Latest / Made of Stars / About That Asteroid Heading Our Way in 2032

Transcript

About That Asteroid Heading Our Way in 2032 · 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, made sizes. When
0:29
Speaker 3: made us stars, you could be from high they would
0:36
Speaker 3: New Mexicomus, where all stars?
0:43
Speaker 4: When we are made of stars. I'm Wes Carol, joined
0:57
Speaker 4: by my good friend doctor Sean Cruising from Columbus State
1:00
Speaker 4: Universities Coca Cola Spased Science Center. Heyshan, Good morning, less,
1:05
Speaker 4: good to be here today. We got a story we're
1:08
Speaker 4: gonna get to that is probably on people's radar, something
1:13
Speaker 4: that's kind of being talked about, and for good reason.
1:17
Speaker 4: We don't want to be alarmists or anything, but you know,
1:21
Speaker 4: could mean the end of the world as we know it.
1:24
Speaker 4: But other than that, it's nothing to be alarmed about.
1:27
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not a major but anyway, we'll talk
1:30
Speaker 4: about it. We'll dive into the story and explain to
1:33
Speaker 4: you where things are. The positive thing is, even if
1:38
Speaker 4: the bad thing happens, it's you know, a little over set,
1:41
Speaker 4: like seven and a half years away.
1:43
Speaker 2: So it's not like emminent. You've got time to get things.
1:46
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not a bad thing unless it's your house.
1:50
Speaker 2: That's true, It's very true.
1:53
Speaker 4: It's also not a bad thing at least since we
1:56
Speaker 4: got Dart. But we'll get to all that. We got
1:59
Speaker 4: time to get to that in a minute. I want
2:00
Speaker 4: to start first with something that we've been kind of
2:04
Speaker 4: talking about, because we've discussed the fact that there's been
2:08
Speaker 4: some discussion about, you know, federal cuts have been happening.
2:12
Speaker 4: We don't do politics here, but let's be real for
2:14
Speaker 4: a minute here these different cuts in different areas of
2:19
Speaker 4: government as it pertains to government efficiency. Is that a
2:23
Speaker 4: good diplomatic way to say? So, we knew that there
2:27
Speaker 4: was a chance. There have been rumors that there were
2:28
Speaker 4: big cuts coming to NASA, and now.
2:32
Speaker 2: This is a.
2:35
Speaker 4: Evolving, developing story. So we can't tell you what the
2:39
Speaker 4: eventual outcome will be. We do just kind of have
2:42
Speaker 4: a current update on where things are as per a
2:46
Speaker 4: report from Space News.
2:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can tell you today what Wes and I
2:53
Speaker 2: are reading that looks like is happening yeah, and maybe
2:58
Speaker 2: that will give you some level of confidence and reassurance.
3:01
Speaker 2: I don't know, but as Wes said, we're kind of
3:04
Speaker 2: we're kind of close in to the date of an
3:07
Speaker 2: evolving story. So as the uh, well let's just call
3:11
Speaker 2: it as it is. As Elon Musk and Doge are
3:13
Speaker 2: going around and visiting various federal agencies, kind of like
3:18
Speaker 2: the anti Santa Claus in the middle of the night.
3:20
Speaker 2: Maybe a bit like Grin, the Grinch that stole government money,
3:24
Speaker 2: so something like that. Anyway, so as they visited various agencies,
3:31
Speaker 2: you know, NASA is on the list, right And so
3:33
Speaker 2: why we're talking about it on this podcast is not
3:35
Speaker 2: because we have any dogs in the fight. We're going
3:38
Speaker 2: to stay out of dogs in the fight, but we
3:40
Speaker 2: are going to tell you because we report on NASA
3:43
Speaker 2: the latest about NASA cuts. And Elon Musk and President
3:48
Speaker 2: Trump sat down with NASA officials just less than two
3:52
Speaker 2: days ago, which is why we're still really fresh into this.
3:56
Speaker 2: And on the day that they sat down, they were
3:58
Speaker 2: all manner of of shall we say, disparaging or dark
4:04
Speaker 2: and gloomy headlines about the thousands of NASA employees that
4:08
Speaker 2: we're about to lose their jobs, and it looks right
4:13
Speaker 2: now as we report according to one article that I'm
4:17
Speaker 2: going to quote is space News, because we find that
4:20
Speaker 2: SpaceNews dot com is a very accurate and in depth
4:25
Speaker 2: news organization about the space industry. So when they're reporting
4:30
Speaker 2: a headline like this, I think they probably have done
4:33
Speaker 2: their homework, and so therefore I think I can stand
4:36
Speaker 2: on reasonably solid ground to say Space News is currently
4:42
Speaker 2: reporting as we record this podcast, that NASA employees are
4:47
Speaker 2: going to be spared, and so again we're not reporting
4:52
Speaker 2: that on this podcast as solid fact. I'm just saying
4:56
Speaker 2: that's one of the headlines that we're seeing, which it
4:59
Speaker 2: appears that NASA employees have not yet been cut and
5:03
Speaker 2: might actually escape with an exemption the entire federal workforce
5:10
Speaker 2: cutting process, at least at this time, that's what it
5:12
Speaker 2: looks like.
5:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't have any inside or info on it.
5:15
Speaker 4: We're just sourcing it to Space News as someone that
5:20
Speaker 4: we have been able to kind of see as someone
5:22
Speaker 4: who's been a credible source for information. So that's the
5:25
Speaker 4: best we can do at this point. It could change, obviously,
5:28
Speaker 4: we don't know where all of these things are going.
