It’s time for another podcast about space, so we’re joined once again by astrophysicist Rami Mandow, founder of SpaceAustralia.com.
In this episode we talk about what may be a new kind of pulsar, the cancellation of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, three ways in which the solar system is being a jerk, Japanese folklore (no really), those astronauts who are definitely not “stuck” or “stranded” on the International Space Station because NASA says they’re not, and the ZWO Seestar S50 smart telescope.
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Episode Links
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Researching Pulsars & Gravitational Waves with The Dish at @MQPhysAstro • Founder @SpaceAusDotCom #SpaceAustralia • Doggo #BalmainMax • He/Him • Views My Own
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We spent two years researching what the Australian space community wants as a platform – which has allowed us to build a user-centric website and given us a great long term strategy on rolling out new products for all our regional space needs! We want to be your one-stop-shop to find out all you need about our local space community and plan to share the stories and voices as that we, as a region, start to grow.
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[8 August 2024] NASA astronauts on Boeing’s Starliner found out on Wednesday they may be stranded in space for much longer than expected. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stuck in the International Space Station (ISS) for over two months and may not return home until February 2025. This Tuesday marked 60 days both astronauts were stranded in the ISS. The initial trip into space was only supposed to be eight days, but thruster failures and helium leaks prevented their return home. \Due to the aircraft’s [sic] issues, the two astronauts have been in orbit over fears any attempt to return them home will result in a disaster.
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[8 August 2024] NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the first test flight crew of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, have now been in space for 63 days, with no return date in sight. Retired NASA astronaut Terry Verts shares how the crew may be feeling.
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[8 August 2024] NASA is exploring a contingency plan to bring home the two astronauts who have been at the International Space Station (ISS) for two months with no clear end in sight.
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The Boeing Starliner (or CST-100) is a spacecraft designed to transport crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and other low-Earth-orbit destinations. Developed by Boeing under NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), it consists of a reusable crew capsule and an expendable service module.
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Gilligan's Island is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz... It aired for three seasons on the CBS network from September 26, 1964, to April 17, 1967... The two-person crew of the charter boat SS Minnow and five passengers on a "three-hour tour" from Honolulu run into a storm and are shipwrecked on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
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Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions.
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[27 June 2024] Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Tuesday pegged Boeing Co‘s (NYSE:BA) lack of engineers in its leadership as the prime reason behind its ongoing crisis. What Happened: “The CEO of an aircraft company should know how to design aircraft, not spreadsheets,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Musk is CEO of SpaceX, a direct rival to Boeing’s space division.
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[26 August 2024] NASA officials said there was “too much uncertainty” about the Boeing Starliner to return astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth, stretching their eight-day mission into eight months.
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A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards its center. It can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars,[2] all orbiting in a stable, compact formation.
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A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. white holes, quark stars, and strange stars), neutron stars are the smallest and densest currently known class of stellar objects.
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US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, February 12, 2002: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones."
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Pulsars are born in collapsing core supernova explosions. The rotation rate of the core-collapse increases enormously through conservation of angular momentum, and new-born pulsars typically spin at more than 60 times a second (60 Hz). Over the next few million years, they emit magnetic dipole radiation which causes their rotation to slow. Eventually, the rotation rate reaches a point where the pulsar ceases to emit radio emission and is no longer detectable from Earth. The pulsar is now said to be ‘extinct’.
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[7 June 2024] A new population of astrophysical objects resembling neutron stars but with very long rotation periods has emerged. Are astronomers on the brink of discovering a new type of celestial object, or are we uncovering more about the strange and unfamiliar behaviours of compact remnants?
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[28 March 2024] Do you yearn for the universe? Do you have a headache with complicated astronomical equipment? Start with the Seestar S50 for an easy start to astrophotography.
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[9 May 2024] We can always be easily impressed by the ingenuity of nature, not to mention the vastness of the universe. Come with Seestar S50, escape the chaos and capture the magical moments.
