about that one on BBC dot com.
12:49
Speaker 2: That's where I pulled my information. Check it out. It
12:52
Speaker 2: did re emerge, so it survived. It sent some messages
12:55
Speaker 2: back to NASA saying hey, I'm still alive. Those came
12:59
Speaker 2: in the day after Christmas, the twenty sixth of December,
13:02
Speaker 2: after the Christmas Eve plunge through the outer atmosphere of
13:07
Speaker 2: the Sun by Parker Solar Probe.
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Speaker 4: So one of the stories that we talked about was
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Speaker 4: the incredible year, as far as our recaps go, one
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Speaker 4: of the incredible year that SpaceX had and basically commercial
13:21
Speaker 4: flight in general, but especially SpaceX, and we talked about
13:26
Speaker 4: at the time the number of flights that they had
13:29
Speaker 4: already launched, a number of rockets launched by SpaceX. We
13:34
Speaker 4: knew it wasn't a final number then because obviously there
13:37
Speaker 4: was still a little time from when we recorded until
13:40
Speaker 4: the end of the year, and they did manage to
13:42
Speaker 4: complete some more launches, and we now have a total
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Speaker 4: one hundred and thirty four launches for SpaceX for twenty
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Speaker 4: twenty four, which, you know, much like getting messages back
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Speaker 4: from the Parker Solar Probe, it's every year they launched more,
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Speaker 4: and they'll probably launch more this year.
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Speaker 2: Well, but let's pause for a moment and just think
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Speaker 2: about how incredible that is. So it made the top
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Speaker 2: ten Space stories as deemed by Wes and Shawn. By
14:16
Speaker 2: the way, other people might argue with my top ten
14:18
Speaker 2: list that we put together, but whatever, I'm going with mine.
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Speaker 2: So it was just SpaceX in general. Their launch cadence
14:27
Speaker 2: and all their successes was one of the top ten
14:29
Speaker 2: stories at the time we did the show, and as
14:32
Speaker 2: Wes said, we take a holiday break, so we pre
14:34
Speaker 2: recorded that show. They were in the high one twenties
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Speaker 2: over almost one hundred and thirty launches, not quite there
14:41
Speaker 2: yet at the time we would recorded the show that
14:44
Speaker 2: smashed the previous year record already. The previous year's record
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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three was ninety six launches held by
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Speaker 2: Oh Yeah, SpaceX. So they broke their own record, right,
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Speaker 2: So twenty twenty three ninety six launches in T one
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Speaker 2: T twenty four. The final total one to thirty four
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Speaker 2: was set as they launched one on December thirty first,
15:07
Speaker 2: the last day of the year. They're still launching rockets,
15:11
Speaker 2: friends about well. Just a little after midnight in the
15:15
Speaker 2: very early hours of December thirty first, a Falcon nine
15:18
Speaker 2: rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. From Kennedy Space Center,
15:23
Speaker 2: it launched Starlink satellites on what was called the twelve
15:27
Speaker 2: sixth mission. That was the final orbital launch around the
15:31
Speaker 2: world in twenty twenty four, so nobody else had an
15:33
Speaker 2: orbital launch in twenty twenty four after that.
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Speaker 3: One.
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Speaker 2: The new satellites that they're launching. By the way, these
15:39
Speaker 2: are what they call the Starlink V two Mini satellites.
15:43
Speaker 2: Why are they important because they featured direct to cell
15:47
Speaker 2: phone capabilities. In other words, you're not just getting fed
15:52
Speaker 2: Internet Wi Fi connection from space. That kind of connectivity
15:59
Speaker 2: that we associate it was satellite internet and you can
16:03
Speaker 2: think of other companies obviously that do that. No, No,
16:05
Speaker 2: this is actually cell phone service, a direct to cell
16:08
Speaker 2: phone capability. You don't have to have a modem and
16:11
Speaker 2: a Wi Fi for your cell phone to connect to.
