Latest / Made of Stars / Deva Vu All Over Again for SpaceX

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Deva Vu All Over Again for SpaceX · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead. We're made of stars.
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Speaker 3: Made them stars, madies. When made us stars, you could
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Speaker 3: be from high they would new Mexicomas where a stars?
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Speaker 4: When we are made of stars.
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Speaker 5: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean Cruising,
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Speaker 5: executive director at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space signed Center.
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Speaker 2: Hey Sean, Hey, we's good to be here today.
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Speaker 6: All right.
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Speaker 5: Normally we record a little earlier in the day, but
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Speaker 5: this is one of those days where like nothing was
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Speaker 5: going right. It seemed like we just couldn't quite get
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Speaker 5: our schedules synced up, mostly because of me, not because
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Speaker 5: of you. But we're here now, and it's interesting because
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Speaker 5: we have a launch scheduled for today and it's one
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Speaker 5: of the things we're gonna talk about. But we don't
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Speaker 5: have a launch scheduled. SpaceX does, but there's a launch
1:29
Speaker 5: scheduled and I say we because you know, we cover
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Speaker 5: that in a general sense, and I was starting to
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Speaker 5: wonder where we gonna be able to just do it lot.
1:38
Speaker 5: We're gonna talk about it as it was happening, the.
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Speaker 6: Way the day was going.
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Speaker 5: But thankfully we got a few more hours to go
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Speaker 5: at least before the thing is scheduled to launch. So
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Speaker 5: first and foremost, let's start with why it's launching today,
1:51
Speaker 5: because we told you a week ago that it was
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Speaker 5: going to launch a week ago, and as tends to
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Speaker 5: be the case often with our many years of radio
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Speaker 5: and podcast experience of doing this, things are scheduled for
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Speaker 5: Thursday often, which happens to be the day that we
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Speaker 5: usually record. So yeah, a week ago, it was like, hey,
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Speaker 5: we got a launch coming, and then there was a
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Speaker 5: reason that they didn't launch, so they moved it back
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Speaker 5: a week. So let's talk about the abort from last week.
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Speaker 2: So it's important to tell our regular listeners that we
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Speaker 2: started the show exactly the same way last week.
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Speaker 6: That's right.
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Speaker 2: So if you think you're in deja vu land, no, no.
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Speaker 6: All over there, that's right.
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Speaker 2: This is a new week and we're saying the same thing.
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Speaker 2: The SpaceX Starship we'll be launching later today as we're
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Speaker 2: recording the show. And once again, if you think you're
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Speaker 2: in deja vu land, you're not when we tell you
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Speaker 2: that it's at six forty five pm Eastern daylight time
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Speaker 2: tonight on this Thursday.
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Speaker 5: And I'll say this, this is an audio podcast, we
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Speaker 5: are not a video show. But just just I'm holding
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Speaker 5: up a copy of the newspaper just so you can
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Speaker 5: see that it is, in fact, the twenty third day
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Speaker 5: of July, in the year of Our Lord, twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 5: I'm holding it up so you can see the date.
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Speaker 5: Now you know I'm lying because who still hate its newspapers?
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Speaker 6: But anyway, the point is.
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Speaker 2: Where did you find one of those?
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Speaker 6: That's how you know I'm lying.
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Speaker 2: Is it the New York Times? I don't know, because
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Speaker 2: the rest of them I don't know. Are they still
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Speaker 2: printing on paper?
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Speaker 5: I had to run through the hallways of a Day's
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Speaker 5: in and get a USA Today.
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Speaker 2: Let me tell you, my friend, a newspaper that still
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Speaker 2: prints on paper but also has a great website, and
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Speaker 2: that is Florida Today dot com. There'lorda today dot com
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Speaker 2: and according to Florida Today dot com, SpaceX CEO Elon
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Speaker 2: Musk has come out and confirmed that the engineers for
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Speaker 2: the SpaceX Starship down there in what was formerly known
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Speaker 2: as Bokachica, Texas, but now we just call them the
3:59
Speaker 2: artist known formally known as Bokachika Texas that location, the
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Speaker 2: engineers down there are going to replace four engines or
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, they have already replaced. They have already replaced
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Speaker 2: four engines on the SpaceX Starship that failed one week
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Speaker 2: ago to ignite. So we had four failures to ignite,
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Speaker 2: and once that happens, the automatic system just shut the
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Speaker 2: whole launch down. And once the automatic system for safety
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Speaker 2: purposes had a last second abort and shut the whole
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Speaker 2: system down back on July sixteenth, then of course it
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Speaker 2: didn't launch. So Elon Musk went to some social media
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Speaker 2: company that I believe is called X formally known as
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Speaker 2: something else anyway, and then Elon said this quote, some
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Speaker 2: of the engines didn't start triggering an automatic launch aboart
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Speaker 2: next launch attentt hopefully in a few days unquote. Well
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Speaker 2: see now that was last week. Well we're here to
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Speaker 2: tell you from our friends at Florida Today dot com
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Speaker 2: and our friends at space dot com and our friends
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Speaker 2: at spaceflightnow dot com and all the people that are saying,
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Speaker 2: what do you mean friends, We don't know you. That's fine,
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Speaker 2: you're friendly to us, so we're giving you credit. So anyway,
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Speaker 2: SpaceX will be launching Starship today. Well, SpaceX will be
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Speaker 2: attempting to launch Starship today.
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Speaker 5: Assuming that all those four boosters and others managed to
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Speaker 5: launch right, those four.
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Speaker 2: Engines, managing to get those four and the rest of
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Speaker 2: them all, you know, with an attitude adjustment to where
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Speaker 2: they'll go ahead and light when they push the big
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Speaker 2: green button, it should launch today. So if you're listening
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Speaker 2: to this podcast in the future future future, you may
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Speaker 2: already know the answer as to whether this launch happened.
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Speaker 2: But Wes and I, as we're recording right now, we
5:53
Speaker 2: don't know that. That's what time travel is all about.
