Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Bull’s-eye! DART impacts Dimorphos, and we meet space image artist and processor Judy Schmidt

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

They did it! The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft scored a direct hit on Dimorphos. We’ve got the thrilling last moments before impact, followed by an exclusive, triumphant conversation with DART Coordination Lead Nancy Chabot. Then we’ll go from spectacular success to spectacular beauty as we meet extraordinary space image processor and artist Judy Schmidt. Bruce Betts salutes the DART mission with this week’s space trivia contest. There’s more to discover at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2022-chabot-dart-impact-report-and-judy-schmidtSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bullseye! DART hits its mark, and the artist behind that gorgeous image of Jupiter, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. They did it, and they did it in the most spectacular way. The double asteroid redirection test spacecraft smashed into asteroid Dimorphos right on time, Monday September 26th. We'll hear highlights of the last moments of its flight and we'll get a post impact report from DART coordination lead Nancy Schabo. Then we'll meet Judy Schmidt. Her name may not be familiar, but I bet her work is. Get ready for a charming conversation with one of our planet's

leading amateur processors of astronomical images. Her work includes those stunning JWST shots of Jupiter that were featured everywhere a few weeks ago. Have no fear, Bruce is also here with his usual night sky survey and a new space trivia contest that also celebrates DART. Can you hear it in my voice? I had a blast at last week's NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, or NIAC, symposium, and you'll hear my coverage soon. But I started feeling unwell on the trip home from Tucson. You guessed it. I tested positive for COVID that evening. No worries. It has been

a relatively mild case, and I'm hoping to end my isolation soon. As you'll hear me tell Nancy Schaubo, it helped to be looking forward to that spectacular DART impact, which easily reaches the top of this week's space headlines. We'll also note that the Artemis I Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft made it safely back to the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building before Hurricane Ian hit Florida. Sadly, this means a more substantial delay in this uncrewed return to the Moon. We've also got more proof that the JWST is good for much more than peering across the deep cosmos. Take a look at the September 23 edition of The Downlink, our free weekly newsletter.

It features a spectroscopic examination of Mars by the big new Space Telescope. The data has already helped scientists gain new insights about the red planet. The downlink also notes France's intent to increase space spending by a quarter to about 9 billion euros. The European Space Agency looks to do the same. There's much more to discover at planetary.org slash downlink. Congratulations to the entire international DART team on your knockout success. I was watching online

with hundreds of thousands, probably millions around the globe as the spacecraft closed in on Dimorphos. The last image, relayed to Earth just before the spacecraft smashed into the 85-meter asteroid asteroid revealed a boulder-strewn

surface, much like what we've seen on Ryugu and Bennu. Those boulders didn't know what hit them. I've compressed the last 30 minutes of the mission into just over four. The first voice you'll hear is Mission Systems Engineer Elena Adams polling the key players. Also featured from the Applied Physics Lab webcast is Lori Glaze, NASA's Planetary Science Division Director. This is DART MSC on DT Mach. It is time for the last status poll. Yes! We're about 7,000 miles from

Dimorphos at this point so yay image quality how are we doing still looking very good Dimorphos still tracking along that same brightness predict as Didymos

that's great yes predict as Dillamas. That's great. All right. We're complete. Yes, thank you. All right. Smart Nav. Smart Nav is looking nominal. We are at under 30 meters of projected mist distance right now. Yeah, it's looking really good.

Look at that. That's looking fantastic. GNC. GNC also looking good. We've been very excited to do those burns, so we've been waiting a long time. Oh, this is great. Autonomy. Autonomy is green.

The heaters are cycling nominally and we've had no new fault rules firing. Okay, wonderful. DSN. DSN is green, and ESA is green. Got plenty of margin. Looks good.

All right, ground systems. Ground system has been helping a few users manage clients, but everything is going fine there, and we are green. Yes, wonderful. Thank you, guys. Complets the poll. Last one. Last one.

All right, so Didymos is looking like itself. We'll see what Dimorphos is looking like soon. MSC, this is SN5. Go ahead, SN5. We are precision locked and still tracking demorphous. Yes. Yes. So this was our last milestone. At this point, we're going to be working towards demorphous. I expect we're going to be working towards DeMorphis. I expect

we're going to do some burns. We're about 4,500 miles away from Didymos and DeMorphis, so let's see what happens. This is Dart Emissia and DT MOG. Five minutes till impact. Five impact, we are at 1,100 miles away. Also, our window for sending any commands to the spacecraft is done. Contingency is done. Done! 14,000 miles per hour and remember, you know, 45 minutes ago, 55 minutes ago, we couldn't even resolve this object in space. And now we are, you can see us, zeroing in right on target. I think we're starting to see more resolution. In fact, look at that. Didymos has even gone out of the view.

We're now just seeing dimorphous. Oh my goodness, look at that. Looks like control system settling down. Angular rates look really good. I think we're gonna get the investigation teams and get pictures. No, no, come on, we can do better than that. Starting to see those individual boulders there.

You can see shadows of various rocks on the surface. It's amazing, guys. Oh, my goodness. Look at that. Unbelievable. Yeah. Looks to me like we're headed straight in. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Oh wow. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Oh my gosh. Oh wow. Awaiting visual confirmation.

All right. We got it? Waiting. Waiting. And we have impact. A job for humanity in the name of planetary defense. Fantastic. Oh, fantastic.