16:15
Speaker 2: You could just use your cell phone to connect to
16:17
Speaker 2: these Starlink V two minis directly, and so some of
16:21
Speaker 2: that has been tested. That was one of the other
16:23
Speaker 2: final successes of the twenty twenty four year for SpaceX
16:28
Speaker 2: is that some companies actually use their cell phones to
16:32
Speaker 2: connect to V two biddings and demonstrated this technology. This
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Speaker 2: last launch of twenty twenty four has more of those
16:40
Speaker 2: satellites being put in place, and so that's a pretty
16:44
Speaker 2: incredible side story, right, that's just a side story to
16:47
Speaker 2: this launch, because the main story, getting back to it
16:50
Speaker 2: is one hundred and thirty four launches. But one of
16:53
Speaker 2: their boosters, I'm sorry, the main booster that they used
16:56
Speaker 2: on this mission, one of their many reused boosters. It's
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Speaker 2: called B one oh seven eight, so B one thousand
17:04
Speaker 2: and seventy eight. It's the sixteenth launch for this booster.
17:09
Speaker 2: I mean, this has become so routine that it almost
17:13
Speaker 2: doesn't seem special anymore. Sixteen times that this booster has
17:18
Speaker 2: launched payloads to space friends that included human beings. It
17:23
Speaker 2: launched the Crew six mission earlier in its lifetime, it
17:28
Speaker 2: launched a United States Space Force mission called one twenty
17:31
Speaker 2: four USSF one twenty four, and it's also launched STARTK
17:35
Speaker 2: missions eleven times. So so it came down and landed
17:41
Speaker 2: safely on a SpaceX drone ship out at sea, which
17:45
Speaker 2: itself seems like a sci fi movie to me still,
17:48
Speaker 2: but it's happening so regularly that that just seems silly.
17:51
Speaker 2: The drone ship's name, by the way, is just read
17:53
Speaker 2: the instructions, so it's better known as JRTI so the
18:00
Speaker 2: drone ship JRTI just read the instructions. It's the one
18:05
Speaker 2: hundred and fourth booster landing on that one drone ship.
18:10
Speaker 2: So there are multiple drone ships. These are floating platforms
18:14
Speaker 2: that these boosters come down and land on out at
18:16
Speaker 2: sea that SpaceX owns and operates one hundred and four
18:21
Speaker 2: times on this one drone ship, and this is the
18:25
Speaker 2: three hundred and ninetieth booster landing to date. So SpaceX
18:32
Speaker 2: has landed their main stage booster three hundred and ninety times.
18:38
Speaker 2: Remarkable to get to that number of one hundred and
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Speaker 2: thirty four orbit launches a cadence that is less than
18:47
Speaker 2: every three days two point seven. I had to check.
18:51
Speaker 3: I was like, wait a minute, that's yeah, two point
18:54
Speaker 3: seven days, there's a launch.
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Speaker 2: So that just to break that down by horror. In
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Speaker 2: the first quarter of twenty twenty four, thirty one launches,
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Speaker 2: In the second quarter of twenty twenty four to thirty
19:07
Speaker 2: six launches, in the third quarter of twenty twenty four,
19:11
Speaker 2: twenty seven launches, and in the fourth quarter of twenty
19:17
Speaker 2: twenty four. From October through the end of the year,
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Speaker 2: forty launches, including a Falcon Heavy, which is three of
19:26
Speaker 2: those boosters strapped together like bottle rockets. By the way,
19:30
Speaker 2: unbelievable accomplishment for SpaceX. And yeah, we talked about this
19:36
Speaker 2: last show. And if you're sick of hearing about SpaceX again,
19:39
Speaker 2: I try not to be a fanboy. I'm not like, oh, Elon,
19:42
Speaker 2: I love you. No, I get it. There's you know,
19:44
Speaker 2: there's a lot going on there, but SpaceX the company
19:49
Speaker 2: is succeeding in a way that no nation, no entity,
19:53
Speaker 2: no group of human beings has done ever in the
19:57
Speaker 2: space age. So so hats off.
20:02
Speaker 3: I mean it's hard to do anything other than offer
20:05
Speaker 3: them kudos. And while we're not necessarily fanboys saying, we're
20:09
Speaker 3: not saying Elon, we love you, we're also not hating
20:12
Speaker 3: him either. I mean he's giving us plenty of things
20:16
Speaker 3: to talk about, and based on what we know about SpaceX,
20:20
Speaker 3: this new record number of launches will almost certainly be
20:25
Speaker 3: defeated in twenty twenty five.