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Speaker 2: It it's odd that way, so we as time travel
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Speaker 2: as you're listening to this podcast in the future future,
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Speaker 2: we don't know whether this thing launched there, but it's
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Speaker 2: scheduled as we're recording this launch. I'm sorry, as we're
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Speaker 2: recording the show scheduled to launch today Thursday, July twenty third,
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Speaker 2: at six forty five pm Eastern daylight time. If you
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Speaker 2: want to know the GMT, we have that for you too,
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Speaker 2: Grittinch meantime twenty two forty five. Friends, that's that's that's
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Speaker 2: what we do here. We do that. We provide information.
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Speaker 5: Now, part of the information were about a week ago
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Speaker 5: was the fact that this was flight thirteen. And then
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Speaker 5: when it didn't happen, I thought, wait, here we go.
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Speaker 2: And there was nothing, you know, superstitious about calling it
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Speaker 2: flight there. There was no reference to any kind of
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Speaker 2: superstitious behavior or triska decophobia or anything like.
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Speaker 5: That, not not even like minimal stitious behavior like none
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Speaker 5: of that. It just was like we're going with thirteen,
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Speaker 5: like we're Dan Marino, let's do this.
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Speaker 2: There you go. How many super Bowl in near mine?
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Speaker 2: All right? So anyway, the.
7:02
Speaker 6: Maybe we should say college TUA. How about that? Is
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Speaker 6: that better? That's a little better? Anyway?
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Speaker 2: College?
7:10
Speaker 6: He did win? Right, he did?
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Speaker 5: Actually? Yes, so, And I'm not talking about Miami Dolphin, tou.
7:18
Speaker 5: That's a different, different Miami Dolphin.
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Speaker 6: That's different anyway.
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Speaker 2: And friends, this is a different version of SpaceX Starship.
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Speaker 2: So there's the segue back to reality. Spacex' Starship Flight
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Speaker 2: thirteen is a second flight of what's called the V
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Speaker 2: three Starship. The V three Starship has only flown one
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Speaker 2: other time. That was back in May on the twenty second,
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Speaker 2: when Flight twelve went up with little to no superstition
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Speaker 2: or any stition, as Wes might say, So that one
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Speaker 2: went just fine. However, flight thirteen, that's the recording of
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Speaker 2: this podcast yet to watch anyway, so we'll see if
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Speaker 2: it all irons itself out today. You may know that
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Speaker 2: this is a very important tie in to the Artemis
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Speaker 2: program because Starship is still the designated moonlander for the
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Speaker 2: Artemis program. Yes, the Artemist three mission is hoping to
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Speaker 2: sort some of that up out with with the competitors
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Speaker 2: from Blue Origin. They're hoping to be able to figure
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Speaker 2: out which one is actually going to be the lander
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Speaker 2: based on the Artemis three mission. But one of the
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Speaker 2: sets of milestones that has to be accomplished is these
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Speaker 2: private commercial space companies have to be able to launch
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Speaker 2: their own vehicles to space, and they have to actually
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Speaker 2: get to orbit successfully. And I will point out that
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Speaker 2: Starship flight thirteen is still a suborbital test. It's still
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Speaker 2: not designated to get all the way to orbit, and
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Speaker 2: that's because they're still testing systems. But okay, got to
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Speaker 2: have a gotta have an orbital launch of either Blue
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Speaker 2: Origins lunar Lander or SpaceX Starship lunar Lander in order
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Speaker 2: for Artemis program and the NASA astronauts to count on
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Speaker 2: the fact that they have a delivery vehicle that can
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Speaker 2: land them safely on the Moon and get them back
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Speaker 2: off again back to lunar orbit where they can come home.
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Speaker 2: So so there it is, friends, that's all. Other than that,
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Speaker 2: there's hardly any stakes to this whatsoever. But that's all
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Speaker 2: just the entire American space program is hanging in the
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Speaker 2: balance right now. So so you know, good luck today, Starship.
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Speaker 2: We tend to be space company agnostic on this show.
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Speaker 2: We just like to see people do space. So anytime
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Speaker 2: any company that maybe isn't from China go launches to space,
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Speaker 2: we are all about success.
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Speaker 5: Well, we want a certain amount of success for China.
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Speaker 5: I mean a certain amount. I mean, are there what
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Speaker 5: do they call them, taycho knots, what do they call
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Speaker 5: what are their astronauts?
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Speaker 2: Human beings? That's what we call them. If human beings
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Speaker 2: are involved, we do not want to see failure exactly
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Speaker 2: exactly any source.
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Speaker 6: Yes, So what do they get.
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Speaker 2: Americans space companies are doing better than Chinese space companies
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Speaker 2: in general. I don't mind.
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Speaker 5: That, that's right, but we human life is priority one.
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Speaker 2: And for our many Chinese listeners, it's nothing against you, man,
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Speaker 2: it's just that government you got going on.
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Speaker 6: It's a space race, is what it is.
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Speaker 5: And it's like it's like, you know, if you're watching
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Speaker 5: the World Cup, don't don't get your feelings hurt when
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Speaker 5: when somebody's pulling for their home country, right, That's just
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Speaker 5: how it goes.
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Speaker 6: That's what you do sometimes.
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Speaker 2: So I mean, you know, we even extend this to
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Speaker 2: Philadelphia Eagles fans on occasion. We don't root for them,
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Speaker 2: but we understand why they're rooting for the Eagles, right,
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Speaker 2: I mean, we just do.
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Speaker 5: I don't get that at all. But you know, I
10:39
Speaker 5: don't get it at all. It makes no sense at
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Speaker 5: all to me.
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Speaker 2: This is how I feel a little bit how I
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Speaker 2: feel about the Chinese space program, just a little bit,
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Speaker 2: just like that. Just like, Okay, Eagles fans, I get it.
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Speaker 2: They're in Philly, they're going to root for the Eagles.
