August 21, 2025 • 34 mins
SpaceX is set to launch the X-37B tonight if the weather allows. A fireball exploded above Japan this week lighting up the night sky. Arctic aurora season has begun. Comet 3I/ATLAS has a backward tail.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism and uranus. Listen,
that's your own risk.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
When made of stars, made them stars, madies. When made
of stars, you could be from high they would New Mexicomus,
where all stars.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
When we are made of stars. I'm West Carol, joined
by my good friend doctor Sean cruising from Columbus State
Universe City's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Morning Shawn, Good morning, Wes.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Good to be here today.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
We record our shows on Thursday. Typically it is Thursday.
It's worth noting because our first story for the week
involves a launch that is scheduled to take place late tonight,
weather permitting. There's always that situation, especially if there's you know,
severe weather right off the coast of Florida. So I
(01:26):
guess that's maybe where we are. But tonight we could
see the launch of the X thirty seven B.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, we need that breaking news sound bumper.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I don't know what it is yeah, breaking news, ladies
and gentlemen. And this is why those of you who
you know you sign up to be notified when new
Native Stars podcasts come out. Congratulations to you because you
know in enough time that you could actually watch this
launch as it's carried live on spaceflight now dot com.
(02:00):
Spaceflightnow dot com is where I got story. So SpaceX
launching the X thirty seven B. Friends, if you don't
know what the X thirty seven B is, you're probably
in the majority. But it is a shall we call it,
somewhat mysterious semi secret spaceplane from the United States military.
It looks like it looks like the Space Shuttle got
(02:22):
put in the dryer too long and just shrunk. So
now it's just a little tiny space Shuttle looking thing.
But no people fly in it's it's a well, no
people that we know of fly in it. It's a
it's a robotic spaceplane that the US military uses for
a variety of somewhat secret, if not entirely secret missions
(02:49):
from the Kennedy Space Center down there in Florida.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
I mean, if we don't know what all of the
missions are, and you can't ask and find out what
they are at the very least they're semi secret.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah. I mean they'll tell you no, this is a
top secret mission and we're going to be testing communications
systems from right. It's like, well, wait a minute. If
it's top secret, why did you just tell me that part?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Okay, well, then it can't be top secret. It's got
to be semi secret. I mean, if you know some
of it, then it sounds like semi secret is the
right term.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
It's at least clouded in mystery.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Oh that's good. Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The clouded in mystery. Yeah. X thirty seven B Space
Shuttle that got put in the drawer too long in
trunk is going to be launching today as we're recording
the podcast. Weather permitting, it'll be its schedule for a
eleven fifty pm Eastern daylight time launch from launch Pad
number thirty nine A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center down
(03:49):
in Florida. It'll be launching a top A Falcon nine rocket.
It has a couple of different designations for its mission.
It is Orbital Test Vehicle eight or OTV eight, and
then it's also called us SF thirty six. Now, for
those of you who are not up on your latest
(04:10):
military acronyms. That's the United States Space Force. See, because
there's this other branch of the military now that has
to do with space, and that's the us SF. So
this is apparently number thirty six launching from the us
SF series of missions to space. See, that's why they
(04:30):
named it that.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Right, Yeah. And then OTV eight on the TV eight.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, if you're in the test vehicle world, you're
referring to this thing as OTV eight.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
So there's that, and then it's launch pad thirty nine. A.
We got a lot of we got a lot of
numbers and letters.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
You know, when you're talking and it's the X thirty
seven B when you're talking about military missions. It just
makes it so much cooler, it does. Yeah, to just
have just nothing but letters and numbers that no one
really knows what they needs. Right, that's the semi secret
shrouded in secrecy, that's right. So it's looking like there's
only a sixty five percent chance of an actual favorable
(05:09):
conditions or we call that FC for liftoff. We call
that l O at the opening launch window. We call
that the LW. Tonight Thursday, we call that THH.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
If I had my younger son LCC his initials. He
could give us a very accurate description of what the
weather's looking like tonight, but he's not here. He's at school.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So well, if he was here, he would say there's
a sixty five percent chance of FC for L during
the ol W on THH tonight.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
He might even say there's a fifty percent chance that
it's already raining. He might do that, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
He might just say, dudes, it's raining. What do you
what are you asking me about this?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
For Yeah, so sixty five percent chance it's gonna go tonight.
I'm gonna make a bold per day right here, and
I don't have any inside info. I don't have my
son here to give me the weather forecast for the area.
I predict this will not launch tonight. That's my prediction.
I just got a hunch this is not going to
happen tonight. And I guess depending on how important the
(06:16):
super secret missions are based on the likelihood of this
thing being able to get launched properly. That's just my hunch.
I don't know. I may be dead wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I mean to have FC conditions for liftoff of the
lo O, I mean you know, you gotta watch this
hurricane that's zipping around out there, right, So.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
That would be the reason for my hunch.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, there's yet another element to the story, which is
this hurricane named erin Or we called that the h
hurricane Aaron, and it continues to move alongside the East coast.
We call that the ec of the United States. We
called that the US.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
How far can we go with this? Is it back
to hurricane it was hurricane, it was tropical storm, it
was hurricane, there was tropical storm. Is it back to hurricane?
I know it's kind of all over the place, but
having those moments where it's in and out. But anyway,
the point is it's not it's not great conditions for
launching a tiny little space shuttle. That's the point.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You can check with the NHC at the NAA and
they'll be able to tell you about the you know,
the FC for l O. Yeah, during the olw on.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Yes, Yes, so we'll see, we'll see if it launches.
And all we can really do next, you know, at
some point in the future is tell you if it
launched or not. That's all we can really do. Uh,
let's talk about this giant fireball in Japan. How about that.
Uh So, for everybody's.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Still listening, congratulations, you made it through that nonsense that
I just did. So I'm very proud of you for
hanging in there. Thank you very much. That was, you know,
like a short joke taken very long and those.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
And you're probably one of our ogs.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Absolutely an og at this point. So all right, So, yes,
there was a giant fireball over the nation of Japan.
And it was really scary because it happened right over
the top of a volcano. So when you have a
fireball from space falling on top of a not long
extinct volcano on an island where volcanism and earthquakes are common,
(08:16):
and so are exploding nuclear power plants, this is a
disturbing sequence of events, right, So, yes, it was a
fireball that lit up the skies over southern Japan. Sakura
Jima Volcano is the giant mountain that can be seen
in the numerous surveillance camera and dash cam videos of
(08:39):
this particular event that took place near the cities of
Kogashima and Kamamoto. So this is a place in southern
Japan is not terribly far from Osaka, which is maybe
a city that people are a bit more familiar with.
