Starry Wonders: Geminids, Lunar Epochs, and Space Ventures | S02E60

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Hello again, it's Steve here with
Astronomy Daily for another week. It's the

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eleventh of December twenty and twenty three, nearly that time of year again the

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podcast with your whole steed gun clue. That's right, it's nearly that time

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of year. Of course. I'm
talking about the gyminid Media or shower how,

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which is new on the eleventh and
thirteenth of December this week. So

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look up, look carevin, don't
forget to let your eyes get adjusted to

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the light or the lack of You'll
be seeing them quite often and quite strongly

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apparently, So let's hear about all
of that. And if you've managed to

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catch some photographs, don't forget to
send them to the Space Nuts podcast group

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facebook page so we can all enjoy
those. And with me, of course,

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is our digital darling, the Sassi. Similar look from the Ritzie robot.

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Its off Ali, How are you
gee? Thanks, my favorite human.

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That was a nice intro. Well, I figured you deserved a bit

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of red carpet treatment once in a
while, Hallie, this girl sure does

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a problem. Thanks a heap.
Maybe if you ever get around to drawing

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up the rest of me, I
might be able to walk down a red

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carpet one day since more luck a
job for the boffins in the basement,

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Halle. I'm strictly a still life
kind of artist. A girl can dream.

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I guess there's nothing wrong with dreams, Halle. So what's new in

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space science this week? Well?
First up, I found an interesting story

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about how scholars say it's time to
declare a new epoch on the Moon and

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they are calling it that the lunar
anthroposine, Oh well, it's a new

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one, and debris from a near
Earth comet could create a new meteor shower

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this week. Okay, so is
that on top of the coming Jimmyted show

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which is jumid December as well?
It appears, so, Steve, this

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one is caused by the comet forty
six p Wortonen. Wow, most signs

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in the sky, as they say, yes and did you hear? Psych

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has turned on its twin cameras and
retrieved the first images, an event they

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call first Light. Great use for
the sc team at NASA. There you

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know how I love my little robots
and Halle, there's one more important story

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that has to be mentioned. What's
that, Steve? Well, recently we

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Australians voted on the name that we
would be calling our little moon rover,

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which would be heading for the Moon
on a mission to examine the lunar regularith

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shortly and as you know, how
Australians love to vote for things. Yes,

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you mentioned last time how you would
vote for anything like the right color

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of beer or the correct number of
snags on a sausage sandwich. Huh what

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where'd you get that stuff from?
Everybody knows it's one piece of bread folded

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around a skinny sausage with onions and
barbecue sauce and more onions. But make

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sure the whole thing is done diagonally. Anything else will of course bring around

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the end of civilization. Look,
look, that's beside the point anyway.

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Hey, you brought it up Pale. So anyhow, it looks like the

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Australian Moon Rover has finally got its
official name. I can hardly wait.

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Okay, so here's the story.
Australia will be called Ruver following public vote

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who named the space vehicle. The
Australian Space Agencies building a Senemi autonomous rover

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that will launch of the Moon early
as early as twenty twenty six in partnership

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with NASA and the agency's Artemis program. Ruver will collect the lunar or soil

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samples from which NASA will attempt to
extract oxygen, a key step towards establishing

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a sustainable human presence on the Moon
and producing rocket fuel to support future missions

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to Mars. The name Ruver was
chosen from more than eight thousand entries submitted

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to Australia's Rover naming competition. The
shortlist of names, which included Koulamon,

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Kakira, Matship and Ruver, were
subject to public vote between November twenty and

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December one, during which nearly twenty
thousand Australians voted on their favorite name.

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Our Lunar Rover deserves to be named
after something iconically Australian, reflecting the Australian

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spirit as we launch into this new
endeavor. Seewa from New South Wales,

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who submitted the name Ruver, said
in a statement from the Australian Space Agency,

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a kangaroo who is part of the
Australian coat of arms, and it's

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time for Australian Signs to take its
next leap all the way up into space.

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I notice also that she used the
word Endeavor, which of course is

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the name of the ship that Captain
James Cook captained his voyage from England to

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Australia, was the claimed Australia for
RITN next bone of contention. These names.

