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- [00:00]
A
369 million pounds. That is how much it is currently going to cost to refurbish Buckingham Palace, a building that the King announced last week that he would no longer live in, preferring to live in nearby Clarence House. This is on top of the £67 million spent last year on the upkeep and basic maintenance of all the London properties in the Royal portfolio. Chequers, the Prime Minister's country Residence, costs around £1 million annually to run a building the PM uses on the occasional weekend through the year, but like Buckingham palace, essentially sits empty. The palace of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament, the seat of Government, the source of funding decisions, is itself beginning a long period of refurbishment, some estimates put at £40 billion over the next few decades. All of which is very interesting. The RAF and the Royal Navy took delivery in April of three new fighters from the United States, each of which cost £100 million. Last year, Thames Water, a for profit shareholder company, received a 3 billion pound bailout from the Government, which is identical to the amount of share dividend they have paid out over the last 10 years. The government wine cellar is estimated to be worth over 2 million pounds and costs around 27,000 pounds a year. To top up, the Government art collection receives a budget of over half a million a year and is said to be worth around 2 billion, all of which is very interesting. In other news, the ppan, or Particle physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics budget in the UK is about to take a 30% cut in funding, which amounts to a saving to the UK of 54 million pounds a year and destruction of all scaling back of 48 major projects. In extensive surveys done since the announcement in January, 80% of current PhD students and postdocs in this field are now considering or looking for work outside of the UK. And only 7% would recommend the UK for a PPAN career, compared to 74% before January. All of which is very interesting. I'm Paul.
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B
And I'm Jenny.
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A
And this is episode 177 of awesome Astronomy for July 2026. Hello.
- [02:36]
B
Hello.
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A
How are you?
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B
Oh, I've just about re. I almost said recomposed, but that's. That's not a word. But yeah, I've almost recomposed after, you know, the oven that I lived in
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A
for a week, it was quite hot, wasn't it?
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B
Oh my God, I just come back from bloody California and it was hotter in the uk.
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A
Like, God, it was so hot. It was, yeah, it was, it was stupid. What temperature did you get to? I got up to 33.36.6 here and humidity of 80.
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B
And you had a disgusting amount of humidity.
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A
86% is literally you. I. There was a point on Thursday where I was doing some work, sitting at the computer, and I was, like, feeling very hot. And literally the act of standing up made me sweat.
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B
Yeah. It was just. It was unbelievable. And the thing is, I know that there's countries around the world. Right. That are hotter than 36 degrees, but the problem is we don't have aircon. The humidity is disgusting. And our houses are so insulated. Fight the winter. We're just not made for war.
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A
No, no. It's just because by night, the problem is it does cool down a little bit. It actually didn't really cool down overnight much at all.
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B
No, it's like 25 at night.
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A
Oh, God. I think it was like 27 or 28 are here at one point in the middle of the night, which is ridiculous. But the house itself doesn't cool down.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because it's. It's a house built for surviving, you know, cold autumns and winters and rain, and so it just locks in that heat. Oh, God. Yeah. It was awful.
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B
You know, I was even using the science, you know, at the attic window open to allow the hot air out. But when it doesn't get cold outside, that hot air is not gonna go anywhere.
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A
It was bonkers.
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B
It was absolutely odd.
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A
Yeah. It was actually that point where I was keeping the window shut during the day and all the curtains shut.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then opening them at night only.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Doing the science. And it still wasn't enough.
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A
Doing the science. Wet towels, all the rest of it. Yeah, it was disgusting.
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B
Yes. I was doing that as well.
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A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
But. Yeah. Unbearable.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But what was a joy in this heat wave which you saw? A very special little display.
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A
It's been a few nights of it. It's been really spectacular noctilucent clouds. Yeah, we've had some absolutely spectacular noctilucent clouds. Really, really good.
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B
You have? Yeah, I've had actual clouds.
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A
You've had actual clouds, haven't you?
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B
I've had actual clouds. I haven't seen it.
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A
Yeah, we've had clear. Obviously, it's been really clear here. And we've had really spectacular noctuos and clouds. In fact, it was John who alerted me the other night, the first time when he was, like, from London. He was seeing him in London, saying, oh, look, noctis. And God, like, where it's like, bloody hell. Yeah. Look at that whole northern sky. Just Glowing away. Really spectacular. Not even just that little thin bit under everything. Yeah, that little, little glimpse of them. It's like.
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B
No, really good.
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A
Yeah, no, that was really good. I mean there is that theory that they are a canary for climate change, isn't it?
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B
Yes. Yeah. Because people are wondering if it's. There's the two components, right. There's the more pollutants in the atmosphere providing more nucleation points for the ice crystals to form. And then when like it sounds backwards but high up in the, in the mesosphere where we're not solucion clouds form, global warming is actually making it colder.
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A
Colder. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So because they weren't. There's no record of them before the kind of middle of the 19th century. Really?
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B
Yeah.
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A
So yeah. And you would have thought people have noticed that.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And there is, you know, there is that kind of double edged sword of now we have social media and so people are more aware and they share pictures. So there is that element. But in terms of like all of the official records as well. Yeah, yeah. They do seem to be on the rise and it's something that's been investigated and looked at now, isn't it?
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A
And it is notable. So I think I, I've certainly noticed in the last few years more and more and more of them and they're more spectacular.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so it's interesting that we had that really, really like a big heat dome over Europe and everything and then suddenly like as it ends suddenly noctilucent clouds, loads of big displays of noctis and clouds. I'm just sort of, I think it's actually clouds. I was having a look at the window.
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B
Yeah, I'll have a very quick look.
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A
I'm going to look.
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B
Go on, hang on, go on, go on, go on. Look, look in. I am cloudy. I know that much.
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A
We're cloudy. Yeah, yeah. I was like, no, it's grey cloud. No, we're actually cloudy for a change. But yeah, those been really spectacular, really, really beautiful things when you see them. So I had a friend over the other night trying to explain like what they were because he was like, are they just like clouds? I'm like, yeah, but it's the night time. They should be gray. You realize that they're glowing.
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B
Yeah.
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A
He's like, oh yeah,
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B
they are like they are surprised when you first see them. And that is the key is that the other clouds in the sky will be dark, but these will be light. And that's how you know.
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A
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So you. You back from California, I back from.
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B
Back from the land of America. They left. Yeah.
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A
How was.