5:30
Speaker 4: It seems to change sometimes day to day, very fluid
5:34
Speaker 4: story as far as this particular thing goes. We obviously
5:38
Speaker 4: hope for funding for NASA because we'd like them to
5:42
Speaker 4: continue on with some of the missions, and very optimistic
5:46
Speaker 4: thing future that we're hoping that NASA is going to
5:49
Speaker 4: be able to do things. So all right, so let's
5:53
Speaker 4: transition out over to a couple of things that are
5:57
Speaker 4: happening here soon. This is significant because within a span
6:01
Speaker 4: of just a few days, two different lunar landings are
6:06
Speaker 4: planned to take place. That's does it typically happen very often,
6:13
Speaker 4: and it typically doesn't happen within just a few days
6:16
Speaker 4: of each other.
6:16
Speaker 2: Let's start with the Blue Ghost. Okay, So first of all,
6:22
Speaker 2: we like this story just because it's called blue Ghost. Yeah,
6:26
Speaker 2: I dig it. I'm all about the blue Ghost. I mean,
6:28
Speaker 2: I'm enough of a geek that I would love to
6:30
Speaker 2: have a T shirt that said fireflies blue ghost yeah,
6:34
Speaker 2: and showed a spaceship on it. That would be really
6:36
Speaker 2: cool for me, you know, I mean, blue ghost firefly.
6:39
Speaker 2: If you're listening out there.
6:42
Speaker 4: As a pac Man fan and a misspac Man fan,
6:45
Speaker 4: I'm just going to tell you right now, Inky is
6:48
Speaker 4: the blue Ghost You know, they're all go blue when
6:50
Speaker 4: the power pellet comes into play. But if they want
6:53
Speaker 4: to nickname the sucker Inky, they.
6:55
Speaker 2: Can do it.
6:56
Speaker 4: I am happy to offer that up if they want
6:58
Speaker 4: to do that. But anyway, let's when's Incy gonna touch ground?
7:03
Speaker 2: Okay, let's source the story spaceflightnow dot com. Firefly Aerospace
7:09
Speaker 2: has a vehicle that's going to fly to the Moon.
7:12
Speaker 2: It's already on its way up there, and it's called
7:15
Speaker 2: the Blue Ghost. It's a lander. It's scheduled to land
7:20
Speaker 2: the first week of March, and it actually did a
7:24
Speaker 2: really important stage in its trip to the Moon, which
7:28
Speaker 2: is called a lunar orbit insertion burn. That happened at
7:33
Speaker 2: about nine pm Eastern Standard Time on February thirteenth. So
7:38
Speaker 2: that's between you know now on our previous podcast, So
7:41
Speaker 2: that's happened since the last time we talked to you.
7:43
Speaker 2: So anyway, it's in orbit around the Moon successfully now,
7:46
Speaker 2: which is great. It's sending back pictures of the Moon,
7:49
Speaker 2: which is also awesome. It's sending back pictures of the
7:52
Speaker 2: Moon's south pole, which is a particularly difficult region of
7:57
Speaker 2: the Moon to be able to observe from the Earth
7:59
Speaker 2: because that part never faces Tortoise. It's at the bottom
8:03
Speaker 2: of the Moon with respect to its orientation to the Earth.
8:06
Speaker 2: So it's an undiscovered or an unexplored area for the
8:11
Speaker 2: most part any kind of detail, and that's one of
8:14
Speaker 2: the reasons why the effort to send landers to that
8:18
Speaker 2: area is so important. So we will tell you that
8:22
Speaker 2: Firefly's Blue Ghost lander is headed for the lunar South
8:27
Speaker 2: Pole as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
8:32
Speaker 2: And let us also remember that that's the orientation of
8:36
Speaker 2: the location of landing sites for the future Artemis missions
8:40
Speaker 2: as well. So these landers are going up and exploring
8:44
Speaker 2: the Moon's south Pole in advanced preparation for the Artemis
8:49
Speaker 2: program and their landing vehicles where people will actually go
8:53
Speaker 2: down to that lunar south Pole and explore that region
8:55
Speaker 2: down there. So it's a really important part of the
8:58
Speaker 2: Moon to be able to investigate. By the way, this
9:00
Speaker 2: did launch on a Falcon nine rocket, which I guess
9:04
Speaker 2: loosely ties to our previous story. I don't know something
9:06
Speaker 2: like that anyway, So it was a SpaceX rocket that
9:08
Speaker 2: launched it up there, and you know Firefly Aerospace one,
9:13
Speaker 2: it's commercial Lunar Payload Services or clps BID and it's
9:20
Speaker 2: carrying ten different experiments for NASA to this region. Now,
9:26
Speaker 2: we will note right now that commercial landers on the
9:29
Speaker 2: Moon have had a little bit of a difficult time,
9:32
Speaker 2: And it was just about a year ago where we
9:34
Speaker 2: were talking about a whole armada of potential commercial landers
9:38
Speaker 2: going to the Moon and they pretty much it's hard
9:41
Speaker 2: to call them a failure because some of them actually
9:43
Speaker 2: performed soft landings and took data, but none of them
9:45
Speaker 2: completely succeeded. How about that they fell over There were
9:49
Speaker 2: you know, incidents where they simply didn't land on the surface,
9:53
Speaker 2: they ended up upside down stuff like that. So so certainly,
9:56
Speaker 2: certainly they didn't just augur in on the surface of
9:59
Speaker 2: the Moon, but they also didn't land. It wasn't a
10:01
Speaker 2: perfect ten. They didn't stick the landing, if we can
10:04
Speaker 2: use a gymnastics term there. So anyway, we are currently
10:07
Speaker 2: wishing Blue Ghost a better landing. It's scheduled to take
10:11
Speaker 2: place on March the second, and as.
