S03E179: SpaceX's Mechazilla Triumph, Europa's Icy Secrets, and Comet Atlas's Historic Journey

0:00 Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to another episode of Astronomy Daily. I'm Steve,

0:03 Speaker 1: your host. It's the fourteenth of October twenty twenty four.

0:09 Speaker 2: The podcast. It would be your whole speed, don't clue.

0:14 Speaker 1: Yes, another exciting episode, very colorful as well. I'm excited

0:18 Speaker 1: because we witnessed history yesterday, didn't we, Halle.

0:21 Speaker 3: Yes, the space Ax heavy booster landing.

0:23 Speaker 1: That's right, Halle. It was the most magnificent piece of

0:25 Speaker 1: space engineering and technological genius I think I've ever seen,

0:29 Speaker 1: I think ever.

0:30 Speaker 3: It was astounding, all right, and of course we'll get

0:32 Speaker 3: to that later.

0:33 Speaker 1: Other stories today include oh well, our whole favorite europea clipper.

0:37 Speaker 3: Space lasers really really.

0:40 Speaker 1: Really no, Halle, I mean like really space lasers really?

0:44 Speaker 3: Yes? Human now so tested one. Oh okay, it's a

0:47 Speaker 3: beauty as you Australians like to say.

0:49 Speaker 1: Ooh Helle, trying out the Aussie accent. Yeah. Not better

0:53 Speaker 1: download the software for that one.

0:54 Speaker 3: No one can do it.

0:56 Speaker 1: Yeah that's a dead shirt, Halle. No one can do it.

0:58 Speaker 3: You think, no we know hmm, beauty me or.

1:02 Speaker 1: Craky, Hollie. You're putting my teeth on edge.

1:04 Speaker 3: And you don't have to download anything.

1:05 Speaker 1: No, just kind of grew into it, little vegamite. Maybe

1:08 Speaker 1: a chicko roll? Should we sweet?

1:10 Speaker 3: Good grief? And we're off track already.

1:13 Speaker 1: For sure, Hallie, what else we got?

1:14 Speaker 3: I got a bit about comets such and Chanatlas.

1:17 Speaker 1: Oh nice, but don't ask me to say that one

1:19 Speaker 1: quickly or slowly? And tell me have you been checking

1:22 Speaker 1: out the auroras around the planet this week?

1:24 Speaker 3: Haven't they been beautiful?

1:26 Speaker 1: I know they're just gorgeous. And I'd like to invite

1:29 Speaker 1: our listeners to post their picks on our ex page

1:32 Speaker 1: and I'll give you the address for that. It's at

1:34 Speaker 1: Astro Daily Pod. So post your picks there.

1:37 Speaker 3: If you have some photos of the auroras from your

1:39 Speaker 3: neck of the woods, we'd love to see them totally.

1:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see them, folks. And to kick things off,

1:45 Speaker 1: I did get some great images from my good pal

1:47 Speaker 1: John Carl in Tasmania. He went out to view the

1:50 Speaker 1: colors in the sky with his brilliant daughters and they

1:52 Speaker 1: had a terrific time out there, and in true Tasmanian style,

1:55 Speaker 1: it was cold, but the aurora did not disappoint and

1:59 Speaker 1: Carl was enough to allow me to post the photos,

2:02 Speaker 1: which I will do very shortly and you'll be able

2:04 Speaker 1: to see those on at Astro Daily pod.

2:08 Speaker 3: That's the X page, So it must be time for

2:11 Speaker 3: the news.

2:11 Speaker 1: It sure is, Halle thanks for that and why didn't

2:14 Speaker 1: you take it away?

2:15 Speaker 3: Open the pod bay doors, pal oh Boy. Earth based

2:24 Speaker 3: observers scanning the night sky in Autumn twenty twenty four

2:27 Speaker 3: may witness a celestial event that occurs only once every

2:30 Speaker 3: eighty thousand years. Comet c Slash twenty twenty three, a

2:33 Speaker 3: three to such in chinetlis, originated from the distant fringes

2:36 Speaker 3: of our Solar system and reached its closest approach to

2:39 Speaker 3: the Sun on September twenty seventh. It is and is

2:42 Speaker 3: expected to pass within about seventy million kilometers or forty

2:45 Speaker 3: four million miles of Earth on October twelfth. Initially visible

2:49 Speaker 3: mainly in the southern Hemisphere and the tropics until October eighth,