Osaka's Kansai Airport is about one hundred and twenty four
(08:59):
miles away way from where the majority of videos came
from on this event. But social media is just full
of all of these great shots of this event, and
space dot com has the story on their website. You
can check it out there if you want to see
an honest to goodness bowlide. Friends, what is a bull lide? Well,
(09:21):
that's actually a science word that means a larger than
normal medior coming through our atmosphere and really lighting up
the ground. It's occasionally referred to as a fireball kind
of colloquially, but the real name for it is a bowlide.
And so this bowlid happened on August nineteenth, just a
couple of days ago as we're recording the show. And
if you want to see a giant bowlide come in
(09:43):
over a volcano in Japan, there's a lot of great
footage out there, and some of the footage is actually
kind of startling now, unlike the media riite we talked
about last week, which came in over Atlanta, Georgia, and
landed on somebody's house and put a whole in the roof.
The fragments for this particular giant bowl lide came in
(10:05):
probably over the Pacific Ocean. As they fragmented and fell,
they did not mostly fall on land. They mostly fell
out in the water. So you'd have to go for
a swim or a deep dive to pick up those fragments.
The show does not recommend that you try that process,
so but check out the video online because that first
of all, you have very little chance of drowning, and
second of all, it's a pretty cool video.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
We got something else to look at in the sky
if you're in the right part of the world. As
we now enter into this, we're getting close to the
astronomical start of fall, right, and I guess suppose we
also have that Let's let's do this quickly, because we've
talked about this a few times. There's the astronomical start
of the seasons, right, and then there's there's also the
(10:52):
unofficial start of the seasons. We've got those, especially when
it comes to you know, summer, we go Memorial Day
and we got to Labor Day and they go, that's
kind of and then we have you know, the calendar
sort of the accepted seasons based on the calendar, So
basically the unofficial end of summer Labor Day will actually
also be it'll coincide on the first of September, which
(11:15):
will be sort of when the calendar alignment is for it.
But we're sometimes, even with the astronomical side, some of
the things that are associated with those seasons start to
happen a little early. Yeah, and that's what we got
going on here.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
There's you know, meteorologists and astronomers can be friends. Yes,
we can go to coffee together. We both look up,
you know. There's you know, like geologists, environmental scientists that
are usually looking down, and that's fine, they do what
they do. Meteorologists and astronomers are usually looking up. I
happen to be one of those people. That's why I
(11:49):
fall into holes because I look up all the time.
And so those of us who watch the sky we
can get along, you know, we can tell jokes together.
But quite frankly, meteorology is not astronomy and astronomy is
not meteorology. So so this whole business about, oh, it's
the first day of summer on June twenty first or thereabouts. Yeah,
(12:11):
for anybody who lives where Wes and I live here
in the southeastern United States. You know good and well
that by June twenty first, summer has been on for
quite some time, right, And I believe this is what
Wes is referring to to say, you know, that whole
summer thing, I don't think it waited for June twenty first. Well,
(12:31):
that's because astronomically, we don't really call it the first
day of summer. We call it the summer salstice. The
word salstice is derived from a phrase that means sun
standing still. And what astronomers noticed is there's a day
in this And when I say astronomers, by the way,
(12:53):
I mean archaeo astronomers, like ancient astronomers, notice this. They
notice there's a day in the period of time when
it's really hot called summer, that the sun gets to
a point in the sky that it's as far north
as it's going to get, and it stops for a
few days, and then it turns around and begins to
move down again. Now, really that moment is just an
(13:15):
instant in time. But as far as we can tell,
just being ground observers, it's a little bit hard to
tell that the sun is moving, so we say, wow,
the sun stood still for a couple of days in
its north south motion. It didn't get any higher, but
it's not really heading south much either, So they named
that the solstice sun standing still. There's one of those
(13:37):
that happens in the winter too, honor about December twenty first,
And then there's a couple of halfway points. One is
in the fall. We call that the autumnal equinox Honor
about September twenty first. That's when the day and night
hours are roughly equal. And then there's one in the spring.
Vernal equinox day and night hours roughly equal, happens on
(13:59):
our around March twenty first. Okay, so to say that
the winter stalstice is the first day of winter. And
if you're from anywhere, like oh, I want to know Canada,
you haven't been paying attention. It's already been snowing and
quite cold. Yes, since oh, as West mentioned September, because
(14:22):
that's really there's probably like a date that's halfway between
the summer salstice and the vernal or I'm sorry, the
autumnal equinox that you would say, well falls kicking off,
and that's right, and that's you know, that's honor about
the first part of September there, and so yep, that's
when the meteorological seasons begin. They begin at the halfway
(14:47):
points between these astronomical points. So all right, why are
we talking about all that, Well, because we're we're kind
of at one of those right now. We're coming up,
We're coming up, not too terribly far in the future
to the autumnal equinox, and people in the northern latitudes
(15:08):
have already begun to notice that it's no longer midnight
suntime anymore for much of Alaska and Canada. It is
now actually getting dark. And what happens when it gets
dark in Canada is that you could probably see some
northern light activity, particularly at a time like now when
we are near solar maximum. So guess what. On August
(15:30):
nineteenth and the next day of the twentieth, the sun
shot a giant accelerated solar windstream at the Earth. That
kind of event can cause northern lights, and sure enough
it did because it actually was getting dark in the
Great White North and you can see these Aurora borealis phenomenon,
and people all across the most northern tier of nations
(15:54):
happened to capture a lot of great pictures of Aurora
borealis in the northern hemisphere, telling us it's a sign
of fall, and any sign of fall if you live
in the southeast is very welcome because we are tired
of it feeling like ninety eight degrees and ninety eight
percent humidity every single day. So yeah, we will take
(16:16):
these northern lights as a beautiful indicator that fall is
returning to the northern hemisphere of planet Earth.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Coming up after a quick break, we'll give an update
on the interstellar comet we've been talking about over the
past few shows.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
We'll do that next.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
So it's been about a month since the interstellar comet
was discovered, and as it gets closer, obviously they're studying
it more. I mean they're they're studying it. I'm sure
they're just staring at it right now, aren't They're just
one guy just looking through a telescope, going, yeah, there
it is, Yeah, look at it. And then somebody went,
wait a minute, is the tail in the right spot?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Somebody said, this comment has its tail on backwards. I
wonder if the comment knows somebody should tell it so
we could switch its tail around.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
So how does that work. I think we've had these
in the past, though, haven't we comments with tails in
the wrong direction?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
We've had one or two. Yeah. So so here's the thing.
