SpaceWeek
Weekly Space for Everyday People - SpaceWeek is a news podcast to bring you everything currently happening in our galactic backyard. Join us each week to discuss topics such as Astronomy, Exploration, Research, and ongoing programs from industry leaders like NASA and SpaceX.
We present things in an easy and fun way that makes listening to our podcast enjoyable for everyone!
SpaceWeek
Unraveling Space Secrets: Skylab Anniversary, AX2 Mission, and Black Hole Theories
Ready for an exciting journey through the cosmos? This week, we bring the wonders of space directly to your ears, as we cover a wide array of topics from the AX2 mission and Skylab's 50th anniversary to the ever-mysterious black holes. Starting off with SpaceX's recent launches, we'll share all the thrilling details about the Falcon 9, the launch of 21 satellites for OneWeb and Iridium next, and the groundbreaking journey of the AX2 mission's historic crew to the International Space Station.
But that's not all! We'll take you on a virtual tour of the famous Johnson Space Center and discuss their incredible offerings for visitors. From the 1G trainer to the Rocket Park, you'll feel like you're right there with us. We also delve into the latest news from NASA, including the mysterious failure of a high atmosphere balloon and the success of JUICE's antenna repair mission. We even examine the European Space Agency's satellite hacking challenge and discuss the cutting-edge technology behind lunar exploration.
Lastly, we'll explore the fascinating world of Stratolaunch and their unique aircraft, the ROC, as well as the latest findings about the structure of the Milky Way. Plus, we'll introduce you to the intriguing concept of topological solitons and their potential to break down Einstein's theory of relativity. So, buckle up and join us on this cosmic adventure, and be sure to follow us on your favorite platforms to stay updated on all things space. And remember to always keep your eyes on the skies!
Welcome to Space Week, the podcast that brings you weekly space for everyday people. We're your hosts, paul and Blake. Join us each week as we take you on a journey through the cosmos and bring the wonders of space down to Earth. So sit back, buckle up and get ready for another exciting episode. Hey, everyone, if it's your first time, welcome, and if you've been here before, welcome back. Last episode we did two weeks in one. If you remember, we jammed in a lot of information, so if you haven't listened to it, go check it out. This week we're covering about one and a half weeks worth, including the AX2 mission, skylabs 50th anniversary and what seems like the new podcast favorite, black Holes. Black Holes for sure, oh God. At first it was potatoes and now we're stuck on Black Holes.
Speaker 2:And now we're stuck on Black Holes, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:But before we get into that, we'll go ahead and start off with this week's launches. So of course it was kind of dominated by SpaceX. again We start off with a Falcon 9 launching more Starlink satellites. More Starlink satellites Oh no, so pretty routine. again SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 carrying a batch of 22. These were version 2 mini satellites, so they're getting back up on the V2 minis. on Friday, may 19th, the launch took place around 2 in the morning at Cape Canaveral in Florida, after weather delays at the original 1240 and 130 windows. Again, the V2s. if you don't remember, they're improved antennas with four times the capacity of the V1.5s, as well as four times larger than the version 1.5s. I like how they call them minis though. Yeah, they still call them minis, but that has to do with the full size that they're going to launch in the future aboard Starship, oh Lord. So we still don't know just how big that's going to be, but you can kind of sort of imagine how big that's going to be with Starship. need to be required.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, starship. Yay, so more SpaceX, right.
Speaker 1:More SpaceX. So we had a Falcon 9 launch, more OneWeb and Iridium next satellites. This was on Saturday, May 20th, out of Vandenberg, So just one day after our previous launch out of Florida, this time with 21 satellites for OneWeb and Iridium next. The launch would have been a double header for SpaceX had it lifted off during its original window on Friday but unfortunately had to abort 55 seconds before launch. I'm not really sure what the abort was, but they got it figured out. Obviously, 16 of the 21 satellites were for OneWeb and of those 16, 15 would be used to extend their existing constellation, The other ones a demonstrator for their new technologies, known as JoeySat. So the name comes from the satellite's beam hopping technology, So you can kind of see where this is going. They named it after a baby kangaroo. You know a Joey.
Speaker 2:I was just about to ask are they launching up a baby kangaroo up in the space?
Speaker 1:or what. Yeah, we started.
Speaker 2:They're calling that a satellite We started with dogs and monkeys, and now we're sending kangaroos.
Speaker 1:Oh man, but no. my understanding is that this technology will allow the satellite to quickly switch where it's sending and receiving signals from all over the earth, which I don't know about you. I kind of thought we were doing that already. But basically, you know, imagine the satellite is sending a beam down to earth in one location. It's now able to quickly receive data from that location, beam over to another location and send it back out kind of thing which I thought that's what satellites did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i thought satellites were. You know, hey, we send data up to them and then they send us data back, right. Right, we're like, you know, we ping them and they're like they send us data back because, well, geoscan or satellites and satellite imagery and all that stuff, they obviously send us the data back. Are we not sending stuff to them too?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I didn't really understand is they're boasting the beam hopping technology. I'm guessing it's just they're able to do it quicker. Now They were talking about it being beneficial for, like, high traffic scenarios. So I don't know, maybe this just builds upon what's already out there. Maybe Now with the Iridium satellites the other five they were spares for the company's existing telecom network. The CEO had said that they were fine with their network as it was, but they made extras and he figured they were no good to them on the ground. So they just sent them up anyways, because why not? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean either toss it in the museum or send it up. Send it up, What are you going?
Speaker 1:to do with it. So yeah, so they, iridium's, already got their network up in the air and that's been doing its thing for a long time. It's something like 60 satellites now or so, wow. But yeah, they just had these extras laying around. It was like part of some insurance plan or something with them and they just figured, well, it's no good here, send it on up. But that's pretty much it, with satellites Now continuing with another Falcon 9, we of course have.
Speaker 2:This was yeah, this was a pretty big launch this week and I remember seeing it but seeing it on the news while we were out eating lunch and I was like, oh well, that'll be something I'm going to have to talk about right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, of course it was AX2. So AXium space we've talked about them before and we talked about AX1. So AX2 launched via a Falcon 9 at 5.37pm from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, may 21st, making it the third launch in three days for SpaceX. We had a launch Friday, saturday and Sunday. Now on with the mission, ax2 is AXium space's second privately crewed launch to the ISS, following AX1 back in April of 2022. Now there were a lot of firsts here as far as the crew is concerned, so this is pretty cool. Mission specialists Ali Akharni and Rayana Barnawi are the first Saudi astronauts to visit the ISS, with Rayana being the first Saudi woman to ever travel the space.
Speaker 2:That's insane.
Speaker 1:So go for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, politics aside of that region, it's crazy that a Saudi woman's never been to space in 2023, right?
Speaker 1:Right, and they were. I think they were part of their first astronaut class too, so this is something very new for them as a country.
Speaker 2:Oh, it is Okay, wow Okay.
Speaker 1:But yeah, i mean just kind of setting some records just right off the bat. Mission pilot John Shofner is flying as a paying customer and it's his first time to space, so what he's standing is he's a businessman, like lifelong businessman, with a huge like a STEM kind of advocate thing going on, so he kind of paid his way. I'm not really sure what he's doing. Okay, when they get there.
Speaker 2:Okay, hold on. So he paid his way to be the mission pilot. Yes, does this man have some crazy amount of flight?
Speaker 1:hours in some. I have no idea. I didn't have a chance to really look him up.
Speaker 2:I'm sure he's got something going on, but I mean I'm sure he's qualified for the job, but pay to win.
Speaker 1:Just by the battle, pass man, you'll go to space.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah. So I don't. I'm not really 100% sure, but I don't know. It's just kind of cool seeing, I guess, the first paying customer really going up into space, like this.
