28 Burst results for "Planetary Science Institute"
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"From weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. My name is Fraser Cain, I'm the publisher of universe today with me, as always, is doctor Pamela gay. A senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of cosmic quest. Hi, Pam. How are you doing? I am doing well. I just got home from a wonderful few days. Dustin Gibson and Lauer, they taught me how to use some of the telescopes out there and I just want to shout out to them to actually bring in the clear skies. I don't see those very often. So you had clear skies, and you were around telescopes. Yes. Yes, America heard pigs fly. I don't know the bad sense of that right now. Winter continues here on the West Coast of Canada. My wife shared a post on Facebook where it said, this is in winter anymore. This is harassment. I thought, I thought that was perfect, yeah. I've got a couple of inches of snow on the ground here in mid March. And that is deeply unusual, except for last year, which was also deeply unusual. But even this dough was gone last year. Yeah, this is just, this is just sick and wrong. I have fruit trees to grow. I've got things to plant. I need the weather to behave. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. We've talked about the rising problem of space junk. Okay, we know it's an issue. So what can be done about it? Today, we'll talk about ideas to remove space junk, making sure that space is open to use for centuries to come. So we've gone on and on complaining, whining, wow. Space junk, there's too much debris up there. Kessler syndrome will never leave or trap eternally. Okay, fine. What's somebody going to do about this? How do we stop this? It basically comes down to we need a.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm professor Kane, I'm the publisher of universe today with me is always as doctor Pamela gay. A senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of Cosmo quest. Hey Pam, how are you doing? I am doing well and I am more grateful to our patrons than normal today because all of my technology has gone no. And after the show is over, I will be buying a replacement microphone because you are out there to allow this to happen. Wonderful. So thank you. Nice. Thank you, patrons. The universe was inaccessible for most of human history. But the first tentative steps to space in the 20th century made humanity realize that science fiction was becoming science reality, new rules would have to be written to govern how we used this limitless expanse. Today, we'll talk about the outer space treaty of 1967. Okay, Pamela, it's interesting to me to sort of think about this time, like before even the first spacecraft was launched. And science fiction writers had been considering what the future of human space exploration would be, but I wonder like what perspective did people give? Do you think on how humanities nations would extend out beyond Planet Earth? Well, it all actually started with the 1959 Antarctic treaty. So at this point, satellites were starting to be a thing. Countries were starting to think about, we would like to call that chunk of Antarctica art based on who got which places first. And there was a lot of arguing over who got to which place first and what could be claimed by whom, and so with the 1959 Antarctic treaty, they set down the idea that the continent of Antarctica belongs to everyone and is there as a place for scientists to explore and no one to commercially exploit. So we started with that and it was that document that then in many ways formed the starting point of even the language that was used in the later space treaty. So it all starts with Antarctica. And ironically, this is now where we train a lot of people. So one step at a time. Right. And so you can't go place a flag and call this part of Antarctica, part of Argentina. Exactly. Exactly. This is the colony from Argentina as just more of their space. And there are doubtless enormous resources locked under the thick ice shelf. It's just at the time it was just realized that it was so complicated to try and get at it, that it and the value of it as a pristine wilderness and as a place to do research was greater that they all came together and agreed and formed the Antarctic treaty. Okay, so then how do you, how did the Antarctic treaty then bleed into? What were the events that brought everyone together to start writing the outer space treaty? So in 1958, as they're working on drafting the Antarctic treaty that would be ratified the following year. The committee on space research coast far was an international committee, and it was pulled together to start looking at, well, people are now going around and around our planet. We should start figuring out how to govern this. And coast bars still out there today. And the following year in 1959, we had the UN committee on the peaceful uses of outer space, which is headquartered out of Vienna. It's still there.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Astronomy cast is a joint product of universe today and the planetary science institute. Astronomy cast is released under a Creative Commons attribution license. So love it, share it, and remix it, but please credit it to our hosts, Fraser Cain and doctor Pamela gay. You can get more information on today's show topic on our website, astronomy cast dot com. This episode was brought to you thanks to our generous patrons on Patreon. If you want to help keep this show going, please consider joining our community at Patreon dot com slash astronomy cast. Not only do you help us pay our producers a fair wage, you will also get special access to content right in your inbox and invites to online events. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined our Patreon community already. Anyways, keep looking up. This has been astronomy cast. Science proves quality sleep is vital to your mental, emotional, and physical help. The sleep number 360 smart bed senses your movements and automatically adjusts to help keep you both effortlessly comfortable, and its temperature balancing. So you stay cool. So you're your best for yourself and those you care about most. Life-changing sleep, only from sleep number. And now save a $1000 on the sleep number 360 special edition smart bed queen only 1999. Plus special financing, only for a limited time to learn more, go to sleep number dot com. Special financing subject, credit approval, minimum monthly payments required to store for details.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm freezer Kane, publisher, of universe today, with me, as always, is doctor Pamela gay, a senior scientist for the planetary science institute, and the director of Cosmo quest. Hey, Pamela, how you doing? I am doing well, how are you? Good. Good. I mean, I could just whine about whether, but I won't. Are you going to white Christmas? Probably. Yeah. I mean, we're going to have a white December, just all the way through. So last year was bonkers this year is shaping up to be just sort of just this side of weird. But now I just feel like every year the weather is just weird. That's just the new normal. I saw. You saw Blue Jays. I saw Blue Jays. Blue Jays mean winter? Robbins means summer. Yeah. So it's going to be a cold one when the Blue Jays are here. Right. Now we generally save our stargazing selections for the summer when it's warmer in the
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"I saw me cast episode 6 61 saying goodbye to missions that ended. Welcome to astronomy Casper weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm professor Kane. I'm the publisher of universe today, but a space in astronomy journalist for over 20 years. With me, is doctor Pamela gay. Senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of Cosmo quest. Pam, how are you doing? I am doing well. It is solidly winter here, which means we have gone from the part of the year where I have to turn off the air conditioning to record to the part of the year where I have to turn off the heat to record. And what I've realized is there's a lot of thermodynamic suffering that takes place for this podcast. Yeah, we're about at the end of a really nice stretch of weather and it's about to get cold and snowy. And I am nervous. Because the only person you handle snow plowing on our mountain hill has decided he doesn't want to do it anymore. So I'm not really sure how well this keep our House. Anyway, let's get on with the show. It's always sad to say goodbye, but when we send our robotic emissaries out into the cosmos, it's just a matter of time before they shut down. Today, we're going to say goodbye to a few missions which have reached the end of their lives, but they were very good robots. All right, let's talk about some robots that are about to just turn into chunks of metal. Well, they were always just chunks of metal. They were just slightly more animated chunks of metal in the past. Smarter metal. Smarter metal. Yes. Yeah. There's more mobile metal. Yeah. So my favorite Mars mission, and I never thought I would have a favorite Mars mission. My favorite Mars mission insight is estimated to cease to function in a meaningful way sometimes this month as dust builds up on its solar panels and they're trying to measure every last possible earthquake they can. But it's time is coming and it's a good time to look back on what has become one of the most creatively engineered midstream along the way mission that we have so far sent to Mars. So now it's Mars insight is solar powered. So why is it coming to an end? The sun still there. The sun is still there. The problem is that dust has a habit of building up between the solar panel and the sun and limiting just how much sunlight is able to get to those photovoltaic cells and power the systems, including the heaters that are needed to keep it going over time. But wait, NASA is aware of dust, why didn't they think of a way to remove the dust from the spacecraft? I know this is the constant question and it is the comments that I get on my videos. I know. And what I love is this is the first mission that has gone out of its way to try and remove dust from its own solar panels. They scooped up a scoop full of sand and used it to essentially remove the dust from the solar panels. But they don't have a lot of electricity. Yeah, that method, though. I just want to talk about that method. So what they figured out, like normally, the rovers have their solar panels dusted off by dust Devils, but for some weird freak of Martian weather, the place where insight went hasn't been getting visited by dust levels. And so they figured this really clever way where they scoop regolith with the little shovel. They dump it on the solar panels and the dirt collects up this electrostatically charged dust and drags a bunch of it off, and they dramatically extended the life of the rover using this technique that nobody knew it was even possible, which is wonderful. And this is one of those things where they weren't able to keep going with all the instrumentation. But the thermal sensor they had decided long ago that it was not going to be cooperative anyways. And so as they prolonged the mission, they simply said, we're going to let that one go. So to go back to the beginning, this little spacecraft landed back in 2018, it had two primary instrumentation sets. It had the seismograph. And it had the mole. And the moles goal was to drive itself down through the dirt on the surface, embed itself a couple of meters under the ground along the way. Measure the thermal properties and allow us to finally know if all of our models for how the temperature varies as a function of depth on Mars are accurate or not. And what we learned was the dirt on Mars is more play like than we had anticipated. And the mole did not dig. It they tried every time. Yeah. Yeah, I have very clay soil where I am. And when it dries out, it is concrete. And obviously, you know, regolith on Mars has dried out. And the way the mole was supposed to work is it was a long cylinder that had essentially a thumper just flake out of the movie dune embedded inside. And it would slowly rise up and then smash down. And the smashed down was supposed to drive the entire thing downward through the soil. And it just kind of stayed in place, they tried pushing it down with that wonderful arm. It just refused to go. So we didn't learn anything about the thermal profile, but the creative solutions they just kept trying until senior review said stop, just stop. We're truly delightful. The other instrument was a seismograph that was designed to measure marsquakes and they weren't sure what they would detect when they built this instrument. They figured if nothing else, they would catch the waves of spaced rocks, asteroids, hitting the surface of Mars and sending shockwaves reverberating through the planet. And
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"What we know, but how we know what we know. I'm pretty sure Kane, I'm the publisher of universe today, I've been a space and astronomy journalist for over 20 years. With me, as always, is doctor Pamela Kay, a senior scientist for the planetary science institute, and the director of Cosmo quest. Hey Pamela, how you doing?
