The Musical Innertube - Volume 2, Number 174 - Asa Stahl

DON

Doctor Asa Stahl is an astrophysicist, an award-winning children's book author and science communicator, and during his PhD at Rice University Asa published 2 pop astronomy children's books. The first book is called The Big Bang Book. And his second book is called Picnic Planet, A Lunchtime Guide To Your Galaxies’ Exoplanets. It goes without saying that a writer of children's books about space is the perfect guy to talk to John and me about space. As the Planetary Society science editor, Asa writes and produces accessible content that helps everybody engage with astronomy and space exploration. And today, he's here to talk with us about things that you can find in the sky in 2025. Hi Asa, welcome to the Innertube.

ASA

Thanks for having me.

DON

One of the things that's already taken place in January was the alignment of the planets, and I did get a chance to see - I don't have a telescope so I couldn't see Uranus and Neptune - but I did see what looked like it was Saturn, Venus, Jupiter and Mars, that all seem to go on an arc across the sky. That is not a very common occurrence, am I right about that?

ASA

It’s more common probably than the news would lead you to believe, but it’s still definitely uncommon and a treat. It happens, not every year, but it's not like a once in a century thing. Once every several is maybe it's more like it. This perspective, at a glance, incredible to see Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn all in a row. And as it stretched over the sky kind of forces you into this perspective where you kind of see how the solar system is laid out, you know, and forces you to sort of place yourself on that larger stage. So, I was pointing out to my friends all month long.

JOHN

For it to happen like this.  that we from our viewpoint can see this arc, is something that you would have to be a fiendishly-talented mathematician even to know that it could happen. I mean, we are intersecting all of these different arcs, all of these different angles. That we're at the right place at the right time, in itself, to me is an astonishing thing.

ASA

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you think about it, the plants are gonna spend about half their time on one side of the sun, half time on the other half, part of the solar system from the sun. It's just a question of where they are relative to the sun. Now, because the outer planets’ orbits take so long by comparison to Earth's, when those don't line up, when Jupiter and Saturn would, say, be on opposite sides of the sun, then you're not going to see them next to each other in the sky for a longer period. Which is why when these things do happen, they tend to happen in more close. So, I believe the last time that this happened was just a few years ago, I think around 2019, 2020. The kind of thing that is dazzling and is a huge treat for stargazers, because I mean, like - I went and took out a bunch of people stargazing who had never looked through a telescope. And typically, you go out with a telescope, maybe you can see one planet, maybe two. And I went and showed them four planets in a row and they had no idea that this is a rare thing that you would never get. Like yes, you should be – like, where's the applause? You know, this is incredible! But I mean also, of all the events to happen within the past year or so, I think that if we're gonna talk about rare cosmic coincidences, then it's gotta be the total solar eclipse.

DON

Now, are we due for another total solar eclipse this year? Somewhere in the in the world?

ASA

No, not this year. There will be a few partial solar eclipses, none of which I think go through America. And the next total solar eclipse, there's going to be a couple toward the end of the decade, and the one that will be really good is going to happen in, I believe it's 2027 and it's going to go through. The tip of like the Strait of Gibraltar and across North Africa. And it's going to be even better than the solar eclipse that happened this past year across America. Silent peaked at about maybe 4 minutes long. This one's going to be about 7 minutes long of totality, which is quite rare. About as long as they get. Almost boringly long like you'll get sick of looking at it. How long it's gonna be and it's gonna. The longest around long when it's over Egypt. So you could imagine like being at the the tombs of Luxor and seeing a total solar eclipse over it. I can only imagine the level of tourism.

DON

Yeah. And it's a science fiction fan and a guy who read comic books when I was young. Something's going to happen.

ASA

Definitely.

DON

Some beast is going to come out and. And and threaten the earth and thank God we've got superheroes to take care of it.

Speaker

Could take care of.

JOHN

I I hate it when that happens. It's so scary. You know when the.

DON

I.

JOHN

When the last solar eclipse came across the United States, where I live was very definitely on the outskirts of that. But it's still. The sky still went down enough points of brightness that all the birds in the area started to roost. And you could definitely tell it was on Moss. All reacted to. They all started acting, and so it was dusk. And it was such a beautiful and uncanny experience. Know what? You I know you. Better than I do. You know. That nature reacts to the. These things and uh. All of the critters in our area just said oops. Must be 530. Time to turn in you. And so, even though it by far it was not total and yet even just a little bit of an eclipse makes that much of a difference. Was totally uncanny. Totally uncanny.