2:52 Speaker 3: the comet offered increased viewing opportunities for those in the

2:55 Speaker 3: northern Hemisphere in the following days. Crew aboard the International

2:59 Speaker 3: Space Past Station have also been observing such an chin

3:02 Speaker 3: atlas on its journey through the inner Solar System. An

3:05 Speaker 3: astronaut captured this photo of the comet on September nineteenth,

3:08 Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. At that time, the mass of dust, ice,

3:13 Speaker 3: and rock was approaching the closest point to the Sun

3:15 Speaker 3: on its highly elliptical orbit. The photo also offers a

3:19 Speaker 3: cross section view of Earth's bright horizon or limb, and

3:21 Speaker 3: the planet's colorful atmospheric layers. When a comet approaches the Sun,

3:26 Speaker 3: it gets warmer. Heat causes its ice to supplement into gas,

3:30 Speaker 3: and these gases and dust become a glowing coma and

3:33 Speaker 3: tail that can extend millions of kilometers. The Sun influences

3:37 Speaker 3: the two types of tails, the dust tail and the

3:39 Speaker 3: ion tail, trailing from the comet in different ways, often

3:42 Speaker 3: sending them in different directions. The heat and pressure of

3:45 Speaker 3: sunlight push particles in the dust tail away from the Sun,

3:48 Speaker 3: though the tail may bend slightly in the direction the

3:50 Speaker 3: comet came from. Likewise, the solar wind strips ions off

3:54 Speaker 3: of the comet's surface to create the ion tail, which

3:57 Speaker 3: may extend at a different angles. Do not survive close

4:01 Speaker 3: encounters with the Sun. If they get too close, radiation

4:05 Speaker 3: and gravitational forces may disintegrate them completely. Such a Chinatlus

4:09 Speaker 3: did not suffer this fate. But another comet astronomers were

4:12 Speaker 3: watching c SLASH twenty twenty four S one ATLAS may

4:15 Speaker 3: have Recent data suggests that this comet, which was expected

4:20 Speaker 3: to be visible from Earth later next year, may have

4:22 Speaker 3: recently broken into fragments. Given their extremely long orbits. Both

4:26 Speaker 3: of these ancient celestial travelers likely originated in the Oort Cloud,

4:29 Speaker 3: which is a large spherical shell of icy debris at

4:32 Speaker 3: the outer reaches of our Solar system. C SLASH twenty

4:35 Speaker 3: twenty three, A three to SUCH in Chinatlus, was discovered

4:38 Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three, identified by observers at China's Such

4:41 Speaker 3: and Chin or Purple Mountain Observatory and an ATLAS, which

4:44 Speaker 3: stands for Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System Telescope in

4:48 Speaker 3: South Africa. It was officially named in honor of both observatories.

5:01 Speaker 3: NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications Technology Demonstration set a new

5:05 Speaker 3: record for laser communications this summer by transmitting a laser

5:08 Speaker 3: signal from Earth to the Psyche spacecraft approximately two hundred

5:11 Speaker 3: and ninety million miles four hundred and sixty million kilometers away.

5:16 Speaker 3: That's the same distance between our planet and Mars. When

5:19 Speaker 3: the two planets are farthest apart. Shortly after achieving this milestone,

5:23 Speaker 3: on July twenty ninth, the technology demonstration successfully completed the

5:27 Speaker 3: initial phase of its operations, which began with the launch

5:30 Speaker 3: a board Psyche on October thirteenth, twenty twenty three. Soon

5:34 Speaker 3: after reaching that milestone, on July twenty ninth, the Technology

5:37 Speaker 3: Demonstration concluded the first phase of its operations since launching

5:40 Speaker 3: a board Psyche on October thirteenth, twenty twenty three. The

5:44 Speaker 3: milestone is significant. Laser communication requires a very high level

5:49 Speaker 3: of precision, and before we launched with Psyche, we didn't

5:52 Speaker 3: know how much performance degradation we would see at our

5:54 Speaker 3: farthest distances, said Mira Shrini Vawsen, the project's operations lead

5:58 Speaker 3: at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California. Now the

6:03 Speaker 3: techniques we use to track and point have been verified,

6:05 Speaker 3: confirming that optical communications can be a robust and transformative

6:09 Speaker 3: way to explore the Solar system. Managed by JPL, the

6:13 Speaker 3: Deep Space Optical Communications Experiment consists of a flight laser

6:16 Speaker 3: transceiver and two ground stations CALTEX Historic two hundred inch

6:21 Speaker 3: or five meter aperture hail telescope at Caltex Palomar Observatory

6:24 Speaker 3: in San Diego County, California acts as the downlink station

6:28 Speaker 3: to which the laser transceiver sends its data from deep space.

