Latest / Made of Stars / Down Goes Farrah

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Down Goes Farrah · Made of Stars

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Warning, the following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: expand their vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism, and Uranus.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Listen at your own risk. Go ahead.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: We're made of stars. Made of stars. Made of stars.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: We're made of stars. We really are. You could be
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: from Hollywood, New Mexico or Mars. We're all made of stars.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: We are Made of Stars.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: I'm Wes Carroll, joined by my good friend, Dr. Sean Kruzan,
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: Executive Director at Columbus State University's Coca-Cola Space Science Center.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Hey, Sean.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Hey, Wes. Good to be here today. We have some
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: interesting stories, my friend.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: We do.
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  Speaker 4: And one of them is like, it's a sad story,
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: and it's kind of a follow-up on something that we've
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: talked about a few times, the reality of the cruise
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: on passenger planes and We'll get to that one in
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: a second. First, I want to talk about this Cold
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: War satellite that just broke apart and fell back to Earth.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: And how long has this thing been up there?
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  Speaker 4: And what is the likelihood of this happening to other
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: satellites that have been up there for a while?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So first of all, hat tip where it belongs.
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  Speaker 2: First couple of stories that you just mentioned here are
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: both from spaceweather.com. And we like Dr. Tony Phillips and
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: his writing. We often refer to stories there. I would
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: say this. If you're a fan of this show or
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: just space in general and you happen to stumble on
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: this particular podcast and you don't check spaceweather.com like every day,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: what are you doing? What are your life choices? Reconsider. Spaceweather.com,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: one of the best. Kind of watch the sky, but
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: also stay informed about some interesting space news. websites that
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I've personally ever experienced. So in a day where we
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: get to quote them twice on our podcast, that's always cool.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: And these two are really, really interesting stories.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: You say, what are you doing with your life? They're
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: watching this short form stuff, these reels or whatever, or
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: they're getting caught up on shows like streaming every episode
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: of Charles in Charge, something like that, that you got
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: to go back and make up. Because, you know, everybody loved,
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: you know, Joni and Chachi. So, you know, sometimes you
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: just got to go back and relive some of those
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: glory days.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, I can't fix everyone, Wes. But I can
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: just only offer advice to certain folks. And if you
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: are time swapping spaceweather.com website for Charles in Charge, please
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: reconsider your choices in life. Please. That's all I have
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: to say.
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  Speaker 3: So speaking of glory days, let's go back to the
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Cold War.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: That's exactly where we're going, actually. Yep.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: So this is a satellite that goes back that far,
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  Speaker 4: and this was a Soviet satellite?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a U.S. satellite.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, this was a U.S. satellite.
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  Speaker 2: It's a U.S. satellite. So here's the thing. We're going
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to have some fun and laugh about things because that's
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: what we do on this show, but this is actually
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: a really, really serious story, and it was– broke this
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: morning on space weather, you know, the day we're recording
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: this podcast. So this is like, I'm just finding out
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  Speaker 2: about this too, as you are, because I happen to
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: read spaceweather.com. And so, all right.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Hang on, let me pause this episode of Charles in Charge.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you might want to pay attention to this one.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Don't bifurcate your already fragmented focus. Just go ahead and
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  Speaker 2: lock in on this story. Because a Cold War spy
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  Speaker 2: satellite that's been orbiting the Earth since 1988 with no
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  Speaker 2: problem whatsoever suddenly has broken apart. Now, to be fair,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: this happened a few days ago. The news is just
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  Speaker 2: now breaking to where people like myself find it on spaceweather.com.
