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The Fantastic Two? · 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, mad 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. I'm West Carol, joined
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  Speaker 4: by my good friend doctor Sean Cruisin from Columbus State
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  Speaker 4: University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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  Speaker 2: Hey Sean, Hey, we's good to be here today.
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  Speaker 4: We got a couple stories that involve us looking out
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  Speaker 4: into space, looking out into deep space. Before we get
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  Speaker 4: to that, I just quickly wanted to mention and we
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  Speaker 4: typically keep this, you know, in grounded stuff, we talk
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  Speaker 4: a lot about the science behind things or things that
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  Speaker 4: are happening happening on Earth, even when it's a little
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  Speaker 4: bit diplomatic in the way that companies are trying to
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  Speaker 4: get things done and things we do from time to time, though,
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  Speaker 4: address when the world of science fiction and science sort
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  Speaker 4: of come together. And one of those things that's coming
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  Speaker 4: in the summer this year is the release of the
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  Speaker 4: new Fantastic Four movie. Now, this is going to be
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  Speaker 4: the Marvel Cinematic Universe, introducing the characters from the Fantastic
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  Speaker 4: Four into not the same universe. We started getting into this.
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  Speaker 4: You know, they've got the multiverse concept there for Marvel.
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  Speaker 4: I assume eventually they will have to cross over into
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  Speaker 4: the main Marvel Cinematic universe. And I know I'm getting
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  Speaker 4: deep into the nerd weeds with all that. But the
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  Speaker 4: reason I mention it is because what they're doing will
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  Speaker 4: allow them to tell the story of the Fantastic for
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  Speaker 4: much closer to the way it was originally written by
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  Speaker 4: you know, setting this in the sixties and giving them
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  Speaker 4: an opportunity to sort of explore to some degree, this
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  Speaker 4: life of these superhero astronauts that you know, trying to
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  Speaker 4: you know, not only be superheroes but also be extremely famous,
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  Speaker 4: which would have been true, you know, obviously of them
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  Speaker 4: just as astronauts alone, much less by being superheroes whose
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  Speaker 4: identities were known. That's another thing that happened in the
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  Speaker 4: in the Marvel comics of those characters, but their story
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  Speaker 4: is ultimately and not knowing the exact plot of this
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  Speaker 4: particular movie, but the story of the Fantastic Four. They've
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  Speaker 4: done this a few times, we've had movies of the
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  Speaker 4: Fantastic Four. This is the first time it will be
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  Speaker 4: part of the bigger picture Disney Marvel universe. So this
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  Speaker 4: origin story that we know of the Fantastic Four is
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  Speaker 4: obviously one of space expiration. Now all of that is
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  Speaker 4: tied into what these characters were in the height of
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  Speaker 4: the space race. So setting this movie in the sixties
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  Speaker 4: is obviously important.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean also a feature of the nineteen
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  Speaker 2: fifties and nineteen sixties sci fi genre was the fact
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  Speaker 2: that we were getting it was a period of time
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  Speaker 2: we were getting used to the fact that we could
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  Speaker 2: drop nuclear bombs and they could release all manner of radiation.
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  Speaker 2: And then we found out that radiation actually comes to
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  Speaker 2: us from space as well. What could that space radiation do?
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  Speaker 2: And all of these questions are addressed in you know,
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  Speaker 2: in comic strips like The Hulk for instance, right, so,
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  Speaker 2: and yes, also the Fantastic Four. So so yeah, if
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  Speaker 2: we put astronauts in orbit and they were up there,
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  Speaker 2: you know, doing their business as astronauts and exploded, performing
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  Speaker 2: exploration experiments things like that, and just hanging around. But
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  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, some weird cosmic event took place
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  Speaker 2: that just bathe them in a rapid wave of space radiation.
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  Speaker 2: Could that morph their DNA and their cells in such
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  Speaker 2: a way then it turned them into superheroes, and it
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  Speaker 2: gave them, you know, quasi magical properties almost as visible
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  Speaker 2: from the Earth, you know, as viewed in the lens
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  Speaker 2: of how we see each other as residents of the Earth.