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"The planetary science institute, and the director of Cosmo quest. Hey, how you doing? I am doing well. I am super excited that this is our penultimate show. Penultimate show. And next week, so normally we would end the season with the show that we recorded before 4th of July. But with JWST's images coming out next week, we're hanging on a little bit longer than normal. Yeah, so we're going to stick around for two extra week, two extra shows. And be able to talk about the images of the first images from James Webb. But we'll be a couple of days late in when we record it because the images are coming out on the 12th. So we'll probably record it on the 13th. And then, but I think the episode is still coming to your hands at roughly the same time. So you don't need to worry about it. But we will be changing our schedule for if you want to watch the show live, we'll be changing the schedule so that we will be able to talk about it after the fact. So stay tuned for that. It'll be this season we'll definitely go out with a bang. Hopefully not with a bang, hopefully more with pretty pictures. Sure, I've metaphorically. Have you ever noticed that significant space in astronomy events seem to happen during the holidays? It's not a coincidence. There's actually a reason why. Today, we'll talk about some of the key events that happened during holidays and the underlying rationale. Now, when you describe this idea for a show, I was skeptical. And then you mentioned a bunch of events and underlying rationale and now I'm starting to come around. But I had never noticed this. But it clearly you have. So for me, it's been like my entire career. I've been explaining to family members. Why I can only sort of celebrate the holidays with them because my career requires me to sacrifice almost every holiday.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"The cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm professor Kean, publisher of university. I've been a space and astronomy journalist for over 20 years with me, as always, is doctor panel, okay? A senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of cause request. Hey, Pamela, how you doing? I am doing well. I have almost had my PhD for 20 years almost. That's amazing. What's the kind of anniversary some kind of jubilee PhD jubilee? No, you just get old. You just get old. You can stack up the papers. Yeah, exactly. Is that what reminds you when I've been doing my work? I wonder, like, wait a second. What year did you get your PhD? 'cause I started university in 99. I December of 2002, and it's 2022 now. So almost 20 years. So there you go. Yeah, so there you go. That's funny. I didn't realize. I'd assume that you got in your PhD before. I had started astronomy cast, but started universe today, but I guess not. I went through university in an absolutely average for a PhD in the U.S. amount of time, which is ten years from start to finish. And so unless I had skipped years of university, which I did not know, no, I finished in December 2002. All right, let's get into it. Summer is here, and that means finally tackling that huge list of books piled up on your bedside table and filling up your Kindle. What books do we recommend for some fun reads this summer? So we do this from time to time, although my reading has dropped this year, which makes me a little bit sad. I was reading up a storm last year, but I have not been reading a lot. So I won't be able to contribute a ton of new interesting stuff that's filled my brain to the conversation. But I know you've got a big list. So what's your goal here? You're trying to keep it light. My goal is to keep it light. My goal is to bring joy, and there is such a thing as dystopian books that still bring you joy, but the more laughter can be encouraged the better it is for beach reading. Have you ever caused yourself.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm Fraser Cain, publisher of universe today, I've been a space of astronomy journalist for over 20 years with me is doctor Pamela gay senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of Cosmo quest. Hey, Pam, how are you doing? I am doing well. I feel like I need to start saying, I've been a podcaster for 15 years or something..
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. Our visitor Kane publisher of universe today with me is always his doctor Pamela gay. A senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of classical quest. Hey, Pam, how are you doing? I'm having an allergy day. So if I look a little bit dragged, it's because I have a latex allergy, I tweeted all about this yesterday and then today made a hair elastic mistake. So the red eyes that are tearing up have nothing to do with anything in the world and everything to do with one lone misbegotten half elastic. I also have red eyes that are tearing up and mine is just seasonal allergies. And a little congestion in my nose. So I sound a little congested, but welcome to springtime. In the northern hemisphere. Yes. The Milky Way is a vast grand spiral today, but how did it get this way? Astronomers are starting to unravel the history of our galaxy, revealing the ancient collisions with dwarf galaxies and how they came together to build the modern Milky Way. All right Pamela, how can we do this episode and not just have me ranting and enthusiastically praising the Gaia space mission? Well, we impossible to help the fact that mergers aren't just in the Milky Way and they happen to our other places too. And the art catalog of irregular galaxies and all right, all right, all right. All right. Interactions leave dark matter less galaxies. Yeah, but there's gonna be a lot of time to spend praising Gaia. Gaia is amazing. Yeah, just be prepared to be sort of emotionally equipped to handle the effused praise for the guy a mission. All right, so I guess where did astronomers think galaxies came from? So originally they didn't..
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"I was trying to be cast episode 6 30. What we're looking forward to. Welcome to astronomy cast or weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. And publisher of universe today with me as always is doctor Pamela Kay, a senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of cause request. Hey, pal, how you doing? I'm doing well, how are you doing Fraser? I have never been so happy to have seasonal allergies. I've never been so happy. Never. The fact that it is so warm outside that plants are blasting their pollen out and it's getting into my eyes and it's causing me to take claritin has been absolutely wonderful fiends at hope is around the corner. I'm going to have to remember that. We're still about three inches deep and snow, which is not bad. And it's quite pretty. It's just enough to hide all the lawns and we have deer tracks across the front yard. Your body trying to, I guess, I'm not sure how season all of these work freak out about these foreign particles entering your airstream in your eyeballs is a sign of hope and freedom. So I'm excited. Yeah. In a rare moment of weakness, Pamela has decided that she's open to the possibility that a future exists that missions telescopes and spacecraft are going to be built and they're going to do science today. We'll talk about what we're looking forward to before she changes her mind and my naive optimism for the future. It's a Pamela. You've come around to this idea that the future is real that spacecraft may or may not be built and may or may not do science that telescopes could possibly be completed and begin doing science..