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  Speaker 2: But here's the big thing. No one knows why. So
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  Speaker 2: the U.S. Space Force... detected the breakup of this satellite
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  Speaker 2: on September 13th. The satellite is called USA 32. Hence,
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  Speaker 2: it's not a Soviet. It's USA. USA. It's like a
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  Speaker 2: hockey game. Anyway, so USA 32 unexpectedly broke apart, formed
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  Speaker 2: a cloud of debris that at an orbital radius of
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  Speaker 2: 775 kilometers above the Earth. That's a little higher than
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  Speaker 2: things like space station and things like that, but it
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  Speaker 2: is a very, very busy part of the orbital space
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  Speaker 2: around our planet. Now, here's the bad part. When something
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  Speaker 2: like this happens, it scatters debris in a wide range,
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  Speaker 2: and that endangers any other satellite, spacecraft, operational vehicle that
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  Speaker 2: might be in that general vicinity. And so right now,
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  Speaker 2: the U.S. Space Force is trying to get a handle
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  Speaker 2: on tracking all of the components, the fragments of this
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  Speaker 2: now destroyed satellite. The number is still unknown to the public.
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  Speaker 2: Space Force has a space track website, which is kind
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  Speaker 2: of like a public catalog for people to get on
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  Speaker 2: and look and see what debris is up there being tracked. Well,
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  Speaker 2: they haven't released anything yet on the breakup of this satellite,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: as of the recording of this show, at least, on
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  Speaker 2: the space track website from the U.S. Space Force. So
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  Speaker 2: all we know is that, you know, USA 32 launched
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  Speaker 2: in 1988. It was a top secret mission at the time.
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  Speaker 2: It was up there to monitor space. Soviet radars from orbit.
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  Speaker 2: So it's keeping an eye on the, you know, on
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  Speaker 2: the Soviet Union at the time, their radar signals bouncing
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  Speaker 2: off satellites. It was like, Hey, we see you down there.
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  Speaker 2: All right. So, uh, the, the comical people who, uh,
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  Speaker 2: launched this particular cluster, uh, they nicknamed these satellites and
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  Speaker 2: they called them the Farrah Fawcett cluster. So this was
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  Speaker 2: Farrah three and they're in their series of Farrah satellites.
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  Speaker 2: And I guess maybe the comical thing about that is
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  Speaker 2: wasn't shaped at all like Farrah Fawcett, at least in
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  Speaker 2: that poster. These were kind of like short, squat, cylindrical satellites.
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  Speaker 2: Somebody described them as looking like a tuna can. They
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  Speaker 2: were built in that shape so they could spin rapidly
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: and they could sweep their antennas across the ground below
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  Speaker 2: to pick up those Soviet radar signals.
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  Speaker 4: Let me just observe this, and I know you were
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: pointing this out, but Farrah Fawcett in no way shaped like.
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  Speaker 3: A tuna can.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't see that poster. No. not i saw that
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: other poster yeah yeah i didn't see the tuna camp
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: but i've never seen a tuna camp poster.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: Now were there other satellites named after like other uh
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: like because she was she was a charlie's angel right.
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  Speaker 5: She was yeah yeah yeah so all i can tell
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  Speaker 5: you is that the uh the nro declassified this program
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  Speaker 5: only this year national reconnaissance office So all I can
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  Speaker 5: tell you is I have not seen any other declassified
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  Speaker 5: satellites named after any of the other Charlie's Angels.
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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 3: I was just checking. I didn't know if we were
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  Speaker 3: familiar with that. It's possible, though.
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  Speaker 2: Kate and Jackie might be up there. We just don't know.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. That's what I was wondering because, you know,
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  Speaker 3: Jackie's been in the news lately, so I just didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: She has.
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  Speaker 2: It's true. Yeah. All right.
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  Speaker 3: So this is.
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  Speaker 4: What is the likelihood of this happening to other satellites?
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  Speaker 4: Because there's others that are up there, obviously. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: if this was FARA 3, there's at least two more
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  Speaker 4: FARAs up there.
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  Speaker 2: At least a couple more. All right. So here's the thing.