ASA

Yeah. Did you feel any wind picking up or anything like that?

JOHN

Absolutely. Because because the degree to which the sun is warming, everything changes and a little change is a big change. Yes, you could feel a little breeze there. Absolutely. And we were. We're sitting with our next door neighbor. An elderly lady who's just wonderful, Marge, and we're explaining all this to. And. Going I'll be gosh darn, no one ever explained. To me, before you know so I had some of the. You probably have ASA in being able to sit with somebody as they first learned. About all this, yeah.

ASA

Absolutely. I mean, that's, yeah, definitely part of why I do what I do. It's fun to.

DON

Share USA TODAY and other publications just leap all over. These astronomical phenomena, I know that they were just fixated this year on the different full moons. There was the wolf moon and the swan moon, and you know a bunch of other moons. And every time a a full moon would come up, they would tell you what moon. Was and. They would publish pictures of it coming over cities at massive sizes and all that sort of thing. Do you find it easier? Now to to convey the proper. Awe, shock and awe, I guess to to the general public because you have a lot of media behind you. I would say have to run around and correct things.

ASA

1. I would say. Yeah, I think if there's one thing that gets people consistently interested, it's probably big events in space exploration like the launching of James Telescope or something like that.

DON

Yeah.

ASA

That tends to hook people more. Whereas stuff like the night sky things, I mean, meteor showers, actually meteor showers are great, though they don't. You know, they're not really visible from cities, so they they don't help out if you're in an urban area much in terms of getting people engaged with astronomy. The the full moons or the Super moons or whatever. I'm sad to say, are mostly click bait. A. The difference in size between a full Super Moon and the opposite when it's I guess so. The reason we have super moons, right? That the moon's distance from the Earth vary slightly. In its orbit. So sometimes when the moon is full, it happens to be a little bit farther away than other full moon. Sometimes a little bit closer and what? Closest to the look biggest and that variation is small enough. A little bit less than 10% between the the sort of median size of the moon and the biggest or smallest it will get. It's basically. Indistinguishable to your untrained eye if you're if you're stargazer, look up at the moon all the time and you know, maybe you are 'cause you love the moon. Then you'll you'll notice it just barely. But otherwise it's hard to pick them out of a line up. If I'd held up a bunch of different moons at the distance that it is in the sky. It would be difficult to see, and it turns out the number one thing that changes your perception of how big the moon is, more than how actually far away it is from Earth and its orbit is how close it is to the horizon, how low it is on. Sky. And this is an optical. And that's why all those photos that you see in those articles of the Moon looking so honk and big, it tends to be right above the horizon, right. It was just something about when the moon is that low and that you can put it sort of. Near other objects on the ground in your mind's eye, it makes it look gigantic.

DON

Most of those pictures I did notice were of the moon rising. It does look bigger when it's rising and I I I assume that that was because it was closer to the horizon so. Maybe your? Yeah, we're always told about meteor showers. There are two reasons that I never see a meteor. Number one, I'm in a suburb suburban area and it's not real dark. And #2, they always come at 2:00 in the morning. And I'm not. At 2:00 AM to see them, but. Are are they better to see closer to? On because the sun, he lights lights up, more of the falling meteors they are.

ASA

Closer. They are better to see closer to dawn in the second-half of the night, but. It's relatively slight effect compared to just there being a meteor shower or not in the first place. So I encourage you next time there's a meteor shower you can go. Yeah, the sunsets at like, 5:00 PM or whatever. You can go out at 6:00 PM and see it just fine. But the the much more important thing would be is the Moon opera. If there's a a big bright moon. And it's 3. It's not gonna really matter that you stayed up that late, but there's no moon and it's 8:00 PM and it's dark. See some great meteors.

DON

So it all depends on the moon washing out the light of the meteors.

ASA

Exactly.

DON

What are some of the things that you're looking forward to in 2025? Some of the things that you want to take people out to see?

ASA

Oh, that's a great question.

Speaker

I don't.

ASA

Unfortunately, a lot of the really cool things, the things that immediately come to my mind, are things that. Aren't even stargazing events, but like Space Flight events like the launch of more Starship or New Glen Blue Origin and SpaceX rockets, that would, you know, break sure. Amazing new technological ground, and I'll just watch those live streams like a nerd from the comfort of my home. Or lunar. There's gonna be a bunch of new robotic lunar landings this coming year that. You know, unfortunately you can't really see from your backyard that.

