090726 ~ September Skywatch - Dr. Buddy Stark

0:00Fall is around the corner and there is a lot to see in the night sky. I'm Lucianne Lance and it's time to do our Michigan Skywatch with Dr. Buddy Starky is the director and you have to give the whole name of this now. Yeah, every time the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History Planetarium. The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History Planetarium. However, that name could change. Yes, I mean we do. So I am not the, I mean my bosses are the ones that really sort of spearhead this stuff, but the naming rights of the Planetarium are sort of up for grounds. What is this new I hadn't heard this. I mean they have been talking with their, you know, the fundraising people for a while about this. So it is new in terms of like, you know, sort of public awareness of it. Oh, fun. But it's been going on for a couple of years. So ideally some benefactor out there who is involved in the industry maybe or who? Or just appreciate science communication, astronomy, like these kinds of topics that, yeah, for like, has their own philanthropic background that could, you know, maybe they want their name

1:01on part of the University. Could be their family name. Exactly. Oh, that is so cool. I love that. But then I think the name is just going to get longer. We'll still call it University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. So-and-so family planetarium. Yeah. Yeah. I could just stick with that last little part. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. How much fun. Well, Dr. Stark, welcome back in. Let's start first of all. Oh my gosh. Everyone was a buzz about the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope that has finally launched. Yes. And it went very smoothly and they got their first launch window, which is always a play. You know, you never know what weather is going to do. So everything went very well. But the problem with space telescopes is that it's not for the impatient. They launched it on August 30th, but it's not going to arrive at it's where it's going to actually do its observing until sort of late November. So it has been launched and is no longer on the planet, but it's also not where it's going yet. And it's not in Earth's orbit, obviously. Correct. Yeah. So I mean, getting like the Hubble Space Telescope, you know, is basically overnight, like you launch it one day and the next day it's in orbit and you're sort of all set.

2:02But the Nancy Grace Roman is going to what's called a Lagrange point, which is about five times further away than the moon is. And so, you know, it takes us even a few days to get a person to the moon and it takes us even longer to get, of course, for the further than the moon. Remind everyone speaking and naming rights who Nancy Grace Roman was. Yeah. The Nancy Grace Roman was the first female administrator of NASA. And she passed away in 2018, I think. So I mean, not that long ago. So it's a really great namesake. She did a lot of work, sort of furthering. There was another female pioneer in astronomy named Annie, Annie Jump Cannon, who did a lot of work in helping us understand classifying different kinds of stars, like they're not all the same. And so Nancy Grace Roman did a lot of her own work with like galaxies and other things like that, but also further some of Annie Jump Cannon. Quite notable indeed. So, this telescope at 42 feet long, I understand. Yeah, it essentially, so if you are familiar with what the Hubble Space Telescope looks like, it looks almost identical to the Hubble Space Telescope. It's that sort of like pipe shape, but it's quite, you know, it's quite a bit bigger.

3:03It's like a school bus, basically, that they launch up there into space. Dr. Stark, how do they do that? How something that big and you launch it up and how do you keep the integrity of it so that it doesn't, I don't know, dissipate. Yeah. There's a lot of engineering that goes into the, like that aspect, right? I mean, so you, you house it within. So the thing that I think a lot of people don't really grasp is the size of the rockets that are being used, because you see it on a video, and it's always, the camera is always a good distance away. And we've all seen, like at some point in our life, probably we've done like that sort of backyard rocket kind of thing, you know, like maybe your kids, like scouts or something, right? And they're kind of the same shape. So we imagine something that's like sort of roughly that big. But the, the rockets that are being launched for these types of things, I mean, genuinely are skyscrapers. Like there are multi-story rockets. And so, and because that's what it takes, you need that much fuel, that much power to lift something that's that size up off the planet. And conceivably, it will be able to see planets that are a billion times fainter than their

