Latest / Made of Stars / Doritos, a Milky Way and a Glass of Tang

Transcript

Doritos, a Milky Way and a Glass of Tang · 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: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
0:15
Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
0:16
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
0:22
Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, madies. When maida stars,
0:33
Speaker 3: you could be from high they would New Mexicomus.
0:39
Speaker 4: Where are.
0:41
Speaker 3: Stars?
0:43
Speaker 4: When we are made of stars?
0:55
Speaker 5: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
0:58
Speaker 5: Cruising from Columbus State University these Coca Cola Space Science Center.
1:02
Speaker 2: Morning Sean, Good morning West, Good to be here today.
1:05
Speaker 5: So I saw a story yesterday that was about Dorito's
1:10
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna be honest, that's probably the thing that
1:12
Speaker 5: I search for the most when I'm googling things. It's,
1:15
Speaker 5: you know, things that involve nacho cheese and tortilla chips.
1:19
Speaker 2: Now.
1:20
Speaker 5: I saw the story when I was just kind of
1:22
Speaker 5: looking around for some topics for us maybe to talk about,
1:25
Speaker 5: because I try to bring in some of the more
1:27
Speaker 5: obscure things. You bring the very science y things. And
1:31
Speaker 5: I see this story and it says, Dorito's working on
1:34
Speaker 5: a chip that they're going to be I guess it's
1:37
Speaker 5: part of that would be experimenting with it on the
1:40
Speaker 5: Polaris Dawn mission, and that's coming up, coming up very
1:44
Speaker 5: quickly next week, and I guess, so this is going
1:48
Speaker 5: to be part of it. But it's a zero gravity
1:50
Speaker 5: cool Ranch chip because you know, when you've got nacho
1:54
Speaker 5: cheese or cool ranch cheese, I guess, cool ranch chest seasoning.
1:58
Speaker 5: You can't have that just loading around the ship. You
2:02
Speaker 5: can't have it on your fing that stuff that you
2:04
Speaker 5: get on your fingers when you eat it. If you're
2:05
Speaker 5: an astronaut, you can't afford to have that on the
2:08
Speaker 5: International Space Station or on a spacecraft. So yeah, Derrito
2:13
Speaker 5: is going to be part of Polaris Dawn. I mean
2:15
Speaker 5: it's not enough that it's going to be, you know,
2:19
Speaker 5: a private spacewalk for people that are just gonna go
2:23
Speaker 5: like going to go up there in a ship and
2:25
Speaker 5: just get out and float around and then come back in.
2:29
Speaker 5: Like that's not enough. We have to also work Dorito's
2:32
Speaker 5: in the mix.
2:34
Speaker 2: So when you're in space, safe snacking is really important.
2:39
Speaker 5: It's true on any road trip, I mean, who doesn't
2:42
Speaker 5: like Dorito's or zingers. You know, on a road trip,
2:45
Speaker 5: sometimes you just want to bag of Dorito's while you're
2:48
Speaker 5: driving and in this case flying, So you know, who
2:51
Speaker 5: doesn't like Dorito's while they're on a road trip.
2:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand there are various people who basically
2:57
Speaker 2: never take a road trip without their zingers, yea or combos.
3:01
Speaker 2: What I've heard, there's.
3:02
Speaker 5: Different things that people just prefer their preferred snack. But
3:05
Speaker 5: if your preferred snack is Dorito's and you're blasting into
3:10
Speaker 5: space for a private space walt, you know, maybe if
3:14
Speaker 5: Dorito's are your snack of choice, you'd like to be
3:16
Speaker 5: able to take them on this mission.
3:18
Speaker 2: There are various things to consider it in the zero
3:20
Speaker 2: gravity environment, and as you mentioned moments ago, floating chip
3:25
Speaker 2: dust is probably not among the good things. It's probably
3:30
Speaker 2: on the bad list. So if you're a chip manufacturer
3:36
Speaker 2: or a chip designer, and I don't mean chips that
3:40
Speaker 2: go in automobiles like for their like for a computer,
3:44
Speaker 2: I mean chips that go in the driver of the
3:46
Speaker 2: automobile for a snack, that kind of chip. If you're
3:51
Speaker 2: a potato or otherwise chip designer, they're not really potato chips.
3:57
Speaker 2: What are they? They're just a chip. They're a snack chip.
3:59
Speaker 2: If you're the designer of a snack chip and you
4:02
Speaker 2: and it's going to have the opportunity to go to space,
4:04
Speaker 2: you want to make sure that you have done everything
4:07
Speaker 2: you can to make your snacks safe for the zero
4:12
Speaker 2: gravity environment. What does that take, Wes? What kind of thought,
4:16
Speaker 2: what kind of engineering, what kind of all up, all
4:20
Speaker 2: night considerations have to be made before before your dorrito
4:25
Speaker 2: goes to zero G? And it's more and you and
4:29
Speaker 2: I will never know because we're just not in that circle.
4:32
Speaker 5: No we're not. We're absolutely not, and we don't have
4:36
Speaker 5: that opportunity. But I I like the fact that this
4:39
Speaker 5: is something that is going to be tested, I guess
4:43
Speaker 5: on this mission. But it's more than that. They're also
4:45
Speaker 5: doing a fundraiser for Saint Jude. So it's that's the
4:48
Speaker 5: real I guess. A part of the motivation behind it,
4:51
Speaker 5: I guess, or at least motivation to get other people
4:53
Speaker 5: to talk about Dorito's.
