Latest / Made of Stars / Black Hole Star, Won't You Come?

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Black Hole Star, Won't You Come? · 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
• 0:10
  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. When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes.
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  Speaker 2: When made of stars, you could be from high they
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  Speaker 2: would New Mexicomus. Where are.
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  Speaker 3: Stars? When we are made of stars?
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  Speaker 4: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean Cruisin.
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  Speaker 4: He's the executive director at Columbus State University's Coca Cola
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  Speaker 4: Space Science Center. Hey, Sean, A.
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  Speaker 2: Wes, good to be here today.
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  Speaker 4: All right, we have a really cool like this old
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  Speaker 4: native stars concept. We have a cool take on a star.
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  Speaker 4: If you will follow up on our little red dot
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  Speaker 4: story from last week.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's one of the it's one of the
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  Speaker 2: coolest stories I think that we've done in a while.
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  Speaker 4: So yes, and again we're going to be cursed by
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  Speaker 4: the fact that this is an audio podcast and not
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  Speaker 4: a video one, but we'll tell you how to see
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  Speaker 4: the image of what we're going to talk about a
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  Speaker 4: little bit later in the show when we get to
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  Speaker 4: that first and foremost a week ago when we were recording,
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  Speaker 4: there was a space walk in progress, a lot of
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  Speaker 4: work being done on the International Space Station. I kind
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  Speaker 4: of felt badly for saying, you know, while appreciating it,
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  Speaker 4: it can also be a little bit monotonous watching it,
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  Speaker 4: and I thought, man, that wasn't very nice, and I
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  Speaker 4: guess I felt guilt and watch quite a bit more
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  Speaker 4: of the stream of it after that, because I just
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  Speaker 4: kind of felt like I was a real jerk for
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  Speaker 4: saying that, because they are and I think I described
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  Speaker 4: it well, they're just you know, they're hanging on tethered
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  Speaker 4: from you know, floating off into the abyss. So there
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  Speaker 4: is that element of drama that's built into it. But
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  Speaker 4: still when you're just watching them, you know, just kind
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  Speaker 4: of doing stuff, but it's still fascinating. But anyway, so
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  Speaker 4: that was covered, you know, all the way to the end,
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  Speaker 4: and we promised you this week if there was anything
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  Speaker 4: really to report, we could talk about it. But really
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  Speaker 4: we kind of have more of an International Space Station
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  Speaker 4: updates on some of the research projects, the science that's
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  Speaker 4: being done up there. Whenever anybody says, well, why do
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  Speaker 4: we have a space station? What do we need that for?
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  Speaker 4: We're going to tell you some of the reasons that
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  Speaker 4: we need that for.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a lot of different reasons, as you say,
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  Speaker 2: and we're going to jump wholeheartedly into that story. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the thing about the the spacewalk last week is they
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  Speaker 2: managed to get these electrical units hooked up with their
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  Speaker 2: new solar panels and so they're generating even more electricity.
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  Speaker 2: So imagine electrician comes to your house and they're trying
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  Speaker 2: to do their job and you're just kind of standing,
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  Speaker 2: You're kind of looming, like looking over their shoulder. Like
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  Speaker 2: at some point they might just say, hey, do you
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  Speaker 2: have something else to do. I've got this.
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  Speaker 4: I don't have to imagine that. That's exactly what happens
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  Speaker 4: when someone comes to my house to work. I watched
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  Speaker 4: guys build a deck at my house and just the
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  Speaker 4: whole time I'm like, huh, that's how you do that?