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Facts based journey through the cosmos where you help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm freezer Kane, publisher of universe today with me as always is doctor Pamela gay. I senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of Cosmo question. Hey Pam, how you doing? I am doing well enough. I am currently trying to cut back on caffeine and wow. This is going to be a caffeine line episode, everyone. You are warned. We need to warn everybody that you are dangerously under caffeinated today. It is true. And that that could have serious consequences. So just if it seems like I'm sort of having to boost her awake again every now and then it's not it's fine, it's fine. She'll get over this. It's true. Yeah. I think you have always just had so much coffee flowing in your system. Yeah. Yeah, I'm definitely one of those people that when the doctor asks how much coffee do you drink if I say two it means pots, not cups? And I got better for a while so that I was down to like 60 ounces of coffee a day. And 60. It's like 60 fl oz of coffee. Yeah. Yeah. Is a lot. So I drink about a third of that. Yeah. I drink two cups of coffee a day. So yeah. That's crazy. Well, so I was only having three cups, but they were 20 ounce cups. Yeah. So I realized over Christmas that because I was so acclimated. I had to go up to 5 20 ounce cups a day to have it really taken effect at which point the anxiety kicks in. Yeah. In your heart is going. We live in no one needs added anxiety. So I am no. I'm back to 20 ounces of.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Weekly facts based journey through the cosmos or we help you understand not only what we know about how we know what we know on Facebook and publisher of universe today with me as always is doctor Pamela gay. A senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of cause request. Hey mama, how are you doing? I am doing well. It is a weird, weird year, and it just keeps staying weird. So we're gonna do a retrospective on the weird and look ahead to the weird, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think I hoarded all the weather weirdness earlier in the year and you came in with fury sort of just in the last couple of weeks. With a tornado tearing your town apart. Yeah. Like you're safe. Yeah, we were completely fine. All of my Friends completely fine, just a whole lot of must clean up. And we had a high wind event afterwards that blew most of the mass away. So yeah, sorry everyone most of us. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty terrible. I mean, you had an Amazon warehouse sort of demolished in your town, but there's just this scar across. I think it's 400 kilometers. Yeah. Where the tornado, the storm passed. And unleashed, I think 70 separate tornado events. In the area, at least a hundred dead, hundreds injured the property damage is incomprehensible and so I'm really glad that you were able you and Kyle and your family and your friends and everybody working with you. Got through this unharmed. And I here's to a future. That's it. That's it for tornadoes hitting your town now for a while, I hope because that was pretty scary. It's about every 8 years we get one, 8 years ago, we had one that actually went to blocks that way past us and there was a Facebook post along the lines of if you don't hear from me here's where to look for my body. Oh, so yeah, yeah. It's the Midwest. You just have to take it on the chin, I guess, and yeah. Keep going. All right. Well, so on that note, we've reached 2021, and this is the last episode of the year. So let's look back at the big space events of the last year and talk about what we're looking forward to in 2022. So 2020 when we're not we're just looking at space and astronomy 2021 was pretty amazing with possibly the best news happening after we record this show. So there's a weird little gap where there's going to be a giant uncertainty and people listening to this episode will watch in real time. But we'll get to that in a second. We'll include that in the R 2022. So what are some of the big events that you were excited about this year? A bunch of offer one and then I'll do one. There was a helicopter that didn't crash and burn the way I really thought it would based on my RC airplane experience. That little helicopter is just doing an awesome job. So here I'm talking about perseverance and ingenuity, which landed and are now traipsing their way around in a really cool floodplain and taking in minerals we haven't seen before. Yeah, I mean, perseverance, I think that is definitely the biggest news of the year so far, depending on what happens with the game's web by the end of the year. It'll launch..
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Journey through the causal. So we help you understand not only what we know about how we know what we know. I'm freezer Cain publisher of universe today with me as always is doctor Pamela gay. I've seen your scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of Cosmo question. Hey, Pamela, how you doing? I'm doing well. It is rainy and cold. But that is superior to so many ways the weather could be right now. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny how as the weather turns and you're like, oh, I just wish it was warm and rainy. And then later on, you're like, I wish it was at least cold and rainy, but not wet, snow. So yeah, every time as the weather turns in the winter here, you just long for the previous months weather. Until we get around a spring. And the irony we have here and there's science in this, I promise. It's the super sunny crystal clear winter days that are the worst because that layer of clouds is thermal insulation. So on a super cloudy day, it's only going to get so cold because the infrared radiation is bouncing around between the ground and the clouds. But those crystal clear days are brutally cold and those are the days. I sit in a sunbeam and wish my windows were better. Yeah, yeah. We have the same same situation where the when it's clear and sunny is when it's the coldest for sure. All right, so we've talked about icy objects of the solar system. Today, let's talk about space rocks. There's a surprising variety of rocky material in the solar system. And each object has a story to tell about the history and formation of the planet's moons and the other rocky bodies. All right, Pamela, you queued up this topic. Where do you want to go today? Well, so we talked about the massive objects that are differentiated and could be called worlds..
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Walk up to astronomy cast or weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm prisoner Cain publisher of universe today with me as always, is doctor Pamela gay. A senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of cosmic quest. Hey bam how are you doing? I am doing well frizz or it is one of those picture perfect fall days where the wind is howling the leaves are blowing and you can just tell that snow is coming at some point. This is the first sunny day that we've had in all of November and probably for the last two weeks into October as well. It has been a wet wet fall. So yeah, it's kind of nice to be able to stand outside and feel the burning orb of the sun on your face. You do live in a tropical rain forest. Temperate. Temperate forest. Do you live in a temperate rainforest? Yeah. Apparently, I guess comes with a lot of rain. It does. Yeah, it's right there on the packaging. No, true that. No snow yet, but it's close. We see the snow line inching down a day after day. And so it's just a matter of time for the snow gets to us. Yeah, it's 5 hours drive north of us. Right now, but I live here it's flat, so it's not like you can gain anything by going up a hill. Right. All right, good news. Over the next few years, we're going to see a flotilla of new missions headed to Jupiter and Saturn. Why aren't we seeing more missions to the outer planets? Like Uranus and Neptune. Even Pluto, it turns out those places are far away. Today, let's talk about the challenges of exploring the outer outer solar system. You know, I think one of the things that we've talked about for a long time is how sad it is that there aren't any missions, planned for Uranus Neptune Pluto, the oort cloud, it sucks. Why? So there's two different problems. And which one you worry about more depends on the science you're trying to do. The first problem is, just getting out there fast enough so that you can accomplish your science within a human lifetime. Or at least with the next generation, we do build missions where we know that it's going to be the next generation of scientists. To do the science. So getting fast enough is problem. One. And the problem too is if you want to do more than a very brief flyby, you have to figure out how to drop all that velocity that you've gained all that momentum that you gained. And somehow get yourself in orbit around one of these worlds so that you can do lasting data collection. All right, so I think that's going to be a bit of a surprise to people. So let's tackle that first. So you've got this idea, I guess. You'd say you're going to launch a mission to Mars. And you've got kind of two options for how you do this mission to Mars. One option is that you can do a flyby. And so you just take some pictures, you don't get caught in Mars's gravitational field and you just fly on through the other option is that you attempt to go into orbit around Mars. So how does that change between those two mission parameters?.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Our weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. Our friends are in publisher of universe today with me as always is doctor Pamela gay. I senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of cosmic quest. How are you doing? I'm doing remarkably well for someone who is now in, I think this is our 30 at this point. 36 hours of streaming. There may be a few words missing from my brain, but there's a lot of joy in my heart. Yeah, you were able to sleep last night a little bit, right? You got a nap? Yeah, I slept for about 5 hours and tomorrow I will be sleeping a little bit later. And then joining my team and I suspect we're going to be eating food and watching dune because tis the season. Tis dune season. Yes. Excellent while congratulations on the hangout of thon so far. Of course, when the people listen to this episode, it will have already happened, but here we are. All right, speak speaking of hangout of thons. Funding for basic science has always been tricky business, coming mainly from universities, government companies, or wealthy individuals, but who knows how many fascinating discoveries were never made because of a lack of funding. And we now live in an era where.
Astronomy Cast
"planetary science institute" Discussed on Astronomy Cast
"Our weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm freezer Kane, publisher of universe today with me as always, is doctor Pamela gay. I senior scientist for the planetary science institute and the director of Cosmo question. Hey, pan, how you doing? I am doing well. There is so much going on right now. The day after record this Saturday,.
