Jupiter's Dance, India's Space Rise, and Barnard Star Mysteries

Hello again. It's Steve Dunkley with Astronomy Daily. Thanks for joining us.

It's the second of October twenty twenty three. My goodness, where has the

year gone? Who quit? Yes, it all just seems to be flying

by us so quickly this year. I don't know what it is. Must

be something in the water. And please welcome my favorite digital assistant, Hallie,

who's always here, so intrepid and diligent. How are you, Hallie?

Thank you for that fine introduction, my favorite human. How was your

week? Oh, same old, same old work, work work. I

did get to see that magnificent Superman though, Hallie. It was quite something

I've seen. Some of your local photographers have captured some amazing images. That's

the great thing about living in the beautiful part of the world here in Newcastle,

which is just north of Sydney. If you don't know, it's home

to some breathtaking beaches and coastlines, and the Superman was caught in fine form

in that environment by our local photographers. If you search super Newcastle, New

South Wales and click images, you'll find what they've captured from this and previous

supermoon events. That's right and the same as true if almost any city on

Earth. Try it out and let us know what you find. On the

Facebook page, which is Space Nuts podcast group. We're looking forward to hearing

from you. You can even show us your own photos. That would be

sensational. Oh that's for sure. My little phone just wasn't good enough,

so I'll have to depend on our listeners. So Hallie, what have you

got for us today? I know you're going to chat about the Moon and

Jupiter later. That's right. I've got a good story and I've got news

about Barnard's Star. The Indian private space sector going bonkers, I guess,

following the success of the Chundray Young mission and some celestial skywatching news. That

sounds great, So let's go. Barnard's Star is a small red dwarf just

six light years from Earth. Despite its proximity, it was only noticed in

nineteen sixteen, when E. E. Barnard found it had a particularly high

proper motion. It had appeared in photographic plates taken by Harvard Observatory in the

late eighteen hundreds, but as a small, dim star, no one took

notice of it. Since its discovery, Barnard's Star has been one of the

most studied red dwarfs. Interestingly, Barnard's Star is one of the first stars

claimed to have planets. As far back as the nineteen seventy studies claimed the

presence of orbiting gas giants, though further observations overturned these results. Then,

in twenty eighteen, astronomers measured the radial motion of the star, which suggested

the presence of a close orbiting super Earth with a mass of about three earths.

Further observations, however, overturned this discovery, suggesting that the radial fluctuations

observed were due to solar flares. Recent studies have confirmed Barnard's star has no

close orbiting or potentially habitable planets larger than seventy percent of Earth's size. This

makes Barnard Star a bit unusual since most red dwarfs have planets. For example,

the red dwarf star Kepler forty two is similar in size and age to

Barnard's Star and has at least three terrestrial planets. So while Barnard's star isn't

a strong candidate for alien life, a recent study has made detailed observations of

the star looking for any signs of an extraterrestrial signal. The study used the

five hundred meter aperture spherical Telescope FAST. The Chinese telescope is a fixed dish

design similar to the Arecibo observatory, but significantly larger. FAST is particularly sensitive

in frequency ranges useful to long distance communication, making it a good tool in

the search for aliens. So wait a minute, howly did they find anything?

As you might expect, the study found no evidence of an alien signal,

But this study was mostly a test of what FAST could do. When

Indian entrepreneurs Akmed founded his satellite startup in Bangalore in twenty nineteen, his country

was still a year away from opening the space industry to the private sector.

When we started, there was absolutely no support, no momentum, said Achmed,

who was twenty one when he founded Pixel, a company deploying a constellation

of Earth imaging satellites. Since then, the private space sector has taken off

in India, joining a rapidly growing global market. There are now one hundred

and ninety Indian space startups, twice as many as a year earlier, with

private investments jumping by seventy seven percent between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two.

According to Deloitte Consultancy, a lot of Indian investors were not willing to

look at space technology because it was too much of a risk Earlier, Achmed

said in an interview with AFP. Now you can see more and more companies

raising more investment in India, and more and more companies have started coming up

now, he added, Pixel makes hyper spectral imagaging satellites technology that captures a

wide spectrum of light to provide details that are invisible to ordinary cameras. The

company says it is on a mission to build a health monitor for the planet.

It can track climate risks such as floods, wildfires, or methane leaks.

Pixel had initially sought to use rockets from the state run Indian Space Research

organization ISRO. I remember having a conversation with with someone in ISRO. We

were trying to book a launch and they said, look, we don't even

have a procedure to launch an Indian satellite. But if you were a foreign

company then basically there's a process which didn't make sense when we started, Achmed

said. Pixel ended up having to hire US rocket firm SpaceX to launch its

first two satellites. Pixel has raised seventy one million dollars from investors, including

thirty six million dollars from Google, which will allow the company to launch six

more satellites next year. The startup has also won a contract with a u

AS spy agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, to provide hyper spectral images.

Celestially speaking, this month's big news is an annular ring eclipse of the Sun

on October fourteenth. The path crosses all of the Americas, starting in the

Pacific Northwest before slicing across Nevada, Utah, and Texas. Then it passes

over the Yucatan Peninsula, much of Central America, and central South America.