What a team and what an accomplishment. Lori Glaze, Elena Adams, and others as DART hurtled toward asteroid Dimorphos. DART Coordination Lead Nancy Schaubo has kept us informed about the mission for years. You may have caught my extended conversation with her on last week's show, recorded as DART closed in. last week's show recorded as DART closed in. Nancy graciously allowed me to check in with her again just a half day after the astonishing climax of the mission. Nancy, what can I say? Wow, absolutely astounding success. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. I think wow and astounding are just fine things to say. The excitement is still high here at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab where I am right now, the next day after what

was a smashing spectacular success last night. A smashing success, indeed. I would be shocked, I'd be so disappointed if people weren't still thrilled there. I just told you before we started recording that this has made my COVID isolation much more easy because I had this to look forward to and then to celebrate as I and gosh, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, watched it last night as we speak. That was just so exciting. Where were you when the impact happened? Well, I was here at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. And I'll just say that I hope you're feeling okay and doing well. It's the world we live in. But the world that we live in is an interesting place, right? There's low things and high things that we can all celebrate together, right? I think one of the things this morning that I really value about this is that the team

and the world experienced this moment together at the same time in all their different ways you were in your house. I was sitting actually at the NASA broadcast desk, which was a little surreal because I was slated to go on right after that. And so they get you in that chair early. And you're sitting there and, you know, it's me and the host and some camera people. And we're all watching that TV there in real time in this kind of isolated, quiet environment. We were celebrating our little team. But over here at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, you saw the Mission Operations Center. You know, they were standing up and celebrating and everything like that.

There was a big watch party out here. And so people were outside. A lot of the team members were able to bring their families and they were outside watching it here. And parties were around the world for watch parties colleagues made of that watch party that our boss, Bill Nye, had a part in. It was great to see him as part of that as well. You were watching as Lori Glaze, the head of the Planetary Science Division, was also blown away by that smashing success. Yeah, I think we all gathered here together and the team has worked so hard in order to make that moment happen. It really has been years and hundreds, really actually thousands of people when you take our international team into consideration that have

worked on this for years. Even before that, it was a concept that people wanted to do. So to have everybody come together for that moment, and we knew we were ready. We knew we had tested, but that doesn't change the fact that it was hard and had never been done before. So there's nerves and anxiety, anticipation, and then just so much joy when those images came in. And they were beautiful. They were beautiful images.

I mean, I just think about the team that built that camera here at APL. How proud must they be? That team that designed the autonomous navigation, right? I mean, it just, it went right into that asteroid. Everything was fabulous. And I will say that people here on the science team, even though we had a big watch party here at APL with Bill Nye, like you said, some of them went up into their offices to start running models right away. I saw those first images and said, like, celebrate it. And then they're like, let's get to work, understanding what this means. People have been waiting for this moment on both sides,

from the technology establishing that you could target a small asteroid in space. And then on the science side, like, what actually happens when you run a spacecraft into an asteroid? And that's where we are now. The scientists must be thrilled by those last images, which looked a lot like what we got to see at Ryugu and Bennu. Lots of pretty little boulders. Lots of pretty little boulders and rocks. And I think one of the things that we've been talking about on the science side is, I don't know, maybe how unremarkable the shape is, you know, that it's kind of like an egg, you know, I guess

is what people are describing it as to a certain extent. We haven't done all the analysis and the modeling, but, you know, a lot of other objects that we've seen in space, they turn out to have these weird shapes, you know, and there was a, you know, the comet CG that Rosetta went to, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, right? You know, and they call that the rubber ducky. And, you know, instead, it's like you were just zooming in with those Draco images, which were spectacular, No, and instead, it's like you were just zooming in with those Draco images, which were spectacular, onto sort of this mostly roundish kind of asteroid. And that's fascinating in itself. I'm also thinking now of Arrokoth, which I was there at APL. When those images came in, that big dog bone shaped object.

Yeah, that's all right. Dimorphos doesn't have to feel ashamed because it has a boring shape. doesn't have to feel ashamed because it has a boring shape. Do we have any idea yet what the scale of those images was? I mean, just how big were those rocks and boulders? Well, the final images that came out sort of show things at the 10 centimeters, less than 10 centimeters sort of scale. So you're really seeing these like fine details down in those final images. So, but you came in really quick, right? So saying that isn't the one second image before that was, was six kilometers further away. So your scale was quite different. So, but the final images there, and just that little partial image that came across

has the highest resolution. So it'll be, it'll be fun that we have that data at so many different scales from just seeing it as a few pixels of a point of light and then going into being able to see things that are like the size of your hand. That was so poignant. That last image, I couldn't help but think of the DART spacecraft as trying to return one more image before it was vaporized. And that's exactly what happened, right? Oh, yeah. No, the DART spacecraft was on its mission, doing what it was designed to do,

doing what it wanted to do in a lot of ways, right? This was its mission. This was its moment. All eyes turned on it while it accomplished it spectacularly, and it was working right up until the last second. So basically, Draco, the camera, and AutoNav, flawless, right? They work fabulously. It's spectacular. The teams who did those should be really proud, as should everybody on this mission.

I know I am just contributing my part to this much bigger project that took so many people to accomplish. And you test, you get ready, and then when it actually works like that, it's still special, even though that's what you had designed it to accomplish. And you test, you get ready. And then when it actually works like that, it's still special, even though that's what you had designed it to do. Do we have any word yet about whether Leachia Cube, that little Italian space agency CubeSat, was it successful in imaging the impact? Yeah. So we were celebrating those Draco images in here, but Leecher Cube was still working, right? You know, so it was busy out there in space, gathering those images. And yeah, they were lucky enough to get some downlink time and get them back

quickly. I think they just had a press conference, actually, a few minutes that ended a few minutes before I'm here talking to you, where they showed some of those first images and just seeing them there. You know, I only saw them briefly, but they looked spectacular. So it's tremendous. We're super happy and excited for our Italian colleagues. And we're excited for this international mission that is DART and Leachia Cube and scientists around the world for planetary defense for this international issue. And everybody working together to understand what this means for planetary defense and potentially protecting the Earth in the future. Huge congratulations then to those folks at OSCE who pulled this off. Can't wait to see those

images. I have not seen those yet. Any preliminary reports yet from ground-based telescopes that we're watching? And I saw that even the Hubble and JWST have their eyes on Dimorphos. Yeah. So even last night, and especially on social media, the telescopes that could directly image the impact event were in that position at the night here on the Earth. They started to post some images where they saw brightening of the system, the brightening due to that pulverized rock and ejecta that was thrown off during DART's energetic collision with the, with Dimorphos. And, and they noticed that in the telescopes and it was fun to watch telescopes in these