If it's an interstellar commet, that means it's coming from
another solar system that's not our own solar system. So
that's only one of three confirmed interstellar objects that we've
measured coming through the Solar system in recent years. This
(17:46):
one is called Comment three eye slash Atlas, three meaning
the number and I meaning interstellar. Therefore the third interstellar
object Comment three eye Atlas. All right, so here's what's
weird about comet three eye Atlas. It probably is a comet.
First of all, you have to say, well, is it
a comet or is it an asteroid or you know,
(18:08):
some of that's more rocky. Clearly, this comet is beginning
to melt as it gets close to the Sun. It's
actually sublimation that's taking place. And as the comet gets
close to the Sun and it begins to shed off
some of its material, what normally happens with a comet
is that the material coming off is so fine in nature,
mostly gas, that the solar wind blows the tail of
(18:33):
material out away from the nucleus of that comet in
the opposite direction of the sun, in other words, in
an antisolar direction. So the Sun is to the right,
tail goes off to the left. All right, here's what's weird.
Hubble Space telescope just took a close up shot of
three Eye Atlas and there is indeed fuzzy material coming
(18:54):
off of the cometary nucleus, and so it's indeed growing
a tail. But here's the weird part. The material is
not streaming away from the sun. Oh no, it appears
to be coming out in the direction of the Sun,
and so it's forming a bit of a tail, a
little bit of tail growth. But the tales in the
wrong direction, pointing toward the Sun instead of away from it.
(19:19):
What gives? Some might say, I would say that.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
I would I would love to know what gives?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Thank you for that question, Wes. You're gonna get extra
credit in this in this week's class because you ask
the pertinent question what gives?
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I have nothing if not a kiss up?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
You know, some people get through college that way. It's
just it's just a thing, you know, that's true. It's
a survival skill they've adopted all right, so this story,
by the way, from spaceweather dot com, there's a quote
from a researcher named David Jewett from the University of
California at Los Angeles, and they are actually studying these
Hubble space telescope images and say this quote, says David Jewett,
(20:00):
it is due to the preferential sublimation of ice on
the hot day side of the nucleus and the near
absence of sublimation on the night side. Why didn't David
put some some acronyms in there. I'm not really sure.
We could probably make a few up, but I won't.
I think I saturated the first part of the.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Show with them if we exhausted the.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Which is why I didn't say UCLA by the way.
So anyway, so what's happening, friends, is the side of
this comet that's facing the sun is getting more melty
than the other side. But the stuff that's coming off
is less gassy and more rocky, and that rocky stuff
coming off doesn't respond to the solar wind as easily
(20:43):
as the gassy stuff, and so therefore it's not blowing
back out away from the commet in the direction opposite
the Sun. It's kind of just coming off in the
direction that it's melting, which is the side facing the sun,
and it's creating that anti solar I'm sorry, it's creating
(21:04):
a solar face again, not an antisolar tail. And so
so now it's it's just because of a hotspot, right, So,
as the nucleus of that comet rotates, then there are
different hotspots that spring up, but then they also pushed
out towards the side. As Wes mentioned earlier, this is
not the first time that we've seen these solar facing
(21:24):
tails on commets. They are somewhat rare that you have
a sun word facing plume, but not completely unheard of.
And so right now Comet three eye Atlas has a
fairly noticeable sunword facing plume and just a little bit
of a dwarf antisolar tail, which is what we would
(21:47):
consider a normal tail, stringing out behind it. We will
continue to watch the strange progression of this visitor from
another solar system, Commet three I Atlas with the backward tail.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
All right, we have to do this every now and then.
This is all most become like a maintenance thing that
we have to do every now and then, where we
get these things that pop into our social media feeds
and sometimes they're just ridiculous and they don't make any sense,
and people will fall for them just because they see
it on social media. Fake news. Dare I say it's
(22:20):
the old fake news?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Added, it's certainly clickbait.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I would I would say that clickbait, yes, But sometimes
I think that fake news thing falls into the category
of clickbait, because that's that's really what it is. So
let's let's talk about moons, because we get this every
every month. There's a different name for the moon. No,
this is the so and so moon, this is the
(22:46):
harvest moon, and sometimes they all make sense and you go, well,
this is about the time when a full moon would
help people doing late night harvesting or whatever. And then
they get moons that are named after you know, colors.
We've had pink moons, blue moons, and we all know
blue moons are when there's a new Smurf is born.
That's what we learned, if nothing else, from the Smurf's
animated series. So, uh, now this currently, we're getting the
(23:10):
black moon, and let's talk about what is a black moon?
What does that mean? Does it mean? And let me
just I'm not an expert on the moons. Most of
them make some sense, but I'm just it seems to
me as we're getting close to the black moon or
the black moon's happening, like, I don't know, is there
(23:32):
a is there a Halloween connection to that one? I mean,
it seems like it would kind of fit in with
that maybe.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I'm gonna let you talk about the moons.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Well, so thank you for teaming me up on this
particular topic. West. You know, I enjoy a good pink
moon or blue moon or blood moon or black moon.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Whichever one's come in. Lucky charms are my favorite.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, that's those are? Yeah, those I love. Can we
put black moons in lucky charms? I don't think that
goes I don't.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Know if you can do that anymore. I think that
those rules are changing.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And one of the other things, friends, is you might
want to be careful if you web search any of
these names with the kiddos sitting next to you. Can
I just.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Say that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
A really going to go web search the phrase pink
moon or black moon just.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Blood moon might might not be good for anybody. Nobody
wants to see that.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Maybe check it out on your own, you know, electronic
device before sharing it with the kids, just to make
sure you're heading the right direction. Yeah. Can I also
tell you, friends that all of these are colloquialisms. In
other words, none of them are true astronomical terms. So,
for all my friends who listen to my podcast, thank
you so much for listening to my podcast. We love
the audience out there. Thank you for listening. But please
(24:49):
stop asking me about So what's this black moon that's happening?
Do you know about this blood moon?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Maybe they're asking you because they don't want to look
it up on Google, and that's smart.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Maybe.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Well, okay, so you've got a point there because you're
not gonna pull out photos look at that.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
This is what they're wanting me to do. Is they
want me to look it up on Google.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
This is a blood moon? Look at that? Disgusting?