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B
Was mixed. And I am gonna talk about something that happened, which is sad while I was out there, but. But briefly, because I kind of want to do a bit of a public service thing. So, unfortunately, while I was out there, my auntie, Quite close to my auntie, you know, she's one of those people who is like the key. One of the key family members. You know, you have those people who are like, central. Well, unfortunately, while I was out there, the short version of the story is she had a series of heart attacks, and unfortunately, very suddenly. So that. That was really hard to deal with being on my own out there. Basically the way I coped was I just lived in a bubble where she was still alive because I just. I was totally on my own. I just didn't really know how else to deal with it. And kind of delayed morning till I got back. But the. The public service announcement thing that I kind of want to do is she had none of the classic heart attack symptoms. Now, my auntie was not overweight. She used to go for walks. You know, she take the dog out every day on long walks. You know, she ate relatively healthy. So, you know, she's in her mid-70s, so not like ancient either. And, you know, the classic heart attack symptoms that they always tell you about are, you know, pains in your chest, arm going numb, that kind of thing.
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A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
What she had was extreme nausea and back pain, which it turns out are far more common symptoms in women.
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A
Is that. That's fascinating.
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B
Yes, yes. And when I say extreme nausea, like she was in bed bedridden, like she couldn't eat, she couldn't drink, she couldn't get out of bed. She felt so ill, you know, wouldn't. Wouldn't phone for the doctors because she was like, well, you know, I just feel sick.
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A
76 as well. And they do that.
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B
Yeah. And none of us. None of us were, you know, because obviously my uncle knew and like, you know, other family members knew she was in, but not one of us thought, maybe she's out, had a heart attack. So I'm putting this out there now that if there's. If there's a. Particularly a woman in your life who finds themselves feeling extremely sick and with back pain, take them to A and E and get them checked out. Like, if it's extreme nausea, not like, oh, I feel a bit squiffy, but.
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A
But like proper.
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B
But extreme nausea, back pain things.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And back pain, it could be a heart attack.
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A
So it is fascinating how much medicine and medical things are centered around men.
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B
Yeah. And especially like white men.
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A
Yeah, yeah, completely.
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B
As well.
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A
And partly the male women is basically horribly. It's a cost thing as well because it costs more money to do research on women because of the slightly different physiology with. Especially with the sort of the possibilities of pregnancy and things like that and the extra risks you involved in.
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B
Yeah.
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A
The women's physiology is actually less understood than men's.
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B
Oh, wait, it's like decades around. Women's medical research is like decades behind. So. Yeah, I don't want to dwell.
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A
No, but it's a really good point. Yeah, it's good. A really.
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B
Put it. Put it out there and we will. We will get back to the space stuff because while I was out there, I went to the Apple conference.
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A
I'm not gonna lie, it. I think I'd rather shit in my hands and clap from what you. What I saw.
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B
Oh, my God, it was like, it was amazing to see Apple Park. The architectural engineering on that building is astonishing. Right, right. Never seen anywhere so clean. Know that there was a speck of dirt, like not, not even a bit of fluff from someone's belly button. Right. It. It was unbelievable. But it was very like, techie. Techy. Yeah, like, yeah, there, there was. There's this chant that goes, that goes. I can't believe I'm about to do it. But it goes D, D C dub dub, dc dc. And you just got all of these groups of like, techy people, just like. It's like, you know, 95% men just like chanting this chant and they just randomly burst into it. And when you, like, come into the conference, they clap you in.
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A
I saw that.
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B
And it was all right, when it was about six, six people like clapping you in and cheering you because it was like, okay, we're like, we're getting excited, we're getting going. But then on the way out, it's like 40 people and you gotta walk through a corridor of like, these people.
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A
I would. Would rather like.
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B
Yeah, no, I felt like I needed to lie down in the biggest cup of tea in my life afterwards. It's like, I just.
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A
It frankly sounds awful.
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B
It was. Well, the thing is, I love the swag. Although I would like to complain to Apple that you're a multi billion dollar industry and like, I would like free AirPods, not just a tote bag and some pin badges. Like, come on, give it. Give us some like, you know, you don't freebies. You don't get you don't become a multi billion industry.
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A
You know, turtleneck jumpers, you gotta buy and, you know.
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B
So actually, do you know what? I did buy a jumper from the store that says Apple. Not a turtleneck, just like a normal sweater that says Apple. Like retro style. Like, really cool. I do like it. So, yeah, I. I am officially an Apple wanker now. So you knew it was really cool, though, like, meeting everyone.
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A
You neoliberal shill.
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B
Yeah, but like, meeting everyone, like, and interacting with other. And you know what? Felt like a minor celebrity at the event. It was amazing because we had T shirts on with the app logo.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
And people kept coming up to us like, oh, are you with Sky Guide? And we were like, we are Sky Guide. They were like, oh, my God. Like, I love your app. I use it all the time. And I was like, yeah, boy. That was actually really cool.
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A
Nice.
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B
That was fun. So I did that. Then I had some time in San Francisco. I went to Alcatraz.
- [14:37]
A
Nice.
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B
It was. Did you know it was occupied for about 18 months by native Americans in a Protestant. After it stopped being a prison. Yeah, after they shut it down as a prison. Native Americans occupied it as a protest because laws kept trying to. Well, not trying, but they were. They were taking away their lands and taking away their rights. So they went, you know what? We're gonna take our island back. And they occupied it for, like 18 months and, like, genuinely lived on there and stuff.
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A
Wow.
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B
Right? Cool, isn't it?
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A
That is cool.
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B
Yeah. I learned all about Al Capone.
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A
Nice.
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B
Died of syphilis and was incarcerated for tax evasion. I didn't realize.
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A
I knew that.
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B
Yeah. But died. Died of syphilis symptoms. Apparently, before he went into Alcatraz, his mistress was diagnosed with syphilis. And they were like, I'll let us test you. And he was like, nah, mate. And then a decade later, he went absolutely loopy with the syphilis.
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A
Yeah, you see, See, you got a double Sean Connery link there.
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B
A double Sean Connery link. Did he die of syphilis too?
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A
No, Sean Connery. Sean Connery famously sent Al Capone down.
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B
I didn't know. This wasn't in the talk.
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A
See?
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B
Oh, yeah, you should be on the island.
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A
Yeah. He said, in the film the Untouchables, Sean Connery plays the one of the coppers that sends Al Capone down. And then, of course, Sean Connery was in the Rock.