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Speaker 2: Chinese they're going to root for their own taikonots. That's cool.
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Speaker 2: I want to see safety at all costs.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I've known companies.
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Speaker 2: Are doing better than theirs. I'm kind of okay with that.
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Speaker 4: I've been made.
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Speaker 6: I've been known to make the joke.
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Speaker 5: You know, Luke and I will often enjoy this little
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Speaker 5: joke whenever we sit down if the if the Cowboys
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Speaker 5: and Eagles are playing each other, and it's like, well,
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Speaker 5: who do we root for Baine? And it's just a joke.
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Speaker 5: We don't want the stadium to implode. We don't want
11:21
Speaker 5: the field to collapse, that's not what we We don't
11:23
Speaker 5: want the mayor to blow up in a you know,
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Speaker 5: a million dollar box up there.
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Speaker 6: That's not what we really want. We don't really pull
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Speaker 6: for Baine. We just say that, that's all.
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Speaker 2: I mean, can they tie? You know that, just let's
11:37
Speaker 2: just let them tie.
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Speaker 5: Usually when I say, we're just kidding, and then Luke
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Speaker 5: will jump in and say, well, we are pulling for
11:43
Speaker 5: ankle sprains, so that's different.
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Speaker 6: That's different. That's all we're trying to say.
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Speaker 2: I believe we have stretched this straight analogy about as
11:55
Speaker 2: far as we have on any of our podcasts. So yeah,
11:58
Speaker 2: there it is more made of stars.
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Speaker 6: Right after this, this is kind of a.
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Speaker 5: Cool story relating to a blue giant and a white
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Speaker 5: dwarf companion star, and like the speculation about, like are
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Speaker 5: they from the same area at the same time frame?
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Speaker 5: And there there there is now some theory about the
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Speaker 5: connection between these two.
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Speaker 2: These are two stars that are spending a lot of
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Speaker 2: time together romance and this as a matter of is
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Speaker 2: really the question, right? Yeah, And so there's there's such
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Speaker 2: a thing, speaking of strained analogies, there's such a thing
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Speaker 2: as a May December romance. I believe, if my memory serves,
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Speaker 2: that's when like two individuals in a relationship are very close,
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Speaker 2: but their birthdays are not all that close. And I
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Speaker 2: don't mean what month of the year, I mean what year.
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Speaker 6: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So imagine that if extrapolated to actual not movie stars,
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Speaker 2: but actual stars in the galaxy. Okay, so imagine two
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Speaker 2: stars and what we know as a binary system that
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Speaker 2: we usually think of as Hey, these two stars were
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Speaker 2: formed together out of the same nebulous cloud of hydrogen
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Speaker 2: gas and dust, and they just ended up so close
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Speaker 2: together as they formed as to be in a gravitationally bound,
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Speaker 2: stable mutual orbit. And so we call that a binary
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Speaker 2: star system. And they're the same age, and they grow
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Speaker 2: up together, and yes, one may burn it's fuel a
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Speaker 2: little faster than the other, so they may die out
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Speaker 2: a slightly different times, and then you can end up
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Speaker 2: with something called a white dwarf red giant pair, and
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Speaker 2: then that can lead to type two supernova. And there's
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Speaker 2: all kinds of exciting things. Type one A, Type one
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Speaker 2: A supernova. There's all kinds of exciting things that happen,
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Speaker 2: so okay, but that's not what we're talking about here,
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Speaker 2: because what we're talking about here is a star that
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Speaker 2: appears to be very young, a young blue giant star,
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Speaker 2: which is a star that just reached what we refer
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Speaker 2: to as the stable part of its nuclear fusion phase.
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Speaker 2: When that happens in astronomy language, we call that the
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Speaker 2: main sequence. They reach the main sequence of stars. This
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Speaker 2: looks like a star that just reached the main sequence,
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Speaker 2: but it is in a close, tight gravitational partnership bound
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Speaker 2: to a star that's already dead. It's a star that's
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Speaker 2: already lived its entire life, exploded in a kind of
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Speaker 2: explosion that isn't really a supernova. It's not like a
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Speaker 2: livefast young James Dean kind of thing. It's like a
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Speaker 2: good long career in Hollywood and then fall off, you know,
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Speaker 2: kind of the age of the age spectrum at the end,
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Speaker 2: like our Son's going to do. Like our Son's going
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Speaker 2: to do. Our Son is thought to have a total
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Speaker 2: lifespan of probably about ten billion years. We think we're
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Speaker 2: about halfway through that life cycle of our son, and
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Speaker 2: when it gets when our Son gets to the end
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Speaker 2: of its life cycle, it will release its outer layers
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Speaker 2: in a kinder, gentler explosion than a supernov explosion, and
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Speaker 2: its core will form this weird thing called a white
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Speaker 2: dwarf after ten billion years. Okay, so here's what we're
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Speaker 2: finding in this other star system. We're finding a blue
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Speaker 2: giant star whose total lifespan is thought to be only
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Speaker 2: about one billion years total lifespan birth to death. But
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Speaker 2: it's it's living, and it's at a nice young age,
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Speaker 2: is what it looks like. And it's in a gravitationally
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Speaker 2: bound relationship with a white dwarf star that we think
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Speaker 2: must have lived it kind of like the Sun would
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Speaker 2: do something like five to ten billion years before it died.
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Speaker 2: How did these two get together, Well, that's the question.
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Speaker 2: I will tell you that It makes it even more
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Speaker 2: interesting that the stars involved happened to be the binary
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Speaker 2: star system known as Serious sr Ius, just like Serious
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Speaker 2: XM Radio, like Sirius, like the Dog Star. Like this
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Speaker 2: is the brightest star that you can see in the
16:41
Speaker 2: nighttime sky. It's typically up in the winter time in
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Speaker 2: the early evening hours. It's hanging around Orion, and so
16:50
Speaker 2: it's in a part of the sky that a lot
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Speaker 2: of people see. A lot of people recognize this star.