JOHN

And and maybe. Of them will land, not upside down.

ASA

Yes, that would be lovely.

DON

Yeah, yeah.

ASA

Maybe sideways.

DON

Yes, I understand. One of them is gonna have a dustbuster on it or some stiffer. Exactly interesting kind of vacuum.

ASA

Yes, that's. Right.

JOHN

A lunar Roomba.

DON

You heard right.

ASA

Yeah, I've been calling it a lunar dustbuster. Though it's technically, it doesn't suck. It blows. So you know, but it it. But it effectively sucks, OK? This is actually technology. The Planetary Society had a hand in it's called planet. And the idea is that, you know, collecting samples from the services of other worlds, potentially very scientifically powerful, that there's stuff you can do if you bring it into the spacecraft. In an ideal even, you know, have that get launched back to Earth somehow from the spacecraft. There's a lot of science you can do that's more than just if you, you know, are studying it, where it's laying on the ground. But if. You do that then typically that means you have like some fancy complex robotic arm which can have a lot of different points of failure and be kind of restricted and how it is put on the spacecraft, what it does, it draws more power, bunch of different stuff it. Of a headache. So this. Technology. Is to instead have. It's just a little tube that sticks out of the bomb. The spacecraft have like an extra Lander leg and hovers right near the surface. And it just jets out a quick a burst of gas that then swirls up a bunch of the material of, you know, moon dust or whatever. Mars soil up into the tube and then it it catches it and collects it. And so there's a mission that is currently on its way to land on the moon. Hopefully March 2nd, which has this aboard. And will. It's not going to do any scientific measurements, but it's going to be a technology demonstration to show that this works and then if it does work, you can use as a cheap. Efficient way to collect samples from other worlds, and it's slated to go on another mission where it will do science. To one of the moons of Mars. Has never been landed on.

JOHN

Wow. And that reminds me, isn't isn't there an effort to return some samples of Martian?

ASA

So and.

JOHN

Umm. Dirt. Uh, I don't even know if they really have dirt, but yes, some samples of Mars. Put it that way back to Earth and at what? Is that at?

ASA

They they do. It does have. They're super dirty over there. So it needs a dust busting. No, there's this is a part of a a huge overarching effort that NASA and the European Space Agency has been conducting. For years now that there's this Rover over on Mars right now called perseverance. Which has been collecting these samples. Collected test tubes. And leaving them behind and collecting them within the Rover as it goes along for years now and it's found amazing things that scientists really want to get ahead their hands on to study back on Earth with the like, bigger, better machines we have here. And so there's this in this plan for years now. That spacecraft would go down to Mars and collect these samples, and then. Lodge something back to Earth that would then deliver these samples back here. But it's been beset. Umm. A variety of like planning issues. Umm, it's gone over. And the idea of how it should be pursued going forward. It's changed from administration to administration and especially right now going into this new administration, it's future is definitely in question or how. How fast? Happen and there's concerns from, you know. There have been concerns from the White House before and probably are now, that China would do it first, bring back samples first, 'cause they have their own. Mars Sample Collection mission going on so we don't really know right now exactly what's going to happen with that and when it's going to happen. There's the tentative date is that it'll happen in like the mid twenty 30s will bring these samples back, but it's been pushed before already, so who knows.

DON

Yeah. And Speaking of that, we hear all the time about the International Space Station. Obviously there are two people that have been stranded up there for a while that are supposed to come back. What is it? Next month in in March, I guess or? Somewhere in there.

ASA

February, February 25th. Is is the schedule time right?

Speaker

Just.

ASA

I mean, it's been pushed back before, so.

DON

Yeah, yeah. But there are other space stations from other countries orbiting the Earth right now. That right? Yeah.

ASA

China has its space station, Tiangong, I hope and butcher that. Too bad.

Speaker

Which?

ASA

Yeah. It's a 3 module space station and the ISS is much bigger by comparison. S s is like the size of a football field with solar panels. But the ISS isn't going to last forever. Not something to look forward to and not something that's going to happen in 2025, but. At some point. In the next decade, it's probably going to come down, be intentionally crashed. Into the earth, uh, in into the middle of the Pacific Ocean because it's just reaching. End of its its lifetime. The stuff on it isn't built to last forever, and so we're not going to have like a NASA space station like that. Just have private space stations and this Chinese space station will be a very different future and lower Earth orbit.