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  Speaker 2: So you have people that can you know, suddenly they
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  Speaker 2: can stretch like a rubber band, or they can turn
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  Speaker 2: into a giant rock, or they can just set themselves
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  Speaker 2: on fire and they don't even feel the flame, or
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  Speaker 2: they just disappear. You know, these are these are cool concepts,
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  Speaker 2: right Wow? What if? And if you take that from
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  Speaker 2: the stance of a science fiction writer or even better,
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  Speaker 2: a comic book writer, you don't really have to explain
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  Speaker 2: all the science. You just introduce enough little weird, uh
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  Speaker 2: lesser known facts about space radiation and then just imagine
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  Speaker 2: where that could take you. Right Okay, so so but
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  Speaker 2: right now, we have a set of astronauts that are
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  Speaker 2: stranded right now apparently on the International Space Station. They're
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  Speaker 2: just stranded. They don't have a ride home. Who knows
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  Speaker 2: how many times they've been bathed in space radiation.
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  Speaker 4: That's right, they've they're spent this extended stay that they're
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  Speaker 4: spending up there because they were just stranded.
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  Speaker 2: Just stranded, I mean compared to the people who have
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  Speaker 2: actually been up there longer than they have. But you
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  Speaker 2: know that, let's not let's not let's not ruin a
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  Speaker 2: good story by introducing facts. Yeah, let's not introduce, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the fact that they're they have a spacecraft parked at
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  Speaker 2: the space station where they could leave any time. Let's
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  Speaker 2: go ahead and just conject we like conjecture. Let's let's
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  Speaker 2: just let's just think about what could be happening to
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  Speaker 2: Butch and Sunni right now. They could be turning into
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  Speaker 2: members of the Fantastic Four right now.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, we can't prove that they are not being
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  Speaker 4: turned into members of the Fantastic Four.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, nor do we wish to.
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  Speaker 4: We don't want to try to squash all of that. Well,
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  Speaker 4: this whole concept and as you greatly pointed out, just
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  Speaker 4: coming from this, coming from a time for a story
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  Speaker 4: like Fantastic four in the age of not just the
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  Speaker 4: space race, but the nuclear and all of those things
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  Speaker 4: tying into all of it. So we'll now transition over
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  Speaker 4: to our first real story for the week, which kind
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  Speaker 4: of ties into this because the Einstein probe has discovered
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  Speaker 4: something weird in space, and now scientists try to figure
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  Speaker 4: out what that weird thing is.
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  Speaker 2: Let's make sure we understand that the next story is
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  Speaker 2: about space radiation. But this particular jolt of space radiation
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  Speaker 2: happened in April of last year, that would be twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty four, prior to Butch and Soony being launched aboard
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  Speaker 2: an unfortunate Boeing spacecraft that had to come back with
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  Speaker 2: nobody in it, thereby stranding these astronauts. So the astronauts
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  Speaker 2: were not stranded when the next story's event occurs. Let's
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  Speaker 2: just make sure we know that, Okay.
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  Speaker 4: So, but why let facts get in the way when
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  Speaker 4: it comes to these two astronauts, as.
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  Speaker 2: When you have a good story, you really shouldn't let
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  Speaker 2: facts get in the way.
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  Speaker 4: That's so, maybe this radiation is still lingering around up there.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I think that's what's worth anyway.
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  Speaker 2: It might be radiation doesn't really do that but it might,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, for the sake of the comic,
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  Speaker 2: let's get in the way. Okay, So let's actually talk
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  Speaker 2: science here, ladies and gentlemen. Here we go. So here's
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  Speaker 2: what we have. Astronomers have reported that the Einstein X
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  Speaker 2: ray probe, that's a spacecraft orbiting around the Earth the
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  Speaker 2: detects X rays last year spotted a gigantic burst of
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  Speaker 2: X ray radiation because that's what it examines, it measures
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  Speaker 2: in the universe. But that could have been caused by
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  Speaker 2: something that we know better as a gamma ray burst,
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  Speaker 2: because gamma rays, which are not X rays, the gamma
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  Speaker 2: ray bursts can actually trigger secondary X rays as a
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  Speaker 2: secondary event. So they saw this giant, really fast, really
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  Speaker 2: bright blast of X rays from a location in space.
