Dec. 5, 2024

Rocket Science Setbacks, Skynet's Secret Move & Aurora Mysteries Unveiled: #475

Space Nuts Episode 475: Skynet's Secret, Rocket Dreams, and Magenta Mysteries
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they delve into the latest cosmic stories and uncover the mysteries of the universe. From the fall of a pioneering rocket...

Show Notes
Transcript

Space Nuts Episode 475: Skynet's Secret, Rocket Dreams, and Magenta Mysteries
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they delve into the latest cosmic stories and uncover the mysteries of the universe. From the fall of a pioneering rocket company to the unexpected movement of the UK's oldest satellite, and the vibrant magenta aurorae over Japan, this episode is packed with fascinating insights and celestial curiosities.
Episode Highlights:
- Reaction Engines' Setback: Discover the tragic halt in development for the UK company aiming to revolutionise Space travel with their innovative Space plane, Skylon. Learn about the SABRE engine's potential and the financial hurdles that have stalled this groundbreaking project.
- Skynet's Mysterious Move: Uncover the curious case of Skynet 1A, the UK's oldest satellite, which has mysteriously shifted its position in orbit. Explore the potential implications of this movement and the historical context of this Cold War era satellite.
- Magenta Aurorae Explained: Dive into the world of citizen science as we explore how amateur astronomers helped explain the appearance of magenta aurorae over Japan. Understand the atmospheric conditions and solar activity that led to this rare and beautiful phenomenon.
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, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favourite platform.
For more Space and Astronomy News Podcasts, visit our HQ at www.bitesz.com.
Become a supporter of this podcast for extended commercial free episodes and more. Visit our Support page for options: https://spacenutspodcast.com/about (A great Christmas Present idea...just saying)
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 - This is Space Nuts where we talk, uh, astronomy and space science
02:02 - Company trying to develop rocket motor to get into orbit has run out of money
08:11 - Professor Fred Watson says SpaceX's proposed rocket would have been environmentally friendly
12:11 - Someone apparently moved UK's oldest satellite, which was launched in 1969
19:57 - Fred Wa says Americans originally controlled satellite's orbit but RAF eventually took control
22:49 - This year has been an astounding year in terms of being able to observe aurora
30:35 - Andrew Dunkley: Thanks for your company, Fred
✍️ Episode References
Reaction Engines
[Reaction Engines](https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/)
Universe Today
[Universe Today](https://www.universetoday.com/)
BBC
[BBC](https://www.bbc.com/)
Optus
[Optus](https://www.optus.com.au/)
Lockheed Blackbird
[Lockheed Blackbird](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/index.html)
SpaceX
[SpaceX](https://www.spacex.com/)
Phys.org
[Phys.org](https://phys.org/)

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

WEBVTT

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Hi there, thanks for joining us again. This is Space

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Nuts where we talk astronomy and space science. My name

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is Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company. Coming up today,

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we have some sad news about a company that was

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developing what would probably have been one of the great

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leapforwards leaps forward in rocket science. Unfortunately it's gone the

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other way. And we'll explain why the UK's oldest satellite,

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which was launched not long after Neil Armstrong set foot

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on the Moon, has done something weird. We don't know

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who did it, we don't know why. And wait till

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you hear the name of this thing. It'll make you laugh.

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And citizens scientists have proved their worth again by explaining

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why Magenta Aura appeared over Japan earlier this year. That's

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all coming up on this episode of Space Nuts.

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Fifteen, Channel ten Ignition Space Nuts or three two.

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One Space Nurse and I recorded real good and he's

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back again for more. Gruelmut It is shred Wat's in

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Astronomer at Large Professor Freid.

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Hello, you're on a roll today, Andrew with inventing new word.

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I love groulnuts gruelmout.

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I'm going to write that one down too.

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I'll write this one down to you.

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When we were recording the TikTok, I had a slip

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of the tongue and I created a word called web spite.

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Yes, webspites. It's when you use the World Wide Web

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to get back at somebody.

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Yeah, what did I just say?

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Gruelmot Yeah, yes, which is I can't read my own writing,

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so you'll have to tell me what that was. No,

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thank you, I do. It's a pleasure to be here

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and I you don't mind being grueled from time to

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time as long as it doesn't get too often.

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No, No, it's usually once a week with their Q

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and A edition. So all right, we've got a lot

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to talk about. And first up is some very sad

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news about a company that they've been operating for quite

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some time, and they've been trying to perfect a system

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that enables you to get into orbit without having to

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actually launch rockets, which is very expensive, and they were

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making incredible inroads, but all of a sudden it's ground

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to a halt because well, money, money.