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  Speaker 2: The big question is, why? Why does a satellite that's
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  Speaker 2: been orbiting the Earth for 40 years suddenly either blow
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  Speaker 2: itself apart or is blown apart by some outside force
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: why and then that's so that's the question so before
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: we go into you know the the dark world of
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the you know internet uh conspiracy theories let's just say
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  Speaker 2: there are explanations that are self-contained first of all yes
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  Speaker 2: it has been up there for a very long time
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  Speaker 2: it also had leftover propellant on board in some form
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  Speaker 2: of a pressurized tank So could the wear and tear
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  Speaker 2: of the space environment over these years have caused the
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  Speaker 2: degradation of that tank to where whatever pressure remained in
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  Speaker 2: that fuel tank suddenly caused the rupture of the tank
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  Speaker 2: itself and the subsequent destruction of the satellite? That is
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  Speaker 2: a possibility. Also, it had a battery on board. Same story.
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  Speaker 2: Could the long-term 38-year heating and cooling cycles And the
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  Speaker 2: harshness of the space environment, micrometeorite impacts, solar radiation, all
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  Speaker 2: of these kinds of things, could that have caused the
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  Speaker 2: degradation of the battery cell to where it could have
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  Speaker 2: exploded or ruptured and destroyed USA 32, better known as
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  Speaker 2: FARA 3? So these are the questions that are being asked.
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  Speaker 2: Those two explanations seem to be at least now what
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  Speaker 2: experts are suggesting are maybe the most possible. Those are
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  Speaker 2: the leading suspicions. In other words, nothing nefarious or extraterrestrial involved. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: hold on. When I said extraterrestrial, I'm not talking about
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  Speaker 2: extraterrestrial intelligence or UAPs. So before we get too far
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  Speaker 2: down that deep hole, I'm talking about particles that come
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  Speaker 2: from somewhere besides the earth, micrometeorites. I'm talking about a
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  Speaker 2: micrometeorite impact. So the other two leading suspicions, if it's
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: not the internal explosion of the battery or the fuel tank,
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  Speaker 2: the other two leading suspicions is it could have been
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  Speaker 2: a meteorite strike, right? It could have been, I guess
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  Speaker 2: it's a meteor and then it's, nevermind. Anyway, so it
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  Speaker 2: hits the satellite at high speed and causes it to
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  Speaker 2: break apart. The other- possibility that's out there, friends, is
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: something called an anti-satellite weapon truncated to ASAT. It could
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: be an ASAT. There are three flavors of ASAT. That
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: is something from the ground, like a missile designed to
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  Speaker 2: go up and take out satellites. Something fired from another satellite,
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  Speaker 2: so it's like a satellite-to-satellite attack. Or a third-order Possibility
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: of something called an energy-directed weapon. And this is where
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  Speaker 2: you don't actually have a projectile. You're hitting it with
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  Speaker 2: some kind of a beam of energy that causes it
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  Speaker 2: to overheat, melt apart, break apart. We know that other
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  Speaker 2: countries have these. We were talking off air. Our U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Space Force just admitted that we had these too, right? Yes,
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  Speaker 2: we have weapons in space. They're all pointed downward. Things,
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  Speaker 2: you know, kind of the conversation there. Mm-hmm. We don't
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  Speaker 2: point those at other satellites. Well, we already know we
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  Speaker 2: have the ability to take out other satellites because we've
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  Speaker 2: already tested it. So have the Chinese. So have the Russians.
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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 4: And you say that. That was going to be my
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  Speaker 4: question is have we tested this type of thing? Because
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  Speaker 4: it would seem to me like if we wanted to
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  Speaker 4: test it without creating an international incident, we test it
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  Speaker 4: on one of your own. Is it possible that this
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: is some new way? to take out a satellite that
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: maybe they were testing and they just haven't given the
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: full story yet.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I know that's a hypothetical, but I feel
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: like that's my role here is to ask these kind
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: of questions. But if they wanted to test some new
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  Speaker 4: way of taking out one, wouldn't it make the most
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  Speaker 4: sense to maybe take out one of these kind of
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  Speaker 4: more obsolete ones?