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  Speaker 2: They said, Wow, that thing was so powerful that the
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  Speaker 2: only thing we can think of that it might be
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  Speaker 2: is one of these gamma ray burst events, which is
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  Speaker 2: it's postulated to be a couple of neutron stars that
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  Speaker 2: are falling into each other's gravitational field and they die
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  Speaker 2: in this massive collision, and as they do, they just
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  Speaker 2: emit all manner of radiation. So that's one conjecture. Another
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  Speaker 2: conjecture could be well, well, if it's not that, if
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  Speaker 2: it's not this gamma ray burst colliding neutron star thing,
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  Speaker 2: maybe it's a super massive black hole ripping apart a star,
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  Speaker 2: a big star as the star falls into the super
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  Speaker 2: massive black hole. That event is known as a tidal
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  Speaker 2: disruption event or a TDE. But as they began to
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  Speaker 2: really examine the structure of this X ray burst, in
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  Speaker 2: other words, how bright it was, what wavelengths it was
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  Speaker 2: actually emitting in, and how long did it last? The
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  Speaker 2: duration of that event, the pattern of the X ray
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  Speaker 2: radiation that they measured simply didn't line up with either
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  Speaker 2: of those things. So those were two of the only
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  Speaker 2: things that astronomers knew of to say, well, only a
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  Speaker 2: couple of things we know can produce that much energy,
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  Speaker 2: and they were the neutron stars colliding or the star
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  Speaker 2: falling into the super massive black hole. But they didn't
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  Speaker 2: match the radiation profile. So they had to think about, well,
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  Speaker 2: what could cause this really short duration but really high
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  Speaker 2: luminosity event. And one of the lead scientists on this
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  Speaker 2: study is from Carnegie Mellon University. He's a researcher by
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  Speaker 2: the name of Brendan O'Connor. He actually said this quote.
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  Speaker 2: The short duration and high luminosity are hard to explain
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  Speaker 2: in other scenarios than the two I just described. The
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  Speaker 2: alternative is that we are seeing something entirely new. So
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  Speaker 2: maybe this is just an event that we haven't even
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  Speaker 2: imagined yet. So that's when scientists go to the research
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  Speaker 2: and they say, hey, do any of the theoretical astrophysics
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  Speaker 2: astrophysicists out there, have they proposed any kind of an
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  Speaker 2: energetic phenomenon that could be more powerful but really short
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  Speaker 2: duration than either of the other things, the gamma ray
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  Speaker 2: burst event or the title disruption event. And they came
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  Speaker 2: across in the literature a hypothetical postulation of something called
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  Speaker 2: a jetted TDE or a jetted Title disruption event. Now
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  Speaker 2: this is this is a first cousin to the star
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  Speaker 2: falling into the supermassive black hole. But there's one more set,
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  Speaker 2: one more set of extenuating circumstances that can be added
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  Speaker 2: to that event that make it even more powerful and
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  Speaker 2: more short duration. And that's if the magnetic field of
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  Speaker 2: the black hole and the magnetic field of the star
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  Speaker 2: falling into the black hole are not lined up. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: they're the opposite of that, they're anti aligned. Thinking about
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  Speaker 2: one one facing uppy downy, the other facing saidey side,
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  Speaker 2: or in other words, one facing north south the other
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  Speaker 2: facing east west.
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  Speaker 4: I got to use too many technical terms, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I teach freshman astronomy, so I roll out terms like
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  Speaker 4: uppy downy.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of I find it useful. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I like it. So, yeah, think about your upy downy
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  Speaker 2: magnetic field and your sidey siding magnetic field. They are
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  Speaker 2: ninety degrees opposite each other. If that condition were to
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  Speaker 2: happen with a star fall a big star falling into
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  Speaker 2: a supermassive black hole, then the researchers, the theoretical researchers
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  Speaker 2: postulated this thing called a jetted TDE where there is
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  Speaker 2: a rapid release of radiation as the material from the
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  Speaker 2: star is pulled into spaghettification by the supermassive black hole,
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  Speaker 2: and then the magnetic field of all that material suddenly
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  Speaker 2: aligns as it has no choice with the magnetic field
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  Speaker 2: of the black hole. That process then releases this really
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  Speaker 2: bright and very short duration blast of X rays. So
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  Speaker 2: says the theoretical researchers. Well, now now we actually have
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  Speaker 2: this real data of an event that has a catalog
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  Speaker 2: name of this EP two four zero four zero EP
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  Speaker 2: that stands for Einstein probe by the way, that's a
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  Speaker 2: catalog number, Einstein probe two four zero four zero eight
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  Speaker 2: a letter A. That event is so powerful and so
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  Speaker 2: short duration that now scientists believe that the only explanation
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  Speaker 2: possible that we know of is this thing called a
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  Speaker 2: jetted tde. Therefore, we might have brand new observations of
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  Speaker 2: a new phenomenon that has never been observed before, even
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  Speaker 2: though it's been speculated and postulated, this could be something
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  Speaker 2: brand newly observed in the universe. Stay tuned for more
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  Speaker 2: information on this cool story.