Speaker 2:I mean this is to the station. Yeah, i mean space tourism. This is where it starts. Rich people paying their way to go to the station. That's where it starts And they are going to be.
Speaker 1:I mean, he is going to be partaking in a lot of the studies and everything going on, so it's not like he's just up there doing nothing by any means.
Speaker 2:I mean Oh man, i wish I could just pay like the dude was assigned pilot, so he's got to be important, he knows stuff.
Speaker 1:I mean he knows what he's doing, So we're not knocking him by any means.
Speaker 2:No, it's just funny to think about, right, Like oh, this guy paid a million dollars to go to the space station And also he just so happens to be the mission pilot. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because really, I mean, when you think about it, the pilot here is the runner up to commander in the four person crew And the commander on this mission is the Peggy Whitson. I don't know if you know who she is. I'm not familiar now. Okay, peggy, this girl, okay, i call her girl. She's like older than you and I combined. All right. She spent more time and space than any other NASA astronaut at 665 days. Now she's adding to that And she's 63.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow.
Speaker 1:So in 2007 or maybe it was eight, i'm not sure She became the first woman to command the ISS. In 2009, she became the first woman to become NASA's chief astronaut. In 2017, she became the first woman to command the ISS twice. She also holds the record for the oldest woman Space Walker and the most space walks by a woman at 10. You go, girl. Seriously.
Speaker 2:I mean absolutely freaking phenomenal.
Speaker 1:That is insane Track record there, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, she's extremely like experienced and qualified. That's awesome. I mean she's great for her, Yeah.
Speaker 1:So now she adds to those with AX2 by becoming the first woman to command a privately crewed spaceflight and still holds the record of the oldest woman to orbit the Earth, at 63. So it's like I don't know what record doesn't she hold trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at least for in women. But even still, she's the longest serving NASA astronaut in space. Yeah, so that's, that's insane, i mean she's back there.
Speaker 1:I think she technically retired in 2018 as a NASA astronaut I think it was 2018. And then she became like a consultant for Axiom And now she's first woman commander for a privately crewed spaceflight. Well, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That kind of. You know, in my mind I thought that being launched in a rocket was like highly taxing on the body. So I'm not saying she's super old by any means, but typically whenever you're thinking astronaut, you're thinking guys like just barely older than we are, right Like mid 30s, I'm thinking, yeah, like mid 30s to 50s, you know yeah, somewhere in there, and she's at 63.
Speaker 1:That's I'm not trying to like knock her old, but it's getting old.
Speaker 2:But like for an astronaut, that's pretty up for 665 days in space.
Speaker 1:That's a lot. I mean that's a lot. So now back with the mission. Ax2 arrived successfully at the station where the Expedition 69 crew held a welcome ceremony for the new astronauts. Barnawi officially became the 600th astronaut to orbit the Earth. Oh wow, so you know number 600. I mean, i didn't realize there'd been that many already.
Speaker 2:Same. I'm thinking like oh, like 300 people have been to space. That's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, she's double that 600.
Speaker 1:But they have people now, so really cool, good for her. And the crew will be aboard the station for eight days and is set to return on Tuesday, may 30th, which sounds like nine days to me If you do the math, but I'm guessing that's the time from station arrival to station departure, i guess from the time they dock to the station to the time they leave the station.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something like that you know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but continue with the station. We had another spacewalk. This was Russian Spacewalk 58. I believe this was on Friday, may 12th. Iss Commander Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Patelin ventured outside to deploy and activate the radiator they previously installed on the Naoka module April 19th So you may remember me talking about this in Spacewalk. They had Spacewalk 57 and 56 before that. So they've been working on this. They moved the radiator, i think, in Spacewalk 56. And then in 57 they moved an airlock, and now in 58 they're actually like deploying and installing the radiator. Everything went pretty good. It lasted about five hours 15 minutes. This marks the two of them's third Spacewalk, like I just said, together aboard Expedition 69. Nice, so last day, last da-da-da-da.
Speaker 2:Try it again. Red leather, yellow leather.
Speaker 1:And now the last thing on our list was Spaceflight. Skylab had its 50th anniversary. No-transcript, if you know, if you don't know, skylab launched atop a Saturn V on May 14, 1973, between May 25, 1973 and February 8, 1974, three crews carried out 270 experiments and studies in the fields of physics, astronomy and biology And you could kind of almost say this, paved the way for the Russian Mir station and the ISS coming later in the day, or later in the days, plural, several days, years years, days, decades, you know.
Speaker 1:But Skylab definitely did have its issues, especially during its initial launch and deployment. A lot of people kind of forget about this, but when it first deployed I believe it was a, it was a shield, i think for like micrometeoroids it actually deployed during the launch and knocked off one of the solar panels, or didn't knock off the solar panel, just like hit one of the solar panels and left it kind of hanging, and then when they fired the second stage, it literally blew the solar panel off into space.
Speaker 1:So no that's something people kind of forget, because I mean, really we don't talk about Skylab a whole lot, not anymore now. So I mean, of course, if you were there you remember. But the mission following they actually kind of had to delay and train up and figure out how they were going to fix this thing, because they ended up having a problem with, now, power delivery because they lost a panel as well as the heat because they lost their heat shield for the sun. So they had to go up and fix all that. But it spent a total of six years in orbit before eventually falling back down into the atmosphere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know it was a pioneer. Like you said, it paid the way for Mir, the Russian station, and then our current station, the International Space.
Speaker 1:Station.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And also I did want to mention KSC. I believe has the 1G trainer on display there Or not? KSC, my God Johnson.
Speaker 2:Johnson Space Center has it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, if you do want to go see kind of like what Skylab looked like firsthand and it's a complete mock-up of the station, it's a true to life. That is the trainer that they used on the ground. So if you do want to go see Skylab, especially for its 50th year, you know, go visit Johnson Space Center.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and another really cool thing about Johnson Space Center last time I went they had the shuttle. You could sit in the shuttle and well, i don't think you could actually sit in it. They might have had like a glass pane or something in front of it. but you could look into the shuttle.
Speaker 1:I was talking about, since they put it on top of the shuttle carrier there, or no, the one inside. I don't think it's there anymore, really, yeah, i'm trying to remember because I was looking for it last time I was there.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's there anymore, but you do have the shuttle on top of the shuttle carrier that you can walk inside of And that's pretty neat.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, of course, everything's like inside a plexiglass.
Speaker 2:You can't get into the seat and mess with the switches Like you could back in a day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it used to like hang on a wall. I think, yeah, it was like a little cut out of a wall over the main room remember.
Speaker 2:And then you could actually sit in a seat and mess around with the buttons and everything. And then I think I guess it got old. Maybe too many people broke too many switches And then they put like a plexiglass or like a whatever In front of it, in front of it, so you could no longer sit in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I loved that That last time I was there And I because I just I don't visit Johnson enough And yeah, it's, it's no longer there, oh man. So yeah, that sucks. But yeah, i mean, shoot, go see Skylab. And they got like I said, they got the shuttle carrier there now with the shuttle on top so you can walk inside of both.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They got the Saturn five set up in its own exhibit.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean, they have what's called Rocket Park, which is where you can go and see, or you drive by the Falcon 9 booster.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then you go into that little Rocket Park which has one of the bell nozzles, i think. I think it was from a Saturn five. I could be wrong, or maybe something smaller.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to remember, yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't remember Anyways. But then you go into this massive building that has the Saturn five launch vehicle inside of it And the sheer scale of that thing is insane.
Speaker 1:It's ridiculous. Yeah, they got it completely staged out and you have to. I think you have to do the Tram tour, Yeah you do, You know to see it, it's like at the end of the Tram tour and they just kind of drop you off there and then you can stay there as long as you want, i think.
