Latest / Made of Stars / Celebrating Halloween and Podcast #200

Transcript

Celebrating Halloween and Podcast #200 · 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.
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Speaker 3: We're made of stars. Made them stars, madies. When made
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Speaker 3: us stars, you could be from high they would New
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Speaker 3: Mexicomus 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
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Speaker 5: Cruisin from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Sean,
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Speaker 5: it's our two hundredth episode of this show as a podcast.
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Speaker 2: And that doesn't mean like the number two hundred.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, like two hundred, like two and two zeros.
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Speaker 2: Like and even divisibly by one hundred number.
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Speaker 4: Yes, that's what I'm saying. Two hundred How about that?
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Speaker 5: Now that doesn't count all of the I don't know
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Speaker 5: how many times we did it on the radio before
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Speaker 5: we started counting the podcast as two hundred.
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Speaker 4: But no, this is a big day.
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Speaker 5: It's a milestone celebration and it happens to occur on Halloween.
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Speaker 2: I don't know.
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Speaker 5: Really if it makes it. I just thought it was
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Speaker 5: cool that it timed out for Halloween.
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Speaker 2: I mean, one could tie various pieces of significance to that.
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Speaker 2: I think I'm going to just let it fly. Well,
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Speaker 2: like a bat across the moon.
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Speaker 4: Well, we've got a very.
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Speaker 5: Spookyish edition of the show because we're gonna be talking
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Speaker 5: about zombies. We're gonna be talking about Martian things. We're
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Speaker 5: gonna be talking about some you know, an accident that
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Speaker 5: happened to an astronaut and giving a status update on them.
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Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think it had anything to do
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Speaker 5: with you know, a xenomar for anything, but we can
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Speaker 5: talk and then you know aliens, yep, they're here, dead stars.
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Speaker 5: We got some spooky type things to talk about. Let's
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Speaker 5: start with the zombies. I mean, I think anybody would
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Speaker 5: want to know what's going on with zombies? How does
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Speaker 5: this work? But this is a follow up to a
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Speaker 5: story that we've done follow ups to before. It's kind
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Speaker 5: of an ongoing saga, and I assume it will continue
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Speaker 5: to be until maybe eventually somebody cuts the head off
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Speaker 5: this thing. I don't know, I don't know how that works.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. There's a name in the space industry called a
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Speaker 2: zombie SAT. Huh. And what a zombie SAT literally is.
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Speaker 2: It's a spacecraft that is no longer controllable from the Earth,
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Speaker 2: that's orbiting the Earth. It's just an out of controlled,
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Speaker 2: giant hunk of space junk. That's what a zombie SAT is.
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Speaker 2: A zombie satellite is what that stands for. Right. This
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Speaker 2: is not a zombie SAT. This is a zombie probe,
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Speaker 2: but it was only zombie temporarily. Friends, this is the
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Speaker 2: Voyager one probe. This is one of the oldest and
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Speaker 2: certainly the most traveled of all space explorers ever sent
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Speaker 2: from the planet Earth, and it went into kind of
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Speaker 2: a zombie state simply because it quit communicating properly back
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Speaker 2: with its handlers here on Earth. Now, let's remember Voyager
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Speaker 2: one was launched in the nineteen seventies. It explored the
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Speaker 2: Solar System, including the major planets, the large gas giants
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Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties. We are in twenty twenty four
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Speaker 2: and there are technicians at the Jet Propulsion lefe Aboratory
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Speaker 2: still working with Voyager one. And the announcement that's really
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Speaker 2: important about the satellite, that's fifteen billion miles away, is
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Speaker 2: that they were able to resuscitate it out of its
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Speaker 2: zombie state and begin communicating with it again. On October
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Speaker 2: twenty fourth, almost Halloween, NASA's successfully re established contact with
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Speaker 2: the Voyager one deep space probe that has now left
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Speaker 2: the confines of our Solar System and is exploring interstellar space.
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Speaker 2: No longer as a zombie probe, now back to being
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Speaker 2: a living, communicating space explorer from NASA. What a cool
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Speaker 2: story it is.
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Speaker 5: And this is one of those things that because of
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Speaker 5: how many miles this thing has on it, I mean,
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Speaker 5: if you want to log it in miles, it's obviously
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Speaker 5: much more than you know, we can't even comprehend miles.
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Speaker 5: It's like when we talk about horsepower, want to use
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Speaker 5: the term Pegasus power.
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Speaker 4: But anyway, so how far.