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B
Yes, yes. Which I started watching before I went to Alcatraz, but I didn't actually finish it. I need to finish that. It was really good.
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A
Which there is. There is a theory that that is. He's James Bond.
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B
Oh, he's like trialing it out.
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A
No, no, no, no.
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B
He's.
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A
He's the. She's the Sean Connery James Bond. It's one of those really crazy fan fan theories. It really works in the, like, do you know he's near the guy. This is like really weird. The character in the film is like this ex British Forces intelligence officer, isn't he?
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B
Oh, I get you now.
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A
Yeah, I get it. And you see what happened to the Sean Connery James Bond? Well, he got like arrested by the Americans for something and then now he's the same. It's actually James Bond.
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B
I love that.
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A
That's great.
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B
That's canon in my mind.
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A
Yeah, exactly.
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B
I like that, love that, love that. Yeah, that's cool.
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A
It's a good film.
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B
But, yeah, I went. I went to see the Giant Sequoias as well. Went to Muir woods, went to Yosemite.
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A
Nice.
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B
So. And I found an old timey arcade light place that's all the old styling arcade machines from like the. Like, probably like the 1900s. Like, only like all the way. You know the ones where you could. You like, you put like 10 cents in and then. Oh, you can see like a lady. Oh, she's like lifting her skirts to her. To her knees. Oh, so racy.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Everything from like that to like, like Pac man and stuff. Like it was. Yeah, yeah.
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A
So what else? Go on. Look, I mean, my life's been just like. I've been revising GCSE students for the last, like six weeks. I've been busy in that way, but nothing interesting in my life.
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B
So I spoke at the Federation of Astronomical Societies the other day and I had, you know what, this is gonna sound extremely like, braggy, but I had the compliment of my life.
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A
Ooh.
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B
Like, honestly, it's never gonna get better than this. Someone came up to me after my talk and said that I give a talk with the same enthusiasm as Carl Sagan.
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A
Nice.
- [18:00]
B
Right, like that. I will take that. That's it. Now I've peaked with my talks.
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A
He's the governor, right?
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B
Yeah, he's the goat.
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A
He is.
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B
He's like, he's the goat. It is. And I'm so proud of that. I feel like that's it. Now I've peaked with my public speaking.
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A
He's the science con governor. He's like. He's like the Godfather. Yeah, yeah, right. Superb.
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B
So I, Yeah, that was a very special moment for me. So if. If the person who told me that is listening. Thank you for taking the time to come up and, like, actually say that you got.
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A
You've got working billions and billions into your next talk.
- [18:35]
B
Yeah. So I'll squeeze it in.
- [18:37]
A
If you want. If you want to start the universe from scratch first, you've got a. No, no apple pie. God, I'm getting it all wrong. Look, if you want to make an apple pie from scratched by GCSEs, I am completely bamboozled by GCSEs and A levels. It's just. I'm just. I'm in that post. The people who work in education will completely understand this. You'll get to sort of the end of June, July, and you basically. Your brain just turns off completely.
- [19:04]
B
Yeah.
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A
Because you've just. You've just spent the last couple of months absolutely. Drilling kids like mad and going through all their issues. I even had one on a Sunday, like, phone me up on a Sunday, going, can I have an extra session? I'm just having a meltdown, like, yeah, go on in. And now I'm just like, whatever, the sun's out, I'm melting. There's no exams for ages now.
- [19:27]
B
Yeah, you've got to, like, you have to have absent brain cells now because you stole so many from future you. So, yeah, you're absent brain cells now.
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A
You do. You just go like, wow, whatever. So, yeah, I'm already on wine now for summer. If you. If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must at first invent the universe, isn't it? Yeah.
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B
Oh, yeah. So cool. He's so cool.
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A
He was so cool. He was literally. I'd love to have met Sagan.
- [19:52]
B
I'm not as cool as Carl Sagan, but I. I will take being as enthusiastic as Carl Sagan. Yeah.
- [19:57]
A
You see, you need a turtleneck jumper and a jacket that's.
- [20:00]
B
Oh, I said, that means I need to go back to the app conference this year, then and, like, steal a lot of stilt neck jumpers.
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A
Randomly chanting and clapping people and like, some sort of cult.
- [20:10]
B
Oh, my God. It did feel very cold.
- [20:11]
A
It's very culty. It's very cold. I mean, to be fair, Silicon Valley is just like one massive cult, really.
- [20:20]
B
But I do like that apple sweater. This is how it begins, though. There could be something, like, infused into the fibers.
- [20:26]
A
Yeah, yeah. See, they turn you into a robot or something. You'll be like, well, you won't be an Android.
- [20:36]
B
Oh, I see. Yeah, I know. Yeah. It would be.
- [20:38]
A
Oh,
- [20:40]
B
oh, very good. But on a completely different. Actually, no, it's not a completely different note because it is a teaching note.
- [20:45]
A
Go on.
- [20:46]
B
My next round of Astronomy In Action.
- [20:49]
A
What's that coming up?
- [20:51]
B
So I've been sent the, like the brochure for the coming academic year to review, which means that signups will begin in a couple of weeks. So if you would like to come and learn more about the universe and things that are going on in space right now. Astronomy in Action is one Saturday month from September through to March, three hours on a Saturday and we do seven sessions and we do practical things, we have guest lecturers, it's very good fun and I bring snacks. So it's definitely the best lecture course that Cardiff University offers, purely because I provide biscuits.
- [21:32]
A
Nice.
- [21:33]
B
Yeah. So the sign up will be ready for that. It is in person, not online, but if you're in the Cardiff area, come and join me.
- [21:42]
A
Nice.
- [21:42]
B
And then we have one more little thing to remind everyone about. The eclipse is coming up in August 12th of August.
- [21:51]
A
It is.
- [21:53]
B
If you haven't got your eclipse glasses yet until the 12th of July, go stargazing. Are doing a really special offer. You can get 50 solar glasses for 12 quid, 100 glasses for 18, 150 glasses for 22 and 200 glasses for 25 pound, including postage and packaging. It's like mega cheap. You are not going to get them cheaper than that.
- [22:21]
A
Oh, God, no.
- [22:22]
B
So that's ghost stargazing. If you type in ghost stargaze in eclipse glasses, it'll come up. And they also have a new eclipse website for the UK, so ukeclipse.com and they're putting on there all of the events that are being held for eclipses, for the eclipse and like, how you can get involved. And there's like blog posts about safety tips and. And things like that as well. So go stargazing and ukeclipse.com Nice. And this is not. We're not sponsored or anything by these websites.