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  Speaker 2: I always wondered dared at them? Well, I mean, that's
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  Speaker 2: so the beautiful part about the technicians aboard the International
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  Speaker 2: Space Station is they kind of actually want you to
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  Speaker 2: stare at them and watch over their shoulder, and so
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  Speaker 2: that's what we were engaging in last week, just kind
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  Speaker 2: of watching the spacewalk take place. But yeah, all of
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  Speaker 2: that seemed to have gone very smoothly, and of course
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  Speaker 2: these people are professionals. So as Wes teed up, there's
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  Speaker 2: lots of things that happen aboard the International Space Station
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  Speaker 2: that are a very important aspects of research, and many
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  Speaker 2: of them are biomedical in nature. And one of the
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  Speaker 2: examples that we roll out a lot, but that NASA
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  Speaker 2: has recently highlighted in a kind of summary of some
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  Speaker 2: of the research aboard the International Space Station that they
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  Speaker 2: released this week. You can find it on NASA dot gov,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, but they remind us of this that
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  Speaker 2: if you're an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, you're
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  Speaker 2: losing somewhere between one and one point five percent of
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  Speaker 2: your bone mass every month, every month that you're in microgravity.
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  Speaker 2: So if you're one of these people that have spent
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  Speaker 2: a year or more in space, now you're talking about
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  Speaker 2: twelve to fifteen to pushing on up toward twenty percent
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  Speaker 2: of your bone mass that you once had when you
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  Speaker 2: were on Earth. You've lost it in space. And so
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  Speaker 2: that's not good, right, we don't want that to happen.
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  Speaker 2: And so what they're one of the things they've figured
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  Speaker 2: out is that doing various types of exercises aboard the
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  Speaker 2: International Space Station can actually slow this loss of bone
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  Speaker 2: density or bone mass. And so one of the one
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  Speaker 2: of the new experiments that's currently on board the International
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  Speaker 2: Space Station it's being tested, is something that was produced
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  Speaker 2: by the European Space Agency. It's called the European Enhanced
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  Speaker 2: Exploration Exercise Device or the E four to three. Did
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  Speaker 2: I say E four three? I'm an E four D
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  Speaker 2: E four D European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device E four D.
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  Speaker 2: So the E four D is a compact and versatile system.
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  Speaker 2: It's allegedly more efficient at mitigating bone density loss episodes,
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  Speaker 2: or the fact that you have this kind of continuous loss,
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  Speaker 2: and astronauts are up there right now on the space
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  Speaker 2: station trying it out, taking data and hoping that their
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  Speaker 2: bone density loss will be less than it would have
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  Speaker 2: been without the device. Now you might say, okay, well fine,
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  Speaker 2: why are we up there in the first place? You know,
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  Speaker 2: how does this help us? Well, it turns out that
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  Speaker 2: everybody as they age, and particularly females are a little
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  Speaker 2: more prone to this, have forms of osteoporosis where we
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  Speaker 2: lose bone density, and so all of the kinds of
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  Speaker 2: things that we learn in space about how to mitigate
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  Speaker 2: this rapid loss of bone density for astronauts can be
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  Speaker 2: applied back here on Earth to help us slow the
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  Speaker 2: loss of bone density as we age. Right, So these
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  Speaker 2: are all biomedical advances that, yes, the main purpose is
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  Speaker 2: to help astronauts stay longer in space or to help
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  Speaker 2: them explore the depths of space, but they come right
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  Speaker 2: back to Earth and have immediate applications for a variety
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  Speaker 2: of health conditions right here on the Earth. So, as
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  Speaker 2: wes ted up, this is a great example of one
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  Speaker 2: of those times where we have an orbiting laboratory so
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  Speaker 2: that we can study things in a different environment that
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  Speaker 2: gives us a better and more enhanced set of data,
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  Speaker 2: aiding our understanding and helping us to figure out how
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  Speaker 2: to mitigate a variety of medical conditions. Here's another one.
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  Speaker 2: In orbit, they don't have ready access to IV fluids.
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  Speaker 2: So you might think, well, you know, what if somebody
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  Speaker 2: gets injured or where if somebody gets ill and they
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  Speaker 2: need an IV Well, it turns out that regular IV bags.
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  Speaker 2: They have a shelf life, and that shelf life is
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  Speaker 2: you know, it's some number and some number of months.
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  Speaker 2: But what if you're on a long duration exploration where
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  Speaker 2: you're going to Mars. Now, the trip to Mars and
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  Speaker 2: the exploration of Mars, or shall we say, the long
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  Speaker 2: term exploration of the service of the Moon, are going
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  Speaker 2: to require us to have things that we can't just
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  Speaker 2: send up there every few weeks and have fresh supplies.