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Speaker 2: So this is not just any old star up there
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Speaker 2: in the sky. This is one of the most familiar
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Speaker 2: stars to humanity throughout our history. And now we're finding
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Speaker 2: out that the star that we see with our naked
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Speaker 2: eye is this young blue giant star that appears to
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Speaker 2: be somewhere less than a billion years old, but orbiting
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Speaker 2: around it is a dead white dwarf companion. This is
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Speaker 2: a strange story. Friends. Did these two form at separate
17:24
Speaker 2: times and somehow end up in a mutually bound gravitational
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Speaker 2: interaction or is something wrong with the calculations of our
17:35
Speaker 2: ages of these stars? That's really the interesting question. There's
17:40
Speaker 2: a group of astronomers from Arizona at our variety of places,
17:43
Speaker 2: Arizona State University of Arizona, the observatory, mounta Lemon Observatory
17:48
Speaker 2: out there. All of these astronomers have been studying the situation,
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Speaker 2: and it looks like the answers down to two possibilities.
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Speaker 2: But both possibility these kind of have you know, related circumstances,
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Speaker 2: So it looks as though these stars were actually born
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Speaker 2: at the same time. But this serious B star as
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Speaker 2: we know it, the one that's already a white dwarf,
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Speaker 2: it just started out maybe a bit more massive, and
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Speaker 2: burned through its fuel a little quicker than what we
18:24
Speaker 2: would have expected, and died way younger than that ten
18:28
Speaker 2: billion years. So it went through a life cycle that
18:32
Speaker 2: appears to be similar to what our Sun would go through,
18:35
Speaker 2: but it didn't really. It actually burned out a lot
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Speaker 2: quicker because it had slightly more mass, but not enough
18:41
Speaker 2: mass to push it above the line where it would
18:43
Speaker 2: result in a supernov explosion, just enough to make sure
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Speaker 2: it still ended up as a white dwarf, but yet
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Speaker 2: just did it in a much shorter period of time.
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Speaker 2: That's one possibility.
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Speaker 5: So is it that would be the equivalent of the
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Speaker 5: whole I'll sleep when I'm dead lifestyle Like that's kind
18:59
Speaker 5: of very much, so hitting the clubs, you know, partying
19:03
Speaker 5: a little too hard, little too much.
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Speaker 6: All I could have.
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Speaker 5: Gone with, you know, stayed up too late studying, But
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Speaker 5: I assumed that this star was partying pretty hard.
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Speaker 4: You know.
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Speaker 2: And I'm not judging any kind of lifestyles of the
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Speaker 2: rich and famous stars out there at all, including series.
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Speaker 2: But you know, some some results are inevitable, and that
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Speaker 2: seems to be the case in this in this scenario.
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Speaker 2: But now here's the second possibility. Remember first possibility, bit
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Speaker 2: more massive than we thought, bit more gravity, bit rapid,
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Speaker 2: more rapid fusion. Second possibility. Second possibility from these group
19:39
Speaker 2: of astronomers in Arizona says maybe the evolution rates were
19:43
Speaker 2: different because the original chemistry within the two stars were different.
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Speaker 2: Somehow they ended up with different mixtures of the kinds
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Speaker 2: of chemicals that can regulate the rate of fusion in
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Speaker 2: the core of that star. How that would have occurred
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Speaker 2: not explained, But they are saying, hey, look, if we
20:06
Speaker 2: adjust these rates of chemicals basically is a good way
20:11
Speaker 2: to colloquially say it, then we can actually make the
20:14
Speaker 2: life cycle of these stars in our models be different
20:18
Speaker 2: than what would be expected normally. And so a second
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Speaker 2: possibility could be just made out of a little bit
20:24
Speaker 2: different stuff, or they just ended up with a little
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Speaker 2: bit different ratios of stuff. Even though they formed out
20:29
Speaker 2: of the same cloud, there were some asymmetries chemically within
20:32
Speaker 2: that parent nebula that caused them to end up with
20:36
Speaker 2: slightly different chemistries that led to a faster, more progressive
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Speaker 2: evolution rate in the star that already died. Okay, so
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Speaker 2: there's the two possibilities a little different in mass than
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Speaker 2: what we thought, or a little bit different in chemistry
20:50
Speaker 2: from each other. This case remains a mystery. Friends, if
20:54
Speaker 2: you like this kind of stuff, the stories on astronomy
20:57
Speaker 2: dot com today, you can go check it out. Why
21:01
Speaker 2: Serious A and Serious B seemed to be so different
21:05
Speaker 2: in ages when they probably formed the same time.
21:09
Speaker 5: We have talked about the possibility of mining other bodies
21:15
Speaker 5: in space. We talked about, oh, like we could you know,
21:19
Speaker 5: go to an asteroid and we could do mining operations
21:23
Speaker 5: on those things. How soon, perhaps before we could start
21:28
Speaker 5: mining diamonds from Saturn? And how soon maybe could we
21:34
Speaker 5: start selling those rings? Because I'm thinking, you know, they
21:37
Speaker 5: used to say, like, what is it a six month
21:40
Speaker 5: salary for four month? Three month salary for I think,
21:44
Speaker 5: you know, it would have to be somebody who's got
21:47
Speaker 5: a job that's paying a lot of money for it
21:50
Speaker 5: to be you know, three months or six month salary
21:53
Speaker 5: or whatever it is for a Saturn diamond. I don't
21:58
Speaker 5: know any chance we're going to be mining diamonds from
22:00
Speaker 5: Saturn anytime soon.
22:02
Speaker 2: Like so, if you're proposing to your significant other and
22:04
Speaker 2: you offer them a Saturn diamond, you know, is that more?
22:09
Speaker 2: Is that better than like a diamond from what Arkansas?
22:13
Speaker 5: I mean, it's the planet with the rings. You know,
22:16
Speaker 5: you go, all right, well it makes sense, I would
22:20
Speaker 5: they're probably I haven't. I should have looked. Maybe we
22:23
Speaker 5: have you know, jewelry stores named you know, Saturn's rings.