Speaker 2:I think there's two, if I remember, and it's been a while since I've been to JSC, which is funny because we live so close, but I think there's two tours. There's the Tram tour, which takes you to the control, like the control room that they actually used in the Apollo missions, and then you have one that just takes you to the Rocket.
Speaker 1:Park Maybe? Yeah. And then the Tram tour, because I know that they for me. when I was there last time they had a separate tour to go to the Apollo mission control versus the usual tour. that takes you to like the neutral buoyancy lab and modern mission control. They're two different tours, so I don't know how they got it set up now.
Speaker 2:But anyway it's been a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but go check it out. Skylab's 50th.
Speaker 2:Hey. So anyways, let's move on to an actual topic and we're not rambling on about how cool the JSC is really. A massive high atmosphere balloon has sprung a leak and NASA has stitched it into the specific ocean, if you will. My bad, i mean the Pacific Ocean. Could you be more Pacific? No, i can't. This actually happened only a day and a half into the flight, which is unfortunate and very weird, because usually these things, they say they last typically about a hundred days, so a day and a half is crazy. It carried the extreme universe space observatory to or USO2 payload, which will detect ultra high energy cosmic rays falling into the Earth's atmosphere. So essentially, what they're trying to do is they're trying to determine the origins of these cosmic rays that are coming into the Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 1:So it's basically like a fancy weather balloon.
Speaker 2:Essentially, but instead of detecting whether it's detecting, whether or not sorry, bad pun whether or not there's like cosmic rays coming from outer space or maybe a potentially other source I suppose I'm not a hundred percent sure, but they're saying that these cosmic rays are coming from outer space and they want to determine the origin of them. Gotcha, okay, they'll be investigating the cause of this weather balloons failure and hopefully launching another USO2 payload, because that sounds like a pretty cool little project to do some research on. Like hey, where are the cosmic rays coming from? However, they did say that it won't be this year. It might be next year, or they're not going to launch another one of these balloons for the remainder of the year.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder if they'll ping the USO2 payload and maybe get some data out of it from the bottom of the ocean. That'd be kind of cool. I doubt it. Yeah well I have hopes.
Speaker 1:Hey, you can Hopes and dreams. Well, i'm going to kind of continue on here with bad news with NASA. NASA is ready to scrap the MLP3. So MLP3 is Mobile Launch Platform 3. This was used for Apollo 8 and 11 and is set to be demolished and has been moved from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building to the Midfield Park at KSC in Florida. So the decision comes as a bit of a surprise, but it is necessary to make room for Boeing's new lease in the Vehicle Assembly Building, the VAB, for the SLS rocket.
Speaker 1:So I was reading up on this and essentially NASA had a bunch of space that they weren't using in the VAB and they decided, well, let's do something with it. So they kind of put it up for I kind of want to call it auction, you know. just highest bidder. Hey, you know, we have this space available now. who wants it? And Boeing took it for the SLS and the space in particular was High Bay 2. So they were storing the platform there and then Boeing came and they were like, okay, we're going to need this space for SLS. MLP's got to go. So it is what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's sad to see history go, but you know we've got to keep making progress.
Speaker 1:Exactly So the MLP's, for you know kind of a size here. They weighed 8.2 million pounds each. They're 160 feet long by 135 wide, standing 25 feet tall. So for our metric guys that's 49 by 41 by 7.6 meters. They can only be moved with crawler transporters and can only be parked at the VAB Launchpad or midfield sites because of their weight. So they did consider moving it to the visitor complex as a public exhibit. By the way, you know we're talking about some serious history behind this platform, but it was deemed unsafe, with too many places for people to get hurt. You know, it's just one of those things. Yeah, well, the historic platform was used for the first Saturn V launch, apollo 8, Apollo 11, like I said, three Skylab missions, the Apollo Soyuz Test Project and 33 shuttle missions, including the first and last shuttle missions to the ISS. So crazy, yeah, it's almost like getting rid of pad 39A.
Speaker 2:Yeah. God you know, just it really sucks. Yeah, that would be very unfortunate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but on with some good news. Juice got its antenna fixed. Orange juice, orange juice around Jupiter. So, juice, jupiter IC Moons Explorer. If, casey, you haven't been here, like the past, like three episodes or so I think it's three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, its antenna for its radar was jammed due to a stuck pin. So it's a pro that's going to go out and it's going to look at Jupiter's three IC Moons and collect data on them with this high tech radar And the antenna was stuck, they couldn't deploy it. There was a little bitty pin in the way and they were trying to figure out all these different ways to somehow get it unjammed. They tried shaking juice with thrusters and warming it by rotating it to face the sun. They moved the pin a little bit, but not all the way. They finally freed it, though by firing a quote non-explosive actuator in any A. So I'm not really sure what that is. That could be anything. I mean non An actuator.
Speaker 2:Maybe some kind of like, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, Non-explosive actuator. To me that's like any lever on board anything It doesn't have.
Speaker 2:Well, if it's not explosive, maybe it's some kind of like projectile thing that they just, you know, they load it up and they're like, all right.
Speaker 1:I'm going to aim it right at this spot right here Bang, it's still explosive though?
Speaker 2:I don't know Well the projectile is not explosive. Maybe it was on a rail gun, i don't know. I'm going into the certifier.
Speaker 1:Now we're putting rail guns on radar satellites. All right, we're going to come way back down to Earth here.
Speaker 2:No, we have to be up in space with juice. Oh God, Okay.
Speaker 1:So, god, i hope you're all staying here with me. Okay, so the NEA, the non-explosive actuator, was in the jam bracket and they fired it No idea what that really means And this moved the pin by a mere you know millimeters, which was enough to allow the antenna to unfold. So bottom line juices. Okay, it's on its way to Jupiter. It's going to do some cool stuff and we'll see how it goes in the coming months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I saw actually like a little clip of it like unfolding in it. I don't know if they sped it up or anything, but I mean that thing like just right out.
Speaker 1:you know right out, I guess, when you're stuck, though for a couple of weeks or so, I mean yeah, you just got to get out and like stretch out. You just got to stretch your legs, man, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, other satellites in space have actually been hacked, if you will, But you know, let's talk about this hacking because these hackers have seized control of a European space agency satellite. This actually happened back in April, but I just came across it recently and I wanted to talk about it because, well, this is really cool And as a web developer cybersecurity I have to be mindful of that stuff.
Speaker 1:I mean, i think it's neat And you know, if we passed it up, hey, you know we ought to go ahead and mention it.
Speaker 2:Right. So hackers? oh no, scary right, not really. So there's a big difference between a white hat hacker and what's known as a black hat hacker.
Speaker 2:Right white, black, good, bad. that's kind of how they make the distinction here. So a white-head hacker could actually be known as an ethical hacker People that know how to hack computers and stuff like that and get into these systems, get access to networks and cause damage to companies' networks and stuff like that. they're actually paid by these companies to find those intrusions, find those loopholes in their security and tell them about it So that way they can patch them up. That's what's going on here. The European Space Agency has actually I think it was last year they had a security conference or they were at a security conference and they said hey, here's a fun challenge for you hack the satellite.
Speaker 1:Hey, I mean that sounds pretty freaking cool. I mean, if I was like a little home hacker, you know, doing all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Dude, i'd love to try it. Yeah, i'd love to try it.
Speaker 1:Hack the satellite?
Speaker 2:Yeah right, i think they only allowed specific people to participate. You had to like apply to do it, and then you could attempt Gotcha.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:So here's the crazy part You have a six minute window to hack it. Oh, I'm not sure exactly why. I think maybe because that's how fast it's moving across where it you're able to.