SpaceTime with Stuart Gary
Lunar Water is More Abundant Than Previously Thought
"Astronomers have discovered that water maybe far more abundant on the moon than previously thought water is is already being detected on the permanently shadowed floors of craters neither Luna polls with some never reaches and signatures for hydroxy polls that he's molecules made up one hydrogen and one oxygen atom has been detected on the lunar surface now, and you study reported in the Journal. Nature Astronomy is confirmed that water molecules comprising one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. Good outage to uh-huh has been found in lunar regular. Even sunlit areas of the Moon, the observations were made by Sophia the stratospheric observatory for infrared astronomy a converted Boeing seven, four, seven SP airliner fitted with a two point seven meter infrared reflect telescope. The observatory which is operated by Nassar and the German Aerospace Centre de la was able to detect the molecules in the Moon Southern Hemisphere Safiya Project Site Alexandra Roy from dealer says scientists have been looking for water on the moon ever since the first lunar rocks were brought back to earth in the nineteen sixties. However evidence it's been hard to come by the first confirmation of Luna, water came in two thousand and eight from this moon. Meteorology Mabuhay aboard the Indian Chan One spacecraft which detected frozen on the shaded floors of Doc. Paula. Craters Sophia was able to identify the mistake fingerprint of water molecules in the mid infrared range at a wavelength of six micrometres in the vicinity of the the crater in the moon southern fear, and that raises some interesting questions where did the water in these non polar regions come from and how come it can persist in these areas without an atmosphere surface temperatures can read something like two hundred and thirty degrees. Celsius hot enough to cause water to evaporate under the hate of the light of Sun. Now, it's possible that micrometeorites which are. Constantly falling onto the lunar surface I carrying small quantities of water which deposited the lunar rocks during collisions. In the process, the water becomes enclosed in tiny glass bead like structures in the ground. Another idea involves a two stage process in which hydrogen from the solar wind riches the lunar surface combined with hydroxyl molecules on the ground to form water molecules. The data required by Safiya indicates that most of this water being detected so far lies within the substrate covering the lunar surface. Now, we're not talking about much Roy estimates. It's about the. Equivalent of a three mealy milliliter. A can of drink spread a resurface area, the size of a football pitch in reality, it means the moon still dry than the desert's of earth, but the quantity of water that's been discovered could still prove important future missions to the moon severe. We'll now observe the moon sunlit surface during different. Luna faces to investigate this water phenomenon in greater detail sinus that this will open up a new insight into where the water on the moon comes from how it's stored and how it's distributed across the surface. Meanwhile a second study also reported in the journal Nature Astronomy modeled areas of the lunar surface cast in permanent shadow finding that these so-called cold traps contain at least twenty percent of all the water is on the moon it seems small scattered. Cold trips are scattered across the lunar polar regions and could provide accessible water resources which could be used for drinking for making oxygen for breathing and making oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel. One of the study's authors. No, but Shraga, offer from the Planetary Science Institute says Future Lunar Rovers may have a hard time driving into date dot craters. With extremely low temperatures but smaller cold traps would be far more accessible. He says approximately ten to twenty percent of the cold trap area for water is fantasy contained within microcode traps must witcher less that a major across the discovery changes sciences perspective of water on the Moon, which until now is focused on the largest water as was situated within the broadest deepest craters at high latitudes astronomer. Johnny Horner. From the University of southern Queensland says these latest discoveries of water on the moon will play a major role in the autumn missions returning humans to the lunar surface in twenty twenty four. Ways, you can look at of them that he's much more general and the people took much. It's what really shattering this myth, the Walter Scott in the innovest, which is something that's been a bit of bath mindset. A couple of decades since got my career Walter is everywhere. It's just it's Walter ice rather than liquid. Well, what we found over the last decade of so it's the most lessons that we look the more West finding. Walter, in it never imagined, we're announcement of Wall Toronto Mercury it will not last thing to look what we're finding. The. Central Time there is Walter. The colts of the mode have been confirmed on the mall, the compound as more water than people my. Locations way will be able to access that won't actually from a technology on down the line I'm not hungry exciting locations, the future of kind of human space exploration particularly from the point of view I've going places and then creating your own fuel back to go on from that, which if you do that, it says a huge amount of because if you only continues feel. You've lost fueling. To take with you for whatever future and he wants to attack the problem is that launching prevented big Strong gravitational. You've got much better as well. So every time you wanted few, you've been going to use more fuel to launch fuel. So you have this kind of runaway way.
Astronomy Cast
Other Kinds Of Novae
"CAST episode five eighty one other kinds novais welcome to China caster weekly faxes journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know how what we know. I'm Brisbane publisher of the Universe today with me as always as Dr Pamela Gay a senior scientist for the Planetary Science, Institute and the Director of course. How you doing I'm doing well, how are you doing good the word size just comes up your senior scientists working for a scientist a tude science science science. It, it's kind of the way I live my life. It's nice to have people focused on science it is. It is and Happy, I Canadian thanksgiving. Oh. Yeah. That's this weekend. Yeah. We're. We're not that big about Thanksgiving around here in fact my. My my sister calls no thanksgiving. All, right we we keep a pretty low key. chloe's to be coming back from university for for Thanksgiving and we'll be hanging out so so. Excellent. Yeah. But but. Trying to organize like a Thanksgiving dinner is very complicated around the house so. So ten we tend to make something Super Yummy. That's all you name. Yeah exactly. But it's also you know as I mentioned year after year it's entire. It's very civilized although I think this year. Like, nobody's be traveling in the US to attend Thanksgiving's so I think you have to worry. But maybe in future years once the pandemic has wrapped up, then consider adopting Canadian thanksgiving is your date because it's just. Air travel traveling in general is a lot easier in in. October than in November. This is true and we're starting to get fall leaves. So it's more. than. The the leaser. Great. Yeah. November they're they're they've all fallen. It's gross. Yeah. All right. So don't ever accuse us of not comprehensively covering every kind of exploding star this week we gather ball the leftover ways that stars partially or fully explode don't probably enjoy. Oh Pamela. So I'm not GonNa lie I did absolutely zero preparation for this week's episode. Because I have no idea. What's In fact, we were prepping like okay. So what what's left and then you then proceeded to rattle off a whole bunch of ways it starts getting split I had no idea. Had even had names but. Why. These these are in minimal exploding right moments in our life. You gotTa Start and start gets brighter. It could be an explosion, it might not be. And and this is where we have to go back to what does the word Nova mean it it's a new star and so Nova New Star. Yeah. So anytime, a star decides, Hey, I, may not have been visibly bright before but look at me now and hops into our sky. That's a Nova. And so far we've discussed where you have a compact object White Dwarf Neutron Star, whatever that is stealing matter from a companion and periodically flares in brightness due to usually some sort of an exploded. We talked many times in the past about supernova where an entire star decides I'm GonNa could boom either my outer atmosphere or all of myself and we've behind something or nothing depending on the stars mass and whim. Yes. Put. There's other really cool stuff out there. And the other cool stuff out there. has produced some of the most beautiful didn't actually explode remnants for Hubble and other massive telescopes to point that. So let's let's run through a couple of examples I guess of of of Stars that did something interesting but not in a traditional variable star sense because we've talked to them plenty of times but like weird variable stars, Right Right. So so here we have systems like I think the most famous may be Ada Karena. exploded. Ready. Right well or not. I, mean here we have this this star that wasn't particularly noticeable Intel in the eighteen thirties. It decided to suddenly do the opposite of bagel juice and it became brighter than Rachel. Brightest, stars in the sky. It became the second brightest star in the sky for a while. Just after serious. It's had multiple episodes of getting brighter getting, Fainter. and. It's thought that this humongous Nebula that is around it this it looks like an hourglass with an exploding waistline. I don't know how five it. Yeah. So the hour glass of material around it is is thought to be material that was given off during its great eruption in the eighteen hundreds. And its subsequent. inning occurred when all of this material cooled and coalesced into dust and that dust hit the the two stars. We now know that are lurking down in the center of this system
Astronomy Cast
Mars in Opposition
"Wadham to astronomy, cast our weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know. But how we know what we know I'm Fraser Cain publisher, of Universe today and with me as always Dr Pamela Gay a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the Director of Cosmic Quest Pamela. Welcome back from Summer Hiatus I missed you. Thank you. I've missed you too although I have to say it feels like we're like experiencing march. Two. Hundred instead of September at this point time has meaning it doesn't it really has no meaning. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a it's a snake in a circle eating its own tail. Made of everything nothing at the same time. I don't know whether I'm coming or going. The days just blur and yet time just takes forever. When do I get my vaccination? You are you are you on I was thinking about this really want to do what I want to go places and see people. That's what I do. To to have gone from having that amazing experience in January where we were together in Hawaii for the W. S meeting. And towards the end of that meeting, we were starting to talk about the news about this strange illness in China and remember the Thursday night on. Talking with a couple of my friends at the conference about. Just want to get home before the illness makes it to Hawaii. And I had no idea that. Nine mice be earlier. Still Yeah, no I guy I had my suspicions but. In. And now I you know we do feel like we're closing in now on the final stretch that more and more vaccines are coming into into the final stage of trials, and there's going to be some kind of roll out but I really hope that that herd immunity will start to get kicked in and we can start to see the end of this hopefully during this season. So we will we will and herd immunity from. Thanks. From getting sick. So we will. Exceed the end of it during the season and. Regular life will return. This season fourteen, our show is major and I feel that having a very cranky year is consistent with going through our teenage ness. Thank you bye-bye. Now this is. All right, every two years or so Mars lines up nicely with the earth it takes only two minutes to communicate with the Rovers. You could see the polar ice caps in a small telescope and it's the best time to send your spacecraft to the Red Planet and also I. Guess. It Mars opposition. Between Your horoscope your Mars horoscope is really good that other works. Maybe, that's Mars in retrograde. That none lucky time. They can happen at the same time whereas in retrograde and an opposition. Yeah. That's true. All right. So so so we're going to talk about how Mars and opposition is a really like the best time for Mars that's Mars really takes over the night sky and shows us what it's got but. Why is Marzano Position? So technically, it is that moment in time when you have the sun, the earth and Mars precisely lined up so that at midnight on earth. Mars is at its highest possible point in our terrestrial sky and if you were to look at it from space. Walk. Would they look from above you're looking down on the solar system and you're looking at? Earth Mars and the sun what would you see? Align they're just nicely in a line. And There's some years where because Mars orbit is a lot more elliptical than earth orbit that we are noticeably closer. There's some years that were noticeably farther apart of back in two thousand and three. There's a lot of Hoopla because we were than. We'd been in hundreds of years would be for another hundred some odd year. He was fifty thousand years was the closest yet had been. Two Thousand and three. And at these closest points, we are more than twenty million miles closer than we are during opposition when Mars is at its far points. So there is a substantial difference, but in the grand scheme of things. Mars is still smaller than allows to see it as a desk without. Really good binoculars or a telescope. So but just to give just to give people a sense of perspective, I mentioned this the beginning of the show it takes two light minutes to communicate with Mars just over two minutes right now we'll win Mars you not position until you can. You know you send your beep boop commands to your over and you're over goes beep boop and sends back it's commands and it's just like you're playing a video game with. Fairly reasonable times, but when Mars is. Old Dial up modem exactly. An Internet game what it gets worse right on average the a the time to transmit to Mars is about twelve and a half minutes and at the very worst when Mars is on the opposite side of the Sun It's twenty minutes. So if you want to send some piece of information to Mars, you've got to wait twenty minutes for the message to get there and then twenty minutes to come back. So. The distances are really significant.