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Speaker 5: Away that it is, it's remarkable that there's still communicating
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Speaker 5: with it period, I think, and then it's still doing
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Speaker 5: its thing, doing anything really, But they've had multiple situations
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Speaker 5: where they've lost communications with it and then been able
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Speaker 5: to re establish it. I know this time when we
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Speaker 5: talked about them losing communication with it, there was a
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Speaker 5: question about whether or not they would be able to
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Speaker 5: do this. Was this was obviously the hope. They hoped
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Speaker 5: to be able to communicate with it, you know, years
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Speaker 5: to come. But it's still like really cool to think
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Speaker 5: that we're communicating with something that far away. And this
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Speaker 5: isn't just and this isn't just lobbing radio waves into
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Speaker 5: deep space and going let's see what happens, you know,
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Speaker 5: this is something that's communicating back.
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Speaker 2: That's right. So what they had to do was this,
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Speaker 2: think about this. Think about the state of computers in
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Speaker 2: the late nineteen seventies. So that's the kind of technology
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Speaker 2: that we're talking about compared to today. They were very
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Speaker 2: very primitive machines. They were running some very basic machine
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Speaker 2: language code to do the programming. What they had to
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Speaker 2: do was this there was actually some kind of a
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Speaker 2: sector on one of the hard drives on the control
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Speaker 2: computer for Voyagers communications system. They had to actually upload
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Speaker 2: new code that would only write to a part of
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Speaker 2: the disc that wasn't damaged. So first of all, they
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Speaker 2: had to find an engineer old enough to remember how
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Speaker 2: to write code. And as code was written in the
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Speaker 2: late nineteen seventies, and.
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Speaker 5: This is something that we talk about all the time.
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Speaker 5: I mean, this is one of the very unique things
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Speaker 5: about any sort of machine that we send into space
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Speaker 5: is you have to still have people around who know
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Speaker 5: how to work with those things, who have experience with it.
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Speaker 2: I don't know, you know exactly what the procedure was, like.
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Speaker 2: I bet they made some phone calls to some retired people.
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Speaker 2: I'm just guessing, right, one.
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Speaker 4: Of those weird cases.
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Speaker 5: One of those weird cases where you know, the grandchild
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Speaker 5: has to contact the grandfather for tech support.
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Speaker 4: That's not the way this usually works.
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Speaker 2: It's so true. Hey, grandpa, you remember where we kept
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Speaker 2: the key to the attic? Yes, I put it below
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Speaker 2: that strange looking vase up on the omblah on the
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Speaker 2: third floor. Oh okay, something like that. I'm guessing was
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Speaker 2: the process here. But whatever it was, JPL was actually managed,
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Speaker 2: was able to upload the code, have it performed correctly,
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Speaker 2: re establish communications, and now the team is working to
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Speaker 2: stabilize those communication and address the rest of the technical
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Speaker 2: issues facing this aging but still functioning and still communicating.
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Speaker 2: Not zombie SAT. So it was a zombie set. It
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Speaker 2: is now back to life, not being a zombie SAT
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Speaker 2: or a zombie probe as we discussed earlier. And yay
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Speaker 2: for Voyager one. Good news from October twenty fourth, the
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Speaker 2: end of last week.
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Speaker 5: I think if it goes the way it goes with
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Speaker 5: just general life, they would have done something like contact
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Speaker 5: an engineer from back in the day and say, we
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Speaker 5: want to bring you in and maybe have a special
8:16
Speaker 5: luncheon for you.
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Speaker 4: Oh and while you're.
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Speaker 5: Here, could you take a look at this for us?
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Speaker 5: I mean, just because you're here, you're already here and
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Speaker 5: we're working on this, maybe you could take a look
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Speaker 5: at it for me because you know, I haven't been
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Speaker 5: able to you know, get my cable modem.
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Speaker 4: To work for a while or whatever.
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Speaker 5: You know, that's just kind of the way it tends
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Speaker 5: to go, you know, just from experience. Every every culture
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Speaker 5: has their own method of manipulation. I'm not sure what
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Speaker 5: the engineering culture JPL is exactly like, but I do
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Speaker 5: I'm more familiar with because of my friendship with youth
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Speaker 5: of the radio culture, and certainly I was, you know,
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Speaker 5: at one time familiar with the rock band culture and
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Speaker 5: recording studio culture, so you know, you know, previously misspace youth.
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Speaker 5: So yeah, I think it's closer to that end of
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Speaker 5: the spectrum hopefully JPL. Maybe not quite so manipulative, but
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Speaker 5: I you know, wouldn't count it out.
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Speaker 2: Really? Yeah, well, I can.
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Speaker 5: Tell you the radio culture does a lot of you
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Speaker 5: don't work here anymore, but we don't know how to
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Speaker 5: do social media. Can you tell us how to do that?
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Speaker 5: Even though you know you're on your time? But that's
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Speaker 5: another story for another time. Let's talk about the service
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Speaker 5: of Mars. And we said we talk about Martian things.