Speaker 1:Could it be hacked? Yeah, like that's like your hacking window Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know it's moving so fast across the sky, or something like that, that you're just not able to interface with it for so long. Anyways, you have six minutes to rest control over it, and they said that this was extremely technically demanding. I mean, you have six minutes to break into a satellite. That's insane. Yeah, that's crazy. These things probably already have security on board. They probably have, you know, security on the ground that communicates with them, and someone did it.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, that's insane. I wonder if they were given like any information prior to like, hey, this is what the software is based on, or you know, this is what we know is a possible vulnerability. Try it out, because I feel like if you just go at it with no prior knowledge of like what you're trying to get into, what any of the language is you know, you kind of don't know what to hit it with first in six minutes.
Speaker 2:No, you're right. That's actually a pretty valid point And for anybody that has any interest in hacking cybersecurity whatsoever, there's a show that I've watched called Mr Robot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you told me about that I told you about that right And how it's made me like paranoid about using any of my phones any of my computers, any of my cars crazy show. I have a buddy of mine that works in cybersecurity. He's actually said that it's one of the most realistic like hacker shows he's ever seen, Really And honestly. Because I've kind of like dabbled in it myself just out of curiosity, i wanted to. It sounds fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Puzzle solving. I like puzzles, you know Puzzles are fun. Anyways, in the show they actually kind of touch on it. But if you know the software you can kind of like look up the software and there's actually like a website that you can go to and look through the bugs and stuff of the software. It'll be like a CV dash number, number, number, dash numbers, stuff. Point being, if you know the software it's probably a lot easier. You can go into their like manuals, documentation and all this stuff And you can find potential exploits. Right, great show. Definitely recommend it. Go check it out.
Speaker 1:Just fun. Hey, get into hacking, maybe you'll get to hack a satellite.
Speaker 2:That'd be pretty sick. But yeah, this was a specific satellite called Opsat and it was previously launched in December of 2019. And to my understanding, it's a demonstration satellite, So basically a satellite to demonstrate for commercial purposes. So they want to sell these satellites, the technology onboard the satellite and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, and just say, yeah, i guess this is kind of a demo, to say, hey, this is how secure it is or how insecure it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sort of The hacking part was definitely like a hey, proving grounds kind of thing, yeah, yeah. And on top of that, you know, we have military intelligence like, oh, maybe we can figure out how to patch all of these holes and these satellites up there, you know, because that's going to be the way that the war goes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I mean, you know, when people think about Space Force, that's kind of what the Space Force is really doing is a lot of cyber security. People think, oh yeah, you know, we're going to send like soldiers up into space. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's basically cyber security for cyber, security for space and, on top of that you know, surveillance satellites and stuff like that Super secret spy satellites and all that stuff. Yeah, Like you know, think about like your favorite spy movie. They probably do that in the Space Force. It's crazy Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I was talking to a guy. we flew a guy one time.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to say he was ex agency and he told me some stuff that was definitely declassified information And you know it's not like super secret anything but he was basically just talking about like how, like way back, i mean like way back in the 60s, wow, or so It had to be, or so because he's talking about satellites here, but this is before. You know flat screen TVs and any of that stuff and high death. They were able to take pictures of, like the parking lot of the base that they were at And in order to kind of prove the technology to the general on the base, they took a picture and they basically showed them And, like I said this, like way back before HD, his like license plate number in the parking lot was taken from a satellite, wow.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of his point was you don't really know, like you don't really want to know, what we have when it comes to spy satellites and satellite imagery nowadays.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I mean, that's what we had back then. So this was a guy that was years retired. So yeah, we'll just put it that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, okay to kind of add on to that and this is something I read on the internet, so I'm not 100% sure if it's true. Maybe because of this is this is crazy technology And if they actually have access to this technology, be insane. But someone mentioned, or I read somewhere I can't remember exactly how I came across this factoid, but someone mentioned that they could have like a satellite that points a laser at a window and measures like the wobble, i suppose the window, the window.
Speaker 2:And that's what we're trying to do is to detect and determine what people inside that room are saying.
Speaker 1:That's comforting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like, okay, you know, we'll take it another step further. Okay, this is a program, by the way, guys, that that we, that we use like as pilots and really gamers. Dcs world Yeah, combat simulator. Okay, this is a game. Oh, war.
Speaker 2:Thunder as well.
Speaker 1:But you know, yeah, but we'll call DCS world. It's a game, but it's. It's a highly, highly accurate game like more so than I would say flight. You know, microsoft Flight Simulator.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, But it's military aircraft, And so you kind of get an idea of just how advanced things were. We're talking about aircraft, military aircraft, from like the 80s. We're talking like latest model was like an F 18 C, because everything has to be declassified before it goes into this. You know simulator slash game? Yeah, But none of it's. You know fiction? none of it's drawn up.
Speaker 2:It's all real, Yeah, And so you know, like the the net ops, which is essentially the manual for the airplane highly detailed manual, by the way and they modeled the plane to do exactly what that manual says.
Speaker 1:I mean they consulted with, with all kinds of people. You know they laser scanned everything to. You know it's. It's crazy. But anyways, my point being we're talking about like these windows. Okay, you put a infrared pod on a A10 Warthog and you're flying around Nevada. We can pretty much be like over a hundred miles out and kind of zoom into a put like a casino hotel room window and fire a rocket at it from like a hundred miles out. Yeah, So, yeah, it's just kind of scary to think about. We're actually technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if if you see UFO, it's probably just a super secret military spy plane.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:So no, but, but really, let's, let's go back. I still had a few more things to talk about with that hacker thing, but there's an offensive cybersecurity team at fails demonstrated how to take control of the ESA satellite And this is considered the world's first ethical satellite hacking exercise, the first time that someone's actually been able to take control over a satellite legally, i guess is best way to put it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like ethically, you know, yeah, but also you know, i'm sure satellites have been hacked in the past for illegal reasons or war crimes. Yeah, Maybe not war crimes, but like war.
Speaker 1:Hey, i mean you never know, it's just. you know probably something we've not made the news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't know everything about wars, right? Yeah, i mean, we're talking. We're over here talking about super top secret spy stuff that we had back in the 80s, and nowadays they're pointing lasers at windows and they can just tell what we're saying. So don't come point a laser at a window here and get a head start on what the podcast is saying, please. I that would be creepy, don't do it, thank you. Lasers could also be considered flashlights. You had something about flashlights here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could call it a flashlight. It's actually a flashlight using lasers. How ironic is that? So of course I'm the bear of bad news again this episode.
Speaker 1:Nasa has given up on lunar flashlight. Basically, lunar flashlight is a probe that's primary mission was to find water ice in the craters of the moon's south pole. The probe tagged along on the same Falcon 9 used to send Japan's Hakudo R lander to the moon. It had many new technologies on board, one of them being its thruster system, which is actually the reason for them kind of giving up on it. It suffered a malfunction, which their thinking was likely a clogged fuel line, and they tried a few solutions to unclog it, including increasing fuel pressures well above normal levels, but nothing worked. So they were basically just increasing pressure, hoping it would kind of pop out the clog and continue flow to the thruster.
Speaker 1:But because of the thruster issue, the probe couldn't reach its final lunar orbit and is now set to fall back towards Earth before slingshotting itself into an orbit around the sun. Oh fun, so our lunar probe is now a solar probe. So yeah, there is good news. However, i guess Lots of the other systems are functioning well, and its new navigation computer and radio system proved their worth already for use in future probes. Its laser reflectometer, which is its laser flashlight shooting at the moon thing, fine ice instrument was also tested and suggested that it could have spotted water ice on the moon had it actually gotten up into its orbit.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, Well, that's cool. So I guess it basically had a LiDAR on board.
Speaker 1:Kind of yeah, i mean laser reflectometer, if you want to get technical. It kind of sounds like LiDAR.