10:12
Speaker 4: You point out, I mean, you know, not a complete success,
10:15
Speaker 4: but you know, like landing on the surface of the
10:18
Speaker 4: Moon is better than the ones that land below the surface,
10:23
Speaker 4: you know, the ones that really really deep dive in
10:26
Speaker 4: there when they crash. So now let's talk about the
10:30
Speaker 4: other one, because I mean, we got a second one
10:32
Speaker 4: that's a similar landing zone and you know, similar type mission,
10:38
Speaker 4: but and a similar time window on when this thing
10:41
Speaker 4: will land.
10:42
Speaker 2: Right, So, first of all, when you're going down to
10:44
Speaker 2: the lunar south Pole, it's got a lot less sunlight,
10:48
Speaker 2: and so the way the Moon orbits the Earth and
10:52
Speaker 2: also rotates on its axis the Moon, any point on
10:57
Speaker 2: the Moon can be in sunshine for a couple of weeks.
11:00
Speaker 2: It's about fourteen days, and so they're trying to land
11:05
Speaker 2: these missions at a time where they'll have the full
11:08
Speaker 2: two weeks of sunshine basically in a single lunar cycle.
11:13
Speaker 2: And so it's not really a coincidence that these two
11:15
Speaker 2: landing dates are really close together. But the second mission,
11:19
Speaker 2: which is also a commercial lunar payload services program, is
11:24
Speaker 2: called Intuitive Machines Number two or IM two. The company,
11:29
Speaker 2: of course is Intuitive Machines. It is a part also
11:33
Speaker 2: of the Artemis program and looking to conduct scientific missions
11:39
Speaker 2: on the Moon for the benefit of all humanity, but
11:42
Speaker 2: also in support of the crew as they land on
11:46
Speaker 2: the surface of the Moon in coordination with SpaceX. The
11:50
Speaker 2: liftoff time for that vehicle is the twenty sixth of February,
11:53
Speaker 2: so it's just a little less than a week from now.
11:55
Speaker 2: It's targeted for a four day launch window that opens
11:59
Speaker 2: on the twenty sixth of February. So Intuitive Machines vehicle
12:02
Speaker 2: has not yet launched. We think it could launch February
12:05
Speaker 2: twenty six It might be a day or two after,
12:07
Speaker 2: really depends on the weather. But if they hit that
12:10
Speaker 2: February twenty sixth, first day in the window, they could
12:13
Speaker 2: also land during the first week of March on the
12:16
Speaker 2: lunar surface. So that's kind of the plan, and so
12:20
Speaker 2: Intuitive Machines one of the companies that has also had
12:24
Speaker 2: an unsuccessful landing on the Moon. That was Intuitive Machines
12:27
Speaker 2: one or i AM one. It just didn't go well.
12:31
Speaker 2: Not everything worked anyway, So we're looking forward to these
12:36
Speaker 2: two missions, and you can read about the Intuitive Machines
12:40
Speaker 2: on NASA dot gov. They have an article currently up
12:44
Speaker 2: about a second Moon Invader that's going to launch within
12:49
Speaker 2: hopefully the next week, maybe just slightly more than a week,
12:53
Speaker 2: and hit that four day launch window at the end
12:55
Speaker 2: of February.
12:56
Speaker 4: So when you talk about the advantages as far as
12:59
Speaker 4: the sunlight and thing. I mean that means all of
13:02
Speaker 4: this intentional, as far as the two arriving at about
13:05
Speaker 4: the same time, that's right.
13:08
Speaker 2: And so what they want to do is they want
13:10
Speaker 2: to be able to land in the lunar daylight and
13:14
Speaker 2: again at any point on the moon. Lunar daylight lasts
13:17
Speaker 2: about two weeks, and these landers really need that daylight
13:22
Speaker 2: because they have solar panels to power their systems, and
13:26
Speaker 2: so all their experiments that they have on board can
13:30
Speaker 2: run while there's sunlight to charge via the solar panels
13:34
Speaker 2: the experiments that are on board, and so they need
13:37
Speaker 2: to land in that sunlight window so that they can
13:40
Speaker 2: actually power their experiments. So that's why they're pretty close
13:43
Speaker 2: to the same landing time as a target.
13:46
Speaker 4: Elon hasn't put any charging stations up there just yet.
13:49
Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like it's coming, but it's not
13:51
Speaker 4: quite there just yet.
13:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he's working on cell service first,
13:56
Speaker 2: or network access or something, probably something both at the
13:59
Speaker 2: same time.
14:00
Speaker 4: Coming up after a quick break, we're going to talk
14:02
Speaker 4: about Venus and Venus having a good week, right or
14:09
Speaker 4: we'll be having a good week. We'll talk about that next.
14:27
Speaker 4: So when I say Venus having a good week, I mean,
14:31
Speaker 4: let's think about this Venus. It's got a feminine name,
14:37
Speaker 4: an opportunity to sort of, you know, walk on the
14:40
Speaker 4: red carpet, I guess, getting an opportunity to be close,
14:43
Speaker 4: get in the spotlight, look a little brighter, look a
14:47
Speaker 4: little skinnier, I mean, all those things you might want
14:49
Speaker 4: to be able to do when you're walking the red carpet.
14:52
Speaker 2: Yes, But like many celebrities, right at the moment of
14:55
Speaker 2: maximum attention, Venus decides to kind of turn away and
14:59
Speaker 2: look the other yes, as if to say, Earth, You're
15:03
Speaker 2: simply not good enough for me. I'm going to stare
15:06
Speaker 2: at the sun.
15:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, kind of in the spirit of you know,
15:11
Speaker 4: the namesake, right, just gotta look away.
15:14
Speaker 2: Just talk to the back of my head. So that's
15:21
Speaker 2: actually I mean, it's funny, but it's actually taking place.