4:57
Speaker 2: There. I'm sure there are many motivations. Discuss motivations, but
5:01
Speaker 2: we are so burying the headline. So let's just jump
5:04
Speaker 2: back to the headline. There's a commercial space mission that's
5:08
Speaker 2: gonna go up next week on Tuesday, August twenty seventh,
5:13
Speaker 2: launching sometime around three point thirty am Easter daylight time,
5:18
Speaker 2: and it's what's known as SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission. The
5:24
Speaker 2: Polarist Down mission is going to feature the first ever
5:29
Speaker 2: private spacewalk. This Polaris Down mission is also going to
5:35
Speaker 2: go as far away from the Earth as any mission
5:39
Speaker 2: has since the Moon missions. So this is a very
5:45
Speaker 2: interesting mission for a number of reasons. So, the Plaris
5:48
Speaker 2: Down mission is the first of three missions contracted by
5:54
Speaker 2: American billionaire Jared Isaacman with SpaceX, and on this mission,
6:01
Speaker 2: they're going to attempt the first ever private spacewalk. So
6:07
Speaker 2: so SpaceX, Jared Isaacman, we know them. They've had successful
6:11
Speaker 2: partnership in the past. That successful partnership was the inspiration
6:16
Speaker 2: for Flight, which was the first all commercial space flight
6:22
Speaker 2: to take place. And as as part of what you
6:27
Speaker 2: mentioned a moment ago, Jared Isaacman is keenly interested in
6:32
Speaker 2: using these space missions to benefit his favorite charity, which
6:36
Speaker 2: is Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, studying treatments for children
6:43
Speaker 2: with cancer, which could there be a better charity. I'm
6:46
Speaker 2: just not really sure. I think that one's among the
6:49
Speaker 2: very best charities possible because the outcomes are so important.
6:53
Speaker 2: And so the last time this crew went together, which
6:57
Speaker 2: is SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, they raised two hundred and
7:01
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars for UH for Saint Jude. And so
7:07
Speaker 2: that was through the Inspiration for mission, and now they're
7:12
Speaker 2: going to be raising money through the Polaris Down mission.
7:15
Speaker 2: One of the ways they're raising money is with sponsors
7:19
Speaker 2: like Dorito's, and that's why Dorito's ties into this. Dorito's
7:22
Speaker 2: has invented a zero gravity edition of their cool Ranch
7:26
Speaker 2: chips designed for safe snacking in the witless environment. And
7:32
Speaker 2: after the mission, they're going to be offering chips and
7:36
Speaker 2: the tins in which the chips are going that have
7:40
Speaker 2: actually been in space for sale as part of the
7:44
Speaker 2: fundraising project for Saint Jude. You can check that out
7:47
Speaker 2: at Doritos dot experience dot Stjude dot org. I'll say
7:51
Speaker 2: that website one more time, Doritos dot Experience dot Sat
7:56
Speaker 2: Jude all one word dot org. Right. If you want
8:00
Speaker 2: to participate in trying to purchase some of these chips
8:04
Speaker 2: or tins that have flown in space. After the polarist
8:09
Speaker 2: On mission, you'll be able to do that and help
8:11
Speaker 2: raise money for Saint Juds Children's Research Hospital. So far,
8:15
Speaker 2: Doritos has already raised five hundred and thirty eight thousand
8:18
Speaker 2: dollars and they're nearing their goal of five hundred and
8:22
Speaker 2: eighty five five hundred and eighty five thousand dollars that
8:25
Speaker 2: will go to Saint Jude's Research Hospital. All because some
8:30
Speaker 2: people want to go to space. Hey, should we talk
8:32
Speaker 2: about those people? Yeah, let's do.
8:34
Speaker 5: We should talk about it. And also, and I mean, good,
8:37
Speaker 5: this is so great that and I do sort of
8:41
Speaker 5: wonder and I understand that when you make this kind
8:43
Speaker 5: of commitment to donate to a cause like this, that's
8:47
Speaker 5: got to come from a certain place in you to
8:49
Speaker 5: do that. So I'm not necessarily dismissing the genuine nature
8:54
Speaker 5: of charity and doing good things, because I know you
8:58
Speaker 5: and I both subscribe to that whole philosophy about when
9:00
Speaker 5: you give and you make some kind of a of
9:03
Speaker 5: your time or of money or whatever it is, it's
9:05
Speaker 5: really about benefiting yourself as well, because there's a reward
9:09
Speaker 5: that comes with that that drives us to want to
9:14
Speaker 5: be charitable in that way. I also and obviously they're
9:18
Speaker 5: coming from that place. But we've gone through this discussion
9:21
Speaker 5: in the past where they say, oh, this is rich
9:23
Speaker 5: guys going to space and spending money. And I think
9:26
Speaker 5: this is a nice way to say. This isn't just
9:30
Speaker 5: you know, a rich guy going to space to do something.
9:33
Speaker 5: They're also in the last mission and in this mission
9:36
Speaker 5: able to give something back down here, because that's one
9:39
Speaker 5: of the criticisms, right, people would say, oh, they could
9:41
Speaker 5: use that money to cure cancer, they could use that
9:44
Speaker 5: money to stop heart disease. So this is someone who
9:48
Speaker 5: is doubling down on it. They're able to do the mission,
9:52
Speaker 5: to set their goals of what they're trying to do
9:55
Speaker 5: with this mission, while also contributing to what people complain about.
10:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they are literally using their money to cure
10:05
Speaker 2: cancer or to attempt to cure cancer, or to at
10:08
Speaker 2: least treat cancer on this mission. So yeah, that's a
10:11
Speaker 2: very important point. And you know what billionaires spending their
10:16
Speaker 2: money on space, Well, they're going to spend it on something. Yeah,
10:21
Speaker 2: do you know how many dollars actually go to space? Zero?
