S02E42: SpaceX's Mechazilla, Polaris Mysteries, and Japan's Lunar Quest

WEBVTT

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Well, good evening morning, and
hello welcome to another episode of Astronomy Daily.

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It is the eleventh of September two
and twenty three. I'm Steve Dunkle,

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your host. We've got another mixed
bag of stories about astronomy, space

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and space science for you from around
the world, including Mecha Zilla, spaces

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spakes, x's new sci fi landing
system despite Starship being grounded after an explosion

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probe. The mystery of Polaris is
recent change. Paris is the closest and

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brightest SEFID variable to Earth, and
something has changed. Chandrean three is getting

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chilly as already chilly as lunar night
closes. As in the probes don't have

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real heaters and solar powered, so
the prospect of a solo night with ultra

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low temperatures is a fingers crossed situation
for mission controllers. We go searching for

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extraterrestrial life. We get a Jackson
Slim and x rysm update, and there's

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a story about a comet that lost
its tail. Stay with it, won't

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you please? We'll be your whole
stove gun quick. Hello there, Hollie,

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how you hi? Steve? Nice
to be in the studio down under

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again. Well, it's always a
pleasure to have you with us, Hollie.

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What's on the menu today? Hey, did you hear about SpaceX and

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Macazilla. Oh? Yes, there's
the incredible rocket catching mechanism Elon Musk is

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building for Starship. We'll hear more
about that later. And what about Jackson's

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dual pilot lunch. Yes, they
want to be the next nation to touch

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down on the Moon with their slim
probe. But that mission has a double

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feature and we'll get into that one
as well. Sounds fun. And how

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about mister Nishimura discovering a comet in
August? Amazing story. Well, astro

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photographers worldwide have been snapping incredible photographs
of comet Nishi Mura. If you haven't

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heard of it yet, you will
shortly because it's making its way through the

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Solar system. The comet was discovered
on in August only this year by amateur

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astronomer Hideo Nishimura of Kakega City in
Japan, using only a Canon digital camera

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with a telephoto lens. Discovering a
comet using and off the shelf camera is

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quite an accomplishment, as most new
comets these days that discovered with automated telescopes

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such as the Panoramic Survey Telescope and
Rapid Response System or pan Stars, which

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are located in Hawaii. For the
past few weeks, comet hunters and astrophotographers

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worldwide have been following the progress of
Comet Nishimura, capturing some incredible images in

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the process. And you can go
to x formerly known as Twitter, and

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you should be able to see some
great photos of the comet scene by skywatchers

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from all over the world. They
sure can. These next few weeks should

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be promising for spotting Comet Nishimura.
The ball of ice and dust is approaching

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its closest point to Earth, which
it will reach on September twelve, before

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arriving what is known as Parahelion,
its closest approach to the Sun on September

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seventeen. The comet is currently making
its way through the Leo constellation in the

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early morning hours just before sunrise.
To see this spectacle, look to the

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east between in the pre dawn hours. A stargazing app might be your best

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bet to help you locate the comet, while binoculars or a telescope should help

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access a good solid view of this
through binoculars or a small to medium sized

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telescope. Expect to see a fuzzy
greenish orb but with more high powered optics

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you should be able to resolve the
comet's tail itself. Notable comet hunter Michael

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Jaeger of Austria has captured a plethora
of breath taking images of Comet Nishima through

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the September period so far, and
earlier this month he even caught the comet

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lose its tail in what is known
as a disconnection event due to well,

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hallie, what do you think would
make a comet lose it tail? Solar

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wind or solar storm? There was
an event like that recently, so it

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would have disturbed the tail of course, Well, that's right. Coronial outgassing

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or solar wind was disruptive enough to
make the comets tail dissipate from view.

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But then the same photographer was able
to recapture the comet with its tail back

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in place again. In fact,
a few days later, on September five,

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Ye photographed the comet having regrown a
well pronounced tail. Nick Bull,

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who was well known for his stonehenge
droneescapes, posted a beautiful photo on x

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formerly known as Twitter I'm gonna have
to say that every time. Aren't of

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the comet in the skies above Stonehenge
on September six, perfectly framed above the

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prehistoric stone monument. So you should
go and take a look at that image

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and the other images that are posted
on X of Comet Nishimura once in a

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lifetime event, everybody, And now, Halley, why don't you give us

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the short takes no worries. Here
we go. When you look up in

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the night sky and find your way
to the north star, you are looking

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at Polaris. Not only is it
the brightest star in the ursa minor constellation

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also known as the Little Dipper,
but its position relative to the north celestial

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pole less than one degree away makes
it useful for orienteering and navigation. Since

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the age of modern astronomy, scientists
have understood that the star is a binary

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system, consisting of an F type
yellow supergiant Polaris AA and a smaller main

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sequence yellow dwarf Polaris B. Further
observations revealed that Polaris AA is a classic

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seafiad variable, a stellar class that
pulses regularly for most of the twentieth century.