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  Speaker 4: Let's talk about another lookout into space. And this is
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  Speaker 4: a really cool story and you kind of feel like
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  Speaker 4: when Earth is home. The things that we study on Earth,
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  Speaker 4: we study so much about the planet. Geologists obviously study
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  Speaker 4: deep into the end of the planet and try to
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  Speaker 4: look and what we can about the past of the planet.
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  Speaker 4: One thing that we don't we're not really able one
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  Speaker 4: of a couple things. As we dig deeper and deeper
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  Speaker 4: into the planet, we don't really get a good look
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  Speaker 4: into the mantle. And obviously the core of the Earth.
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  Speaker 4: So this next story sort of is about us getting
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  Speaker 4: a view of the ERDs, if you will, of an
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  Speaker 4: exoplanet out in space James Webspace Telescope giving us some
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  Speaker 4: pretty cool views and an opportunity to study those entrails
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  Speaker 4: if you will.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really great introduction.
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  Speaker 4: Wess.
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  Speaker 2: And by the way, before I go too far, the
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  Speaker 2: story that we're about to talk about is from sciencenews
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  Speaker 2: dot org. The previous story about the jetted title disruption Events.
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  Speaker 2: Check that out on space dot com. They have a
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  Speaker 2: great story about that particular piece of research. So from
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  Speaker 2: sciencenews dot org. Did James Webspace Telescope just observe a
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  Speaker 2: crumbling exoplanet? Well, all right, so here's here's how this
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  Speaker 2: story unfolds. The James web Space Telescope is examining a
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  Speaker 2: nearby star and this star has what they think is
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  Speaker 2: a Neptune sized planet orbiting around it. That planet has
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  Speaker 2: been given the designation of K two twenty two B.
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  Speaker 2: K two twenty two B. If this planet exists, this
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  Speaker 2: exo planet orbiting another star. If it exists, it's orbiting
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  Speaker 2: at an extremely close separation to its parent star. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: it orbits that star in just nine hours. So a
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  Speaker 2: different way to describe that is a year on K
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  Speaker 2: two twenty two B is only nine Earth hours long,
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  Speaker 2: So every nine hours it's zipping around the planet, and
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  Speaker 2: the orbital period is directly tied to its distance, and
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  Speaker 2: that's why you get this thing being super super close. Okay, Well,
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  Speaker 2: if there is a planet, a big planet Neptune size,
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  Speaker 2: that close to its parent star, surely the high temperatures
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  Speaker 2: and gravitational title effects are having some damaging effects on
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  Speaker 2: the on the exoplanet itself. And that's you know, that's
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  Speaker 2: just postulated from radiation theory and gravitational title force effects calculations. Well,
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  Speaker 2: so the interesting thing that James Webb Space Telescope has
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  Speaker 2: found is while trying to it's a very hard object
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  Speaker 2: to observe. You have to basically look at this planet
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  Speaker 2: passing in front of its parent star to even know
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  Speaker 2: it's there, right, So things have to be lined up
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  Speaker 2: just right, and so we're really examining the star and
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  Speaker 2: then we see once in a while some dimming of
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  Speaker 2: that star and then some weird chemical signatures and that
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  Speaker 2: is what we're detecting as this exoplanet. Well, the fact
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  Speaker 2: is that James web Is is observing a cloud of
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  Speaker 2: material as well as the exoplanet itself. And so now
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  Speaker 2: the late conjecture is that as this cloud of material
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  Speaker 2: passes by, it actually is changing in both its opacity
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  Speaker 2: in other words, how much light it lets through, and
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  Speaker 2: also its chemical signature. It's different every time. So what
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  Speaker 2: scientists are thinking is that, well, maybe it's not just
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  Speaker 2: the exoplanet. Maybe this thing is spewing material from the
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  Speaker 2: interior of the planet because it's literally being ripped apart
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  Speaker 2: by the high heat and tidal forces of this nearby
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  Speaker 2: interaction with its parents star. So these astronomers have concluded
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  Speaker 2: that they're actually seeing the interior of this exoplanet. In
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  Speaker 2: other words, they're seeing its guts, it's entrails, it's being
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  Speaker 2: ripped out from the inside out, and then we're able
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  Speaker 2: to actually get spectroscopy and observations of that. Wes mentioned
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  Speaker 2: at the first of the introduction to the story that
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  Speaker 2: it's very hard to see the Earth's mantle. Well, in fact,
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  Speaker 2: it's way harder to make direct measurements of the Earth's mantle,
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  Speaker 2: our own planet's mantle, than it is of distant galaxies