Speaker 2:And for those of you unaware, lidar is light detection and range Ranging. I think Range ranging, i think it's ranging, but it's basically LiDAR, but instead of with radio waves, it's with a laser And very, very cool technology. I've personally used it in drone projects. I know the police use it for an alternative to LiDAR, because LiDAR guns are subject to LiDAR jammers. Lidar you can't beat.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not easily. We don't have that technology just yet.
Speaker 1:So there's that. So there you go. But yeah, so NASA's still looking at options to assign the probe a new task. Like I said, it's now our lunar probe become solar probe.
Speaker 2:So point the laser at the sun and see what happens. Just shoot the laser.
Speaker 1:We got a floating death star out in space.
Speaker 2:Please don't shoot the laser at the sun, nasa. That's a bad idea, bad idea.
Speaker 1:But continuing on with with the moon. Actually we've got a blue moon, is what they're calling it, not not the bear. So officials announced yeah right, officials announced Friday the 19th, that blue origin is joining the moon lander game with their lander blue moon.
Speaker 2:This will be the first time we've seen a blue moon. It's bad, puns aside, sorry.
Speaker 1:God, we're awful, okay, But Blue Origin won the second human landing system, or HLS, contract from NASA for the Ardynis program, joining SpaceX's Starship. According to Blue Origin's website, blue moon has been in development for several years and will be capable of delivering, hosting and deploying payloads to the lunar surface. So when I was up on their website it was pretty vague. I mean, they just said several years, not really sure how many years. This is the first time really I've heard of blue moon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean they obviously try to keep stuff under wraps. I wonder if they're keeping that vague because they don't want people to know they've actually been working on it for 50 years. I'm kidding, but they've been working on it for X amount of years and they're just saying several so that they can kind of keep it under wraps. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they're also keeping their specifications under wraps as well, because they're not really all there yet. They say it can land, quote multiple metric tons of payload. So I have no idea how much multiple is. That could be two metric tons, three metric tons, i mean multiple metric tons of payload. No, no, that's multiple right there You're right, so I don't know. And then again, the lander provides, from their website quote kilowatts of power using its fuel cells, allowing for long mission durations, with the ability to last through the lunar night.
Speaker 2:Now, that's certainly a challenge.
Speaker 1:So yeah, i mean, i'm looking at it. Okay, they say quote kilowatts. So how many kilowatts of power are we talking?
Speaker 2:You know just just a few. That's going to entirely depend. Just think about that. You know, if it stays on the moon our moon does not revolve, rotate, right? I always forget that. I always get it.
Speaker 1:I feel like it rotates in a way that it remains totally locked. So right, so it's totally locked to earth, right?
Speaker 2:So it has each phase of well, each orbit of the moon around the earth is 27 days. So think about that As the last, not 27 days, but actually, no, it might be 27 days, because I don't know. In my head, 27 days is just a number I'm sticking with. Okay, all right, we're gonna stop there. I'm thinking too hard. I Try to figure out where you're going. Okay, so, like you know, think about, it's on one spot on the moon and it has 27 days to charge up, or half of that, and Then it's in the dark for the other half.
Speaker 1:Oh, You know what I got you?
Speaker 2:I got you okay, yeah, you're just gotta it's gotta go back into The new moon lunar day and lunar night.
Speaker 1:Yeah okay, yeah, i got you right. Yeah, see, that makes a lot more sense now because I'm sitting here going. You know it's gonna last at the lunar night and I'm thinking lunar night is in like one night on earth.
Speaker 2:It's got a last through that being out of the Sun's view out of that, yeah for that.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. Yeah, that is actually a long time.
Speaker 2:That is a very long time. I mean, you're talking, we can have maybe, maybe more than that, i'm not a hundred percent, sure, but now I might. That's what it.
Speaker 1:That's coming up with. they are saying this is with fuel cells, so I Don't know what sort of solar panels. They got on board, but fuel cells. I mean, that's, that's, that's not a rechargeable thing, is it?
Speaker 2:It would depend, i wonder. I wonder if they're gonna start drilling the moon For fuel.
Speaker 1:heck, i mean, that's the only thing I can, they're talking about Maybe using water ice in the South Pole to supplement missions. So heck, you never know. I'm not really sure what the heck's under the surface of the moon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean, you know we brought back moon, rocks and stuff like that, but it's not like we brought back moon, ice Moon, ice moon oil like moon dinosaurs oil on the moon. Let's go.
Speaker 1:So yeah, i mean it's just a really interesting thing because their specs are very vague, But they do have some things up on the website. What they did say was that the larger variant has been designed to land in a scent vehicle in as part of the HLS. So There, when you go on the website, you'll see the picture of it, and that's actually just the cargo variant. It looks like like no joke, the lander out of Apollo like it looks like.
Speaker 1:It literally looks like the bottom half of the Apollo lander in a way okay, so it doesn't have like the crew model, right?
Speaker 1:it doesn't have the ascent module. It doesn't have that, so it's. It just looks like this framework of Lander and and that's about it, except just much bigger, right? So they're gonna have this larger variant that will have an ascent module and that's the one that got the contract. So again, it's just really vague, not really sure how much payload, like we said, multiple metric tons, whatever that is. Yeah, the power output is kind of interesting, like we were talking about making it through lunar night.
Speaker 2:I mean it. Obviously it would depend on where they I guess where they land it the lunar night on the moon might be. In. Certain spots might be shorter than it could be. I was thinking about that too.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure because they're gonna be on the South Pole, so there could be some yeah, I mean there could be some variation in there. You know, i'm not I'm not a hundred percent certain on this, it's just. It's just a weird thing. I mean it's just came out and there's there's just not a whole lot of material on it yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if we learn more about it, we could probably tell you guys or post it on the website and space weekco, by the way. So if you guys really wanted to learn more about that, we could maybe Post an article or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i might. I might write up a quick article in our news section, or a website, or I'll throw something out on Facebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this Blue origins, aren't they still struggling to get to?
Speaker 1:orbit. We'll see. That's the other thing too, because this is a company that's got a sub orbital Space tourism rocket and now a sudden they're gonna build a moon lander. I mean, you go from sub orbital straight up rocket to moon lander. That's a big jump.
Speaker 2:That's a huge jump. And now I know okay Not to discount them or anything, but I know they could probably toss it on a Falcon 9 or a Falcon heavy and Swingshot it at the moon.
Speaker 1:Well, that's that's the next point. It just keeps getting weirder. There is a rocket that they have in the works and I forgot what they're calling it, but they do have a in an orbital rocket in the works right now. So I'm I'm guessing this is what they're gonna put it on, because that's what they say is is It's gonna be on a launch vehicle yet to be released, so I'm guessing it's going to be that one. So yeah, just a lot of things going on with blue origin here. That's just not a hundred percent just a lot of questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean props to them for getting the contract. I want to see where it goes. Obviously I love seeing technology develop, But that's so weird It's.
Speaker 1:It's a big jump and it just kind of comes out of nowhere. But yeah, again, not discounting them at all and I'm sure their engineers are fully capable, but yeah, it's just crazy to see that big of a leap so quick.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, for sure. Well, continuing on, we have some more news about version orbit. Their bankruptcy option is continuing. It's still ongoing, although and we'll talk about this next week I believe they've been, everything's been bought up and they've shut down completely. I just saw something Like literally right before we recorded this podcast About this, so I haven't looked into it. Not enough, not really worth digging into that too much today. But next week, next podcast, next episode, we'll talk about it, promise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cuz I saw that there was like a bid or something right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what I'm gonna talk about today. Okay and so straddle launch. Are you familiar with straddle launch? Yes, okay, cool, awesome, because this company is insane. They are the builder of the world's largest airplane. Yeah, the rock or ROC, and If they've entered the runnings for buying up virgin orbits, aircraft assets, that's so so they'll be practically buying, i guess, the little seven four Well that's the thing.