22:28
Speaker 5: If not patent pending anyway, I don't know that we're
22:32
Speaker 5: gonna be able to get diamonds from Saturn. But basically,
22:36
Speaker 5: lightning storms create a lot of diamonds on Saturn, a
22:41
Speaker 5: lot of them.
22:43
Speaker 6: How cool is this story?
22:44
Speaker 2: This is a really cool story. And we have kind
22:46
Speaker 2: of mentioned on other podcasts the possibility of diamonds being
22:51
Speaker 2: created in the atmospheres of gas giant planets. We've that's
22:54
Speaker 2: something we've touched on before. But the new part about
22:57
Speaker 2: this story from Space Daily dot com is that there
23:00
Speaker 2: are some tantalizing new calculations that suggest that the intensity
23:05
Speaker 2: of lightning in the atmosphere of Saturn has sufficient enough
23:10
Speaker 2: energy to break apart a sufficient amount of the methane molecule,
23:16
Speaker 2: which is, if you know your chemistry, it's H four.
23:19
Speaker 2: That means four hydrogen atoms bound to one carbon atom.
23:22
Speaker 2: But if you split those babies up with some really
23:24
Speaker 2: intense Saturn lightning, you make a giant amount of the
23:28
Speaker 2: stuff called carbon soot. You free up those carbon molecules,
23:32
Speaker 2: and you get this really wispy smoke of carbon soot
23:37
Speaker 2: that once it's released and free in Saturn's atmosphere. Saturn's
23:41
Speaker 2: atmosphere has a tremendous amount of pressure because of the
23:43
Speaker 2: tremendous amount of gravity on Saturn, and all of this
23:47
Speaker 2: soot made of carbon gets squeezed down into a kind
23:52
Speaker 2: of unusual form of carbon, which is a diamond. Friends.
23:57
Speaker 2: And you don't just make one diamond. You make with
24:00
Speaker 2: all this carbon sit and all this lightning in Saturn's atmosphere,
24:03
Speaker 2: you make lots of diamonds. The new CALCU calculations suggest
24:09
Speaker 2: one thousand tons of diamonds each year. A thousand tons
24:17
Speaker 2: of diamonds in the atmosphere of Saturn are being formed
24:21
Speaker 2: each year. I'll tell again, that's a lot. It is
24:25
Speaker 2: a lot. According to a quote from the article from
24:28
Speaker 2: Space Daily dot com, quote this is a quote tantalizing theory,
24:32
Speaker 2: but built on lightning observations and physics calculations, not proof
24:37
Speaker 2: of a gem filled world orbiting the Sun unquote. So
24:42
Speaker 2: what they're saying is this, like, we haven't actually measured diamonds.
24:48
Speaker 2: What we've done is we've measured lightning, and we've said, okay, well,
24:53
Speaker 2: we know the intensity of the lightning, we know the
24:57
Speaker 2: energies involved, we know the composition of Saturn's atmosphere and
25:02
Speaker 2: it includes lots of these methane atoms molecules, and so
25:08
Speaker 2: if we are zapping those methane molecules with this really
25:13
Speaker 2: intense lightning, it should break apart that molecule into the atoms,
25:18
Speaker 2: and those carbon atoms then are free to form this
25:21
Speaker 2: carbon soot. If that would you know, there's a lot
25:23
Speaker 2: of ifs now, right, if we release the lightning in
25:26
Speaker 2: the methane atmosphere, and if the methane atmosphere responds to
25:30
Speaker 2: that lightning by breaking apart as molecules. And if that
25:33
Speaker 2: carbon soot can somehow come together be brought together in
25:36
Speaker 2: the intense pressure of Saturn's atmosphere, the calculation show, or
25:41
Speaker 2: the models show that that carbon would soon be crushed
25:45
Speaker 2: down to a solid form, and that solid form would
25:49
Speaker 2: be very similar to the process that happens in the
25:51
Speaker 2: deep places of the Earth that form diamonds. And so
25:55
Speaker 2: then you calculate how much lightning is happening, and you
26:00
Speaker 2: model how many diamonds should be formed. So that's really
26:02
Speaker 2: that's really how science works, right. You know of circumstances,
26:06
Speaker 2: that's the input information. You know what kinds of processes
26:11
Speaker 2: can take place in the physical world, and so then
26:14
Speaker 2: you extrapolate the results. So the extrapolated results are a
26:18
Speaker 2: thousand tons of diamonds per year. The diamonds squeeze together
26:26
Speaker 2: in Saturn's atmosphere, and then once the diamonds are formed,
26:30
Speaker 2: they would sink deeper into the Saturnian atmosphere, down to
26:35
Speaker 2: a place that's close to the core where they would
26:37
Speaker 2: form an ocean of liquid diamonds. These are physical circumstances
26:46
Speaker 2: that our minds have a difficult time imagining because they
26:50
Speaker 2: require conditions that are drastically foreign to the conditions that
26:57
Speaker 2: we experience on the surface of the earth.
26:58
Speaker 6: No, I got this.
27:00
Speaker 5: Let me, let me, let me put this in terms
27:02
Speaker 5: of everybody can understand. Imagine that there's enough old ladies
27:06
Speaker 5: at the end of Titanic to throw a thousand tons
27:09
Speaker 5: of diamonds down in the ocean at the end. Sorry
27:11
Speaker 5: spoiler alert, but you got to have enough of those
27:14
Speaker 5: old ladies to throw them down.
27:15
Speaker 2: There there was room on that plank we could to
27:21
Speaker 2: fit on the plank.
27:22
Speaker 5: I like the George Costanza reaction to that theory, and
27:26
Speaker 5: that is just that old lady was a liar, wasn't she.
27:33
Speaker 2: H.
27:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, we can't fully comprehend all these things, but it's
27:36
Speaker 5: such a cool thought obviously, if if this is what's
27:39
Speaker 5: actually happening, and just trying to imagine what it what
27:45
Speaker 5: it would be like, and then of course knowing that
27:48
Speaker 5: they're all plummeting to the bottom of the sea, like
27:51
Speaker 5: whatever that diamond was called Heart of the Sea, what
27:53
Speaker 5: was it called, I don't know, Chicken of the sea,
27:56
Speaker 5: Tune of the sea, something like that, whatever it was
27:59
Speaker 5: under the sea, all right, I won't sing anymore.
28:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a little crab find it and give it
28:06
Speaker 2: to the seagull. And the seagull doesn't really know what
28:07
Speaker 2: it is, so he calls it some weird name.
28:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, that would make sense. More made of stars right
28:12
Speaker 5: after this. It's fun when you got a story that
28:35
Speaker 5: is so old and then you.
28:38
Speaker 6: Go, hey, we got an update.
28:42
Speaker 5: This just in it's it's i mean, taking terms of
28:46
Speaker 5: like when they come out with these stories, they go
28:48
Speaker 5: they think they may know who Jack the Ripper was,
28:51
Speaker 5: and you go, all right, well that's kind of crazy,
28:53
Speaker 5: but how could they How could they know that? And
28:55
Speaker 5: then they have some theory and you go, well, maybe
28:57
Speaker 5: that's that's the case.
28:58
Speaker 4: No, No, this is way.
29:00
Speaker 6: Older than that update.
29:03
Speaker 5: Do they know of the type of meteorite that killed
29:06
Speaker 5: the dinosaurs?
29:07
Speaker 4: Ye told you?
29:08
Speaker 2: What do you mean conscious pilot was left handed? Where
29:10
Speaker 2: did that come from?
29:12
Speaker 6: Out of nowhere?
29:16
Speaker 2: It does seem a bit that way, yes, but you know,
29:18
Speaker 2: relating back to our last story. Relating to this story,
29:21
Speaker 2: part of the really awesome and inspiring part about physics, astronomy,
29:26
Speaker 2: physical science is unraveling mysteries. It's all forensics, really right,
29:31
Speaker 2: and so you really can if you have the right
29:34
Speaker 2: data inputs, go back and add new nuance, new light,
29:39
Speaker 2: new understanding to some really old problems out there. And
29:42
Speaker 2: that's again that's the fun part, right. So here's another
29:46
Speaker 2: story that's like that we's just mentioned. This one's in
29:48
Speaker 2: Universe today dot com. The researchers who are looking at
29:53
Speaker 2: the object that came from space that killed the dinosaurs
30:00
Speaker 2: calling a meteorite. This headline was meteorite asteroid. It was
30:03
Speaker 2: something big, right, something very large, came in and hit
30:07
Speaker 2: the Earth at a boundary that geologists know as the
30:12
Speaker 2: Cretaceous Paleogene boundary.
30:15
Speaker 6: You could say that eg.
30:17
Speaker 2: Cretaceous starts with the letter C. They call it the
30:21
Speaker 2: KPg boundary. This is a mystery in itself. Do you
30:25
Speaker 2: want to know more about that? Take take geology as
30:28
Speaker 2: a subject, and then you can come tell me. They
30:30
Speaker 2: just ran out of you know, they ran out of letters.
30:32
Speaker 2: They had to use a K. They threw a K
30:34
Speaker 2: in there, all right. So during the Cretaceous Paleogene boundary,
30:39
Speaker 2: it's a transition from the Cretaceous area to the Paleogene era.
30:44
Speaker 2: By the way, Palo Gene is that's where we live.
30:47
Speaker 2: We're in that and cretationall was the one before us, right,
30:50
Speaker 2: that's where the dinosaurs lived. There was this boundary where
30:53
Speaker 2: dinosaurs quit living, and then eventually we came along. So
30:57
Speaker 2: that boundary was kind of punctuated by a thin layer
31:01
Speaker 2: of a ridium, which is a radioactive material that generally
31:04
Speaker 2: comes from asteroids in space. It is very rare in
31:07
Speaker 2: the Earth's crust. It's an iridium layer that is at
31:11
Speaker 2: that boundary around the entire world, you see. So therefore
31:16
Speaker 2: it suggests that perhaps the entire world was enriched by
31:21
Speaker 2: a layer of material that did not come from this Earth,
31:25
Speaker 2: that came from extraterrestrial origin. And that was the first
31:29
Speaker 2: evidence that perhaps an extraterrestrial object was somehow involved with,
31:35
Speaker 2: if not killing off the dinosaurs, finishing off the dinosaurs
31:38
Speaker 2: for sure. And what we know is an extinction level
31:41
Speaker 2: event or an el E. That extinctional level event that
31:45
Speaker 2: took place at the KPg boundary wiped out about two, No,
31:49
Speaker 2: about three, there's two my Hereas for three, I'll raise
31:53
Speaker 2: you to three. Wiping out about three quarters of all
31:56
Speaker 2: plants and animal species on Earth at the time, and
32:00
Speaker 2: including what remained of the dinosaurs. I say it that
32:04
Speaker 2: way because there's ideas that maybe the dinosaurs were dying
32:06
Speaker 2: out anyway, but this was the final punch. Okay, now
32:10
Speaker 2: here's the fun part. The fun part is we've known
32:13
Speaker 2: about that for a while. You know, it came out
32:17
Speaker 2: kind of in the eighties. I remember being you know,
32:19
Speaker 2: like a high school gig go woh, the dinosaurs got
32:23
Speaker 2: taken out by a rock from space. That's pretty cool.
32:26
Speaker 2: And it's things like this that led me to the field.