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They've run out of money, that's right. And yes, the

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reason why I picked this story to cover today is

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that I've been following this for thirty years the story.

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This company, Reaction Engines in the United Kingdom, had division

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back in the nineties of building a space plane, which

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at that time was called hotel and hotels an acronym

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for horizontal takeoff and landing. And that tells you basically

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what you need to know about this thing. It flew

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like a plane, took off from a normal wrong way,

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no need for a spaceport, climbed with its two very

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highly specialized engines to the place the region of the

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atmosphere where you're really not getting very much oxygen into

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the air intakes and then clicked over to liquid oxygen,

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so it became a rocket motor and from then straight

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up into orbit.

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Now that.

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Vision of that spacecraft has got a different name now

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it's called Skylon, but it's the same sort of idea.

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It's a long, narrow spacecraft with very stubby wings and

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a couple of these extraordinary engines that would be powering

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it up into space. And when you look at a

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diagram excuse me, or a cutaway model of one of

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Reaction Engines products, and they were still under development. Sadly,

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what you've got is something it looks a little bit

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like the you know, the engine part of a modern

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air bus or Boeing jet with an air intake, and

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it's a supersonic air intake because it's got a very

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pointing nose at one end, but at the other instead

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of you know, a sort of large diameter exhaust, there

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are rocket motors and that's what differentiates it. In fact,

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I think the final in the final version that they

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were working on, there was just one rocket motor. And

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so what happens is that when it takes off, it's

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basically a standard gas turbine, but the air that's coming

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in through the air intake at the beginning is compressed.

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It's not liquefied, but it's compressed and then injected with

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liquid hydrogen, which is the fuel into one of these

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rocket motor nozzles. Provides a rocket thrust and as the

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as the space as the craft increases its speed, then

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the ram effect comes into play because it's you know,

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it's turning into a ramjet. So there's a lot of

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the compression is high basically taking place at the front

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end of the engine. But then when it reaches that

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height above the atmosphere and you're talking probably in the

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region of you know, thirty kilometers something like that. It

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cuts out the intake and it becomes a straightforward rocket

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motor because you then feed liquid oxygen into it. But

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it's the same motor. It's got two different modes of operating,

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one in the atmosphere and one not providing the thrust.

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Now as I understand it, I'm not an aerospace engineer,

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as you know. But the really interesting bit of this

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and what took reaction engines, I think, from just being

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a kind of vague really into the realm of reality,

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was a heat exchanger. Because when you're going at two

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personic speeds, I think it's designed to go up to

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Mach five or something. Well, it's air breathing five times

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a speed of sound. The incoming air is compressed very

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to a very high degree and has a very high temperature.

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And you and I, I know, I've talked about this thing before.

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So they had this heat exchanger that reduced the temperature

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from a thousand degrees to sort of minus five or

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something in a thousand through a seconds. It's totally heably ridiculous,

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but they made that work, and in fact, it's had

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other applications, other industrial applications as well, so that's reaction

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engines have, you know, had contracts to do that. They've

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been underwritten by the British government. I think they've been

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underwritten by Rolls Royce and other companies. Sadly their funding

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has just basically run out and then is still under development.

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It still shows promise, Andrew, it's one of these things

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that it's as you said, it's a tragic story. And

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I should say the engine is called SABER and that's

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an acronym for synergetic air breathing rocket engine. It's a

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very nice acronym and it tells you exactly what it is.

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Yeah, you know, I hope it's saved. I hope someone

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like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos comes to the forum.

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Then they've got money to burn. If you can send

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a Tesla vehicle to Mars wherever, surely you can bankroll

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something that's probably probably going to change the game completely

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in terms of getting into space, getting into orbit from

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the planet's surface at such a low cost in comparison.

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I mean, I think what I read the other day

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was that the cost per kilo to send something into

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space now is about two thousand dollars. It is a take.

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This could make a huge, huge difference, and it's so

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sad that they've run into that brick wall because they

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were onto something. They were onto something.

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Definitely now the high it so we go on ahead.

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I was just going to say, for people who wonder

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what it looks like, they've never actually produced one yet,

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have they. They've just been developing the motor. Is that

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right correct? Yes, the artist's impression what it looks like

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is a I suppose there was a plane back in

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the nineteen sixties built by Lockheed. It was called the Blackbirth,

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and it looks it looks a lot like the Blackbird,

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which was quite a quite an astounding aircraft for its time.

