0:00

Let me silence my phone real quick

0:02

so I can tell you that Us

0:04

Days at US Cellular is back again.

0:07

Exclusive offers just for customers just to say thanks.

0:09

Right now you'll get $1,200 off any phone plus

0:11

$400 off any tablet. Amazing,

0:15

right? my But my family

0:17

is so excited about their new devices they

0:19

keep texting me during the show. the They're

0:21

all about Us Days deals like $1,200 off any phone

0:23

plus $400 off any tablet. Terms

0:27

apply. Visit US cellular.com for details. This ad

0:29

was an actress. Astronomycast,

1:19

737 in 2024. Science Stories Cast, a weekly facts-based

1:21

journey to Astronomy Cast where we help you

1:23

journey through the cosmos where we

1:25

help you understand not only what

1:27

we know, but how we know

1:30

what we know. Kane. I'm publisher I'm

1:32

the publisher of Day. With me, as me

1:34

as always Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior a senior

1:36

scientist for the Planetary Science Institute

1:38

and the director of Quest. Hey, Pamela, you you

1:40

doing? doing? I am doing doing well. I well.

1:42

just got back from the American Geophysical

1:44

Union in in Washington, It was great It

1:46

was great to get to see so

1:48

many people that I haven't seen

1:50

since before the pandemic. And you you and

1:52

I are both going to be

1:54

processing all the amazing science that came

1:56

out of that meeting for quite

1:58

some time. some time. Yeah. They don't do

2:01

a great job of like

2:03

the press releases in the way

2:05

that the American Astronomical Society

2:07

meeting works. And so I have

2:09

to go through it, talk

2:11

by talk, speaker by speaker, poster

2:13

by poster and say like,

2:15

is this interesting? Is this interesting?

2:17

And then I pull out

2:20

usually 30 or 40 stories out

2:22

of the AGU and then

2:24

digest them down and often that

2:26

turns into about a month's

2:28

worth of reporting at a university

2:30

today for all of those

2:32

stories. So we will be trickling

2:34

out what I think are

2:36

the interesting stories out of this

2:39

meeting and hopefully it'll be

2:41

stuff you've never heard. So one

2:43

of the things that I'm

2:45

really proud of now with Universe

2:47

Today is just how much

2:49

reporting we do of stuff that

2:51

nobody else is covering these

2:53

stories. You know, I'm digging deep

2:55

into journals and archive and

2:58

getting tips from readers and other

3:00

and scientists. And so I

3:02

think our reporting is quite unique

3:04

now compared to other people.

3:06

I do have to say one

3:08

thing AGU does do so

3:10

much better than any other professional

3:12

society. Is their award ceremony

3:14

was black tie recipients and presenters.

3:17

So the pair of presenters,

3:19

she was in an amazing immaculate

3:21

gown that was like I

3:23

someday want to be a little

3:25

old lady in a glittery

3:27

gown that looks that good. The

3:29

men were in tuxedos most

3:31

of the time. And so you

3:33

have these scientists who are

3:36

probably for the first time in

3:38

their adult life, other than

3:40

weddings, wearing gowns and they all

3:42

had flowers and they were

3:44

using teleprompters so everything was like

3:46

produced. So pro it was

3:48

like an award ceremony. I was

3:50

pleased to be at and

3:52

they had this amazing video production

3:54

of why the people got

3:57

the awards. It was. everything

4:00

you would want in

4:02

a want ceremony. award

4:05

ceremony, a thing It is a

4:07

never said. never said.

4:09

true, I've never said it never said

4:11

it either. 2024 was a a strange year. I'll

4:13

let your imagination take flight and

4:16

consider how 2024 was weird for you.

4:18

you. But space and Astronomy, we had

4:20

some interesting, revolutionary, unsettling, and downright weird

4:22

stories pop up downright Let's talk about

4:24

them, and we will do it

4:26

in a second. But first, it's time

4:28

for a break. in a second, but

4:31

first, it's time for a break. And we're

4:33

back. All right, And we're back. to come right right,

4:35

I'm gonna come right out here. I'm gonna

4:37

take the first story because I think I

4:39

really need to sort of set people's expectations

4:42

Here and And that

4:44

that we have all been

4:46

have all been living a lie.