15:24
Speaker 2: And a great article on this one on astronomy dot
15:26
Speaker 2: com this week. So the planet Venus part of the
15:29
Speaker 2: Parade of Planets we've been watching now for several weeks.
15:32
Speaker 2: We call it parade of planets because it's definitely not
15:35
Speaker 2: an alignment. It is a shmear a smear across the
15:40
Speaker 2: sky of planets Venus right now, the most westerly of
15:44
Speaker 2: the group of planets that you can still see in
15:46
Speaker 2: the evening sky right after sunset. And listen, friends, I
15:49
Speaker 2: was driving home simply last night, as recently as last night,
15:53
Speaker 2: pulled up in my driveway, I was working a little
15:55
Speaker 2: bit late, pulled up right as the sun was going down,
15:58
Speaker 2: getting dark, and man, o, man, that beautiful movie star
16:04
Speaker 2: planet Venus putting on an absolute show in the western
16:10
Speaker 2: evening sky as sunset turns to twilight. She appears. She's gorgeous,
16:18
Speaker 2: hard not to stare at. And if you happen to
16:23
Speaker 2: put a pair of binoculars on Venus or your backyard telescope,
16:27
Speaker 2: you will notice that indeed, she has her back turned
16:29
Speaker 2: to the Earth in the sense that the majority of
16:33
Speaker 2: the lit side of Venus is facing away from us.
16:36
Speaker 2: Right now, it's facing the Sun. Let me tell you
16:39
Speaker 2: how this works. Back on January tenth, Venus, which is
16:45
Speaker 2: a planet that orbits inside the orbit of the Earth
16:47
Speaker 2: because it's closer to the Sun than we are. Venus,
16:51
Speaker 2: as as its relative angle would be relative to the Earth,
16:56
Speaker 2: reached what we call the greatest eastern elongation. In other words,
17:01
Speaker 2: it reached its most easterly point from the Sun as
17:05
Speaker 2: viewed from Earth. Now, that just means the angle's biggest
17:09
Speaker 2: between looking at the Sun and looking at Venus, which
17:13
Speaker 2: means Venus is the easiest to see on that day again,
17:17
Speaker 2: January tenth, greatest eastern elongation. Now, since that time, Venus
17:23
Speaker 2: has been moving in a direction that's bringing the planet
17:27
Speaker 2: Venus closer to the Earth. But it's doing that as
17:30
Speaker 2: its orbit is going to tuck inside between the Sun
17:34
Speaker 2: and the Earth. Now it doesn't pass directly in front
17:38
Speaker 2: of the face of the Sun. If it did that,
17:40
Speaker 2: that's a very special thing called a transit, and we
17:43
Speaker 2: can see Venus passing across the face of the Sun.
17:46
Speaker 2: The last time that happened was back in twenty twelve
17:49
Speaker 2: and there was a big observing event. Unfortunately, that perfect
17:52
Speaker 2: alignment won't happen again for about one hundred years from now,
17:56
Speaker 2: so we'll have to wait for that one for a while.
17:59
Speaker 2: But as Vavenus does approach Earth on its way to
18:03
Speaker 2: passing more or less between the Earth and the Sun,
18:07
Speaker 2: it reaches its point of maximum brightness. So maximum angle
18:13
Speaker 2: is not the same day as maximum brightness Venus's maximum
18:18
Speaker 2: brightness occurred on Valentine's Day. There you go, there's the
18:23
Speaker 2: love connection, all of the love goddess Venus. She was
18:28
Speaker 2: at maximum brightness on Valentine's Day and it was lovely.
18:34
Speaker 2: And as we're talking about this story right now, we're
18:37
Speaker 2: a few days past Valentine's Day, and right now, if
18:40
Speaker 2: you were to look up and look at Venus through
18:43
Speaker 2: your backyard telescope, you would notice that only about twenty
18:46
Speaker 2: percent of the sphere of Venus is actually sunlit. In
18:51
Speaker 2: other words, the other eighty percent that sunlit is facing
18:55
Speaker 2: away from Earth toward the Sun as Venus slides in
18:59
Speaker 2: between Us and the Sun. But that twenty percent it
19:03
Speaker 2: can do a lot because Venus is also very close
19:06
Speaker 2: to the Earth right now, and so Venus shines as
19:10
Speaker 2: one of the brightest objects that you can see in
19:12
Speaker 2: the sky, brighter than anything but the Sun and moon.
19:16
Speaker 2: Right now. For those of you who are actually backyard astronomers,
19:20
Speaker 2: it's negative four point nine visual magnitude, so this thing
19:25
Speaker 2: is knocking it out of the park. It's also a
19:28
Speaker 2: really fun time to show your kids Venus looking like
19:31
Speaker 2: a crescent through your backyard telescope or your binoculars. Check
19:35
Speaker 2: out Venus in the eastern sorry in the western sky
19:39
Speaker 2: at sunset near greatest eastern elongation for the next few days.
19:44
Speaker 2: This week's a good time. Check it out this weekend.
19:47
Speaker 2: Hope you have clear weather to do that. Share it
19:49
Speaker 2: with the kids. It's a really fun way to get
19:50
Speaker 2: them interested in observing the nighttime sky.
19:53
Speaker 4: We're going to take one more quick break and then
19:55
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about the end of the world.
19:56
Speaker 4: All right, probably not really, but we're going to tell
19:58
Speaker 4: you about what's going on with this scary asteroid next.
20:19
Speaker 2: Okay, clickbait is a real thing. We talk about.
20:23
Speaker 4: Clickbait, we talk and it's probably gonna get worse here soon.