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Tell me what I'm seeing here? I looked up pink
moon because tell me what I'm okay. Yeah, So, so
the astronomical terms are are kind of specific. When you
when the when this thing pops up in your Facebook feed,
that says, hey, there's gonna be a blood moon. We
(25:39):
call that a lunar eclipse. See here's what happens. The
Earth gets between the Sun and the moon, and some
light gets all bendy around Earth's atmosphere and still hits
the moon, but that light is reddened by a process
called Raleigh scattering, and therefore the moon looks kind of orange. Now,
(26:00):
some guy wanted to sell a lot of books, so
he made up a term and called it a blood
moon back in twenty thirteen. And now ever since he
did that, I've been having to try to explain to
people what a blood moon is, and I have to
tell them it's not an astronomical term, so please call
it lunar eclipse and don't look up the term blood
(26:22):
moon on Google it in front of small children. Well
it's happening again. Friends, you've seen it, you know if
you look up any stories on the sky, and I
suspect you do. If you're listening to this podcast, you
have come across the term black moon. Hey, there's all
black moon coming. Oh, the rare black moon event. And
(26:43):
I'm thinking, yeah, it's rare. It's so rare that I
have no idea what you're even talking about. So I
had to Wes. I had to do it. I had
to go. Okay, all right, duck, duck go. What is
a black moon? Was first used around twenty sixteen, which
(27:04):
means it hasn't been around long, that's my point, yeap,
Which means it's not an accepted astronomical term. It's something
that someone made up so that they can put it
in your story and get clicks. Right, Oh, a rare
black moon. I'll bet you want to know what a
black moon is? Okay, So a black moon, as defined
(27:25):
by those who define what a black moon is, is
either one of two things. It can't even be one thing.
It has to be one of two things. It's a
moon that has a new phase for the second time
in a single month, or for the third out of
four times in those seasons that Wes and I were
(27:49):
just talking about the period of time between say, the
summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. So not directly related
to Halloween, but there is a little essence of that
in there. Based on seasonal The term appears to have
some significance to those of Pagan or Wiccan followings. So
(28:13):
if you're Pagan or Wickan, apparently you're tracking the number
of new moons that occur between astronomical points like the
summersaulstice and the autumnal equinox something like that. So so
then somebody finds out, oh, you know, there's this term
called black moon. It has a meaning an astronomy. It's
(28:35):
an astronomy word, black moon. And then they start putting
it in the headlines of stories and the next thing
you know, your Facebook feed is full of check out
the black moon. All right, so can I just say,
please stop, friends, just stop, Well said, let's let's let's
put these terms back in the crypt out of which
(28:58):
they crawled and not use them. So let me say,
on September seventh of twenty twenty five, there's going to
be a lunar eclipse, not a blood moon. It's a
lunary eclipse, and it's gonna not be visible in the
United States. And then from August twenty third, twenty second,
and twenty third, that night of August twenty second, twenty third,
(29:19):
there's going to be the third full moon in a
three month seasonal period, which sounds a lot less sexy
than black moon, doesn't it. It does, yeah, but that's
exactly what it is, and it will not be visible
to anyone because you can't see the new moon because
there's no light shining on it, which is why it's
a new moon. It's in the direction of the sun.
(29:40):
You can see it when it actually blocks the sun,
we call that a solar eclipse. But when you can't
see it because it doesn't block the sun, we call
it you can't see that.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
It's the official name.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
That's my official name for it. So stop, people, just stop.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Please, yeah, knock it off.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Lunar eclipse, new moon. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Yeah, well said. Let's talk about Columbus State University's Coca
Cola Space Science Center as you're, you know, coming out
of the summer season and into the fall season, and
many new moons have their been I'm confused back to
school seasons, and I guess that would make two and
all of that fun stuff. So yeah, let's talk about
what you guys have going on right now as you're
getting ready to start welcoming the kids back.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center has been
in a major remodeling and renovation period. We have renovations
going on on our flight simulators, on our Mars Rover
exhibit on two of our classrooms and on our Omosphere theater.
So if you come and see us today, just accept
the dust, friends, because it's kind of messy in here.
But we're hoping to have all of that cleaned up
(30:45):
and ready to go by the second week in September
when schools begin to come back for field trips, and
that's going to be the school field trip season kicking
off just after Labor Day. We're super excited about all
the students coming back to see us. They will be
coming by the bus loads, which means for everyone else,
for everyone else who's not a school student, who's going
(31:05):
to come see us on a big cheese wagon parking
out in front. For the rest of you, come in
the afternoon. Just just plan your trip, come visit us
in the afternoon unless you just love to watch school
kids and all of their antics and fun that they're having,
because they're going to be here from you know, roughly
nine to one, so come, you know, come at one pm.
We're open still from one to four that day, So
(31:28):
in fact, we're open from ten am to four pm
during the week, but you'll want to come in the
latter half of that unless you just love school children,
and when you come you'll be like, oh wow. If
you come in the afternoon, you'd be like, I have
the whole place to myself. It's not entirely true, but
our but our seats are a lot more full in
our Homisphere theater in the morning than they are in
the afternoon, so you get a better chance of picking
(31:50):
your favorite seat in our planetarium for our planetarium show.
So and you will still be able to check out
the new flight simulators, the new Mars Rovers, the new
two gaming simulate that we have for both rocketbuilding and
driving on the service of Mars, and check out the
lovely new robotics classroom. Just ask about it. We'll be
happy to show you and give you a little tour
(32:10):
of that. Come down and see us at the Coca
Cola Space Science Center this fall. If you've got a choice,
come in the afternoon. We'd love to have you come
and see us at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space
Science Center.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
all of your garage door needs covered, residential and commercial
service and repairs. If you need a new garage door,
or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door,
(32:43):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've
got your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven
oh six three five eight forty five hundred seven oh
six three five eight forty five hundred o DC Columbus
dot com. Get ready for dragon Con twenty five Labor
Day weekend downtown Atlanta with the dragon Con Pregame Show
(33:07):
coming August twenty third and twenty fourth to a radio
station near you if you live in the state of
Georgia or one of the states near enough to the
State of Georgia to pick up a radio signal coming
from the network of stations in the State of Georgia
that'll be carrying the show, and there are many in
Alabama and Tennessee and the Carolinas that'll have a chance
(33:27):
to hear it, even down into Florida. Or simply listen
to it on the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast wherever
you listen to your podcast, yes, where you're listening to
this podcast. You can also find past editions of the
dragon Con Pregame Show podcast with interviews with William Shatner,
other stars from Star Trek, The Walking Dead, the Marvel
(33:51):
Cinematic Universe, many animated stars, some of your favorite Disney stars.
Chances to hear interviews with them and this year's wagon
Conn pregame show will drop to the podcast on August
twenty third, and you can hear this year's interviews. It's
sponsored by Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center,
(34:12):
where doctor Sean Cruisin and I often like to discuss
the science behind the science fiction and the connections between
where science fiction sometimes leads to science science sometimes leads
to science fiction. It's just a weird connection that's already there.
