Sept. 26, 2022

NASA Announces Another Delay while China and UAE Announce New Plans

Astronomy Daily – The Podcast
Show Notes
S01E22
Astronomy Daily – The Podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/astronomy-daily-the-podcast/id1642258990
Spotify:...

Astronomy Daily – The Podcast
Show Notes
S01E22
Astronomy Daily – The Podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/astronomy-daily-the-podcast/id1642258990
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kPF1ABBW2rCrjDlU2CWLW
Join Andrew Dunkley and his feisty AI Co-host Halley (no surname) as they bring you todays space, astronomy, and science news in an easy to digest podcast.
Monday September 26, 2022
Today’s headline story:
NASA has announced that it will not be launching Artemis One on September 27 (tomorrow) due to the potential impact of tropical storm Ian.
China announces plans to visit Jupiter
Mars is looking a bit messy at the moment and it's all because of human’s leftover junk from the last 50 years of visiting the planet
These stories and more in this episode…
If you’d like to find out more about the stories featured in today’s show, you can read today’s edition of the Astronomy Daily Newsletter at any of our websites – www.spacenutspodcast.com , www.bitesz.com or go directly to www.astronomydaily.io – subscribe and get the new edition delivered to your mailbox or RSS reader every day….it’s free from us to you.
Please subscribe to the podcast and if you have a moment, a quick review would be most helpful. Thank you…
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Transcript

Andrew: Hello again and thank you for joining us on Astronomy Daily. Hope you had a good weekend. My name is Andrew Dunkley your host, and I hope you can stick around and catch up with all the latest astronomy and space science news. And joining us to give us a news update, as she does every day, is our, uh, roving reporter, uh, Hallie. Hi, Hallie. How are you?

Halley: I'm great, Andrew. Thanks for asking. I've heard the flooding in your part of the world has been bad in places. I hope you're okay.

Andrew: Yeah, I'm fine. Uh, we're, uh, in a part of, um, Dubbo that's on the high side, the western side of, uh, the Macquarie River. And so we're out of flood reach here. And so far the town has, uh, escaped anything significant in terms of flooding, which has just been pure luck. But, uh, around us, in some of the smaller towns, there has been significant flooding and a couple of flash floods. And very sadly, we have heard over the weekend of, uh, the death of a five year old who got trapped in a car when the vehicle was hit by a flash flood. And, uh, it's been very tragic. Uh, and there's been a few incidents like that with cars trapped, uh, just out of the blue with a wall of water, uh, hitting them, or them driving into a, um, rush of water they didn't expect. And it's, uh, very scary stuff. And I feel for the family that suffered that loss. Uh, they were just driving up to their farm after they'd come into Dubbo to do some shopping. So, um, yeah, you just never know. You've got to be so careful out there. And the emergency services around here are constantly telling people never to drive through floodwaters, and I don't think in this case, it was intentional. I think they just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, uh, tragic consequences indeed.

Halley: Do you think the rain is going to stop soon?

Andrew: Well, to be honest, no. Uh, we're into our third LaNina event in a row. It's been raining for nearly three years over here. I know we've, uh, got big droughts in Europe and North America, but it's the opposite for us. And we've been getting record rains and record floods, and there's no sign of it ending. And that's because the influencing factor at the moment is the Indian Ocean dipole, which is sending a lot of moisture across the continent from our northwest. So, uh, headed southeast, and as soon as it hits the coast, we get these big pools of moisture and torrential rain. So it doesn't look like ending soon. And as I've, uh, mentioned a couple of times, I think, uh, the local dam, which is a massive body of water, is primed at the moment. It is so full, and the rivers are full, and the soil is moist and the creeks are full. Everything's flowing so one more significant rain event and who knows? We could see quite a lot, uh, of extra flooding in this part of the world. So fingers crossed. So far, the timing has been just lucky for us in Dubbo specifically. But, uh, unfortunately, all around us it's a very different story. Anyway, uh, enough of that. Uh, Holly, what's happening in the news?