20:27
Speaker 4: You probably may have I don't know, maybe you've already
20:29
Speaker 4: seen it, but if you haven't, you're probably gonna hear
20:31
Speaker 4: about it. If not, you're gonna hear about now for certain,
20:35
Speaker 4: but you may hear about it from some of these
20:37
Speaker 4: clickbait sources and you know, people online that don't seem
20:41
Speaker 4: to fact check anything. But we're gonna give you what
20:44
Speaker 4: we know at this point. I mean, this is kind
20:46
Speaker 4: of like our first story, and that it's a little
20:48
Speaker 4: fluid and it's weird that it's this fluid because typically
20:52
Speaker 4: when we tell you, hey, there's an asteroid and it's
20:55
Speaker 4: coming our.
20:55
Speaker 2: Way, and there's a really small.
20:57
Speaker 4: Chance it's gonna get close to us, but as a
21:00
Speaker 4: really huge chance that it's not going to come anywhere
21:03
Speaker 4: near us, but as a little tiny chance that it will.
21:07
Speaker 4: And then typically like within a span of like you know,
21:10
Speaker 4: on a weeks, it doesn't jump up the percentage in
21:14
Speaker 4: any capacity the way that this one has. And it's
21:17
Speaker 4: gone up some a little, it's still a slim chance
21:21
Speaker 4: of this thing having an impact with this. So let's
21:25
Speaker 4: talk about asteroid twenty twenty four. Why are four?
21:30
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four? Why are four? Is not a question?
21:36
Speaker 2: Why are four? I don't know? Why are it coming
21:39
Speaker 2: towards us? How about that it's a catalog designation, So
21:45
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four of the year it was discovered, why
21:47
Speaker 2: are four? It's catalog designation. Let me tell you, friends
21:50
Speaker 2: that when we get to stories like this and I
21:55
Speaker 2: want to pull back the curtain just a little bit
21:57
Speaker 2: and say, my main day job is running a space
22:00
Speaker 2: science center and teaching college students about astronomy, it is
22:04
Speaker 2: not an asteroid researcher that is not what I am.
22:08
Speaker 2: But I will tell you that we like to separate
22:11
Speaker 2: clickbait stories from real stories. And when we do that,
22:15
Speaker 2: we like to go ahead and refer to people who
22:17
Speaker 2: I know have taken a deeper dive into the information
22:22
Speaker 2: that's available and give you a good perspective. And one
22:24
Speaker 2: of those that we go back to a lot is
22:27
Speaker 2: doctor Tonyphillips from spaceweather dot com. Doctor Tony Phillips provides
22:32
Speaker 2: excellent information on this website. I check it almost daily
22:37
Speaker 2: because it's also just a great way to track what's
22:41
Speaker 2: going on in the near Earth environment, also what's going
22:44
Speaker 2: on on the Sun. You can find out when the
22:46
Speaker 2: next aurora are going to be there whatever anyway, Okay,
22:48
Speaker 2: all those things, So check out spaceweather dot com. This
22:51
Speaker 2: is from this information I'm about to give you was
22:54
Speaker 2: from an article on spaceweather dot com two days ago.
22:57
Speaker 2: So as we're recording this, you want to look back
23:00
Speaker 2: to the February eighteenth edition of spaceweather dot com. You
23:05
Speaker 2: can do that with their archive. It's clickable in the
23:08
Speaker 2: upper right hand corner of spaceweather dot com. Okay, now,
23:11
Speaker 2: having said all that, here's what doctor Tony Phillips had
23:13
Speaker 2: to say about asteroid twenty twenty four. Y are four.
23:19
Speaker 2: The chances of impact are increasing, So let's just let's
23:26
Speaker 2: just simmer on that for a moment. Let's just.
23:31
Speaker 4: Starting Yeah, yeah, just for a minute.
23:36
Speaker 2: The chances for impact are still small, as West pointed out,
23:41
Speaker 2: has happened in the past. But typically those small impact chances,
23:45
Speaker 2: as we get more data, we find out, oh yeah,
23:47
Speaker 2: they're so small, they're going to infinity small, infinitely small chances,
23:52
Speaker 2: and so we don't worry about it at all. When
23:55
Speaker 2: more data has come in on this particular asteroid than
23:58
Speaker 2: has been a clickbait story for lead a week, if
24:00
Speaker 2: not more, what we found out is that, no, the
24:05
Speaker 2: odds are going up, not down, that this asteroid may
24:10
Speaker 2: impact the Earth. Now, to give you numbers so you
24:12
Speaker 2: can start to think about this in more clarity, there
24:16
Speaker 2: is currently a two point six percent chance, as calculated
24:22
Speaker 2: by astrophysicists who calculate asteroid impact probabilities, a two point
24:28
Speaker 2: six percent chance of this asteroid hitting the Earth on
24:32
Speaker 2: December the twenty second, twenty thirty two.
24:37
Speaker 4: Okay, so just starting at that point, because this is
24:40
Speaker 4: where going back to January, it's like it's doubled, right,
24:45
Speaker 4: it went from one point three to two point six,
24:48
Speaker 4: So I mean that being a bit unusual. But obviously
24:53
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm just going to play the like every man.
24:56
Speaker 4: So if it doubled again, right, if we're starting, you
25:00
Speaker 4: see a pattern on this doubling thing, I guess what
25:03
Speaker 4: we should be concerned about. Maybe the next question is
25:06
Speaker 4: how big is the thing and how much of a
25:08
Speaker 4: concern might this be for us if it were to
25:11
Speaker 4: make impact.