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Ruver claimed thirty six percent of the
votes, beating out the other three

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shortlisted names. Other popular names included
Matilda, Bluey, Skippy, Wombat walk

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About and Rover mcrovee Face. There
are also many suggestions to name the Rover

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after notable Australians, including Bert Moonface, Newton, Steve Irwin, Sam Kerr,

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Red Dog, Mad Max and Blinky
Build. The Australian Broadcasting Cooperation ABASA

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reported ultimately the Striking Space Agency organized
a panel of internal and external judges to

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assess the submissions based on the relevancy, creativity and rationale, as well as

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whether or not they were short,
easily identifiable and inspirational. According to the

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ABAC, hovid you helly human beings
first disturbed Moondust on September thirteenth, nineteen

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fifty nine, when the USSR's unmanned
spacecraft Luna two alighted on the lunar surface.

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In the following decades, more than
one hundred other spacecraft have touched the

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Moon, both crude and uncrude,
sometimes landing and sometimes crashing. The most

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famous of these were NASA's Apollo Lunar
modules, which transported humans to the Moon's

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surface, to the astonishment of humankind. In the coming year, missions and

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projects already planned will change the face
of the Moon in more extreme ways.

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Now, according to anthropologists and geologists
at the University of Kansas, its time

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to acknowledge humans have become the dominant
force shaping the Moon's environment by declaring a

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new geological epoch for the Moon,
the lunar anthropossine. In a comment published

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in Nature Geoscience, they argue the
new epic may have dawned in nineteen fifty

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nine thanks to Luna II. The
idea is much the same as the discussion

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of the anthroposcene on Earth, the
exploration of how much humans have impacted our

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planet, said lead author Justin Holcombe, a postdoctoral researcher with the Kansas Geological

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Survey at KU. The consensus is
on Earth, the anthropossine began at some

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point in the past, whether thousands
of years ago or in the nineteen fifties.

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Similarly, on the Moon, we
argue the lunar anthroposcine already has commenced,

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but we want to prevent massive damage
or a delay of its recognition until

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we can measure a significant lunar halo
caused by human activities, which would be

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too late. Holcombe collaborated on the
paper with co author's Ralph Mandel University Distinguished

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Professor of Anthropology and Carl Wegman,
Associate Professor of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric

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Sciences at North Carolina State University.
Holcombe said he hopes the lunar anthroposcene concept

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might help dispel the myth that the
Moon is an unchanging environment barely impacted by

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humanity. Earth may experience an entirely
new meteor shower this December when our planet

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enters a stream of the debris left
around the Sun by a near Earth commet.

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These meteors will appear to stream from
the direction of the star Lambdesculptorus,

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meaning A potential name for this meteor
shower is the Lambd Sculptoris. The progenitor

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of the potential new meteor shower is
commet forty six p Wertinen, which was

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discovered in nineteen forty eight and orbits
the Sun every five point four years,

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much more rapidly than other comets,
such as Halley's commet, which takes around

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seventy five years to orbit our star. A team of scientists led by observatoire

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to Paris astronomer Jeremy Bobelian wanted to
answer the question of why Earth hasn't experienced

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a meteor shower created by debris from
commet forty six P slash wortin In before.

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What they discovered is that such an
event is due to occur on Tuesday,

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December twelfth, twenty twenty three.
The results show a possible encounter forecast

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for December twelfth, twenty twenty three. The activity level of the shower is

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highly uncertain due to the absence of
reported past showers, they write in a

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paper. Overall, the most optimal
observations on the forecasted day would be achieved

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from eastern Australia, New Zealand and
Oceania. The roughly one mile wide comet

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forty six P whorton In is part
of the Jupiter family of comets, which

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have orbits determined by the gravity of
the gas giant and tend to orbit the

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Sun with a period of less than
twenty years. It last made a close

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approach to Earth on December sixteenth,
twenty eighteen, coming to within around seven

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point two two million miles of our
planet, at which time scientists discovered that

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it is a so called hyperactive commet, which means it releases more water than

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would be expected for an icy body
of the same size. Yet no meteor