20:27
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I am a fan of talking about, Wes,
20:30
Speaker 2: and that's the American space program. There you go, and
20:32
Speaker 2: America's leadership in space, and quite frankly, without a South
20:37
Speaker 2: African guy right now, America may not be leading in space.
20:44
Speaker 2: It's very arguable that other space programs from around the
20:47
Speaker 2: world would be ahead of where our country is in
20:50
Speaker 2: terms of space exploration had it not been for some
20:55
Speaker 2: video game producing guy from South Africa decided to move
20:59
Speaker 2: to the US and starting a company called SpaceX eventually. Right,
21:04
Speaker 2: one more stat here the increase from twenty twenty three
21:09
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty four. And by the way, twenty three
21:11
Speaker 2: was a record breaking year, but the increase was forty percent.
21:17
Speaker 2: They didn't increase their number of launches by two percent
21:20
Speaker 2: or five percent, or ten percent or fifteen percent. Forty
21:23
Speaker 2: percent increase from twenty three, a record breaking year, to
21:28
Speaker 2: twenty four, a subsequent record breaking year. What will they
21:31
Speaker 2: do in twenty twenty five, Well, their plans are to
21:35
Speaker 2: increase their launch cadence, which seems staggering. Right, they're launching
21:43
Speaker 2: from three places. They're launching from Texas, they're launching from
21:48
Speaker 2: California VanderBurg Air Force Base, and they're launching from two
21:52
Speaker 2: launch sites in Florida. So I guess, really four places,
21:55
Speaker 2: but they're across the street. I think I can call
21:58
Speaker 2: them one place the Florida Space Coast. How about that?
22:03
Speaker 2: So these three locations from which they're launching combine to
22:08
Speaker 2: get this cadence of you figured it out two point
22:10
Speaker 2: seven days. They're launching every two point seven days. They're
22:14
Speaker 2: probably going to be moving to launching at that kind
22:17
Speaker 2: of a cadence from single launch sites sometime in the
22:22
Speaker 2: near future. Won't that be amazing, right? I mean that's
22:26
Speaker 2: I say the near future. I don't think in twenty
22:28
Speaker 2: twenty five they're going to be doing that, but that's
22:30
Speaker 2: where they're heading, friends, So they're trying to make spaceflight
22:35
Speaker 2: as routine as air travel.
22:38
Speaker 3: If it happens in the next five years, I still
22:41
Speaker 3: think that's pretty quick. So it's a quick turnaround on it.
22:45
Speaker 3: Just a quick side note, And you were talking about
22:47
Speaker 3: the starlink, the V two mini's. I know of at
22:53
Speaker 3: least one cell phone company here in the US that's
22:57
Speaker 3: looking for beta testers cause they're ready to move forward
23:02
Speaker 3: with that. I threw my hand up. We'll see if
23:05
Speaker 3: I get picked. I'd love to be able to give
23:07
Speaker 3: some commentary here on the show about successes with it
23:12
Speaker 3: or failures or whatever it is, whatever comes with it.
23:15
Speaker 3: I'd love to be able to give you an honest
23:16
Speaker 3: assessment of it. Unfortunately, they didn't ask for my credentials.
23:20
Speaker 3: I think I might have been able to, you know,
23:23
Speaker 3: maybe jump the line, but no, no, no, they kept
23:25
Speaker 3: it very generic with their request. But anyway, I threw
23:28
Speaker 3: my hand up. We'll see how that goes. Coming up
23:31
Speaker 3: after a quick break, we'll talk about James Web as
23:36
Speaker 3: well as some of the upcoming fun astronomical events for
23:40
Speaker 3: the year.
23:40
Speaker 2: Right after this, all right.
23:59
Speaker 3: James webbs telescope. Another another win for James Web. You know,
24:05
Speaker 3: the long, storied, complicated past of James Web. And then
24:11
Speaker 3: the thing finally gets dropped and then picked up and
24:14
Speaker 3: then launched successfully and it's been when after when after when?
24:19
Speaker 3: Another another cool discovery.