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I think I've got the statistics somewhere of the Lockheed,

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but it could achieve multiple speeds of sound capability, as

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many aircraft have. But yeah, that's I think the closest

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that I can come to what it looks like is

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a Lockheed Blackbird. Quite an amazing aircraft. You're going to

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say something, sorry, just.

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That you know you're absolutely right. SpaceX HA brought the

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cost per kilogram down from about twenty thousand dollars to

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two thousand. This would have brought it down further. But

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more especially, I think is that it's highly environmentally friendly

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because the exhaust was just water. You know, you're burning,

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you're burning liquid, liquid, hydrogen and oxygen, so basically it's

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water that's coming out. Now, yes, water vapor is a

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greenhouse gas, but it's not anything like us. But some

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of the things that come out the back end of

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some other some other rockets that we know about.

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Yeah. Absolutely. Another interesting thing, Fred by the Bye I

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did a little bit of research on some of these

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high speed aircraft of the past, the X fifteen, which

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was a NASA creation. It came about in the nineteen

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sixties as well. I think the X fifteens were built

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between It operated between nine and fifty nine and nineteen

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sixty eight. There were twelve pilots, including Neil Armstrong who

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flew it. Flew the X fifteen and it was the

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first land based horizontal takeoff aircraft to achieve space wings

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because it could reach a height of one hundred kilometers

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sixty seven miles in fact, and it had a top

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speed of four five hundred and twenty miles an hour

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of mark six point seven. So it has been done

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in the past. In fact, in the very early days

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of rocket science. The North American X fifteen achieved technical

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spaceflight by reaching what we consider the limit between Earth

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and space one hundred kilometer limits. So it's been done before,

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and they were building on something that would have changed everything.

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And let's hope that they're I mean, there's been nearly

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two hundred jobs lost as a consequence of this situation,

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but he's really sad, and I can.

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Imagine there were very highly qualified people as well.

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Indeed, and hopefully hopefully someone will come to the fore

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and carry on this incredible work because it, Yeah, I

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think it's vital for the future, especially given you know,

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not so long ago we were talking about the pollution

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that's getting into the atmosphere from multiple rocket launchers to

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put up those satellite arrays, this would be an incredible

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development if they can just finish the job. Anyway, you

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can read all about it at universetoday dot com. This

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is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred what's an.

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Wi space nuts?

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Now? Fred? Speaking speaking of orbital satellites, I'm laughing because

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I love this story for a couple of reasons. This

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is a story about a satellite that the UK owns

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and is still responsible for. It went up in nineteen

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sixty nine. It's still up there, surprisingly, but something weird happened.

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What the heck is going on?

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It has the name. You're going to probably say something

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about this. Let's do the name first, Andrew Gone, you

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covered that. It's tell everybody what's this called.

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It's called sky Net. If you listen to our sister

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podcasts with my brother Steve Astronomy Daily, he often talks

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to Halle about her uncle Skynett. And yes, Skynit was

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the self aware evil entity that was created through online

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systems in the Terminator movie series and basically, you know,

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saw the near end of humankind because it developed self awareness. So, yes, Skynit.

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I didn't know there was a real one, but there is.

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It is, and as you said, it was launched. I

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think in November nineteen sixty nine was when Skynet one A.

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There were two apparently or two of the first series.

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I think Skyine actually still exists as a as a

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series of spacecraft, but Skynet one A was It's a

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geostationary satellite that means it's thirty six thousand kilometers above

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the Earth's surface and always hovers above a particular point

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on the Earth because the orbital periods, the length of

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time it takes to go around once he's twenty four

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hours or was a very neat trick to be able

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to do that. So when it was lawn. So what

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was it launched for. It was all about communications for

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the British Forces. Was a defense relay communications spacecraft and it.

214
00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:22.480
Was placed.