different locations continually post these pictures or these little short movies of, of that happening. And so that was an immediate confirmation. JWST and HST, they were, they were looking too, and those data are making their way here, and people are analyzing them. So I expect probably in the next day or so, we'll probably be able to get some results out from those. And then we need to figure out what the period changes. That's going to take a longer baseline. So the telescopes got some initial work. They're still characterizing how long the ejecta will stay in the system, how long it'll take for that brightening to damp down, because you need that ejecta and

brightening to damp down before you can make that measurement again of like how much the period change was, because you can't really make that sensitive measurement of demorphos going around dinamos if your system is super bright with all the dust all over the place. But having the dust all over the place is a huge thing to study, right? So, you know, we've always hoped for ejecta and dust that we could study and get information from that and being able to get the period change as we go forward. So it's hard to believe it hasn't even been 24 hours since this happened because the data is coming in so quickly and we're just excited about digging into it and figuring out what it means. And we're just excited about digging into it and figuring out what it means. But in some ways, from what you're saying, the most important data is still ahead to see if DART was successful in nudging this asteroid. Well, I think DART is already successful.

So, you know, I'm going to quarrel with that phrasing of that question. I think DART successfully hitting the asteroid was really one of the main challenges. Even the masks that we were bringing in just with the spacecraft alone would have been enough to move the asteroid. I think the question has always been, how much? How effective is it going to be? And that's where we're at. And so regardless of what that answer is, I don't think DART's success rests on it. Instead, that's the purpose of doing a test that's never been done before. And that's the information that we need to be ready going forward. I certainly don't mean in any way the accomplishment that took place last night. It is mind boggling. And I look forward to hearing those results, of course. But aren't we still just at the beginning here? I mean, really,

if we're going to do effective planetary defense based on this research, don't we need to do this five or 10 more times? Well, this is just one part of a larger planetary defense strategy. And yeah, DART is not something that you do in isolation, you know, fundamental to planetary defense is knowing where the asteroids are. And so we really need to have that warning time, something like DART only works if you can do this years in advance, like you were saying. And so that's why it's got to be a priority for finding those asteroids, assessing them and constantly identifying if there is a threat to the Earth and then putting us in a position where we have the warning time to potentially do something about it. Yeah, DART, though, from being able to protect the Earth potentially from asteroids if a threat was found in the future,

you know, it's always important, we probably should say, there are no known asteroid threats to the Earth from the ones that we've discovered so far. Earth has been hit by asteroids for billions of years, and this will continue, though, right? So we want to be in a position to be ready, even though there is no known threat currently. Yeah, DART was just the start. It's this first step of developing this technology. It's not the last step in developing this technology. And it's exciting that we live in this future where we've taken this first step and ready to take more going forward. Nancy, thank you to you, the entire DART team for helping us achieve this first step with such excitement for people around the world. And thank you again for joining us really just hours after this. What did you call it again?

A smashing spectacular success. There you go. I hope that there is much more great data ahead of us in the coming days. And I look forward to maybe welcoming you back to get a little summary once we have most of that data in. Thank you so much for actually for years now keeping us up to date on what's happening with DART. Oh, yeah. Well, thank you for having me and thank you for sharing it. I think that's really what we do these missions for too as well. You know, here on the team, we're just,

this is all part of something that we want to share with the world. So thank you for helping making that happen. You bet. And I will say it again and I don't think it'll be the last time. Go DART. Well, DART's done its dony,

but the team is still busy. Double Asteroid Redirection Test Co test coordination lead, Nancy Schaubo. By the way, here's what you'd have heard at the APL watch party led by Bill Nye. Listen as the excitement peaks each time a new image appears on the big screen. Oh, my God. Did you catch the fireworks at the end? We'll turn in a minute to my lovely conversation with Ace Astronomical Image Processor Judy Schmidt. Stick around. with ACE Astronomical Image Processor Judy Schmidt. Stick around.

Hello, I'm George Takei, and as you know, I'm very proud of my association with Star Trek. Star Trek was a show that looked to the future with optimism, boldly going where no one had gone before. I want you to know about a very special organization called the Planetary Society. They are working to make the future that Star Trek represents a reality. When you become a member of the Planetary Society, you join their mission to increase discoveries in our solar system,

to elevate the search for light outside our planet, our solar system to elevate the search for light outside our planet and decrease the risk of Earth being hit by an asteroid. Co-founded by Carl Sagan and led today by CEO Bill Nye, the Planetary Society exists for those who believe in space exploration to take action together. So join the Planetary Society and boldly go together to build our future. Want to get full benefit from my conversation with amateur image processor Judy Schmidt? First, go to Flickr.com and search for Geckzilla. That's Geck as in gecko, G-E-C-K-Z-I-L-L-A. That's GECK as in gecko, G-E-C-K-Z-I-L-L-A. Or cruise through her Twitter posts where she's at SpaceGECK.

Judy is an amateur the way great amateur astronomers are amateurs. The only difference between her and a pro is that she does this work purely for love of the images and sharing them. I'd seen her credit many times, but it wasn't until the release of those beautiful infrared images of Jupiter that I knew we should talk. She joined me a couple of weeks ago from her home studio, where her new son mercifully let us get through the entire interview. Judy, thank you for joining us on Planetary Radio. It really is an honor, and probably long overdue, It really is an honor and probably long overdue getting to talk to the person behind so many of the beautiful, beautiful images. Maybe they started as beautiful, but you certainly have enhanced a lot of them. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you. It's good to meet you and be here. We probably should have met for other reasons as well. You've been writing or you wrote a few years ago some pieces for the Planetary Society. And we'll link to those and many of the other things that we talk about in this conversation on this week's episode page, planetary.org slash radio. But people can also search all around the web for your work. It's not hard to find. And we'll talk about some of it beginning right now with those JWST Jupiter images. To say that they are breathtaking is really just to repeat what the entire world has been saying since you published them. So congratulations on those. Have any of your past images received anything like this level of recognition and acclaim?