It's built into it. And I say it's weird, but
it's really not. It makes perfect sense. The two go
(34:34):
together very well. Learn more about the Coca Cola Space
Science Center at CCSSC dot org. Learn more about this
year's dragon Con the website, which is DragonCon dot org
Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism and uranus. Listen,
that's your own risk.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
When made of stars, made them stars, madies. When made
of stars, you could be from high they would New Mexicomus,
where all stars.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
When we are made of stars. I'm West Carol, joined
by my good friend doctor Sean cruising from Columbus State
Universe City's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Morning Shawn, Good morning, Wes.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Good to be here today.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
We record our shows on Thursday. Typically it is Thursday.
It's worth noting because our first story for the week
involves a launch that is scheduled to take place late tonight,
weather permitting. There's always that situation, especially if there's you know,
severe weather right off the coast of Florida. So I
(01:26):
guess that's maybe where we are. But tonight we could
see the launch of the X thirty seven B.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, we need that breaking news sound bumper.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I don't know what it is yeah, breaking news, ladies
and gentlemen. And this is why those of you who
you know you sign up to be notified when new
Native Stars podcasts come out. Congratulations to you because you
know in enough time that you could actually watch this
launch as it's carried live on spaceflight now dot com.
(02:00):
Spaceflightnow dot com is where I got story. So SpaceX
launching the X thirty seven B. Friends, if you don't
know what the X thirty seven B is, you're probably
in the majority. But it is a shall we call it,
somewhat mysterious semi secret spaceplane from the United States military.
It looks like it looks like the Space Shuttle got
(02:22):
put in the dryer too long and just shrunk. So
now it's just a little tiny space Shuttle looking thing.
But no people fly in it's it's a well, no
people that we know of fly in it. It's a
it's a robotic spaceplane that the US military uses for
a variety of somewhat secret, if not entirely secret missions
(02:49):
from the Kennedy Space Center down there in Florida.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
I mean, if we don't know what all of the
missions are, and you can't ask and find out what
they are at the very least they're semi secret.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah. I mean they'll tell you no, this is a
top secret mission and we're going to be testing communications
systems from right. It's like, well, wait a minute. If
it's top secret, why did you just tell me that part?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Okay, well, then it can't be top secret. It's got
to be semi secret. I mean, if you know some
of it, then it sounds like semi secret is the
right term.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
It's at least clouded in mystery.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Oh that's good. Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The clouded in mystery. Yeah. X thirty seven B Space
Shuttle that got put in the drawer too long in
trunk is going to be launching today as we're recording
the podcast. Weather permitting, it'll be its schedule for a
eleven fifty pm Eastern daylight time launch from launch Pad
number thirty nine A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center down
(03:49):
in Florida. It'll be launching a top A Falcon nine rocket.
It has a couple of different designations for its mission.
It is Orbital Test Vehicle eight or OTV eight, and
then it's also called us SF thirty six. Now, for
those of you who are not up on your latest
(04:10):
military acronyms. That's the United States Space Force. See, because
there's this other branch of the military now that has
to do with space, and that's the us SF. So
this is apparently number thirty six launching from the us
SF series of missions to space. See, that's why they
(04:30):
named it that.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Right, Yeah. And then OTV eight on the TV eight.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, if you're in the test vehicle world, you're
referring to this thing as OTV eight.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
So there's that, and then it's launch pad thirty nine. A.
We got a lot of we got a lot of
numbers and letters.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
You know, when you're talking and it's the X thirty
seven B when you're talking about military missions. It just
makes it so much cooler, it does. Yeah, to just
have just nothing but letters and numbers that no one
really knows what they needs. Right, that's the semi secret
shrouded in secrecy, that's right. So it's looking like there's
only a sixty five percent chance of an actual favorable
(05:09):
conditions or we call that FC for liftoff. We call
that l O at the opening launch window. We call
that the LW. Tonight Thursday, we call that THH.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
If I had my younger son LCC his initials. He
could give us a very accurate description of what the
weather's looking like tonight, but he's not here. He's at school.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So well, if he was here, he would say there's
a sixty five percent chance of FC for L during
the ol W on THH tonight.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
He might even say there's a fifty percent chance that
it's already raining. He might do that, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
He might just say, dudes, it's raining. What do you
what are you asking me about this?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
For Yeah, so sixty five percent chance it's gonna go tonight.
I'm gonna make a bold per day right here, and
I don't have any inside info. I don't have my
son here to give me the weather forecast for the area.
I predict this will not launch tonight. That's my prediction.
I just got a hunch this is not going to
happen tonight. And I guess depending on how important the
(06:16):
super secret missions are based on the likelihood of this
thing being able to get launched properly. That's just my hunch.
I don't know. I may be dead wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I mean to have FC conditions for liftoff of the
lo O, I mean you know, you gotta watch this
hurricane that's zipping around out there, right, So.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
That would be the reason for my hunch.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, there's yet another element to the story, which is
this hurricane named erin Or we called that the h
hurricane Aaron, and it continues to move alongside the East coast.
We call that the ec of the United States. We
called that the US.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
How far can we go with this? Is it back
to hurricane it was hurricane, it was tropical storm, it
was hurricane, there was tropical storm. Is it back to hurricane?
I know it's kind of all over the place, but
having those moments where it's in and out. But anyway,
the point is it's not it's not great conditions for
launching a tiny little space shuttle. That's the point.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You can check with the NHC at the NAA and
they'll be able to tell you about the you know,
the FC for l O. Yeah, during the olw on.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Yes, Yes, so we'll see, we'll see if it launches.
And all we can really do next, you know, at
some point in the future is tell you if it
launched or not. That's all we can really do. Uh,
let's talk about this giant fireball in Japan. How about that.
Uh So, for everybody's.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Still listening, congratulations, you made it through that nonsense that
I just did. So I'm very proud of you for
hanging in there. Thank you very much. That was, you know,
like a short joke taken very long and those.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
And you're probably one of our ogs.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Absolutely an og at this point. So all right, So, yes,
there was a giant fireball over the nation of Japan.
And it was really scary because it happened right over
the top of a volcano. So when you have a
fireball from space falling on top of a not long
extinct volcano on an island where volcanism and earthquakes are common,
(08:16):
and so are exploding nuclear power plants, this is a
disturbing sequence of events, right, So, yes, it was a
fireball that lit up the skies over southern Japan. Sakura
Jima Volcano is the giant mountain that can be seen
in the numerous surveillance camera and dash cam videos of
(08:39):
this particular event that took place near the cities of
Kogashima and Kamamoto. So this is a place in southern
Japan is not terribly far from Osaka, which is maybe
a city that people are a bit more familiar with.