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The S50 smart telescope is intelligently designed for effortless star tracking and stunning captures. Ready to use out of the box, it's your gateway to exploring the universe with simple touches.
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Celestron, LLC is a company that manufactures telescopes and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, and accessories manufactured by its parent company, the Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan.
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NASA's budget peaked in 1964–66 when it consumed roughly 4% of all federal spending. The agency was building up to the first Moon landing and the Apollo program was a top national priority, consuming more than half of NASA's budget and driving NASA's workforce to more than 34,000 employees and 375,000 contractors from industry and academia.
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The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999.
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[9 April 2024] The Chandra X-ray Observatory, a cornerstone of high-energy astrophysics, faces a proposed cancellation in the FY25 President's Budget Request. The premature loss of Chandra would not only mark a significant setback in our cosmic discovery but also signal a "death spiral" for X-ray astronomy in the US.
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Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE FRAS FInstP (/b??r?n?l/; born 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. The discovery eventually earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974; however, she was not one of the prize's recipients.
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[22 February 2024] As a postgraduate student at Cambridge, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967, one of the most important astronomical discoveries of the 20th century. The discovery eventually earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 — for her doctoral advisor and male co-researcher. Bell, despite leading the research, was not one of the prize’s recipients.
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[14 February 2024] In this talk I describe the discovery of pulsars (pulsating radio stars) and what we know about them today.
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[7 June 2024] The Sun is reaching the maximum point of activity in an 11-year cycle. This means that we can expect more explosive outpourings of particles. In the right circumstances, these are what ultimately generate the pretty auroras in the sky, as well as the geomagnetic storms that can damage infrastructure such as power grids and orbiting satellites.
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Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency. It was launched from Johnston Atoll on July 9, 1962, and was the largest nuclear test conducted in outer space, and one of five conducted by the US in space.
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[24 July 2024] A geomagnetic storm in May brought the best auroral displays in two decades, but it also battered satellites around the world. An analyse of open-access data from the US Space Force revealed more than 5,000 satellites had to manoeuvre during the storm.
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[9 February 2022] Only a fraction of the 49 satellites SpaceX launched into orbit last week survived a geomagnetic storm, the company says. As many as 40 of the Starlink satellites "will reenter or already have reentered the Earth's atmosphere," according to SpaceX.
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The Old Stockholm telephone tower (Swedish: Telefontornet) was a metallic structure built to connect approximately 5,500 telephone lines in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Constructed in 1887, the tower was used until 1913. It was damaged by a fire in 1952 and demolished the following year.
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[12 December 2023] Approximately every 15 years, Saturn’s rings are presented edgewise as the Earth and the Sun pass through the plane of the rings. In the planet’s 29.4 year orbit, we first see one face of the rings and then 15 years later the other, after passing through the plane of the rings. As Saturn has an elliptical orbit, these edgewise presentations alternate at intervals of approximately 13.75 and 15.75 years.
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[23 July 2024] It would be tricky to burn away the outer layers of Uranus, but doing so could reveal a possible stash of gems – in this episode of Dead Planets Society, the hosts reveal a relatively simpler technique to rob the ice giant.
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A kappa (??, "river-child") — also known as kawatar? (???, "river-boy"), komahiki (??, "horse-puller"), with a boss called kawatora (??, "river-tiger") or suiko (??, "water-tiger") — is a reptiloid kami with similarities to y?kai found in traditional Japanese folklore... The kappa are known to favor cucumbers and love to engage in sumo wrestling. They are often accused of assaulting humans in water and removing a mythical organ called the shirikodama from their victim's anus.
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[27 August 2024] It's official: NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in February 2025. Let's dive into the specifics of how it will happen, how (and why) NASA made this difficult decision, how the astronauts are handling it, and what the future of Boeing Starliner might be. [Not cited in the podcast, but this video goes into the Starliner situation in more detail.]
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