4:03host are. Yes. I mean, that's one of the big goals for, I mean, it's sort of been common, that sort of narrative has been very common for a lot of astronomy in the last decade or so, is like we are getting more and more interested in exoplanets because we're getting better and better, which exoplanet is the term we use to describe a planet that is going around some other star in space. And they can be tough to find because as you mentioned, I mean, they are, like the stars give off plenty of light, but planets, of course, few famously, they don't. They just reflect starlight. And when they're very, very far away, they're not reflecting a whole lot of that starlight towards us. All right. So she's on her way up November is when she will arrive. Yep. And then we still have to be a little, because then they start doing checks and they start running, you know, like diagnostics and this kind of thing. So we've got six months to a year before we start seeing those pretty pictures that were used to. So are you waiting with Bated Breath? Of course. This could really open up the universe for you people that. Yeah. And I mean, we at least, last time I checked, I think, for professors at the University of Michigan got time on the first cycle. So like our researchers are doing the research for this new telescope.

5:05You know what? I want to have future conversations. Let's have one of them come in with you. Wouldn't that be fun? That would be lovely. That would be great. All right. So we're deciding the Roman Space Telescope is now on its way on its big journey. So what's next for the fall? Yeah. So let's, okay. So it's fun to talk about those kinds of things. But also, I mean, part of our little segment is to give people stuff to go outside and look at, right? Right. And go out in their own backyard. And so this time of year, every year, we have something called the Great Square of Pegasus that starts to come up. It is four fairly bright stars in, as the name suggests, almost perfect square. And you're looking in the east just after sunset, 1030, something like that. And that's the easiest sort of fall constellation. We call it Pegasus because we usually steal our mythology from Greek mythology and sort of the Mediterranean part of the world. But of course, different people interpret the sky differently. And so the Anastagnovi people, the Native American people from our region traditionally call that the moose in the sky. So it's interesting that a lot, it's fascinating to me how often different cultures see

6:08very similar because like one of them is a big horse, the other one is a moose. Like they're not interpreting it vastly differently from each other. I can see where that square would look like a moose head. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's like a big antler thing that comes off sort of the bottom of it for the moose. I also, we run a show every once in a while from Anastagnovi's Star Knowledge at the Planetarium to talk about the way they interpret this guy. And one of the things that I learned in that show was that the word moose is a Native American word, right? Like it sort of blew my mind because like they're, those animals are native to America. And like if you're coming over from Europe, you've never seen a moose. So you ask the native, what is that thing? And they tell you it's a moose. And so that's what you start calling it. Doesn't sound like a Native American term. Because we've sort of naturalized it, right? But like the rest of that show, because they use Native American terms in that show, it's called living in balance on Aastagnovi's Star Knowledge. And they talk about like Nokamus Gizus is their name for the moon, which sounds very Native American to my ear, right? But it's just because we didn't adopt that term.

7:08Whereas the word moose sounds normal to me, but it stems from the Native American culture. Wow, that's really interesting. So we're looking for Pegasus now or? Yes. So it's even better like a month from now, but you can already see it. Like I said, if you go outside around 10, 30 or so and you look in the east, so watch the sunset and then when it's done turn around, right, you want to be looking in the other direction or find the North Star and then turn 90 degrees to the right. And then in that area, it's just a little bit above the horizon. It's kind of a more of a diamond shape because it's kind of crooked, right? So don't look for something that is like square with the horizon. But like within themselves, it is a nice square of four stars. Okay. All right. And that happens this time of year every year? Every year. Yeah. So unlike things like planets which move around the sky because they have their own motions out there in space, you know, they're going around the sun, stars, nighttime is whatever direction is away from the sun. Right? Like that makes sense. But because the earth goes around the sun, the direction that is currently away from the sun slowly changes. Right? Right. We face a different area of the universe in fall at nighttime than we do in the spring.