24:23
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's dangerous to anthropomorphosize human made objects,
24:28
Speaker 2: but we like to do it anyway because it's fun.
24:31
Speaker 2: When is the birthday of a spacecraft?
24:34
Speaker 3: Right?
24:34
Speaker 2: When is it when they start building it, because you know,
24:38
Speaker 2: this thing's like thirty years old now, Or is it
24:41
Speaker 2: when it gets dropped right before launch? I don't know.
24:45
Speaker 2: Probably the birthday is when the thing goes to space.
24:48
Speaker 2: Right then we can say, okay, well, now it's a spaceship.
24:52
Speaker 2: It got launched out a rocket. It's now a spaceship.
24:55
Speaker 2: Let's call that it's birthday if we use my just
24:58
Speaker 2: recently made up criteria to anthropomorphosize this space vehicle. James
25:04
Speaker 2: Webspace Telescope had a birthday while we were gone on break.
25:08
Speaker 2: Because it launched on December twenty fifth, twenty twenty one,
25:12
Speaker 2: that means JWST just turned three.
25:16
Speaker 3: You know, just we're gonna do full Inside Baseball, right,
25:20
Speaker 3: We're gonna do full Inside Baseball. We've already admitted that
25:24
Speaker 3: for the end of the year. We do record those
25:26
Speaker 3: shows in advance, and before that particular launch, we had
25:32
Speaker 3: to record.
25:33
Speaker 2: Two versions of the show, one where.
25:36
Speaker 3: We said it successfully launched, in one where we said
25:39
Speaker 3: it did not, and I had to make sure we
25:42
Speaker 3: aired the correct one, which we did.
25:44
Speaker 2: That's the full Inside Baseball.
25:46
Speaker 3: Just so you guys understand, we don't just put it
25:48
Speaker 3: on autopilot sometimes the.
25:51
Speaker 2: Pre recorded show.
25:53
Speaker 3: It's nice to be able to pull that curtain back finally, right,
25:56
Speaker 3: and we've had to do that a couple of times.
25:58
Speaker 2: So anyway, if you're into the show right now, you've
26:01
Speaker 2: probably been with us a while, you know that we
26:03
Speaker 2: like to fool around a lot on the show. It
26:06
Speaker 2: would be absolutely awesome if you still have it in
26:08
Speaker 2: the video, I mean in your in your recorded archive,
26:12
Speaker 2: to pull out that version of the you know, the
26:16
Speaker 2: bemoaning of the destruction of the James Webspace Telescope that
26:19
Speaker 2: we recorded just in case that happened, so you could
26:23
Speaker 2: play the right one on Christmas of twenty twenty one.
26:27
Speaker 2: That would be hilarious.
26:28
Speaker 3: I'm sure I have them because I save absolutely everything.
26:32
Speaker 2: I think we use our very serious voices. We did,
26:34
Speaker 2: and we sounded very somber. Oh, it's a sad day
26:38
Speaker 2: for those who believe in space exploration as James web
26:42
Speaker 2: Space Telescope was destroyed on launch. It'd be fun to
26:45
Speaker 2: kind of you know, it's like war the worlds almost,
26:47
Speaker 2: you know, It's.
26:48
Speaker 3: Like after being dropped and successfully bounced on the ground,
26:54
Speaker 3: they picked it up, they launched it and it blew
26:57
Speaker 3: up in the air. That would have been a while,
27:00
Speaker 3: but maybe, you know, after the thirty year saga, maybe
27:04
Speaker 3: it would have been. It just kind of seemed right.
27:07
Speaker 3: But anyway, sorry, I was friends. We never had to
27:10
Speaker 3: play that episode in real time. We did not, And
27:13
Speaker 3: so JWST has survived these miraculous three years because it
27:20
Speaker 3: was a miraculous event for the thing to actually deploy
27:23
Speaker 3: even after it got to space. That was over three
27:26
Speaker 3: hundred single points of failure that all had to work
27:29
Speaker 3: correctly for the thing.