10:27
Speaker 2: They're not taking dollar bills up there, not burning it
10:30
Speaker 2: for fuel. Yeah, all of the exactly right. No dollars
10:36
Speaker 2: will be harmed in the in the flying of the spacecraft.
10:40
Speaker 2: All of those dollars are actually spent in the economy
10:44
Speaker 2: of the United States of America, giving people jobs and
10:47
Speaker 2: developing new technologies, allowing the economy to move forward. It's
10:52
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why this particular argument always falls
10:55
Speaker 2: a little flat on me. It's like, well, where do
10:57
Speaker 2: you think we're spending these dollars right? Where Where do
11:00
Speaker 2: you think that NASA is spending these dollars? And where
11:02
Speaker 2: do you think these billionaires are spending these dollars. It's
11:05
Speaker 2: in the American economy. It's generating tax revenues that are
11:10
Speaker 2: used for all manner of projects which a lot of
11:13
Speaker 2: people find very important, and it's providing jobs and technical
11:18
Speaker 2: training and just a better understanding of the environment around us.
11:23
Speaker 2: On this particular mission, the spacecraft is going to be
11:27
Speaker 2: flying at this particularly high altitude above the Earth, and
11:31
Speaker 2: they're going to be doing measurements of the Van Allen
11:34
Speaker 2: Belts and how that radiation environment at that high orbital
11:38
Speaker 2: altitude can interact with human beings. So it's giving us
11:41
Speaker 2: a better understanding of how to keep astronauts safe in
11:44
Speaker 2: the space radiation environment. So that's a fairly pure cause,
11:50
Speaker 2: I would say too, because it's just contributing to our
11:54
Speaker 2: growing knowledge of space exploration and what it takes to
11:58
Speaker 2: maintain safety in the space environment.
12:01
Speaker 5: So let's talk about those astronauts.
12:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are four astronauts going to space. Jared
12:07
Speaker 2: Isaacman is the commander for the mission. There's a retired
12:11
Speaker 2: Air Force Lieutenant colonel by the name of Scott kid Potit.
12:15
Speaker 2: He's going to be the pilot for the mission. There
12:18
Speaker 2: are two mission specialists aboard. Both of them are SpaceX employees.
12:22
Speaker 2: Sarah Gillis is the SpaceX Lead Space Operations Engineer for
12:27
Speaker 2: astronaut training, and Ana Menon is the SpaceX Lead Operations
12:33
Speaker 2: Engineer for crew flight Operations Development and so she's also
12:38
Speaker 2: a mission specialist and the medical officer on this particular trip.
12:42
Speaker 2: So so those are the four astronauts going to go
12:44
Speaker 2: to space. We'll be watching next Tuesday, and godspeed to
12:48
Speaker 2: the playeris don mission and SpaceX.
12:50
Speaker 5: All right, So on the last show, we talked about Starliner,
12:54
Speaker 5: we talked about NASA discussing Boeing and a number of things, well,
12:59
Speaker 5: not necessarily talked about the issues that they were having
13:01
Speaker 5: at Boeing in NASA's a press conference they.
13:04
Speaker 2: Had about it.
13:05
Speaker 5: Over the past few shows, we have been talking about Starliner.
13:08
Speaker 5: We came to a point where it seemed like NASA
13:11
Speaker 5: was suggesting that maybe those astronauts on story that went
13:15
Speaker 5: up with Starlinner are stuck, and something that had been
13:19
Speaker 5: reported long before anybody even was really suggesting that from NASA.
13:24
Speaker 5: We kind of took from it maybe that's what NASA
13:26
Speaker 5: was saying. But now NASA has issued an FAQ about
13:30
Speaker 5: the mission and it seems they're back and they're saying no, no, no,
13:34
Speaker 5: they're not necessarily stuck. We just may bring them home
13:37
Speaker 5: a different way. If they needed to get home with Starliner,
13:41
Speaker 5: with that craft, they can still do that, so they're
13:44
Speaker 5: not technically stuck.
13:46
Speaker 2: So I like to just stick with the source and Wes.
13:51
Speaker 2: One of the reasons I wanted to talk about the
13:53
Speaker 2: story again today is that there are all manner of
13:57
Speaker 2: click baity headlines out there about them being stuck forever,
14:02
Speaker 2: or about them burning up in the atmosphere on re entry,
14:05
Speaker 2: about all of the hazards of spaceflight. Friends, if you
14:09
Speaker 2: think you're going to inform astronauts through the press about
14:14
Speaker 2: the hazards of spaceflight, You're mistaken. These folks know better
14:20
Speaker 2: than any of us all of the risks that are
14:25
Speaker 2: a possibility as they go up and perform these missions
14:28
Speaker 2: in orbit. So no one knows the risks better than
14:31
Speaker 2: Butch and Sony, the two Starliner astronauts aboard the International
14:35
Speaker 2: Space Station. Now, let's return to the NASA faques as
14:38
Speaker 2: we're recording the show today. These were issued just two
14:41
Speaker 2: days ago. One of the questions, are Butch and Sonny
14:46
Speaker 2: stuck on the space station. NASA's answer, No, Maybe I
14:53
Speaker 2: should just stop right there. Let's let that one resonate
14:58
Speaker 2: in our PODCAS CAS reverberation chamber for a moment. No,
15:03
Speaker 2: Butch and Sunny are safe aboard the space station, working
15:06
Speaker 2: alongside the Expedition seventy one crew. This according to NASA.