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  Speaker 2: So on board the space station right now they're testing
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  Speaker 2: out a procedure for producing IV fluids from their water
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  Speaker 2: systems aboard the International Space Station that are fresh and
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  Speaker 2: ready to go for any medical emergency that may take place.
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  Speaker 2: Why are they doing that on the space station? Well,
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  Speaker 2: partly because it's a little hard to get supplies up there.
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  Speaker 2: But it's even more important for the Artemis astronauts who
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  Speaker 2: are going to go and spend long periods of time
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  Speaker 2: on the Moon and then the future Mars astronauts who
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  Speaker 2: intend to actually colonize and inhabit the planet Mars for
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  Speaker 2: long periods of time. You have to know how to
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  Speaker 2: use space station or space vehicle water supplies in order
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  Speaker 2: to produce simple things like IV fluids that's probably something
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  Speaker 2: that a lot of people just don't think about, right.
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  Speaker 4: I definitely wouldn't have thought about it, And as soon
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  Speaker 4: as I read this part of the story for this week,
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  Speaker 4: I thought it makes perfect sense to me. And as
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  Speaker 4: far as the shelf life goes, obviously, these long term
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  Speaker 4: missions colonizing, it's going to be critical to be able
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  Speaker 4: to have access to production.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, the longer you're in space, the more space radiation
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  Speaker 2: you're exposed to. I think, well, wait a minute, we're
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  Speaker 2: protected from that here on the Earth. Yes, we are,
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  Speaker 2: because we have a magnetic field and an atmosphere. However,
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  Speaker 2: if you're going to be up on the Moon for
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  Speaker 2: long periods of time, you have to know how space
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  Speaker 2: radiation is going to affect it. Well. Now, a board
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  Speaker 2: of the International Space Station right now is a new
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  Speaker 2: very accurate monitoring system for radiation exposure, and so they're
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  Speaker 2: using that to say, how accurately can we monitor radiation
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  Speaker 2: so that we know the dosage limits. It's a dosometer,
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  Speaker 2: How can we figure out how much radiation our astronauts
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  Speaker 2: are actually being exposed to, and of course how to
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  Speaker 2: mitigate that as well. It turns out that if you're
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  Speaker 2: in zero gravity for a long time, you begin to
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  Speaker 2: have blood flow issues, something similar to what we call thrombosis.
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  Speaker 2: Here on the Earth, you can act have an issue
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  Speaker 2: where your circulation just isn't working the same. So there's
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  Speaker 2: a thrombosis study or a blood flow study taking place
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  Speaker 2: for long duration astronauts also on the space station right now.
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  Speaker 2: Something else storing and using cryogenic fuels. Yeah, you use
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  Speaker 2: really hyper cold fuels in rockets a lot or space vehicles,
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  Speaker 2: but what if you take them up into space and
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  Speaker 2: they're up there for a really long time. How do
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  Speaker 2: you take care of the venting material, how do you
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  Speaker 2: how do you store how do you manage these super
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  Speaker 2: cold cryogenic fuels? There's an experiment for that. And finally,
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  Speaker 2: another one going on right now is the use of
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  Speaker 2: robotic technology in microgravity. So we produce our robots here
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  Speaker 2: on the Earth. They're working in the lab just fine.
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  Speaker 2: But then what if you take them up to the
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  Speaker 2: International Space Station and suddenly your Earth produced robot has
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  Speaker 2: to operate in a microgravity environment. What kinds of things change?
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  Speaker 2: What kind of a different this is in the actual
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  Speaker 2: actuators and mechanics of moving the robot around? What kind
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  Speaker 2: of long term effects on the electronics does space have.
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  Speaker 2: So all of those, all of those application based experiments
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  Speaker 2: are happening today aboard the International Space Station. And again
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  Speaker 2: check out the story on NASA dot gov to see
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  Speaker 2: these really critical experiments for long duration spaceflight that come
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  Speaker 2: right back to Earth and have everyday applications right here
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  Speaker 2: in society.