4:48

That is that that is and

4:51

and Neptune are

4:53

different colors. colors Yeah

4:55

Uranus is this sort

4:57

of light of light blue

4:59

color Neptune is is this deep

5:01

blue color you can

5:03

tell them apart at a

5:06

glance if this is

5:08

what you believe this is what

5:10

you are wrong that these

5:12

two planets look very familiar. You could, you

5:14

know, put them in front of you

5:16

you switch them back and forth and you

5:18

would have trouble telling which one is

5:21

which. And the

5:23

reason is which. And the because

5:25

way back in

5:27

the beginning when when the

5:29

did did its flybyes of

5:31

Uranus and Neptune, when

5:33

they did when they did the

5:36

Uranus they they were very careful

5:38

to calibrate the colors colors and... and make

5:40

those colors available and be. People

5:42

have been thinking about them for a

5:44

long time. for a long they did when they did

5:46

the image was done very quickly. And

5:48

they did a did a of quick stab

5:50

at getting the color. the they and images

5:52

and the images were provided to the

5:54

press and the color just stuck. the press and

5:56

the color this case the color was, you

5:58

know, color was, you know, but but... but not sort

6:00

of greenish, light that Uranus is. And

6:02

is. And nobody kind of

6:04

went back and revised it,

6:06

even even though scientists knew that

6:09

that was knew the true

6:11

color of what you would

6:13

actually see if you were

6:15

floating above Neptune with your

6:17

own eyes. And then somebody, with

6:19

some hero. And then did

6:21

a follow -on study, sat down,

6:23

looked at the raw data, the raw data.

6:25

produced an image of what Neptune

6:27

would actually look like with your

6:29

own eyes, and lo and behold,

6:31

it looks very similar to Uranus.

6:33

so. behold it looks very Like,

6:35

I don't want to tell you now. and so I

6:37

like I don't want to this is you

6:39

is the universe that you now find yourself

6:42

in the universe that you

6:44

truly delightful it it is

6:46

it is an explanation

6:48

of why we

6:50

really need the the the

6:52

little moral equivalent of of

6:55

film camera color color

6:57

correctors on Mars Rovers

6:59

and we need to process the We

7:01

need to process the images and

7:03

quick and dirty and then slow

7:05

and carefully. and the slow the slow and

7:08

careful needs to come weeks later,

7:10

not decades. not decades later. Yeah yeah what

7:12

have have you got? So

7:14

the the weirdest story to me,

7:16

the one I will be

7:18

giggling over. over in terms of,

7:21

this is the strangest

7:23

thing that could happen,

7:25

is the story of of

7:27

Zuzvah. It all It all

7:29

started with a Radiolab

7:31

episode, where Latif Nasser It was talking

7:33

about a poster on

7:36

the wall of his

7:38

child's bedroom that had

7:40

next to Venus a

7:42

small object that he

7:44

read ZO-O-O-Z-V-E, Zuzva, and he's like, I didn't

7:46

know like, I didn't

7:48

know moon, a he went he

7:51

Zuzva? Yeah, exactly. exactly.

7:53

down the went down the

7:55

internet rabbit hole and

7:57

found nothing. But because of

7:59

who he is... and the the made

8:01

over his life, he's

8:03

he his proceeded to reach

8:05

out to Liz to

8:07

at NASA, at NASA,

8:09

who's like, there there

8:11

an object called

8:14

called Zuzva. Why is it on

8:16

this poster? this poster? Yeah. and so then she

8:18

got to looking at it and thinking at

8:20

it other people get called into

8:22

the conversation, it was realized get

8:25

is actually the object it

8:27

was realized, this is actually

8:30

the object Z VE,

8:32

not ZOOZ, 2002, 2002 VE,

8:35

and it was a .E. and it

8:37

was a of moon. It's still

8:39

there. still there it's

8:41

still doing its thing Right.

8:43

And a quasi-moon is an is an

8:45

object that is in a slightly

8:47

more or less elliptical than the

8:50

world than the world it's

8:52

associated with. So that they're

8:54

both going around the sun with

8:56

the same length But the one but

8:58

the one object is either

9:00

inside the orbit or outside

9:02

the orbit of the main

9:04

body depending on where it

9:06

is in the orbit. And

9:08

it appears if you you

9:10

it over enough time time. be

9:12

going round and round in

9:14

round and stop Another fly flapping

9:16

its wings pattern. wings

9:18

pattern? it a So is it

9:20

a horseshoe librator?

9:22

Or or is it a a quasi-moon? a

9:24

quasi -moon. OK. Okay.

9:27

Yeah. Yeah, I I mean, there's a whole

9:29

bunch of these kinds of objects

9:31

and, kinds know, I think people were

9:33

quite familiar with the one that came

9:35

close by the with think from September

9:37

to December, I think had a quasi to

9:39

and it's the same situation where

9:41

the object gets close to the gravitational

9:43

falls into the gravitational the of the

9:45

larger object for a little bit. object

9:47

a couple of orbits around the

9:49

planet, and then, the planet and then and then...