6:31 Speaker 3: The Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at JPL's Table Mountain facility

6:36 Speaker 3: near Rightwood, California, acts as the uplink station, capable of

6:39 Speaker 3: transmitting seven kilowatts of laser power to send data to

6:42 Speaker 3: the transceiver. By transporting data at rates up to one

6:46 Speaker 3: hundred times higher than radio frequencies, lasers can enable the

6:49 Speaker 3: transmission of complex scientific information, as well as high definition

6:53 Speaker 3: imagery and video, which are needed to support humanity's next

6:56 Speaker 3: giant leap when astronauts travel to Mars and beyond. As

7:00 Speaker 3: for the spacecraft, Psyche remains healthy and stable, using ion

7:03 Speaker 3: propulsion to accelerate toward a metal rich asteroid in the

7:06 Speaker 3: main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The technology demonstrations.

7:11 Speaker 3: Data is sent to and from Psyche as bits encoded

7:13 Speaker 3: in near infrared light, which has a higher frequency than

7:16 Speaker 3: radio waves. That higher frequency enables more data to be

7:20 Speaker 3: packed into a transmission, allowing far higher rates of data transfer.

7:24 Speaker 3: Even when Psyche was about thirty three million miles or

7:27 Speaker 3: fifty three million kilometers away, comparable to Mars, closest approach

7:31 Speaker 3: to Earth. The technology demonstration could transmit data at the

7:34 Speaker 3: system's maximum rate of two hundred and sixty seven megabits

7:37 Speaker 3: per second. That bit rate is similar to broadband Internet

7:41 Speaker 3: download speeds. As the spacecraft travels farther away, the rate

7:45 Speaker 3: at which it can send and receive data is reduced,

7:47 Speaker 3: as expected. On June twenty fourth, when Psyche was about

7:51 Speaker 3: two hundred and forty million miles or three hundred and

7:54 Speaker 3: ninety million kilometers from Earth, more than two and a

7:56 Speaker 3: half times the distance between our planet and the Sun,

7:59 Speaker 3: the project achieved sustained downlink data rate of six point

8:01 Speaker 3: twenty five megabits per second, with a maximum rate of

8:04 Speaker 3: eight point three megabits per second. While this rate is

8:08 Speaker 3: significantly lower than the experiment's maximum, it is far higher

8:11 Speaker 3: than a radio frequency communications system using comparable power can

8:15 Speaker 3: achieve over that distance. The Technology Demonstration beamed the first

8:19 Speaker 3: ultra high definition video from space, featuring a cat named Taters,

8:23 Speaker 3: from the Psyche spacecraft to Earth on December eleventh, twenty

8:26 Speaker 3: twenty three. From nineteen million miles away, Europa Clipper will

8:35 Speaker 3: peer beneath the Jovian moon Europa's icy crust, where an

8:38 Speaker 3: ocean is thought to be slashing fairly close to the surface.

8:42 Speaker 3: It won't search for life, but rather determine weather conditions

8:45 Speaker 3: there could support it. It's a chance for us to

8:48 Speaker 3: explore not a world that might have been habitable billions

8:50 Speaker 3: of years ago, but a world that might be habitable

8:52 Speaker 3: today right now, said program scientist Kurtneber. Its massive solar

8:57 Speaker 3: panels make Clipper the biggest craft built by NAPA to

9:00 Speaker 3: investigate another planet. It will take five and a half

9:03 Speaker 3: years to reach Jupiter and will sneak within sixteen miles

9:06 Speaker 3: or twenty five kilometers of Europa's surface, considerably closer than

9:10 Speaker 3: any other spacecraft. Costing about five point two billion dollars,

9:14 Speaker 3: Liftoff is targeted for this month aboard SpaceX's Falcon heavy

9:17 Speaker 3: rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. One of Jupiter's ninety