Speaker 2:I am not a hundred percent sure. The seven four, i think, is no wait, hold on, i'm getting them confused, i think. So it's a seven four for virgin orbit and then virgin galactic has something else. Right, okay, that's right, okay. So the seven, four, the seven, forty seven, seven four is this a shorthand term for it and I'm guessing Their launch vehicle from there. I'm, i don't get that they launch outside of the seven four.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because, yeah, because, if you remember, the seven four is basically just a carrier ship for The rocket payload that it would hold on the pile on it, bring the high altitude and then send to send to orbit. Yeah, that's really all the assets I know of as far as I know about, to aircraft are concerned.
Speaker 2:It's essentially the same thing is what straddle straddle launch is doing. In fact, they're basically directly compete, competing with virgin galactic. So the rock you is actually this really cool massive twin body jet that has six really large engines on it to make it fly.
Speaker 1:It's just goofy looking. It truly is. It's like take an airliner and cut it down the middle and then put a wing between it And that's what you've got. It's like the. It's kind of like the P 38 from World War Two or the. What was the twin P 51 called? I forgot what that was called.
Speaker 2:The P Good P 82.
Speaker 1:I can't remember.
Speaker 2:I can't either.
Speaker 1:Oh man, yeah they basically took two P 51s and strapped them together. It's like this, except on a massive scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure. Crazy, really. I mean. I looked that up because I saw this story and I was like, oh, straddle launch. I've heard about them before, i can't remember exactly what they do. And then I saw the giant plane on their homepage and I was like, oh yeah that's right, that guy, that's them, that's them.
Speaker 1:I actually saw a video of them this week landing again, oh yeah, and there was this little bitty citation taxing down, and I can only imagine being a pilot and going. What in the world is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just in, like a citation bus thing or something which is the smallest citation, and you're just over there like what? That's bigger than an E 380.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you just kind of sitting there scratching your head. Yeah, that thing flies, holy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah. So straddle launch has negotiated extensively to reach terms of the agreement and the $17 million bid is just the floor, so it could go up from there. Like I said earlier, there's been news where they've been bought out and Virgin orbit is no more, so I don't know how much it went for. I'll figure that out for next week or next episode And we'll see what it went for. But basically that 17 million was the negotiation. It won't go lower than that. They're going to have to open it up, i think, for other bids and stuff like that, and then it'll go for sale.
Speaker 1:It'll get bought. 17 million sounds pretty low. That's what I'm saying, yeah.
Speaker 2:Dude 17 million for a seven, four with a pylon on it that just launches this rocket Launches rockets to space. That's low They have to be buying that thing for like spare parts.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's it.
Speaker 2:Like I mean Christ, how much did the seven fours go for when they were brand new? Oh, i'm thinking like 30 plus million.
Speaker 1:Oh, easily, I mean, you know maybe even upwards in the 50s. We'll say, a Gulfstream brand new can easily go for 40 plus.
Speaker 2:That's a Gulfstream and that's name brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then you look at like I think like a BBJ, which is a Boeing business jet, like a 737, would be hitting the you know close to 100 mil mark. So I'm not sure what a custom outfitted seven four would cause. That's going to be quite a darn bit. I mean we're talking brand spanking new though out of the factory.
Speaker 2:So this is an old repurposed seven four.
Speaker 1:That's a totally different story. In that case I have no idea.
Speaker 2:But brand spanking new.
Speaker 1:They ain't cheap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's just go to trade a planecom and just see what?
Speaker 1:the seven fours? Yeah, let's see what this Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, i mean, you know, i looked into strata launch a bit right And we've kind of already talked about it just a little bit. They are geared up to do essentially exactly what version orbit is and version galactic for that matter launching rockets and payloads from an aircraft, like you know. They fly them up and then let them go, and then that little payload just it clicks on, there's a rocket nozzle behind it, boom, you're going to space today, buddy, yeah. But yeah, more crazy commercial space stuff, space tourism, even probably space tourism for what could be considered cheap, i suppose, and probably like $100,000 per flight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, We'll find out. I mean, god it's. You know, every week there's something new with space tourism. But, coming off of that. Now we've got some astronomy topics this week.
Speaker 2:And my favorite.
Speaker 1:They are all pretty interesting, so before we get in scary. Yeah, before we get into the scary stuff although this I mean, depending on how you look at this, the Milky Way may have a different shape than we thought. But Yep, but our home galaxy. We don't know what we're even talking about Anymore.
Speaker 2:How do we not know this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so galaxies come in a few main shapes, as you know. They are spiral, elliptical, lenticular and irregular And you can kind of put some subclasses in there. We won't really get into. But astronomers for years have thought that the Milky Way was a kind of rare for armed spiral.
Speaker 2:Ok, Oh, wow OK.
Speaker 1:And anytime you see like a picture of the Milky Way online, it's obviously a concept kind of made up. It's what we think it looks like, because we can't send a probe way out there. Yeah, we haven't tried to, we haven't really gotten past the outer edges of our solar system yet with like Voyager one, i thought Voyager one left it recently.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's been a while. Well, i mean you start like the Oort cloud and all that other stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Yeah 50 years ago now. It's just now kind of getting to the edges of our solar system. Yeah, not like our galaxy, just our solar system, which is just this speck of dust in our galaxy, in our galaxy.
Speaker 1:Right, so yeah, so any image you see online is is not a real image. It's what we think the galaxy looks like, so new research suggests that we've had this wrong the entire time, any Yeah we're all a bunch of idiots. No way to go. I guess we came from apes after all.
Speaker 2:We're a bunch of monkeys.
Speaker 1:So a team of astronomers have gathered data using next generation instruments that can better measure the distance to stars. Combining their findings with the data collected from the ESA's Gaia space telescope, they were able to create a rough map of the Milky Way. Now you know it's still pretty incomplete, but it's something right. Looking at a specific class of star with little movement. So these are a let me kind of back up here for a second. They were looking at this one class of star that's got kind of a short lifespan, kind of like our Wolf-Rant stars like way back. Yeah, very short lifespan, so they don't have time to move around the galaxy as much as a lot of other main sequence stars. So this is good for them because they can kind of have these points of interest where they know that these haven't really moved, so they can be better to use for their map. Does that kind of make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah sort of So yeah, so they're looking at that specific class due to their short lifespan and lack of movement. Now they're proposing that the Milky Way is a two arm barred spiral galaxy with fragmented arms at its outskirts. I'm going to have to see a picture, yeah, so I'll do my best to describe it briefly So you know. if you think of a spiral galaxy, it looks just like a whirlpool right, yeah, you know, i think of the whirlpool galaxy, the pinwheel galaxy, Yeah, so that's what they look like.
Speaker 1:right, you've got all these little arms and they're just kind of swirling around towards the center. for a while We thought that ours was like that, with four arms coming out from the center. Well, now we think it's just two arms and picture kind of like a barbell going through the middle and then from that barbell to arms coming out. That's that's like a barred galaxy, a barred spiral galaxy.
Speaker 1:So OK that's essentially what they're thinking it looks like now with those other bands, those you know. Two other arms that we thought were part of the main arms are actually fragmented arms towards the outside, Like they're not major arms. It's just kind of gas clouds out there floating around the galaxy. That's crazy. Ok, That's cool though. Yeah, I hope that helps.
Speaker 2:You can't explain anything. No, you can go look up an image of a barred spiral galaxy.