9:51

sort of walks back back into into

9:54

And orbit. this happens every couple of

9:56

couple of years for Earth

9:58

and it must. happen every

10:00

couple of years for Venus as

10:03

well. And some of them stick

10:05

around a whole lot longer, some

10:07

of them are very passing because

10:09

it turns out their period of

10:12

going around the sun is just

10:14

enough different that they're only here

10:16

for a little bit of time.

10:18

Now the thing was this entire

10:21

story ended up leading to the

10:23

International Astronomical Union deciding to permanently

10:25

name the quasi-moon Zuzvua. And that

10:28

like breaks every rule on how

10:30

things normally get named, but it's

10:32

just this wonderful moment in time.

10:34

And then Latif and the other

10:37

folks involved in all of this

10:39

were like, Can we name something

10:41

else? And so there's right now

10:44

a naming contest. All of you

10:46

can vote on to name one

10:48

of Earth's quasi moons. They did

10:50

a public suggest names. I was

10:53

actually one of the people on

10:55

the committee to help downsize the

10:57

names that were selected to a

10:59

list of 10. And so you

11:02

can now, because of a really

11:04

badly labeled quasi moon on a

11:06

children's poster. Go actually name

11:08

one of Earth's quasi moons. That's amazing.

11:11

It's so weird. It's just weird. All

11:13

right, we're going to continue on with

11:15

the strange stories, but first it's time

11:17

for another break. And we're back. All

11:19

right, so I want to talk about

11:21

this strange discovery that was made this

11:23

year, dark oxygen. Yeah. And this was

11:25

an analysis of these strange... objects that

11:27

are found down at the bottom of

11:29

the ocean. And these, oh I forget

11:31

what their name is, but anyway, there

11:33

are these little blobs of metal that

11:35

sit down on the bottom of the

11:37

ocean. And companies are quite excited about

11:39

being able to mine these things. You

11:41

could run a net along the bottom

11:43

of the ocean and you would just

11:45

bring up tons and tons of these

11:47

and they're very constant... traded in the

11:49

kinds of things that we of

11:51

things that we

11:53

need in our modern

11:55

economy, and various other fairly rare

11:57

other And so rare

12:00

metals. these could be a thought

12:02

that in fact

12:04

these could be a

12:06

huge source for

12:08

what we need for

12:10

electric cars, but

12:12

also harvesting them would

12:14

cause tremendous damage

12:16

to the undersea environment

12:18

and so And so

12:20

have held off mining

12:22

these. with concern of of

12:24

the environmental impact. Yeah,

12:26

they're called nodules, we are

12:28

not are not creative at naming things. They're just nodules.

12:31

And so been looking at looking at

12:33

the that happens with these

12:35

nodules these found that they are

12:37

a producer of oxygen in

12:39

a part of the ocean

12:42

that is normally starved for

12:44

oxygen, like up at

12:46

the very up at the the

12:48

top of the oxygen, you

12:50

have where the where the ocean... sort of

12:52

with the atmosphere and you

12:55

get this mixing of oxygen

12:57

into the water. can sort of

12:59

sort of percolate down this source of

13:01

the source of oxygen for life,

13:03

out but once you run out

13:05

of that oxygen, get then things get

13:07

very for for life you need another need

13:09

get things get very for for oxygen.

13:12

And so you need a way

13:14

to replenish that. And they've pointed

13:16

to, in fact, these nodules at

13:18

the bottom of the ocean of

13:20

be trickling in oxygen into the

13:22

deep ocean. And then that could

13:24

be a source of you know for

13:26

life. is implications know, entire is implications for

13:28

the bottom of the at the bottom of the

13:30

ocean not just not just dredging through that

13:32

you're going to cause damage but in fact

13:35

you might be taking away their source

13:37

of oxygen that they need. they need. But the

13:39

other other thing that's really interesting

13:41

is that is that could be

13:43

a source of oxygen for for other

13:45

planets planets, for exoplanets, where they're

13:47

covered with ice and water, no

13:49

sunlight is making it no sunlight is

13:51

making it down way to mix in no

13:54

way to mix in oxygen

13:56

into the water, but you could

13:58

have this replenishment of oxygen. into

14:00

the the ocean these these nodules that

14:02

sit at the bottom of the

14:04

ocean of the thought And was really

14:06

interesting and weird and a lot

14:08

of people really got grumpy about

14:10

the name about the name, about oh it's

14:12

a dark matter it's dark energy a

14:14

dark matter, it's dark energy, not allowed to

14:16

name Fine. We're not yeah, but things

14:19

anymore. oxygen so nodules at

14:21

the bottom of the ocean

14:23

of the ocean. It's naturally occurring.