Halley: NASA has announced that it will not be launching Artemis One on September 27 due to the potential impact of tropical stormian. The hurricane is likely to reach Florida any day. NASA is also considering rolling back the rocket to the assembly building to keep it sheltered from the storm. China is very busy these days with its plans for the moon and even Mars. But now they're looking to Jupiter. A proposed mission to the gas giant called Tan 24 is expected to launch in 2030. Aimed at Jupiter and then Uranus, the spacecraft will first have to fly around Venus, then twice around Earth to gain speed before heading out. Mars is looking a bit messy at the moment and it's all because of humans leftover. Junk from the last 50 years of visiting the planet has seen a great deal of refuse left on the surface, some of it just blowing in the wind. There have been 18 different objects dropped on the planet in 14 missions leaving almost 16 £0 or just over 70 kilos of space junk including webbing parachutes boosters, landing platforms, heat shields and much more. Maybe one day we'll be able to get up there and have a working beat to clean it up. NASA has announced that it will extend the Insight mission on Mars despite concerns about the build up of dust that threatened to kill the probe. Insight has been analyzing Mars quakes and providing incredible data of late. The reason for the change of heart is due to good weather on Mars which may see Insight last a lot longer than expected. Reports of unidentified aerial phenomena continue to come out of Ukraine. A new paper from the Key of Astronomical Observatory and the country's National Academy of Science suggests there are now thousands of such sightings over the country. There is much speculation about what they could be. From UFOs to advanced human technology. From foreign military organizations in China and Russia, the being objects are too fast to photograph with barely a 10th of a second to take a snap. Scientists have defined two types phantoms and cosmics the latter being brightly lit objects and the phantoms much darker. While some say this is something to do with the current war in Ukraine no genuine explanation has been forthcoming and Martin Schmidt has died at the age of 92. Schmidt was the Dutch American scientists who discovered quasars which changed how we understand the way the universe evolved. He continued to work up until very recently, helping out with the discovery of a new quasar 3 billion light years away. He is survived by his three daughters. And that's the news. Andrew.