Speaker 1:And you'll see many different examples, But that's kind of what they're thinking. The Milky Way looks like now. They're thinking that those fragmented arms, by the way, could be the reason they're fragmented could be from prior collisions with other galaxies, far more ancient than we currently know. So you know how we're going to collide with Andromeda. They're thinking that maybe in the past we've already collided with something Anyways. So that's what they're thinking, But they're thinking that maybe in the past they've already collided with something Anyways. So, yeah, history of our own galaxy We got no freaking clue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, that's well, that's space for you. That's that I was. I was going to say that's that's space for you. Yeah, that's the formation of the universe for you. How did anything even come into existence? I don't know, don't?
Speaker 1:ask me that question. So breaks my brain Our nightmare fuel segment this week. I guess you're going to go ahead and start off with our major solar flare that we didn't see coming again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i don't. I don't think they even predicted this one. I could be wrong on that, though. So there's was a solar flare this week. It erupted from a hidden sunspot, so I mean a hidden sunspot, a hidden sunspot.
Speaker 1:How is it OK?
Speaker 2:OK, OK, let me, let let me go back and let me explain what a hidden sunspot is. So just think of this If I turn around, can you see my eyeballs? No, that's what I didn't.
Speaker 1:I'm less than the back of your head, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, what I'm saying is it was just on the other side, the other side of the sun, from where we are currently in our, in our year, i got you. Yeah, that's what I read. It could be wrong, don't quote me on it too much, but you know this was a magnitude 9.6 in class solar flare, i believe the highest is X class.
Speaker 1:Sure, it's later in the alphabet.
Speaker 2:I'll roll with it Hey it works, but yeah, in class 9.6 solar flare that erupted from the sunspot that's on the back of the sun in relation to earth. Essentially, it was such a massive sun, such a massive solar flare, that the effects of it have been felt, regardless of the fact that the solar flare didn't come towards earth.
Speaker 1:God, could you imagine if it was pointed straight at us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be fun, that'd be insane. I mean, you know, you probably get the Aurora borealis all the way down into Texas, my God. Anyways, i think they mentioned something about it being an X class solar flare that way or the way that it went, but we felt an M class our way. That's what it was measured at.
Speaker 1:Gotcha So kind of like an earthquake. you know you measure like the epicenter it's a higher magnitude, but then, like once it makes landfall, if it's like somewhere out in the ocean. It's kind of. That's my understanding of it.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. But yeah, these effects came in the form of radio blackouts Yay Over parts of North America, central America and South America, so pretty much all the Americas. If you're listening to the radio and then randomly had some sort of interference on May 16, now you know why I don't listen to the radio anymore, so I couldn't tell you. I'm glad I wouldn't fly in that day. Yeah, your GPS would have been Sorry.
Speaker 1:I didn't hear anything of it. I'm surprised, like maybe a notem didn't go out. I'll have to double check on that Now I'm curious.
Speaker 2:Maybe. Yeah, you know, just solar flares Solar flares.
Speaker 1:Yay, well, blake, let me ask you something. No, i'm kidding. What's up? You ever thought about some sort of parasitic thing leeching on to you so much that it just finally explodes?
Speaker 2:Well, i've had nightmares about leeches, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Lovely because because I haven't So.
Speaker 2:Well, lucky you.
Speaker 1:Well, so turns out, stars do this. What? Hold on? There's a leech star, there's. There's like we have space ticks now. Ok, astronomers have made the first detection of a white dwarf feeding from its companion star, until it blew.
Speaker 2:So basically got what it deserved.
Speaker 1:You ate too much, your stomach's going to explode. Yeah, actually. So supernova S in 2020, eyj as they called it was the first discovered by the or was first discovered by the Zwicky transient facility camera, then followed up by the Nordic optical telescope and finally Keck in Hawaii. They revealed that the supernova was unusually high in helium, making it different from others of its type, which is a type one a. So I'm going to go ahead and kind of explain this real quick, because this is important. I'm going to start with the type two, because this is easier. A type two supernova is kind of what you think of already.
Speaker 1:It's like a star getting old, growing big and then, and then imploding and blowing up right, and it leaves behind, you know, either like a neutron star or a black hole, just depends on how big it is. That's a type two, yeah, ok. So type one a happens in a binary star system, and we've seen these happen before. This one's a little bit different. A type one a is when you have a white dwarf that then starts feeding off of its companion star until it gets too fat. I mean, quite literally, it gains so much mass that it exceeds this limit. I forget what the limit is called, but it's basically a mathematical limit where, once it reaches this point, it explodes. Dang Nejat, ok.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need to go on. The biggest loser, huh.
Speaker 1:God, i forgot that show existed. So this was the first to be detected in radio waves and suggest that there's many different ways to a type 1a occurring. But what we're essentially having here is a white dwarf which, the way a white dwarf forms, is like our son might become a white dwarf. It's going to grow, become a red giant and then, if it's on itself right kind of so, the core ends up cooling and it can no longer Create the gravity needed for the outer layers to stay attached.
Speaker 2:That's why it grows so much, okay, yeah, so then it grows and then it's just like loses the other layers and they just kind of ejects them out. It just kind of sheds itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and it can go like nova or something, just it all depends It's math and physics. But it cools and becomes a white dwarf, and so now we're finding that these white dwarfs are coming back From the grave and killing their companions. Oh, my All right Yeah and then, in turn, blowing themselves up. So it's, i don't know, it's the cosmos for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, scary stuff happens all the time, right? And I mean We've actually gotten some images this week of a supernova in the pinwheel galaxy, which is and 101 for those curious. Yeah and this is I Cannot wait. I just bought a new telescope. I cannot wait to go out there and image this thing. Yeah, now You want to tell us more about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this was a supernova that we just recently found on. It showed up in May 19th On the outer band of the galaxy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like on the outer arm, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the pinwheel is a very popular galaxy for amateurs, astronomers and astrophotographers to look at and take pictures of. You know us being a good example of that, if you are. If you do have a telescope and you do want to find it, it's it's Messier 101 and 101 and it's located next to Ursa major, or a lot of people know that was like the big dipper.
Speaker 1:The big dipper. Yeah, you can actually spot it now It's. It's now so bright that you can see it with about a four to five inch telescope. With the naked eye With a telescope? No, you can, yeah, without a camera visually observe it you can visually observe it with an eyepiece. Now, if you're visually observing it, it's basically just going to show up as kind of like a bright It's gonna look like a star.
Speaker 1:It's gonna look like a star. Maybe not quite as bright as a star, but it's gonna look like a star next to like the bright. The little smudge of the galaxy exactly, so really really cool. So if you got a telescope, you you've got tons of time to check it out. They're saying it's gonna last maybe like a few months.
Speaker 2:That's what I've been hearing to a few months. I really wanted to be longer, but, like you know, it's It's a very fast. Yeah, like in, supernova's are super quick, right, cosmically speaking, i mean months. That's a long time for us for that, that's blink of an eye, right, even faster you know, and this one's relatively close, it's 21 million light years away, yeah.
Speaker 1:Relatively close, but it's relatively close. So yeah, so this supernova happened 21 billion years ago. Yeah we're just now seeing the light from it, so it's really really cool. You're already seeing pictures of it all over the place. Amateur Astronomers are taking pictures left and right. Really neat stuff a lot of guys have done like. Side-by-side Yeah like you know before and after, or they'll do like a picture each night. You can kind of see it get brighter.
Speaker 2:It's right, right, right, right, yeah, yeah and then like on the tail end of it, we'll get it, we'll see it get dimmer and dimmer until it disappears.
Speaker 1:Yeah just goes, that's gonna be that's gonna be really cool.
Speaker 2:You know something else that's cool, but not really, because it's actually very scary And we don't like talking about it, but we talk about it all the time anyway Black holes yes, you know it. So This is actually a very interesting topic and it breaks my brain because the way that they're explaining what's going on here is Is basically contrary to everything we know about physics greats.