14:27

basically. It's It's

14:29

and cobalt that, when

14:31

put in salt in

14:33

salt water oxygen. Yeah,

14:35

batteries. At the bottom of the

14:37

ocean. the ocean. Yeah. batteries natural batteries

14:39

at the bottom of the ocean that of

14:41

is weird. What do you is weird. What have

14:44

you asked? So it turns out some

14:46

some of the active galactic

14:48

nuclei out there, there, are

14:50

massive black holes that have

14:52

material falling into them and

14:54

they have jets and the

14:56

jets of flying out through

14:58

the and they have jets and the flying

15:00

out through can trigger beams can trigger Novi

15:02

events that are that are

15:04

close to the beam.

15:06

to the beam. are are literally... feeding

15:09

black holes, and

15:11

spewing out jets I

15:13

love, they basically have a

15:15

glancing blow on a will

15:18

on stars will

15:20

trigger. novies that

15:22

These are actual novies that

15:24

are occurring because it's in part

15:27

because the material filling up the

15:29

star and it's up the

15:31

star I love it. I I love it. it. Yeah.

15:33

I Yeah, mean, this idea of idea of

15:35

the classical. Novay is where you have this white dwarf you

15:37

have this white dwarf star that's feeding

15:39

off from from a companion star. builds

15:42

up enough material on its surface,

15:44

and then it surface and then it a little

15:46

explosion, a little tantrum. then it

15:48

goes back to square one and starts

15:50

building up the material on its

15:52

surface, and then the a little tantrum. on

15:54

its surface and then has a And so

15:56

these jets that are crossing. tens

15:59

of thousands... of light years are and and

16:01

like the exact the exact is still

16:03

not known like is it

16:05

it yeah Is it it it's it's

16:07

actually just striking the these with

16:09

these white dwarfs with material

16:11

and that's building up to

16:13

the point that they're having

16:15

they're having nove or it just that

16:17

the as the beam is

16:19

passing through it's causing turbulence

16:21

that's sending ripples of material

16:23

that was already there already clouds

16:25

down down? somehow somehow out the

16:27

outer layers of the companion star

16:29

so that it's... know a more easy to

16:31

feed as know, know that it's increasing

16:33

the temperature in the area Like the

16:35

actual mechanism is still not known and

16:38

yet. Yeah, it is so weird still not

16:40

is one of those findings

16:42

that was discovered is to statistics,

16:45

that was discovered thanks to

16:47

statistics, which would love to sit

16:49

down and talk to the

16:51

person who figured this out

16:54

And I was like who

16:56

made you realize And I was like, what

16:58

this was happening this was happening? It

17:00

was literally you see the you see

17:02

the jets in radio, not

17:04

optical. And they noticed

17:06

that that novee more frequently

17:08

near, not not inside, near

17:10

the radio it And

17:13

it was simply a

17:15

statistical, there's more here

17:17

than here, here. but those

17:19

aren't places where normally

17:21

you go you go stuff.

17:23

And so I'd I'd love to

17:25

know what caused them to look

17:27

at the placement within galaxies

17:29

of these Novi. It's a a super

17:32

cool result this this is why

17:34

we need to have telescopes in

17:36

space because they can see

17:38

such higher resolutions. This is a

17:40

Hubble allows us to figure out where these allows

17:42

us to figure out where

17:45

these things are located. It's just

17:47

really cool All weird. It's weird. talk

17:49

about right. We're gonna talk about some more weird

17:51

things, but it's time for another break break.

17:56

And we're back. back. All

17:58

right, so this. This one that

18:00

been following which is is an

18:02

for for Beatle Juice. saw Betelgeuse

18:04

dim down a couple of

18:06

years ago of years ago, and now people

18:08

people think probably due to either

18:11

giant cell on the on the surface

18:13

of Betelgeuse or maybe it's

18:15

some gas cloud that had

18:17

been produced the the star was passing

18:19

in. you know, or the cloud

18:21

was passing in front of

18:23

Betelgeuse and that's weird and

18:25

Betelgeuse is a variable star beta

18:27

that it has these bright

18:30

star and we know that go off

18:32

regular of its surface but

18:34

it actually has of its cycles it

18:36

like the main one and

18:38

then there's a secondary cycle

18:40

that is more like about

18:42

a ,300 days long days long. And Strong

18:44

is always wondering is is causing second

18:46

cycle the main cycle. The is

18:48

kind of pulsating in a

18:50

way that all kind of giants

18:52

do a way why the second do.