8:09So the constellations and the patterns that we see are the same during, so that's why we have seasonal constellations. Oh, that's interesting. I go Ryan is always up in the winter. Leo is always up in the spring. Pegasus is always up in the fall. All right. Whether you call it Pegasus or moose. Or moose. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Saturn. Yes. So Saturn is also coming up, which is lovely. So one of the best thing, if you do have a small backyard telescope, one of the best things in my opinion, you do that is pointed at Saturn and Saturn is already rising in the east right next to Pegasus. It's going to be the brightest thing in that section of the sky. So the brightest thing in the east. And it's already coming up at around 10, 30 or 11 o'clock. But if that's past your bedtime, as we go into the fall, everything rises two hours earlier every month. So by the time we get into next month, so early October, Saturn is going to be rising at like 8 p.m. So if you don't want to stay up very late, but you want to see Saturn, this fall is going to be a great time for you. That's wonderful. Now, let's move for the, toward the Andromeda galaxy. This is a galaxy that's near the Milky Way.

9:10So in terms of like out in space, yes, it's our nearest large galaxy. And it's coming at us. Okay. We're on a collision course with the Andromeda. Absolutely. What do you mean? Plan accordingly. You've only got about 5 billion years to figure it out. Oh. So, yeah. So the Andromeda is one exception. Most galaxies in space are getting further away from us. But one of the exceptions is the Andromeda, which is currently on a collision course with our galaxy. And again, like because they are so far away, it is going to take a long time for it to happen. But that's, you know, as we sort of project out their motions into the future. So when it does happen in 5 billion years, what happens? Yeah. So, surprisingly, because you'd think like the Andromeda has 600 billion stars and the Milky Way has like 300 billion stars. So it seems like it should be a train wreck, right? And it's like, that's got to be bad things on the way. And surprisingly, because so much of galaxies are empty space for any given solar system, what happens is mostly nothing. So what will, if you could speed up time, so you could see this transpire on like a human lifetime, what you would see is the Andromeda getting gradually larger and larger in our sky

10:10and brighter and brighter until it fills up most of the sky. And it kind of looks like the Milky Way. You know, the Milky Way looks like a band across our sky. Yeah. Well, that's the galaxy that you're in. And so eventually the Andromeda would sort of transform into that shape. But because there are so much empty space, the likelihood of our star actually hitting anything else would be very small. Now, over very, very long periods of time, what will happen is those two galaxies will sort of merge into one even larger galaxy, probably becoming what's called an elliptical galaxy, which is a big blob of mess because they sort of mess each other. Right now they're both very pretty spirals. Wow. They look very nice, right? Like, you know, we've all seen the sort of pin-ring galaxies. That's what they look like. But when two of those hit each other, they sort of really mess up their structures, right? Their own gravitational interaction and stuff. And they turn into a big ball of old stars. I understand, Dr. Stark, that theoretically there could be life in the Andromeda strain. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there could be more life even in the Milky Way, theoretically. I mean, you know what I mean? So the thing that we know there's water in the universe, that's become more and more

11:11apparent. Like, we find water sort of everywhere. It's actually quite abundant, surprisingly. Right? Like, the rings of Saturn are made out of water. We have liquid water in your rope. Like, there's just water everywhere. There's water in nebulas out there in space. And we also have found what's called, you know, you've often heard called complex carbon molecules, which is not life itself. But so, for example, one of the four building blocks of DNA is something called adenine. And adenine is a long strand of fairly fragile little carbon molecules that are strubonized together, right? And we have also found adenine, which is not life, but it is a complex carbon little thing out in space. We've seen that. And so it is possible. Wow. And so it is possible that that type of, you know, the type of thing that happened here on the earth where these, these organic molecules sort of combine in such a way to give us what we call life has also happened somewhere else, right? Now, we can't say that for certain. We haven't actually seen that, but it's definitely, you know, theoretically possible. That would be amazing. So, we're talking about the Andromeda Galaxy right now because we can see it. Yes.

