Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Canada Rises…And So Does the Sun

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

Canada has a new Space Advisory Board, and The Planetary Society’s Kate Howells is a member.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Canada rises, and so does the sun, 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. Canada has a new Space Advisory Board, and the Planetary Society's Kate Howells is its newest member. She'll join us in minutes. Then we'll hear from two leaders of the effort to build the world's largest solar telescope on the island of Maui. Have you written your space haiku?

Bruce Betts and I will share a few on this week's What's Up. And if you're looking for the perfect space book for a young person in your life, senior editor Emily Lakdawalla has a few recommendations. Emily, I had intended for us just to talk about your recommended kids books, but there's a breaking news story this morning that's pretty significant. Is it less likely that water's been flowing on the surface of Mars? Well, this is a story that's been going back and forth for many years, so I doubt it's the end of the story. But there was a press release this morning about research done by the USGS, US Geological Survey, indicating that the slopes

on which these recurring slope lineae occur on Mars, these are recurring features that happen seasonally, are high enough that you could make them happen, that they can mostly be a dry process made by grains just tumbling down the slope. Now, other work suggests that there is water involved because there are water-related minerals found at the surface. It may well be that the final answer is a blend of multiple ideas. So I think, personally, I think the jury's still out and no one paper is going to end the debate. Well, that is reassuring. Let's talk about these books. You've got lots of them for every age, beginning this year with ones that would work, I think, for my 18-month-old grandchild. to recommend for the littlest ones, but one of them is right now my favorite. It's a nice bedtime book called Touch the Brightest Star that invites the baby to touch and poke the pages. It's no

high-tech here, just pages. And you turn the pages and the sky gets darker and darker. And by the end of it, you're ready to put the kid to bed. It's really cute. Rowan's mother will be very grateful for that. What are some of the other standouts here? You've got a bunch for all of these different age groups, but just mention a couple more. So this year was a standout for picture books for young children, four to seven-year-old kids. There's a couple of really great ones. I liked A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars, which invites the parent reading to say very

large, very huge numbers with lots of billions and millions in them. It's a pretty fun book to read. There's one called Life on Mars, where an astronaut is looking for aliens on Mars and fails to find them, even though there's a giant orange alien on every page and your kid is going to be yelling at you at the astronaut for not noticing the alien. There are two really good biographies for the age group, Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton, about their contributions through coding to the space race. And one called Serena Sees Her Footprints on the Moon, about a kid imagining herself walking by the footsteps of the Apollo astronauts, but then going even beyond. So those are really, really cool. I should mention a couple for older kids. There's an entry in a long-running series of these wonderful photo books that goes into

the history of how a photo was made on the Hubble Deep Field. And I found it very informative, and that's for older kids. Then there's one that I wrote the introduction for. It's a collection of science fiction short stories featuring kid protagonists with all different genres of science fiction short stories featuring kid protagonists with all different genres of science fiction represented. It's just a wonderful thing called the 2018 Young Explorers Adventure Guide. Nice introduction to science fiction. All of these and more are on Emily's Recommended Space Books for Kids of All Ages 2017. It's a November 15th entry at

planetary.org in her blog there. Emily, I see that your own book is still set for the spring of 2018, The Design and Engineering of Curiosity, How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job. Indeed, I turned the manuscript in two days ago. It's headed off to the typesetter. That's great. Congratulations. Thank you. Anyway, that's Emily Lakdawalla, our author and reviewer and senior editor for the Planetary Society. Looking forward to seeing her book in just a few months. Thanks, Emily. Thank you, Matt. Kate Howell serves the Planetary Society as our global community outreach manager. Her job revolves around the society's education and volunteer activities. Kate Howell serves the Planetary Society as our Global Community Outreach Manager. Her job revolves around the Society's education and volunteer activities.

She does most of her work from her home in Montreal, Quebec. But I bet she'll be visiting Canada's capital of Ottawa more frequently in the coming years. Kate was at home when we spoke a few days ago. Kate, congratulations on your appointment to this advisory group up there north of the border that so many of us, including myself, are south of. Tell us, what is this group and what is its mission? Thank you, Matt. So the Space Advisory Board was formed by the Canadian government this year. It's part of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, or rather it reports to the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, which is responsible for the Canadian Space Program. And basically, the Canadian Space Program had been sort of floundering for a few years.

It wasn't getting a lot of funding. It wasn't getting a lot of attention. It didn't really have much of a strategic direction. This new government wanted to really revamp things and so put together an advisory board of people with different kinds of expertise in the Canadian space community to help them determine what Canada's strategy in space should be and what our space program should look like. I'm in wonderful company on this board. My particular role is to advise on education and outreach concerns and also to be a representative of the youth of Canada. How appropriate. And has the group met already or is that still coming? Yes. So I was actually a late addition to the group. It was formed actually about a year ago. So they've met many times. The first task that they had was to consult with other stakeholders in the Canadian space community.