27:30
Speaker 2: To be working. It's out there working all right. So
27:33
Speaker 2: JWST maybe a boondoggle in the early days, certainly one
27:38
Speaker 2: of the greatest successes of NASA. Now a story from
27:41
Speaker 2: space dot com here to begin the year of twenty
27:45
Speaker 2: twenty five is that JWST has found a really interesting
27:49
Speaker 2: finding about black holes. It's that these black holes. Now
27:53
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about your garden variety stellar black hole friends,
27:58
Speaker 2: I'm talking about super massive black holes at the centers
28:02
Speaker 2: of galaxies. We have looked back so far into time
28:08
Speaker 2: maybe short pause here, the farther away we look into space,
28:12
Speaker 2: we are also looking back into time because of the
28:15
Speaker 2: finite light travel speed. If you want to know about
28:18
Speaker 2: more about that, go listen to our earlier shows or
28:20
Speaker 2: just look it up. Anyway, we looked back eleven billion years.
28:25
Speaker 2: In other words, we looked eleven billion light years away
28:29
Speaker 2: and found galaxies that are really young, and in particular
28:35
Speaker 2: a galaxy cluster which at the time was still forming.
28:39
Speaker 2: So they call it a proto cluster. They gave it
28:42
Speaker 2: a nickname. I say, they it's not some mysterious group
28:45
Speaker 2: with hoods and robes, it's astronomers worldwide. Wait a minute,
28:49
Speaker 2: that might be the same thing. I don't know anyway.
28:51
Speaker 2: So the spider Web proto cluster was examined by the
28:56
Speaker 2: near infrared camera on the James Webspace Telescope, where there
28:59
Speaker 2: are nineteen galaxies that are in an affiliated group, and
29:04
Speaker 2: they realize that within these galaxies, the ones that show
29:07
Speaker 2: evidence for already formed supermassive black holes, they don't have
29:13
Speaker 2: as fast of a star formation rate. In other words,
29:17
Speaker 2: stars are forming much slower in the galaxies with obvious
29:23
Speaker 2: present supermassive black holes, and they're forming faster in the
29:27
Speaker 2: galaxies that don't show the signs of already formed supermassive
29:32
Speaker 2: black holes in this infant cluster of galaxies at the
29:36
Speaker 2: edge of the visible universe. So that's a really interesting
29:39
Speaker 2: find and it's fun astrophysics. You can go look up
29:43
Speaker 2: more about that on a great story on space dot com.
29:46
Speaker 2: But we're going to tip our hat back to Jadawst
29:49
Speaker 2: and say these are observations that simply would not be
29:52
Speaker 2: possible in the level of detail. Without James Webb, this
29:57
Speaker 2: telescope has got more advanced capabilities than any astronomical instrument
30:04
Speaker 2: ever in the history of humanity, which is why we're
30:07
Speaker 2: seeing some of these new physical circumstances in the very
30:11
Speaker 2: earliest part of the universe that lead us to us
30:13
Speaker 2: a better understanding of the way that not only stars form,
30:17
Speaker 2: but galaxies form and even galaxy clusters form. So interesting story.
30:22
Speaker 2: Check it out on space dot com. JWST and the
30:26
Speaker 2: suppressing super massive black holes.
30:28
Speaker 3: One more quick break and when we return, we'll let
30:31
Speaker 3: you know what to look forward to in twenty twenty
30:35
Speaker 3: five and upcoming astronomical events. It's always a good year
30:54
Speaker 3: when there's an eclipse. People get excited about whenever there's
30:58
Speaker 3: an eclipse. We have a total lunar eclipse.
31:00
Speaker 2: Coming, we do, so you know, it's it's fun to
31:04
Speaker 2: talk about all of the great astronomical events that you
31:07
Speaker 2: can see in the coming year when you're recording show
31:10
Speaker 2: and the very early part of January of that year,
31:15
Speaker 2: and there's a great article on Universe today dot com,
31:17
Speaker 2: and we like to tip our hats to those people
31:19
Speaker 2: who are out there doing space journalism. You know, we
31:22
Speaker 2: have fun on this show. I'm not really considering myself
31:24
Speaker 2: a space journalist in the full sense, but we do
31:28
Speaker 2: original stories once in a while here, but a lot
31:30
Speaker 2: of times we're trying to point you at some of
31:32
Speaker 2: the best space news that's out there. And today, go
31:35
Speaker 2: check out Universe today dot com. They'll tell you a
31:38
Speaker 2: whole year full of things to watch for in the sky.