15:10
Speaker 2: They go on to further say they also have been
15:12
Speaker 2: actively involved in star Liner testing and technical meetings. Butch
15:16
Speaker 2: and Sunny could return home aboard star Liner if an
15:19
Speaker 2: emergency arises. The agency also has other return options available
15:24
Speaker 2: if needed, for both contingency and normal returning planning. Unquote
15:31
Speaker 2: from NASA not stuck. So I think it's important to
15:37
Speaker 2: emphasize that. I don't know about you, it is.
15:41
Speaker 5: And I think that you know, when we talk about
15:43
Speaker 5: people reporting that they were stuck, it does become a
15:47
Speaker 5: bit of a clickbait thing, and it's certainly I mean,
15:51
Speaker 5: you could see where someone might think, well, it sounds
15:54
Speaker 5: like they're stuck if they can't come home on the ship.
15:57
Speaker 5: And we've explained it's really more of about testing the ship
16:01
Speaker 5: because when the ship comes back and they make their return,
16:06
Speaker 5: ultimately they're not going to be able to do tests
16:08
Speaker 5: on that ship. It's not like the old Space Shuttle.
16:10
Speaker 5: This thing isn't landing on a runway somewhere. This thing
16:13
Speaker 5: will be gone forever when it comes back. So they
16:15
Speaker 5: are only opportunities to make tests on this thing are
16:19
Speaker 5: while it's still attached to the International Space Station.
16:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that's important point. An important point you know,
16:25
Speaker 2: to emphasize there is that it's the it's the portion
16:28
Speaker 2: with the motors and the fuel tanks that burns up right,
16:31
Speaker 2: So the capsule comes in unpowered because gravity is plenty
16:35
Speaker 2: capable of pulling it back to the ground. If you
16:38
Speaker 2: haven't seen that movie by the way, it's a decent
16:40
Speaker 2: movie anyway. So, uh, I'm like go out to point
16:44
Speaker 2: out one of the other FAQs aboard the NASA page,
16:46
Speaker 2: which is this, why is the crew flight test staying
16:50
Speaker 2: longer than planned aboard the space station? That's you know,
16:55
Speaker 2: it seems like a fairly benign question there, NASA's answered.
16:58
Speaker 2: During Starliner's flight to the space station, some of the
17:00
Speaker 2: spacecraft's thrusters did not perform as expected in several leagues
17:04
Speaker 2: in starliners helium system were observed. While the initial mission
17:07
Speaker 2: duration was planned for about a week. There is no
17:11
Speaker 2: rush to bring the crew home. An important point to emphasize,
17:17
Speaker 2: no rush to bring the crew home, So NASA and
17:19
Speaker 2: Boeing are taking additional time to learn about the spacecraft
17:23
Speaker 2: and its anomalies. Okay, Another very important sentence to emphasize
17:28
Speaker 2: in NASA's response is this one quote. This is a
17:32
Speaker 2: lesson learned from the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. Quote. If
17:38
Speaker 2: you don't remember the details about Columbia. Columbia suffered a
17:43
Speaker 2: strike from a piece of insulating foam on the way
17:46
Speaker 2: up to space that damage the spacecraft. And so what
17:53
Speaker 2: happens on the re entry This damaged portion of the
17:57
Speaker 2: leading edge of the wing actually allowed too much heat
18:01
Speaker 2: from the friction with the atmosphere to enter into the
18:05
Speaker 2: flight frame, the airframe of the of the vehicle, and
18:09
Speaker 2: it caused the vehicle to burn up in the atmosphere,
18:13
Speaker 2: losing all those astronauts on board. What NASA is saying is, hey,
18:16
Speaker 2: we could have kept there was no rush to bring
18:18
Speaker 2: Columbia home. We could have kept them up there on
18:21
Speaker 2: the space station for a really long time. We could
18:23
Speaker 2: have investigated that situation much more carefully, including doing some
18:28
Speaker 2: kind of an EVA to go out and actually inspect
18:30
Speaker 2: the vehicle for damage. Why didn't we do that? Well,
18:33
Speaker 2: you know, these are lessons learned by history. But NASA
18:36
Speaker 2: is saying they're learning their lesson from that incident and
18:39
Speaker 2: not repeating it on Starliner. They want to make sure
18:42
Speaker 2: that everything is good to go, and there is just
18:45
Speaker 2: no hurry to rush these astronauts back home. So finishing
18:50
Speaker 2: NASA's statement on that last question quote, our NASA and
18:53
Speaker 2: Boeing teams are pouring over data from additional in space
18:57
Speaker 2: and ground testing and analysis, providing mission manager's data to
19:01
Speaker 2: make the best, safest decision on how and when to
19:04
Speaker 2: return the crew home unquote. So so there you have it.
19:09
Speaker 5: So, uh, not stuck, not stuck. Just their vacation, not vacation.
19:16
Speaker 5: They're working vacation, their work trip. It's not a working vacation.
19:20
Speaker 5: Their work trip has been extended. That's all it is.
19:22
Speaker 5: We've all been there. Who hasn't been on a work
19:24
Speaker 5: trip that's been extended. Hey, we're going to need you
19:26
Speaker 5: to stay a few more days.
19:27
Speaker 2: I mean, we're here in the in the city of
19:30
Speaker 2: Fort Moore in the United States Army Base. Ye. And
19:33
Speaker 2: those guys, those folks when they're deployed, they they have
19:37
Speaker 2: their missions extended. Right, Sometimes their deployments are extended and
19:41
Speaker 2: they're away from family a little longer than they thought,
19:44
Speaker 2: and it's not pleasant, but they understand that that's part
19:47
Speaker 2: of the game going in, right, And so astronauts are
19:51
Speaker 2: no different, by the way. One last question from NASA.