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  Speaker 3: More made of Stars.
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  Speaker 4: Right after this, we talked about possibilities of emergencies about
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  Speaker 4: aboard the International Space Station. That actually happened not too
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  Speaker 4: long ago. We covered it when an astronaut had to
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  Speaker 4: be sent back home a bit of an unknown. Then
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  Speaker 4: we know a little bit more about what the emergency was.
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  Speaker 4: But that astronaut has now retired from NASA.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is just a hat tip to the
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  Speaker 2: great astronaut that he is. His name is Michael Fink.
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  Speaker 2: Mike Fink, thirty year astronaut, one of the few people
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  Speaker 2: to have experiences on four different types of spacecraft. So
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  Speaker 2: he first flew on Soyuz a couple of times, flew
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  Speaker 2: on the Space Shuttle Endeavor, flew aboard the SpaceX Dragon,
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  Speaker 2: was slated to fly as one of the test astronauts
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  Speaker 2: abo aboard the Boeing spacecraft that of course, we know
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  Speaker 2: that that kind of stranded some astronauts and they sort
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  Speaker 2: of backed off of that program. But then Mike Fink
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  Speaker 2: was part of what they call the Crew eleven mission
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  Speaker 2: aboard the International Space Station, along with Xena Cardman, Camia Yui,
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  Speaker 2: and Olegg Platanov, all from different agencies, all flying to
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  Speaker 2: the space station. And while they were up on aboard
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  Speaker 2: the International Space Station, something very odd happened. On January seventh,
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  Speaker 2: Michael Fink was eating dinner with the astronauts. While eating dinner,
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  Speaker 2: he suddenly couldn't speak for about twenty minutes. Now, at
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  Speaker 2: the time that this occurred, as Wes mentioned, we didn't
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  Speaker 2: really know what the medical emergency was. We didn't know
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  Speaker 2: who it was. Obviously NASA is bound to keep these
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  Speaker 2: kinds of things private for medical confidentiality. But now today
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  Speaker 2: Michael Fink has come out and talked about it. He said, yeah, no,
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  Speaker 2: that was me, and here's what happened. And we still
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  Speaker 2: haven't been revealed why that took place, but that did
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  Speaker 2: lead to really the first medical evacuation from space that
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  Speaker 2: we've ever seen, and that again was the Crew eleven
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  Speaker 2: mission aboard International Space Station. But I hope that that
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  Speaker 2: doesn't define his career, right, Like, that's certainly a point
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  Speaker 2: in an astronaut's career that gets everybody's attention. But this
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  Speaker 2: is a veteran astronaut that made huge contributions to the
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  Speaker 2: astronaut program. Was commander of the International Space Station two
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  Speaker 2: different times. Was so was on a board Space Station, SpaceX, Dragon,
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  Speaker 2: Space Shuttle, and soy use all four different space platforms.
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  Speaker 2: And so here's our hat tip to a really great
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  Speaker 2: astronaut who made giant contributions. And yes, was involved in
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  Speaker 2: one of the more interesting, possibly unfortunate incidents in space.
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  Speaker 2: But again, I don't believe that should define his career.
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  Speaker 2: You say congratulations to Mike, think.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you mentioned that, and think about like maybe
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  Speaker 4: in the terms of like a Joe thisman, right, great
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  Speaker 4: NFL career, we talked football sometimes, but great NFL career,
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  Speaker 4: But most people just think about kind of the injury, right,
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  Speaker 4: the collision with Lawrence Taylor. And when you think about
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  Speaker 4: players or a Troy Aikman won three Super Bowls, and
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  Speaker 4: you know, largely people think of that, but you know,
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  Speaker 4: sometimes it comes up, Hey, concussions are what drove him
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  Speaker 4: out of the game. So you don't want to think
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  Speaker 4: about it in those terms. For an astronaut like this,
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  Speaker 4: you want to think about the accomplishments that came in
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  Speaker 4: his career.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so, but you know, on occasion he does
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  Speaker 2: speak about it, right. So this is a quote for
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  Speaker 2: Mike talking to the Associated Press. He said this about
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  Speaker 2: the about the medical incident. He said this quote, it
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  Speaker 2: was completely out of the blue. It was just amazingly quick.