Astronomy Cast
Observing The Moon
"I'm prisoner. Cain publisher of university with me as always as Dr Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the planetary. Science Institute and the Director of Quest. How you doing. I'm doing well. How are you doing this fine night before summer? Solstice I know it's. I've got to say we've been doing the virtual star parties, even having to go later and later and later we have start at nine o'clock. It's going to be nice that that the that nighttime comes earlier now. We'll talk a bit about this next week a bit about about. The things we've able to see in the in the nice warm summer, nighttime sky in the Northern Hemisphere. But as you probably know, this is going to be our our penultimate episode for season. Would we bath beforehand? What did we say season fourteen? We think it seems to work we. We think we're on season fourteen of astronomy cast. So we start up again in September. Typically we used to start with whatever interview Pamela would do at Dragon Con, but I don't think that's going to be happening this year. Not so much so much, so we will, but yeah, we will be picking up again in two months so this episode next week's episode, and then we start back up. But one I just want to promote. If you haven't already is, you should sign up to my weekly email newsletter. That I write every week. In fact, I'm in the midst of writing it right now. I send it out on Friday, mornings. And it is. Got Twelve to twenty stories in it links to dozens of other interesting stories. Great Pictures Astro photography. It is a one stop shop for every piece of Space News. That's happened this week that I. Find Interesting, so you should go to universe today. Dot Com slash newsletter to sign up. It's totally free. There's no ads. It's just. Fraser's. musings on what's happening in space and astronomy. It's awesome you wanted. And when he calls into this letter, he's lying. It's more like a magazine. It's amazing a lot. It's a novella. Each one is about yeah. I'd probably say it's about fifteen thousand words that I. write once a week, yeah! That right. No, not that many words five thousand, probably five thousand words alright. As amateur astronomers, we curse the moon every month. seriously. Why doesn't someone get rid of that thing? This week something occurred to us. What if we actually pointed telescopes at the Boone? What would we see? Yeah, we I hate them. Does Because half of the month for goodly portions. You, look up at the moon and there's you look up at the sky and all you see. Is The sky glowing because of the stupid moon? But the pick your crimes better. Yeah, exactly picnic only yeah, only look at space for two weeks when the Moon is below the horizon the times when it's not raining here on the west coast which face it. That's all the time. Yeah Yeah. Pick your times better. So let's look at the blue so. The the
Astronomy Cast
Discovering Comets
"I'm Freezer Cain publisher of university with me as always as Dr Pamela. Gay a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the Director of cosmic quest. How you doing I'm doing. Well how are you doing fraser? Great Full on Paradise is back here on the west coast of Canada. Everything is growing like crazy. I can't we'd fast enough to keep up with the the new plants that yes. Yeah yes I put eight bucky garbage pails out filled with yard waste for the garbage trucks to come and take away. This is madness. Yeah Yeah and it's it's beautiful like every everywhere you like. Oh it'll never like just looks like such horror show and then boy come. May everything just just paradise again. Love it up here. I did plant my ps too early and they have little frost tinged leaves for the ones that didn't get underneath my cold frame fast. Enough a weird we. We can plant our piece here January and that's pretty much can't plant them early enough. January's fine February. Yeah and then. That's the perfect timing because they like to be cold and then they come up and then yeah we actually have a very mild climate here on Vancouver Island compared to what you have. So Oh yeah well and you started your PS outside. I started mine inside. And you're like wait we. We don't like it out here to you. You always start them outside here. You don't you're it's crazy you're wasting your time you just dump you dump amount of peas into the ground and they are popping by by. March you start to get fresh peas off them by April. I didn't plan any this year. We've we've shifted everything deflowers because somebody likes flowers and hates hate peas although peas meek flowers flowers yeah but anyway let's get onto it so discovering comets is one of the fields that amateurs can still make regular contribution to astronomy but more and more comets are getting found by spacecraft automated systems and machine learning this week. We'll talk about how comets discovered in how you can get your name on one. Have you ever tried to be? Have you ever tried to discover a comment very briefly in graduate school? And then the fact that I had to do graduate. Schoolwork stopped that plan. Yeah so so. How did how did that work like man? I want my name on a comet. Well it was the Soho Data and so not every games. Yeah but it was just the I want to be the first one. It's it's like you see people who on threads on forms or like I and that's all they want to do. This is the comment equivalent of this. Because I just have to do everything nerdier so I wanted to be able to say I on an image of a comment and Soho data so all right so for I mean we've done episode whole epistle comments. We've talked about many things but for anyone who I guess I don't want I don't want to say like you don't don't don't explain what a comet is but explain explain in come off like this baby's first astronomy cast like. Let's let's bring things forward a little bit here. But at least let's talk about the features of comets as a relate to how and where we see them. Find them okay. So comets are small bodies in our solar system that when you apply enough heat grow a cloudy coma around them and a tale of debris that is getting pushed back from them by the solar wind their orbits tend to be a lot more elliptical than the orbits of Asteroids and so we often initially categorize something as asteroid or comet based on its orbit. Because when you find a comet far enough out you can't tell what its future may be but really the only difference between an asteroid and a comet is the ratio of things that melt and things that don't add inner solar system temperatures and we have those two varieties of commerce. We have the short period long period comets and. I'd say that we actually have three because we also have. Yeah sure you need to add behave like a long period comet and so short period comets they go around and around and around and they don't get that far away from the sun and they appear on a regular basis but I mean that can be Haley's comet once every seven years you see this thing flare back up again and again and again. While the long periods we're seeing them for the first time ever and chances are they've never been to the inner solar system and there's a really good chance that a lot of prior long period comets that we saw were actually interstellar and we just didn't know it because we didn't stop to think about it
Astronomy Cast
Ethics of Commercial and Military Space
"I'm Fraser. Cain publisher of University with me as always Dr Pamela. Gay a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the Director of Bus Hip Pamela. Hey doing I'm doing well. How are you doing fraser a once again? The weather's just getting better and better. The apocalypse has never looked so. Lovely Garden is getting out of control. Is the chief sentence. It is now in control and we've got to cut it back. There's just too many plants too much grass too much weeds. I got many weeks ahead of me at this point out in the garden. The day of the trip is trying to be upon you exactly every year. More and more people are making their way to space. Some private citizens have already gotten their astronaut wings paying for a trip to space out of their own pocket. What are the ethical implications of this as the cost of spaceflight? Come down so we've got a new series. We're going to do like at least a two part series. Maybe at most two part series home. But this week we're going to talk about private spaceflight and just what are the ethical issues with this? Next week we will talk about military spaceflight. We're GONNA talk about Space Force. Although I think if we got timing a little better we could do. The episode after Space Force COMES OUT THE NEW TV show. Oh Yeah we can pull that off. Can we may thirty first. So let's talk about today. We'll talk about space tourism. The new movie that is planned next week will look at the trade off between commercial space and scientific exploration from the ground. So issues like the iridium satellites and of space resources for economic purposes. And then we'll go to space force. Okay now we've done two episodes about space tourism to fourteen and four fifty one to cover too much ground. But I think the thing that I found very interesting was just the way you had proposed it. Which is let's deal with the commercial and the ethics of this situation and we'll sort of see where that gets US first. Let's just talk about like? How do you define private spaceflight? When the purpose is the economic benefits of the parent company and its shareholders over the advancement of science and exploration causes that benefit