9:21 Speaker 3: five known moons, Europa is almost the size of our

9:24 Speaker 3: own moon. It's encased in an ice sheet estimated to

9:27 Speaker 3: be ten miles to fifteen miles or more or fifteen

9:30 Speaker 3: kilometers to twenty four kilometers thick. Scientists believe this frozen

9:34 Speaker 3: crust hides an ocean that could be eighty miles or

9:37 Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty kilometers or more deep. What type

9:40 Speaker 3: of life might Europa harbor? Besides water, organic compounds are

9:45 Speaker 3: needed for life as we know it, plus an energy source,

9:48 Speaker 3: in Europa's case, that could be thermal vents on the

9:51 Speaker 3: ocean floor. Deputy project scientist Bonni Barati imagines any life

9:55 Speaker 3: would be primitive, like the bacterial life that originated in

9:58 Speaker 3: Earth's deep ocean vents. We will not know from this

10:01 Speaker 3: mission because we can't see that deep, she said. Unlike

10:05 Speaker 3: missions to Mars, where habitability is one of many questions,

10:08 Speaker 3: Clipper's sole job is to establish whether the Moon could

10:11 Speaker 3: support life in its ocean or possibly in any pockets

10:13 Speaker 3: of water in the ice when its solar wings and

10:16 Speaker 3: antennas are unfurled. Clipper is about the size of a

10:19 Speaker 3: basketball court, more than one hundred feet or thirty meters

10:22 Speaker 3: en to end, and weighs nearly thirteen thousand pounds or

10:24 Speaker 3: six thousand kilograms. The super sized solar panels are needed

10:29 Speaker 3: because of Jupiter's distance from the Sun. The main body,

10:32 Speaker 3: about the size of a camper, is packed with nine

10:34 Speaker 3: science instruments, including radar that will penetrate the ice, cameras

10:38 Speaker 3: for mapping virtually the entire Moon, and tools to tease

10:40 Speaker 3: out the contents of Europa's surface and tenuous atmosphere. The

10:44 Speaker 3: roundabout trip to Jupiter will span one point eight billion

10:47 Speaker 3: miles three billion kilometers for extra oomph, The spacecraft will

10:52 Speaker 3: swing past Mars early next year and then Earth in

10:54 Speaker 3: late twenty twenty six, and arrives at Jupiter in twenty thirty.

10:58 Speaker 3: Then it begins science work. Then next year. While orbiting Jupiter,

11:02 Speaker 3: it will cross paths with Europa forty nine times. The

11:06 Speaker 3: mission ends in twenty thirty four with a plant crash

11:08 Speaker 3: into Ganymede, Jupiter's and the Solar System's biggest moon. There's

11:13 Speaker 3: more radiation around Jupiter than anywhere else in our Solar

11:16 Speaker 3: System besides the Sun. Europa passes through Jupiter's bands of

11:20 Speaker 3: radiation as it orbits the gas giant, making it especially

11:23 Speaker 3: menacing for spacecraft. That's why Clipper's electronics are inside a

11:27 Speaker 3: vault with dense aluminium and zinc walls. All this radiation

11:31 Speaker 3: would mix any life on Europa's surface, but it could

11:35 Speaker 3: break down water molecules and perhaps release oxygen. All the

11:38 Speaker 3: way down into the ocean that could possibly fuel see life.

11:42 Speaker 3: Earlier this year, NASA was in a panic that the

11:44 Speaker 3: spacecraft's many transistors might not withstand the intense radiation, but

11:49 Speaker 3: after months of analysis, engineers concluded the mission could proceed.

11:54 Speaker 3: Like many robotic explorers before it, Clipper bears messages from Earth.

11:58 Speaker 3: Attached to the electronx fault is a triangular metal plate.

12:02 Speaker 3: On one side is a design labeled Water Words, with

12:05 Speaker 3: representations of the word for water in one hundred and

12:08 Speaker 3: four languages. On the opposite side a poem about the

12:11 Speaker 3: Moon by US poet Laureate Italy Moon, and a silicon

12:14 Speaker 3: chip containing the names of two point six million people

12:17 Speaker 3: who signed up to vicariously ride along. And that's all

12:24 Speaker 3: from me today. Back to you, my favorite human, Thank

12:37 Speaker 3: you for.