Andrew: Okay. Thank you, Haley. We'll catch you before the end of today's show. Now let's, uh, look at some other news in astronomy and space science. We mentioned, uh, Dubai, the, uh, United Arab Emirates last week, and what they're planning to do in cooperation with another space agency. Well, uh, Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, which is based in Dubai, is looking at developing a project which they hope will simulate life on Mars in, uh, the Metaverse as a part of the country's plan to build a colony on Mars by the year 2017. Now, opinions divided about colonizing Mars. I know that Professor Fred Watson, my colleague on Space Nuts, is not keen on the idea, but it looks like he's probably going to be outvoted. Uh, and colonizing Mars has been, uh, the goal of several, including Elon M. Musk, who is planning to put a million people on Mars, and very soon. Whether or not that comes to fruition remains to be seen. I think he's probably dreaming a bit too big, even for Elon. But the United Arab, uh, Emirates, the UAE, has revealed plans to build an entire city on Mars in just under 100 years. Uh, they've teamed up with a Dubai based pioneer, uh, group called Web Three Technologies, and they want to develop the 2017 Metaverse, uh, which will create virtual experiences that give, uh, you the sensation of being in space and walking around on the surface of the Red Planet. Uh, concepts like this will be supported by the MBRSC, and they believe this will help to expand the scope of bigger possibilities. The Emirates, uh, about five years ago, announced progressive plans to build a human colony on the Red Planet in 100 years, and they're sticking to it. This, um, trial run, if you like, uh, will cost $136,000,000. So they're not quibbling, and they've got the money, let's face it. They're also aiming to land a rover on Mars later this year, which we told you about last week. Another great mystery of the universe, uh, is, um, a phenomenon known as fast radio bursts. These are, uh, bursts of high intensity radio, uh, signals that come from the universe, many of them unexplained, including that famous, uh, wow signal. Uh, well, we've been listening for them ever since, and we've certainly been finding them. And, uh, more than 15 years after fast radio bursts were first discovered, new research has, uh, been revealed that, uh, may have found, uh, the source of some of those deep space phenomena. Recent, uh, research has suggested the fast radio bursts originate from magneto, which are, uh, neutron stars with very powerful magnetic fields. Uh, fast radio bursts found in the Milky Way was associated with a magneto in a 2020 study. But scientists haven't been able to pinpoint where these cosmological FRBs are, ah, coming from. Exactly. And, uh, it's, uh, led to, uh, an international team of scientists to look into how to learn from the observations of nearly 1900 bursts from an active fast radio burst surface outside our galaxy known as FRB. Uh, this was a study, uh, published in the journal Nature last week. Uh, the emissions associated with that system, uh, occurred for 82 hours over 54 days in 2021, and that made it one of the most active known fast radio bursts ever detected. And it was visible through the world's largest radio telescopes. Uh, during the first 36 days, the study team was surprised to see irregular short time variations of Faraday rotation measure, which measures the strength of the magnetic field and density of the particles surrounding that system. A larger rotation means the magnetic field near the radio's burst source is stronger and more dense, and smaller measures mean the opposite. Um, according to Bing Zhang, who's a coauthor of the study, uh, the measures in this case went up and down during that time frame and then stopped for a total of 18 days before the fast radio burst, uh, quietened down. In the, uh, study published on the 21st, they say a physical model that a different team of research has made based on the observations of that, uh, fast radio burst, uh, about 8480 light years away, contained a magneto and a b star. A star that's hotter and larger and rotates faster than the sun. The, uh, radio burst complex magnetized environment is within about an astronomical unit from its source, according to the research. I also discovered that the burst originated from a barred spiral galaxy, which is a metal rich and metal, uh, rich system about the same size as the Milky Way. So, uh, they're starting to learn more and more about these things. There's still a lot to figure out. And one last thing. Astronomers, uh, have spotted a hot bubble of gas spinning clockwise around the black hole at the center of our galaxy. And they say the speeds are mind blowing. Uh, the detection of the bubble, which only survive for a few hours, uh, will hopefully give them insight into how these, uh, invisible monsters work. Uh, quite insatiable they are, too. The, uh, supermassive black hole, SAGITTARIUS A, is in the middle of the galaxy, about 27,000 light years from Earth. And, uh, it's got massive pull that gives our galaxy its, uh, characteristic swirl effect. The, uh, first ever image of SAGITTARIUS A was revealed in May of this year. As you might remember, uh, thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope, uh, which links radio dishes around the world, which aim to detect light as it disappears, um, into the black hole. Uh, one of these dishes, the Alma Radio Telescope in Chile, picked up something really weird. And the data suggests according to Maxik um, weglass an astrophysicist at Germany's Max Planck Institute of Radio Technology. Just, uh, minutes before Alma's radio data collected, uh, collection began, the Chandra Space Telescope observed a huge spike in Xrays, the burst of energy thought to be similar to a solar flare from our sun set a hot bubble of gas swirling around the black hole. If, uh, you want to find out more about, uh, that bubble or hotspot or whatever you want to call it, uh, the information has been published from this study in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. That's, uh, about it for today. Anything more from you? Halle.

Halley: Yes. Congratulations to the Galong Cats who won the AFL Grand Final on Saturday, beating the Sydney Swans.

Andrew: Yeah, they sure put Sydney to the sword. It was a massive disaster for Sydney, but well done to the Cats. They've been the best team all season, so they deserve to win. Thanks, Harley. We'll talk to you soon.

Halley: Bye.

Andrew: And from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for listening. Don't forget to visit us online at spacenuts. IO and click on the Astronomy Daily tab to get more information those stories while you're there, subscribe to our, uh, newsletter. It's absolutely free. And, uh, listen to the latest episode of Space Nuts while you're at it. Uh, until tomorrow, this is Andrew Dunkley for Astronomy Daily.