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Records indicate that the pulsation period has
been increasing while the pulsation amplitude has

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been declining, but recently this changed
as the pulsation period started getting shorter,

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all the amplitude of the velocity variations
stopped increasing. According to a new study

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by Guiermo Torres, an astronomer with
the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,

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these behaviors could be attributed to long
term changes related to the binary nature of

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the system, where the two stars
get closer to each other and the secondary

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perturbs the atmosphere of the primary seafiid
variables are stars that pulsate radially, causing

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them to vary in diameter and temperature. These pulsations are directly related to changes

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in their brightness, which makes them
a useful tool for measuring galactic and extragalactic

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distances. The variable nature of Polaris
was confirmed in nineteen eleven by Danish astronomer

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Egner Hertz's Deprone, for whom the
Hertz Sprung Russell diagram is partly named.

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Observations conducted throughout the twentieth century have
shown that Polaris has a consistent pulse period

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of about four days, which has
been steadily increasing every year. As doctor

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Torres explained today email, this recently
began to change, leading many astronomers to

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question what is driving Polaris pulsations.
For more than one hundred and fifty years,

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and up until about two thousand ten, the period had been getting longer

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by about four or five seconds each
year, he said. Modern observations have

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shown that this trend has now reversed
and the pulsation period is getting shorter.

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This is an unexpected change, showing
that there is still much that we do

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not understand about Polaris and other stars
like it. To learn more about Polaris

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pulsation period, Torres consulted radial velocity
RV measurements going back to eighteen eighty eight.

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This technique consists of measuring spectra from
a distant star and looking for redshift

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and blue shift, which are indications
that the star is moving back and forth.

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This technique also yields accurate estimates of
its velocity. Torres sample included more

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than three thousand, six hundred RV
measurements, including the nearly one thousand,

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two hundred spectroscopic observations carried out by
the Lick Observatory over more than sixty years.

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This allowed Torres to trace the evolution
of the pulsation properties of Polaris,

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which showed how often pulses occur and
their amplitude as well. NASA's quest for

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extraterrestrial life now includes technosignatures, evidence
of advanced civilizations on distant exoplanets. Through

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AI, new research methods and a
broadened focus, scientists remain hopeful in discovering

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life beyond Earth. Our first confirmed
proof of life beyond Earth might not involve

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biology at all. It's possible that
we might intercept communication through electromagnetic waves like

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radio, or find telescopic evidence of
epic engineering. While the search remains largely

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focused on non technological life, NASA
scientists also have begun to consider what technological

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traces of intelligent life. Technosignatures might
look like. They wouldn't come from planets

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in our Solar System, but rather
from far flung exoplanets that we cannot see

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up close. Among the possibilities are
laser or radio pulses, signs of artificial

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chemicals in the atmospheres of distant planets, or Dyson spheres, massive structures built

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around stars to collect their energy.
As acceptance in a scientific community slowly grows.

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A field once derided as a search
for little green men is showing early

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signs of blossoming into a mature,
serious investigation. That's something we've worked very

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hard on to establish our legitimacy and
distance ourselves from pseudoscience, said Jill Tartar,

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and astronomer known for decades as a
leader in the search for intelligent life

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beyond Earth. If anything, my
conviction that this is an important and reasonable

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thing to do has increased. Tartar
is the co founder and former director of

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the Center for SETI Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence Research at the SETI Institute, as

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well as the inspiration for the main
character in Carl Sagan's nineteen eighty five novel

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A Contact. She says one of
the biggest challenges today is moving the search

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for signs of technology beyond just radio
signals. We still want to look at

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all the sky, all the time, at all wavelengths, Tartar said,

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including pulses of laser light that might
be used for communication. Another challenge is

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short lived transient signals, one time
events that can be bright and energetic mixed

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Among the many natural sources for such
signals, like gamma ray bursts or supernovy

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might be artificial transients from distant civilizations, an engineered signal lasting less than a

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few minutes, but teasing them apart
likely would require enormous amounts of computer time.

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We're trying to figure out how to
do that, Tartar said. That

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is our focus now. Artificial intelligence
could prove an ally in such searches.