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Maybe. Maybe. Let me just say, yes, maybe.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe is a good.
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  Speaker 4: Like, I'm just throwing that out there. And I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I realize there's a series of things that are, you know,
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  Speaker 4: maybe more likely to have taken place. And obviously a
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  Speaker 4: pressurized tank or a battery cell are probably much higher
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  Speaker 4: statistically of it being the case.
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  Speaker 3: But I just have to ask the question.
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  Speaker 2: So some may recall that a little over a decade ago,
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  Speaker 2: the Chinese decided to demonstrate that they had the ability
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  Speaker 2: to take out a satellite. So they blew up one
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  Speaker 2: of their own satellites. And then the Russians decided that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: they needed to demonstrate that they had the ability to
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: take out satellites. So they blew up one of their
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: own satellites. Now, the problem with the first two were
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that they were at orbits that were a little bit
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: busy in traffic. And so then the cloud satellites, of
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: debris from those anti-satellite tests caused serious problems, including for
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the International Space Station, which had to divert its trajectory
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: at one point to avoid fragments from those tests. Now,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: we scolded these nations, like, what are you doing? You
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: can't do this. You're causing... And then we turned around
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: and blew up one of our own satellites to demonstrate
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  Speaker 2: that we also had the capability of taking out satellites. Now,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: we did the... maybe virtue signaling, if not fully virtuous.
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  Speaker 2: We did the thing of taking out one that was
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: in a very low orbit around the Earth, not a
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  Speaker 2: very popular orbit for many satellites, so it didn't cause
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  Speaker 2: quite the hazard to traffic. It also burned up more
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: quickly because it was lower. Those fragments fell out faster.
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  Speaker 2: Yet it seems as if, right? It seems as if
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  Speaker 2: that caused a problem too. All right. So that, again,
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more than a decade ago, those kinds
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: of things were going on. To answer your question about
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: this one, if the U.S. in fact did this, they
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: picked a really bad orbit because this orbital shell, if
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: you think about it as like an orbital shell, if
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: you're going to blow up a satellite in this particular
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: orbital shell, it's a really popular one. It's within 50
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: kilometers of altitude of more than 400 active satellites, including
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  Speaker 2: our own weather satellite called NOAA-20, N-O-A-A-20. And so this
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  Speaker 2: would not be a smart choice for an anti-satellite test. Well, okay,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: that may be true, but then you might say, well,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: did another country decide to go ahead and run another
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: anti-SAT test on our Cold War era, admittedly defunct satellite?
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: It's not known. Those are very important questions to answer.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that within mere hours of the event,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that particular shell had gone from one satellite, one discrete point,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: to almost an entire Earth-circling shell of debris in less
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: than one day. So within a few more days, the
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: debris from the satellite, it's going to have spread all
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: around the original orbit of that satellite and be a
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: major hazard. So right now, analysts are carefully trying to
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: track those fragments, measure their individual trajectories. That is a
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: giant job. I'm sure AI might help in some regard there. Hopefully,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: they're deploying those kinds of tools. Soon, there may be
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: some ability to run the clock backward and figure out
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: exactly when and where that satellite first broke apart. And
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: upon doing that piece of forensics, they can check other
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: kind of spacecraft monitoring telemetries and figure out if any
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: kind of something flew from either the ground or another
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: satellite that might have broken apart. Or were there meteor
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: fragments reported at that particular time? Or were there neither
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: of those things? Again, suggesting hopefully what is the most
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: likely scenario that somehow the satellite blew itself up through
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: internal components. We wait and see, Wes.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, and obviously we will anxiously await the results
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: of that because of what it could mean.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, one can imagine from a geopolitical standpoint, having the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: answers to those questions is very important.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: More Made of Stars right after this.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: So we've talked about the dangers when it comes to
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: radiation for people in airplanes. And we now have a,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: I guess this, uh, French court, uh, decision concerning the, uh,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: the occupational diseaseness of flying in an.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Airplane, um, On long flights.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, when you start thinking about shorter flights,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: you're not maybe necessarily going to get quite as high.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: But when you're talking about and speaking as someone who
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: has flown internationally many, many, many times to halfway around
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: the world and then back, it's just one of those things.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Where you go, this doesn't sound great. But most people.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: I would say most average people certainly don't fly nearly
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: as much as flight crews, pilots and the crew there
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: on the plane itself. And that's really where this is
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: more relevant, right?