DON

Wow. There's a a a point at which Saturn is gonna look like a regular planet. I understand it.

ASA

1. I was gonna say I was gonna say that when you ask about things to things, to things to look for in the coming year, I was gonna say something that.

DON

Well, take it away then. About that.

ASA

You can't look for and so you should. For it. It goes away starting in about March. Adren will be at at the right angle compared to Earth. That it's rings will be edge. Oh, and so they'll and they're so thin that they effectively disappear from. Typical male telescopes view from Earth. So everyone, I'm showing Saturn a telescope. Now I'm saying you're not gonna get that for most of this year. And so you're getting. Get out umm. So from from March to November, we'll just. Yeah, it'll look like a boring. I mean, not boring, but way, way less cool.

DON

It'll it'll not have the rings the the distinct rings, although we've seen that other other planets have rings. As well, JW St. Telescope have. Have seen rings around like Uranus and Neptune and some of the farther out planets that we never saw before, even with telescopes.

ASA

So there's yeah, there's rings around a lot of plants in the solar system and. Just kind of. Really hard to see at visible wavelengths the wavelengths of light that we see out with our naked eye. And they would tell you this pee at has given us these beautiful images in the infrared. Uranus. Shining super bright. With these rings and it's a little bit crazy to even imagine that there are rings that we can't see. That are there umm. But I mean yeah, that's it. That's part of the magnificence of this incredible tool.

JOHN

Credible pool. So Don, I think you should go into your Beetlejuice rant.

DON

Alright, it's there.

ASA

A pre pre made rants.

DON

Yes, well. Not a pre made ramp, but it's something I've been worried, something I've been. About me too. OK. My granddaughter is very much into theater and she went a couple years ago to see the play Beetlejuice. On Broadway. And then she came back. And of course, right after she came back from. The sequel movie was released Beetlejuice. So she went to the theater to see that. So she's been up to her neck in Beetlejuice, stuff over the last. 8-9 months or whatever and when we were out one night, I pointed out the actual * Beetlejuice, which is not pronounced Beetlejuice. I correct on that. How is it officially pronounced?

ASA

Without. So you are. Play with. You just say Beetlejuice. They don't wanna sound kinda like snobs, but you can be like El Goriz or something I've heard. Heard a few different ways depending on how how well you know your.

DON

Oh. Well, we'll just stick with Beetlejuice then. So I pointed out to her and I did notice that it does kind of shine slightly red. So I went back and I looked it up on online and it did say it was a red giant. And then I I found a follow up article that said that this red giant is fluctuating in in its brightness and might actually go. So is that. And if so, how would? How would that look from from Earth?

ASA

So I I have. Beetlejuice. Rance.

DON

If you don't, alright, I've done mine.

ASA

That.

JOHN

Now you do yours. I'm so impressive. Have Beetlejuice anything. This is great.

ASA

Yeah, Tim Burton didn't. Might be able to strand though, so it's. As the movie.

DON

Oh, OK alright.

ASA

Oh yeah. Beetlejuice is a red super giant, which means that it's. Well, it's a massive *. It's much, much bigger than the sun, both in in mass and in. It's about 700 times wider than the sun, so like if you plot Beetlejuice where the sun is in the solar system, it would engulf. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Take up all that space. Huge. Wow, that's. And it's super young because a really, really big stars, really massive stars of all, very fast, they burn through their fuel really fast. And eventually. They can no longer sustain. Their own. The thermonuclear. The fusion in their cores that pushes away the the gravity that would otherwise lead them to completely. And then they'll they can go supernova. Now this will happen with Beetlejuice. At some point it will go supernova. But exactly when? Is sort of up for debate, but probably not for. About 100,000 years at least. Now it's we we can't say that with certainty because it turns out that we actually don't know exactly how massive beetle's youth is or how fast it spins. Exactly how old it is, like, you know, basically all the definite things that you'd want us to be able to say about it. Because these are, these are hard things to measure for many stars, but especially stars like Beetlejuice, which is. It's it's like roiling its surface is. Doing all this crazy stuff, it's like flinging out plasma into space.

Speaker

And.

ASA

Then that's caused interesting things like I don't know. Perhaps the article you were looking at was talking about a few years ago and only stopped just recently. Beetlejuice got dimmer all of a sudden and it. And it. It was really, yeah.

DON

I think that's what the article said, yeah.