32:28
Speaker 2: But here's what we know today. Because of new studies
32:33
Speaker 2: taking place and new research being done and being published
32:38
Speaker 2: in something called Science Advances by an international team of
32:42
Speaker 2: researchers who have been looking at what is left over
32:47
Speaker 2: from that object from space. They can do a new
32:52
Speaker 2: set of studies called a nickel isotope analysis from samples
32:57
Speaker 2: of that KPg layer from around the world. Slightly radioactive
33:00
Speaker 2: with the ridium, but it also has nickel isotopes, and
33:04
Speaker 2: from that study they can figure out the composition of
33:07
Speaker 2: that meteorite that hit the Earth sixty six million years ago. That,
33:14
Speaker 2: my friends, is impressive forensics. And what they have found
33:20
Speaker 2: from their nickel isotope analysis done just recently is that
33:25
Speaker 2: that wasn't just any old meteorite coming from space or
33:28
Speaker 2: asteroid or big rock that happened to be something known
33:32
Speaker 2: as a carbonaceous chondrite, and carbonaceous chondrites are weird even
33:39
Speaker 2: among meteors from space. So even among the population of
33:43
Speaker 2: space rocks, these carbonaceous chondrites form a very small subset,
33:51
Speaker 2: and they form a very small subset of the actual
33:54
Speaker 2: rocks that we find recovered on the surface of the Earth.
33:57
Speaker 2: Only about five percent of meteorites recover on the surface
34:00
Speaker 2: of the Earth are of the family of carbonaceous chondrites.
34:05
Speaker 2: Let me tell you a little bit more about carbonaceous chondrites.
34:09
Speaker 2: These carbonaceous chondrites don't typically tend to be the kind
34:14
Speaker 2: of iron nickel big rocks that hit the Earth and
34:19
Speaker 2: we find fragments all over the place. They tend to
34:22
Speaker 2: be more what we call filled with volatile elements. Volatile
34:28
Speaker 2: elements are those that don't have a good time surviving
34:32
Speaker 2: the heat of passage coming through the Earth's atmosphere. They
34:35
Speaker 2: tend to either explode or boil off, and those materials
34:39
Speaker 2: don't tend to survive to the ground. That's why they're
34:42
Speaker 2: not as commonly found. It's also a little bit weird
34:45
Speaker 2: to even find them. In space because those objects are
34:49
Speaker 2: really like time capsules left over from the formation of
34:53
Speaker 2: the Solar System. They have been unprocessed by all of
34:59
Speaker 2: the phenomenon taking place that formed protoplanets, and then the
35:04
Speaker 2: heavy stuff sunk to the middle of these protoplanets, and
35:06
Speaker 2: light stuff got pushed to the outer edges, and then
35:08
Speaker 2: those proto planets got shattered, and then those pieces falling
35:12
Speaker 2: on the Earth. No no, no, not carbonaceous chondrites. They
35:16
Speaker 2: didn't go through that. They are original material, unprocessed from
35:22
Speaker 2: the beginning of the Solar System. That's what makes it
35:25
Speaker 2: super interesting that now it looks like that kind of
35:29
Speaker 2: a rock is the one that made its way all
35:33
Speaker 2: those billions of years through the formation of the Solar System,
35:36
Speaker 2: hanging out in its original form, and then it waited
35:39
Speaker 2: until dinosaurs got formed on our planet and came down
35:42
Speaker 2: and gave Earth a giant punch in the eye and
35:45
Speaker 2: took out the giant lizards. That's just what happened, friends,
35:47
Speaker 2: It's not a value judgment, it's just what it looks like.
35:50
Speaker 2: So so once again, check out Universe Today. Check out
35:53
Speaker 2: this cool article about the dinosaur killing asteroid being a
35:58
Speaker 2: carbonaceous chondrite. Pretty cool stuf.
36:00
Speaker 5: And just to follow up, rip Sam Neil, who died
36:03
Speaker 5: since our last show, you know, just figure we should
36:05
Speaker 5: throw that in the mix.
36:06
Speaker 2: I mean that's sad, right it, Yes, yeah, like I
36:10
Speaker 2: mean it's always sad when people died, don't get me wrong.
36:13
Speaker 2: And you know, celebrities, we tend to give them a
36:14
Speaker 2: little bit more attention than we probably should. He just
36:17
Speaker 2: seemed like a dude, right, He was a cool guy.
36:21
Speaker 2: Loved the roles he played, loved that part in particular,
36:25
Speaker 2: and yeah, we feel sad that Sam Neil is no
36:28
Speaker 2: longer with us. Also an Australian tie for you and
36:30
Speaker 2: your family, So there you go. Tribute to Sam Neil.
36:34
Speaker 5: And I don't know if you saw the clip that
36:37
Speaker 5: was sort of went viral of him with Jeff Goldbloom together.
36:44
Speaker 5: The last post on social media was the two of
36:47
Speaker 5: them like playing music together, and there were some references
36:51
Speaker 5: to like, you know the fact that they wouldn't always
36:53
Speaker 5: be with us, and it's kind of creepy and eerie
36:55
Speaker 5: that that was the final post on social media from
36:58
Speaker 5: Sam Neil. He died soon after that.
37:02
Speaker 2: Anyway, just interesting and sad and yeah, we you know
37:06
Speaker 2: again we like to tip our hats to people that
37:08
Speaker 2: do cool stuff. He certainly did amazing things with his career. Absolutely,
37:12
Speaker 2: you just seemed to be the genuine article, right, the
37:16
Speaker 2: real guy.
37:17
Speaker 5: And honestly, the number of times we've seen people cast
37:20
Speaker 5: in movies as intelligent people and.
37:22
Speaker 6: You go, yeah, that guy ain't smart. He at least
37:25
Speaker 6: was able to sell.
37:26
Speaker 2: It right, really well.
37:28
Speaker 5: Actually, I mean no offense to some of the others,
37:31
Speaker 5: and I don't want to, you know, mention them by name,
37:35
Speaker 5: but you know, sometimes they just I'm just not buying
37:37
Speaker 5: that they're that smart. I bought him as that smart.