19:53
Speaker 2: How long could Butcher and Sunny stay board the space
19:55
Speaker 2: station if they don't come home on star Liner. NASA's
19:59
Speaker 2: response quote, If NASA decides to return Starline are uncrewed,
20:03
Speaker 2: Butcher and Sunny would remain aboard the space station until
20:05
Speaker 2: late February twenty twenty five. NASA would replan the agency's
20:10
Speaker 2: SpaceX Crew nine mission by launching only two crew members
20:14
Speaker 2: instead of four in late September. Butch and Sony would
20:18
Speaker 2: return to Earth after the regularly scheduled Crew nine increment
20:22
Speaker 2: early next year. So unquote by the way, So therefore
20:27
Speaker 2: there's a plan, friends, And it's not indefinite. It's like
20:30
Speaker 2: not like, oh, we have no idea how we're going
20:32
Speaker 2: to get these folks home. No, they know exactly how
20:34
Speaker 2: they're going to get these folks on. And I saw
20:36
Speaker 2: another story about their spacesuits being incompatible with SpaceX's vehicle,
20:41
Speaker 2: but they could send SpaceX suits up for Butcher and Sony.
20:45
Speaker 2: So so again, beware of the clickbait on this particular story.
20:50
Speaker 2: NASA has things well in hand. It's just an inconvenience
20:56
Speaker 2: and not a danger at this point.
20:59
Speaker 5: All right, well, let's talk about a danger or something
21:02
Speaker 5: that was been tested and studied to possibly prevent danger
21:06
Speaker 5: in the future. That is, well, we talked about the
21:10
Speaker 5: Dart mission back when it happened. I think the Dart
21:13
Speaker 5: mission was that not on your birthday when that happened, Well,
21:16
Speaker 5: they actually it.
21:17
Speaker 2: Was on my birthday. Yeah, the Dart mission in twenty
21:23
Speaker 2: twenty two. It was a spacecraft just slammed right into
21:27
Speaker 2: the face of a little asteroid called Dimorphous. Happened on
21:30
Speaker 2: my birthday. I was watching the video come in Close
21:34
Speaker 2: to Live, as close to live as possible with these
21:36
Speaker 2: delayed transmissions, along with several of my former students, and
21:41
Speaker 2: we were all on a big group text, and we
21:44
Speaker 2: were acting like a bunch of teenagers quite frankly on
21:47
Speaker 2: that group text because it was a pretty good time
21:48
Speaker 2: watching that particular thing unfold and watching us just smack
21:52
Speaker 2: an asteroid in the eye and say that one was
21:55
Speaker 2: for the dinosaurs. There you go, boys.
21:58
Speaker 5: So this is one of those things where they wanted
22:01
Speaker 5: to see what would happen. Could they redirect it, could
22:04
Speaker 5: they you know, cause damage to it?
22:05
Speaker 2: What? What?
22:06
Speaker 5: What would they learn from slamming it in there? And
22:09
Speaker 5: what we've learned is that basically some of the debris
22:14
Speaker 5: could make its way to Earth and Mars within the
22:18
Speaker 5: next ten years.
22:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's a that's a new outcome after analyzing
22:24
Speaker 2: the debris field and some of the repercussions of that
22:29
Speaker 2: particular impact. So, first of all, the spacecraft did a
22:32
Speaker 2: brilliant job of moving that asteroid. It definitely had a
22:37
Speaker 2: successful demonstration of whether or not we could deflect the
22:40
Speaker 2: trajectory of an asteroid. We definitely did. There was a
22:44
Speaker 2: European Space Agency mission called HERA, the Hara Mission Rendezvoud
22:48
Speaker 2: with that double asteroid system and they looked at the
22:51
Speaker 2: post impact of dimorphous and they and they sent a
22:56
Speaker 2: lot of data back to scientists on the Earth and
22:59
Speaker 2: what they found out as this debris feel that was
23:02
Speaker 2: created by this explosion or by this impact, be its
23:09
Speaker 2: materials into strange orbits that are going to eventually interact
23:14
Speaker 2: with the Earth and Mars. So, in other words, we
23:17
Speaker 2: can have some of that debris caused by the impact
23:21
Speaker 2: of that with that little asteroid hitting the Earth. And
23:24
Speaker 2: you might think, well, wait a minute, I thought the
23:26
Speaker 2: whole idea was to keep this stuff from hitting the Earth. Yes,
23:29
Speaker 2: it is. The materials that were ejected during that impact
23:34
Speaker 2: are so small that they're almost like dorito dust. It
23:40
Speaker 2: almost like.
23:41
Speaker 5: Little It all comes back to Doris.
23:44
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't want chip crumbs and dorito dust
23:46
Speaker 2: floating around inside your spacecraft. However, if they are flying
23:50
Speaker 2: through space and encounter the Earth's atmosphere at a high speed,
23:55
Speaker 2: those types of materials would easily burn up. They might
23:59
Speaker 2: make a beautiful sight in your morning sky, but they
24:02
Speaker 2: are not going to cause any hazard to any of
24:05
Speaker 2: the residents of either the Earth or Mars, because some
24:10
Speaker 2: of that ejective could come within the next decade. Who knows,
24:13
Speaker 2: we might have Mars basis by the next decade, so
24:15
Speaker 2: it would be good to know. But both the Martian
24:17
Speaker 2: atmosphere and the Earth atmosphere are plenty capable of causing
24:21
Speaker 2: enough heating through friction to burn up that material before
24:25
Speaker 2: it ever got down to the surface. So interesting study.