25:12
Speaker 2: I mean, so before we get there, it's important, I
25:15
Speaker 2: think for the every man to understand the process. Right
25:19
Speaker 2: when a new rock is discovered flying through our solar system, obviously,
25:27
Speaker 2: those first pictures that are taken, it's like, oh, hey,
25:30
Speaker 2: we just found something new moving among the stars. We
25:34
Speaker 2: don't have very much data on that object, right, And
25:37
Speaker 2: so this object was discovered toward the end of last year,
25:41
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. That's why it gets the twenty twenty
25:44
Speaker 2: four catalog designation, and so we don't have very much data.
25:49
Speaker 2: And so immediately what happens is a whole army of
25:53
Speaker 2: observatories around the world begin to jump in and try
25:58
Speaker 2: to observe this thing. As much as they can, and
26:02
Speaker 2: their observations contribute to the overall data set that we
26:07
Speaker 2: use then to try to calculate the orbit of this object.
26:10
Speaker 2: In fact, the observatory here at Coca Cola Space Science
26:13
Speaker 2: Center at Columbus State University is one of those observatories. Now,
26:17
Speaker 2: we haven't contributed any data on twenty twenty four yr
26:19
Speaker 2: four yet because it's still too far away and too faint.
26:23
Speaker 2: We can't get it with the size of telescope that
26:25
Speaker 2: we have. But we have contributed data on other asteroids anyway. Okay,
26:30
Speaker 2: so once that data starts coming in from all of
26:33
Speaker 2: these observatories around the world, you get a better understanding
26:37
Speaker 2: of where this rock is going. You're refining our knowledge
26:41
Speaker 2: of the orbit of this asteroid. So back in January,
26:45
Speaker 2: when we had a little less data, we calculated the
26:48
Speaker 2: probability of impact at one point three percent one week
26:53
Speaker 2: ago from today. So mid February calculated a two point
27:01
Speaker 2: two percent chance, and that triggered a bunch of headlines like, hey,
27:05
Speaker 2: this thing. The probabilities have gone up about this thing
27:08
Speaker 2: well two days ago as more and more data is
27:12
Speaker 2: coming in. The Minor Planet Center was is kind of
27:18
Speaker 2: like the clearing house for data for these kinds of objects.
27:21
Speaker 2: They're the ones that do the calculations. They recalibrated their
27:25
Speaker 2: impact probability and it went up for a third time.
27:28
Speaker 2: It's now at two point six percent. Now, friends, this
27:32
Speaker 2: is only based on fifty four days of observing this object,
27:38
Speaker 2: so so you know, it's it's a small amount of
27:42
Speaker 2: time that we've been pointing telescopes at it. It's only
27:46
Speaker 2: based on three hundred and sixty eight observations, which in
27:50
Speaker 2: the grand scheme of things, is not a whole lot.
27:53
Speaker 2: So there's still a lot we don't know about the
27:55
Speaker 2: orbit of this object, and right now, the more we
27:58
Speaker 2: find out, the more more likely it looks like it's
28:01
Speaker 2: going to hit the planet. So I felt like that
28:03
Speaker 2: process needed to be kind of explained before I tell
28:06
Speaker 2: you that it's big enough to actually do some damage. Now,
28:12
Speaker 2: it's not big enough to end the life on Earth,
28:17
Speaker 2: much like the killer asteroid that we think probably ended
28:21
Speaker 2: the dinosaur sixty five million years ago. It's not big
28:26
Speaker 2: enough to be a global killer like that. But you
28:30
Speaker 2: wouldn't want your house to be underneath it. Because there
28:33
Speaker 2: was a very large object that detonated over Cheliabinsk, Siberia
28:38
Speaker 2: in Russia back in twenty thirteen, and that was estimated
28:43
Speaker 2: to be about somewhere between forty and seventy I'm sorry,
28:48
Speaker 2: that was around the forty meter mark, right, And so
28:51
Speaker 2: that one it created a large enough explosion in the
28:55
Speaker 2: atmosphere that it was approximately equal to the explosive power
28:59
Speaker 2: of the Hiroshima bomb. It just happened at sixty miles up,
29:03
Speaker 2: so it's like a high almost space detonation of that object.
29:09
Speaker 2: It still blew out windows and knocked down brick walls
29:12
Speaker 2: and caused severe damage injured over a thousand people in
29:16
Speaker 2: the city of Cheliubinsk, Siberia, which has about a million
29:20
Speaker 2: people living in it. This object is a few times
29:23
Speaker 2: bigger than the Cheliubinsk object. In fact, there was another
29:28
Speaker 2: explosion that took place in Tunguska, Siberia, back in nineteen
29:33
Speaker 2: oh eight, and that actually leveled trees over a very
29:38
Speaker 2: remote forested area with a radius of about twenty miles
29:43
Speaker 2: from the center of impact. It blew out windows in
29:48
Speaker 2: Saint Petersburg, Russia, which is on the other side of Russia,
29:51
Speaker 2: and it shook the churches of London, England enough to
29:55
Speaker 2: ring the bells that day. This object is more equivalent
30:00
Speaker 2: to that size of an impactor, not enough to take
30:05
Speaker 2: out the world, certainly enough to ruin the neighborhood.
30:09
Speaker 4: So when you say you don't want to be in
30:11
Speaker 4: the impact zone, if you were in the impact zone,
30:14
Speaker 4: it's safe to say it might ring your bell.
30:18
Speaker 2: Very safe to say that, all right, and it would
30:22
Speaker 2: maybe bring the bells of many people, probably out of
30:26
Speaker 2: the impact zone, right probably, So all right, it's gonna
30:29
Speaker 2: be it's gonna be felt a lot. It's gonna be
30:32
Speaker 2: felt on a large portion of the surface of the Earth.