- [22:59]
A
Just go get some cheap glasses, guys.
- [23:01]
B
It's just go get some cheap glasses. Yeah, yeah.
- [23:14]
A
Right then it's time for the news and well, I'm gonna start. I'm gonna start because it was all about you doing the chat, to be fair.
- [23:21]
B
It is all about me.
- [23:21]
A
It is all about you. Just you apple shill robot, you. So stand down, everyone. Stand down.
- [23:30]
B
Oh.
- [23:31]
A
Normal service has resumed and what was thought to be and briefly thought not is now once again so. And you can now all sleep easy in your beds tonight because one major brewing crisis in cosmology is not. Oh, and I'm sure that all made sense.
- [23:48]
B
Right? Yes. I feel like I'm in Alice in Wonderland right now. Made perfect sense.
- [23:52]
A
Yeah. E me. The universe is still accelerating and not slowing as reported last year. Ah, yes. So if you recall, last year, one of the big stories was the study published claiming the growth of the universe is slowing, that the accepted model of the universe that we've had since the 90s was incorrect. Remember a team of South Korean researchers that made the claim that the universe expansion may have entered a deceleration phase caused by the influence of dark energy weakening over time. So, as you may be aware or can imagine, this caused not a small amount of consternation in the world of astronomy and cosmology as the accepted model for the last roughly 3:30 years is that the universe is expanding ever faster rate due to the action of dark energy, which appears to work as a sort of anti gravity. So this announcement last year brought all this into question because you were talking panic and. Yeah, yeah, it was all a bit of a. Bit of a, bit of a panicle. So imagine back in the early 2000s, one of the cornerstones of the model was provided by an international team of researchers led by Professor Adam Reese, Professor Brian Schmidt, and Professor Saul Perlmutter, who all won the Nobel Prize in 2011 for their efforts. And they studied type 1A supernovae, which are those very bright white dwarf star flare ups. And using this, they determined that more distant objects appeared to move faster, underpinning their conclusion that the universe's expansion was indeed accelerating.
- [25:30]
B
Boom.
- [25:30]
A
That was like the big thing. But last year, this new study claims that as the universe aged, the supernovae actually had different maximum brightnesses, and therefore the astronomers had been tricked into concluding the universe was accelerating, that actually the opposite was happening. It was in fact slowing. We talked about this. Yeah, big story. Everyone was like, oh my God. But an international team led by the University of Southampton, including two Nobel laureates from the previous research, found an error in how the age of these stars was estimated, pointing out that the findings last year incorrectly assumed the age of a galaxy was the same as the age of the star that exploded.
- [26:19]
B
Oh, yeah, you can't, you, you can't assume that because galaxies have different generations of stars.
- [26:25]
A
Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, in a direct rebuttal of the team of South Korean researchers, they say the crisis that followed last year's announcement was the result of a scientific misunderstanding and that they were erroneous in their methodology. Yeah, I know.
- [26:46]
B
That's quite strong wording slack, isn't it?
- [26:49]
A
Lead author Dr. Phil Wiseman from the University of Southampton said the previous and well accepted measurements were in fact fine and our current understanding of the fate of the universe remains robust. Thankfully, we've averted this crisis, but the mystery about why the rate of expansion in the universe is still accelerating remains. By proving our measurements are correct, we can get back to trying understand what this dark energy actually is, rather than wondering if it exists at all.
- [27:18]
B
Spicy.
- [27:20]
A
When cosmologists get Spicy. Co author Dr. Brody Popovich said this was a good opportunity to go back and go over all of our assumptions. It turns out, yes, we do understand this stuff and we're accounting for it in our cosmology measurement. I know it feels a bit.
- [27:39]
B
Handbags at dawn they got spicy.
- [27:42]
A
This was in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, if you wanted to follow it up. But yeah, there we are. It's. It's like, you know, stand down, everybody. Universe isn't broken. It's where it was.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah. And turns out that Ashondermann's could be a little bit spicy.
- [27:57]
A
Very spicy.
- [27:59]
B
Right.
- [27:59]
A
Yeah.
- [28:00]
B
Wait, I. Do you know what, though? Why didn't the referee pick up?
- [28:06]
A
We said this before. I think there is a bit of a feeling at the moment. And that Gaia thing, isn't everyone jumping onto that? We want to get this there first and do the thing and people almost like wanting, wishing these things to be broken, that it's all going to be really exciting. There's going to be a new thing. Yeah. And there's been a lot of talk about how, like, you know, the peer review system is a bit broken at the moment.
- [28:28]
B
It is because you don't get paid for viewing, like papers.
- [28:32]
A
So.
- [28:33]
B
And it's not that, you know, it just should be. There should be a bit of a standard fee because you pay to publish in these journals. You have to pay money for your papers to go into these journals. I don't, I don't know if that's a widely known fact, but like when you then review papers as part of the peer review process, you don't get any extra money for doing it. You're just expecting, and there is a
- [28:54]
A
big drive to get published and get your names in as many papers as possible and just keep pumping out. So rather than quality research, sometimes there's a drive to just call the quantity of research.
- [29:07]
B
Yeah.
- [29:08]
A
And so if anything looks exciting and juicy, people are going to jump on it because it's also going to drive the sales of journals and Things like that. So, yeah, it's all a bit. The one.
- [29:18]
B
Yeah. It needs a bit of a shakeup.
- [29:19]
A
I think it is, it is the, the dark area of the, the kind of whole scientific method at the moment is this, this, this bit I think can get a bit dodgy. Yeah.
- [29:29]
B
And I think it's. Do you know what? I think it's just the torrent of papers that there are these days. You know, I think that is the problem is that people are not asked to review one paper a month, they're asked to review 10.
- [29:39]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [29:40]
B
And so then they're speed reading and they miss things and it's not their fault. They're under too much pressure.
- [29:46]
A
Yeah. And people who, you know, kind of senior in universities, you know, to keep their positions and things like that, you know, they're expected to be pumping out, you know, like a paper a year paper, you know, like. Yeah, it's kind of. Or more, you know, to actually get, get all this stuff out and get their names out and get the university's name on the paper and. Yeah, and that's, that's quite crazy. I mean, you think. I always think about now, of course these are, you know, these are exceptional ones as such. But you think about like how long Darwin took to write, you know, the Origin of Species is like he's like seminal paper. It was like 50, 50 years.