215
00:14:24.200 --> 00:14:28.240
Basically over the east coast of Africa. That was where

216
00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:34.720
its original location forty degrees east. And of course what

217
00:14:34.759 --> 00:14:37.679
that meant was that because it's on the equator and

218
00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:42.559
that forty forty degrees east, it can see both the

219
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:46.240
RAF base in the south of England where it was

220
00:14:46.279 --> 00:14:52.279
being controlled from, and various British Forces deployments throughout the

221
00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:56.120
throughout the Asia Pacific one not the Asia Pacific, but

222
00:14:56.159 --> 00:15:01.600
certainly Indian Ocean and East Asia. So all of that

223
00:15:02.519 --> 00:15:09.120
was part of its original function. Now that spacecraft, I

224
00:15:09.159 --> 00:15:15.639
don't think it actually uh worked for very long. It

225
00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:20.200
was just a few a few years. And of course

226
00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:22.960
that was in the in the the the infancy of

227
00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:26.360
this kind of telecommunications, and so I think everybody lost

228
00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:30.440
interest andrew until recently when somebody said, well, where's that

229
00:15:30.519 --> 00:15:37.440
sky net? One a gone? It turns up actually basically

230
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:42.559
somewhere else, half a planet away, as the BBC reported.

231
00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:46.600
And actually it was a very nice article on the

232
00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:50.440
BBC website for this. It's it's entitled somebody moved UK's

233
00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:52.960
all this satellite and no one knows who Hawaii.

234
00:15:53.840 --> 00:15:54.799
Oh she's the story.

235
00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:57.960
But they commented all the orbital mechanics and that's the

236
00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:01.639
you know, the way that the dynamics of orbit's work.

237
00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:04.840
It's what I did my master's degree on. It means

238
00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:09.200
it's unlikely that the half done military spacecraft simply drifted

239
00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:12.879
to its current location. Almost certainly, says the BBC. It

240
00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:15.320
was commanded to fire its thrust us in the mid

241
00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:18.840
nineteen seventies to take it westwards. It's now over America,

242
00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:22.399
that's the thing. And the question is who was that

243
00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:30.279
and with what authority and purpose? And the BBC comments

244
00:16:30.519 --> 00:16:33.799
it's intriguing that key information about a once vital national

245
00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:37.960
security asset can just evaporate. But fascination aside. You might

246
00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:40.600
reasonably also ask why it still matters, after all, we're

247
00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:44.159
doing about some discarded space junt from fifty years ago.

248
00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:48.679
And the bottom line there's a space consultant by the

249
00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:51.279
name of Dr Stuart Eves who comments that it's still

250
00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:54.120
relevant because whoever did move Skynet one A did us

251
00:16:54.159 --> 00:16:56.480
a few favors. It's now in what we call a

252
00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.960
gravity well at one hundred and five degrees west longitude

253
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:02.360
dring backwards and forwards like a marble at the bottom

254
00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.680
of a bowl. And unfortunately this brings it closer to

255
00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:09.440
other satellite traffic on a regular basis. Because it's dead,

256
00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:11.920
the risk is it might bump into something, and because

257
00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:14.759
it's our satellite, was still responsible for it. That's doctor

258
00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:16.880
Stuart e based consultant.

259
00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:21.119
That's the bottom line, isn't it. It is these days

260
00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:26.279
the responsibility of the country that sends it aloft to

261
00:17:26.319 --> 00:17:29.920
deal with it, and they can't because it's a dead satellite.

262
00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:33.240
It's stuck in this gravity well, it's bouncing around and

263
00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:36.880
it's it's in a traffic zone basically, Yes, that's right.

264
00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:42.839
Yeah. So the normal thing with defunct gestationary satellites is

265
00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:47.000
they're pushed outwards into what's called a graveyard orbit, yeah,

266
00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:50.359
where they are well away from all the active ones

267
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:55.160
and sort of well away from other graveyard of spacecraft.

268
00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:59.119
So they're pushed outwards, and that's the standard practice and

269
00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:01.119
has been for some time. But clearly sky Net one

270
00:18:01.160 --> 00:18:04.079
A hasn't had that. It's in this gravity well, and

271
00:18:04.119 --> 00:18:07.799
it probably doesn't have any means of moving it because

272
00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:11.079
it's probably out of fuel and you know, fifty years

273
00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:14.440
fifty years old, it's more than fifty years old. It's

274
00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:17.599
probably a little bit rusty here and there in terms

275
00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:19.160
of its electronics and things of that.

276
00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:22.559
So, ye, didn't they expect it to just plunge back

277
00:18:22.599 --> 00:18:24.240
down to Earth, wasn't they not?

278
00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:31.039
Drax segnation No, geostationary is too far away. Okay, it's

279
00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:35.319
thirty six thousand kilometers, And I guess when that was

280
00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:39.640
launched back in nineteen sixty nine, there really wasn't the

281
00:18:39.720 --> 00:18:43.759
concern with space debris that there is now, and there

282
00:18:43.799 --> 00:18:48.079
would only be so the way geostationary orbits work andrew

283
00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:51.000
that they're all at the same distance. They've got to

284
00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:53.279
be at the same height above Earth for them to

285
00:18:53.319 --> 00:18:56.759
go around once in twenty four hours, otherwise it doesn't work.