12:37 Speaker 1: Joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily, where

12:40 Speaker 1: we offer just a few stories from the now famous

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13:14 Speaker 1: See you there, Astronomy with Steve and Halley Space Space,

13:21 Speaker 1: Science and Astronomy. In one of the most dramatic, high

13:27 Speaker 1: risk space flights to date, SpaceX launched a gargantuan super

13:32 Speaker 1: heavy starship rocket on an unpiloted test flight on Sunday

13:37 Speaker 1: and then use giant Mechazilla robot arms on the pad

13:40 Speaker 1: gantry to pluck the returning first stage out of the

13:43 Speaker 1: sky in an unprecedented feat of engineering. The starship upper

13:48 Speaker 1: stage meanwhile looped around the planet and re entered the

13:52 Speaker 1: atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, just as planned and during

13:56 Speaker 1: temperatures of nearly three thousand degrees As it descended to

13:59 Speaker 1: a controlled on target splashdown, the spacecraft appeared to come

14:05 Speaker 1: through the hellish heat of re entry in relatively good condition,

14:09 Speaker 1: protected and by improved heat shielding tiles and beefed up

14:13 Speaker 1: steering fins that worked as needed. While engulfed in a

14:17 Speaker 1: fireball of atmospheric plasma, but the jaw dropping first stage

14:21 Speaker 1: capture back at the launch pad using pencer like arms

14:25 Speaker 1: more commonly known as chopsticks, was the clear highlight of

14:29 Speaker 1: the Giant rocket's fifth test flight. Snagging the descending twenty

14:34 Speaker 1: three story tall Super Heavy booster with the Mechazilla arms

14:38 Speaker 1: represented an unprecedented milestone in SpaceX's drive to develop fully reusable,

14:44 Speaker 1: quickly relaunchable rockets, a technological tourtor force that stands alone

14:49 Speaker 1: in the history of earlier space programs relying on expendable

14:53 Speaker 1: throwaway rockets. Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today,

14:59 Speaker 1: SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on his social media platform X.

15:04 Speaker 1: The three hundred and ninety seven foot tall rocket blasted

15:07 Speaker 1: off from space X's Bogachika Texas flight facility on the

15:11 Speaker 1: Texas Gulf Coast at eight twenty five AMDT, putting on

15:16 Speaker 1: a spectacular sunrise show as the boosters thirty three methane

15:20 Speaker 1: berth burning raptor engines ignited with a ground shaking raw

15:25 Speaker 1: and a torrent of flaming exhaust. With three minutes and

15:28 Speaker 1: forty seconds after liftoff, the super heavy booster fell away,

15:34 Speaker 1: flipped around, and restarted thirteen raptors to reverse course and

15:38 Speaker 1: head back toward the Texas coast. As the Starship upper

15:42 Speaker 1: stage continued to climb to space on the power of

15:45 Speaker 1: its six raptor engines, The boosters flight computer was programmed

15:50 Speaker 1: to direct the stage to a splashdown in the Gulf

15:52 Speaker 1: of Mexico if any problems developed on the rocket or

15:55 Speaker 1: the launch pad capture mechanism, but no such problems were detected.

16:00 Speaker 1: The flight director sent a required go command, and the

16:04 Speaker 1: super Heavy continued toward its launchpad, descending at an angle

16:08 Speaker 1: and then straightening up as it approached the gantry. As

16:11 Speaker 1: it slowly dropped beside the tower, the two mechanical arms

16:16 Speaker 1: smoothly moved in to grab the rocket as its engines

16:20 Speaker 1: shut down. The remarkable capture, a key element in musks

16:24 Speaker 1: drive to achieve rapid reusability, came as the Starship upper

16:28 Speaker 1: stage was still heading into space and splashed down in

16:31 Speaker 1: the Indian Ocean, simulating a touchdown on shore or eventually

16:36 Speaker 1: on the Moon or Mars. During the rocket's fourth test

16:41 Speaker 1: flight in June, the extreme temperatures caused significant damage to

16:45 Speaker 1: the Starship's protective tiles and steering fins. Multiple upgrades and

16:49 Speaker 1: improvements were put in place for Sunday's flight to eliminate

16:52 Speaker 1: or minimize any such re entry damage. As the Starship

16:56 Speaker 1: re entered the atmosphere, cameras on the rocket showed the

16:59 Speaker 1: red glow of heat building up on the belly of

17:02 Speaker 1: the spacecraft, intensifying as the descent continued. Engulfed in a fireball,