- [30:23]
B
Yeah. You know, and like, you know, the relativity papers.
- [30:28]
A
Yeah.
- [30:28]
B
Were years in the making.
- [30:29]
A
Years.
- [30:30]
B
And then it was like several iterations of them as well.
- [30:34]
A
Yeah.
- [30:34]
B
Completely with advancements and corrections and you
- [30:37]
A
know, and you had, you had scientists who would not publish until they were absolutely sure that they, they crossed every T and dot every I. But now the drive is just to pump these things out. And so you're getting teams of researchers going, oh, look, we think we found a thing. Let's pop it out there now. Sometimes it's popping out there so everyone can have a look at it. And like the faster than speed of light thing that was put out quickly because they knew it was wrong but they couldn't work out why it was wrong. They would say, yes, it was like,
- [31:08]
B
can you help us kind of.
- [31:10]
A
We're putting this out there because this is weird and we need, we need the, the hive mind. And that was good science. But there's a lot of stuff going out where you see it just six months later, people going, you know, probably not. That's, that's just a bit of nonsense. You've read that wrong or, you know, your methodology is wrong.
- [31:28]
B
Yeah.
- [31:28]
A
And that. Yeah. So anyway, what have we got next?
- [31:33]
B
Talking of speed.
- [31:35]
A
Speed.
- [31:36]
B
Sticking with the theme of speed.
- [31:37]
A
Oh, we're doing some speed now. Hey.
- [31:39]
B
Right, I'm going to talk about NASA's Neil's Swift Observatory, specifically the rescue mission.
- [31:49]
A
Yeah.
- [31:50]
B
That as this podcast goes out, is like imminently launching. So, yes, it is currently scheduled for the 30th of June. But yeah, space, Right. Who knows? So maybe it's gone by the time you listen. Maybe it hasn't. Now, a little bit about the Swift Observatory. It was launched in November 2004. So it's been up there for over two decades. Right. It's the classic. Was supposed to be up there a couple of years, and here we are 22 years later, nearly still chugging this thing. It was originally designed to be a gamma ray burst telescope. Right. So. So study things that go bang in the night, but it actually turned into the first responder of the sky. And it's one of these observatories that, again, completely flies under the radar, but it's just like a cornerstone in the world of astronomy.
- [32:46]
A
Yeah. Because.
- [32:48]
B
So when you, when you think about. So something happens in the sky, right? Like a supernova, a neutron star merger, black hole gobbles up a star, black hole gobbles up some gas, basically, something transient and violent and dramatic happens. Right. And it's detected. And you want to study it at all different wavelengths. Right. And so you're going to want to put, for example, Hubble on target. Do you know how long her will takes to get to, like, an unanticipated target?
- [33:19]
A
Go on.
- [33:21]
B
About a day.
- [33:22]
A
Wow.
- [33:24]
B
Yeah. Takes about a day to get it on target. Do you know how long the Swift Observatory takes?
- [33:29]
A
Go on.
- [33:30]
B
Minutes.
- [33:31]
A
That's what you want, right? That's what you want.
- [33:34]
B
This telescope is insane. And this is why it's called swift. It's not an acronym. Look at that. It's to allude to how quickly it can move.
- [33:42]
A
I don't know that they did even try to make Swift an acronym. It's just an actual name.
- [33:48]
B
It's an actual name. It's a descriptive name. It's a good name. So it's got. Got three telescopes on board. So it covers everything from gamma rays to visible light. First of all, huge wavelength range. So the, the first telescope is the Burst Alert Telescope. This detects soft gamma rays and hard X rays. And it stays at one sixth of the sky at any given time. So it just stays at the sky and it looks for a flash of gamma rays. Right. When that flash goes off, it can then pinpoint the location of that flash to within about one to four arc minutes. Now for a bit of context, right, Mare Chrysium, one of those seas on like the edge of the lunar limb in the first few days, right, that's about 5 arc minutes across. So you're going from a sixth of the sky down to that, that little lunacy.
- [34:44]
A
Yeah, that's amazing.
- [34:47]
B
It's astonishing. Right, so once it's locked on, so it's like, right, I know where it is roughly, it then switches over to the X ray telescope and that thing can monitor for weeks. It does photometry, does spectroscopy and it gets the location down to 4 arc seconds. So in minutes, you know, within 4 arc seconds. Right, which corresponds to if you've got like a 6 inch telescope and you look at the moon and you see those tiny craters like at the bottom of massive craters or in, in the lunar season, the smallest ones you can see, that's what you're kind of looking at. So it gets it down to about that. And that's when you can then send the alert out to all the other telescopes around the world because it's like within their error range now. And then also at the same time then it can do ultraviolet optical stuff with its third telescope and that will give you sub arc second positioning. So within minutes you found the thing, you are on target and you are studying it from X rays down to visible. Right.
- [35:48]
A
That's brilliant.
- [35:49]
B
It's incredible. Absolutely incredible.
- [35:51]
A
No wonder they want to save this thing, right?
- [35:54]
B
Exactly. And the thing is it's gone. So it's not just like was trying to figure out what gamma ray bursts are, where they, what they come from. Then it became a first responder. But it also does things in the solar system. So it's looks at asteroids, it looks at comets. So you remember two eye Boris of it detected and it tracks and it figures out how much water that thing was emitting that came from Swift. So you know, it's truly amazing. Yeah. So you can understand why they want to save this thing. Because the thing is like they, they knew it was coming down because it's in a low Earth orbit. That means it's exposed to atmospheric drag. And over the years it has been losing its altitude. But in early 2025, NASA realized that Swift was coming down a little bit quicker than they anticipated. Because originally they thought it would be all right to 2030. But no, not the case because you know, all of that lovely aurora that we've been having in the past few years problem for space telescopes because that enhanced solar activity is warming and heating our atmosphere and puffing up and basically increasing atmospheric drag. And so the predictions are that actually this telescope is going to come down. It'll be too low to save by about October this year. That. That is the deadline. Yeah. So they've gone from early 2025.
- [37:12]
A
Wow.