Osaka's Kansai Airport is about one hundred and twenty four
(08:59):
miles away way from where the majority of videos came
from on this event. But social media is just full
of all of these great shots of this event, and
space dot com has the story on their website. You
can check it out there if you want to see
an honest to goodness bowlide. Friends, what is a bull lide? Well,
(09:21):
that's actually a science word that means a larger than
normal medior coming through our atmosphere and really lighting up
the ground. It's occasionally referred to as a fireball kind
of colloquially, but the real name for it is a bowlide.
And so this bowlid happened on August nineteenth, just a
couple of days ago as we're recording the show. And
if you want to see a giant bowlide come in
(09:43):
over a volcano in Japan, there's a lot of great
footage out there, and some of the footage is actually
kind of startling now, unlike the media riite we talked
about last week, which came in over Atlanta, Georgia, and
landed on somebody's house and put a whole in the roof.
The fragments for this particular giant bowl lide came in
(10:05):
probably over the Pacific Ocean. As they fragmented and fell,
they did not mostly fall on land. They mostly fell
out in the water. So you'd have to go for
a swim or a deep dive to pick up those fragments.
The show does not recommend that you try that process,
so but check out the video online because that first
of all, you have very little chance of drowning, and
second of all, it's a pretty cool video.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
We got something else to look at in the sky
if you're in the right part of the world. As
we now enter into this, we're getting close to the
astronomical start of fall, right, and I guess suppose we
also have that Let's let's do this quickly, because we've
talked about this a few times. There's the astronomical start
of the seasons, right, and then there's there's also the
(10:52):
unofficial start of the seasons. We've got those, especially when
it comes to you know, summer, we go Memorial Day
and we got to Labor Day and they go, that's
kind of and then we have you know, the calendar
sort of the accepted seasons based on the calendar, So
basically the unofficial end of summer Labor Day will actually
also be it'll coincide on the first of September, which
(11:15):
will be sort of when the calendar alignment is for it.
But we're sometimes, even with the astronomical side, some of
the things that are associated with those seasons start to
happen a little early. Yeah, and that's what we got
going on here.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
There's you know, meteorologists and astronomers can be friends. Yes,
we can go to coffee together. We both look up,
you know. There's you know, like geologists, environmental scientists that
are usually looking down, and that's fine, they do what
they do. Meteorologists and astronomers are usually looking up. I
happen to be one of those people. That's why I
(11:49):
fall into holes because I look up all the time.
And so those of us who watch the sky we
can get along, you know, we can tell jokes together.
But quite frankly, meteorology is not astronomy and astronomy is
not meteorology. So so this whole business about, oh, it's
the first day of summer on June twenty first or thereabouts. Yeah,
(12:11):
for anybody who lives where Wes and I live here
in the southeastern United States. You know good and well
that by June twenty first, summer has been on for
quite some time, right, And I believe this is what
Wes is referring to to say, you know, that whole
summer thing, I don't think it waited for June twenty first. Well,
(12:31):
that's because astronomically, we don't really call it the first
day of summer. We call it the summer salstice. The
word salstice is derived from a phrase that means sun
standing still. And what astronomers noticed is there's a day
in this And when I say astronomers, by the way,
(12:53):
I mean archaeo astronomers, like ancient astronomers, notice this. They
notice there's a day in the period of time when
it's really hot called summer, that the sun gets to
a point in the sky that it's as far north
as it's going to get, and it stops for a
few days, and then it turns around and begins to
move down again. Now, really that moment is just an
(13:15):
instant in time. But as far as we can tell,
just being ground observers, it's a little bit hard to
tell that the sun is moving, so we say, wow,
the sun stood still for a couple of days in
its north south motion. It didn't get any higher, but
it's not really heading south much either, So they named
that the solstice sun standing still. There's one of those
(13:37):
that happens in the winter too, honor about December twenty first,
And then there's a couple of halfway points. One is
in the fall. We call that the autumnal equinox Honor
about September twenty first. That's when the day and night
hours are roughly equal. And then there's one in the spring.
Vernal equinox day and night hours roughly equal, happens on
(13:59):
our around March twenty first. Okay, so to say that
the winter stalstice is the first day of winter. And
if you're from anywhere, like oh, I want to know Canada,
you haven't been paying attention. It's already been snowing and
quite cold. Yes, since oh, as West mentioned September, because
(14:22):
that's really there's probably like a date that's halfway between
the summer salstice and the vernal or I'm sorry, the
autumnal equinox that you would say, well falls kicking off,
and that's right, and that's you know, that's honor about
the first part of September there, and so yep, that's
when the meteorological seasons begin. They begin at the halfway
(14:47):
points between these astronomical points. So all right, why are
we talking about all that, Well, because we're we're kind
of at one of those right now. We're coming up,
We're coming up, not too terribly far in the future
to the autumnal equinox, and people in the northern latitudes
(15:08):
have already begun to notice that it's no longer midnight
suntime anymore for much of Alaska and Canada. It is
now actually getting dark. And what happens when it gets
dark in Canada is that you could probably see some
northern light activity, particularly at a time like now when
we are near solar maximum. So guess what. On August
(15:30):
nineteenth and the next day of the twentieth, the sun
shot a giant accelerated solar windstream at the Earth. That
kind of event can cause northern lights, and sure enough
it did because it actually was getting dark in the
Great White North and you can see these Aurora borealis phenomenon,
and people all across the most northern tier of nations
(15:54):
happened to capture a lot of great pictures of Aurora
borealis in the northern hemisphere, telling us it's a sign
of fall, and any sign of fall if you live
in the southeast is very welcome because we are tired
of it feeling like ninety eight degrees and ninety eight
percent humidity every single day. So yeah, we will take
(16:16):
these northern lights as a beautiful indicator that fall is
returning to the northern hemisphere of planet Earth.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Coming up after a quick break, we'll give an update
on the interstellar comet we've been talking about over the
past few shows.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
We'll do that next.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
So it's been about a month since the interstellar comet
was discovered, and as it gets closer, obviously they're studying
it more. I mean they're they're studying it. I'm sure
they're just staring at it right now, aren't They're just
one guy just looking through a telescope, going, yeah, there
it is, Yeah, look at it. And then somebody went,
wait a minute, is the tail in the right spot?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Somebody said, this comment has its tail on backwards. I
wonder if the comment knows somebody should tell it so
we could switch its tail around.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
So how does that work. I think we've had these
in the past, though, haven't we comments with tails in
the wrong direction?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
We've had one or two. Yeah. So so here's the thing.
If it's an interstellar commet, that means it's coming from
another solar system that's not our own solar system. So
that's only one of three confirmed interstellar objects that we've
measured coming through the Solar system in recent years. This
(17:46):
one is called Comment three eye slash Atlas, three meaning
the number and I meaning interstellar. Therefore the third interstellar
object Comment three eye Atlas. All right, so here's what's
weird about comet three eye Atlas. It probably is a comet.