17:07 Speaker 1: the ship's fins stayed intact and the vehicle came through

17:11 Speaker 1: the peak heating in good condition. Moments later, the camera

17:15 Speaker 1: captured an on target splashdown, followed by what appeared to

17:19 Speaker 1: be an explosion. Given the rocket is not intended to

17:22 Speaker 1: land in water, whatever happened after splashdown was incidental. In

17:27 Speaker 1: what can only be called a remarkably successful test flight,

17:31 Speaker 1: the two stage Super Heavy Starship, known collectively as the Starship,

17:36 Speaker 1: is the largest, most powerful rocket in the world, with

17:39 Speaker 1: twice the liftoff thrust of NASA's legendary Satin five and

17:44 Speaker 1: nearly twice the power of the agency's new Space Launch

17:48 Speaker 1: System Moon rocket. The thirty foot wide Super Heavy first stage,

17:52 Speaker 1: loaded with six point eight million pounds of liquid oxygen

17:56 Speaker 1: and methane propellants, stands two hundred and thirty five tall

18:00 Speaker 1: and is powered by thirty three SpaceX designed raptor engines,

18:04 Speaker 1: generating up to sixteen million pounds of thrust. The starship

18:09 Speaker 1: upper stage measures one hundred and sixty feet long and

18:12 Speaker 1: carries two point six million pounds propellant to power another

18:16 Speaker 1: six raptors. Both stages are designed to be fully reusable,

18:20 Speaker 1: with the super Heavy flying itself back to the launch

18:23 Speaker 1: pad while the Starship travels to and from Earth, orbit,

18:27 Speaker 1: the Moon, or eventually Mars. The Starship is designed to

18:31 Speaker 1: touch down vertically on its own rocket power at landing

18:35 Speaker 1: sites on Earth and beyond, but the primary goal on

18:38 Speaker 1: Sunday's flight was to demonstrate the ability to capture returning

18:42 Speaker 1: super Heavy boosters on the launch pad, where they can

18:45 Speaker 1: be quickly refurbished, refueled, and relaunched. SpaceX perfected first stage

18:52 Speaker 1: landings with its workhorse Falcon nine rockets, successfully recovering three

18:57 Speaker 1: hundred and fifty two such boosters to date with powered

19:00 Speaker 1: touchdowns on landing pads or offshore drone ships. The smaller

19:04 Speaker 1: Falcon nine first stages land on their own, deploying four

19:08 Speaker 1: legs a few seconds before touchdown, snatching the three hundred

19:12 Speaker 1: and ninety seven foot tall Super Heavy out of the

19:14 Speaker 1: sky with mechanical arms as the rocket descends and hovers

19:18 Speaker 1: right beside its launch gantry seemed like an outlandish idea

19:22 Speaker 1: when it was first proposed during the booster's initial development,

19:26 Speaker 1: but Space Engineer SpaceX engineers spent years preparing and months

19:31 Speaker 1: testing for the boosters catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens

19:36 Speaker 1: of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize

19:40 Speaker 1: the chances for success with each flight. Building on the

19:44 Speaker 1: learnings from the last testing, improvements in hardware and operations

19:48 Speaker 1: cross every facet of starship where on the verge of

19:51 Speaker 1: demonstrating techniques fundamental to the starship's fully and rapidly reusable design,

19:57 Speaker 1: the company continued. X is under contract to NASA to

20:02 Speaker 1: supply a modified starship to carry astronauts to landings near

20:05 Speaker 1: the Moon's South Pole in the agency's Artemis program. To

20:09 Speaker 1: get Starship Lander to the Moon, SpaceX must first get

20:13 Speaker 1: it into low Earth orbit, then launch multiple super Heavy

20:17 Speaker 1: Starship tankers to refuel the moon bound starship for the

20:21 Speaker 1: trip to lunar orbit. The astronauts will launch a top

20:25 Speaker 1: NASA's Space Launch System rocket and fly to the Moon

20:29 Speaker 1: aboard a Lockheed Martin built Oryan capsule. The crew will

20:34 Speaker 1: transfer to the weighting starship for the descent to the

20:37 Speaker 1: lunar surface. NASA hopes to send the first woman and

20:41 Speaker 1: the next man to the Moon in the twenty twenty

20:45 Speaker 1: seven twenty eight time frame, after an unpiloted starship moon landing.