37:41
Speaker 2: I'm hanging around with a lot of college professors, and
37:43
Speaker 2: I can just tell you. The whole business about him
37:45
Speaker 2: getting kind of frustrated with the seat belt and tying
37:47
Speaker 2: it in a not in the in the Jurassic Park
37:50
Speaker 2: film was so like so many of my friends that
37:53
Speaker 2: I know, that's just like, okay, problem solve watch this boom.
37:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about of professors and things. Let's talk
38:01
Speaker 5: about Columbus a University's co Cola Space Science Center, where
38:04
Speaker 5: that final stretch before back to school we got in
38:08
Speaker 5: the area in which we broadcast from h in the
38:12
Speaker 5: Chattahoochee Valley area. A lot of the schools getting started back.
38:15
Speaker 5: I guess some as soon as next week, and then
38:19
Speaker 5: a few weeks for others. And I know that means
38:22
Speaker 5: it's kind of the final stretch for you guys, getting
38:24
Speaker 5: ready start welcoming in so many school kids from the
38:27
Speaker 5: area and really beyond.
38:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's part of what we do during this
38:32
Speaker 2: time of year we have. We have a little bit
38:34
Speaker 2: of a what might seem like a lull coming up,
38:38
Speaker 2: which is we're finishing up our summer camps. We haven't
38:42
Speaker 2: quite started the school groups yet. There's a name for
38:45
Speaker 2: that here in our building. We refer to that as
38:47
Speaker 2: August and August did the Space Science Center has a
38:52
Speaker 2: special meaning. August means we are all doing big projects here,
38:58
Speaker 2: the kind of you know, like there's a time of
39:00
Speaker 2: year where you clean out the attic, or there's a
39:02
Speaker 2: time of year where you know you set aside to
39:05
Speaker 2: do spring cleaning or whatever around your house. Well, August
39:08
Speaker 2: is the time that we set aside here at Space
39:10
Speaker 2: Sigence Center to do some of the big renovation and
39:14
Speaker 2: exhibit construction projects that we have, and we kind of
39:17
Speaker 2: plan them for this window of time that's a little
39:19
Speaker 2: less busy for us, and so we're doing some big ones.
39:21
Speaker 2: We are right now in the process of upgrading the
39:24
Speaker 2: telescope mount and cameras in our observatory. So the next time,
39:29
Speaker 2: for those of you who have been down to the
39:30
Speaker 2: observatory before, the next time you come to visit, that
39:33
Speaker 2: telescope won't even look the same anymore. It is the
39:36
Speaker 2: same telescope, it's going to be on a completely different mount,
39:39
Speaker 2: have a completely different set of cameras, all with extended
39:42
Speaker 2: and enhanced features and capabilities. So we're really excited about that.
39:49
Speaker 2: In addition to that, we have a Moon mission lab
39:53
Speaker 2: called our Falcon Base here at Space Science Center. We
39:56
Speaker 2: are doing a major upgrade and renovation to our Falcon
39:58
Speaker 2: Base throughout the month of August. Should be up and
40:01
Speaker 2: running in very early September. So if you come down
40:05
Speaker 2: over the next few weeks and you see, you know,
40:07
Speaker 2: kind of crates sitting in the exhibit gallery, or you know,
40:10
Speaker 2: people running around carrying hammers or ladders or whatever, it's
40:14
Speaker 2: all because this is the time of year where we
40:16
Speaker 2: do these special projects and they are going on with fervor.
40:20
Speaker 2: So still welcome you to come down really welcome you
40:24
Speaker 2: to come back down after Labor Day and see these
40:26
Speaker 2: fun things that are taking place. But we want you
40:28
Speaker 2: to come down anytime. Come visit us at Columbus at
40:31
Speaker 2: University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. For more information, visit
40:34
Speaker 2: the website www dot cc SSC dot org.
40:39
Speaker 5: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we will
40:41
Speaker 5: do this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus
40:51
Speaker 5: has all of your garage door needs covered residential and
40:54
Speaker 5: commercial service and repairs. If you need a new garage
40:58
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Speaker 5: oh six three five eight forty five hundred seven oh
41:12
Speaker 5: six three five eight forty five hundred odccolumbus dot com.
41:16
Speaker 5: Get ready for dragon Con forty. It's the fortieth Dragon
41:21
Speaker 5: Con and it happens Labor Day weekend in downtown Atlanta
41:25
Speaker 5: September third through the seventh, and you can get ready
41:30
Speaker 5: for it with the dragon Con pregame show coming to
41:34
Speaker 5: radio and podcast on August the twenty ninth. It'll be
41:39
Speaker 5: aired on about two hundred radio stations around the state
41:42
Speaker 5: of Georgia and rolling over into nearby states, and you
41:47
Speaker 5: can hear guests will be attending the dragon Con convention.
41:52
Speaker 5: It is the largest popular arts convention anywhere in the world,
41:57
Speaker 5: and on the pregame show this year, you're gonna hear
42:00
Speaker 5: from guests who will be attending. This year's guest list
42:03
Speaker 5: includes Star Trek, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Starship Troopers, Smallville,
42:10
Speaker 5: and more. Coverage of the dragon Con pregame show is
42:14
Speaker 5: powered by Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center,
42:18
Speaker 5: where you can learn the science behind the science fiction
42:23
Speaker 5: and it is coming August twenty ninth. In the meantime,
42:27
Speaker 5: you can listen to past episodes of the dragon Con
42:30
Speaker 5: pregame show with some of the guests who will actually
42:32
Speaker 5: be attending this year. Some of them have been on
42:35
Speaker 5: multiple shows, including Ross mar Kwan from The Walking Dead
42:39
Speaker 5: and The Marvel Universe. Also, I've interviewed William Shatner, Evangeline
42:45
Speaker 5: Lilly who was the Wasp in ant Man and ant
42:49
Speaker 5: Man in The Wasp, and.
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Speaker 6: Also ant Man Quantumnia, but we won't talk about that.
42:54
Speaker 6: Check out past shows.
42:55
Speaker 5: It's the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast, wherever you get
42:58
Speaker 5: your podcasts,