First of all, you have to say, well, is it
a comet or is it an asteroid or you know,
(18:08):
some of that's more rocky. Clearly, this comet is beginning
to melt as it gets close to the Sun. It's
actually sublimation that's taking place. And as the comet gets
close to the Sun and it begins to shed off
some of its material, what normally happens with a comet
is that the material coming off is so fine in nature,
mostly gas, that the solar wind blows the tail of
(18:33):
material out away from the nucleus of that comet in
the opposite direction of the sun, in other words, in
an antisolar direction. So the Sun is to the right,
tail goes off to the left. All right, here's what's weird.
Hubble Space telescope just took a close up shot of
three Eye Atlas and there is indeed fuzzy material coming
(18:54):
off of the cometary nucleus, and so it's indeed growing
a tail. But here's the weird part. The material is
not streaming away from the sun. Oh no, it appears
to be coming out in the direction of the Sun,
and so it's forming a bit of a tail, a
little bit of tail growth. But the tales in the
wrong direction, pointing toward the Sun instead of away from it.
(19:19):
What gives? Some might say, I would say that.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
I would I would love to know what gives?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Thank you for that question, Wes. You're gonna get extra
credit in this in this week's class because you ask
the pertinent question what gives?
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I have nothing if not a kiss up?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
You know, some people get through college that way. It's
just it's just a thing, you know, that's true. It's
a survival skill they've adopted all right, so this story,
by the way, from spaceweather dot com, there's a quote
from a researcher named David Jewett from the University of
California at Los Angeles, and they are actually studying these
Hubble space telescope images and say this quote, says David Jewett,
(20:00):
it is due to the preferential sublimation of ice on
the hot day side of the nucleus and the near
absence of sublimation on the night side. Why didn't David
put some some acronyms in there. I'm not really sure.
We could probably make a few up, but I won't.
I think I saturated the first part of the.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Show with them if we exhausted the.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Which is why I didn't say UCLA by the way.
So anyway, so what's happening, friends, is the side of
this comet that's facing the sun is getting more melty
than the other side. But the stuff that's coming off
is less gassy and more rocky, and that rocky stuff
coming off doesn't respond to the solar wind as easily
(20:43):
as the gassy stuff, and so therefore it's not blowing
back out away from the commet in the direction opposite
the Sun. It's kind of just coming off in the
direction that it's melting, which is the side facing the sun,
and it's creating that anti solar I'm sorry, it's creating
(21:04):
a solar face again, not an antisolar tail. And so
so now it's it's just because of a hotspot, right, So,
as the nucleus of that comet rotates, then there are
different hotspots that spring up, but then they also pushed
out towards the side. As Wes mentioned earlier, this is
not the first time that we've seen these solar facing
(21:24):
tails on commets. They are somewhat rare that you have
a sun word facing plume, but not completely unheard of.
And so right now Comet three eye Atlas has a
fairly noticeable sunword facing plume and just a little bit
of a dwarf antisolar tail, which is what we would
(21:47):
consider a normal tail, stringing out behind it. We will
continue to watch the strange progression of this visitor from
another solar system, Commet three I Atlas with the backward tail.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
All right, we have to do this every now and then.
This is all most become like a maintenance thing that
we have to do every now and then, where we
get these things that pop into our social media feeds
and sometimes they're just ridiculous and they don't make any sense,
and people will fall for them just because they see
it on social media. Fake news. Dare I say it's
(22:20):
the old fake news?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Added, it's certainly clickbait.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I would I would say that clickbait, yes, But sometimes
I think that fake news thing falls into the category
of clickbait, because that's that's really what it is. So
let's let's talk about moons, because we get this every
every month. There's a different name for the moon. No,
this is the so and so moon, this is the
(22:46):
harvest moon, and sometimes they all make sense and you go, well,
this is about the time when a full moon would
help people doing late night harvesting or whatever. And then
they get moons that are named after you know, colors.
We've had pink moons, blue moons, and we all know
blue moons are when there's a new Smurf is born.
That's what we learned, if nothing else, from the Smurf's
animated series. So, uh, now this currently, we're getting the
(23:10):
black moon, and let's talk about what is a black moon?
What does that mean? Does it mean? And let me
just I'm not an expert on the moons. Most of
them make some sense, but I'm just it seems to
me as we're getting close to the black moon or
the black moon's happening, like, I don't know, is there
(23:32):
a is there a Halloween connection to that one? I mean,
it seems like it would kind of fit in with
that maybe.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I'm gonna let you talk about the moons.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Well, so thank you for teaming me up on this
particular topic. West. You know, I enjoy a good pink
moon or blue moon or blood moon or black moon.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Whichever one's come in. Lucky charms are my favorite.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, that's those are? Yeah, those I love. Can we
put black moons in lucky charms? I don't think that
goes I don't.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Know if you can do that anymore. I think that
those rules are changing.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And one of the other things, friends, is you might
want to be careful if you web search any of
these names with the kiddos sitting next to you. Can
I just.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Say that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
A really going to go web search the phrase pink
moon or black moon just.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Blood moon might might not be good for anybody. Nobody
wants to see that.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Maybe check it out on your own, you know, electronic
device before sharing it with the kids, just to make
sure you're heading the right direction. Yeah. Can I also
tell you, friends that all of these are colloquialisms. In
other words, none of them are true astronomical terms. So,
for all my friends who listen to my podcast, thank
you so much for listening to my podcast. We love
the audience out there. Thank you for listening. But please
(24:49):
stop asking me about So what's this black moon that's happening?
Do you know about this blood moon?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Maybe they're asking you because they don't want to look
it up on Google, and that's smart.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Maybe.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Well, okay, so you've got a point there because you're
not gonna pull out photos look at that.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
This is what they're wanting me to do. Is they
want me to look it up on Google.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
This is a blood moon? Look at that? Disgusting?