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  Speaker 2: almost at the edge of the universe. Because at least
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  Speaker 2: with distant galaxies that are very far away, we can
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  Speaker 2: on least see them, we get light from them, we
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  Speaker 2: get data directly from them. We have to just speculate
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  Speaker 2: what's in our own mantle. Well, now, with the setup
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  Speaker 2: of this weird exoplanet orbiting very close to its parent star,
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  Speaker 2: the mantle materials are actually being pulled out from the
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  Speaker 2: interior of that exoplanet is what it looks like, and
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  Speaker 2: we are able to directly measure the chemical properties of
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  Speaker 2: that stuff as it orbits around that distant star. So
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  Speaker 2: K two twenty two B is giving us a really
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  Speaker 2: interesting insight into the chemical composition of the interior of
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  Speaker 2: this exoplanet's mantle, which is just really unique. Study co
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  Speaker 2: author Jason Wright of Penn State University says, this getting
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  Speaker 2: insight into any planet's mantle, even the Earth's, is challenging.
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  Speaker 2: When nature gives you a gift like that, you have
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  Speaker 2: to take it, and so it's really you can kind
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  Speaker 2: of get the enthusiasm and his quote there, it's really
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  Speaker 2: a unique thing for us on Earth to be the
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  Speaker 2: being able to see and perform spectroscopy figure out the
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  Speaker 2: chemical composition of elements from the inside of an active planner.
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  Speaker 2: Really interesting stuff. Great story on sciencenews dot org.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: Coming up after a quick break, a possible way to
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: get a quicker response on wildfires. We'll talk about that next. Obviously,
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: the wildfires in California in the LA area have been
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: continue to dominate news for US, even coast to coast
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: around the world, and wildfires are obviously something that time
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: is very sensitive when it comes to wildfires. Every little
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: bit of preparation or every little bit of extra heads
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: up you can get is important. Let's talk about Rocket
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: Lab and what they're working on maybe to give everybody
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: just a little bit more of a head start on
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: responding when it comes to wildfires.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, just to give a brief context of this.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: You may have a really great idea for a satellite,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: and your satellite might be performing some really essential function,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: but your satellite company has to wait in line to
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: be able to launch your satellite into space. Behind they'll
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: already prescribe launch schedule of all the rockets that are
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: launching either from say Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: or the Vandenberg Space Force Base out in California, whatever.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So if you're trying to have a payload in space
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: that if a certain condition exists on the Earth, you
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: can rapidly launch a satellite up there to monitor those
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: conditions and give feedback. The waiting line scenario doesn't really work.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: A New Zealand rocket launch company called rocket Lab is saying, hey,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, we have dedicated launch facility. We can launch.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: We don't have the we don't have the same air
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: traffic control problems down here in New Zealand as they
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: have up there in Florida or at California or those
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: kind of places. We can just go ahead and launch
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: any time we want. So what if we had rockets
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: standing by that a company could just launch a rapid
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: response payload on Okay, So that's the setup they provide
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that unique service at rocket Lab down in New Zealand. Well,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: there's a German company called Aurora Technologies. Now this is
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: not spelled like the Northern Lights. It's O R O
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: R A O R O R A Aurora Tech. So
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Aurora Tech build a satellite called the OTC dash P one.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: The OTCP one is designated to study wildfires. Well, all right,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: if you're wanting to study wildfires, you may need to
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: launch that rocket at a certain time when wildfires are occurring,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: or at least when wildfire season is coming up, or
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: at a peak. In other words, you may need what's
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: known as a responsive launch. Hey, the time is right,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: please put our spacecraft up into space right now. Well
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: that's the new thing that Rocket Lab in New Zealand
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: is providing. It's providing the ability for companies to come
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: in and say, yes, we want to get our satellites
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: up at a designated time in a hurry.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: So, for Aurora Technologies, the OTCP one satellite. A quote
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: about the satellite says they provide twenty four to seven
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: monitoring of wildfires globally, supporting better, fast and faster wildlife