- [37:13]
B
Yeah. To a deadline of like late 2026. And so, you know, NASA were like, shit, we've got to do something. They weren't quick enough to respond. They knew they weren't. So they went to three different companies that they already had contracts with and were like, look, we need a boost. Can you do it? Give us your proposals. And so they did. And the one that won was Catalyst Space. They're based in Arizona. They're a space startup, and it's a $30 million contract right now. Fortunately for them, they were already working on like, a demo of this kind of mission to send up a satellite to boost the orbit of something else. So they just basically adapted it to fit NASA's needs. They've gone literally from. In nine months, nothing. Just like this proposal. Just nothing. Right. To a satellite that's on a rocket ready to go.
- [38:05]
A
It's amazing. It's amazing.
- [38:07]
B
It's actually incredible. Like, it's unprecedented speed.
- [38:11]
A
Yeah.
- [38:12]
B
And it's not like a cubesat. This thing is like the size of a big fridge and weighs 400 kilos. It's huge. Right. It's got solar panels, it's got three arms with, like grippers on the end, three ion engines, gyroscopes, LIDAR camera systems, like the full shebang.
- [38:31]
A
Yeah.
- [38:33]
B
So the spacecraft is called Link, and it is launching not on a. Well, sort of on a rocket, but not like a rocket like we think.
- [38:40]
A
Oh, it's one of my favorite rockets.
- [38:42]
B
Right. Pegasus rocket. Yes. Pegasus XL is attached. Yeah, it's attached to the bottom of a giant airplane.
- [38:50]
A
I love tristars. If you're an airplane geek of a certain age, tristars are sexy.
- [38:58]
B
This is so cool. Right. So this is currently the last one that's in existence, this rocket. It's not that they're not going to build more, but it's just they don't really have any more at the minute. What happens is the. The plane goes up, right, to 40,000ft and then. And then it drops the rocket, which then ignites and then it goes off. And it means that you're not constrained by the launch pad. You can get into more difficult orbits like you need for Swift because its orbit is inclined by 20 degrees to the equator. Bit of a weird one, but yeah. So they're like ready to go. So that they're just waiting for the right launch opportunity, the right window and everything. It's even like it was sent up to Goddard in May for testing. So it's been through all of the testing and everything. So they haven't just kind of like chucked it on the rocket and hoped for the best. It's done all of the vacuum tests and the vibration tests and modeling and computer systems and. But in nine months it's wild. So the idea is they're gonna launch this satellite, spend a few weeks checking out all the systems, then it'll go to the Swift observatory. They'll work together in tandem. So they'll rotate this, the telescope and the spacecraft because they need to get this, they need to actually have a look to see where they can grab onto it. Because they don't know because this telescope is so old that they've lost a load of the engineering information. So they don't know where they can latch on. Yeah, like the diagrams are gone, deleted from existence. So then they'll, they'll like look at it and be like, right, we can attach here and attach there. They're a bit worried about the multi layer installation on board because when they wear up a servicing Hubble, the astronauts noticed that like the multi layer insulation had gone almost like, like glass and it was really fragile. So if you like poked it, it just shattered. So they're a bit worried about that.
- [40:48]
A
You just see what happened.
- [40:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. And then the idea is, is that they're gonna boost it because it's currently about 360km up and they'll latch on. They can do it with one attachment point, but they want three ideally. But then they'll use those ion engines over weeks, months. Boost it back up then to about 550, 600 kilometers.
- [41:09]
A
Yeah. One of my favorite facts about the Pegasus thing.
- [41:14]
B
Yeah, go on.
- [41:14]
A
Right. The Tristar that it's launched on is called Stargazer. Right. And the rockets. But that is an in joke. It's a really geeky Star Trek joke.
- [41:30]
B
Oh, is it?
- [41:30]
A
It is, because you know, you know Will Riker. Yeah, good old Riker. He of the big. Put your foot on a chair and show her on your. He was first officer on the. I've got to get the right way around. He was first officer on a ship called the Pegasus. And Jean Luc Picard was first officer on a ship called the Stargazer.
- [42:00]
B
I love that. I love stuff like that.
- [42:02]
A
So it's just a geeky, geeky Star Trek reference. There has been for years because the Pegasus rocket and the Stargazer Tristar have been around for ages. Oh, common when they first started using.
- [42:12]
B
Yeah, they have like decades.
- [42:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, Long, long, long time they've been around. It was like the first of those kind of rockets, rockets on a plane thing. I can't remember. I'm gonna look it up actually. When did they do it? 1992. Oh yes, because I saw Stargate, I saw it being modified because it was modified in Cambridge in the uk.
- [42:30]
B
Oh, there you go. Well, that's cool. So and then my final factoid is. Well, it's not a factoid, it's actually just more of a postulation. But there's a lot of speculation that this is actually could well be a trial run for boosting Hubble.
- [42:48]
A
Almost certainly. Almost sure.
- [42:50]
B
Because it's a much smaller telescope.
- [42:52]
A
Yeah.
- [42:53]
B
Quick mission. Yeah, it's like a Pathfinder because you need a much bigger craft for, for Hubble.
- [43:00]
A
Yeah, but I thought that when this happened I thought, ah, they're using in a way Swift is really cool, but if it does, if it goes wrong, they'll go, ah, well we tried.
- [43:11]
B
Yes.
- [43:12]
A
But yeah, they'll be like Hubble. They won't want to lose if they.
- [43:16]
B
No, they won't want to lose Hubble.
- [43:18]
A
So.
- [43:18]
B
But Hubble's also coming down like it is. It is coming down as well, slowly.
- [43:23]
A
Yeah.
- [43:24]
B
So yeah, but yeah, I mean then the final question is why not just build a new Swift observatory? Well, building a new one would cost about $500 million at least. And keeping this one running is about $5 million a year.
- [43:39]
A
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And for the cost of this little mission to boost it up.
- [43:44]
B
Yeah. And 30 million to boost it. It's a no brainer.
- [43:47]
A
It's working. There's nothing wrong with it. Yeah, it's good. It's good, good use of money and resources. Absolutely. The same with Hubble, you know, Hubble, the Hubble works still. Why wouldn't you spend, you know, just a few, few million dollars boosting it and getting to a higher orbit and using it for next year rather than trying to build a whole new thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:08]
B
And so then my final story is sky and sea, not like engineering. And it comes from eso, European Southern Observatory. And it, this is magnetic exoplanets because we have the first pretty concrete evidence of magnetic fields around exoplanets.
- [44:32]
A
Cool.
- [44:33]
B
But not by measuring the magnetic fields around exoplanets.
- [44:38]
A
Right.
- [44:40]
B
By measuring their winds.