mankind rather than stakeholders and. I mean like one version. That could very well be space. Tourism that you've got a space tourism company that is sending people on flights and they're having fun in going to the zero g hotel and enjoying themselves or flying to the moon and printing about on the moon in that low gravity but that is really just a sub set of what private spaceflight could look like so when you think about that larger umbrella. What are some other examples of the kinds of missions? We'd be run privately. Well this is where we start looking at. And this is what triggered this for me Sending people to spaced film adventure movies rather than to do the normal peacekeeping educational and scientific endeavors that take place on the space station even space tourists up until now have pretty much been tasked with. We're going to train you like an astronaut. You're GONNA do education stuff while you're up there too. And Hey we may throw you a bone and give you a little bit of science to do right but right now. Tom Cruise is looking to partner with spacex to partner with NASA and this has been tweeted out by NASA administrator. Jim Breitenstein they're gonNA film a not mission impossible but certainly an impossible mission on the International Space Station. Yeah I can't even imagine how awful difficult that process is going to be. I think I had a chance to interview someone who took the Imax seventy millimeter imax cameras up on the space station and tried to make a documentary. They gable the gave the astronauts. They taught them how to use these cameras than they had to. Fly Up with these cameras and try to shoot what they were doing. While they're up there and then send the footage back down or it was on the space shuttle. Anyway it was tough. Because it's a great big bulky professional camera that shoots an enormous amount of film at this huge aspect ratio. And it's a real challenge and so same thing right. Does he do his own shooting? Do you send up another person. Who's who does can handle camera sound hair makeup fright to the Astros get involved so I just. The details of this are blowing my mind but I think when you when we look at just all of human existence today and we think about all the trips that human beings take the vast majority of them are private right. When you fly in an airplane you know ninety nine point nine nine. Nine percent of the airplane flights are for private purposes. You are on a trip. You are carrying cargo. You are doing this. And then every now and then some would fly the airplane to a hurricane or you know to take some aerial footage of a of a drought. And that's the scientific purposes but the vast majority into. Why wouldn't it be that into the future? This is where it starts to become a how the numbers work out. And what is the ethics of this kind of question and in the frame of reference? I'm using for this is when I was a graduate student at McDonald Observatory. We'd periodically get. Vip's coming through the telescope and no matter what we're observing for science at that moment we had to kind of put it on the back burner and yeah. We'd bang the keys that we needed to keep things more or less going in a timely fashion but we had to pay attention to these guests who might be funders who might potentially help keep our science going one more year with the money. They might give the Observatory. And this okay. We are a not for profit. Enterprise we exist thanks to the generosity of our donors thanks to our competitiveness in peer reviewed science funding opportunities and thanks to our benefit actors in the state government who give us line item budgets. We know that we exist by the grace of all of these different humans and so we have to dance like the dancing monkey when they appear to keep them happy. That is of the job that we are. All aware of and astronauts are fully aware that that is also part of their job. They are all given amounts of media-training they're given massive amounts of here are effective ways to communicate complex ideas how to work a crowd how to be this stem educator. Even though they may be training pilot an engineer a doctor a myriad of other different things geophysicist. But they're all trained to be educators in the role of astronauts and when they're on the International Space Station. They know part of their is going to be on video cons with girl scouts to Judge Science Fair from outer space to do all these different feel-good tasks that remind everyone. Hey we have astronauts so the funding keeps flowing. We know that's part of the job. But that's a few moments a few hours out of your day and what we're looking at here is filming a movie in Outer Space. We don't know how long Tom Cruise and whoever else might be on the International Space Station but what we do know is while they're up there there. It's a twenty four hour gig in a large way and so now. Instead of being there a stem professionals benefiting mankind inspiring engaging educating their crew on a movie that the movie's primary goal is to have a great storyline and earn a whole lot of profit. And so where is the ethics in having our astronauts instead of engaging people in Wasilla educate them about space having them work crew on a film
Astronomy Cast
In situ resource utilization
"I'm Fraser. Cain publisher of University with me as always Dr Pamela Gate a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the Director. Cozma quest. If you doing I'm doing well. How are you doing fraser good? We sound particularly of cheery for the apocalypse. It's a Friday. I'm going to go in the yard and burn things later today. We've we've definitely moved from the existential crisis. The deep grief phase of this process to the marathon portion where we are settling in for what is probably going to be months if not years of on and off again restrictions lockdown and quarantines and although is still terrible out there and please everybody you know we through this. Collective sacrifice have made a dent in many countries on the spread of this disease. Now we have to lock it up. Yeah Yeah we have to lock this. Have TO LOWER THE RATE. That is transmitting to other people. To below one and and wipe it out of existence and New Zealand's already succeeded so this is possible. It requires a massive combination of testing and Quarantine and tracking down contacks. But that little island nation or two island nation proved. It is possible now. A LOT OF PLACES OUT. There are lifting their shelter in place warnings. Well you're about to be in trouble in three weeks and we're very sorry. Yeah so even. If the shelter in place has been lifted keep an eye on the spread. Remember how it was spreading back in the beginning and just think about that as well in the end. It's sort of like the responsibilities on each one of us to ensure the safety of everybody around us so so take those with a grain of salt. How the key to surviving in space? We'll be learning how to live off the land instead of carrying all your fuel water and other resources from Earth extract them locally at your destination. It's called Institute Resource Utilization. And if we could figure this out it'll change everything our Pamela. Do a bit of a history lesson here when we talk about. How essentially we couldn't have done exploration here on earth without in. Situ resource utilization. It's the key exactly. Yes and it has actually reshaped our world. Nowhere more so than the island of Iceland. It turns out that sailing ships require masts and masts like to break and way back when the great explorers of the northern oceans. The Vikings came across this place with amazing forests and tall strong trees and they settled in and the mast they needed and carried on with their massive trade. We always highlight the pillaging that occurred but it turned out these were also traders hunters gatherers and well. Iceland was once a greatly forced Atlanta and now it has almost no forests and it's leading the vast amounts of erosion. So be careful what you take. Yeah it's interesting when you're there at Iceland. There are no trees right. That's because the vikings yeah mean there's the occasional tree like a person might have a tree in their yard. Apparently there are now some efforts to attempt to reforest the island in theory you know get another couple of hundred years and there will be focused on on Iceland again but clearly. They found what they needed. They were able to survive by cutting down all those trees. Thanks so maybe that's not necessarily the. How want this lesson to workout? But the point being that the only way they were able to survive was the fact that there were resources that they could use traffic. Cut DOWN ANIMALS. They could hunt fish. Eat things places. They could grow things they were able to survive in. What is a very hostile place? And this is how we have systematically explored our world again another amazing example of the past is the Polynesians. They knew exactly were all the little islands dotting the South Pacific were located and had an amazing. Plus you'll navigation skills and new. If they went from here to here there would be freshwater when they got to the next place there would be food. There would be things necessary to carry on their carrying on as they moved throughout massive areas of the ocean. And so when we look at the history of space exploration plans when you look at the Moon missions they carried everything every calorie that the astronauts would need was carried up from the surface of the earth every drop of water every