286
00:18:57.039 --> 00:19:00.839
So what you've got is the all and it's all

287
00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:04.319
on the equator, so it's a single orbit. It's partitioned

288
00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:08.400
into stations for the different spacecraft, and I don't think

289
00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:10.000
they're very big. I think they're only you know, one

290
00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:14.519
hundred kilometers or something like that. Each box that one

291
00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:19.000
of these spacecraft sits in. One of our friends, Many's

292
00:19:19.039 --> 00:19:22.559
and my friends, actually is a she drives these spacecraft.

293
00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:29.559
She's a satellite manager for octas Be, the telecommunications company

294
00:19:29.559 --> 00:19:34.440
here in Australia, and she talked to me. It's a

295
00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:36.920
long time ago now, but she talked about station keeping

296
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:39.680
and it means, you know, the gravitational pull of the

297
00:19:39.720 --> 00:19:42.799
Moon and the Sun and the planets just tweaked the

298
00:19:42.920 --> 00:19:46.680
orbit slightly and you've got to keep bringing it back

299
00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:49.519
to where you want it to be. So there's always

300
00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:52.880
a fuel usage with these geostationary satellites, even though they're

301
00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:55.880
in what seemed like stable orbits. You've got to work

302
00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:58.640
to keep them there. And eventually that's why you need

303
00:19:58.680 --> 00:20:01.920
to get them into a graveyard orbit, because if the

304
00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:04.559
spacecraft runs out of fuel and you can't do any

305
00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:06.880
station keeping, then you do a risk it wandering out

306
00:20:06.920 --> 00:20:09.960
of its box, its imaginary box, and hitting another one.

307
00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:13.920
Yeah, you mentioned your friend who works for Optus who

308
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:16.559
tweaks the satellites orbits to keep them where they need

309
00:20:16.599 --> 00:20:20.720
to be. This article you mentioned. The BBC article spoke

310
00:20:20.759 --> 00:20:25.119
to Graham Davidson, who was the original pilot, if you like,

311
00:20:25.200 --> 00:20:29.240
of Skynet one A in the early seventies. He worked

312
00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:33.480
for the RAF. He said the Americans originally controlled the

313
00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:36.920
satellites orbit and they tested the software, but eventually handed

314
00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:41.960
over control to the RAF. This fellows now in his eighties.

315
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.640
He said, in essence, there was dual control. But when

316
00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:48.559
or why Skynett one A might have been handed back

317
00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:51.559
to the Americans, which seems likely. I'm afraid I can't

318
00:20:51.559 --> 00:20:56.920
remember us. Yeah, because such a long time, isn't it

319
00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:00.640
such a long time, and so much as happened over

320
00:21:00.680 --> 00:21:03.799
those decades, and here we are suddenly thinking, oh, hang

321
00:21:03.799 --> 00:21:06.960
on a minute, it's still there. It's doing the wrong thing.

322
00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:10.240
We can't do anything about it. My theory, fraid, is

323
00:21:10.279 --> 00:21:16.640
that somebody at Mission Control saw a pretty girl, sat

324
00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:18.559
down on the panel with his Kappa coffee and said,

325
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:23.000
good hey, I'm Fred, and push the button. That's what

326
00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:24.039
I reckons happened.

327
00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:27.839
It could be well, we might find out, actually, because

328
00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:31.279
there's a PhD student at University College London by the

329
00:21:31.359 --> 00:21:34.960
name of Rachel Hill, soon hopefully to be doctor Rachel

330
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:38.240
Hill if she does a PhD. And she's been working

331
00:21:38.839 --> 00:21:44.359
through the National archives. And there's a speculation from Rachel,

332
00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:48.039
which is a Skynet team from Okanger that's the RAF

333
00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:52.720
station would go to the usaf USF for satellite facility

334
00:21:52.759 --> 00:21:56.839
in Sunnyvale colloquially known as the Blue Cube and operate

335
00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:00.599
the sky net during oak out. That this is when

336
00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:04.240
control was temporarily transferred to the US while Oakhang was

337
00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:07.559
down for essential maintenance. Perhaps the move could have happened then,

338
00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:09.839
and maybe your series, as good as her was in

339
00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:10.759
that regard to.