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: response to protect forests, people, and infrastructure worldwide. Now, when
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: a wildfire breaks out in LA, I think people know
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: about that pretty quickly, but there are a much larger
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: number of remote locations on the Earth where people might
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: not notice that there's a wildfire in progress immediately. And
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: so this satellite would watch those kinds of locations to
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: tell us, hey, there's a new wildfire just popped up.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It would also be able to tell us how fast
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: it's spreading. It would also be able to tell us
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: if it's moving toward habitable areas or habitated areas of
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: the world. So the point of rocket Lab is, hey, yes,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: for payloads like this, we can provide quote responsive launch
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: unquote services. We can say, you know, they can come
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: to us within a very short timeframe and say hey,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: we need to launch our payload right now, and rocket
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Lab can go ahead and carry that out. So Peter Beck,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: who is rocket Lab's founder and the CEO, said in
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: a statement, this launch is a showcase of all the
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: benefits of flying dedicated on Electron side note Electron is
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the name of the rocket Lab rocket. So to go
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: on with a quote, control over schedule, agility and ability
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: to meet tight deadlines and mission requirements, and the reliability
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: of launching on the world's most frequently launched small satellite
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: rocket are benefits, according to Peterbeck from rocket Lab. Okay
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: to go on further, He says this quote, knowing that
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: time is of the essence to get these satellites in space,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: We're proud to be rising to the challenge of supporting
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: the Ourotech mission to better monitor for and protect against
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: these devastating natural disasters globally so cool concept. A different
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: selling point for a commercial space company is that they
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: simply don't have to wait in line. And that's not
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the case even for SpaceX launching oh, STARLINGK satellites, things
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: like that, because even SpaceX, even they have a very
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: rapid launch cadence, but the already on the schedule, right
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: they can't just say, oh, I want to launch this
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: new rocket on Thursday that we've never thought about before.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Rocket Lab can do that, and they can do it quickly,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: and that's a selling point for that rocket company down under.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit about I've had a management
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: to change someone back in a role in charge there
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: at Boeing concerning their star Liner program.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked, I mean maybe in a way we
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: should reconsider, but we talked a little bit about stranded
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: astronauts at the VERSU of the show. I'm not going
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: to go into depth on this story too much. I'm
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: just going to say this is true. Boeing star Liner
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: was the spacecraft that left the astronauts stranded. Well, Boeing
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: has now hired a new person who is not really
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: a new person to take over the star Liner program.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: It's John Mullholland. He's actually back in the role of
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: vice president of the company's commercial crew program. He was
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: in charge of that program from twenty eleven through twenty twenty.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: In twenty nineteen, rather that was the first launch of
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the star Liner system. Back then it was called the
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: CST one hundred, so he managed that program up through
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: the first successful launch of that spacecraft. Even though the
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: launch was successful, the mission wasn't entirely successful for Boeing
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: star Liner at that time. CST one hundred. The twenty
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: nineteen flight experienced anomalies that used more fuel than they planned,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: so it was a high fuel use overspec It also
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: failed to rendezvous with the International Space Station because of
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the fuel usage problem, so even that launch wasn't perfect. However,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: they are bringing back, shall we say, a more trusted
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: name in terms of the company's eyes, somebody with an
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: experience with the spacecraft, to try to see if they
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: can rekindle that program and get it back on track.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I'm Mullholland back at Boeing, back in charge of Boeing's
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: commercial crew program.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: Coming up after a quick break, we'll talk about this
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: third form of magnetism story that's floating around on social media.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: We'll get to that next. You're the scientist here, I'm
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: the everyman that's just supposed to ask you the questions
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: that everybody else is thinking. So I think I have
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: to start this next story by asking the question that
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: I think many of our listeners might be thinking as
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: we learn that scientists discovering a third form of magnetism.