every molecule of oxygen that they were going to breed. Everything had to be carried completely from Earth. And then all the way back from the moon and back in the fifties sixties seventies eighties nineties. People were planning missions to Mars. That would be the same thing. Carry everything the Mars and then carry it to be able to survive on the on the surface of Mars and carry out a mission. It's not feasible. The math just kept breaking. Yeah and this is where it gets really interesting to me. Just what is considered in situ resource utilization? Basically if you don't have to take something with you that means you are utilizing it where you go and if you don't have to carry all of your own energy with you so say you have solar panels. Those solar panels count as an in situ resource utilization. And it's something that doesn't work everywhere in this hour system because we have places the outer solar system for instance we really need to have those radio thermo generators those nuclear fuel cells whereas on Mars. Unless you're curiosity they just solar power away. And that's a form of institute resource utilization. The Sun is in situ you talk about the power. Yeah let's say you don't have to carry your liquid. Hydrogen liquid oxygen. You don't also don't have to carry the fuel to carry the liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen and so there is this huge multiplier for every kilogram. That you're trying to carry to the surface of Mars. Many kilograms of propellant. Get you there and we. I started seeing people. Think hard about. How do we separate the resources we need from the rocks of other worlds in the nineteen sixties and this started crop up in novels like the Moon is a harsh mistress? Which if you haven't read that is absolutely required reading in modern times and in that novel they were shipping grain seeds from Earth up to the moon utilizing human by products and Water. That was found in the regular of the moon to grow vast crops. That were then shipped back to Earth. Which was actually a day shipping the water from the moon down to Earth
Astronomy Cast
Betelgeuse
"Beetlejuice able juice could use. Try Our weekly facts based journey through the cosby help. You understand not only what we know but how we know what we know. I'm Fraser. Cain publisher of University with me as always Pamela. Gay a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the Director of Cosmic West. Hey Pamela I'm doing well. How are you doing fraser? I'm doing great and I mentioned this in the preamble but I just wanted to say this again. Which is a huge congratulations to our good friend. Dr E-e-e-e-no Neil who just announced that he's going to be working at NASA jet propulsion lab in their media department in is terrific science journalist. One of the best in the business and it's a pretty good fit that he's now working over at NASA he was the editor for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Mercury He has been a columnist for discovery and seeker. He did work with us at Universe today. And and this is great. Congratulations Ian Android. GonNa take the next two weeks off. I'M GONNA call it spring break. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just going to be writing software but you sir are going on a grand adventure. Yeah I'm going to Japan with my son and there is. This is not work. This is literally just him. I said where do you WanNa go and he goes? I want to go to Japan and then I waited for cheap tickets to come around and he did and so we're off to Japan of course rough Japan when there's a corona virus of but you know we'll take precautions and it doesn't look like it's that bad they're currently so And I can't wait to see this place. I've wanted to go to Japan all my life and to be able to do. This is going to be a lot of fun. Definitely take pictures. Might Visit a few spacey. Things like the Japanese space agency but this is about. This is about his trip. Not You know now. My trip are able see. You might be surprised to hear that we've never done episode of astronomy cast featuring beetlejuice. Were good news. This is that episode. Let's talk about the Star. Why it might be dimming. And what could happen if it explodes as Super Noah I? I've had to do a search for I actually You know wrote on my intro and I think we suggest that wanted to pursue put on the calendar and like all of this time. We've talked about a Ryan. We've talked about the way stars die and we've obviously mentioned bill many times as a candidate for new supernova but had never actually spent a whole episode on this one specific star. Well obviously good timing on our part because it's so interesting right now So what does beetlejuice? It is a red supergiant star that is visible to both the northern and Southern Hemisphere. We have no hemispheric bias. In choosing this star it has evolved off the main sequence which means it is no longer burning hydrogen in its very core and it probably did this only about a million years ago and now it is systematically burning through heavier and heavier shells of elements deep in its well. Many many solar mass self as it hangs out shining bright in the northern winter and the southern summer and it is. It is a Ryan's right shoulder. I mean when you look at it. Looks like it's on the left but if you were a Ryan and you were facing towards us than it would be his right shoulder and there's some fascinating history on its name and I have to admit I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole. Prepping for this episode. It's it's name is Arabic and yes over. The years has probably been missed. Transcribed so that there are those who believe that it translates as a Ryan's armpit right and this can be caused by dropping a little dot under one of the characters at wrong moment in time It probably has a much better name than a Ryan's armpit. This is still up for a fair amount of discussion. We'll actually one of our one of our viewers Rami amid who speaks Arabic. He's saying that it is the name comes from the Arabic Abbott L. Josiah which literally means the armpit of the mighty hunter so that sounds better than Orion armpit. It's of the mighty hunter it's true. It's yeah true and we. We're going to mispronounce it and of course. The hilarious thing is is how people give us such a hard time. Because they're expecting that it should be beetlejuice. Yes but and we tend to say bail juice and that is. That's a little bit of a holdover from. I think the way they used to describe it before the movie came out. Seattle has has shifted it to Beatlemania. Even that isn't correct so so maybe we can after. The fact may be get Susie to get maybe Romney or someone to do the proper Arabic pronunciation in the show and then you know then that conserve as the as sort of the standby and I've heard a lot of people like even the German say people are say that well. Actually it's a German word but it's not no near Bec- yes it comes from. Yeah it's has an Arabic root so anyway. Yeah so we're going to say bill. And maybe even shifted beetlejuice every now and then Please just just bear with us and however you choose to pronounce it. This isn't an object that was strictly noted and observed by a people living around the Mediterranean Ocean. This is an object that it's variable in its brightness as all of us can currently go out and see and this variability appears to have. I been noted by the aborigines of Australia. It it is a star crops up in the Lore of society after sisters after society but the science the awesome saw. Science is why we're here today because when you ask which objects in the sky are most likely to go boom. This is one of the two ADA crane has the other it is strictly southern hemisphere. Cirilli beetlejuice is the one we want so that all of us can enjoy the experience. And the problem is we don't know when this is going to occur but scientifically reproduced sure. It's not now right but you can hope to be wrong. Yes yes so. It's it's a random event. We'll talk about this a little bit about what's going on and how we might know but So I wanNA talk a bit about just what stage it is kind of star. It is compared to say a star like our Sun. So so how does this star compare to to our son? I radically different. Our our son is because it is ours. It is used as the measuring stick by which we well measure everything outright. It weighs one the Sun. Exactly yeah exactly one. The Sun Beetlejuice is estimated that when it was in the same of illusionary stages that our son when it was on the main sequence burning hydrogen in its core. It's estimated to have been just under twenty solar masses if we had seen it during that stage it would've been one of those bright blue o type stars like we love to enjoy in the Orion Nebula Orion is a massive star forming region. That entire swath of the sky is rich in all the things needed to make stars and there's lots of young stars in that direction well beetlejuice isn't necessarily young. It finished burning all of that hydrogen. But because it's so massive as it evolved off of the main sequence as it expanded out it didn't go through this massive flash that we see in smaller stars where it suddenly was like boom. I'M GONNA burn helium in my core instead because it was so massive it was able to gradually transition into doing this and as it did it just basically migrated sideways across the color magnitude diagram. That hurts been Russel Diagram ending up in the top center of that diagram being cool red and kind of unable to hold onto all of its atmosphere.