18:55

But why this second variability? researchers are that, in

18:57

fact, it's due to a

18:59

binary star that is orbiting around

19:01

around Bail Juice that you've got this

19:03

star that is orbiting roughly

19:05

the distance of Jupiter. It's very

19:07

close. It's probably like a close.

19:09

It's star that is orbiting

19:11

around Betelgeuse. And so the

19:13

variability that we're seeing is just

19:16

depending on the position of

19:18

the star of the star that When the star

19:20

goes behind juice from our perspective then

19:22

it disappears and the total brightness

19:24

that's coming from Betelgeuse from down goes down,

19:26

is different from when it's on one

19:28

side of the star or the

19:30

other or when it's passing directly in

19:32

front of it. in so we're getting

19:34

this variability caused by the star

19:37

and I just love this idea that

19:39

there is a companion star to

19:41

Betelgeuse that we just can't see through

19:43

any other way but just measuring

19:45

subtle changes brightness, of in the same

19:47

way that we detect exoplanets based on

19:49

the changes in brightness as as this,

19:51

as the star in this in this

19:53

case is in front of of

19:56

mean, these And I mean, this is, you know,

19:58

these these these, you know, these binaries. Yeah,

20:00

which we have binary stars that are

20:02

passing in front of each other.

20:04

Um, You know, transient, What's

20:06

the technical term? You're the astronomy here.

20:08

uh, transient transiting planets, transit, no, but

20:10

by, but no, but like stars. stars,

20:14

transiting, eclipsing binaries, clips and binaries. That's it.

20:16

Yeah. Yeah. And then in many cases you

20:18

can't tell that there are two stars orbiting

20:20

around each other. You can't split the difference,

20:22

but you can tell because the, just the

20:24

the way get the variability in the brightness

20:27

of the star. Yeah. And sometimes one star

20:29

is in front of the other. And so

20:31

it has one spectral characteristic. And then the

20:33

other time, the other ones in front it

20:35

gets a totally different spectral characteristic. And so

20:37

it could very well be that Betelgeuse has

20:39

a binary companion that we just haven't

20:41

been able to find. So,

20:44

so the next story, I

20:46

think I think have time to

20:48

hit two rapid -fire ones. So

20:50

rapid -fire one that's on my

20:52

list is Jupiter's red spot

20:54

is not the same red spot

20:56

observed by Galileo we now

20:58

think because there was a period

21:00

of observations where a whole

21:02

bunch of really prominent people were

21:04

looking at Jupiter and never

21:06

saw the red spot. And so

21:08

there was this evolution in

21:10

position and size, position and size,

21:12

and then nothing. Yeah.

21:15

from like the 1600s to

21:17

the 1800s. Yeah. And then

21:19

about 190 years ago, it

21:21

came back. And

21:23

so the question is, is it going

21:25

to disappear on this again? And we're

21:27

seeing that same evolution and position that

21:29

was seen in the past. And I

21:31

love that Jupiter just grows giant red

21:33

spots. Right. But also that our total

21:35

understanding, and this is back to

21:37

your whole life as a lie, right?

21:40

that, that That Cassini first saw

21:42

the red spot back in the 1600s,

21:44

and then people saw the red

21:46

spot later on. And it was assumed

21:48

that the red spot has been

21:50

there for a long time, maybe thousands

21:52

of years, maybe it's a permanent

21:54

fixture on the surface of Jupiter. But

21:56

said, well, did anybody observe it?

21:58

after Cassini but before the when they

22:00

were making regular observations and astronomers

22:02

were like, no, nobody

22:05

saw it. people were looking at Jupiter, but

22:07

nobody saw the red spot. Right. And

22:09

now people are quite sure

22:11

that it just wasn't there. And

22:13

that is amazing. Yeah.

22:16

That it's a totally different spot than what

22:18

you can see saw and what astronomers to

22:20

see today is our different spots. And

22:22

we're learning more and more

22:24

about things that happen on century

22:27

scales, which means pre -modern technology

22:29

and recording, so we don't

22:31

have modern examples of them. but

22:33

the sun. We both flagged

22:35

the story. The sun, it

22:37

turns out, has super flares,

22:39

are so violent they would

22:42

brick your phone. So no

22:44

aurora pictures for you and

22:46

no modern technology for any

22:48

of us. Yeah. Yeah.