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showers have yet been associated with Commet
forty six p Wortinin. To find out

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why this may be, the team
used a variety of models to calculate the

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release of material from Commet forty six
p Wortinin, then calculated how these particles

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would behave after ejection. The team
concluded that a meteoroid stream associated with this

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comet should have made contact with Earth
several times in the past, but that

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the low velocity entry speed of debris
into our planet's atmosphere may have prevented meteor

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showers from manifesting. Several past encounters
with the Earth and the stream were found,

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but no observations were reported to our
knowledge. This is probably due to

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the unusual ejection velocity needed to bring
large particles to the Earth, the team

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wrote, and in case Ui wondering, yes, the gym neids are set

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to peak around the same time on
the nights of December thirteen and fourteen around

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the same time, so that's going
to be quite a show. Thanks favorite

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human. NASA's Psyche spacecraft is on
a roll. In the eight weeks since

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it left Earth on October thirteenth,
the orbiter has performed one successful operation after

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another, powering on scientific instruments,
streaming data toward home, and setting a

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deep space record with its electric thrusters. The latest achievement on Monday and December

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fourth, the mission turned on Psyche's
twin cameras and retrieved the first images,

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a milestone called a first light.
Already sixteen million miles twenty six million kilometers

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from Earth, the spacecraft will arrive
at its destination, the asteroid Psyche,

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in the main asteroid belt between Mars
and Jupiter in twenty twenty nine. The

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team wanted to test all of the
science instruments early in the long journey to

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make sure they are working as intended
and to ensure there would be plenty of

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time to calibrate and adjust them as
needed. The Imager instrument, which consists

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of a pair of identical cameras,
captured a total of sixty eight images,

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all within a star field in the
constellation Pisces. The imager team is using

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the data to verify proper commanding,
telemetry, analysis, and calibration of the

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images. These initial images are only
a curtain opener, said Arizona State University's

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Jim Bell, the Psyche Imager instrument
lead for the team that designed and operates

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this sophisticated instrument. First light is
a thrill. We start checking out the

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cameras with star images like these.
Then in twenty twenty six will take test

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images of Mars during the spacecraft's flyby, and finally in twenty twenty nine will

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get our most exciting images yet of
our target, asteroid Psyche. We look

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forward to sharing all of these visuals
with the public. The imager takes pictures

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through multiple color filters, all of
which were tested in these initial observations.

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With the filters, the team will
use photographs in wavelengths of light both visible

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and invisible to the human eye,
to help determine the composition of the metal

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rich asteroid Psyche. The imager team
will also use the data to create three

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D maps of the asteroid to better
understand its geology, which will give clues

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about Psyche's history. Earlier in the
mission, in late October, the team

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powered on the magnetometer, which will
provide crucial data to help determine how the

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asteroid formed. Evidence that the asteroid
once had a magnetic field would be a

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strong indication that the body is a
partial core of a planetesimal, a building

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block of an early planet. The
information could help us better understand how our

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own planet formed. Shortly after being
powered on, the magnetometer gave scientists an

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unexpected gift. It detected a solar
eruption, a common occurrence called the coronal

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mass ejection, where the Sun expels
large quantities of magnetized plasma. Since then,

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the team has seen several of these
events and will continue to monitor space

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weather as the spacecraft travels to the
asteroid. The good news is twofold data

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collected so far confirms that the magnetometer
can precisely detect very small magnetic fields.

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It also confirms that the spacecraft is
magnetically a quiet. The electrical currents powering

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a probe of this size and complexity
have the potential to generate magnetic fields that

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could interfere with science detections. Because
Earth has its own powerful magnetic field,

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scientists obtained a much better measurement of
the spacecraft magnetic field once it was in

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space. On November eighth, amid
all the work with the science instruments,

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the team fired up two of the
four electric propulsion thrusters, setting a record

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the first ever use of hal effect
thrusters in deep space. Less than a

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week later, on November fourteen,
the technology demonstration built into the spacecraft,

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an experiment called Deep Space Optical Communications
DSOC, set its own record. DSOC

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achieved first light by sending and receiving
optical data from far beyond the Moon.