24:28
Speaker 2: It's interesting to know that materials were thrown that far
24:31
Speaker 2: away from this asteroid that they could one day encounter
24:34
Speaker 2: the Earth in Mars, but important to note that no
24:38
Speaker 2: hazard to either planet is expected.
24:41
Speaker 5: Coming up after a quick break, we'll talk about a
24:45
Speaker 5: star in the Milky Way that is trying to make
24:48
Speaker 5: its way out of the Milky Way. We'll talk about
24:51
Speaker 5: that next. So we're talking about the Doritos and then
25:18
Speaker 5: now we're talking about the Milky Way. It's too close
25:21
Speaker 5: to lunch for me for us to be talking about
25:24
Speaker 5: all this snack food, but let's talk about this. We
25:26
Speaker 5: got a star that is in the Milky Way that
25:29
Speaker 5: is rapidly working its way out of the Milky Way.
25:33
Speaker 2: Do we mention that the Milky Way's a candy bar?
25:35
Speaker 5: I mean it's I guess for some listeners maybe overseas.
25:40
Speaker 5: By the way, whoever is listening to us in the
25:42
Speaker 5: San Francisco area, Hi, thanks for thanks for jumping in here.
25:46
Speaker 5: We appreciate you.
25:46
Speaker 4: It's just like an.
25:48
Speaker 5: Abundance of downloads coming from the whole Southern California area.
25:52
Speaker 5: We appreciate you. Thank you, God bless you. We welcome
25:56
Speaker 5: you today. We don't know who you are, but welcome.
26:00
Speaker 5: We're excited about the spike and downloads in the last
26:03
Speaker 5: month from We are.
26:04
Speaker 2: Super excited by the San Francisco audience. And I would
26:06
Speaker 2: say that West does know that it's in Northern California,
26:09
Speaker 2: not Southern.
26:09
Speaker 5: I said Southern did not know.
26:11
Speaker 2: I mean, you know it never rains in Southern California.
26:13
Speaker 2: I met Northern occasionally, Dorito dust falls from space I met.
26:17
Speaker 5: I met Northern. That's the longest, by the way. And
26:20
Speaker 5: I know that largely. I never really paid attention to
26:23
Speaker 5: where some of those cities are. But I know that
26:25
Speaker 5: largely because most of the time that I've left the
26:28
Speaker 5: country to go to Australia. It involves leaving from La
26:32
Speaker 5: southern California, and then when you go leave from San Francisco,
26:36
Speaker 5: it's a much longer flight because you're leaving from further up.
26:39
Speaker 5: So anyway, that was just a slip. I do know,
26:43
Speaker 5: I do know basic Yeah, yeah, I do know some
26:45
Speaker 5: basic geography. Anyway, But yes, thank you for all anyone
26:49
Speaker 5: in California for that matter listening.
26:51
Speaker 2: We appreciate you, indeed we do. And we have another
26:55
Speaker 2: store for you, which is if you live in the
26:58
Speaker 2: Bay Area and you love rogue stars. Yep, this story
27:02
Speaker 2: is for you, friends, because a star has been identified
27:05
Speaker 2: to be hurtling out of the Milky Way at a
27:08
Speaker 2: ridiculous speed. This story on Universe today dot com. You
27:10
Speaker 2: can check it out there. Universitydata dot com, by the way,
27:13
Speaker 2: one of our favorite websites for stories about astronomy and
27:18
Speaker 2: astrophysical kinds of stories in particular. So this star was
27:24
Speaker 2: discovered as part of a hunt for planets in our
27:27
Speaker 2: own solar system. That's called the Planet nine project, and
27:32
Speaker 2: it's that project was launched by a group called Backyard Worlds.
27:37
Speaker 2: And so the notion is a bunch of volunteers have
27:41
Speaker 2: been signed up to hunt for planets in our own
27:44
Speaker 2: solar system in the data set taken from a NASA
27:49
Speaker 2: orbiting camera called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer or
27:54
Speaker 2: WYSE is the acronym so the WISE spacecraft. It's been
27:59
Speaker 2: sharing its day with volunteers and the scientists at WISE
28:04
Speaker 2: have outlined a research program so that citizens scientists can
28:09
Speaker 2: get involved and friends, that means you, So you could
28:11
Speaker 2: go out and become part of the citizens scientist group
28:16
Speaker 2: that's hunting through WISE data to find objects in our
28:21
Speaker 2: solar system. But wait, that's not the only thing you
28:24
Speaker 2: can find. Because a group of volunteers Martin Kobatnik, Thomas P.
28:30
Speaker 2: Bickell and Dan casselten identified something moving through a field
28:36
Speaker 2: of view of one of the WISE identified objects, and
28:41
Speaker 2: it's known by its catalog name, which is c WISE
28:44
Speaker 2: J twelve forty nine oh nine point eight plus thirty
28:47
Speaker 2: six twenty one sixteen point zero just rolls off the tongue.
28:52
Speaker 2: But that object appears to not be a planet in
28:56
Speaker 2: our Solar system, but rather a star moving through the
29:00
Speaker 2: Milky Way at a very high rate of speed. And
29:04
Speaker 2: after they did some verification follow up observations, they found
29:09
Speaker 2: that this object that had been observed in first in
29:11
Speaker 2: the Wise data and then later by other telescopes, is
29:15
Speaker 2: moving at one and a half million kilometers per hour,
29:20
Speaker 2: which is slightly faster than you can go in a
29:23
Speaker 2: preus hybrid. So it's just a bit faster than that.