31:41
Speaker 2: I'm just going to kind of summarize the early part
31:44
Speaker 2: of the year. And as Wes said, there's an a
31:46
Speaker 2: lunar eclipse coming up, there's a really great view of
31:49
Speaker 2: a couple of planets, and there's one thing very strange
31:53
Speaker 2: that's going to take place with one of the best
31:56
Speaker 2: planets to look at in the sky. So let's start
31:58
Speaker 2: with the two planets. First of all, January sixteenth, just
32:02
Speaker 2: a few days from now, the planet Mars is going
32:05
Speaker 2: to reach what's called opposition. Now, friends, I was out
32:08
Speaker 2: in the early morning hours, probably looking for aurora phenomenon
32:12
Speaker 2: that I did not see, and I did happen to
32:14
Speaker 2: see though, a beautiful red dot, clear clear in the
32:19
Speaker 2: nighttime sky, and that was the planet Mars. Because Mars
32:24
Speaker 2: is approaching opposition, which is that planet's nearest path pass
32:29
Speaker 2: to the Earth, and that is taking place on January sixteenth,
32:33
Speaker 2: so for this particular set of orbits, Mars will get
32:38
Speaker 2: as close to the Earth as it will for the
32:41
Speaker 2: next almost two years on January sixteenth. So right now
32:46
Speaker 2: at opposition, Mars looks fantastic in the sky. It's shining
32:49
Speaker 2: with a negative magnitude, which, if you know your sky magnitudes,
32:53
Speaker 2: that means it's very bright. The smaller the number, the
32:55
Speaker 2: brighter the object, So magnitude negative one point five, and
33:00
Speaker 2: it's going to be about a fifteen arcsecond disc, which
33:03
Speaker 2: for the for the planet Mars is respectable. Anyway, it's
33:06
Speaker 2: a good time to go see Mars with backyard telescopes
33:09
Speaker 2: or just notice that really bright, reddish dot in the
33:13
Speaker 2: sky that looks like a star, but it's its light
33:16
Speaker 2: is steady and bright and unusual for any of the
33:20
Speaker 2: other stars around. That's the planet Mars. Also noticed that nearby,
33:24
Speaker 2: the planet Jupiter is still near its opposition, which happened
33:29
Speaker 2: back on the December seventh, So Jupiter Mars near each
33:32
Speaker 2: other in the sky, both near opposition, looking absolutely gorgeous
33:37
Speaker 2: in the general vicinity of the constellation of Orion and
33:40
Speaker 2: that part of the sky and really really cool, a
33:42
Speaker 2: great lunar, a great nighttime sight to go out and see.
33:46
Speaker 2: I said the word lunar because I was looking at
33:48
Speaker 2: the next story, which is a lunar eclipse coming. It's
33:50
Speaker 2: also happening in the early part of this year. It's
33:53
Speaker 2: March the thirteenth for astronomical time zones that are kept
33:57
Speaker 2: tracked by Greenwich Meantime. But here in Georgia, on the
34:01
Speaker 2: East coast of the US, it'll be in the early
34:04
Speaker 2: hours of March fourteenth, twenty twenty five, two twenty six
34:08
Speaker 2: am Eastern Standard time. You're going to have a total
34:12
Speaker 2: lunar eclipse, and that will be visible from all the
34:16
Speaker 2: states in the US and in fact all across the
34:19
Speaker 2: Americas in general. So I think from you know, Canada,
34:23
Speaker 2: all the way down to Tierra del Fuego you'll be
34:26
Speaker 2: able to see this lunar eclipse take place on March
34:30
Speaker 2: the fourteenth. Please stop calling it a blood moon. I
34:34
Speaker 2: know there are articles out there that are calling it
34:35
Speaker 2: a blood moon. It just hurts my eyes. We're not
34:38
Speaker 2: going to use that term. Okay. The other thing you
34:41
Speaker 2: want to see, also beginning in March, is that the
34:44
Speaker 2: normally beautiful planet Saturn that you can see in backyard
34:48
Speaker 2: telescopes and see its rings with even those, you know,
34:53
Speaker 2: maybe maybe a little bit too inexpensive telescopes that you
34:56
Speaker 2: purchase for Christmas, even those telescopes will show Saturn's rings.