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And again, I'm going to promote the excellent work
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: done on the spaceweather.com website because Dr. Tony Phillips and
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the crew at Space Weather have been tracking this very
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: thing for decades. They've been tracking. They've done a whole
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: variety of balloon testing where they send up sensors on
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: balloons to check the radiation levels at altitudes that aircraft
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: fly or even a little bit above that and below that,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: just so we know the atmospheric content of radiation at
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: various altitudes. So that's one thing they've done. They've also
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: flown radiation detectors on commercial aircraft many times, which has
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: also given them data about just how much radiation people
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: are exposed to on board aircraft. So this story was
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: probably broken elsewhere, but it was on spaceweather.com on September 11th.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: And you can imagine with that particular date, it's not
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: a surprise that the focus is on aviation on September 11th, right?
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: So Space Weather decided on that day to release the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: details of the story, which means, friends, If you want
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: to look at this story directly on Space Weather, you
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: have the ability to go in their archive in the
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: upper right-hand corner of the website, select September 11th, an
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: easy day to remember, and pull that archive up to
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: actually read this story for yourself. But the story goes
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: like this. A French court has decided that aviation radiation
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: is real and that is a real risk for cancer
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: for flight crews. They have labeled it an occupational disease.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: This is judges in Bayonne. The decision was made back
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: in July, but it's on behest of one particular flight attendant.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Her name was Sophie Leno. She's 59 years old. She
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: flew for Air France for 30 years. She logged more
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: than 12,600 hours in the air, and now she's suffering
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: from cancer. So that's what triggered the review. This goes
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: hand in hand with a new study from Harvard university,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: which suggests that flight crews die of radiation related cancers,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: even more often than nuclear workers. So that's a bit
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: of a surprising story, right? Uh, so writing in August
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: 17th issue of the journal of the American medical association,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: internal medicine, the researchers, uh, led by Vishal Patel from
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Brigham Women's Hospital, examined 13 million U.S. death certificates from
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the years 2020 to 2024. Out of 503 professions across
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: that 13 million statistical sample, person statistical sample, flight attendants
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: ranked number one for deaths from radiation-related cancers and pilots
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: ranked number two. So that is a very clear correlation,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: that spending a lot of time in the upper atmosphere
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: of the Earth in aircraft exposes human beings to larger
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: risks of radiation-related illnesses. Now, the story on space weather
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: does go on to explain, hey, if you have a
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: single flight across country, you're going to get a slightly
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: elevated risk. dose, but not anything near what the pilots
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and crews get. Okay. So, so this isn't the same
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: risk for you flying as much as for them, even
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: if you are a frequent flyer. All right. So, so you're,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: you're on a single flight across the U S you're
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: getting about as much radiation as five dental x-rays. Now
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: that's still not zero. And, and, you know, again, Wes
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: and I were discussing off air before we started recording.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: They still put a lead vest on your chest for
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: dental x-rays, right?