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: How long have we had two forms of magnetism? I mean,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: I'm familiar with the one I know, the one that
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: holds the stuff on the refrigerator and all that, and
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: the ones that you know have to do with the planet.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: I just I didn't know that there was a second one.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: And so if there's a third one, could there be
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: you know, a fourth one or a fifth one. I
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: don't know how far this could possibly go. So anyway,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: let's I'm.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Gonna go out on a limb west. I'm gonna say
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: since the Big Bang?
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Okay, all right, so that's how long we've had two.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And probably how long we've had three. But you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: we don't Sometimes we just don't know things. Right, Let's
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: truck have to go Wait a minute, that's true. So
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: let's talk about what the two ken.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: I know, we could probably spend like a whole lecture
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: series on on on all of this. What's the quick
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: answer on how how the two work that we have
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: before we talk about the third one.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Let me just go let me just go into this
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: fact first, which is if you're a regular listener to
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: the podcast, you realize that sometimes I give decidedly non
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: scientific responses to these kinds of questions, mostly because we're
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: trying to make the entertainment medium. And if I start
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: going into the well, you know, Wes, you have to
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: consider the electron spins and how they line with the
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Pretty soon people are just going to be nodding off.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And that's a different podcast. You can go listen to
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: those guys somewhere else. We're just trying to have a
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: good time over here, all right, So don't ruin the
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: party by introducing all these scientific facts. But yet what
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I just started down the road of is actually true.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: There are magnets that will stick to your family refrigerator.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: They're magnets all the time. And these magnets are generally
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: referred to in the category of ferromagnets. They're faro magnets.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: And with fero magnets, they have a general macroscopic property
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: that all of the little tiny magnets made up by
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: the little atoms with their electron spins and their other
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: electrical properties on an atomic scale, they line up. They
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: all line up in the same direction, and therefore the
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: material itself gets an overall magnetic field because of the
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: alignment of these much smaller ferromagnetic domains. Okay, I don't
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: want to go too much deeper than that, but it's
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: a magnet all the time, right, And we're very familiar
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: with these magnets. We love to play with them.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: Ok those are the ones that we already knew about.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: Speaking we are about. We knew about these magnets.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: You would refer to them at home as a magnet.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's what we would call them.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Okay. So the other type of magnetism is anti feraoh magnetism,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: And we've known about this one too, because we say, well,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, isn't everything made out of little electrons
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: with spins and you know, protons and neutrons that all
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: add up to being molecules. That then the molecules have
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: these electrical properties the same as a ferao magnet. Why
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: isn't everything magnetic? And it's because, quite frankly, they don't
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: all line up. Okay. So there's materials that have their
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: magnetic moments of the small particles within them that line
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: up and make magnetic domains, and then the overall magnetic
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: domain has the property that'll stick to your refrigerator. Then
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: there's materials that have magnetic domains that just refuse to
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: line up, and sometimes they're in kind of a checkerboard pattern.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Other times they're just completely random. We call these things
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: a sponge or you know, a ping pong ball or
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: other things that are not magnetic. See that's where I
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: was going with that. So it's kind of like what
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: we would consider normal material They have magnetic properties, but
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: they're they're overall magnetic properties. The some of their magnetic
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: properties do not turn them into a magnet. There we go. Okay,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: so that's type one, Type two. All right, here comes
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: type three, newly discovered by the scientists at the Swiss
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Light Source, which is a very complicated experimental device to
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: measure the properties of subatomic particles. So at the Swiss
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Light Source they have identified a third form of magnetism
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: called alter magnets alter a l teer magnets all one word,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: alter magnets. Altermagnets have the special property that they are
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: a combination of the arrangements of the spins and crystal
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: symmetries within those magnetic structures or within those sub atomic
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: structures that they they kind of don't align. They're a
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: little bit closer to anti ferromagnets. The second time, the