No. No. I mean, there was one time one got on CNN, but it was barely a blip. Like, it was a very popular image, but nobody cared or knew who I was. So it was this gravitational lens that looked like a smiley face. And people just went, they're just like, what? It's called the Cheshire Cat. And it looks like his big grinning face in space. My wife, who is not much of a space person, when I mentioned I'd be talking to you, and I said, you probably have seen her Jupiter images. She said, oh, yes, the ones with the great white spot. And I said, well,

yeah, in infrared, it came out white, but usually it's red. And we had a great conversation generated just by that image. I think it says something about the power of these astronomy and astrophysical images to change people's thinking. Of course, yes. Of course, we've always had infrared imagery of Jupiter, but maybe it didn't quite captivate people because it was processed a little differently. Or NASA does like a Halloween Jupiter every now and then,

and it's this sort of red fiery Jupiter. I've seen it, yeah. I mean, that one looks pretty cool, but at the same time it's like, okay, it's a single color image that's been mapped to this fiery color scheme. So maybe it asks fewer questions. Yeah. It doesn't show the auroras or it doesn't show the rings. You can still recognize the great red spot, but not necessarily anything else. So I don't know why.

It's a really good question. Like why suddenly everybody's so like, wow, these images are amazing. That's like they've long been amazing. But what is it about? I'm like, they've long been amazing, but what is it about? Maybe it's just a combination of it being the brand new JWST shiny telescope, and there's like all this for better or worse controversy about how long it took and how much it cost. Not sure.

You're probably on to something with that. But I also think that these are simply particularly stunning images. And that's not just me and a lot of other layperson space geeks talking. I have talked to quite a few planetary scientists who are also just in awe of that set of images. And I think that you've made them feel better about their work as well. Really? Okay. So you are Geckzilla in Flickr. And the reason that I mentioned that is that, first of all, people ought to go there. And by the way, I didn't even know there was something called Flickr Pro, but I donated a month of Flickr Pro to you. It was you.

You're welcome. I got that email this morning. It was nothing. It's very inexpensive. And I guess it's a decent way to provide at least a little bit of support for the work that you're doing. That Flickr account, which of course we will also put up a link to on this week's show page, it's just one stunner after another. It goes on and on. And the same is true for your Twitter account, at SpaceGek. You have a thing for geckos, by the way? SpaceGek was born because Gexilla was already taken for some reason on Twitter. It's some lady who hasn't posted in many years now, but I can't get the account name.

And I thought, you know, what if I could get it? Would I even change it? Because everything links to SpaceGek, so maybe not. Now, I think you absolutely need to keep this now. I love SpaceGek and Geckzilla. I do strongly encourage people to go there because there is image after image. We will only get to talk about a handful of them here, among the other topics that I hope to discuss with you.

But really, folks, you've got to take a look and maybe check out that way of supporting her work. How did you get into this? About 10 years ago, Issa did a contest called Hubble's Hidden Treasures. And I was like, really? Everyone can download the data and just process it? I had no idea. So I just started, first I had to figure out how to find the data, which is, if you've never done it before, it's pretty daunting because I didn't know what any of the filters meant. I'm like, what does this even mean? So I'm sitting here searching for these search terms, pulling up the handbook and like, oh,

here's something that can explain it, sort of. But little by little, I have come to an understanding about what each of these things are, because, you know, no one really, there was no one that I could just ask and say, what does this mean? I mean, they got Zolt LeVay to do a tutorial on how he processes it. And I have built upon that tutorial ever since. So Zolt LeVay is my, I mean, like, I can't say he's my mentor, because it was just one tutorial. But I really looked up to him. And I used his work to as a goal. Like, I need to be as good as Zolt. I guess that's what he did. So I kind of studied his work, you know, anytime they would post a new image, I would look at it and say, Well, how can I get my work to look like his work, you know, anytime they would post a new image, I would look at it and say, well, how can I get my work to look like his work? When I was doing images that he hadn't worked on,

then I could use what I'd learned from that on any image. So that's sort of how I taught myself. I'm fascinated by that fact that you basically are self-taught. I mean, I wish that you had crossed paths with my dear old friend and former colleague, Emily Lakdawalla, who picked it up kind of, I think, the same way that you did. But you do cross paths now and then, right? Yes. I've learned a few things from her, too. And Emily has, I will mention, still has a course, a basic course in digital imaging that's available at planetary.org.

You can find that and yeah, we'll link to that as well so that you can get a little bit more guidance than Judy had to work with when she was starting out. There is a community of image processors, isn't there? And do you share information? Yeah. I mean, anytime someone asks me a question, either on Twitter or through the Flickr messaging system, or every now and then someone hunts down my email. I mean, I made it, it's kind of purposefully difficult to find my email address. So yeah, that's, that's one thing we will not provide on, on the show. I answer any questions and I try to help anyone who wants to get into it. A lot of people do it and they do it for just a little bit and they're satisfied with that short amount of time that they

learn to do it or they, life just happens and they don't have enough time. Because it is a very time-consuming hobby. Another friend, Elizabeth Howell, a few days ago, published on space.com a nice interview with you. The article was called, Here's How to Edit James Webb Space Telescope Images. You talk about some of your techniques there as well. It seemed like some pretty good guidelines.

I've done a number of interviews over the past couple of weeks, really surprised at how many people wanted to do interviews. And it's actually hard for me to remember which, but I think she was the one I was a lot more detailed in. She wanted to know everything. And I tried to explain it as concisely as I could, but I haven't had a chance to read the article either. She and you did a good job with it, I thought. I mean, and she's great.

Well, she's a great science writer and a good scientist as well. So, I mean, I wasn't surprised. Has it gotten easier to find the sort of the images that you base your work on? I mean, I know about some of these places where you can find them. In fact, one, the Astrophysics Source Code Library that was founded in 1999 at Michigan Tech. It has other partners now like NASA. You're listed there as the designer and developer, but is that someplace you rely on or do I misunderstand this?