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: And then if you fly on an international flight, as
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Wes discussed earlier, especially any flights that might go near
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: the poles, what kind of flight is that? Well, that's
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: kind of like New York to London. A New York
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: to London route is much shorter if you go up
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: and over the polar region rather than just try to
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: fly a line of latitude straight across to London. Anyway,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: so those flights are a little worse even. they expose
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you to a little bit more. Or, as Wes mentioned,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: just the longer period of time you're in the air,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: like a long flight to, oh, I don't know, Australia,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: New Zealand, the Orient, you know, places like that might
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: expose you to.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Been to two out of three of those.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So have I, actually. Different two. Anyway, so those flights
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: might expose you to additional levels of radiation beyond the
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: five dental x-rays, but you're still not as large... as
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the flight crews. So anyway, their dose is roughly 10
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: times what a frequent flyer, somebody who flies for work
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: and flies all the time, would get. So anyway, a
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: cautionary tale, an eye-opening experience. You might be thinking, well, wait, Dr. Cruz, where?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Where is this radiation coming from? It's two sources. Number one,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: it's cosmic rays. It is all the stuff we see
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: in the beautiful nighttime sky and all of the galaxies
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: and stars and all those things out there, but really
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the more energetic versions of some of those things like
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: supermassive black holes or regular black holes or quasars or
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: jets or all those kinds of things that are more energetic,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: more extreme phenomenon out there in the universe. That's one source.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: The other source is our own sun. And when it
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: gets a little pesky, now the sun gives us radiation
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: all the time, but when it gets a little bit
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: more pesky, like it's been doing the last year or
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: two at solar maximum, then those solar radiation storms, which
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: can cause beautiful northern lights like in 2024, can also
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: bathe the earth in additional radiation. So these are both sources,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: both things that you have to consider when studying the
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: effects of radiation on people at altitudes.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: SpaceX getting ready to launch Starship next week.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: That's exciting. It is. Anytime a really big rocket launches,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: you know, you and I get excited. The true believers,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: the true believers get excited. And this isn't just any
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: rocket launch. It's the tallest rocket ever built by human beings.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I stopped short of saying the most powerful arguments about that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: There's suggestions, but it's certainly the biggest rocket.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: And it's an important one when it comes to Artemis.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: It's an important rocket for many reasons. It's important for
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: reusability also. But yes, you're right. NASA's Artemis program is
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: counting on either this launch vehicle being successful so that
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: it can be an Uber lift down to the surface
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: of the moon or Blue Origin and their new Glenn
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: that they actually get their launch pad rebuilt And they
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: can actually launch their new Glenn again because they have
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: something called the Blue Moon Lander that is the competitor
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: for SpaceX Starship to carry astronauts from the Artemis program
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: down to the surface of the moon. One of those
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: two has to work. They'd like to test one of
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: those two, well, next year when we do the Artemis
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: 3 flight. And so, yeah, so these are reasons of
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: importance that NASA and space exploration people are keeping an
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: eye on. But also, if you just want to send
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: heavy payloads to space for a much lower price, you
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: might also be rooting for a success of the Starship vehicle.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: You know who one of the customers is for that vehicle? Oh,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: it's SpaceX themselves, because they're putting up their own Starlink cluster.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: And on this next flight that's scheduled to launch next week,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: they're going to be launching a brand new version of
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: the Starlink satellite. It's version three. what is version three?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: What's better than version two, which was better than version one.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: But anyway, so they would, none of them are better
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: than Farrah three though.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: There's nothing I think better than Farrah three. So Farrah one,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, gee, Farrah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen that poster. I don't know.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I think we have seen the OG Farrah poster.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Not Farrah one though, is what the tuna can Farrah
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: one is what I was suggesting. I have not placed
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: eyes on that yet. Anyway. So, so, Starlink version 3,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: it's faster, it's better connectivity, it's more reliable service for
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: the Starlink cluster. And so that's one of the things
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: that SpaceX themselves are going to deploy a few of
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: these satellites. By the way, some of those satellites that
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: are deploying, they have cameras on board those Starlink satellites
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: that can turn back around and actually look at the
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: status of the spaceship. They call it ship. Ship 41
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: and see how well it made it to space and
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: what kind of condition its heat tile's in. and things
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: like that, how did it survive that trip to orbit
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: that can be very violent and damaging for some vehicles?