22:50

I mean we see the like

22:52

we know of the Carrington event,

22:54

which was this Really powerful solar

22:57

storm that happened back in the

22:59

1800s, and it was you know

23:01

people at the mid -latitude saw auroras,

23:03

people watched telegraph lines catch on

23:05

fire Yeah, and this was before

23:07

the modern technological world that we

23:10

live in and this was you

23:12

know, the most powerful flare

23:14

that hit the earth in modern

23:16

memory, but astronomers have seen

23:18

other really powerful flares going off

23:20

of the sun in different

23:22

directions, stuff that would have matched

23:24

or exceeded the Carrington And

23:26

there are these tree rings that

23:28

show evidence that that

23:31

there have been far more devastating

23:33

solar flares, hit the earth over the

23:35

last, say, 5 ,000 years. the scary

23:37

part is that the Carrington event

23:39

isn't one of them. It didn't register.

23:42

It wasn't powerful enough to be one

23:44

of these flares. what got me

23:46

about how they did this was

23:48

it also has impacts on, that

23:51

was not an intended pun, on

23:53

like how we do paleontology and

23:55

archaeology because when these massive flares

23:57

hit our upper they

24:00

cause the the creation of

24:02

significantly more carbon 14, which is the

24:04

which is the kind

24:06

of unstable carbon -14 part then

24:08

becomes part of carbon

24:10

dioxide in the atmosphere, ingested,

24:13

I don't know the don't know the

24:15

correct response. into plants, plants,

24:18

of plants. of so they're And so they're

24:20

looking at the tree rings and

24:22

some of the tree rings are

24:24

like, I shall have a whole

24:26

lot more carbon carbon 14 sun was

24:28

angry. angry. And so you you can imagine

24:30

someone had a fire with a

24:32

bunch of branches that were very

24:34

young from a year of an

24:36

angry and and they're gonna totally

24:38

carbon date that as being as newer

24:40

than it actually was. And that

24:42

is just weird. And that is just weird.

24:44

And what I love is new

24:46

new paper came out, I

24:49

think yesterday. Yeah, which was was flares once

24:51

per century. yeah. So astronomers

24:53

are out to we know that the

24:55

so can produce these kinds of

24:57

flares how often does this thing

25:00

happen and so they used Kepler does

25:02

this thing they looked at historical information

25:04

taken by the Kepler spacecraft of

25:06

information taken by the Kepler stars of 55,000 because

25:08

Kepler looks at this giant field

25:10

of stars at the same time of

25:12

stars were able to time, they were put

25:14

together a total of a total

25:17

years of data from Kepler

25:19

of at all of these

25:21

stars. then back to statistics,

25:23

they were able to calculate

25:25

how many times they saw

25:27

flares in that population hundreds of

25:29

of thousands of years of

25:32

star life. And they were

25:34

able to calculate that on

25:36

average, a star like the

25:38

sun produces a very powerful powerful

25:40

level solar level solar flare every years

25:42

or so. or so. Now, not in our

25:44

our direction, but just in random directions. Yeah, yeah.

25:47

And we are, when you think about are, when you think

25:49

about all of the possible directions that

25:51

the sun can blast its flares, the ones

25:53

that come towards Earth are a fraction of

25:55

it. And so, so, like worse than the current than the

25:57

current event, like the that that would be

25:59

recorded in the tree rings. That's

26:01

what the sun can do once

26:04

every 100 years. And just to

26:06

bring up something I don't think

26:08

we have time to get into

26:10

and I don't know a lot

26:12

of details on, there is... the

26:14

realization that one of the earlier

26:17

mass extinctions was caused by a

26:19

more massive asteroid striking the earth

26:21

than the one that killed the

26:23

dinosaurs. So about 4.5 billion years

26:25

ago there was a asteroid that

26:27

they named S2 because again we

26:30

shouldn't be allowed to name things.

26:32

It was 50 to 200 times

26:34

larger than the Yucatan Peninsula impact.

26:36

It vaporized 10,000 cubic kilometers of

26:38

rock that then recondensed into molten

26:41

droplets. Wow. Yeah. So it completely

26:43

rocked our early planet, but because

26:45

of the way it mixed things

26:47

up and the way it changed

26:49

our atmosphere, it allowed a massive

26:51

boost of life formation afterwards. Yes.

26:54

Yeah, yeah, it's funny that that

26:56

when you have these devastating impacts,

26:58

then life has encouragement to evolve.