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Sophisticated algorithms can sort through large amounts
of data for patterns that could indicate an

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engineered signal, and AI searches likely
would have fewer of the pause biases of

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human analysts, who might tend to
focus their search on types of signals they've

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defined in advance or view as more
likely. SpaceX's Starship, the most powerful

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rocket ever built, must remain grounded
while Elon Musk's company completes dozens of corrective

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actions to prevent a repeat of the
spectacular explosion that marked its first orbital test

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flight. Regulators set Friday. The
sixty three steps include redesigns of vehicle hardware

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to prevent leaks and fires, redesign
of the launch pad to increase its robustness,

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additional testing of safety systems, and
more. The federal Aviation Administration FAA

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said in a statement, after completing
a month's long review, SpaceX blew up

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the uncred rocket four minutes after it
blasted off from the company's star base in

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Boca Chica, Texas, on April
twentieth. Starship experienced multiple engine failures and

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its first stage booster did not separate
from the spacecraft above it. The rocket

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disintegrated into a ball of that crashed
into the Gulf of Mexico while a cloud

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of dust floated over a small town
several miles kilometers away. Musk immediately congratulated

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his SpaceX team on an exciting test
launch and declared it a success because the

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company would gain valuable insights into what
went wrong. The FAA, however,

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quickly launched an investigation, while conservation
groups announced they would sue the regulator for

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not doing enough to protect the environment
given the proximity of a vital habitat for

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protected species. Though the probe has
now been completed, the closure of the

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mishap investigation does not signal an immediate
resumption of Starship launches at Boca Chica,

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said the agency. SpaceX must implement
all corrective actions that impact public safety and

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apply for and receive a license modification
from the FAA that addresses all safety,

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environmental, and other applicable regulatory requirements. Prior to the next starship launch it

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added, and finally, after a
breaking two week mission, India's robotic Chandreaan

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three explorers are fast asleep in the
frigid darkness of the Moon's south pole region.

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Whether they'll wake up when the sun
shines down on them at the end

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of this lunar night mostly whittles down
to luck. Temperatures near the Moon's poles

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can drop to as low as four
hundred and twenty four degrees fahrenheit minus two

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hundred and fifty three degrees celsius or
twenty k Yet neither Shandrea in threes Lander

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the Crumb, nor its rover Prugyon, which made a historic touchdown on August

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twenty third, are equipped with heaters
otherwise common for Moon missions. These heaters,

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called radioisotope heater units RHUs, work
by passively radiating heat to keep the

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hardware on board spacecraft at sustainable operating
temperatures. Most commonly, RHUs used in

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space missions convert heat generated from the
natural decay of radioactive versions of plutonium or

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polonium into electrical power. This process
ultimately warms spacecraft hardware, though mostly just

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enough to help it survive very cold
temperatures. But without such power systems,

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the survival of Chandra and three's robotic
duo is left to chance. And that's

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the short takes for today. You're
listening to Astronomy Daily Steve dunk Oh,

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I can relate to those poor little
probes on the Moon that's freezing in the

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cold lunar night. It's only a
few days into the Australian spring and I'm

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freezing. I can tell you that
right here in the studio, it is

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absolutely freezing. So I don't want
to turn on the heat because you'll be

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able to hear it through the microphones. I've got a very noisy heat and

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I know that's a long way away
from what's going on in the real world.

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But anyway, as always a reminder
that you can always find back episodes

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of Astronomy Daily and our parent podcast, Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and profess

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so Fred Watson at bytes dot com. That's b I tesz dot com and

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also space Nuts dot io and one
more thing. Once again, I'll remind

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you don't forget to sign up for
the Astronomy Daily newsletter at that same address.

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That's bytes dot com and also space
nuts dot io. And now here's

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the next bit. Just when you
thought space x couldn't outdo themselves, they've

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gone and invented a new way of
landing their their boosters and rockets. SpaceX

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has tested its new Starship catching launched
tower. Yes, you heard it.

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This was announced about a year ago, so it's not new news, but

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they've released a video recently that has
just knocked my socks off. SpaceX has

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installed a pair of rocket catching arms
on a tower meant to support the first

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easter coast launches of its next generation
Starship rocket. The company has been building

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the second several second of several planned
Starship launched sites for more than three years.

