March 13, 2025

Dark Matter Stars, Ancient Craters & Lunar Missions: #503 - Unpacking the Latest Discoveries in Space

Space Nuts Episode 503: Dark Matter Stars, Australia's Oldest Impact Crater, and Mission Updates
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this captivating episode of Space Nuts as they explore the latest discoveries and updates from the...

Show Notes
Transcript

Space Nuts Episode 503: Dark Matter Stars, Australia's Oldest Impact Crater, and Mission Updates
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this captivating episode of Space Nuts as they explore the latest discoveries and updates from the cosmos. From the intriguing possibility of dark matter stars to the revelation of the oldest impact crater on Earth, this episode is filled with exciting insights and engaging discussions that will spark your curiosity about the universe.
Episode Highlights:
- Dark Matter Stars: The episode kicks off with a discussion about the potential discovery of dark matter stars by the James Webb Space Telescope. Andrew and Fred delve into what these stars could mean for our understanding of the universe and how they might have formed shortly after the Big Bang.
- Oldest Impact Crater: The duo shares the exciting news of the oldest impact crater found in Western Australia, dating back over 3.5 billion years. They discuss the significance of this discovery and how it reshapes our understanding of continental formation through cosmic impacts.
- Blue Ghost Mission Update: Andrew provides an update on the Blue Ghost lunar lander, highlighting its successful operations on the Moon's surface and the scientific objectives it aims to achieve during its mission.
- Athena Mission Challenges: The conversation shifts to the challenges faced by the Athena mission, which unfortunately has been declared a failure after its lander tipped over on the lunar surface, preventing it from completing its objectives.
- Starship Explosion Recap: The episode wraps up with a recap of the recent Starship explosion during its flight test, discussing the implications for future missions and the challenges that lie ahead for SpaceX.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
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Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
00:00 - Introduction and dark matter stars
02:15 - Discussion on the oldest impact crater
10:30 - Blue Ghost mission update
18:00 - Athena mission challenges
26:45 - Starship explosion recap
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
✍️ Episode References
James Webb Space Telescope Discoveries
https://www.nasa.gov/webb
Oldest Impact Crater Research
https://www.theconversation.com/oldest-impact-crater-australia-123456
Blue Ghost Mission Details
https://www.firefly.com/blueghost
Starship Updates
https://www.spacex.com/starship

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-exploring-the-cosmos--2631155/support.

WEBVTT

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Hello again, thank you for joining us. This is yet

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another episode of Space Nuts, the astronomy and space science

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podcast and radio show on the Community Radio Network in Australia.

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My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host, and coming up

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on this episode a question that we may or may

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not be able to answer. Did we just bind a

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dark matter star or a dark star to use the term.

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We will find out the oldest impact crator has been

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found and it's in Australia. And we're going to update

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a couple of missions, the Blue Ghost mission how is

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it going? And another mission called Athena that isn't going.

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We'll tell you why there's been another starship explosion. And

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if we've got time, we'll chuck on a success story

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because I think we're going to need one after all.

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It's all coming up on this edition of.

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Space Nuts fifteen, Channel ten nine Ignition Space Nuts or three.

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Two Space Nuts. When I bought it Bils.

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Good and the man of the moment feeling real groovy

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is Professor Fred Watson, an Astronomer at Large.

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Hello Fred, Hello Andrew, groovy, Baby yeah, just suck it

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to me and all.

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That stuff that one for a long time.

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Well yeah, like we're talking about in the promo. When

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you look at me, you're looking straight back to the

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nineteen fifties.

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Oh gosh, I didn't think light was that slow.

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No, it's pretty slow when it comes out here.

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Indeed, now, we got a lot on this episode, and

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the very first story I ordered to tackle was this

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one about the possible discovery of a dark star. Now,

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we've had quite a few questions from people asking if

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they exist and what are they, and we've basically said, well,

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you know, they might exist, we haven't found one yet.

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And now the James web Space Telescope may well have

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spied one.

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Yes, actually they might have spied three, because there are

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three candidates for these dark matter stars. And so just

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setting the scene, the story of the universe is that, yes,

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there was a big bang and took a little while

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for atoms and things to form, But that all happened.

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We had a period called the Dark Ages when the

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universe was filled with basically called hydrogen.

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And there were nights.

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Nights Yeah with ok or without okay, whichever one you wanted.