29:27
Speaker 2: In fact, it's fast enough to escape the gravitational field
29:31
Speaker 2: of the Milky Way galaxy itself. In other words, one
29:36
Speaker 2: point five million kilometers per hour greater than the escape
29:39
Speaker 2: velocity of the Milky Way galaxy. So this star is
29:44
Speaker 2: not going to stay in the Milky Way. It's a
29:47
Speaker 2: rogue star that's zipping its way on out. Now, wait
29:50
Speaker 2: a minute, did it just decide to move? You know,
29:54
Speaker 2: it didn't like the neighborhood anymore, just decided to put
29:56
Speaker 2: up the house for sale and leave town. How do
30:00
Speaker 2: did it get going at this ridiculously high rate of
30:03
Speaker 2: speed relative to all the other stars in the Milky Way. Well,
30:07
Speaker 2: scientists have now conjectured about this particular object, and one
30:12
Speaker 2: of the likely scenarios is it's a little brown dwarf star,
30:16
Speaker 2: which is kind of the burnout core of a star
30:19
Speaker 2: like the sun, and this brown dwarf could have been
30:24
Speaker 2: ejected from a type onea supernova explosion. That's the kind
30:28
Speaker 2: of supernova explosion where you have one partner that's a
30:31
Speaker 2: white dwarf, another partner that's a red giant star feeding
30:34
Speaker 2: materials onto the white dwarf. The white dwarf eventually detonates,
30:39
Speaker 2: and that explosion could be so powerful that if the
30:42
Speaker 2: brown dwarf was in the vicinity, it could get blasted
30:46
Speaker 2: out of the entire Milky Way and thrown out into
30:49
Speaker 2: the depths of intergalactic space. That's a pretty good story.
30:53
Speaker 2: That looks like that's what's happening with this interesting object.
30:57
Speaker 2: And way to go to the citizen scientists with back
31:00
Speaker 2: Yard World for identifying this road planet, this rogue star. Yeah,
31:04
Speaker 2: sipping through the Milky.
31:05
Speaker 5: Way, that is a fantastic story. All right, let's talk
31:07
Speaker 5: about our star here in our solar system, the sun
31:12
Speaker 5: spot numbers at a twenty year high, a lot of
31:15
Speaker 5: solar activity.
31:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of things going on in the
31:19
Speaker 2: Sun right now. It's a very very active. What solar
31:23
Speaker 2: max is. Solar maximum is the time of the maximum
31:27
Speaker 2: activity on the Sun that occurs in a cycle of
31:30
Speaker 2: every eleven years. Or so we are nearing solar max.
31:35
Speaker 2: It could be coming up possibly sometime in twenty twenty five,
31:39
Speaker 2: early twenty twenty five, even that will be the maximum
31:41
Speaker 2: amount of activity. So that means we're already very close
31:44
Speaker 2: in that eleven year cycle to that period of time.
31:47
Speaker 2: And what we're seeing in this cycle, which is known
31:50
Speaker 2: as sunspot cycle twenty five or solar cycle twenty five,
31:54
Speaker 2: is that we have more sun spots on our sun
31:58
Speaker 2: right now. In other words, a month average, we have
32:01
Speaker 2: more sunspots in our monthly average this month than we
32:04
Speaker 2: have had since two thousand and one. Now that's more
32:10
Speaker 2: than eleven years ago. That's twenty three years ago, which
32:14
Speaker 2: means not the last cycle, but the one before that,
32:18
Speaker 2: all the way back to solar cycle number twenty three.
32:22
Speaker 2: You have to go that far back before the sun
32:24
Speaker 2: was this active. The interesting thing about that is according
32:27
Speaker 2: to models that were predicting how many sunspots would be
32:31
Speaker 2: visible or how active the Sun would be during our
32:34
Speaker 2: current solar cycle number twenty five, the models predicted that
32:38
Speaker 2: this cycle would not be as active, it would not
32:41
Speaker 2: have as many sunspots, it would be a bit quieter
32:44
Speaker 2: than cycles in the past. The two thousand and one
32:47
Speaker 2: cycle was a very active sunspot cycle and had lots
32:53
Speaker 2: and lots of sunspots on it, and that's more what
32:56
Speaker 2: twenty five looks like rather than what was predicted to
32:59
Speaker 2: be kind of a quiescent or a little bit quieter
33:02
Speaker 2: period of time on the Sun. So this is a
33:05
Speaker 2: very interesting solar maximum. It's kind of breaking the norms.
33:08
Speaker 2: It's kind of upsetting our understanding of what we thought
33:12
Speaker 2: we knew about the sunspot cycles and where they could
33:14
Speaker 2: be in our ability to predict how active the Sun
33:16
Speaker 2: was going to be, and so we like that as scientists.
33:20
Speaker 2: It may seem unerving to people who are not scientists,
33:22
Speaker 2: but we actually like surprises because then that gives us
33:24
Speaker 2: more work to do, more investigations to do. Check out
33:28
Speaker 2: spaceweather dot com a great website for monitoring sun activity,
33:31
Speaker 2: and you can read yourself about the sunspot numbers at
33:34
Speaker 2: a twenty year high.