30:35
Speaker 2: So that that's something worthy of taking note of right now. Now,
30:41
Speaker 2: you mentioned something a little bit earlier on you. You
30:43
Speaker 2: mentioned something that started with a letter D, which is
30:46
Speaker 2: the Dart spacecraft. Just a few years ago, NASA did
30:53
Speaker 2: a very important proof of concept by taking a spaceship
30:57
Speaker 2: that was designed to do nothing but punch an asteroid
31:01
Speaker 2: right in.
31:01
Speaker 4: The eye, and they tested it on your birthday.
31:06
Speaker 2: The impact occurred on my birthday, and I was texting
31:10
Speaker 2: with a bunch of my former students as we were
31:12
Speaker 2: all watching the video come in at not real time
31:15
Speaker 2: because it takes a little bit of time to travel,
31:18
Speaker 2: but real time as we were receiving the data, and
31:21
Speaker 2: so we got to actually see the impact from the
31:24
Speaker 2: camera view on the Dart spacecraft as it slammed into
31:27
Speaker 2: the surface of Dimorphous a little satellite moon of Dinamus anyway,
31:35
Speaker 2: So the net result of that experiment was that the
31:40
Speaker 2: Dart spacecraft did more than deflect the motions of that
31:45
Speaker 2: miniature asteroid, It actually knocked off a fair amount of
31:49
Speaker 2: mass off the surface of it. So we do have
31:52
Speaker 2: the potential that if these odds continue to go up,
31:57
Speaker 2: that we could send a spacecraft out and nudge the
32:00
Speaker 2: asteroid off its current course onto a different course. Now
32:04
Speaker 2: I'm not that kind of scientist. I don't know, you know,
32:07
Speaker 2: what's the percentage? Right? But when we when do we
32:10
Speaker 2: get concerned enough? How high do these impact percentages have
32:13
Speaker 2: to go before we NASA launches some kind of a
32:19
Speaker 2: dark spacecraft. I hope If there are jobs being lost
32:23
Speaker 2: at NASA, it's not the dark defense, right, I think
32:25
Speaker 2: we need to keep them. Let's keep them. Those are
32:28
Speaker 2: important jobs, potentially important, especially you know, like seven years
32:33
Speaker 2: from now. It doesn't hurt that the day that this
32:36
Speaker 2: new revised estimate of impact came out was the same
32:39
Speaker 2: day that Elon and Trump were sitting down with the
32:41
Speaker 2: NASA folks, going who's out. Oh wait a minute, let's
32:44
Speaker 2: not fire the dark.
32:45
Speaker 4: People because we might need them. So there's a few
32:50
Speaker 4: other I mean, you talk about not being you know,
32:53
Speaker 4: on the statistics side of all of this, there's a
32:55
Speaker 4: few things that we do have to because anytime we
32:58
Speaker 4: talk about something coming to Earth, whether it's you know,
33:03
Speaker 4: an old I know, we've had these stories where things
33:07
Speaker 4: have fallen out of the sky and they have like
33:09
Speaker 4: gone through somebody's roof and landed in their living room,
33:12
Speaker 4: and those kinds of things. That's that's there, that's a possibility,
33:16
Speaker 4: and we've had stories about.
33:17
Speaker 2: Lately that lately that's been mostly pieces of SpaceX rockets,
33:20
Speaker 2: but okay.
33:22
Speaker 4: And then we've had we've had stories where you know,
33:27
Speaker 4: and you know, China launch a rocket and then it
33:30
Speaker 4: just kind of goes to another country and sat.
33:33
Speaker 2: Drop a rocket on a whole community, so a little
33:36
Speaker 2: more careless even So we understand all of those things,
33:39
Speaker 2: but when it comes to something coming from space, the
33:43
Speaker 2: first thing that we always end up going to is
33:45
Speaker 2: the fact that the planet is mostly water, right, so thankfully,
33:50
Speaker 2: I mean that works to our advantage in these sorts
33:52
Speaker 2: of circumstances. So that's the first thing I guess we
33:56
Speaker 2: should think about, is if, even if it does, you know,
34:00
Speaker 2: I'll get into that two point six percent chance of
34:03
Speaker 2: getting here in December of twenty thirty two, most likely
34:07
Speaker 2: it would have its impact or its explosion above water.
34:13
Speaker 2: That's the first I guess statistic we should talk about.
34:15
Speaker 2: And then, of course the glaringly obvious one that you know,
34:18
Speaker 2: odds are definitely in our favor. That if you're looking
34:21
Speaker 2: at the game percentage win probability and your team is
34:25
Speaker 2: showing two point six percent chance of winning, that means
34:29
Speaker 2: they got a pretty good chance you know that they're
34:32
Speaker 2: gonna lose. And if you're you know, let me bring
34:35
Speaker 2: in fantasy football at this point and just say, I
34:38
Speaker 2: have watched my fantasy team drop to win percentages win
34:42
Speaker 2: probabilities of two point six percent. They don't usually come
34:45
Speaker 2: back from that.
34:46
Speaker 4: So it's a pretty good chance it's gonna miss us,
34:49
Speaker 4: even without involving Dart. But it's also nice to know
34:53
Speaker 4: that even if that you know, ninety seven point four
34:55
Speaker 4: percent chance that it's you know, gonna miss us, isn't
34:58
Speaker 4: the case, and it looks like it's coming. They've got,
35:00
Speaker 4: you know, seven and a half years to you know,
35:03
Speaker 4: maybe try a couple more dart experiments and see if
35:06
Speaker 4: they aren't ready to go by then, Right, and even.
35:10
Speaker 2: If those dart experiments happen to miss the target, as
35:13
Speaker 2: West just very acutely pointed out, seventy one percent of
35:17
Speaker 2: the Earth's surface is covered with water. Yeah, so don't
35:21
Speaker 2: go in a boat that day. I mean, that's that's
35:23
Speaker 2: what I would think. Let's stay off boats. That's right.