Oh, no, that's a different, that's for astronomy source code that, I mean, a few of them might be for image processing, but Alice was using a forum as sort of repository for these codes and she didn't have a single place for it. And oh my gosh, one night I was just like, you need a real website. And I guess it took me a couple of days, but I put together her website for her and copied all of the forum posts

and turned them into actual database entries. This is source code more for working astronomers, amateur professional astronomers. I may have been in the Elizabeth Howells interview with you, but you talked about the MAST archives, the one named after Barbara A. Mikulski, the former senator from Maryland, who made sure that we got the JWST eventually. Right. And Hubble, right? Yeah. And Hubble, that's right. Yeah. She was always sticking

up for John Hopkins and Goddard and, and, uh, you know, probably single-handedly. I hope to get her on the show someday. Uh, she's, uh, uh, has said that she'd be interested maybe at the, uh, at the end of this year or early next year. If it's not me, maybe somebody else would be talking to her on, on planetary radio, but, but tell me about this, this archive and how you make use of it. early next year. If it's not me, maybe somebody else will be talking to her on Planetary Radio. But tell me about this archive and how you make use of it. Right. That's my go-to. It used to be the HLA, which is the Hubble Legacy Archive, but that one is not quite up to date. It's really good, but it's a great place to go if you're just starting out, because MAST is a lot more, there's more detail to it, and there are more missions, whereas the HLA is just Hubble. But if you need JWST data, you're going to go to MAST. And man, I can't even imagine if I was just starting out and didn't know anything.

anything. It can be easy if you say you just want to search for any random NGC galaxy, just type it in and it will show you all the observations for that particular spot in the sky. I think a lot of people, especially like a backyard astronomer, are going to try searching for like a Messier object first. And most of those are really, they're big for a space telescope. So they're surprised, I guess, when they see the results and it's like, oh, I can't see a whole galaxy. I just see basically like one little tiny spot in that galaxy. Yes, there's a downside to even to that now and then. You want to get a whole portrait of a galaxy usually, but it's great seeing close-ups too. I think it's just surprising to people maybe at first when they learn to switch from

backyard mode to, oh, now we're working with the big telescopes. It's a different mindset, I think. You can really get some exploration done when you've got such a big telescope. Because even though other people have studied it, you haven't personally studied it. So you can learn a lot of new things that like, oh, wow, I didn't know that was going to look like that. I like the Wolf-Rayet 140 picture. Oh, I was going to bring up WR140, Oh, I was going to bring up WR140, binary star insignis that has these gorgeous concentric rings that are emanating from its core. It's just, we'll try to put that one on the show page so people can see what I'm talking about because I can't possibly do it justice. But what were you going to say about it?

It's not aliens. Well, all right. We don't absolutely know that. But no, of course. And it's not fake. And it's not a problem with the telescope. If it was a problem with the telescope, it would be in the news, just like the Hubble blunder, right? Yeah, yeah.

It's a real thing. It's still generating mentions on my Twitter account. I keep reading. Every new person that sees it has their own idea of what it could be and almost all of them are wrong. It's really funny. I mean, it's pulling all the

how to call them. The crazies. The crazies out of the woodwork. Yeah, they're out there. Very imaginative. Yes, yeah. And, you know, it can be entertaining sometimes when it's not simply irritating. As long as they're not, like, in my face, angrily saying it's fake, then I'm fine.

I'm just like, some of them I i reply to but most of them i'm just like you you go you do you yeah i have the same philosophy and i was afraid that you would say some of them angrily contact you saying that you're part of the grand conspiracy that's hiding you know the inner meaning of those concentric rings no very very few replies are, you know, flat earthers or people who think that everything NASA puts out is fake. The ones that do, I simply mute them. If they're particularly bad, I will block them, but I can't let them take space in my head. I compliment you on that. We deal with them now and then, but our audience is generally pretty well-grounded and just loves these for the beauty that they represent in the real universe. So let me ask you about another one since we're on the topic. This terrific image reminded me of some of the stuff that Emily used to do, still does, within the solar system, showing different objects in their actual relative size to one another.

The image of a hundred planetary nebulae. And then you said, how many can you name? It's pretty gorgeous as well. Oh, gosh. That was a while ago. Yeah, and I probably couldn't name very many of them. Don't worry. I couldn't get more than two or three.

It's beautiful. I mean, what made you think, hey, nobody's ever put all of these together in one image in the right scale, you know, so that they're all in the same scale. I just thought it was a fascinating approach. It was one of those things where I was like, wow, these things are so amazing, and I need to process all of them. It was like catching Pokemon or something. I was searching through the archive and trying to find all of them. And later on, I found out I did not get all of them, but it's close enough. But it's hard to, it's really hard to find them all. And then after I had processed

all, I'm like, you know, I don't know which one of these are really like, I wanted to see them next to each other. And I started putting that collage together and that's where it ended up. It's a real collection of beauty, that one. Here's another, the Helix Nebula in infrared. I'm going to guess that Peter Jackson is sad that this image wasn't around when he was making The Lord of the Rings, that he could base the Eye of Sauron on it. It's pretty spooky and beautiful. Yeah, that's what people like to call it. There's a few Eye of Sauron images.

There's another Wolf-Rayet star that people like to call the Eye of Sauron. That came from the Spitzer Space Telescope. I can't remember if I used Y's too, but yes, that was pre-JWST. It would be awesome if JWST could look at that. Although I don't know, it might have the mosaic. It's kind of a big picture. You know, that brings up an interesting point, that some of your images are composites that are drawn from different sources.