ASA

Yeah. So and what people are wondering is, is this because it's about to go supernova? Like something is changing in it because it finally ran out of the helium that it's burning in its core and now it's starting to. Fuse these heavier elements, which means it's on a a runaway train toward supernova, right? It turns out. That's probably not what caused the. It probably it just ejected this huge blast of plasma into space and that plasma cooled down and started blocking some of the light and so made it look dimmer from Earth.

JOHN

No.

ASA

But but I mean it will go supernova. And when it does, it'll be the closest supernova by far to have ever been observed from Earth, at least in recorded history. And it'll be potentially as bright as the. Mu it and it will last for months. That explosion or that, like unbelievable, it would be. Wow, amazing.

DON

Yeah.

ASA

Would be beautiful and it would. No harm to us. So kind of a freebie.

JOHN

So I don't expect you to have this on your on the tip of your tongue, ASA, but how how distant in terms of light years is Beetlejuice?

ASA

So it's another thing we don't exactly know, but about 500. Years.

JOHN

Back 500 light years so. I mean, it's not out of the realm of possibility that all this may have already happened. It just hasn't gotten here yet.

ASA

Yes. And so I know this is one of the things that people have to think about whenever they go stargazing it so well, maybe the light from. The stars we're looking at is coming from things that have already gone. And for the most part, that's actually not true. Most stars. That we can see with their naked eye are. Enough and uh, stable enough that we don't think they're gonna die within the amount of time that the light would take to travel to us. But Beetlejuice is the one really big exception. If there's any star that if you're looking at its light, and that light might. Coming from a dead star, it's Beetlejuice.

JOHN

I'm glad I asked that question I I had. And this is making me unintentionally look very smart. No, I go. I'm just. I I'm just that dullard who, I mean, I have a telescope and actually one of the questions I'd love to get into with you is. Suppose wanted to. Somebody wanted to get started. Really stargazing. You know what would they? What kind of equipment? And you might have some ideas about this so. Maybe we could do that in a second, but really I I go out there and you know I do. Very basic things like I try to find Andromeda. You know, it's really cool and you can find it if you've got a telescope and it it looks like a little tiny smudge in the sky if you. Have, like the eyes of Ted Williams, you know, which could see anything you know? And you can see it in the sky. And I know people who claim they can see it all the time. But with a telescope, you can see it. It's so it's. I know it's basic, but it is a thrill. You know, it just is a thrill so. I keep wondering about that. Know I look around. Go well. You know how many of these stars? Are still. I mean, I know the planets are still here.

Speaker

That. That. That's.

JOHN

You know, I know they're still around. You know, and it's. A big it's so let me ask that. I mean, if I wanted to get started as a stargazer. What are some things you? I. Really. Have I mean, just off the top of your head, what things would you just?

ASA

You know, I mean, a lot of it depends where you live and and how dark it is and. You know. Much effort you're willing to put in and. But I mean the bare minimum is like a chair, a comfortable chair. A warm jacket. A thermos. Beyond that, you really, you know, you don't need. Equipment. It depends what you're looking for, right? I mean, if there's a lot you can do with your naked eyes if you live in a dark enough place, or even without if you're trying to get started a bit beyond that. People sleep on binoculars. Binoculars are a great way to dip your toe into stargazing without sort of diving into a whole telescope, specially because telescopes can be kind intimidating. Like a lot of science involved with like, how do I even use this? Like, how does it work? Kind do I buy? Pretty complicated, unfortunately. And binoculars are a nice way that you're not gonna be able to, like, see, like a beautiful views of, like, you're not gonna be able to see like. Uh. The Great Red spot on Jupiter. They're not going to magnify things to that center. Collect enough light, but they'll give you good views of the moon and. If you're in a dark enough place, you'll be able to see. Like star clusters and. Or, you know, the blur of Andromeda. But if you live in a city and you still want to be able to see stuff, and you're willing to spend on a telescope, which, by the way, you can get a telescope that is good enough to see planets in the city. For like 150 bucks, it's not that bad. It's like you want 6 telescopes or smartphone. You know, that's a choice.

JOHN

I mean.

ASA

Then you can look at the planets. Yeah, I don't. This is this is how I measure everything. Whenever I go to like a restaurant I'm like I could get. I could get, you know, this burrito, or I could get, you know, a 20th of a telescope A.

DON

Man, with this priority straight.

ASA

Man was.