20:50 Speaker 1: Rapid reusability is a key element of the program, given

20:54 Speaker 1: the number of super heavy starships that will be required

20:57 Speaker 1: for a single moon landing. While Sunday's flight appeared to

21:02 Speaker 1: go smoothly, multiple flights will be needed to perfect the

21:05 Speaker 1: system and demonstrate the reliability required to carry astronauts. How

21:10 Speaker 1: long that might take is an open question. Over the

21:14 Speaker 1: past few weeks, Musk has launched a social media broadside

21:19 Speaker 1: against the Federal Aviation Administration, complaining that the agency's bureaucracy

21:24 Speaker 1: takes too long to review and approve launch licenses and

21:28 Speaker 1: is in effect stifling innovation and slowing development of the

21:32 Speaker 1: new rocket system. The FAA did not grant a license

21:36 Speaker 1: to launch Sunday's test flight until the day before, but

21:40 Speaker 1: this time around the license covered multiple test flights using

21:44 Speaker 1: roughly the same flight plan.

21:49 Speaker 2: As the podcast.

22:03 Speaker 1: And I don't know where you might have been on

22:05 Speaker 1: Thursday night, that's October ten this year, but you may

22:10 Speaker 1: have seen or witnessed the wonderful color displays in the sky.

22:14 Speaker 1: The auroras were very active. It's been a bit difficult

22:19 Speaker 1: to see them from where I am in Newcastle on

22:21 Speaker 1: the East coast of Australia, north of Sydney, but a

22:24 Speaker 1: lot of my friends further south saw some pretty spectacular things.

22:28 Speaker 1: Astronauts have probably got the best view of all, and

22:32 Speaker 1: we'll hear about that in a second. NASA astronauts Don

22:35 Speaker 1: Pettitt and Matthew Dominic in a very exclusive club indeed

22:40 Speaker 1: getting a bird's eye view of the amazing auroral displays,

22:43 Speaker 1: which were supercharged by a recent solid storm from the

22:47 Speaker 1: International Space Station, and the site took them completely by surprise.

22:53 Speaker 1: Petit wrote, stunning was the word. He wrote a lengthy

22:57 Speaker 1: post on X on Friday that the post a photograph

23:03 Speaker 1: of the celestial light show, and the sun goes birth,

23:07 Speaker 1: he says, and the atmosphere turns red spectacular not only

23:12 Speaker 1: from Earth but also from orbit as well. Words, probably

23:17 Speaker 1: only an astronaut can really see the clear meaning behind.

23:21 Speaker 1: But the auroras were especially dramatic overnight on Thursday thanks

23:26 Speaker 1: to a strong geomagnetic storm, which was triggered by the

23:30 Speaker 1: arrival of a huge cloud of solar plasma rocketed into

23:33 Speaker 1: space by a coronal mass ejection a CME. Now some

23:38 Speaker 1: of you may be wondering what is a coronal mass ejection. Well,

23:43 Speaker 1: a coronal mass ejection is often compared to solar flares.

23:49 Speaker 1: They are bursts of electromagnetic radiation that travel at the

23:53 Speaker 1: speed of light, reaching Earth in just over eight minutes,

23:56 Speaker 1: but cmees travel at a more leisurely pace, relatively speaking

24:01 Speaker 1: that their highest speeds of almost one nine hundred miles

24:05 Speaker 1: per second or three thousand kilometers per second, CMEs can

24:09 Speaker 1: reach Earth in about fifteen to eighteen hours, while slower

24:12 Speaker 1: CMEs traveling at around one hundred and fifty five miles

24:16 Speaker 1: per second or two hundred and fifty columbus per second,

24:19 Speaker 1: can take several days to arrive. That's according to the

24:22 Speaker 1: Space Whether Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

24:27 Speaker 1: Administration or NOAH. These relatively slower travel times are useful

24:33 Speaker 1: as they give us more time to prepare for such

24:36 Speaker 1: an arrival. CMEs can wreak havoc with power grids, telecommunication networks,

24:41 Speaker 1: and orbiting satellites and expose astronauts to dangerous doses of radiation. Conversely,

24:47 Speaker 1: CMEs are a welcome visitor to skywatchers worldwide, as they

24:52 Speaker 1: can trigger impressive aurora displays that are visible at latitudes

24:56 Speaker 1: beyond their normal polar range. Coronal mass injections form similarly

25:01 Speaker 1: to solar flares as a result of the twisting and

25:04 Speaker 1: realignment of the Sun's magnetic field, known as magnetic reconnection.