And of course, we've talked about this on Planetary Radio because now we're seeing stuff that's combined from, you know, Hubble or maybe now JWST with X-ray images and ultraviolet. Is that useful? Is that something that happens a lot? ultraviolet. Is that useful? Is that something that happens a lot? Sometimes it's useful, but other times not. Like, Wyze and Spitzer work very well together because the relative resolution between the two is not too far apart. Spitzer is obviously much finer detail than Wyze, but they're close enough that I can put them together and create a nice color image. And the reason that happened was because I found that Spitzer does sort of something in between that I can put in the green channel. The green channel, I call it the most

important channel because that's where your eyes are most sensitive. And that's where I want the nicest data to go. So I put the Spitzer data in the green channel. And I can't quite remember where I put the WISE data. It probably goes in the blue and maybe the red. But you've seen WISE images alone, right? They look incredibly colorful. The stars are completely separated from the nebulosity. So in order to sort of bring those together, you need

another data set that sort of merges the stars and you can make a two color image too. I've done those and those come out pretty well, but I love to have a three color image to generate that color dimensionality. It just adds so much to it to not be two colors or monochrome. So yeah, I started looking for things that both, well, obviously WISE did, I guess, almost the entire sky. I think there may have been a few things it couldn't reach or I don't, anyway, I digress. I think there may have been a few things it couldn't reach. Anyway, I digress. WISE, which has now become Neo-WISE.

Amy Meinzer at the University of Arizona, been a guest of ours many times on the show, now looking for near-Earth objects and having some good success. But yeah, in its previous incarnation, doing all that great work across the universe. Right. So I think there's still a lot that could be across the universe. Right. So there's actually, I think there's still a lot that could be done with those.

And it's just a matter of looking at Spitzer's archive and saying, oh, you know, this is a really good image. Nobody's done it before. And then pulling the wise data over and combining them together. I just don't have time to do everything, especially now that I have a kid. He's out there. I'm just waiting for him to start knocking on the door. Start complaining? Oh, we better move along then, because I know how that can be. Well, he can't talk yet, so.

Oh, okay. Well, that can be even more demanding. Congratulations, by the way, on that production as well. I'm also remembering how many times I've talked to scientists, like Cassini scientists, who have their morning meeting. And the first thing that they do is look at an image from some amateur so called amateur image processor like you, you and marvel at it because it's not something that they ever were going to have time to work on. And so the degree to which they rely on work from you and people like you, I mean, really, there's a seemingly endless list of organizations, news sites, YouTubers, other image processors, and, you know, like I said, the just plain space geeks like me who share your work. Even though I know a lot of scientists have deep appreciation for your work, you sometimes are concerned about, I think you put it as whether you might be stepping on the feet or the toes of some of these teams that are working with these great space telescopes.

Do you, do you feel that way? Sometimes I worry about it. I'm not seeking to take recognition and like sort of scoop their, their releases, but I, I just get excited about it. And I do sometimes get contacted by astronomers who are like,

Hey, you know, hold off, don't post this to Twitter quite yet. Let's try to do something so that we're more coordinated. But with these larger institutions, I know they have a whole team they're working with. And they can't just put an image out instantly. They're trying to, you know, organize it and get everything, I guess, so they don't get these random questions like what is this that they want to have it all up front and say explain it and say we know what this is mostly sort of i mean not everything is known otherwise why would we have

space telescopes so yeah i don't want to be like oh i'm i'm better than than these people i don't i'm not and absolutely i feel like a lot of the images, especially like say the two color Jupiter image was fairly simple to put together. I think that would have existed without me for sure. Like they would have come up with that on their own. The three color image, maybe not, but. Yeah, I wonder if they would have

because they're awfully busy people. Right. And I think that on balance, what you bring to this and what you add to bring to their work, I think it's vastly appreciated. I think the appreciation for it vastly outweighs any feelings of, oh, yeah, we were going to do that. Sometimes I try not to. Like if they're going to post, like, say this recent image of the Tarantula Nebula, there's a chance that I won't even do that because they've already done it so well that nobody needs me to come in and be like, her, her, look at what I can do.

Every now and then there's things that I just have a personal interest in and there's sort of a lull in activity and I'll go back to one of the big image releases and process it. But yeah, I'm not trying to create conflict or scoop them, so to say. My guess is that most people understand that you and people like you do this out of your love for it and wanting to share what our boss, Bill Nye, calls the passion, beauty, and joy, the PB&J. Yeah, PB&J, that's funny. I named my kid Benedict so that we could be Pat, Benedict, and Judy. So it's P, B, and J. Oh, that's great. I love that. I'm going to tell Bill about that. More P, B, and J.

This takes so much time and so much work. Why do you do this? What do you get out of it? Like I said earlier, it's a way of exploring the universe. Like Wolf at 140 that excited me that's why i ended up posting it to twitter with this regrettable description i feel like it was partly my fault for opening the can of worms worms and saying i don't know what this is and it's because that really opened people up to saying giving their own ideas and saying, well, I think it could be this, or are you sure this is a real thing? So, yeah, but somebody at signed me, how can we say that on Twitter? And they were like, have you seen this? Do you know what this is? And I was like, whoa, what the heck is that? I missed it. I was like, how could I miss this? Because it was like already a month old and other people had processed it and posted it on Wikipedia. I was like, how could I miss this? Because it was like already a month old and other people had processed it and posted it on Wikipedia.

I was like, what? No, I have to do it. So I saw other people's work and I have to say, I thought yours took the cake. It was it is a gorgeous image. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, I was just going to continue on about how it's a way for me to explore. That's what I personally get out of it. It's also kind of meditative for me to put these different data sets together and puzzle them out. You know, it's like if you had a jigsaw puzzle and you're just like trying to put it together,

it's a sort of meditative thing. If you like puzzles, it gives me something to focus on. You know, I love sharing it with people too. And that's the third thing that I get out of it. I love to let people join me on this trip, this cosmic trip. That's a great way to describe it. I love that. Let me ask you about one other image. And it's the one that Elizabeth Howell kind of focused on when she talked to you for space.com.