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Speaker 5: How about Martian impact sites?
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Speaker 2: Speaking of social media, the Perseverance Rover gave us a post.
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Speaker 2: They posted up a pic and it's a great pick.
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Speaker 2: It's a picture from the Mars Perseverance Rover, also known
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Speaker 2: as the Mars twenty twenty rover. It's climbing up the
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Speaker 2: edge of Jesero Crater and this is a giant impact
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Speaker 2: site so large on Mars that it was once thought
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Speaker 2: to also be a water basin on the planet Mars.
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Speaker 2: It's a very interesting site. Yes, the Halloween tie in
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Speaker 2: is of course a Martian impact site. That sounds spooky enough, right,
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Speaker 2: But the Perseverance Rover has been climbing up the edge
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Speaker 2: of this Martian impact site since August and they've been
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Speaker 2: taking around and they've been driving up the edge of
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Speaker 2: this it's starting to get a little steep, starting to
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Speaker 2: get a little bumpy, they spun the thing around and
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Speaker 2: took a shot of where they had been so that
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Speaker 2: you can see actually the tire marks across the service.
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Speaker 2: And by the way, a great article on this on
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Speaker 2: space dot com if you want to check that out.
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Speaker 2: You can see this beautiful shot of the Service of
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Speaker 2: Mars and showing kind of where the rover had been
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Speaker 2: in its previous journey up to this point. That picture
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Speaker 2: was taken on September twenty seventh. It was released on Monday,
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Speaker 2: October twenty eighth, and JPL is now sharing that image
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Speaker 2: with us. And so this climb that began in mid August,
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Speaker 2: it's progressing nicely. They expect the Perseverance rover to make
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Speaker 2: the top rim of this crater, which again think about
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Speaker 2: how a crater is shaped. The higher you go up,
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Speaker 2: the steeper the terrain, the more rocky the terrain. They
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Speaker 2: expect the rover to reach the rim of the crater
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Speaker 2: by December, so sometime, you know, before the end of
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Speaker 2: this year, which is very exciting. We have a couple
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Speaker 2: of quotes from a gentleman by the name of Rick
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Speaker 2: Welch NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in southern California said this quote.
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Speaker 2: The image not only shows are past and present, in
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Speaker 2: other words, where the rover's bend and where it is now,
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Speaker 2: but also shows the biggest challenge to getting where we
11:37
Speaker 2: want to be in the future. If you look to
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Speaker 2: the right, this is still a quote. By the way,
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Speaker 2: if you look to look at the right hand side
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Speaker 2: of the mosaic, you begin to get an idea of
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Speaker 2: what we're dealing with. Mars didn't want us to make
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Speaker 2: it easy for us, for anyone to get to the
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Speaker 2: top of this ridge. I've badly read that quote, but
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Speaker 2: you get the idea. So the notion is that in
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Speaker 2: the same photo you can see not only where the
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Speaker 2: rover's bend, where it's going, and it's pretty rough going.
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Speaker 2: It's pretty rough sledding here once again, if you want
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Speaker 2: to see this image. Great article on space dot com today.
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Speaker 5: All right, So I want to be careful with this
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Speaker 5: because we don't really know exactly. I guess what the
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Speaker 5: medical issue was. I wanted to make some kind of
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Speaker 5: a you know, alien type joke to go with this,
12:20
Speaker 5: from the xenomorphs or anything, but the fact that it
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Speaker 5: seems to be everything seems to be fine, and that
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Speaker 5: the astronaut. I'm spoiling all the story, but the astronaut
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Speaker 5: seems to be fine, so I can I can now
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Speaker 5: maybe make the joke that we can assume that nothing
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Speaker 5: popped out of its chest, the astronaut's chest, because we
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Speaker 5: don't know which astronaut it was, and we don't know
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Speaker 5: exactly what the condition was. I would just like to
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Speaker 5: point out, this is one of the Crew eight astronauts
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Speaker 5: that's now, you know, come back to Earth. You know,
12:48
Speaker 5: this is technically show number one ninety nine for you
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Speaker 5: and me for podcasts, because I did one by myself
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Speaker 5: where I talked about possible medical emergencies on the International
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Speaker 5: Space Station.
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Speaker 4: I hope I didn't jink.
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Speaker 2: Some Well, listen, we like to laugh and have fun
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Speaker 2: on the show. And the reason at all that there's
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Speaker 2: any kind of humor and levity in this particular story
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Speaker 2: is that everybody's okay. So so first of all, that's
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Speaker 2: the important thing. Crew eight, that's Dragon, the Dragon capsule
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Speaker 2: crew eate. That mission returned safely and and splashed down
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Speaker 2: in the in the Gulf of Mexico, and and the
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Speaker 2: astronauts were recovered from that mission but while re entering,
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Speaker 2: one of the astronauts did have some sort of a
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Speaker 2: medical condition, some sort of a medical situation that required
13:42
Speaker 2: them to be examined, and they were actually hospitalized overnight.