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It's yeah, the Dark Ages before the first stars and

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galaxies formed, and I think the first stars to form

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were what we and we've sometimes talked about these population

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three stars, which are basically completely devoid of anything other

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than hydrogen and helium in the spectrum, because those two

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elements were formed in the Big Bang, and we know

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that all the other elements actually there was a trace

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of lithium as well a couple of other things, but

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nothing to worry about. All the other elements were formed

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in the interiors of stars as the universe progressed. So

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all the stuff we're made of from the hydrogen was

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once inside a star. And that's kind of, you know,

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the story of our origin. It's our creation story in

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a sense.

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So what people have been looking for is population three stars.

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They called that for historical reasons, but they're stars that

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would have been the first stars to form, and they

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would have been bright. They would have, you been much

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brighter than the sun. But the thinking has been over

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I guess the last maybe ten years, since we know

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that more than three quarters of the matter in the

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universe is dark matter. It's this stuff that we know

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exists because it holds galaxies together and stops them flying apart.

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It's got its own it's got gravity, doesn't interact in

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any other way with normal matter. So we believe dark

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matter originated in the Big Bang as well, like the hydrogen.

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And so the postulate has always been made by always,

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I mean within the last decade or so. It's probably

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actually more recently than that, even probably only over the

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last five years. The postulate was, could you have objects

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which basically made of clumps of dark matter coming together

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under their own gravity like hydrogen does in normal stars.

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But this stuff clumps together, it compresses because its own

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gravity is so strong. So you got this huge lump

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of dark matter. And what it then does is, and

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this is still a hypothesis, we believe that dark matter

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self annihilates if you get it particles too close together.

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It's a bit like matter and antimatter. You know, normal

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matter and antimatter is matter with an opposite electric charge.

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You bring them together and you get radiation, you get

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gamma rays. So the thinking is that the same might

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happen with dark matter. You bring particles of dark matter,

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they self annihilate and produce a lot of energy, and

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maybe perhaps even what's left might act as the nucleus

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for galaxies to form. But the idea is that these

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dark stars, and it's a ridiculous name because they're billions

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of times brighter than the Sun, but they're made of

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dark matter, which is why you know that name comes

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maybe a million times its mass. The thinking is that

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they may have eventually condense to become the super massive

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black holes that we find in the censers of galaxies,

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and we find them at an age of the universe

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that was earlier than we can kind of understand anyway.

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The the there are three objects that have been observed

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by the James Webb Space Telescope which are formally delineated

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as galaxies, but they have characteristics in them that have

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made a number of researchers and this this work is

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you know, it's it's coming from US universities, and in

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fact a number of US universities have collaborated on this.

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But the the the the the point about these observations

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is that whilst they originally were identified as galaxies because

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we see them, you know, when the universe was three

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hundred million years old, we're looking back in time almost

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the whole age of the universe. They look like just

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like blobs to the Web telescope, and they look like

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a lot of the other galaxies. But it's their spectrum

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that is raising the possibility that these are dark matter stars.

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And the problem is we don't we know so little

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about dark matter that you know, it's a hypothesis. It's

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a hypothesis that dark matter self annihilates. We don't know

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that for certain. But the deal is that there is

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enough evidence from the spectra of these objects that makes

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people think that they are dark matter stars. And I'm

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going to quote one of the researchers on this topic.

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It's Dr Freese fr W. E. S E who has said,

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and it's a really nice quote, you've if you've got

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a dark matter star forming, Dr Frees says, you've got

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a weird thing. It looks like the Sun in terms

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of its surface temperature, but it's a billion times as bright.

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It could be as bright as an entire galaxy of

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fusion powered stars. That means stars that are powered by hydrogen.

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And then the thinking is, as I said, that at

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the end of their lives they would collapse into super

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massive black holes. So this is really quite an extraordinary postulate.

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But it is gaining traction. And this is you know,

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this is not something that's that's being highlight well, it

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is highlighted in the slightly more frenetic science press matter

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stars form found. I mean this is coming. In fact,

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the article I'm looking at it's from Scientific American, which

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is one of the most sober and accurate of all

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the science media feeds. So yes, so have a look

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at that article. J WSC might have spotted the first

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dark matter stars. And if you can make more of

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it than I can, that's good because the the you know,

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the researchers are still growping with the fact that we

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know so little about dark matter. And it's one of

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the co authors and then the doctor Freezer just mentioned,

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Catherine Freese, who's an astrophysicist at the University of Texas

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at Austin.