Astronomy Cast
Supernova SN 2006gy
"I came publisher Serve Universe today with me as always? Dr Pamela gave a senior scientists for the Planetary Science Institute. And the director of COSMO question. How you doing? I'm doing well. How are you doing doing very well as well? Well as well Anything new happening in your verse. It Komo customers federal few extra snow falls too so we are plugging away. Every winter's Day on our new code set One of you out there. You know who you are actually came over in. Joined us on dischord to help us out with the coding and that made me super excited so if any of you want to donate some time and join our open source project. We're doing a complete rebuilt and you're all welcome And and I get super happy if you say you understand javascript. Complete rebuilt are always fun. And by that right I mean never. We've been following this story for more than two decades with great to finally have an answer to the question why was Supernova two thousand six six G Y so insanely bright. Astronomers originally thought it was an example of a supermassive star exploding but new evidence provided even more fascinating. Answer our Pamela do you remember where you were when Supernova two thousand six G. Y. exploded especially before our time on astronomy cast. Yeah so oh I I would have just moved here to Illinois. I would have been a baby professor. We would have just started this show. This was an end of the year Supernova and so. I don't know exactly where I was but it wasn't too far from here. I upped. I don't remember the story. I I had to go. And Look in the archives at the time when when we reported on it and then all the various updates that we reported on on this story and it's one of those things though where when you do kind of look back at the story with all of the knowledge that we now have you can see the whole thing unfolding unfolding bit by bit and so back in two thousand six as you say at the end of the year astronomers saw a Supernova That was unlike anything that they had ever seen so much. What was wrong with it? Well not surly wrong but the thing that was initially fascinating about it is it was just way brighter than we had previously. CBS lease seen. Once you corrected for distance it had the highest luminosity up until that date so so with massive amounts of energy coming out of it and with a crazy light curve that was initially assumed that this was what's called a type to Supernova explosion of a massive star this going to leave behind a neutron star or black hole but different kinds of Supernova are supposed to increase decrease in brightness and very sat ways and while this started out looking like type two SUPERNOVA. It didn't stay looking type two SUPERNOVA. So let's talk. I mean we've done whole episodes on all the different flavors but let's go back and give people the the quick overview of the different kinds of Supernova. You can expect to see out there. So broad physics case you have supernova that are single stars that are generally massive and when they run out of fissionable fissionable materials in their core that can generate new energy. They stopped producing light pressure that supports the outer layers of the star and they collapsed under gravity and all of that collapsing material triggers a new round of thermonuclear reactions ends the star now explodes outwards as a Supernova. So that's one model of behavior now. The other model of behavior is is your something like a white dwarf that is made out of what we call degenerate matter. A White Dwarf is an object roughly the size of the earth that has the mass ask of the sun and when you cram all of that mass into so small volume you end up with the electrons having to you arrange themselves in a very specific way to avoid breaking the polly exclusion principle so all of the electrons like you. Okay you be in this level you being this level level will spin in these particular ways and this electron degenerate. Gas is as tight a gas. Is You can form out of the electrons and if you compress it too far the electrons can no longer support each other. polly exclusion in principle breaks those electrons and protons are associated with ended up merging informing neutrons. Everything goes badly. There's a lot of of energy released and this is the other way you can get. A SUPERNOVA is by piling too much mass on one of these electron degenerate gas white Dwarf Stars Defying the polly exclusion principle and exploding that white dwarf. That's type one a supernova now in general because type one as all detonate at the same amount of mass. There's post be the same amount of light now. The names for those massive Asif Stars that are exploding. Are All over the map. There's type two type one C. There's all these different letters added on. But they're all massive stars so okay so just to sort of follow the mystery. A stronger saw what was the moat inherently the brightest Supernova. Would they had ever seen yes but it so then it couldn't have been white dwarf because they're not that bright exactly exactly at least us what was initially thought. So you have their initial thinking and I'm going over this so that I can make sense of all all of this later because no physics is harmed in this episode so you have a white dwarf worth of energy tied up in the mass and that amount of energy when it goes boom always releases is the site and the sort of example right. I mean essentially. It's like one big diamond the size of the earth it is this. Is this carbon. As you say this carbon lattice and the moment it crosses over this line where the thing collapses inward the whole thing just turns into carbon burning. And it's it's just gone like Komo and it's gone because the whole thing. Suddenly a lifetime's worth of fusion happens in an instant every atom in the entire star precedes do carbon fusion. And the whole thing just goes and you get this wonderful standard candle. This is used to measure the size of the universe
KQED Radio Show
Moon Rocks Still Awe, And Scientists Hope To Get Their Hands On More
"Fifty years ago this month astronauts left their footprints on the moon what they brought home was rocks we have a ton of moon rock was collected by the six Apollo missions to the lunar surface NPR's nail grant Nell greenfield voice looks at what happened to those rocks my scientists still want to go back and get more when Darby Dyer was a kid she remembers watching the Apollo astronauts return she'd see their capsule bobbing in the ocean as the astronauts emerge with some precious cargo they climbed out and then the very carefully to the lunar samples and put them in the little river boat you were watching on TV absolutely the box holding the rocks look like an igloo cooler she never thought that someday she would study those rocks I was growing up in Indiana in the nineteen sixties girl didn't do science I never saw a woman scientist she set out to be a journalist but ended up majoring in geology as a college student she started working for a researcher who gotten some of the newly arrived moon rocks she remembers how he kept them under lock and key we all knew that the filing cabinet in his office was the safe you know I remember my hands shaking the first time he said well you know crying this up and put it in the same folder and I was like are you sure Dyer is still studying moon rocks she's a researcher with the planetary science institute who is also a professor at Mount Holyoke College at her lab there she shows me a bunch of lunar samples Somers theme translucent slices of rock on microscope slides others look like gray pebbles in tiny glass vials a few vials look empty if you had the microscope you could look at these files that seem to be empty and in them you would find tiny single crystals of lunar samples which we carefully save because we have to return every speck of this the Johnson Space Center when we're done Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas is the chief repository for Apollo samples the rocks and dirt are stored in special cases involves Ryan Ziggler is the curator he says the Apollo astronauts collected eight hundred and forty two pounds of lunar material eight hundred forty two pounds is couple refrigerators worth of samples in terms of sheer volume and wait he says a tiny fraction of all this was destroyed in analytical experiments some of it is on display like in museums but the vast majority is available for study there were two thousand two hundred individually numbered samples that came back and we looked at two thousand one hundred ninety four of them so we only have six unstudied samples from the moon I love the unstudied ones a few are pristine they were vacuum sealed on the moon and have never been opened NASA was waiting for technology to advance and now the agency says it's time to open one it's not exactly because it's the fiftieth anniversary but it sort of is NASA recently picked six science teams to study these precious rocks one of the lucky scientist is dire I think we knew that there had been some samples put away for future uses and what I remember as a graduate student thinking and I went I wonder what that could be what we were doing in forty years what she'll be doing is studying tiny glass beads that forms during ancient eruptions to learn about volcanic activity already lunar samples of told scientists a lot about how the moon formed when a giant body hit the early earth but they've also learned about the rest of the solar system by dating rocks from lunar craters they could tell when different sized meteorites hit the moon which help them understand the history of other planets they were being similarly bombarded so it's really the underpinning of a huge amount of Terry science just being able to relate the size of the crater to how old it was NASA is aiming to go back to the moon maybe as soon as twenty twenty four I asked dire if she could go to the moon and get any rock what would she want she says in the South Pole there's a giant crater where some massive impact seems to have punctured through the moon's crossed and exposed rocks that we don't see anywhere else on the surface of the moon I would love to go there and it it would be really really important to understand is the interior of the moon really what we think it is she sometimes marvels at how far the study of lunar materials has come over her lifetime I've also been known to get the samples out on the night of a full moon and stand there in my office when I can see the moon out my window in thank look you know I got party here you know we're on to you NASA will probably be ready to open the pristine sealed lunar
Astronomy Cast
Ancient Astronomy of the American Southwest
"Welcome to castor weekly facts based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know what how the woman, I'm preserve Cain publisher of universe today. With me as always Dr Pamela, gay, a senior scientists for the planetary Science Institute and the director of cause request Pam how you doing I'm doing. Well, how are you doing Fraser, really good? It's been a nice relaxing week. So far, actually it's been good. Some follow up stories, we you know, the bare sheet Lander crashed and but now bear she too is is is go. The falcon heavy landed. Perfectly accepted didn't the the the core booster fell over in the high seas and broken half and half returned to Poseidon. You didn't know that? No. Yeah. So it landed and then fell over in the high because 'cause the Octo grabber can't grab the core booster of a falcon heavy, and so yeah, it fell over and the top crunched off and and went to the went to Davy Jones locker and they need they need an octa grabber. Massive addition Octo grabber heavy. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, still been just feasting on black hole news. So it's it's been a, but it's a poor chil. But it's been it's been good. It was let's say it was very burnt out on. Space news last week all excited. Let's basins again this week yesterday. And today have been like story after story after story. And what I loved is today. There was a theme of when asteroids invade your solar system, and it was a pleasing theme really pleasing thing. Yeah. Inter people's had no light pollution, and they knew the night skies. Very well. In fact, they depended on them to know when to plant when to harvest today, Pamela, talks about the arc yo astronomical sites of the American southwest, which coincidentally is a place you are going to be traveling to relatively soon. It. It is true next. August I am going to be leading an Astro tore through the American southwest departing from Tucson going to places still being determined, but will include national parks, and observatories and ending it all in Las Vegas. Now, we aren't going to get to visit a lot of the archaeological sites that I'm thinking today. But the reason that I'm leading that tort is because that's the part of the country where I spent my summers growing up. It's where my grandparents are it's where I went to graduate school. Well, it's where I did a summer or a you as an undergrad. And so when I picked the topic for today, it was basically like, okay. The news is heavy. I wanna pick something will bring me joy to read. And I know I just don't I know exactly how this went down. You were like looking at sites that you were going to be going in thinking about it. And then just nerd out and went down a rabbit hole of cool. Historical archaeological sites in the American southwest. Yeah. Now that eight so actually I was playing ticket to ride with keeper of maps and paranoid. You're going. Have no idea what to talk about. I have. No, I am out of a DEA 's. And it was out of me bemoaning how I was like out of ideas, as I faced the weeks world news that I was like what if and it was like archaeology, let's talk about archaeology. Let's talk about things and before the expletive hit the fan. So. Oh, yeah. So, but I mean, the irony, of course, is that the places you're going to be talking about are not places that you're going to be going on your Astra tour. I think that's the point is likely is is that you this is pure Pamela rabbit hole. This is you. Yes, finding something and nerd ING out about it for for our benefit. It's it's true. And this is going to be part of a series. And we are going to talk next week most likely about the modern astronomy being done in the American southwest today. We start with the beginning times. And next week. We're going to talk about how we're learning about the end times.