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Speaker 2: The early word that was coming out is that they
13:50
Speaker 2: were in stable condition. I think that's kind of scared everyone,
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Speaker 2: and you know, it's it's good to hear that somebody's
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Speaker 2: in stable condition because that means they're going to be
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Speaker 2: okay eventually. But it also sounded kind of but what
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Speaker 2: it turned out to be is just an overnight stay
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Speaker 2: for this astronaut. All four of the crew eight returning
14:07
Speaker 2: astronauts were examined and three were immediately you know, walked
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Speaker 2: out of the hospital. They were fine. The one person
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Speaker 2: was kept overnight. Now, NASA has been very good about
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Speaker 2: not divulging who this was. We don't know who this was,
14:22
Speaker 2: don't really even want to speculate on who it might
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Speaker 2: have been. It's just good to know at this point
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Speaker 2: that all of the crew eight astronauts have returned home.
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Speaker 2: Everybody's fine, everybody's out of the hospital. And so it
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Speaker 2: looked a bit like a space disaster, but really everything
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Speaker 2: is good now.
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Speaker 5: I would like to point out that if this weren't Halloween,
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Speaker 5: I wouldn't have even said the word jinx because I
14:44
Speaker 5: don't really believe in jinxing. So one of the things
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Speaker 5: I guess about this that's interesting to me, and I
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Speaker 5: get it as far as you know, keeping privacy for
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Speaker 5: this astronaut. There are rules in place, laws in place
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Speaker 5: for just general citizens can concerning our privacy when it
15:01
Speaker 5: comes to our health, things that can't be violated. I
15:05
Speaker 5: guess I just kind of assume with astronauts, you know,
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Speaker 5: it's just kind of, you know, we're a little bit
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Speaker 5: of more public records, more so than the average person,
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Speaker 5: because they are constantly tracking what's going on with them
15:17
Speaker 5: when they're on the International Space Station or even when
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Speaker 5: they're going up, you know, tracking some of the things. Famously,
15:23
Speaker 5: in Apollo thirteen, they start pulling things off, like all right,
15:26
Speaker 5: I'm getting sick of them tracking me down there, you
15:28
Speaker 5: know that scene, which I assume actually happened. So yeah,
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Speaker 5: I mean, I guess I'm a little surprised that, and
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Speaker 5: I'm fine with it. I don't think it's necessarily our
15:39
Speaker 5: business or whatever collectively is a And I suppose though,
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Speaker 5: if it were something that were relevant to space in general,
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Speaker 5: they probably would have told us what it was, and
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Speaker 5: maybe at some point they will.
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Speaker 4: I don't know.
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Speaker 2: You know, there's this interesting gray line. Well, maybe it's
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Speaker 2: not that great, maybe it's black and white. I just
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Speaker 2: don't know where it is drawn. Right between the fact
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Speaker 2: that taxpayers are funding these expeditions and so there's very
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Speaker 2: much about what happens at NASA's just open records and
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Speaker 2: everybody can access it. You have that on one side
16:12
Speaker 2: of the scale. On the other side of the scale,
16:13
Speaker 2: you have kind of the hipper regulations about protecting somebody's
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Speaker 2: medical history and background, and so so those two things
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Speaker 2: kind of maybe appeared to come into conflict with at
16:25
Speaker 2: least the media coverage of this. I think it's okay
16:29
Speaker 2: that we don't know. I honestly think that, you know,
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Speaker 2: if NASA knows that it was a space travel related incident,
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Speaker 2: Number one, that'll come out eventually in some kind of form.
16:43
Speaker 2: Number two, if it had been due to the vehicle,
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Speaker 2: you know, malfunctioning or something happening, something happening with the
16:49
Speaker 2: actual crew dragon capsule, then the FAA would have got involved.
16:54
Speaker 2: There have been other you know, other regulatory organizations would
16:58
Speaker 2: have began to be involved, and so we would hear
17:00
Speaker 2: about engineering issues. It doesn't appear at this point to
17:03
Speaker 2: be any kind of an engineering situation. Just somebody wasn't
17:08
Speaker 2: feeling well when they came back in for medical reasons
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Speaker 2: that belonged to them and them alone, and therefore everybody
17:15
Speaker 2: checked out fine at the hospital. Even the astronaut with
17:18
Speaker 2: the medical situation was released the next day. I think
17:21
Speaker 2: it's okay that we just, you know, maybe move on
17:24
Speaker 2: from the story. And the big thing is it's not
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Speaker 2: going to delay other crews going up to the International
17:30
Speaker 2: Space Station on board a Dragon capsule, which I think
17:32
Speaker 2: was maybe the major concern.