12:11Oh, yeah. Thank you for bringing me back to that. So, the cool thing about the Andromeda is that the only trick you can actually, like everyone listening, can go outside and see the Andromeda Galaxy. You do not need a telescope. You don't need some expensive piece of equipment. It is about the same size as the full moon. So, it's quite large in the sky, but it's quite dim. That's the only thing. So, the reason that you don't see it most of the time is because of something called light pollution, which I think a lot of us are familiar with. You go out in your backyard and your neighbor's garage light is on and it's getting in the way, right, and all this other stuff. But if you go out into the country, away from towns and people and lights and you get somewhere very, very dark near Cassio Pia, near Pegasus. So, if you find Pegasus, you're looking in the generally the right area of the sky. There is a faint little fuzzy thing. It just kind of looks like a little smudge to your eye. But if you go out nine after night, you'll notice that that little smudge doesn't move. And that's because that little smudge that you're seeing is the Andromeda Galaxy. Only this time of year. So it's best seen in the fall. It gets highest in the fall, which means that you're looking through less atmosphere. And so, like there's less stuff that gets in your way. Oh, interesting. One cool thing, if you do get lucky enough to spot it, a cool thing to think about is that

13:14that is easily the furthest thing that you'll ever see without telescopes. It's two and a half million light years away. It puts any individual star distance to shame, like you are seeing something that is further than anything else you've ever seen. And to think someday it's going to collide with us. Yeah, it's getting closer every day. We can actually see it. You're probably too young to remember. Do you remember the 1960s movie The Andromeda Strain? No. Oh, really? You've got to watch it. Look that up. Oh, it's great. It's a sci-fi thriller. It's very cool. I think it was the author of that. But they made this movie. I think the book came first and then the movie in the early 70s. So a space satellite falls in New Mexico and brings something with it, a deadly space germ to the town. Okay. Very good. Yeah, I'm looking at that. All right. And then finally, it is going to be fall this month. And that means... That means that I mean, the weather hopefully gets nicer. Right? That's time of year as far as I'm concerned. I agree 100% on that. But the Atomno Equino. Specifically, yes. So the September 22nd is the first official day of fall.

14:17And what that... Like what do we mean? We say the first official day of fall. It could be hot as I'll get out. You know, all of a sudden, the 22nd. What we mean is that the earth, of course, is going around the sun. And there are certain moments of our orbit that we define as the start of a season. So the start of summer is whenever the North Pole of the Earth is pointed directly towards the sun. Right? And that always happens in June. And the start of winter is whenever the North Pole of the Earth is pointed directly away from the sun. And so that always happens in December. And then there are these two moments halfway between those seasons where the North Pole of the... Well, both poles of the Earth are pointed directly in the same direction as the motion of the Earth. So you can sort of think of it as like 90 degrees from the direction of the sun, right? In terms of like where the pole is pointing. And the cool thing about that, two things happen on an equinox. So the September 22nd. The first thing that happens is on that day, the sun genuinely rises exactly east and sets exactly west. So the rest of the year it sets, it rises, you know, somewhat east, but it's usually northeast or southeast. And it sets somewhat west, but again, it's got that slight, you know, back and forth.

15:17And the other thing that happens is that this is the day of the year that is the closest. It's always off by a few seconds, but it's the closest to exactly 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of nighttime. Oh, okay. So that's actually where equinox comes from. It's Latin for equal night. Equal. Yeah, equa and nox, right? So equal night. Wow. And so unlike the summer where we have very long days and very short nights in the winter where we have very long nights and very short days, the fall in the spring or kind of like those sort of in between seasons. All right. Well, thank you for introducing us to Paul. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, me too. It's my favorite time of the year. Dr. Buddy Stark with all things skyward each month here on the Lucian Lent show. He is the director of the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History soon to be called another name planetarium. Yeah, it is a mouthful. If someone out there would like to fund a naming of it, wouldn't that be great? Wow, absolutely. I can't wait to see it. Thank you so much, Buddy. Always fun talking with you. You're listening to Ann Arbor's talk station, 1290 WLBY.