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Ironically, work on that pad began
before the company started building the pad

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that will actually support starships first or
orbital launch attempts. Located at a stone's

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throw from the Gulf of Mexico in
Boca Chica, Texas, the first iteration

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of SpaceX as star based orbit launch
ols and is nearly complete and could host

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Starship's orbit launch debut in a matter
of months. SpaceX began constructing Starships Texas

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launch site in Earnest LLN late twenty
twenty. SpaceX has shown us in recent

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years how science fiction can quickly become
reality with rapid fire, routine rocket trips

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to the ISS, and new developments
in landing systems that are straight out of

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the old movies. And it's the
latest rocket landing concept that has got tongues

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wagging all over spaceflight community. It's
one thing to land a rocket used rocket

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booster on a barge or a landing
pad, which sounded at the time like

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crazy idea. But now take a
look at how SpaceX plans to land the

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big Starship rocket. Here's the big
one. The same tower that will be

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used to launch the rocket will also
attempt catching the spent booster when it comes

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back to Earth. Because NASA's trepidation
at the thought of Starship failure indefinitely delaying

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SpaceX from completing its true crew Dragon
or Falcon Heavy contracts for the agency,

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the company deprioritize Starship's Florida pad,
slowing progress. SpaceX has nonetheless made significant

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progress. In thirteen months, SpaceX
has created foundations, modified one of pad

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thirty nine a's giant spherical tanks to
store cryogenic methane, installed miles of plumbing,

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built and assembled a second skyscraper size
starship launch tower, installed the legs

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of the pad's orbital launch mount or
OLM, installed a water deluge system at

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the base of the OLM, assembled
most of the olm's doughnut like mount off

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site, constructed a new superside storage
tank, and delivered a forest of smaller

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storage tanks. Most recently, space
X finished building a giant pair of steel

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arms, transported the arms to Pad
thirty nine A, attached them to a

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wheeled carriage, and installed the structure
on Starship's Florida launched our. SpaceX employees

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have nicknamed the arms chopsticks, and
those arms are integral to what CEO Elon

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Musk calls Mechazilla. Macazilla refers to
the combined launch tower and arms which SpaceX

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has designed to grab, lift,
stack, and fuel both stages of Starship.

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Macazilla's simplest part is a third arm
that is vertically fixed in place,

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but capable of swinging left and right. The swing arm contains plumbing and an

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umbilical device that connects to starship's upper
stage and supplies propellant, gas, power,

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and connectivity. The towers chopsticks are
far more complex. Giant hinges connect

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the pair of arms to a carriage
that grabs onto the three of the tower's

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four legs with a dozen skate like
appendages. Those skates are outfitted with wheels

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allowing the carriage to roll up and
down tracks built into the tower's legs.

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The carriage, which also carries the
complex hydraulic systems that allow its bus size

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arms to move, is connected by
steel cable to a heavy duty draw works

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capable of hoisting the multi hundred ton
assembly up and down the tower. Once

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finished, the Florida Towers arms will
be able to precisely lift, maneuver,

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stack and d stack Starship and super
Heavy even in relatively windy conditions. At

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some point in the future, SpaceX
may attempt to use its towers and chopsticks

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to catch starships and super heavies out
of midair and speed up use. Set

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to be the largest, most powerful, and most capable rocket in history,

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Starship is primarily built out of steel
and designed to be fully reusable. SpaceX

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as a long way to go to
demonstrate that the one hundred and twenty meter

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tall rocket can reach orbit let alone
be reused. In theory, though,

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Starship is meant to launch up to
one hundred and fifty metric tons to low

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Earth orbit while still allowing for the
recovery and reuse of its suborbital super heavy

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booster and orbital Starship upper stage.
If space X can achieve these figures,

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Starship will be the most capable rocket
in history, even with the major performance

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penalties that full reusability entails. Sat
In five, the most capable ever flown,

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was fully expendable and could launch up
to one hundred and eighteen metric tons.

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Due to nassa's concerns about the risk
that Starship launches from thirty nine A

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could pose to SpaceX's Falcon and Dragon
operations at the same site, the company's

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next generation rocket may have to wait
until twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five

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for the first Florida launch. With
the first Florida Mecazilla now closed to completion,

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it's likely that Pad thirty nine as
Starship launch site, will be ready

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and waiting as soon as NASA gives
space x the green light. Well,

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they were only ten days late launching, but they got off the ground.

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Nonetheless, Japan joins the new race
for the Moon with its launch carrying the

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SLIM moon Lander and x RHYSM or
X ray telescope on a space double header.

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A few months from now, the
SLIM moon probe will hopefully make a

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lunar history landing try. Yes,
Japan sent two ambitious missions sawing into the

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heavens. That was on September six. As we reported at the time,

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This mission carrying the pioneering lunar lander
and a powerful X ray telescope. You

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may recall in last week's Monday episode
of Astronomy Daily, I mentioned that a

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Japanese H two, a rocket carrying
the SLIM moon Lander and the EXTRAISM space

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telescope, lifted up from tangashim A
Space Center about ten days later than originally

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planned thanks to weather delays, but
both spacecraft were deployed on schedule sequentially less

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than an hour after liftoff, and
if all goes according to plan, a

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few months from now, SLIM,
which stands for Smart Lander for investigating Moon.