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  Speaker 2: My crewmates definitely saw that as that I was in distress.
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  Speaker 2: It was all hands on deck within just a matter
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  Speaker 2: of a few seconds un quote. So there's the quote
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  Speaker 2: for Mike thinking. So it just tells you that again,
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  Speaker 2: as we talk about medical preparedness and all of the
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: kinds of things that we have to be ready to
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  Speaker 2: address with as in long duration space flights or actually
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  Speaker 2: colonizing other planets, this is a great example of the
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  Speaker 2: kind of thing that can happen and what we have
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  Speaker 2: to be ready for.
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  Speaker 4: And as we're saying all of this about this, you know,
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  Speaker 4: not wanting it to be the thing he's remembered for,
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  Speaker 4: we stress the importance of this moment in time as
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  Speaker 4: far as astronauts go, because I mean and we can't
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  Speaker 4: speculate what we could, but we're not going to speculate
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  Speaker 4: here exactly what the issue was in his time of distress.
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  Speaker 4: But you and I were talking earlier about the fact
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  Speaker 4: that sometimes if you have one of those sort of
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: the tia strokes, this would be one of the symptoms
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  Speaker 4: for it. So obviously they have to be or it
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: could be a symptom for it. So they have to
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  Speaker 4: take this very seriously. And obviously that's why it became
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  Speaker 4: an all hands on deck thing, I'm sure, because this
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  Speaker 4: could have been a really big issue there on the
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: space station with limited access to doing anything about that.
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  Speaker 4: So it's important, and I'm sure he will talk about
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: and then probably gladly talk about the significance of all
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: of that. So it's not to just sort of dismiss it,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: but maybe it falls in the category more of the
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Akman thing and that you know, ultimately Aikman and others
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  Speaker 4: led to these conversations about concussions in football, So it's important,
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  Speaker 4: but we want to remember the career more so than
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  Speaker 4: just the thing that sent him back in from being
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: an astronaut.
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  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, Well, and so to connect that chain of dots,
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  Speaker 2: you know, because he was an astronaut aboard the International
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Space Station, and again we don't know if that's the
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: episode that he had, but it seems to be something
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: like that anyway. And one can imagine though that as
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: as NASA and as Mike thinks, doctors worked through the
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: question of, hey, was there something about being in space
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  Speaker 2: that made it more made it more prone to be
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  Speaker 2: vulnerable to this kind of an episode when those kinds
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: of questions start to get asked, and if there's any
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: data they have along with that, because they do monitor
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  Speaker 2: the vital signs of the astronauts pretty thoroughly aboard the
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  Speaker 2: International Space Station while they're up there, is there some
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  Speaker 2: chain of clues that says, oh wait, yeah, these things happened.
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  Speaker 2: Oh wait, maybe we should look for that same chain
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  Speaker 2: of events for people back on the Earth, because maybe
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  Speaker 2: they're experiencing these kinds of symptoms or signatures or biomedical
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: data that lead to their episodes here on the Earth.