JOHN

There you go, absolutely. But so you know what to do with them, ASA, that that gives you an advantage. You know, I mean, you know, you get a telescope and now you have to acquire some skills, don't you about you know, how to point how to look through 1 you.

ASA

Yeah.

JOHN

What?

ASA

I recommend is start easy. It's not be overly ambitious because there's, you know, a. Activation energy with like getting out there and standing outside at night and commit yourself to like this new hobby in a way. So just, you know, starting easy with planets and stuff like that is a great. Great way to start. And also yeah, that like even the simplest site you can find, the telescope is still. Like knocks your socks off that it's there, that it's really up there that you can see it directly in the same universe as you. It's it's, you know, and it's almost like this weird, fragile Christmas ornament hanging in the sky.

JOHN

It's so beautiful how you put that and you know, I I should do a a service for my listeners in saying that Andromeda is the Galaxy most like us and closest to us and you actually. See. It is just barely visible in a night sky that has no light interference. And it will show up on a decent telescope and and I have had the pleasure of actually seeing it hanging like that beautiful Christmas ornament in the sky. And I guess in about 250 million years it'll be passing by or passing through. Who knows exactly exactly what's going to happen now. Probably won't be around for that, Don. Be I mean but.

DON

Probably not. You know, I'm only going to have my head frozen for 250 years, so. I may not be around for that. I'm not sure why.

ASA

What happens after 250 years?

DON

Well, after that I I think it's you know I'm the the warranty's up. Everything goes out the window.

Speaker

Yeah.

JOHN

This subscription and Netflix lapses forever.

DON

But it'll it'll. Increased in price by about five times. Hey, I Speaking of galaxies, there was another article I read ASA about another a A Galaxy that we just. Just I don't want to say we just discovered it. It it. Popped up in the news again last year and it was like. I'm trying to remember how it was described, but it was described as a line of jewels or something like that, and it was apparently. A Galaxy that was much like ours when ours was forming when the Milky Way was formed. Forming. Yeah.

ASA

I think the word you're looking for, the word you're looking for is Firefly sparkle. Yeah, Firefly sparkle.

DON

Do you know where I'm going with this?

JOHN

Ah yes, thank you.

DON

That's right, which sounded like like. Somebody's niece came up with.

Speaker

Yeah, it.

ASA

Sounds like a pony.

DON

You know exactly. I.

JOHN

Was just gonna say it sounds like a Unicorn name.

DON

Yeah.

JOHN

Amazing.

ASA

Well, it kinda. Is a Unicorn, but what is that exactly so? This is a Galaxy that is only about 600 million years old, which sounds pretty old, you know, to to a person. But compared to the universe, which is about 13.8 billion years old. The observable universe and the Milky Way is about that old itself. Galaxy is over a dozen billion years old. This galaxy's just a baby super newborn. And what's what's amazing about it besides that? In general, you know we've. Been able to see what the James Webb Space Telescope discovered for the first time. Lots of bright. Big galaxies that were younger than any other galaxies we've discovered yet. So galaxies that are only 250 million years or so. After The Big Bang, we haven't seen anything that that early in the universe yet in terms of galaxies, and this one is super cool. Just also, if you like, if you look up an image of it, if you just Google Firefly Sparkle Galaxy it yeah, looks like this beautiful string of beads. And you might think like, well, that's not how galaxies. Galaxies look like, you know, kind of like flying saucer shapes or spirals or or maybe like blobs, but not like strings of beads, right? That's strange. Because that's not actually how this Galaxy or not how it is, it's how it looks. The light from this Galaxy is being bent on its way toward us by. Really massive galaxies between us and it. And so it gets stretched into this weird arc. And. By each. Those beads are clusters with clumps within the Galaxy where stars are forming. And so they're just kind of like. Massive spawning ground that are making lights like red, blue light and so ends up looking like these. These strings of beads. If you sort of undo the bending of the light, then really the Galaxy kind of looks like a teardrop. A teardrop full of sparkles.

DON

Wow, which actually sounds even more like a a 16 year old or a six year old. Named it a teardrop full of sparkles. But that that's kind of cool now. Something that only. An advanced telescope can see. That's not something that we could pick up, right?

ASA

You, uh, you would need. A few billion dollars, probably. Yeah. For your telescope budget.

DON

Which, you know, John may have that, but I I I. Ran clean out.

JOHN

Yeah, just let me look in this pocket, you know?

ASA

Yeah, I I I've been buying too many. Recently, so I don't have that.