35:01
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, after March you're not gonna see them for
35:04
Speaker 2: a while. Saturn's rings are going to disappear. And that's
35:08
Speaker 2: because the Earth relative to the planet Saturn is aligning
35:12
Speaker 2: itself just so that we're going to be experiencing something
35:17
Speaker 2: called a ring plane crossing, or in other words, Saturn's
35:21
Speaker 2: rings are going to be edge on as visible from
35:23
Speaker 2: the Earth from March of twenty twenty five until November
35:27
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five. And so, just out of curiosity,
35:31
Speaker 2: if you're one of these people that have seen Saturn
35:33
Speaker 2: many times through a telescope, it's a fun thing to
35:37
Speaker 2: go look at Saturn with no rings whatsoever. They're so
35:41
Speaker 2: thin you simply can't see them in those backyard telescopes.
35:45
Speaker 2: It's gonna be beginning on March twenty third. It only
35:48
Speaker 2: happens about every thirteen to sixteen years, or in other words,
35:52
Speaker 2: twice in twenty nine years, something to that effect. So
35:56
Speaker 2: go check out a ringless Saturn. Now, if you're a
35:58
Speaker 2: person who's never seen the rings of Saturn, well this
36:02
Speaker 2: is not a good time for you. I would just
36:04
Speaker 2: avoid it. Don't even look at Saturn. Just wait, just
36:07
Speaker 2: wait till next Christmas and then you can go back
36:09
Speaker 2: out and look at Saturn again and actually see those rings.
36:12
Speaker 2: So there's a couple a few space stories to get
36:15
Speaker 2: you started with twenty twenty five. Of course we'll be
36:17
Speaker 2: highlighting more here and you can check out the entire
36:20
Speaker 2: year in the article on space. I'm sorry on Universe
36:24
Speaker 2: today dot com.
36:25
Speaker 3: While we're advising people to stop using blood Moon, just
36:29
Speaker 3: one more quick thing. One of those things that continues
36:32
Speaker 3: to irk us. I noticed a few stories, one in
36:37
Speaker 3: particular about the still stuck in stranded astronauts on the
36:42
Speaker 3: International Space Station, and it basically was saying, and it's
36:47
Speaker 3: one of those sites it's trying to say that you know,
36:50
Speaker 3: that's all like in a studio somewhere and they're not
36:52
Speaker 3: really in space. And it said, if they didn't know
36:56
Speaker 3: they were going to be stuck up there ahead of time,
37:00
Speaker 3: how could they possibly have had Santa hats to where
37:04
Speaker 3: while they were up there? And they sent photos of
37:06
Speaker 3: those down to Earth.
37:10
Speaker 2: A couple things.
37:11
Speaker 3: One, they have a ride home, and have had a
37:13
Speaker 3: ride home for quite some time. In fact, they're you know,
37:16
Speaker 3: with like six weeks or something away from coming home
37:18
Speaker 3: on that aforementioned ride. Also, you know, they do send
37:24
Speaker 3: supply ships back and forth, and you know, they probably
37:27
Speaker 3: weren't their personal Santa hats that they packed before going
37:32
Speaker 3: up on the Boeing ship. But yeah, they could have
37:38
Speaker 3: just borrowed one. You know, there's people that have been
37:40
Speaker 3: up there for a while, so just all.
37:43
Speaker 2: Of that wes there's no chance that anybody's ever brought
37:47
Speaker 2: a Santa hat to the space station. In the twenty
37:50
Speaker 2: three years of operation of continuous habitation of the International
37:55
Speaker 2: Space Station, twenty three years, no one's ever thought, oh,
37:59
Speaker 2: is that gonna be over Christmas? Maybe I should bring
38:02
Speaker 2: a Santa hat or reindeer antlers just for fun. No
38:05
Speaker 2: one's ever thought of that.
38:06
Speaker 3: No, not at all, No one has ever even considered
38:10
Speaker 3: doing that. I realize it's just you know, throwing meat
38:15
Speaker 3: to the wolves to even acknowledge the stories. But I
38:18
Speaker 3: saw one and I just kept shaking my head like this.