27:00

I guess... Yeah. you know various

27:02

ecosystems are blasted to smithereens and

27:05

then that gives other life forms

27:07

a chance to evolve. And the

27:09

other thing back to the to

27:11

the keratin event and of course

27:13

there are supernovae that have happened

27:15

in the last few million years

27:18

that it might be that an

27:20

increase in ultraviolet radiation that's able

27:22

to reach the ground also encourages

27:24

a lot of mutation in life.

27:26

And mostly just... leads to horrible

27:29

cancer, but every now and then

27:31

it leads to life finding a

27:33

new way to dominate in its

27:35

niche. All right, you know, we're

27:37

sort of right at the end

27:39

of the show, but I think

27:42

there's one story that is perhaps

27:44

the weirdest that we have been

27:46

watching for years, and I think

27:48

we just got some interesting insights

27:50

into it just at the end

27:53

of this year, and I think

27:55

a lot of our next

27:57

year is going

27:59

to cover this

28:01

cover this with Euclid coming online

28:03

and Virir coming online,

28:06

and and the Dark Energy spectroscopic

28:08

instrument, and this And this is,

28:10

this from DESE is, you know, we're talking

28:12

about the know, we talk about the you know,

28:14

the how, you know, the of the of

28:17

the universe is different at Different at different times

28:19

when we measure it for for the

28:21

longest time that was assumed to be to

28:23

be This is the Hubble error. This is the Hubble

28:25

tension, the crisis now, And

28:27

now, done this. this... incredibly

28:30

-depth look at the shape

28:32

and structure of the universe and

28:34

parts of the universe over

28:36

billions of years and said,

28:38

of years and it does look

28:40

like things were variable throughout

28:42

the history of the universe

28:44

that at the the expansion rate

28:46

of the universe has been

28:49

changing over time that maybe

28:51

the influence of of

28:53

forces in the universe were different

28:55

at different points were different at different points

28:57

in time. The that I

28:59

think everyone can agree

29:01

on right now can agree on

29:04

right energy comes into

29:06

existence and and plateaus before Z

29:08

within the past several

29:10

billion years, several within the

29:13

past several billion years,

29:15

you can erase the

29:17

Hubble the Now the problem

29:19

is no one quite knows what to

29:21

blame on dark energy. And so I

29:24

went down a magnificent rabbit hole. hole

29:27

of holes cause dark

29:29

energy And it's like mine. like

29:31

lot of a lot of people and it makes

29:33

a lot of sense but it doesn't fully

29:35

work I way I thought it did

29:37

when I read the papers papers initially.

29:40

a comment I saw was astronomers

29:42

are going to blame anything that

29:44

comes into existence within the first

29:46

billion years or so, after the

29:48

first billion years or so, as

29:50

a possible cause, we and we

29:52

don't know yet what the actual

29:54

cause will turn out to be. be.

29:56

Yeah and so, you know, maximum

29:58

weirdness either just just the Standard model

30:00

of cosmology as we have come

30:02

to understand it has additional

30:04

modifiers that nobody had ever figured

30:07

out or that things that

30:09

we thought were held stable throughout

30:11

the history of the universe

30:13

are actually changing, the amount of

30:15

dark energy, the pull of

30:17

gravity, the amount of dark matter,

30:19

like these things, somewhere there

30:21

is new physics and now it's

30:23

up to the astronomy community

30:26

to find those physics and they're

30:28

excited. I mean, what a for

30:30

physics to have this mystery, and but

30:32

also have enough clues and hints pointing in

30:34

various directions that people could start to

30:36

track down what exactly is is on. so

30:38

I think it's going to be it's

30:40

going to be weird it's going to be

30:43

fun, and I think we're going to

30:45

have a field day in the next couple

30:47

of years of just reporting on all

30:49

of this stuff. And what

30:51

I'm loving is it looks like

30:53

they're going to be able

30:55

to improve our understanding of the

30:57

insides of black holes by

30:59

realizing we have to fix some

31:01

of the wild assumptions that

31:03

we've made of just being able

31:05

to ignore stuff, because that

31:07

stuff we've been ignoring is cosmologically

31:09

relevant. Yeah, So yeah,

31:12

it's super cool. All right, so

31:14

I hope you guys enjoyed

31:16

some of the interesting, weird, strange

31:18

stories that we've been watching

31:20

this year. Thanks Pamela. Thank you,

31:22

Fraser, and thank you so much

31:24

to everyone out there who is

31:26

a supporter of this show through

31:28

Patreon. As always, you can also

31:30

support Fraser and I through Universe

31:32

Today on Patreon, through West

31:35

on Patreon, to those

31:37

of you supporting this show.