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It's fascinating because these are once again named very inaccurately,

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as is dark energy. So let's just be a dark

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star that's not dark. Yeah, it is a bit. But

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I think one of the questions that popped out as

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you were explaining it was these happened very early in

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the universe three three hundred millionaires a big bang. Does

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that mean that these may have existed no longer exist.

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I think that's the thinking that they have a very

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short life. But the debris becomes the super massive black hole,

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and so in a way, these things might form the

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nucleus of galaxies, you know, baby galaxies that are being

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formed in the other universe. It's a really exciting prospect

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and I hope we'll hear more about this and talk

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more about it. I know our listeners, Andrew and our

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viewers have latched onto this over the last couple of

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years because we've had several questions about this already, but

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it's now sort of bubbling to the surface with these

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three galaxy candidates, which I mean currently they're still thought

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to be galaxies, but the possibility that they are actually

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dark matter stars is becoming very, very insistent.

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I think the original paper published about these three potential

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galaxies was July twenty twenty three, but now they've taken

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another look at them and they're thinking, going on a minute,

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this might be some other dark matter onborn. Anyway, as

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Fred said, you can look it up at Scientificamerican dot com.

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It's a fabulous article. Now, Fred, let's get very close

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to home for us. Well not really because it's in

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Western Australia, but they've just announced that the oldest impact

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crater has been found in Western Australia, which basically means

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in Australia we have now got the oldest and the largest.

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They're not the same one. The largest is actually in

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New South Wales, but the oldest is in that very

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remote area of western Australia and around the Pilbray, isn't it.

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Yes, it's a Pilborough region that's right sort of north

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northwestern Australia, very empty part of the country, a bit

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unforgiving if you happen to be lost there. But our

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heroes in this story aren't They're scientists from Curtain University.

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And what's really nice about this story is that these

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scientists actually predicted that there might be an impact crater

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kind of pretty well in the middle of Australia. And

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what led them to that conclusion is a sort of

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alternative view of how continents formed. So the geological thinking

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around continents, which of course are represented by continental plates,

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you know, the plate tectonics theory. One I guess of

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the perhaps the most popular view is that the continents

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formed above plumes in the Earth's mantle, which is that

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sort of soft region between the core which is deep

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in the center of the Earth and the crust which

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is the thin layer that surrounds it. So you've got

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these plumes coming up, and everybody draws the same analogy.

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It's like a lava lamp, the wax rising. They come

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up and they basically, you know that the plume of

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hot stuff, so the condenses out or solidifies on the

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underneath of the continental plate, and you get a continental plate.

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I think there's a there's another one that says that

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actually it was just plate tectonics. You know, as plates

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collide with each other, there's often what's called a subduction zone,

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which is where one plate slides underneath the other. And

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so the suggestion is that as plates slide underneath the

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continental plates, the continental plates build and become thicker. And

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those are the two main theories. But these scientists that curtain,

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and I mean they published an original paper on this

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several years ago, they suggest that the energy required to

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make continents actually came from impacts. So you know, an

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impact that might be an object that's many, many kilometers

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in diameter. Remember the dinosaur killer was about ten to

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fifteen kilometers. Impacts on the surface basically put a huge

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amount of energy into the surface. You've only to look

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at one of the simulations of what the dinosaur killing

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astroid that created the Chickilub crater, what that did to

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the earth during the first fifteen minutes. It sort of

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just turned the surface into liquid and you get a

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big splash. And they suggested that an impact might be

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enough to basically generate the material that you need to

218
00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:26.799
make a continent. Maybe more than one collision, but the impact.

219
00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:31.679
And I'm going to quote because there's a lovely article

220
00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:34.559
on this written by these authors themselves. It's in the Conversation.