38:21
Speaker 3: It just kept getting worse and worse and worse. As
38:24
Speaker 3: I was reading it, and I thought, man, this is
38:27
Speaker 3: this is going to cause something in my head to rupture.
38:30
Speaker 3: So anyway, while we're stopping, they're not stuck. They probably
38:34
Speaker 3: already had Santa hats up there, or you know, they
38:36
Speaker 3: were part of a supply mission that went up because
38:39
Speaker 3: they do send them food regularly.
38:41
Speaker 2: If you're a threshold for disbelief starts at well, there's
38:47
Speaker 2: no way they knew they were going to be up
38:49
Speaker 2: there over Christmas, Like astronauts haven't been up there for
38:52
Speaker 2: the past twenty three years. We have nothing for you
38:56
Speaker 2: on the show. Yeah, that's really not all. You should
38:58
Speaker 2: go listen to different podcasts. I'm just gonna say you
39:00
Speaker 2: there now.
39:01
Speaker 3: Probably go check out, you know, other podcasts, any of
39:05
Speaker 3: those other ones. Chances are you're probably listening to one
39:08
Speaker 3: that you know doesn't think that we ever went to
39:11
Speaker 3: the moon or ever launched a rocket or whatever. All right,
39:14
Speaker 3: let's let's transition out to the co Cola Space Science Center.
39:17
Speaker 3: You guys are back open for business already. You're back.
39:22
Speaker 3: It's open. You're you're open for folks to come in
39:25
Speaker 3: and check out all of your incredible artifacts that are
39:28
Speaker 3: on display. And oh and you're getting ready in just
39:30
Speaker 3: a couple of months to in March to have yet
39:34
Speaker 3: another music under the dome. Say that can't be so, Sean.
39:39
Speaker 2: I mean it can't be so because we're really not
39:40
Speaker 2: open today. But by the time people hear this, yeah,
39:45
Speaker 2: there you go, we'll be open tomorrow. So come come
39:47
Speaker 2: see us tomorrow. And this is a January second. We'll
39:51
Speaker 2: be open on January third and for the rest of
39:53
Speaker 2: the weekend. So come down and check out the Coca
39:55
Speaker 2: Cola Space Science Center. But I will tell you that,
39:58
Speaker 2: you know, you can wait until we get things warmed
40:00
Speaker 2: up and come next week. You know, we're going to
40:02
Speaker 2: check out, make sure everything's up and running later today.
40:05
Speaker 2: So so that's part of our that's part of our
40:08
Speaker 2: we've been closed for half a month. We need to
40:10
Speaker 2: make sure all the machines are working. That's that's this afternoon.
40:13
Speaker 3: Anyway, And we turn the heat on overnight there and
40:15
Speaker 3: that'll help warm everything up.
40:17
Speaker 2: Why heat the place when no one's here, that's fair.
40:20
Speaker 2: I don't even heat my house when people are there,
40:22
Speaker 2: you know, so why heat the Space signs when no
40:24
Speaker 2: one's here? So anyway, the Space Sign Center will be
40:27
Speaker 2: nice and warm starting on January third, and we'll be
40:31
Speaker 2: heading into a new season of music under the Dome.
40:34
Speaker 2: Check out those concert series for availability on our website,
40:38
Speaker 2: as well as all the great events taking place all
40:41
Speaker 2: the time here at Coca Cola Space Signce Center at
40:43
Speaker 2: Columbus State University. You can begin by I would just
40:46
Speaker 2: friend us on Facebook, follow us on Facebook. We'll send
40:50
Speaker 2: you notifications there, or you can visit the website like
40:54
Speaker 2: people my age do www dot CCSSC dot org, Charlie
40:59
Speaker 2: Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org. Visit the website for links
41:03
Speaker 2: to music under the Dome, tickets, concerts inside our planetarium,
41:07
Speaker 2: and all of the other great events taking place at
41:09
Speaker 2: Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Sean and
41:13
Speaker 2: I thank you for listening and wish you a happy
41:16
Speaker 2: new year, and we'll do this again next week. Nice
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