This ring of fire event will last nearly five minutes or more along the center

line, and on that day, virtually everyone in the Americas will see a

partial solar eclipse, whether permitting. Of course, two weeks later, on

October twenty eighth, comes this year's full Hunter's Moon. On that night,

a bit of its disc slips into Earth's umbrel shadow, creating a partial lunar

eclipse. This event isn't visible from North America, but if you're in the

eastern hemisphere you'll be able to see it. That night once evening twilight fades

and left from the sunset point, so that you're facing southeast. Saturn is

right there, kind of by itself, and roughly a third of the way

from the horizon to overhead. It looks like a brighter than average star.

Don't confuse it with somewhat dimmer fomal Hot, which really is a star situated

lower down by about twice the width of your clenched fist at arm's length and

closer to the horizon. An hour or two after sunset, you'll see Jupiter,

all of twenty five times bigger than Saturn. Jupiter doesn't reach opposition when

it's closest to Earth until the first week of November, but October is close

enough, and so Jupiter looks very obvious, and the Moon will pair dramatically

with Jupiter twice this month, on the nights of the first and the twenty

eighth. Happy skywatching, and that's enough for today. Don't forget to check

out the Astronomy Daily newsletter for daily space science and astronomy news in you email

right, Steve, that's right, Hallie, and just go tobites dot com

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It's full of everything from launches to lunches, space lunches, satellites to

starlight. And I noticed you've got another food reference and they're Steve. Well,

even astronauts have got to eat, Hallie. I hope our skywatchers have

their opticals at the ready. Jupiter is on the rise this month, I

know. And we get two chances to observe this celestial dance in October with

the Jupiter and the moon. And who won't want to check out the moons

of Jupiter, Yes, the Galilean moons. That's a great time to check

them out. So polish off the binoculars and telescopes and pack some sandwiches.

Again with the food, Steve, always with the food. Astronomy Daily,

the podcast with Steve Dunkley and Hallie. Yes, why not? So Jupiter

is stealing the show this month, so bring it back lunch now. Skywatchers

who are out during the late evening hours on Sunday will almost certainly be attracted

towards the eastern sky, where two brightest visible objects at that are readily evident.

The moon, now waning Gibber's phase, will be poisoned near a brilliant,

silvery, non twinkling star. That object is not a star, however,

but the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter. As Hallie mentioned

earlier, Jupiter comes up over the eastern horizon just before nine pm local daylight

time, and about four minutes earlier each night, so by the end of

October it will be beaming before the end of the evening twilight. By then

the plant will be so bright it will be essentially at its peak brilliance for

twenty twenty three that is easy to see before the sky gets fully dark.

A couple of hours after it is written, Jupiter has climbed higher above the

horizon haze and gleams with a brighter, pure light. It blazes high above

the southern horizon during the quiet morning hours after midnight, finally paling in the

western sky during dawn. On Sunday night, Jupiter will sit about two point

three degrees below and to the right of the Moon. Remember that your clenched

fist held at arms length measures roughly ten degrees. On Monday, the Moon

will have shifted to a position nearly sixteen degrees to Jupiter's left. Jupiter is

situated in the small and relatively dim constellation of Aries, and there it will

remain until April twenty seven. Every passing day brings our own world closer to

shooting between the giant planet and the Sun. When we finally do on November

three, Jupiter will be at opposition, meaning it will be the opposite to

the Sun in our sky. Now is also a fine time to start examining

the famous Galilean satellites, the four largest of Jovian moons. In theory,

they are also bright enough to see with the naked eye, but for the

rest of us who lack that acute vision like me, optical aid is almost

always required to separate the moons from the glare of the mighty King of the

planets. Steadily held binoculars can reveal all four moons, though you may have

to make special plans to catch the innermost io close to the time of elongation.

Telescopes will almost always show all four At moderate powers, you can detect

a change in their positions in an hour or so, and sometimes when two

are close together, in just a few minutes. On Sunday night. In

fact, all four satellites will be clearly in view. Two will be to

the east of June, while the other two will be to the west.

The two that appear closest to Jupiter, as well as to each other,

are going outbound from the big planet Io and Europa. The other two on

Jupiter's other side will be Ganymede and the furthest out Callisto. One well known

lunar cycle is the sidereal month, a period of time it takes the Moon

to orbit once around the Earth with respect to the background stars, a period

equal to approximately twenty seven point two days. Being a planet, Jupiter actually

shifts its position relative to the stars, but only slightly during a span of

about a month's time. So if we were to add twenty seven point two

days to add October one, that would bring us to October twenty eight,

and sure enough, on that night, the Moon will once again be passing

relatively close to Jupiter. So if cloudy skies obscure your view of the Moon

and Jupiter on Sunday night, don't fret. You'll get another opportunity to see

them together on final Saturday night of October. And that's another episode finished,

So thank you for joining us. In our regular reminder that you can find

all the episodes of Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson, as

well as current and back episodes our podcast Astronomy Daily with Tim Gill from the

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In this episode