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Speaker 4: It all makes sense, all makes sense.
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Speaker 5: I just kind of surprised to know that it wasn't like,
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Speaker 5: I think it's good that they're keeping it private. It
17:42
Speaker 5: just sort of surprised me coming up after a quick
17:45
Speaker 5: break Aliens question mark, we'll talk about that after this.
18:09
Speaker 5: Probably just in teasing, this should have gone a little further,
18:12
Speaker 5: and said Aliens question mark, possibly in our own solar
18:17
Speaker 5: system question mark. So yeah, let's talk about Titan.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So you know, we're a podcast, so we're trying
18:28
Speaker 2: to get your attention.
18:29
Speaker 5: So yeah, we had Halloway a little bit, and it's Halloween.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we might, and it's Halloween. We might have reached
18:35
Speaker 2: a little bit with the aliens thing. But what do
18:37
Speaker 2: you have to have to have aliens, like say in
18:39
Speaker 2: our own solar system, Well, you have to have some
18:42
Speaker 2: kind of an environment that life could possibly exist in. Well,
18:47
Speaker 2: what kind of things do you need for life? Well,
18:50
Speaker 2: one of the things that we know for life on Earth,
18:53
Speaker 2: so in other words, life similar to that as we
18:56
Speaker 2: know it. You need water. You need hydrogen and oxygen
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Speaker 2: combining into water molecules, and better than that, you need
19:03
Speaker 2: liquid water. Okay, Well, what else do you need? Well,
19:06
Speaker 2: you need hydrocarbons because after all, we are a carbon
19:10
Speaker 2: based life ecosystem here on Earth, and so therefore you
19:15
Speaker 2: need these hydrocarbons to exist. So so things like ethane
19:20
Speaker 2: and methane and you know those kinds of things. So
19:23
Speaker 2: so what else do you need, Well, you need you
19:24
Speaker 2: need some kind of a mechanism to warm things so
19:28
Speaker 2: that you know, things exist at the right temperature for
19:32
Speaker 2: liquid water to exist and all of these chemicals to
19:36
Speaker 2: you know, slosh around together and hopefully then maybe produce life. Okay,
19:40
Speaker 2: So that's the that's the real quick one on one. Well,
19:43
Speaker 2: we have this weird moon in our Solar system, and
19:46
Speaker 2: we know it's weird. It's actually the largest moon are
19:50
Speaker 2: in the Saturnian system. It's the second largest moon in
19:53
Speaker 2: the entire Solar System. It is Saturn's moon called Titan.
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Speaker 2: And what we've known on Titan for a Walter aile
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Speaker 2: is that there are both in the atmosphere and in
20:03
Speaker 2: liquids on the surface hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane,
20:10
Speaker 2: and there's also water ice. So Titan has already been
20:14
Speaker 2: an interesting location for searching for possible conditions for alien
20:19
Speaker 2: life to have formed because we know all these elements
20:23
Speaker 2: are there. But now, after both an analysis of NASA
20:27
Speaker 2: data and some modeling done, there is a team of
20:31
Speaker 2: astronomers from the University of Hawaii that has released the
20:35
Speaker 2: idea that there may be up to a six mile
20:39
Speaker 2: thick ice crust on Titan that is mostly made out
20:47
Speaker 2: of water ice mixed with methane.
20:51
Speaker 6: And so this methane world might have this very thick
20:55
Speaker 6: crust of methane ice that below it conditions could exist
21:01
Speaker 6: that actually warm that underlying eyesll make it a liquid
21:06
Speaker 6: and then produce an environment where life could possibly exist because.
21:11
Speaker 2: You have all the right chemistry already. So so no,
21:15
Speaker 2: we're not saying there's aliens there. All we're saying is
21:18
Speaker 2: this is a really interesting discovery. How did they figure
21:22
Speaker 2: this out? Well, in part, they're looking at craters on
21:26
Speaker 2: the surface of Titan that would have slammed into the
21:29
Speaker 2: upper part of this thick mile crust. Those craters are
21:32
Speaker 2: just a whole lot more shallow than they would be
21:36
Speaker 2: if they were running into a dirt or regolith or
21:40
Speaker 2: those kinds of components that we think about being on
21:42
Speaker 2: the lunar surface. So because of these shallow craters, and
21:47
Speaker 2: by the way, there's only about ninety craters, so that
21:49
Speaker 2: means that most of the craters have been erased by
21:52
Speaker 2: some kind of a process. There just are not very
21:54
Speaker 2: many craters on Titan, and the ones that are there
21:57
Speaker 2: are very shallow. It looks like that there might be
22:01
Speaker 2: this thick ice crust that's both erasing old craters through
22:07
Speaker 2: some kind of an erosion process erosion and refreezing, and
22:11
Speaker 2: also that just produces the kind of surface that when
22:16
Speaker 2: an asteroid impact occurs, it can't penetrate down very far.