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: We do know that the last ship came down and
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: landed in the Indian Ocean and floated around there for
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: days and days and days until it was actually recovered.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: And so this ship has a few of the heat
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: tiles from ship 40, from the last one. They popped
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: those off while it was floating around in the Indian Ocean,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: and they are reusing the heat tiles themselves. And if
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: the heat tiles are reusable, that's one more step in
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: making space travel and payload delivery less expensive to orbit.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: All of these things being tested. Friends, tune in next week, Tuesday,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: September 22nd, currently scheduled for 8.15 a.m. Eastern Time in
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: a 75-minute launch window. We could be seeing the next
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: generation of SpaceX Starship, this time with ship going to
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: orbit the first time that their vehicle will be placed
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: in orbit around the Earth. So yes, stay tuned. We'll
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: be watching and we'll talk more about that next week.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: More Made of Stars right after this. We're not even
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: to Halloween yet. And all the Christmas stuff has started
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: to show up in the stores. But we need to
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: actually give this next story kind of is very Halloween adjacent.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: It has a Halloween feel to it. But it's strange
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: to me to think that the Spirit Halloween stores are
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: still open and the Christmas stuff is in most of the.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Big box retail stores already.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Uh but that's just where we are and it also
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: kind of tees up this next story which is about
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: vampire white dwarf stars.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: 2026 it's very confusing in the big box stores you
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: know especially if you i have grandchildren and if you
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: were to take your grandchildren you might have questions like
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: why is the giant pumpkin man with the sharp teeth
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Sneaking up on Santa Claus. Why is that? I don't know.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: It's weird. Perhaps.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: You would think we have plenty of time to get
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: all of the Christmas stuff together, you know, November and.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: December, but apparently we don't.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Capitalism, my friend.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: But of course the Halloween stuff has been in there
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: since right after Independence Day.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Those rockets in the air barely had a chance to
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: hit ground before we were putting pumpkins out.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: That's right. On the 5th.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: I think Santa might have even been around somewhere wearing
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: an America 250 shirt.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: So anything's possible.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Labor Day is just another holiday to shop for Halloween.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: All right. Let's get on with this story. All right,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: so space.com, good place to find this story. Can white
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: dwarf stars become the most extreme dead star out there
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: short of a black hole? In other words, can a
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: white dwarf star go through some kind of a process
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: that converts it into a neutron star? Well, if they
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: are vampire white dwarf stars, according to the latest story
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: on space.com, perhaps they can friends now these are all
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: dead stars anyway white dwarfs neutron stars black holes all
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: dead stars so now we're talking about the reanimation of
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: dead stars by the by vampirism if that's not a
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: halloween october type story i don't know what it is
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: okay Here's what happens, friends. A star like the sun,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: it's burning through its life cycle, but it uses up
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: all its fuel and it sheds off its outer layers
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: and dies. And that means the nuclear fusion going on
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: in its core ceases as well. Well, that thing that
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: once was the engine of that star is now a
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: white dwarf and it collapses down to a certain state.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Electron degenerate pressure stops the collapse and it becomes a really,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: really hot diamond, mostly carbon star. Okay, that's what a
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: white dwarf is. Now, here's the thing. Even the chemistry
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: on that white dwarf can vary from star to star,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: and the mass can vary from star to star, and
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: there's something called the Chandrasekhar limit. And if this white
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: dwarf has a certain chemistry, and if it's orbiting around
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: another companion star, and if those two stars are close
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: enough that the white dwarf can feed off its companion star,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: That's the vampirism part. That's the vampire. It's feeding off
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: its neighbor and it's drawing mass down onto its surface.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: That white dwarf can grow until it crosses a magic number, 1.44
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: times the mass of our sun. That's the Chandrasekhar limit.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: And if it does it in a certain way, in
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: kind of a non-careful sort of way, it can blow up.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: It explodes in what's called a type one supernova. And
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: that's because that electron degenerate pressure can no longer support