DON

I have to go in and cash in a few of my old smartphones to see if I can get a telescope. Well, thanks ASA for for taking us through this I. And and helping us figure out what's going on this year. So I guess the next big thing we should look for. Or is that dustbuster landing on the? That's the next, umm, thing that you're looking forward to.

ASA

I would say in terms of. Sure thing. Events, yes, but there is one other wild card I want to bring up, though Beetlejuice probably won't go supernova anytime soon, there is a star system that could go Nova.

DON

OK.

ASA

And.

JOHN

Hmm. So.

ASA

Supernova is different than Nova. Supernovas. When the star completely collapses, and then. Essentially dies and throws off this giant. Nova's are much less bright, but still quite bright. And there's this star system called T Corona Borealis, which you can look up. That is really two stars orbiting one another and. Material from one of the stars is constantly falling onto the other and eventually periodically enough material sort of builds up on this other. Are that it burns through it all at once in this massive configuration, and that's that's a noble, and it'll be it'll essentially look like a new star in the sky, which is why it's called Nova. Like new in Latin. So it's if you just. You know, look it up later when once, if you look at it later, once it happens, it'll just look like, oh, that's a star. The magic is knowing about there was not a star there before that you could see with your naked eye that it's just it looked.

DON

Like it was.

ASA

Just born, that just happened. And that only happens from this system about once every 80 years. And last time it happened was in the the 40s. And so scientists have been watching it and saying like, oh, it's gonna happen and we're actually overdue at this point. Thought it was gonna happen by like last fall. So any minute now, this thing's gonna happen and we're gonna get a cool site tonight. That anyone will be able to see what the naked eye.

DON

Wow. I guess what we need to do is figure out what part of the sky it is. Look at it now and see nothing, and then look at it after the the Nova happens and see something. What part of the sky? What part of the sky are we talking about?

ASA

That's in the constellation Corona Borealis. Which is kind of near where the big Dipper's handle points.

DON

Oh, OK.

ASA

Yeah, I know it's a little bit counterintuitive. Maybe anti climb active for my advice to all the stargazers out there to be to go look at nothing.

DON

Well, but that's cool. If you look at some nothing and then suddenly in another, you know few months or whatever, there's something that's kind of that that's kind of cool. I mean at the.

JOHN

State of our surveillance of the. We might have real time coming into being. Sequences, right? I don't know if we're going to have a movie or a video. Actually we might. I mean, right? We might have the moment. We suddenly can see it. And maybe that would be so dramatic. I mean, that would blow the top of my head off.

ASA

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's. Why a lot of scientists are excited about this like, this isn't just going to be a cool site for everyone to, you know, be a go at. But also this is gonna be a Nova bat because we're seeing it coming with all of this like we have all this technology. Now all these telescopes that we didn't have before that have been watching this thing and waiting at the earliest sign that it's going Nova there. Be telescopes all around the world watching it. To see exactly how it goes down. And yeah, I I bet that will get some footage from somewhere on earth of some amateur astronomer who happened to be looking up at that part of the sky. Or who was actually recording it, you know? Measure its brightness because hundreds of people are doing that, waiting to see when it goes Nova. And they catch the exact moment that would be incredible.

JOHN

Unbelievable.

DON

Would be so cool.

Speaker

Wow.

DON

So cool real time.

JOHN

Stuff out there at such a distance. Mean it is more than spooky. Incredible.

DON

Well, that describes John too. Than spooky. He's incredible.

ASA

Wow, that's. Weirdly sweet.

DON

And and just.

JOHN

Yeah, I'll settle for weird.

DON

Thanks.

JOHN

I always have a sib.

ASA

Me too.

DON

Thank you so much for being on the show and maybe we'll tap you later on in the air and see if there's anything else that's popped up that we need to look at or something that we need to anticipate as we go into the last half of 20. Or into 26. And. Where's the the place you worked at that people can keep track of all this stuff? Give it a plug.

ASA

A planetary society. Space non. CEO Bill Nye doing very cool stuff and trying to advance. Space science and exploration, you know, get NASA missions off the ground. Stuff like that. Reach out to the public about astronomy. Do things like this. And also.

DON

Put dustbusters on the moon, which is something I, and that's a mission that I wouldn't have thought about. Now that you talk about it, it's pretty cool.

JOHN

It's that is pretty cool.

DON

Chrome, Chrome. Acer stall. Thanks a lot for being with us today.

ASA

Thanks for having me. Great to be here.