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  Speaker 2: So my point is, because of the closely monitored nature
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: of the health of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station,
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  Speaker 2: if somebody does have a health episode like this, there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of data on it, a lot of precursory
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  Speaker 2: data on it that you wouldn't have on a typical
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: person back on Earth, and that data set can help
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  Speaker 2: lead to a better understanding of those kinds of medical
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  Speaker 2: events for everybody.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: So that's again another way where research done in space
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  Speaker 2: or aboard the space station actually makes contributions back to
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  Speaker 2: our society. It's a contributing set of data that helps
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: us understand medical problems back here on the Earth.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: More made of stars.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Right after this, all right, let's talk about the Swift
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: Observatory and what the latest is with that. So they've
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: kind of held off a problem a little bit, but
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  Speaker 4: it's still a problem, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So this is this is another type of medical emergency
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: among satellites. So it turns out there's a very important
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: satellite up there. It's called the NASA's Neil Gerrel's Swift Observatory,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and it's it's a Gammery telescope. It's a it's a
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: telescope that's been up there very success esfully monitoring high
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: energy phenomenon in the universe. But here's what happened when
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the Sun began to get more active recently, that the
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: interaction between the storms on the Sun and the Earth's
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: atmosphere actually called the Earth, caused the Earth's atmosphere to swell. Well.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: As the Earth's atmosphere swells, satellites that are orbiting a
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: little bit closer to the Earth they run into more
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: atmosphere and it causes a higher level of atmosphere drag,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: and suddenly the spacecraft start to lose their orbital altitudes,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: their orbits begin to decay. And this was happening so
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: greatly with the Gammay Burst telescope called Swift Observatory that
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: NASA was really afraid they were going to lose it.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: So they contracted with a company called Catalyst Space, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Catalyst Space built a spacecraft called the Link spacecraft, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Link's only job was to fly up there, rendezvous with
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the Swift Observatory, and use the Link boosters to push
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Swift back up to a nominal orbit that would keep
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: it in orbit for quite some time. Because the Swift
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Observatory itself did not have the capability to do so.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Great plan they launched the vehicle Link is on its
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: way to help Swift. But then in July of twenty
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: twenty six, shortly after launch, Link experienced a complete loss
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: of attitude control. It turns out it has these things
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: on board called actuators, which are mechanical functioning apparatus that
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: helped the spacecraft hold its orientation in space. And two
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: of its three actual reaction wheels failed and so these
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: actuators are not functioning, and all of a sudden, the
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Link spacecraft itself isn't trouble. Now it's tumbling, spinning, all
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. Well, you might think, well, gosh,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: it's a total loss. Both vehicles are. They're gonna meet
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: unfortunate in Well, what happened was the folks at Catalyst
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: figured out a software solution to stabilize their own spacecraft.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And their software solution and its new control algorithms were
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: so good that they're going to be able to go
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: ahead and take that now stabilized Link spacecraft, fly it
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: back up to Swift under control, and complete the mission.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Even though the new spacecraft is fundamentally broken. The software
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: patch was so good they're going to be able to
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: complete that mission. So it looks like now possibly the
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Swift Observatory will be saved. The Catalyst vehicle is approaching it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: They're looking for some kind in the coming days, some
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: kind of a rendezvous between Link and Swift, and hopefully
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Swift will be able to be boosted back to its
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: orbit before its orbit decays to a dangerous level. Now Here,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: here's the last kind of cliffhanger portion of it. Right now,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Swift is in an altitude of about two hundred and
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: sixteen miles and its orbit is still decaying. If it's
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: orbit decays down to one hundred and eighty five miles,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: it might be beyond the point of no return. So
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: can the Link spacecraft, now operating in this kind of
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: broken leg mode but under new software control, can it
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: get up there, attach itself to Swift and boost both
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: vehicles back to a stable nominal orbit before that critical
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty five miles hits. If you want
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: to know the answer, you need to listen to the
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Native Stars podcast on a regular basis, because we will
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: continue to follow this space adventure story and we'll keep
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you up to date on the latest details.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: All right, following up on a story from a week
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: ago about the little red dots, No, it has nothing
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: to do with a sweater on Seinfeld. We're getting well,
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: we got an update on So let's talk about what
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen in a space image.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: And I've seen some cool stuff. I know you've seen
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: more cool things than I have. Have you ever seen
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: anything as cool as this?