35:26
Speaker 2: But you know, dar take a cruise in twenty thirty
35:29
Speaker 2: two in December.
35:31
Speaker 4: You could end up on Gilligan's Island. So I should
35:35
Speaker 4: we be concerned that this is the day after the
35:39
Speaker 4: winter solstice in twenty thirty two. I mean it's like
35:41
Speaker 4: winter Solstice is the twenty first, and then it's the
35:45
Speaker 4: next day. I don't know, should we be worried about
35:47
Speaker 4: that at all?
35:49
Speaker 2: The answer is yes.
35:52
Speaker 4: I mean somewhere somebody is reveling in this. I wonder
35:56
Speaker 4: when the it's the end of the world on the
35:58
Speaker 4: winter sale anyway, those people are There's.
36:01
Speaker 2: Really no astrological or astronomical reason to be afraid. Yeah,
36:05
Speaker 2: because it's the twenty second, but we should be afraid
36:08
Speaker 2: because there's an asteroid that might hit us, So just
36:10
Speaker 2: in time for Christmas, I'm gonna go with yes, yeah, all.
36:14
Speaker 4: Right, Well again, we're gonna track this. If the numbers
36:17
Speaker 4: start creeping up again in the next you know, fifty
36:20
Speaker 4: four days, we stay tuned.
36:22
Speaker 2: We'll keep you posted if in an a tune is
36:26
Speaker 2: the answer. We will keep you updated step by step
36:29
Speaker 2: on this developing story, ladies and gentlemen.
36:31
Speaker 4: Without trying to be too alarmist and click baity. Yeah, well,
36:35
Speaker 4: we'll do our best to give you some rational reasonab
36:39
Speaker 4: reasonable reasons to stay calm, because it's really nothing.
36:41
Speaker 2: In all seriousness, we do try to take that approach,
36:44
Speaker 2: which is why I started the way I did with
36:46
Speaker 2: a very reliable source. And again I would point you
36:49
Speaker 2: to spaceweather dot com as a as an actual source
36:53
Speaker 2: to track the updates on this particular story as we
36:56
Speaker 2: go forward. Doctor Tony Phillips in his website spaceweather dot com,
37:00
Speaker 2: sponsored in part by NASA and a very good legitimate
37:04
Speaker 2: source of scientific information.
37:05
Speaker 4: More made of stars right after this, all right, music
37:29
Speaker 4: under the dome. There's plenty of those between now and
37:32
Speaker 4: twenty thirty two, starting with one early March.
37:36
Speaker 2: We can have one. I don't know. How about the
37:39
Speaker 2: first Tuesday of every month? That sounds good, seems like
37:41
Speaker 2: a good strategy. What day of the week is Tuesday
37:45
Speaker 2: twenty thirty two, I don't know. Does that fall on
37:49
Speaker 2: December twenty second? Anyway? All right, so the first Tuesday
37:51
Speaker 2: of the month, friends, we have concerts coming up in
37:54
Speaker 2: the planetarium here at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space
37:56
Speaker 2: Science Center. I wait, call those concerts.
37:59
Speaker 4: I got the answer for you. Sorry, The twenty first
38:03
Speaker 4: of twenty thirty two is a Tuesday.
38:05
Speaker 2: Oh so the day before you can have.
38:08
Speaker 4: A music under the dome and then the next day
38:10
Speaker 4: that the asteroid could hit. So there you go.
38:13
Speaker 2: I mean, what a better way to end close years
38:18
Speaker 2: out the year? Then with the music under the dome
38:21
Speaker 2: would be a perfect Let's go ahead, pencil one of
38:23
Speaker 2: those in. All right. I'm sorry, I just beat on
38:25
Speaker 2: the calendar. I don't mean because asteroids are hitting the
38:28
Speaker 2: planet and or anything.
38:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing to do with that. So that's seven years out.
38:31
Speaker 4: We got time to work on that.
38:33
Speaker 2: We can work on that one still, all right? So yeah,
38:36
Speaker 2: and By the way, if a dark spacecraft is going
38:38
Speaker 2: to punch why twenty twenty four y or four in
38:42
Speaker 2: the eye, I definitely want to have a party here
38:44
Speaker 2: at Space Science Center to watch that video come in,
38:46
Speaker 2: so we promise you that. But in the meantime, come
38:48
Speaker 2: check out Music under the Dome. It's a concert series
38:52
Speaker 2: musicians from both faculty and students of the schwob School
38:55
Speaker 2: of Music here at Columbus State University performing concerts in
38:58
Speaker 2: the Atmosphere Theater Planetarium at CSU's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
39:02
Speaker 2: You can check out the information about these fantastic concerts
39:06
Speaker 2: with visual effects across our fifty foot dome Planetarium. Check
39:09
Speaker 2: it out on our web page. Visit www dot cc
39:14
Speaker 2: SSC dot org. Initials Charlie, Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
39:21
Speaker 4: Sean and I thank you for listening and continuing to
39:24
Speaker 4: listen all the way until December of twenty thirty two,
39:28
Speaker 4: and we'll do this again next week. Plans Overhead Door
39:37
Speaker 4: Company of Columbus has all of your garage door needs
39:40
Speaker 4: covered residential and commercial service and repairs. If you need
39:44
Speaker 4: a new garage door, or you're just looking to upgrade
39:47
Speaker 4: or repair your current door Overhead Door Company of Columbus
39:50
Speaker 4: has you covered, Plus they've got your emergency repairs or
39:54
Speaker 4: service covered as well. Seven oh six three five eight
39:58
Speaker 4: forty five hundred seven six five eight forty five hundred
40:01
Speaker 4: O dccolumbus dot com