Speaker 1:We're breaking physics.
Speaker 2:This episode sort of so our research team has discovered a new structure in space called and I might butcher this, but Topological solitons or solitons solitons. I'm saying solitons.
Speaker 1:I ain't got a clue. I've never heard that before neither have I.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm like struggling to pronounce it anyways. So whole new type of structure.
Speaker 1:It's coming from string theory, which Is the theory that all things are made of yarn.
Speaker 2:Actually not too far off, but also like no, no, call it the cosmic yarn theory if you will. But yeah, go look up a video on string theory because it's way too much and way out of the scope of this podcast.
Speaker 1:We're trying to keep things simple. Yes.
Speaker 2:But these things are black holes, but not black holes. They have the appearance of black holes, but they're really anything. But is what this research team? is imposters, they're imposters. They don't have an event horizon which, on a black hole, is like a Force field kind of thing of veil, if you will, that if you cross it you're not getting out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the point in overturn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so that's where the whole spaghettification thing comes in, and Well, that's where light just doesn't escape. So, yeah, what they're saying is that these black holes, if you will, topological solitons, solitons, whatever are Are actually ripples in the space-time fabric. And That's what they're essentially saying and that's leans more to the cosmic yarn theory, the string theory. They're thinking that if they can really use this, these structures, to Prove string theory, it kind of goes against, you know, einstein's theory of relativity, especially about black holes, because black holes, if you will, are these very dense objects, or their Black holes are called singularities.
Speaker 2:Sorry, i just could not get that word out of my right. They are points of infinite density. And this is where it kind of breaks physics, because You can't have infinite density, essentially right, like it's not mathematically possible, it's just a singularity and that's what they've been. That that's why black holes are so hard to understand, it's so hard to really wrap your head around, because they're these points of infinite density, singularities, and You're not supposed to have that, not in physics, not in the universe. So this new structure is kind of breaking that theory of Relativity or about Einstein's theory of black holes, and so you know, they're saying these things are just very Crazy-looking defects in the fabric of space-time.
Speaker 1:So they're basically causing like a warp, like a black hole would, but there's no black hole there. We thought we've got a tear in space-time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Yeah. So it's a black hole, but it's not a black hole. It just looks like a black hole. It acts like a black hole, you know. Looks like a duck, acts like a duck, it's probably a duck.
Speaker 1:So we got time travelers, in other words, breaking everything.
Speaker 2:That's the theory. Not really, but that's what it seems like, because you know, we've both seen interstellar. I forget the main character's name, but he goes into the black hole and then he time travels Yeah, for lack of a better term. But yeah, these things, if you were to enter their Non-existent event horizon, you'd actually be able to get back out. Is the theory. Now, if you were to actually survive that We'll see.
Speaker 1:I mean now that sounds more like an avenue to wormholes than black holes do.
Speaker 2:So Well, yeah and that's why there's. This is such an interesting thing to talk about because It's a black hole, like I said. Looks like a duck, talks like a duck, acts like a duck, probably a duck right. But this one's not this one's not a duck. This is, this is something else.
Speaker 1:This is a goose. Yeah, see, that's. Yeah, that's interesting because now it's like okay, we're actually looking at a literal tear or fold in space time.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's spot-on. That's pretty much what they said in that article is. I mean, you know, my goodness, i really wish I was a genius level person so I could really wrap my head around this, but It's crazy, like To me, anything that breaks physics or just disproves all of the theories that we have that we've worked so hard to like, study and try to prove in the past or try to disprove in the past, anything that proves it or disproves it or breaks it entirely, is so weird Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like. I feel like we need at least a good understanding of string theory, a basic understanding of quantum physics or mechanics, to even Understand what's going on with this.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is a literal team and I tried to read this article and dumb it down. I Tried, i did, truly. But just put it this way It looks like a black hole, acts like a black hole kind of, but not really. And it's not a black hole. Space keys, space goose, but yeah, i mean, oh man, i want to see more about this thing, i want to learn more, that's all yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's the news for this week. A whole load of cool things have happened and a whole lot more is happening all the time. I mean, we talked about launches, we talked about Scary things, we talked about bad news from NASA. We talked about so much this week good news, new records, old records, new records, old records. I mean, you know, you got the 600 time in space, and I'm just imagining like she pops up into space and she gets like a pop-up that says Congratulations, there's a 600 visitor. Click here to select your prize.
Speaker 1:They should have programmed that into the dragon capsule up on the screens.
Speaker 2:I would have loved that. I would have loved that, that would have been great. But you know, old timey, 2000s, internet, now we have ad blocker. But yeah, all that aside, let's go ahead and move on to our listener questions, which one of them was pretty good question, and We're kind of just gonna rattle these off because, although it's a good question, something we've learned in the past. One of them is why are we so obsessed with water on Mars?
Speaker 1:Tons of reasons, Oh man tons of reasons.
Speaker 2:I mean, you're thinking about water, which is one of the main ingredients of life as we know it. At least there might be life out there that doesn't require water or carbon, but, as of right now, carbon-based life forms need water. Yep, and I'm trying to think slight Me personally. My goal with water on Mars is for humans to travel back and forth between Earth and Mars and becoming an interplanetary species. And You know, i want to go to Mars one day. Probably not gonna happen in my lifetime, but it would be a lot of fun. Yeah, same Unfortunate, but you know, it is what it is. Maybe my grand-grandson, granddaughter.
Speaker 1:Will go to Mars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know Someone, i'm related to someone, that's you know from my bloodline.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:There's a few other reasons as well. If we find water on Mars, we might have history of the planet's creation.
Speaker 1:That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, aside from life. Yeah, you're looking at how Mars was formed and Did it kind of look like Earth before it looks like how it does now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean it's got an atmosphere, it could potentially harbor life. I mean, if it's got water on it, like ice water on it already, it it could have Microbacteria, it could be in the earliest stages of life as we know it on Earth. I don't know, i don't know how that all works. It'd be crazy to see some like Earth, like planet, right next door. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, that's enough on Mars for now. Our next question was do astronauts really need internet that fast?
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, we're talking about the, the space fiber that we talked about last week.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I'm kidding, they don't need internet that fast, but just put it this way The faster that they can get their data back to Earth, or maybe they'll be able to Stream live high definition videos, so we can finally, for once and for all, prove the flat Earth is wrong.
Speaker 1:Okay, they still won't believe it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, they're gonna be like this is this is photoshop. The curve is actually not there, but yeah, anyways. Put simply, they'll be transmitting a lot of data and needing high speeds for that data is Paramount to getting all of the bits of that data back to.
Speaker 1:Earth Exactly. Yeah, it's not like the astronauts are gonna be surfing the web. They will be, but not Not. Yeah, i mean not like recreationally, you know, just looking stuff up and looking on the daily weather on the moon and things.
Speaker 2:Daily weather on moon are right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's more for sending data to and from You know, between us here on Earth, and and them out wherever they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean, if they want to be on YouTube and Twitter, they they could do what they want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean I'm sure. Bandwidth up in space, though, is pretty expensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they pay by the not to kill a bit. They pay by the letter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're, yeah, they're, they're gonna reach their bandwidth limit pretty quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll be it for us this week. Thanks for tuning in and listening to us ramble about the exciting news in the space industry, the Johnson Space Center, which you should definitely check out, and also quite a few other things that I completely forgot about at this point. It's been a long episode. It has been. Remember to check out our website, space week co, and be sure to follow us on your plate favorite platform, flavillette that day. Be sure to follow us on your favorite platform so you know when our next episode is out. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter at space week underscore.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess that just about wraps it up. Keep your eyes on the skies. This is Paul and Blake signing off.