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: This is among them? This is among the coolest ones.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: And I was talking to other folks about the story
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: here at Space Science Center and elsewhere and just saying,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: it's not very often that you hear a space news
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: story where they come out and say, we think we've
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: identified an object that no one has ever conceived its
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: existence before, no one's ever even thought about this possibly
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: happening before. But we have the set of data that
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: is showing these weird objects, and we're now trying to
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: explain them. So we're studying them, and the only darn
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: explanation we can come up with is some object that
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: has never even been proposed before. That's what this story
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: is now. The little red dots themselves. West discussed that,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: you know, the Seinfeldt sweater. But in addition to that,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: the last story we just did about them is is
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: talking about how they might be star formation processes taking
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: place in the centers of ancient globular clusters in the
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: very early part of the universe. Maybe that's what they are. Again,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: scientists are kind of waving their hands trying to figure
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: out an explanation that fits all the data. And you
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: see the reason that there are so many new explanations
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: is because we just discovered these things. We had never
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: seen them before until the James Webspace telescope data started
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: coming out. And now deep images that's a long exposure
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: image that captures objects that are really far away. The
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: deep images from James web are showing these little red
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: dots absolutely everywhere out there. So now there are lots
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: of groups of astrophysics is trying to figure out what
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: they are. Okay, so what I'm about to tell you
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: is one of the latest new ideas. This is from
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You can find a story
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: on news dot m I T dot ed U. There
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: are a group of MIT astronomers who have proposed that
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: these little red dots or lrd's as we've called them,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: are actually brand new type of object, and it's an
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: object that they call a black hole star black hole star.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: We've heard of stars, we've heard of black.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Holes, never together though, we've.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Never really heard of a black hole star. What in
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: the heck is this? Well? Here's what they did. The
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: folks from MIT let the light from those little red
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: dots shine through their telescope into a what we call
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: a spectrograph or a spectrometer. It's a it's a device
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: that allows us to see all of the wave lengths
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: of light coming from that object and really study the
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: light by wavelength. And what we usually find out when
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: we do that kind of thing is we can see
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: the chemical fingerprints of all kinds of elements out there.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: And so it's like it's almost like doing the DNA
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: test to figure out what things are made out of. Okay,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: so thinking of it that way, they did this spectrographic test,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: and they found these things to be true. The light
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: coming from the little red dots is not just red,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: it's really really red, like almost only red. Not a
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: broad spectrum, but all the light coming up relatively narrow
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: band of the red visible to infrared part of the spectrum,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: and then it cuts off quite abruptly on both ends. Well,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: already that's a little weird, but things like this in
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: the past have been able to be explained with various
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: kinds of what we call reddening. If you imagine if
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: you're anywhere around like a forest fire, you see smoke.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: The light of the sun that's coming through that smoke
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: gets the sun actually looks red in color. That's because
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: the dust particles are absorbing out blue light or scattering
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: it off, and so everything kind of has a red
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: look to it. Well, that's what happens in the universe
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: as well, but not in this case. There are no
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: fingerprints of the kinds of chemicals and molecules that we
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: typically associate with dust out there in the universe. And
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: that's what James Web is best at, seeing dusty objects.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Almost everything that James Web finds because it is an
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: infrared telescope, is some sort of a dusty object. Not
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: these things. Not. According to this new analysis, the only
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: chemical signatures that they see are hydrogen with a tiny
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: bit of helium. So now what you have. You have
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: this ultra pure red light that has almost no chemical
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: fingerprints except the various simplest elements in all the universe hydrogen, helium.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: And now here's the kicker. The brightness of that object
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: is about one hundred billion times brighter than a typical star.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: That's so odd. Yeah, that's it's as much as an
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: entire galaxy. Think about that that's about the number of
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: stars we think are in the Milky Way. So this
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: one object is shining with the combined brightness of every
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: star in the Milky Way together, all right. So so
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: you start laying that set of parameters out, and some
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: of those parameters are brand new. Then we start saying,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't really fit anything. It doesn't. It
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't fit the quasar model, it doesn't fit the super
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: bright star in the center of Glovitar cluster model. So
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: the astronomers MIT are saying, look, the only way we
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: can model this scenario and have it come out with