22:19
Speaker 2: It's really hard. It's a really hard surface, and so
22:23
Speaker 2: it looks like from those pieces of evidence, according to
22:26
Speaker 2: the astronomers here at the University of Hawaii at Manoa,
22:30
Speaker 2: that we think that there's probably a really thick methane
22:33
Speaker 2: crust on Titan. So here's a quote from Lauren Shermer,
22:37
Speaker 2: who is the Shermeyer I'm sorry, Lauren Shermeyer, who's the
22:41
Speaker 2: lead researcher on this. Here's the quote. Quote. This was
22:44
Speaker 2: very surprising because based on other moons, we expect to
22:48
Speaker 2: see many more impact craters on the surface and craters
22:51
Speaker 2: that are much deeper than what we observe on Titan.
22:54
Speaker 2: We realize something unique to Titan must be making them
22:58
Speaker 2: become shallower and disappear relatively quickly unquote. So so there
23:04
Speaker 2: again the two processes I just described. One, when the
23:06
Speaker 2: thing comes in, it hits, it's hitting this really thick
23:10
Speaker 2: frozen material that's not just dirt. And number two, because
23:14
Speaker 2: it's an ice crust, it tends to melt refreeze melt
23:18
Speaker 2: refreeze which can eliminate or erase some of the craters
23:21
Speaker 2: that are a little bit older on the surface. So
23:23
Speaker 2: that's what it looks like they're seeing on Titan, and
23:26
Speaker 2: it makes Titan that much more of an interesting place
23:30
Speaker 2: to investigate for possible conditions for life on other worlds
23:34
Speaker 2: right here in our own Solar system. That story, by
23:37
Speaker 2: the way, coming from Hawaii dot Edu, but it's out
23:40
Speaker 2: there on many of the space news sources as well.
23:42
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about dead stars.
23:46
Speaker 4: This one.
23:46
Speaker 5: Maybe this one maybe a little bit of a reach.
23:48
Speaker 4: I know they're all kind of a reach.
23:49
Speaker 5: When it comes to trying to make it Halloween related,
23:51
Speaker 5: but dead stars astronomers have found the fastest spinning neutron star.
23:57
Speaker 5: It seems like a reason to queue the Pointer sisters,
23:59
Speaker 5: and let's just start listening to them.
24:01
Speaker 2: Why not. I'm doing the dance in my head right now.
24:04
Speaker 5: I mean, it's hard not to when you hear the word,
24:08
Speaker 5: it's really hard not to imagine Axl Foley in the
24:12
Speaker 5: back of that truck, slamming around with all that stuff
24:14
Speaker 5: hanging on to those that netting on that anyway.
24:17
Speaker 2: Which would be a lot like a companion star would
24:20
Speaker 2: feel to a neutron star. I would think, I feel
24:22
Speaker 2: like Axl Folly flying around in the back of a
24:24
Speaker 2: pickup truck. Yeah, trying to hold on for dear life.
24:27
Speaker 2: I'm just imagining.
24:28
Speaker 5: Yes, indeed, so let's talk about what it means that
24:31
Speaker 5: it's the fastest spinning neutron star, Like, what does that
24:34
Speaker 5: mean exactly?
24:35
Speaker 2: What I found funny West when I was doing the
24:37
Speaker 2: show prep today is that earlier this summer, we did
24:40
Speaker 2: a story on the slowest spinning neutrients. I remember, yes, yeah,
24:43
Speaker 2: that was back in June. So we talked about the
24:46
Speaker 2: slowest ever spinning neutron star. Now we have the fastest
24:50
Speaker 2: spinning neutron star. I'm glad that we've covered the entire
24:53
Speaker 2: gamut of spin speeds for neutron stars in this year's
24:57
Speaker 2: Made of Stars broadcast.
24:59
Speaker 5: My challenge to is tronomers is to find the one
25:01
Speaker 5: that's the perfect median, Like what is the star that
25:04
Speaker 5: is exactly in the middle. That's what we want to
25:07
Speaker 5: find in a neutron star.
25:10
Speaker 2: That would be amazing. We should we should do that ourselves.
25:15
Speaker 2: We should we need to find it. I would also
25:18
Speaker 2: students on it.
25:19
Speaker 5: I would also just like to point out it would
25:20
Speaker 5: be hard for me not to go, like look at
25:22
Speaker 5: the two like back and forth, where you go like
25:24
Speaker 5: camera one, camera two, you go fastest, slowest, fastest, slowest, slowest, fastest, fastest, slowest.