221
00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:38.720
It's called soleest impact crator was just found in Australia,

222
00:15:38.879 --> 00:15:43.879
exactly where geologists soaked it would be. So what they

223
00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:46.279
say in that article, and they're talking now about the

224
00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:55.320
idea of impacts creating the continental crust our evidence that, yeah,

225
00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:59.559
Our evidence lay in the chemical composition of tiny crystals

226
00:15:59.559 --> 00:16:02.480
of the mini zircon about the size of sand grains,

227
00:16:02.919 --> 00:16:07.639
so they are generally produced by impact. But to persuade

228
00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:11.720
other geologists, we needed more convincing evidence, preferably something people

229
00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:15.120
could see without needing a microscope. So in May twenty

230
00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:17.919
twenty one we began the long drive north from Perth

231
00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:20.240
for two weeks of field work in the Pilborough where

232
00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:22.519
we meet up with our partners from the Geological Survey

233
00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:25.200
of Western Australia to hunt for the crater. And then

234
00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.120
they tell the story of what they found. And they

235
00:16:28.279 --> 00:16:32.519
found the evidence very very quickly, within the first hour

236
00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:38.639
of being Yeah, because what they found was shatter cones.

237
00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:43.000
And let me quote again from the article, shatter cones

238
00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:47.360
are beautiful, delicate branching structures, not dissimilar to Badminton choppercock.

239
00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:51.720
They are the only feature of shock visible to the

240
00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:55.679
naked eye, and in nature, can only form following a

241
00:16:55.720 --> 00:16:59.200
meteorite impact. Little more than an hour into our search,

242
00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:02.720
we've found precise what we were looking for. We'd literally

243
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:04.759
open the doors of our four wheel drives and stepped

244
00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:08.440
onto the floor of a huge ancient impact crater. And

245
00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:11.480
so they've done a lot of subsequent research. They've been

246
00:17:11.559 --> 00:17:15.039
back to the to the site and yes, they have

247
00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:22.680
essentially defined it. I suppose this as the world's oldest

248
00:17:23.559 --> 00:17:26.680
impact crater, which pushes the age of the oldest impact

249
00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:29.480
crater back more than a billion years because they say

250
00:17:29.519 --> 00:17:32.599
this formed more than three point five billion years ago.

251
00:17:32.839 --> 00:17:34.720
Wow, and this is huge, this one.

252
00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:38.960
It is, Yes, it's you know, it's continent sized almost,

253
00:17:39.039 --> 00:17:41.319
so it would have been a bad continent. I mean

254
00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:45.359
a significant chunk of the Australian continent, which is what

255
00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:48.799
they represent by the Piliger. So the Piliger may be

256
00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:51.519
basically the extent of it, which is very very big.

257
00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:54.519
That is incredible. So how big a rock would.

258
00:17:54.359 --> 00:17:58.160
Create Yeah, actually it's a really good point. I think

259
00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:01.640
we're talking about several kilometers here. I'm just switching to

260
00:18:01.759 --> 00:18:08.240
their original paper on this, which is called a paleo

261
00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:13.200
arcan impact crater in the Pilburg crighton western Australia, and

262
00:18:13.240 --> 00:18:18.880
I'm just looking to see whether they think whether they're abstract. Yes, okay,

263
00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:22.680
here we are ten to fifty kilometers in diameter. Wow. Yeah,

264
00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:24.839
so it's big massive.

265
00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:28.359
Yeah, you wouldn't bigger than yes, yes, we know how

266
00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:32.599
damaging that was. So this is quite incredible. They've actually

267
00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:35.160
in the Conversation article got a photo of one of

268
00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:41.000
those those chef shutterns. Yeah. What incredible. Now to the

269
00:18:41.079 --> 00:18:45.079
untrained eye, he'd probably just go, oh that's nice, you.

270
00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:50.839
Were me both, But yeah, I mean it is quite

271
00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:54.319
extra and it's really neat. If you've got a geologists

272
00:18:54.319 --> 00:18:57.599
with you, you know, some of these expeditions, you start

273
00:18:57.640 --> 00:19:02.160
to see things straight away. When we did a tour

274
00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:05.640
last year of South Australia and one of the things

275
00:19:05.640 --> 00:19:10.000
we were looking for were the stromatolites, those microbial mats,

276
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:13.319
the evidence for them in the fossil record, and they're

277
00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:15.000
kind of all around you, but you don't see them.

278
00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:17.359
And then we got to a sign that said here's

279
00:19:17.359 --> 00:19:20.680
a stromatolite, and oh, that's what it looks like, and

280
00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:22.880
then you see him everywhere. And it would probably be

281
00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:24.039
the same with shatter cones.

282
00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:26.920
Yeah, I've had a similar experience. When you're thinking of

283
00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:31.960
buying a new car, you haven't board it yet, you

284
00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:33.119
just see them everywhere.