- [44:42]
A
Right.
- [44:43]
B
This is a cool piece of research.
- [44:45]
A
Explain, because this sounds a bit.
- [44:48]
B
Yeah, because you would think that, you know, most exoplanets would probably have a magnetic field, you know, not necessarily all of them. Look at Mars in our own solar system, right. Only got a residual one left, but, you know, most of the planets out there in our solar system have got magnetic fields, but it's not a given, right. You gotta detect this stuff. So this is a study involving seven hot Jupiters and they were studied with the vlt, the Very Large Telescope. Side note, Complete side note. We started watching Pluribus, right. Really enjoying it, by the way, so far, if anyone's thought about watching it, and this isn't a spoiler, but right at the beginning of the first episode, there's like all these arrays of telescope dishes. I looked at it and I was like, VLA bet. And guess what was the vla? I was cool. Yes, Science. My balls felt so pendulous in that moment, like. Anyway, back to the exoplanets. Now we care about being able to detect magnetic fields around exoplanets because, like, they can make or break habitability. And the classic example is Earth versus Mars. Yeah, yeah, Completely both in the habitable zone. Mars desert world, very dead, as far as we're aware. Earth teaming with life. Earth magnetic field. Mars no magnetic field, lost its atmosphere.
- [46:11]
A
Yep.
- [46:11]
B
Boom. No good. Now we're starting, of course, with hot Jupiters as we often do with exoplanets. And this is, as I said, seven of them. And all of these worlds are orbiting so close to their stars that they're tightly locked. So that is the same side of the world faces the star at any given time. You know that just like the moon is tidally locked to Earth. And they were measuring, they wanted to measure the winds on these planets to see the impact of tidal lock in. And they're really strong winds. Right. So they measured winds between four and a half thousand miles an hour up to about 15 and a half thousand miles an hour or 7200 kilometers an hour, up to 25,000 kilometers an hour. Right. For context, Jupiter's winds are like 930 miles an hour or like 1500 kilometers an hour. Like really crazy. Yeah, right, exactly. Could have done with that last week.
- [47:06]
A
Cool.
- [47:09]
B
But the interesting twist that they found was they were measuring these winds and they found that the hotter the planet, the slower the wind, which is the opposite to what you expect because you expect this massive temperature gradient between the two hemispheres to like, dry, faster winds. Right.
- [47:27]
A
How weird.
- [47:27]
B
So something on the hot planets must be slowing the winds down. And through modeling, they figured out that actually a magnetic field can act as a break and it slows down the motion of charged particles in the atmosphere, which then slows down the winds.
- [47:47]
A
Yeah.
- [47:48]
B
And that allowed them to infer then the strength of the magnetic fields based on, you know, how much they had slowed down from what they would expect from the temperature difference. And they were comparable with our solar system. So the magnetic fields were like, for example, four times as strong as Saturn's or half the strength of Jupiter. It's like, you know, some not ridiculous numbers. And that's it. How cool is that?
- [48:13]
A
That's very, very cool. I love it.
- [48:15]
B
Yeah. Interesting, isn't it? So, you know, not habitable planets yet, but we've got to begin somewhere.
- [48:20]
A
Every little piece is building this picture and helping us to find them.
- [48:25]
B
So thank you, ISO. Very cool bit of research.
- [48:40]
A
Right. Well, the nights are short, but the weather is warm and there's still plenty to see in the sky for the discerning telescope and binocular jockey. So here are highlights for July. So, Mars and Uranus. Starting with Mars and Uranus, who on the morning of the 4th of July will be in conjunction in Taurus, just below M45. Fantastic target for those using monoculars or a small telescope. They'll be about 7 arc minutes apart, so about a third the size of the Sun.
- [49:14]
B
So close.
- [49:15]
A
So close. Exactly. So by observing them together, you can compare the stark reddish hue of Mars against a subtle blue green tint of the ice giant. The proximity of the Pleiades star cluster nearby adds beautiful visual backdrop. You're just going to get this really lovely little setup, the rise above the horizon about 3am so really this is a quick look before dawn, but if you're up at that point, well worth the look.
- [49:43]
B
And then just to add that, although they won't be quite as close on the 11th, you get the moon joining them.
- [49:50]
A
Yeah. So.
- [49:51]
B
So there's like the Moon, the Pleiades, Mars, Uranus is there.
- [49:55]
A
Very cool.
- [49:56]
B
Lots to look at.
- [49:57]
A
Very cool. Worth. Worth. Early morning, if you fancy it. So next Saturn. If you're waiting for that conjunction, then Saturn can keep you company as the ringworld is definitely back into decent observing territory, rising just after one at the start of the month and as July progresses, becomes an increasingly prominent feature in the early morning sky. And of course, he's coming up earlier and earlier, while the rings are currently at A shallow tilt making them appear as like a thin line rather than the wide dramatic loops. They still look fantastic. Currently in Pisces directly below Pegasus at Mach 1.
- [50:32]
B
Then of course we have what we started the show with and that's noctilucent clouds. It is exactly the right time of year like July through to August. Perfect not to lose some cloud time. So these are the highest clouds in its atmosphere and they form in the mesosphere as you mentioned earlier, which is right at the edge of space, 80 kilometers up or so. They're composed of ice crystals that content surround microscopic dust particles. It's often debris left behind by meteors. But there is now that conjecture about is there more pollution getting up there as well? So look towards the northern horizon during the deep twilight hours so after sunset before sunrise and they appear as a delicate glowing electric blue or silvery veil that remains visible long after the sun has dipped below the horizon. And that is key after sunset when the sun is gone. Probably 10 to midnight is your key window.
- [51:29]
A
Yeah and I can absolutely confirm that that is, I mean here the energy June, that's exactly when they've been appearing. They've been kind of appearing sort of just after 10, kind of 11 o', clock, half 11. They're really perfect and they sort of fade out as you get to midnight. So that's, that's your window.
- [51:46]
B
Yeah.
- [51:46]
A
So meteors now the Perseus meteor shower. There's no actual peak of a meteor shower really in Geelong but the Perseid meteor shower reaches its grand peak in mid August but actually starts on July 17th.
- [52:01]
B
Yeah, yeah boy and it's a big launch out.