33:36
Speaker 5: Something else you can check out is the Columbus Toy
33:39
Speaker 5: and Comic Book Show, happening this weekend at Columbus State
33:42
Speaker 5: University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
33:45
Speaker 2: We are always excited to host the Columbus Comic Book
33:47
Speaker 2: and Toy show, and it gives up great opportunity for
33:51
Speaker 2: the demographics that really like space who also like science
33:55
Speaker 2: fiction and Wes, you and I have talked a lot
33:57
Speaker 2: about that recently because you're preparing for your trip up
34:01
Speaker 2: to dragon Con and have put out some of the
34:03
Speaker 2: interviews for the pregame show for dragon Con. Science fiction
34:07
Speaker 2: and science investigation go hand in hand. We can't confuse
34:11
Speaker 2: the two. Let's not think they're the same thing. It's
34:15
Speaker 2: just that a bunch of us geeks who love science, well,
34:17
Speaker 2: we also love science fiction because that's the venue where
34:20
Speaker 2: we can conjecture about some wild things and talk about
34:24
Speaker 2: some interesting possibilities based on what we understand about science,
34:29
Speaker 2: but also being able to go beyond what would be
34:33
Speaker 2: traditionally accepted as scientific discussions. Right. So, yeah, science and
34:38
Speaker 2: science fiction really are hand in hand component activities that
34:44
Speaker 2: human beings carry out to not only imagine what the
34:47
Speaker 2: world is like now, but imagine what worlds could be
34:50
Speaker 2: like in other places or at other times. Good stuff,
34:54
Speaker 2: and you can come out and check out the Columbus
34:56
Speaker 2: Comic book and toy show this coming Sunday. Check out
34:59
Speaker 2: the webs site here at Space Science Center for details.
35:02
Speaker 2: I'll give you that web address. It's www. That's just
35:05
Speaker 2: giving you time to write the rest down. Cc SSC
35:10
Speaker 2: dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
35:14
Speaker 5: And I'll just say this because in our discussion on
35:18
Speaker 5: the dragon Con Pregame Show, which, by the way, the podcast,
35:21
Speaker 5: the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast is available wherever you're
35:25
Speaker 5: listening to this podcast, and I've currently as we're recording
35:29
Speaker 5: this on Thursday, past dragon Con pregame shows are available
35:33
Speaker 5: for you to listen to. We'll have the new ones
35:35
Speaker 5: up by this weekend for this year. But worth mentioning
35:39
Speaker 5: you said in the interview for that show that we
35:42
Speaker 5: did that basically you talked about a lot about Star Trek,
35:48
Speaker 5: how Star Trek seems to be because Star Wars, you know,
35:51
Speaker 5: is more fantasy than Star Trek. Star Trek a little
35:55
Speaker 5: bit more science based. But just to put it in
35:57
Speaker 5: terms of this, because I think this is the counterpoint
36:00
Speaker 5: or something even like Star Wars, and you didn't dis
36:03
Speaker 5: Star Wars in any way. You said it's got its
36:05
Speaker 5: place and all that, but think about it in these terms.
36:08
Speaker 5: Someone in science fiction said, what if we have these
36:11
Speaker 5: like samurai warrior type characters that are Jedi and instead
36:15
Speaker 5: of regular swords, they're laser swords. And then later, you know,
36:21
Speaker 5: engineers went, hey, maybe we can make those, And then
36:24
Speaker 5: people have made you know, real lightsaber, functional lightsabers that
36:30
Speaker 5: should terrify us. But at the same time, you know,
36:33
Speaker 5: it comes from that idea in science fiction, and then
36:36
Speaker 5: somebody goes, hey, maybe we can figure out how to.
36:38
Speaker 2: Pull that off.
36:39
Speaker 5: So that's the other part of all of that. We
36:41
Speaker 5: you know, they influence each other in so many ways,
36:45
Speaker 5: and certainly we see it with iPads and our cell
36:48
Speaker 5: phones and many ways that we communicate with each other.
36:52
Speaker 2: Human creativity is a very important thing because if we
36:57
Speaker 2: can imagine it, we might be able to create it.
37:00
Speaker 2: And so the act of imagination, the act of thinking
37:05
Speaker 2: of things that don't currently exist but could exist, or
37:08
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be cool if it did exist, and jotting
37:11
Speaker 2: those things down so that other people go, well, wait
37:14
Speaker 2: a minute, I think I can make that happen. I
37:16
Speaker 2: don't know if that's exactly what they said. That's not
37:18
Speaker 2: an exact quote, but it's the idea that something so
37:22
Speaker 2: interesting and so useful could potentially be brought from the
37:28
Speaker 2: from the imaginary realm into the actual world. And who
37:32
Speaker 2: would have known that that flip phone that Captain Kirk
37:35
Speaker 2: carried around in the original Star Trek series, you know,
37:38
Speaker 2: would be a Nokia someday or something like that. I mean,
37:41
Speaker 2: who would have known, right, Who would have known that that,
37:45
Speaker 2: you know, you have this thing called a tricorder that
37:48
Speaker 2: was some kind of little box that you could actually
37:50
Speaker 2: do analysis of the surroundings and come to real interpretations with.
37:55
Speaker 2: Who would have known that? We see things like that
37:57
Speaker 2: in our regular, everyday environment all the time, and so
38:00
Speaker 2: so some of the things that Star Trek speculated on
38:03
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties have come to fruition and we
38:06
Speaker 2: just accept them as part of our daily lives in
38:09
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. And I would say that is the
38:12
Speaker 2: important role of science fiction in the imagination process of
38:17
Speaker 2: what can be created through engineering or what could possibly
38:21
Speaker 2: be measured by scientific instruments.
38:24
Speaker 5: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
38:26
Speaker 5: this again next week. Plans Overhead Door Company of Columbus
38:36
Speaker 5: has all of your garage door needs covered, residential and
38:39
Speaker 5: commercial service and repairs. If you need a new garage
38:43
Speaker 5: door or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your
38:45
Speaker 5: current door Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered.
38:49
Speaker 5: Plus they've got your emergency repairs or service covered as well.
38:54
Speaker 5: Seven oh six three five eight forty five hundred seven
38:57
Speaker 5: oh six three five eight forty five hundred OD see
39:00
Speaker 5: Columbus dot com