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: something that's realistic is take a very large black hole,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: something like one hundred thousand times the mass of our Sun.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: So that's big, but it's not quite as big as
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the black hole in the center of the Milky Way,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: but it's you know, it's on that order anyway. So
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: take that object and completely surround it by an envelope
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: of hydrogen that's so dense that it's as dense as
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the atmosphere of our own Sun. Not some wispy hydrogen cloud,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: not a nebula, not anything like that. A dense star
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: like envelope of hydrogen gas surrounding a very large black hole.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And if you do those things together, you can model
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: something that's very very red in color as a very
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: limited spectral band, has no signatures of dust or heavier elements,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: and shines one hundred billion times as bright as a
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: typical star. Thus, says the researchers at MIT, So they
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: named this class of objects either a miracle or mirage
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: in their own LINGO. So they started a brand new
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: catalog of miracle or mirage objects, which they are now
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: calling mom it's either a miracle or mirage or we
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: don't know what the heck it is. And this would
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: be the MOM dash BH asterisk which stands for star
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: black hole star. See how that works, Mom, black hole
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: star dash one, first ever object in the catalog. So
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: there you have friends, the MIT m O m BH
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: asterisk Dash one object the miracle or mirage black hole
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Star number one.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: This image is incredible to see and if you just
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: look up black hole star, which I just did, you'll
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: see it and it is breathtaking, just such a cool image.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: A couple of different ones that are that are there.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: If you look that up, you can go the route
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: of looking up mombh one if you want to, the
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: black hole star will get you there all just the same.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Where's sound Garden when you need them? Indeed, m O
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: M dash bh asterix dash one. There you go, catalog
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: number first. The catalog has one object in it.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: You know, it's got to feel good as you're typing
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: it in. Here we go, we worked on this, we're
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: naming it. Here we go. Enter. Right, that's gone.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: You know, one of those stay tuned things, right Like,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: as Wes just mentioned, we just had stories on LRDS
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: a few weeks ago talking about associated possibly with quasars,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: then associated with glovitter clusters, and now associated with an
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: object that nobody even knew existed before, a potential black
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: hole star. Stay tuned, friends, because this is what the
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: bleeding edge of astronomical research looks like. It looks like
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: finding weird objects and trying to come up with really
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: exotic explanations for them because nothing fits out of the
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: conventional catalog of things we already understand to explain these objects.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: That's where the fun happens, and you'll hear about it
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: right here. I'm Native Stars.
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about what's going on at Columbus State University's
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Coca Cola Space Science Center. As kids have gotten back
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: to school, you guys are in that little August phase
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: before you really get into the big school groups, right.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: We are, indeed, you know, we in the August phase
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: that West talked about. Our summer programs are over, but
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: our schools haven't started coming yet because they don't kick
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: off the first couple of weeks with field trips. So
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: we're in a period of time where we typically tear
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: the place apart, fix all the broken stuff, put it
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: all back together, upgrade things that need upgrading so that
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: we're ready to go in September around Labor Day for
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: when the schools come back. Now, what that entails this
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: year is we just completed a brand new installation and
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: upgrade of opponents in our observatory, including a brand new
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: telescope mount, brand new camera, brand new filters, and we've
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: taken some of our own mom kind of pictures up there.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: We had first light with the telescope with a new
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: telescope setup this week, the first time we ever took
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: new pictures with the new setup earlier this week. It's
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: a beautiful shot of thegoon Nebula. We'll probably be sharing
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: that out on social media here sometime soon, so follow
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: us on Facebook. You can see that image. The other
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: thing that's happening right now, we're upgrading our moon base.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Our moon mission scenario is getting an upgrade, and man
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: is it fantastic. It's sponsored by our good friends from
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: AT and T like to thank them for making this
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: immersive experience possible. We cannot wait to get students into
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: that environment. But of course before we do that, we
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: have to actually finish it. So we're working on finishing
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: it right now in the month of September. If you
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: come by and you just say, hey, I want to
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: see that new moon base thing, somebody at the front desk,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: we'll we'll open the door and let you peek in.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: We'll let you check it out, and hopefully very soon
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: we'll have students actually in there taking virtual trips to
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the Moon, working on their own virtual moon base and
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: having a great time in that in that new environment.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: Sewn and I thank you for listening, and we will
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: do this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus
• 35:29
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• 35:32
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• 35:36
  Speaker 4: you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door
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