- [52:04]
A
So throughout the later half, especially of July, the frequency of those sightings of those meters will gradually increase and you do you start seeing them as you go get to build up. These are the remnants of course of comet Swift Tuttle known for big, bright and occasionally producing long lasting trains of light. As the month progresses. Keep an eye on the sky after midnight looking towards the constellation Perseus even before the August peak. The lead up period can yield some wonderful early sightings. Beginning in mid July as well and extending into late August the Delta Aquarids are active and they've been reasonably active on the last few years more southern event. It is more a southern hemisphere thing. They can still add to the meteor goodness through some of them in the uk. So do you can kind of that that period, kind of early August, end of July, early August, you start seeing actually quite a lot of meteors if you're Kind of sitting around outside. It's quite good.
- [53:03]
B
And instead of a deep sky challenge, how about a comet challenge for the summer? Now 10p Tempel 2 is a periodic comet and is expected to be visible as a small telescopic binocular a target this month. It is quite faint so it's not going to be like you know, your dramatic big tail across sky naked I think. But it is an interesting catch for those who enjoy hunting for faint transient fuzzies. Throughout July, 10P Temple 2 will be moving through the constellations of Aquarius and then in the second half of the month into Capricornus and as it approaches perihelion, the closest point to the sun on 2 August 18. Its closest approach to Earth on 3 August it will be at its brightest for this apparition, magnitude 7 to 8. So you know, definitely binoculars that'll be towards the end of July. So to catch it you're going to need a very clear unobstructed view of the southern horizon. Best visible in the very early morning hours 1 to 3am British summertime. That's when it's at its highest in the sky. And then of course if we mention a comet we gotta do the other bits of debris in the solar system and those asteroids. There's actually a butt ton of asteroids there are that have oppositions this month. So on the 9th 18 melpamine is going to be in Aquila, magnitude 8.9. Also on the 9th 9 Flora is going to be in Sagittarius at magnitude 8.9. On the 27th 3 Juno is going to be in Aquila. So like they're all like clusters together. It's brilliant.
- [54:43]
A
They're all hanging around together.
- [54:44]
B
Yeah, magnitude 9.2. So even if you don't look at them on the night of opposition like then they're going to be a reasonably similar brightness around these dates. On the 29th, 324 Bamberga is going to be in Capricornus, a magnitude 9.3. So you know, get your charts out to kind of really pinpoint these because they do move rapidly across the sky. And then we've got a dwarf planet as well at opposition this month on the 27th Pluto's going to be in Capricornus, magnitude 14.3. So you're more your bigger telescopes for Pluto but asteroids, small telescope, big pair of binoculars, you'll be able to catch them.
- [55:22]
A
Definitely, definitely. Right, it's Moon time. Moon, Moon, Moon, Moon, Moon, Moon. So it's on with the Moon guide. And we now have the the Moon progressing through the final week of its lunar cycle, days 22, 24, moving from last quarter toward waning crescent. So during these days, the terminator is located on the eastern side of the moon. So day 22, the moon is still quite bright, but the terminator is beginning to sweep across the eastern plains, revealing features that previously hidden in the flat light, that kind of the sun straight onto it. So look for the Mori Serin Itatartus, a vast circular lunar mare. Because it's near the terminator, look for the subtle difference in the smoothness of the lava plains compared to sort of rugged highland edges. Crater Posogenus is located on the northeastern edge of this mare. The crater is fascinating because its flora has been uplifted by ancient volcanic activity, making it appear convex rather than concave. Then there is the Caucus Mountains, running south from the edge of Maresa and Tartus. When lit at an oblique angle, the jagged peaks cast distinct long shadows that make them stand out sharply. Day 23 is now time when the Moon starts to noticeably dim compared to the previous days. But it's one of the standout days for the great features Crater Copernicus, though often visible earlier is its terraced walls and central peaks are exceptionally striking. When the terminator is near, it's one of the most prominent young craters of the Moon. Then look for the Montes Apenninus or the Lunar Apennines, which is one of the most spectacular mountain ranges on the Moon. At this stage, the shadows falling across the Mare Imbrium basin highlight the sheer just vertical relief of these mountains. And look for crater Aristotene, which is situated at the southern tip of the Apennines. This crater is deep and complex. Its central mountain is clearly visible even in modest optics, when the lighting is right. And then day 24, the moon is a prominent morning object. Now it's that moon you see at breakfast when you're getting up for work and you go, oh, that's the moon, it's the eastern limb, it's the right side from our perspective in the northern hemisphere is now heavily shadowed. Crater Tycho, which is generally famed for its massive bright ray system, is really visible here. At this phase, the rays are actually less prominent than at full moon, but it's the crater itself, with its distinct central peak is starkly defined by shadow, the street wall or the rupes Rector, which frankly sounds disgusting. Sorry, Doctor, I think I've got this pain. Yes, it's your rupees, Rector. The straight wall anyway, 110 km long fault line appears, a sort of thin, dark straight line because it's actually a vertical cliff. The side lighting at this phase makes it look like a big dark cut in the lunar surface. It's really cool. And look for the crater Gassendi, which is located on the northern edge of the Mare Humarum. This crater is a floor fractured by ancient lava cooling, which you can often resolve as a web pattern in a steady telescope.
- [58:44]
B
Oh, I like that.
- [58:45]
A
It's very cool. It is very cool. Highly recommend it. So the Moon this month is last quarter on the 7th, new on the 14th, first quarter on the 22nd, and full on the 29th. So all the rains is to wish you clear skies and happy hunting. And so we reach the end of another cavalcade of astronomy wonder, interesting facts and mindless wittering. Some of you will be sad, some of you joyous, many of you will be as indifferent as the universe is to your inconsequential existence.
- [59:21]
B
Stay in touch, etc. Email or semaphore perhaps considered using the latest heliograph technology. Whatever will they think of next, eh? The show@awesomeastronomy.com so until our mid month
- [59:36]
A
pontificating and pondering it's goodbye from Cydonia Base.
- [59:41]
B
Bye bye.
- [59:46]
A
Awesome Astronomy is produced by Ralph Paul, Jen, John Damian and Dustin and is free to use with attribution. Themed music by Star Salzman with stinger variation by Rin Jorgensen. We promote general science, astronomy, space exploration and rational thinking with more resources on our website@awesomeastronomy.com if you want us to read your thoughts and comments out on the show, send us your views, opinions, critiques or questions to the show@awesomeastronomy.com tweet us @awesomeastropod or give the awesome Astronomy Facebook page a like and leave your comments there. Thanks for listening. From Cydonia Base End of transmission.