340
00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:16.240
I can see a Bond film in this herself where

341
00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:20.559
uk Sky and its satellite and I six is thrust

342
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:22.880
into action to deal with it because it's up there

343
00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:25.079
plotting the takeover of the world. Or I think that

344
00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:29.160
story has already been done. But anyway, it is amusing.

345
00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:32.799
It is amusing, although it does have some serious consequence

346
00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:35.960
cecificates in the way of satellite traffic. You can read

347
00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:40.160
that at BBC dot com. This is Space Nuts with

348
00:22:40.440 --> 00:22:42.079
Andrew Dunkley and Fred Watson.

349
00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:48.519
Space Nuts.

350
00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:52.839
Finally, Fred, we look at citizens science and it's come

351
00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:56.359
to the fore in Japan because this year has been

352
00:22:56.440 --> 00:23:00.559
quite an astounding year in terms of being able to

353
00:23:00.599 --> 00:23:05.799
observe aurora, and the sun's been so very active, and

354
00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:08.240
the aurora have been popping up in places where you

355
00:23:08.279 --> 00:23:10.640
wouldn't normally see them, including where I am, although I

356
00:23:10.680 --> 00:23:15.759
haven't been that lucky. But the thing with the ones

357
00:23:15.799 --> 00:23:18.319
that have been seen in Japan is that they have

358
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:23.200
been a magenta color and people have gone, wait a minute,

359
00:23:23.559 --> 00:23:27.039
that doesn't look right. How is it? So citizen science

360
00:23:27.079 --> 00:23:28.599
has come up with the answer.

361
00:23:29.799 --> 00:23:33.839
That's correct. It has, and you know, it is a

362
00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:38.079
really nice story as to how we learned things by

363
00:23:38.279 --> 00:23:41.960
virtue of people just doing that thing with their cameras

364
00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:48.319
and pulling together all their images. So this was something

365
00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:50.400
that happened in May this year, in fact May the tenth,

366
00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:53.759
if I remember rightly, there was a very very active

367
00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:58.759
auroral display which was seen throughout the world except here

368
00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:01.960
in Sydney because the sky was cloudy, we didn't see

369
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:06.359
any of it, and I was very Yeah, my daughters

370
00:24:07.119 --> 00:24:11.160
in the UK saw it, and you know, I think

371
00:24:11.200 --> 00:24:14.880
that most of Britain were treated to marblous arroy as

372
00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:20.160
with Japan as well, and so the photographs that come

373
00:24:20.400 --> 00:24:26.319
particularly from Japan, showed the aurory being magenta. It's a

374
00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:31.720
sort of purplish color, like a pinkish purple. And normally

375
00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:36.160
what we find with the aurora is the colors are

376
00:24:36.200 --> 00:24:40.680
quite specific Andrew because they are the colors that are

377
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:46.920
generated by excited atoms in the upper atmosphere. And I'll

378
00:24:46.920 --> 00:24:50.240
be looking at the aurora again early next year hopefully

379
00:24:50.279 --> 00:24:53.119
and thinking about these things. What causes the green. The

380
00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:56.559
green is the most commonly seen color in the aurora,

381
00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:00.759
and that comes about because it's a the emission of

382
00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:04.839
oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere. The oxygen atoms are

383
00:25:04.839 --> 00:25:08.799
clouded by the electrons and protons too, coming from the

384
00:25:08.839 --> 00:25:14.480
sun in a you know, a burst of silver activity.

385
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:18.680
And when the atoms they get excited to a higher

386
00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:22.079
level of energy. When they relax, they emit specific colors.

387
00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:27.000
And the green light is the specific color of oxygen

388
00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:30.440
at a height of between about one and two hundred kilometers.

389
00:25:31.240 --> 00:25:35.119
When it gets higher than that, if there's a higher

390
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.519
level of auroral activity, and atoms higher than about two

391
00:25:39.559 --> 00:25:43.400
hundred kilometers are excited, and these are oxygen atoms that

392
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:46.119
we're talking about then they emit a red light. They

393
00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:49.319
emit a different color because the pressure is different, and

394
00:25:49.400 --> 00:25:52.519
so that's why we commonly see a rory with green

395
00:25:52.599 --> 00:25:57.559
undersides and a red higher region up to usually up

396
00:25:57.559 --> 00:26:00.319

Rocket Science Setbacks, Skynet's Secret Move & Aurora Mysteries Unveiled: #475

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Rocket Science Setbacks, Skynet's Secret Move & Aurora Mysteries Unveiled: #475

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