25:31
Speaker 4: That'd be tough for me.
25:32
Speaker 2: Why are you so fast? Why are you so slow?
25:37
Speaker 2: I just don't understand, all right, So here's the story.
25:39
Speaker 2: So the story is this that through examining an X
25:43
Speaker 2: ray binary star, there was actually a variability pattern discovered
25:50
Speaker 2: in the X rays coming from an X ray binary. Okay,
25:54
Speaker 2: so yes, I'm using jargon. So what's an X ray binary? Well,
25:57
Speaker 2: an X ray binary is a dead star like oh,
26:01
Speaker 2: I don't know, a neutron star for instance, that's pulling
26:04
Speaker 2: material off of a companion star like oh, I don't
26:08
Speaker 2: know a red super giant or giant star. And so
26:12
Speaker 2: the material that's being pulled off the companion star is
26:16
Speaker 2: spins around in a disc. We call it that an
26:18
Speaker 2: accretion disks, and if it spins fast enough, it emits
26:22
Speaker 2: X rays. And so we see the X rays coming
26:25
Speaker 2: from from this binary pair of stars. All right, So
26:29
Speaker 2: if one of those stars happens to be this neutron star, well,
26:34
Speaker 2: the variability in the X rays can give us information
26:38
Speaker 2: on how fast the star is spinning. Let me pause
26:43
Speaker 2: right there and remind everybody about the other way that
26:47
Speaker 2: we measure the spin speeds of neutron stars. Some neutron stars.
26:51
Speaker 2: When they're lined up just right, they point their magnetic
26:56
Speaker 2: field axes right at the Earth, and along those magnetic
27:00
Speaker 2: field axes because of the strength of the magnetic field,
27:03
Speaker 2: they've being charged particles at the Earth, which also generate
27:07
Speaker 2: radio waves, so we know those as pulsars. Pulsars seem
27:15
Speaker 2: to pulse in radio frequencies because of this spinning magnetic
27:19
Speaker 2: axis on a dead neutron star. Okay, So it turns
27:23
Speaker 2: out that the fastest ever rotating neutron star discovered by
27:29
Speaker 2: the pulsar method was seven hundred and sixteen rotations per second.
27:37
Speaker 2: In other words, seven hundred and sixteen herts, and hurts
27:42
Speaker 2: is just a measure of radio frequency variability, the variability
27:46
Speaker 2: in radio frequencies, right, all right, So this thing is
27:50
Speaker 2: oscillating out a frequency of seven hundred and sixteen herts,
27:53
Speaker 2: So that's super fast. It's spinning around seven hundred and
27:57
Speaker 2: sixteen times a second, something with the mass greater than
28:01
Speaker 2: the mass of our sun, spinning around, approaching a thousand
28:05
Speaker 2: times per second, but not quite there. Seven hundred and
28:07
Speaker 2: sixteen times per second. Okay, Well, it turns out that
28:11
Speaker 2: now that this group has done research on the variability
28:16
Speaker 2: from the X ray binary. They found something really interesting.
28:21
Speaker 2: It's spinning around at ready, ready, ready, seven hundred and
28:25
Speaker 2: sixteen hurts exactly, so that means they found a second
28:33
Speaker 2: neutron star that spinning with exactly the same rate of
28:37
Speaker 2: rotation as the fastest ever discovered rotating neutron star, one
28:44
Speaker 2: from the method of observing pulsars, the other from the
28:47
Speaker 2: method of observing X ray binaries. That means there might
28:53
Speaker 2: be something special about the rotation frequency of seven hundred
28:58
Speaker 2: and sixteen hurts. Perhaps astronomers examining neutron stars on two
29:05
Speaker 2: different methods of have discovered a rotation rate that's exactly
29:14
Speaker 2: the same for the two fastest known rotating neutron stars.
29:18
Speaker 2: That might be some kind of a physical speed limit.
29:23
Speaker 2: So now as this is discovered, it's going to be
29:26
Speaker 2: very interesting to see if astronomers are ever able to
29:30
Speaker 2: locate a faster spinning neutron star by either method or
29:33
Speaker 2: by some other method. But for right now, that seems
29:37
Speaker 2: to be some sort of a physical speed limit for
29:40
Speaker 2: the rotation rate of dying corpses of stars that we
29:45
Speaker 2: call neutron stars.
29:47
Speaker 5: Shifting gears completely from Halloween to Election day. So Tuesday
29:56
Speaker 5: isn't just election day, it's also the final music under
30:02
Speaker 5: the Dome of twenty twenty four, not for the season,
30:05
Speaker 5: just for the calendar year of twenty twenty four. There'll
30:09
Speaker 5: be some more chances to check it out coming next year,
30:12
Speaker 5: but this is your final chance to see it before
30:15
Speaker 5: the holidays, not counting Halloween of twenty twenty four.