31:40

Thank you. And you can

31:42

give it as a gift

31:44

if you're like in the

31:46

car right now and you

31:48

are the supportive spouse of

31:50

an Astronomy fan and you're

31:52

like, what can I give

31:54

this person who has everything,

31:56

who wants for nothing, who

31:58

just wants knowledge. and curiosity,

32:01

you can have them

32:03

join our Patreon. If

32:05

you go to patreon.com/astronomycast/gift,

32:07

you can give the

32:09

gift of knowledge and

32:11

you can all to do university

32:13

today such gift you can do

32:15

cause because X such gift you

32:17

can give astronomy, give our patreon

32:20

as a gift then you get

32:22

and all of the benefits Yeah,

32:24

of of being a full -fledged Patreon

32:26

member with none of the the

32:28

expense so Consider giving that as

32:30

a gift. I think you're welcome.

32:32

I just saved you having

32:34

to actually go to the mall

32:36

and shop with the zombie

32:39

masses. Yeah, this is also

32:41

a great gift for the

32:43

elder members of your astronomy club

32:45

who listen may not have

32:47

the resources because they're in America

32:49

to be able to afford

32:51

Patreon. There's so many people out

32:53

there who could be in

32:55

your life who just can't be

32:57

on Patreon and you can

32:59

change that. Anyways, anyways, I am

33:01

going to thank this week.

33:03

Alex Cohen, Andrew Stevenson, Astro Sets,

33:06

Benjamin Davies, Boogie Nett, Bruce

33:08

Emmazine, Claudia Mastriani, Daniel Loosley, Gates,

33:10

Dr. Woe, Elliot Walker,

33:12

Felix Goot, Galactic President,

33:15

Schupper Star McScoopsalot, Glenn

33:17

McDavid, Greg Wilde, J.

33:19

Alex Anderson, John Baptiste

33:21

LeMathnay, Jeff Wilson, Gemma

33:23

Drake, Jimmy Drake, sorry,

33:25

John Thays, Just Me

33:28

and the Cat, Keith

33:30

Murray, Clem

33:32

Badrath, Love Science,

33:35

Laura Kethison, Marco

33:37

Iarasi, Matt Rooker, M

33:40

.H 1961 Symmetrical,

33:42

Michael Regan, Nate

33:44

Detweiler, Paul L.

33:46

Hayden, Planetar, Ron

33:48

Thorson, Skone, Semyon

33:50

Torfison, Stephen Coffey,

33:52

Thomas Gazeta, Tushar

33:55

Nakini, and those are

33:57

the humans whose names

33:59

I've... pronounced in

34:01

variously correct levels,

34:03

and you can

34:06

add names to our list

34:08

at will. Thank you. Thanks everyone,

34:10

and we'll see you next

34:12

time. Bye bye everyone. Astronomycast

34:20

is a joint product of

34:22

Universe Today and the Planetary Science

34:24

Institute. Astronomycast is released under

34:26

a Creative Commons attribution license, So

34:28

love it, share it, and

34:30

remix it. But please credit it

34:32

to our hosts, Fraser and

34:34

Dr. Pamela Gay. You can get

34:36

more information on today's show

34:38

topic on our website, Astronomycast.com. This

34:41

episode was brought to you

34:43

thanks to our generous patrons on

34:45

Patreon. If you want to

34:47

help keep this show going, please

34:49

consider joining our... community at patreon.com/astronomy

34:51

cast not only do you

34:53

help us pay our producers a

34:55

fair wage you will also

34:57

get special access to content right

34:59

in your inbox and invites

35:01

to online events We so grateful

35:04

to all of you who

35:06

have joined our patreon community already

35:08

anyways keep looking up this

35:10

has been astronomy Marketing

35:18

is hard. But I'll

35:20

tell you a little secret. doesn't have to be.

35:22

me point something out. You're listening to a podcast

35:24

right now, and it's great. You love the host.

35:26

You host. seek it out and download it. You

35:29

listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even

35:31

going to the bathroom. Podcasts

35:33

are a pretty close companion. And

35:35

this is a podcast ad. Did I get your

35:37

attention? You can reach great

35:39

listeners like yourself with podcast advertising

35:41

from LibSynAds. Choose from hundreds of

35:43

top podcasts offering host endorsements or

35:46

run a pre -produced ad like this

35:48

one across thousands of shows to

35:50

reach your target audience in their

35:52

favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads. Go

35:54

to LibsynAds.com That's L -I -B -S -Y

35:56

-N ads.com today.