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: sponge and the pingbong ball, they're more similar to that,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: except that they don't completely cancel out their magnetism. Rather,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: they simply rather than simply canceling out the symmetries, give
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: an electronic bond structure with a strong spin polarization that
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: flips in direction as you pass the materials energy bonds.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: So as you spatially are passing through this material's energy bonds,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: you can make it either be magnetic or not magnetic. Okay, so, well,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: how do you pass through the material's energy bonds. Well,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: this is by probing it with different energy sources, different
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: light sources. In other words, we can manipulate this material.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: We can manipulate this material to either be magnetic or
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: not magnetic. And if we can do that, if we
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: can flip this stuff between two different states. Think about
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: zeros and ones. Friends. We can make this, We can
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: interact with this material to be either magnetic or non
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: magnetic in a way that we can control. This is
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: going to open up a new avenue to create new
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: technology based on this weird new stuff called alter magnets
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: and their alternative alternating magnetic properties. Right. So it's a
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: highly useful result that we can find this out, and
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: it may completely revolutionize electronic devices, and it gives us
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: some serious insights into some really interesting properties of super
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: magnetism or superconductors. So this is a really interesting finding.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: The physics is obviously a bit deeper than what I
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: just went into. I went into somewhat shallow explanation. But
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: there are all kinds of articles coming out now. A
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: good one is the one I was referring some of
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: my language from, which is space dot com. So I
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: refer you to that article. Check out the article on
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: space dot com, or then many many, many other links
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: that might be in your Facebook feed. If you're a
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: big geek like me, and Facebook has figured out that
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: you click on these things, you're going to see all
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: kinds of stories about the third form of magnetism.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: All right, let's talk about the Cocola Space Science Center.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: You guys have a couple of events coming up. We've
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: got Music under the Dome getting started again in March,
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: and then Astronomy Night at Providence Canyon on the fifteenth
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: of February. What a great place to celebrate Time's weekend.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: That is exactly right, and it's one of the reasons
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: we chose that night. We thought, hey, wouldn't it be
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: cool to give folks an almost free date night. I
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: say almost free because you have to pay the parking
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: fee at the park, which I think is something like
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: five bucks a car something on that order, which is
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: it's a cheap date friends, because we're providing our program
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: then on top of that for free, so you can
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: go to the park and enjoy Providence Canyon State Park,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: which is a lovely place to hike and watch the
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: sunset and things like that. As soon as the sun
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: goes down, we begin our astronomy program, which we're offering
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: is just an educational service and it's allowing people to
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: come and check out the nighttime sky with the direction
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: of doctor Rosa Williams, our Observatory director and Professor of
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Astronomy here at CSU's Coca Cola Space Science Center, and
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the whole team, we call it the Astronomy Team, which
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: are a bunch of students from our Earth and Space
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Sciences Department in the astrophysics program. So you can go
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: hang out with those folks because they know how to
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: point telescopes at the sky and they're going to have
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: a whole fleet of them there. And the skies this
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: spring have been absolutely staggering because that parade of planets
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: that everybody told you was over at the end of January.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, it's still going on. Jupiter, Mars, Venus
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: all very visible up there in the nighttime sky, along
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: with the constellation of Oriyan, the Pleiades star cluster, many
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: other very beautiful sites in a telescope. Check out the
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: website for the details on that February fifteenth Valentine's weekend.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Cheap date but yet really memorable event to take your
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: loved one to hang out with us at Providence Canyon
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: State Park and check out our astronomy night there for
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: the music. End of the Dome concerts. As Wes mentioned,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: they are starting up in March. March seems a little
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: bit far Away still here in early February, but no
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: tickets are selling now. If you want to join us
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: for that concert series, check it out March February. I'm sorry,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: March April and may we have concerts here at Space
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Science Center. Check it out on the website. Friends, you
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: can check out all the information www. That's just to
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: get your attention dot cc s SC dot org. Charlie,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: this again next week.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 37:18
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• 37:21
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