30:20
Speaker 2: Why are you trying to frighten me?
30:22
Speaker 4: Wes? It got so much scarier than any of her
30:26
Speaker 4: other stories.
30:27
Speaker 2: We start talking about a list of you know, death
30:30
Speaker 2: from the sky's space stories, and then you really said
30:34
Speaker 2: something frightening. Yeah, but okay, here we are. So November first, friends,
30:39
Speaker 2: you know, at some point you're either gonna have mailed
30:42
Speaker 2: in your ballot, you're gonna have done an early voting session,
30:46
Speaker 2: and or maybe you just stop by the polls. My
30:49
Speaker 2: recommendation if you're waiting till November first to vote, not
30:55
Speaker 2: November first, if you're waiting for election date of but
30:58
Speaker 2: this is what November first anyway. If you're waiting for
31:00
Speaker 2: election day to vote, I would say vote before five pm,
31:07
Speaker 2: especially if you're in the Columbus Georgia area, because you
31:10
Speaker 2: can drop by the Coca Cola Space Science Center and
31:13
Speaker 2: have a nice glass of wine and wine and cheese
31:19
Speaker 2: a buffet, and then walk into the Omnosphere Theater. Sit
31:23
Speaker 2: back in a not as comfortable as it used to be,
31:26
Speaker 2: but still comfortable planetarium seat recline, look at the dome
31:31
Speaker 2: and hear the beautiful music produced by the schwob School
31:34
Speaker 2: of Music, their talented faculties and students at Columbus State
31:37
Speaker 2: University playing performing live inside the Atmosphere Theater while you
31:43
Speaker 2: look up a beautiful artwork that's originally produced for the
31:46
Speaker 2: show up on the dome. Now you've had some wine
31:49
Speaker 2: and cheese. Now you're in a relaxing planetarium. Now you're
31:52
Speaker 2: listening to music and enjoying the wonders of space. So
31:57
Speaker 2: maybe you're not thinking about the scariest day of the year.
32:01
Speaker 5: The important thing at that point is that you're just
32:04
Speaker 5: able to relax a little bit. I mean, I know,
32:05
Speaker 5: you can stress about the results later, but if you've
32:08
Speaker 5: cast your ballot and you've done your civic duty, it's
32:11
Speaker 5: really out of your hands at that point. That's where
32:13
Speaker 5: your responsibility ends. And then you know, you just wait
32:16
Speaker 5: to find out what happened.
32:17
Speaker 2: I would say just get it done before the concert,
32:19
Speaker 2: and you know, put it behind you, because, as Wes
32:22
Speaker 2: just said, you've done all you can do. Yeah.
32:24
Speaker 5: And for our friends in Alabama who don't have early voting,
32:27
Speaker 5: you know you'll be it will apply to you there
32:29
Speaker 5: here in the Chattahoochee Valley.
32:31
Speaker 4: They don't get a chance to do that. Many of
32:33
Speaker 4: my friends going, why can't we just vote early? And
32:36
Speaker 4: you go, I don't know. I don't know the answer
32:38
Speaker 4: to that question.
32:38
Speaker 5: But in the case of those people, yes, get in
32:41
Speaker 5: there and vote early so that you can also join
32:44
Speaker 5: us at the at the planetarium there for music under
32:48
Speaker 5: the dome.
32:50
Speaker 2: It's a great concert. It is unlike encouraging word I
32:54
Speaker 2: can offer for people. There are still tickets available and
32:57
Speaker 2: so you're going to see a wonderful concert experience. I'm
32:59
Speaker 2: so sorry that it's on, you know, the second Halloween.
33:02
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that it's on that day, the election day,
33:04
Speaker 2: but anyway, it's it is the day. It is right,
33:06
Speaker 2: it's the first Tuesday of the month, and so we're
33:09
Speaker 2: gonna do it. I would use it as election relief.
33:12
Speaker 2: Come by, enjoy the concert and friends, if you're interested
33:14
Speaker 2: in the entire concert series as Wes mentioned we're gonna
33:17
Speaker 2: have three concerts in the spring of twenty twenty five,
33:20
Speaker 2: all part of our same academic here, so therefore part
33:23
Speaker 2: of our same concert season. You can find out about
33:26
Speaker 2: all of this information and more of action and adventure
33:29
Speaker 2: at Columbustate University's Coca Cola Space Science Center through the website.
33:33
Speaker 2: Check it out www dot cc SSC dot org. Charlie
33:40
Speaker 2: Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
33:42
Speaker 5: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
33:44
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