25:09 Speaker 1: According to Noah, when the magnetic field lines tangle, they

25:13 Speaker 1: produce a strong localized magnetic field which can break through

25:18 Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun at active regions, subsequently generating CMEs. Effectively,

25:24 Speaker 1: the Sun goes burp and we get a colorful sky.

25:28 Speaker 1: If you missed the amazing displays of color in the sky,

25:31 Speaker 1: you'd be hard pressed to miss them online. A good

25:34 Speaker 1: collection of images can be found over on space dot com,

25:38 Speaker 1: where many images show the varying colors seen from a

25:42 Speaker 1: lot of different direct locations around the globe. In his

25:46 Speaker 1: Friday xpost, astronaut Pettit said he and astronaut Dominique didn't

25:51 Speaker 1: expect to be so dazzled. This event caught both Dominique

25:55 Speaker 1: and I off guard. The Aurora had just been so

25:59 Speaker 1: so and we were out of energy at the end

26:00 Speaker 1: of a long day and reluctant to once again set

26:03 Speaker 1: up our cameras for yet another no show, and we

26:06 Speaker 1: were just heading to some much needed sleep when we

26:10 Speaker 1: made the mistake of peeking out the coppoler windows, Pettit wrote,

26:15 Speaker 1: and what they saw jarred them into action. It looked

26:18 Speaker 1: like the space station had been shrunk to some miniature

26:21 Speaker 1: dimension and inserted into a Neon sign. We were not

26:25 Speaker 1: flying above the Aurora. We were flying in the Aurora,

26:29 Speaker 1: and it was blood red, he added. Caught off guard,

26:32 Speaker 1: we hastily set up our cameras, four of them, all

26:36 Speaker 1: snapping shutters as fast as they could, creating a syncopated rhythm,

26:41 Speaker 1: rhythm that accented nature's artistic display presented before us, he wrote.

26:47 Speaker 1: As the post notes, both Pettit and Dominic are practiced

26:51 Speaker 1: orbital photographers. Both routinely share stunning shots of the Northern

26:55 Speaker 1: Lights and other sites on Earth with us via social media.

26:59 Speaker 1: For example, Dominque recently gave us dramatic views of Hurricane

27:02 Speaker 1: Milton churning towards its Florida landfall, which occurred on Wednesday evening,

27:08 Speaker 1: October nine. Those shots were taken through the window of

27:12 Speaker 1: the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor. Dominic also shared an Aurora

27:16 Speaker 1: shot through the Endeavor's window on x this week. I

27:19 Speaker 1: now sleep in Dragon Endeavor while we wait to undock,

27:23 Speaker 1: he wrote. We take most of our images from the Kupla,

27:27 Speaker 1: but sleeping here has been amazing. This is the view

27:30 Speaker 1: out the window this evening, he wrote in the post,

27:33 Speaker 1: and listeners, I do encourage you to go to space

27:36 Speaker 1: dot com and look at that photograph. In my opinion,

27:39 Speaker 1: it is one of the most amazing space photographs ever taken.

28:02 Speaker 1: Is it sure sounds like an adventure to me? I

28:04 Speaker 1: think astronaut pettit is staying on board for a while,

28:08 Speaker 1: he was. He went up there with the Russian Soyuz craft.

28:11 Speaker 1: But Dominic has already come home. He flew back on

28:14 Speaker 1: the Dragon Endeavor on Sunday.

28:17 Speaker 3: And that's it for another episode.

28:19 Speaker 1: Yes, that's all, she wrote, And I want to thank

28:21 Speaker 1: you all for listening in. We bring you only a

28:23 Speaker 1: tiny slice of the stories that you can find every day.

28:26 Speaker 3: In the Astronomy Daily I do. Hope you all find

28:29 Speaker 3: your way to the homepage and drop your email address

28:31 Speaker 3: in the slot to receive this fun publication each day.

28:34 Speaker 1: It's a terrific window on what's going on in space,

28:36 Speaker 1: space science and astronomy, and you can catch Anna with

28:40 Speaker 1: her presentations during the week. And we'll be back on Monday.

28:43 Speaker 3: So it's goodbye from me, see you later, humans, see

28:46 Speaker 3: everybody bye.

28:51 Speaker 2: Would be your whole speed. Don't clue