It is just gorgeous. I can lose myself in it. It's M74, the Phantom Galaxy. Yeah, that one was like so far the most, I feel like the most impressive galaxy out of that FANGS dataset. Their whole program is amazing. They've got so many beautiful galaxies in the Hubble data set already. And now they're adding these JWST images to that already gorgeous set. Like it's just one after another, a beautiful galaxy.

And they're all different. They all have different reasons for looking at this particular galaxy. That particular one is just like, wow. And I think they thought that another one of them, I can't remember the number because I'm terrible at remembering the numbers. But the one with the very thick dust bars. I'm not going to be able to help you. I can't keep you safe. Yeah, I know.

I know. I can look it up real quick. Don't worry about it. I mean, they were like, why aren't these dust bars showing up? And I think the thing is, it's not that they don't show up. They show up great. It's just that all the other dust also shows up. And so all of a sudden, these backlit dust lanes that were very prominent in the visible spectrum,

suddenly they're just as prominent as every other bit of dust. So it's like they sort of just blended in. And it was like, oh, well, it's still a good-looking galaxy. It's just like, huh, a little underwhelming, I guess. They were hoping for another thing like the Phantom Galaxy, I guess. Do you have advice for anyone who might be listening to this and looking at your work and would be intrigued and might want to follow in your footsteps, join this community of image processors? Don't give up, I guess. It's not going to be something that you get good at overnight. It took, I think, at least four to six months for me to really feel like I was comfortable with.

And that was processing nonstop. That was when I really had nothing else to do with my time. I didn't have a kid. I didn't even have a cat. And Pat was at work all day. Pat, my spouse. Even just full time going at it as much as I could stand. It's still I was just taking in all this information.

And yeah, after that amount of time, and I'm still learning new techniques and coming up with new ways to sort of solve the puzzle. to sort of solve the puzzle. Gosh, even after using Photoshop itself for over 20 years, I'm learning things about Photoshop too. There's a lot. And astronomy itself has a lot of different subspecialties. From specialty to specialty, even other astronomers have a hard time. Like if they're specialized in one thing like galaxies, they're not necessarily going to know a lot about planets. Astronomy itself sounds like, oh, you have just an astronomer that they study everything. But no, there's people who study just active galactic nucleus, like the black holes, the people who study stars and not just like one segment of

star, like could be star formation versus the end of, I don't like to say that stars die because they're still there even after they stop fusing. That's true. Energy source. I feel like they just, I like that. I don't know why. I just, I don't like saying that stars die. I've always taken an issue with that, for lack of a better word right now. I like your approach to that. I think I'm going to try and change my reference to dying stars. So you've had even more influence, and this time wasn't even directly related to an image. Your work, well, maybe you're best known for the image processing work, but you are also an artist of original work. And I'm thinking in particular in this case of this

absolutely beautiful image of Saturn and its rings. And you can see the individual ring particles. I've seen that image for a long time in many places and did not know until a couple of days ago that that was something that you had put together. Very, very nice work. And then I read your description of it and it looked like you were you're hoping that you got this right. But we don't really know yet. Yeah, I'm I'm surprised that you've seen it in so many different places. I didn't think it was very widespread. And there were other images that I felt like maybe did it better than I did. It's just beautiful. It's just, it's really, I'll use the word again,

it's breathtaking. And we'll put that one on the page as well. Judy, you've been very generous with your time and certainly with your skills, your talents. Thank you for all of this gorgeous work. I look forward to seeing much more of it. I'm stealing this from you since it's your motto on Twitter. May all your guide stars be acquired, Judy, and also add Astra to the star. Yeah, those guide stars, sometimes they are not acquired. And, yeah, it's a very sad day when you get your billion-dollar telescope data back and it's just a streak.

Oh, man, that's just going to be heartbreaking. I'm going to stretch the metaphor here and say, I think that your images are providing guide stars for a lot of people as they become more interested in the wonders of the cosmos. So again, thank you for this great work. And thank you for taking some time with us today. You're welcome. And thank you for inviting me.

Artist and astronomical image processor extraordinaire, Judy Schmidt. We've put some of her work that we talked about on this week's show page at planetary.org slash radio, along with links to her Flickr collection and much more. It's time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Here is the chief scientist of the Planetary Society, Dr. Bruce Betts, who is very glad, I'm sure, to be talking with me virtually this time. Welcome. I am indeed, but I've looked it up and apparently I can only catch computer viruses by doing this. I'm glad, I'm glad. But I'm so sorry you've got COVID, Matt. Yeah. I feel badly for you. I do want to, at the risk of changing my behavior entirely, compliment you. First, let's compliment me.

I've been on every show that we've ever done in 20 years. Yes. Matt has, like, never missed a show. I twisted his arm, like, a decade ago ago and he ran a mostly repeat a couple times. Doesn't matter come rain, shine, COVID, he not only records the show, he produces it, he edits it, and he makes it the glorious piece of art that it is, even while sitting there with some nose thing that

makes him look ridiculous, but helps him breathe. We appreciate it. I can't believe you do this and have done this, and I'm in awe. Hey, the Breathe Ride is because I'm going out for the Minnesota Vikings. It has nothing to do with COVID. What? Oh, God.

They're having enough problems. They're doing okay. Thank you. I appreciate all of that. And, yeah, you're right. Every single show, even the ones with repeated features, and those have been few and far between, has had new content, especially a brand-new What's Up?

Because, after all, the night sky changes every week. It waits for no one. So let's talk about the night sky changes every week. It waits for no one. So let's talk about the night sky and the evening sky. When the sun sets, if you look over in the east, you'll see really bright Jupiter looking lovely. And if you look up above it a ways, you'll see yellowish Saturn looking lovely. you'll see yellowish Saturn looking lovely. And if you wait two, three, four hours until the late evening, you'll see Mars come up. And Mars getting brighter and brighter as we get closer in our orbits.

And it's hanging out near Aldebaran, the bright reddish star in Taurus. But it puts Aldebaran to shame right at the moment because of its glorious brightness. And you might be able to check out Mercury, not quite yet, but in a few days in the pre-dawn sky low in the east. On to this week in space history, nothing, well, there were a couple things this week, insignificant things. 1957, October 4th. What is that?