285
00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:36.279
That's actually, that is absolutely true. That happened to me

286
00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:39.960
when I got my last car. I saw them everywhere. Yeah,

287
00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:41.680
that's fun funny.

288
00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:43.440
How that happens. All right, if you'd like to read

289
00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:48.000
up on that enormous crater, and I will add fred

290
00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:51.480
that finding creators like this on Earth is difficult because

291
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:55.039
so many of them are hidden because Earth's alive and

292
00:19:55.480 --> 00:19:58.480
all this kids covered up and yeah, this one.

293
00:19:58.319 --> 00:20:01.960
Was covered up with roll, that's right, it was covered

294
00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:02.480
with bus all.

295
00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:03.839
Yeah.

296
00:20:04.039 --> 00:20:07.519
So yeah, sometimes it's looking you in the face and

297
00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:12.039
saying here, I'm here. You can't see it. Yes, The

298
00:20:12.119 --> 00:20:15.799
Conversation dot com is where you'll find that amazing story.

299
00:20:16.119 --> 00:20:19.559
This is space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred

300
00:20:19.559 --> 00:20:27.920
what's an space nuts? Okay, time for a couple of

301
00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.400
mission updates. We spoke last week about the successful landing

302
00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:37.000
of Blue Ghost, the Blue Ghost mission, the Firefly Probe

303
00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:40.240
or whatever it was. See how up to date I am.

304
00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:41.960
There's a mission update.

305
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.200
This has been going rather well, it has. Yeah, And

306
00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:49.200
in fact you can find on the mission page, the

307
00:20:49.240 --> 00:20:56.400
Firefly Aerospace mission page, just look fireflyspace dot com. They

308
00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:59.839
have live updates on how it's doing on the surface

309
00:20:59.880 --> 00:21:03.839
of operations. Remember it's only active for one lunar day

310
00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:07.839
or one period of lunar daylight, which is fourteen of

311
00:21:07.880 --> 00:21:11.640
our days. I think they're on what are they on now? Day?

312
00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:18.920
They landed on second of March.

313
00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:22.119
I think, so we're now all but insertion command March

314
00:21:22.119 --> 00:21:22.720
of first.

315
00:21:23.079 --> 00:21:26.240
Yeah. Yeah, so I think they're landed on the second. Yes,

316
00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:29.359
and so we've got you know, a succession day by

317
00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:32.880
day lovely images showing the surface that they're landed on.

318
00:21:34.039 --> 00:21:39.079
Quite quite amazing stuff. They By March the sixth, they've

319
00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:42.839
completed eight of their payload objectives. And remember this is

320
00:21:43.119 --> 00:21:48.839
part of NASA's you know, project for putting commercial payloads

321
00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:55.519
on the Moon to do studies. The March the seventh,

322
00:21:55.599 --> 00:22:00.720
they had the new lunar magneto Telluric sounder deployment footage.

323
00:22:01.160 --> 00:22:06.039
So work that one out. And it's basically the lunar

324
00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:12.440
Magneto of Telluric sounder is on a mast. It's eight

325
00:22:12.519 --> 00:22:17.000
feet tall and it basically so magneto of tell Uric

326
00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:21.599
means based on Earth magnetism. So they're using the Earth

327
00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:25.839
magnetic field to sample the deep interior of the Moon

328
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:29.680
to learn more about the structure and composition of the

329
00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:33.839
Moon's mantle. And a couple of days ago, March the eighth,

330
00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:36.559
that's the lowtest I've got. I should probably update this,

331
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:40.519
but I want just now planned power cycling for lunar noon.

332
00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:43.559
Lunar noon is when the sun is at its hest

333
00:22:43.759 --> 00:22:44.359
in the sky.

334
00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:47.480
Yeah, this is one of the problems you're trying to

335
00:22:47.720 --> 00:22:52.640
overcome because of the temperatures. Yes, during the lunar day

336
00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:58.079
risks sort of cooking those exactly, so they power cycle

337
00:22:58.119 --> 00:23:00.759
it to keep it cool, which I think is pretty

338
00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:06.079
cool again. But the latest thing they've done FRED is

339
00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:14.279
drilling operations. Okay, they performed LISTER operations mounted below the

340
00:23:14.680 --> 00:23:21.079
lower deck, NASA's Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with

341
00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:30.039
Rapidity List. It's a neumatic gas powered drill through which

342
00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:34.480
was developed by Texas Tech University. So they're doing a

343
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:37.680
lot of work up there. It's really exciting and so far,

344
00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:39.920
so good. Everything's worked, that's correct.