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Tell me what I'm seeing here? I looked up pink
moon because tell me what I'm okay. Yeah, So, so
the astronomical terms are are kind of specific. When you
when the when this thing pops up in your Facebook feed,
that says, hey, there's gonna be a blood moon. We
(25:39):
call that a lunar eclipse. See here's what happens. The
Earth gets between the Sun and the moon, and some
light gets all bendy around Earth's atmosphere and still hits
the moon, but that light is reddened by a process
called Raleigh scattering, and therefore the moon looks kind of orange. Now,
(26:00):
some guy wanted to sell a lot of books, so
he made up a term and called it a blood
moon back in twenty thirteen. And now ever since he
did that, I've been having to try to explain to
people what a blood moon is, and I have to
tell them it's not an astronomical term, so please call
it lunar eclipse and don't look up the term blood
(26:22):
moon on Google it in front of small children. Well
it's happening again. Friends, you've seen it, you know if
you look up any stories on the sky, and I
suspect you do. If you're listening to this podcast, you
have come across the term black moon. Hey, there's all
black moon coming. Oh, the rare black moon event. And
(26:43):
I'm thinking, yeah, it's rare. It's so rare that I
have no idea what you're even talking about. So I
had to Wes. I had to do it. I had
to go. Okay, all right, duck, duck go. What is
a black moon? Was first used around twenty sixteen, which
(27:04):
means it hasn't been around long, that's my point, yeap,
Which means it's not an accepted astronomical term. It's something
that someone made up so that they can put it
in your story and get clicks. Right, Oh, a rare
black moon. I'll bet you want to know what a
black moon is? Okay, So a black moon, as defined
(27:25):
by those who define what a black moon is, is
either one of two things. It can't even be one thing.
It has to be one of two things. It's a
moon that has a new phase for the second time
in a single month, or for the third out of
four times in those seasons that Wes and I were
(27:49):
just talking about the period of time between say, the
summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. So not directly related
to Halloween, but there is a little essence of that
in there. Based on seasonal The term appears to have
some significance to those of Pagan or Wiccan followings. So
(28:13):
if you're Pagan or Wickan, apparently you're tracking the number
of new moons that occur between astronomical points like the
summersaulstice and the autumnal equinox something like that. So so
then somebody finds out, oh, you know, there's this term
called black moon. It has a meaning an astronomy. It's
(28:35):
an astronomy word, black moon. And then they start putting
it in the headlines of stories and the next thing
you know, your Facebook feed is full of check out
the black moon. All right, so can I just say,
please stop, friends, just stop, Well said, let's let's let's
put these terms back in the crypt out of which
(28:58):
they crawled and not use them. So let me say,
on September seventh of twenty twenty five, there's going to
be a lunar eclipse, not a blood moon. It's a
lunary eclipse, and it's gonna not be visible in the
United States. And then from August twenty third, twenty second,
and twenty third, that night of August twenty second, twenty third,
(29:19):
there's going to be the third full moon in a
three month seasonal period, which sounds a lot less sexy
than black moon, doesn't it. It does, yeah, but that's
exactly what it is, and it will not be visible
to anyone because you can't see the new moon because
there's no light shining on it, which is why it's
a new moon. It's in the direction of the sun.
(29:40):
You can see it when it actually blocks the sun,
we call that a solar eclipse. But when you can't
see it because it doesn't block the sun, we call
it you can't see that.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
It's the official name.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
That's my official name for it. So stop, people, just stop.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Please, yeah, knock it off.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Lunar eclipse, new moon. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Yeah, well said. Let's talk about Columbus State University's Coca
Cola Space Science Center as you're, you know, coming out
of the summer season and into the fall season, and
many new moons have their been I'm confused back to
school seasons, and I guess that would make two and
all of that fun stuff. So yeah, let's talk about
what you guys have going on right now as you're
getting ready to start welcoming the kids back.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center has been
in a major remodeling and renovation period. We have renovations
going on on our flight simulators, on our Mars Rover
exhibit on two of our classrooms and on our Omosphere theater.
So if you come and see us today, just accept
the dust, friends, because it's kind of messy in here.
But we're hoping to have all of that cleaned up
(30:45):
and ready to go by the second week in September
when schools begin to come back for field trips, and
that's going to be the school field trip season kicking
off just after Labor Day. We're super excited about all
the students coming back to see us. They will be
coming by the bus loads, which means for everyone else,
for everyone else who's not a school student, who's going
(31:05):
to come see us on a big cheese wagon parking
out in front. For the rest of you, come in
the afternoon. Just just plan your trip, come visit us
in the afternoon unless you just love to watch school
kids and all of their antics and fun that they're having,
because they're going to be here from you know, roughly
nine to one, so come, you know, come at one pm.
We're open still from one to four that day, So
(31:28):
in fact, we're open from ten am to four pm
during the week, but you'll want to come in the
latter half of that unless you just love school children,
and when you come you'll be like, oh wow. If
you come in the afternoon, you'd be like, I have
the whole place to myself. It's not entirely true, but
our but our seats are a lot more full in
our Homisphere theater in the morning than they are in
the afternoon, so you get a better chance of picking
(31:50):
your favorite seat in our planetarium for our planetarium show.
So and you will still be able to check out
the new flight simulators, the new Mars Rovers, the new
two gaming simulate that we have for both rocketbuilding and
driving on the service of Mars, and check out the
lovely new robotics classroom. Just ask about it. We'll be
happy to show you and give you a little tour
(32:10):
of that. Come down and see us at the Coca
Cola Space Science Center this fall. If you've got a choice,
come in the afternoon. We'd love to have you come
and see us at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space
Science Center.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
all of your garage door needs covered, residential and commercial
service and repairs. If you need a new garage door,
or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door,
(32:43):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've
got your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven
oh six three five eight forty five hundred seven oh
six three five eight forty five hundred o DC Columbus
dot com. Get ready for dragon Con twenty five Labor
Day weekend downtown Atlanta with the dragon Con Pregame Show
(33:07):
coming August twenty third and twenty fourth to a radio
station near you if you live in the state of
Georgia or one of the states near enough to the
State of Georgia to pick up a radio signal coming
from the network of stations in the State of Georgia
that'll be carrying the show, and there are many in
Alabama and Tennessee and the Carolinas that'll have a chance
(33:27):
to hear it, even down into Florida. Or simply listen
to it on the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast wherever
you listen to your podcast, yes, where you're listening to
this podcast. You can also find past editions of the
dragon Con Pregame Show podcast with interviews with William Shatner,
other stars from Star Trek, The Walking Dead, the Marvel
(33:51):
Cinematic Universe, many animated stars, some of your favorite Disney stars.
Chances to hear interviews with them and this year's wagon
Conn pregame show will drop to the podcast on August
twenty third, and you can hear this year's interviews. It's
sponsored by Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center,
(34:12):
where doctor Sean Cruisin and I often like to discuss
the science behind the science fiction and the connections between
where science fiction sometimes leads to science science sometimes leads
to science fiction. It's just a weird connection that's already there.
It's built into it. And I say it's weird, but
it's really not. It makes perfect sense. The two go
(34:34):
together very well. Learn more about the Coca Cola Space
Science Center at CCSSC dot org. Learn more about this
year's dragon Con the website, which is DragonCon dot org
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