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the weight of the white dwarf star. Boom. Okay. Well,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: so a group of researchers from Zurich, the ETH Zurich,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: which is a university in Zurich, Switzerland, have come up
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: with a new way that a white dwarf can feed
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: off its companion star and turn into a neutron star
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: instead of exploding itself to bits in a supernova explosion.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: And that is called the AIC process. accretion-induced collapse is
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: what AIC stands for. It has to be at just
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: the right rate, kind of a Goldilocks rate, not too fast,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: not too slow, a little bit faster than typical white
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: dwarfs feeding that blow up in supernova explosions, but not
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: so fast that it causes too rapid of a collapse.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: And the chemical makeup has to be just right and
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: have just enough of this stuff called magnesium, which can
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: capture electrons. and release neutrinos. It has to be able
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: to do that to release the energy, if all of
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: that's true. By the way, if you want more details
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: than I just gave you, go check out the space.com story.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: You can follow the links. But if all of that
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: happens just right, the researchers at ETH Zurich have said
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: that that can be a brand new route for a
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: white dwarf to just kind of quietly collapse down into
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: a neutron star. Something that has been speculated, But no
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: actual physical pathway has been suggested before this time, before
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: the ETH Zurich research. Okay, so Lorenz Thumler from ETH
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: told Space.com in their interview, quote, in AIC, the progenitor
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: is already a stellar remnant, and the trigger is not
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: its own evolution, but material handed down by a companion. Unquote.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: So says Lorenz Thumler of ETH Zurich. That's by the
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: process we just described. But there's more, more of that
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: quote from Thumler. It says this, if it is too low,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: nova eruptions can expel much of the accumulated material. That's
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: the rate of accretion, by the way. It can expel
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: the accumulated material if it's too high, the rate of accretion,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: then winds and envelope expansion or binary interaction can prevent
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: the white dwarf from reaching conditions required for collapse. In
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: other words, end quote, by the way. In other words,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: it has to be just right. not too fast, not
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: too slow, just the right chemistry, just the right slow
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: and steady accumulation of material can just, voop, cause a
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: quiet decline, an AIC, and turn a white dwarf almost
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: as if by magic into a neutron star. Check out
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: this story and many other great space stories on space.com, friends.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: We can talk about music under the dome, Coming up
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: in October. But before we do that, I would say
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: you guys have a great opportunity to observe the moon.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: We have International Observe the Moon Night coming up this weekend,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: this Saturday night. So if you're one of the early
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: adopters listening, you got the little bell notification that we
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: actually posted a podcast. By the way, what are the
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: rest of you doing? Reconsider your life choices, friends.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: Don't be a Buddy Limbeck from Charles in Charge.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: There you go. Don't do that. Wes went deep to
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: the vault that time, right? Just go ahead and subscribe.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying. And you can find out about
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: these things. Yes, this Saturday night, September 19th at the
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Cold Space Science Center, International Observe the Moon Night. If
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: you want to know more details about that, we'll have
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: the telescopes out there, Dr. Rosa Williams and the crew
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: leading those observations. There's going to be special activities. And
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I heard there might even be moon pies and Oreos.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Check it out at the website, friends, www.ccssc.org. Charlie, Charlie, Sam, Sam, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Charles in charge, something like that. CCSSC.org stands for Coca-Cola
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Space Science Center. By the way, when you're there at
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the website, check out the information on our new season
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: of Music Under the Dome, the concert series featuring the
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Schwob School of Music's musicians, both faculty and students. That
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: fires up again for a brand new academic year season
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: starting on October the 6th, the day after I will
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: get back from making an international flight and absorbing multiple
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: doses of dental X-ray radiation aboard an aircraft. So check
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: it out on October the 6th. Both of those events
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: on our website, www.charlesandchargescssc.org.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: Sean and I thank you for listening and we'll do
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: all of your garage door needs covered. Residential and commercial,
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: service and repairs. If you need a new garage door
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door,
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus, they've
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: got your emergency repairs or service covered as well.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: 706-358-4500, 706-358-4500, odccolumbus.com.