345
00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:43.359
Just a quick word of explanation as well. The lunar

346
00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:47.680
moon thing is pretty important. Maximum temperature of about one

347
00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:52.759
hundred and twenty celsius. But they are this spacecraft landed

348
00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:56.799
in Mari Christium, the Sea of Crises, which is very

349
00:23:56.839 --> 00:24:00.920
near the lunar equator, so the sun is going to

350
00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:02.799
be very high in the sky. It'll be like being

351
00:24:02.839 --> 00:24:05.640
in the tropics here on Earth, which is why that's

352
00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:08.640
such a big issue, you know, to keep the noon

353
00:24:10.119 --> 00:24:11.279
everything working properly.

354
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:14.200
Yeah, if you would like to follow the mission, the

355
00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:18.160
Blue Ghost mission, you can go to fireflyspace dot com.

356
00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:23.640
That's their website. From success to a successful failure, we'll

357
00:24:23.640 --> 00:24:28.759
call it. This is a mission that landed in a

358
00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:32.559
very different place on the Moon, very close to the

359
00:24:32.599 --> 00:24:37.039
South Pole region. Unfortunately, and this is the second time

360
00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:40.720
that it's happened to this company. The land fell over.

361
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:43.440
So that's right. So they landed successfully, as they did

362
00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:47.440
with another spacecraft about a couple of years ago, a

363
00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:54.440
successful landing, but it fell over. That's twice. And it's

364
00:24:54.480 --> 00:24:59.519
so sad because a lander that is expected to be

365
00:24:59.720 --> 00:25:04.000
see the sun and receiving power through its solar panels

366
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:07.200
suddenly finds itself on its side where it can't see

367
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:11.839
the sun or the solar panels can't and essentially the

368
00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:15.240
spacecraft dies very rapidly because the batteries don't last very long.

369
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:19.319
I think its Intuitive Machines is the company that's launched

370
00:25:19.319 --> 00:25:24.359
this and its predecessor or has built it and deployed it.

371
00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:29.160
They did as much as they could in the you know,

372
00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:31.960
the short time they had before the batteries ran out,

373
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:38.319
but it's now been declared dead. Sadly, it's a very

374
00:25:38.359 --> 00:25:43.640
brave attent. I think I read a comment last week

375
00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:47.720
when we're talking about Blue Ghosts successful landing. One of

376
00:25:47.759 --> 00:25:53.079
the reasons that they think they were successful it's probably

377
00:25:53.119 --> 00:25:55.400
actually easier to land in Mari Chrisium than it is

378
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.039
near the South Pole, because there's so many mountains, rocks

379
00:25:58.039 --> 00:26:00.319
and things near the South Pole. But one of the

380
00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:05.759
things that the Firefly Aerospace credited with their success was

381
00:26:05.759 --> 00:26:09.960
the fact that their lander has very wide a very

382
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.880
wide quite it's a quadrupot. It's four legs which are

383
00:26:14.920 --> 00:26:18.079
spread well out with the spacecraft itself having a low

384
00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:21.880
center of gravity. And when you look at the Intuitive

385
00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:25.559
Machines spacecraft you can see it's the opposite. Their landing

386
00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:29.400
legs are relatively close together. And that it's a tall,

387
00:26:29.720 --> 00:26:32.759
a tall spacecraft. I think it's eight meters. I might

388
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:33.359
have that wrong.

389
00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:35.720
That's very big, but it's very tall.

390
00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:39.799
It's and you know, so you've only got to get

391
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:43.799
a slight I don't know, maybe even a rebound from

392
00:26:43.880 --> 00:26:46.559
the lunar surface at the wrong angle, and what's going

393
00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:49.039
to happen. It's going to fall over. And sadly, that's

394
00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:49.759
what's happened.

395
00:26:50.039 --> 00:26:50.240
Yep.

396
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:57.880

Dark Matter Stars, Ancient Craters & Lunar Missions: #503 - Unpacking the Latest Discoveries in Space

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Dark Matter Stars, Ancient Craters & Lunar Missions: #503 - Unpacking the Latest Discoveries in Space

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