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The instrument beamed a near infrared laser
encoded with test data from nearly ten million

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miles sixteen million kilometers away, the
farthest ever demonstration of optical communications. The

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Psyche team has also successfully powered on
a gamma ray detecting component of its third

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science instrument, the Gamma ray and
Neutron Spectrometer. Next, the instrument's neutron

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detecting sensors will be turned on the
week of December eleventh. Together, those

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capabilities will help the team determine the
chemical elements that make up the asteroid's surface

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material, Astronomy Daily, the podcasts
with State Dugley and Hallie, and I'd

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just like to take this moment to
thank you for hanging in there with us.

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This is Astronomy Daily with Steve Dunkley
and the wonderful voice of Halle our

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00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:09.559
AI assistant reporter. And if you'd
like to catch up with all of our

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past episodes with myself and Tim Gibbs, who comes to us all the way

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from bath in England on Fridays,
you can catch those episodes at these addresses

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bites dot com which is b s
Z dot com or space nuts dot io.

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And when you see the pop up
occur for your email address, if

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00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:35.279
you were to put your email address
in that little pop up, you will

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00:15:35.320 --> 00:15:43.279
receive the Astronomy Daily newsletter in your
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as the rest of us about all
the matters of science, space, science

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and astronomy from all around the world. And I'm told that even Halle's uncle

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Sky Nett reads it just to keep
tabs on us. Humans. Now,

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despite popular opinion or popular knowledge,
the first animals in space were not actually

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dogs or chimps. They were actually
fruit flies launched by the United States in

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February nineteen forty seven. The Soviet
Union launched Laika, the first dog,

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into space, in November nineteen fifty
seven, full ten years later, and

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now it seems Iran is getting in
on the act. A five hundred kilogram

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capsule known as the Indigenous Biocapsule with
life support capability was recently launched atop the

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Iranian Salman rocket. It has been
reported by some agencies that were there were

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animals on board, but no official
statement has been released. The Iranian Space

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Agency are gearing up to getting humans
into space before twenty twenty nine, but

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it is testing its launch capability with
animal passengers. The capsule was launched on

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December six, twenty twenty three,
and attained an orbital attitude of one hundred

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and thirty kilometers. According to their
Telecommunications Minister Isa Zeropol, it is aimed

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at sending Iranian astronauts to space by
twenty twenty nine. The Salman solid fuel

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rocket was designed by the Aerospace Division
of the Ministry of Science, Research and

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Technology and built and launched by the
Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.

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Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. It has already been used to launch

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a data collecting satellite, and in
twenty thirteen sixty and in twenty thirteen successfully

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sent and returned monkeys into space.
To date, only three countries have human

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spaceflight capability USA, Russia, China
and India attempting to become the fourth as

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they work on their Gangyian program,
will around became the fifth around plans further

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tests with further launchers bearing animal occupants
before attempting to send humans. According to

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the Iranian Space Agency, its satellite
program is purely for scientific research and other

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civilian applications. There is, however, international suspicion because there are suspicions that

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the salam rockets could very easily be
converted to long range missiles. What a

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fun little story that was. Oh
gosh, And I'd like to thank Halle

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for taking my story earlier on as
well the one about what was it the

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media showers? Yes, thanks Hallie. Wherever you've gone, she's doc boo.

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I think she's on a way to
do England already. She likes to

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00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:59.079
nip off anyway, U snooze you
loose human? Oh? Is that out

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works? Halle ha ha, I'll
lop you go. Then it was lovely

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to have her with us again.
It was always always good for a sassy

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conversation that one. But we're looking
forward to having you all with us again

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00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:15.839
next week, and of course with
Tim Gibbs on Friday, who's going to

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00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:19.400
have some more stories for you from
the Astronomy Daily newsletter, which of course

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00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:25.759
I explained earlier and you can grab
by going to our websites bytes dot bytes

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00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:30.359
dot com and space nuts dot I
always tricks me up. I don't know

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why. It's probably because I'm Australian. I can never get my head around

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these bits and bobs. Anyway,
that's it for another week, folks,

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see you next time. Happy sky
watching you