Sputnik. Sputnik was launched. Yeah. So first spacecraft. And then NASA was started a year later, October 1st, the official beginning of NASA. Yeah. No coincidence there, by the way.

No. We move on to random. the way no we move on to random oh that sounds so good with the reverb oh nice how far away is voyager one well i'm glad you asked as of september 2022 so now as we record this, in the amount of time it takes to send a radio signal at the speed of light to Voyager 1 and have it return a signal back at the speed of light, you could drive from L.A. to Boston with almost two hours to spare. Wow. This random space fact assumes a straight path with no brakes at 100 kilometers per hour. All right. Yeah, I guess you'd still be within the speed limit. No stops for gas or potty brakes? No, I, you know, I'm a planetary scientist. I simplify things. We approximate, but still come up with about the right answer.

That is a great random space fact. Thank you. You're welcome. We move on to the trivia question. I asked you approximately, so, you know, kind of close, how long from launch will it take Korea's Dinuri mission to reach the moon? It's on its way right as we speak. And how do we do, Matt? We got a nice response.

Thank you, everybody. Here is the answer, I think, from Dave Fairchild in Kansas, the poet laureate of Planetary Radio. Danuri means enjoy the moon. So can you give an answer to why it's headed toward the sun? Ballistic lunar transfer. It's heading out to point L1, Lagrangian, remember, and should be captured by the moon around 16 December. Actually, he did provide the number of days as well, but I'm going to look to our, I think our winner, first time winner, long time listener, William Nowak, who says it's about 19 weeks and a day, August 4 to December 16, which is, and there's some question about this. Some people said 134 days, which is what this would be. Some said 135. Is this close enough? That is close enough. That's as accurate as I could find it online. There may be a little fudge, but yeah, 134, 135 days to get to the moon. When we get to the moon, indeed, oddly, they travel to not the Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange point, which my brain might have understood, but the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point, a gravitational balance point,

because then they go out there, they do it just right. They actually can use less fuel by hitting that gravitational balance point and then doing their thing and kind of cruising into orbit. Anyway, they get there. They'll get there. We're looking forward to it. Just impressive. Certainly competing for one of the longest trips

to the moon ever, but very cool. Congratulations to the Dory team for successful missions so far. And congratulations, William, up there in beautiful, on the beautiful central California coast. You are going to receive that brand new and stunning JWST t-shirt from our friends at chopshopstore.com. That's all one word, by the way. It's where you will also find the Planetary Radio t-shirt, which I'm kind of biased. I'd say it's as beautiful. In fact, all of the Planetary Society merch is there at chopshopstore.com. I have more, of course, from Norman Kassoon in the UK.

Donuri is a portmanteau of two Korean words, dal, which means moon, and nurida, which means enjoy. According to the ministry, this new name implies a big hope and desire for the success of South Korea's first moon mission. Well done. Do you know what a portmanteau of our name says, Matt? Brat. How appropriate. Oh, yeah. We should have discovered that years ago.

Carlos Tello in Germany. He was in South Korea a couple of years ago. What a nice and exciting country and culture, he says. I especially enjoy the volcanic island of Jeju in the south. That island has a very nice role in the Korean dramedy Extraordinary Attorney Woo that my wife and I have been enjoying. It's an excellent show. I recommend it very highly. It's a beautiful island

too. Mel Powell says it's also close to the time that it would take for him to drive from his San Fernando Valley home to Planetary Society headquarters in LA. Well, yeah, at least during traffic time. Yeah. Ben Owens in Australia, 9.6 lunar days, he's right, I checked, are about as long as an average Australian household takes to consume a small jar of Vegemite, which is interesting. I thought Australians would go through that more quickly. A small jar of Vegemite would last the typical American family basically forever because we would- Yeah, yeah. Until the estate sale.

Ertan Yuzak in Arizona, if you drive at around 75 miles per hour on a direct path, you will get to the moon in 135 days, no stopping for gas. Remarkable, huh? He had no idea what your random space factor would be. And I had no idea what his answer would be so yes we're just great minds thinking alike I absolutely Joe Caliputre in New Jersey I recommend that the shadow cam that's the camera that denoury is carrying be nicknamed Lamont Cranston do you get it who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The shadow knows. I forgot the shadow. That was the shadow's name?

That's right. I remember that beginning to the radio show, but okay, wow. Sure, we'll suggest it. Daniel Sorkin in New York closes us out with, Go, Donnery, and congratulations to our friends in South Korea on this mission. That's good. Good stuff. Did you want some good stuff for next time? Please. Why break the habit now? So, hey, did you see that spacecraft impact the asteroid? Hey, did you see that spacecraft impact the asteroid?

I did catch that. There's an interesting history of the getting to that point. And one of the pieces of many pieces was there was an ESA, European Space Agency, studied mission, just studied, called Don Quixote, which never went beyond a study, but was one of the many pieces that led to DART and HERA. So here's your question. What were the two spacecraft to be named that were to be part of the Don Quixote mission had it existed? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. I have a guess, which I would not be a bit surprised to learn is accurate, but I guess I'll just have to wait to find out.

You have until the 5th, that'd be October 5th at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get your answer in. What else could we give away this week except a Planetary Society kick asteroid rubber asteroid. Cool. You know what would also be great? What? Used Matt Kaplan Breathe Right strips. Huh? Huh?

I don't know. There's been a lot of talk about cloning me, and so I think it would be a mistake to hand somebody a used Breathe Right strip. It probably wouldn't go well. That's terrifying. Okay. Are we done? We're done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky and think about Matt Kaplan getting really healthy. Thank you and good night. It is devoutly to be wished. I appreciate that. It comes from the chief scientist of the Planetary Society, Bruce Betts, who joins us every week here for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its often astonished members.

You can start sharing their experience at planetary.org slash join. Marco Verda and Ray Paletta are our associate producers. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which is arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. Ad Astra.