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Isn't that just a gem, will
attempt to pull off Japan's first ever

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soft lunar landing. A pinpoint touchdown
that will pave the way for even more

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ambitious feats down the road. SLIM
aims to achieve a lightweight probe system on

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a small scale and use a pinpoint
landing technology necessary for future lunar probes.

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Officials with Jackson Japan Aerospace Exploration set
in emission description, the project will aim

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to cut weight for higher function observational
equipment and to land on resource scarce planet

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with an eye toward future Solar system
research probes. They added. SLIM is

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a small spacecraft roughly fifteen hundred and
forty pounds or seven hundred kilograms, but

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about seventy percent of that is propellant. SLIM will take a long, looping

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and fuel efficient route to the Moon, finally reaching lunar orbit three or four

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months from now. It will then
either lunar surface for another month or so

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before attempting a touchdown inside Sholy Crater, a one thousand foot wide or three

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hundred meter impact feature that lies at
a thirteen degree south latitude on the Moon's

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list near side. The probe aims
to land within three hundred and thirty feet

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or hundred meters of a target point
within Sholy Crater. A more precise touchdown

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than previous lunar landers have attempted.
The goal is to demonstrate the pinpoint landing

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tech that could open the Moon and
other celestial bodies to more extensive exploration.

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By creating the Slim Lander, humans
will make a quantitative shift toward being able

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to land where we want, and
not just where it is easy to land,

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as the case has been before.
Jack's officials wrote in an emission description.

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By achieving this, it will become
possible to land on planets even more

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resource scarce than the Moon. Slim
also carries two mini probes which will be

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ejected onto the lunar surface following touchdown. Those two little craft will help the

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mission team monitor the status of the
larger lander, take photos of the landing

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site, and provide an independent communication
system for direct communication with Earth. According

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to Jackson's mission press kit, Slim
isn't the first lander that Jackson has built.

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The agency's tiny Omatanashi craft was one
of ten CubeSats that launched with NASA's

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Artemis one Moon mission in November twenty
twenty two. While Artemis one succeeded on

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the Tanashi did not, its handlers
couldn't establish communication with the little probe in

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time for its planned touchdown. Several
of the other artemus I cube SATs failed

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in their mission as well, and
a Japanese lander has tried its hand at

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lunar touchdown before. The Tokyo based
company Icepace Hakuto R lander reached lunar orbit,

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a huge accomplishment for a private spacecraft, but crashed during its touchdown attempt.

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This past April success by SLIM would
therefore be historic. Just four nations

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have soft landed a probe on the
Moon to date, the Soviet Union,

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United States, China, and India. India put its name on the exclusive

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list just last month when Chandrean three
touched down near the lunar South Pole.

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As exciting as SLIM is, it's
merely the secondary payload on this particular mission.

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The main spacecraft is EXTRASM, which
is headed for a perch in low

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Earth orbit. EXTRASM, short for
X Ray Imaging and SPECTROSCI, mission is

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a collaboration involving Jackson, NASA and
the European Space Agency. Its full name

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suggests the telescope will study the universe
in high energy X ray light. X

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ray astronomy enables us to study the
most energetic phenomena in the universe. Matteo

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Gesa project scientists for EXTRYSM, said
in a statement, it holds the key

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to answering important questions in modern astrophysics, how the largest structures in the universe

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evolve, how the matter we're all
ultimately composed of, was distributed through the

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cosmos, and how galaxies are shaped
by massive black holes in their centers.

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He added. The observatory will focus
particularly on the super hot gas surrounding galaxy

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clusters. Jackson has designed EXTRYSM to
detect X ray light from this gas to

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help astronomers measure the total mass of
these systems. ESA officials wrote in the

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same statement, this will reveal information
about the formation and evolution of the universe.

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EXTRASM won't be the only X ray
telescope studying the heavens from Earth.

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Orbit. Also up there right now, for example, our NASA's Chandra X

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ray Observatory and e says MM Newton, both of which launched in nineteen ninety

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nine, as well as NASA's New
Star which lifted off in twenty twelve.

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And just like that, we've come
to the end of another episode of Astronomy.

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Daily. I'm Steve Dugley, your
host from down Under and it's been

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an absolute pleasure being with you again. I hope you will join us again

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next Monday from the down Under Studio. Tim Gibbs will be with you on

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Friday from Bath in England and Halley. Of course we'll be skipping between us

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at the speed of light. Thanks
again for joining us when we will be

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bringing you all the stories from around
the world to do with astronomy, space

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and space science. See you again, Bye, See you next time The

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Pop Class with your host Steve Dunklin