So they held these roundtable discussions across Canada, bringing together all kinds of voices, all kinds of perspectives to just listen to what people had to say. They had a few prompts, but for the most part, they were just there to hear people's ideas on what Canada should be doing differently. And they got an enormous amount of input from that and put together a sort of synthesis of the recommendations that people were making. That report came out in the summer. So I was added to the board shortly after that. And we've had a few meetings. And we talk online regularly. We have a phone meeting once a week.

And we have been getting together this month at conferences in Canada. November is sort of space conference season in Canada. So there have been a lot of opportunities for us to get together and talk to one another and then also talk to other people in the space community. So this sounds like much more than just sort of a ceremonial gathering. There's real work underway. How do you interface with the Canadian Space Agency if you do? We are not directly reporting to the Canadian Space Agency, but we are working alongside them. So we get input from Sylvain Appal, who's the president of the CSA, on what they're working on,

what their needs are, but we directly report to the ministry. We get input from the CSA and from the ministry about what needs to be worked on. So for example, right now we're working on providing advice to the minister on how they can communicate the value of a stronger space program, a more strategic space program, how they can communicate the value of that to members of parliament who ultimately decide the budget of the Canadian space program, to the general public who have to support that. So we're getting asks and input from the CSA and from the ministry, and then we turn that around and provide recommendations. As you know, the number of Canadian listeners we have for this program is frequently second only

to the number that we have in the United States. Does that and does the creation of this group that you're now part of represent a level of interest in space by Canadians. Absolutely. I think a lot of Canadians are frustrated by seeing how much activity there is south of the border. I mean, what NASA is able to accomplish and the amount of interest there is in space and the awareness even of NASA's activities in the U.S. is something to aspire to. And Canada has always been active in space. We were the third country to ever put a satellite into orbit right after the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And we've always had a strong space program.

It really has floundered in the last few years. But the Canadian public, Canadian students, the Canadian space industry. There's a lot of interest in space. So it's good to see this happening. It's good to see how much energy there still is, even after this sort of quiet period. There are still a lot of people really ready to go, ready to make things happen. So it's good to see that the government is meeting that interest. You know what our boss says, space brings out the best in us. Now, you've also got something coming up, which you're not quite ready to push out yet,

but it's going to involve our Canadian members of the Planetary Society, and we have a lot. Yes, so my role with the Planetary Society has always involved representing the society in Canada and representing Canadians to the society. And I've always heard from our members in Canada, when are we going to do advocacy? When are we going to actively communicate with our government in support of space exploration? Finally, finally, that's coming

up. So this is sort of just a teaser that in the next month or so, I expect that we'll be putting out a call to our Canadian members to get in touch with their representatives in Parliament to support Canada's new space strategy. Now, the details of this are still being worked out. This is something that is directly related to what the Space Advisory Board is working on, trying to provide guidance on what the space strategy is and then also seek political support for that strategy. So I'm not sure exactly when it's going to be, but it's going to be soon. We'll be reaching out to Canadian members to finally, finally, really engage with our own government and make space exploration happen in our own country. Kate, that sounds terrific. We'll keep track and mention it on the appropriate episode of Planetary Radio as well. Thanks for joining us. And once again,

congratulations. Thank you very much, Matt. That's Planetary Society Global Community Outreach Manager Kate Howells. When we return, we'll head for Big Bear, California, the island of Maui and the star that warms them both. This is Planetary Radio. Hi, this is Casey Dreyer, the Director of Space Policy here at the Planetary Society. And I wanted to let you know that right now Congress is debating the future of NASA's budget. The House has proposed to increase NASA's budget and also increase planetary science in 2018. The Senate, however, has proposed to cut both. You can make your voice heard right now. We've made it easy to learn more if you go to

planetary.org slash petition2017. Thank you. if you go to planetary.org slash petition2017. Thank you. You can share your passion for space exploration by giving someone a gift membership to the Planetary Society this holiday season or any time of year. Your friend or loved one would join us as we nurture new and exciting science, advocate for space, and educate the world.

The gift of space starts at planetary.org forward slash give space. That's planetary.org forward slash give space. Because, come on, it's space. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. Some of you will remember my visit to the Big Bear Solar Observatory, or BBSO, back in August. I joined some of the world's greatest astronomers and heliophysicists for the rededication of what is currently the best solar telescope on our planet. We were also there to celebrate the life and work of Phil Goody, after whom the scope is now named.

Among Phil's admirers at the observatory that day were Thomas Rimeli and Jeff Kuhn. Thomas was a postdoc under Phil Goody. Now he is director of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, or DECIST, nearing completion atop a mountain on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Jeff was a colleague of Phil's as long as 40 years ago. He's a professor at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, also on Maui. Jeff was a colleague of Phil's as long as 40 years ago. He's a professor at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, also on Maui. We sat down for a brief conversation that began with the innovative Goody telescope, just a few feet away from us, and the much bigger DCIST.

Has this served the BBSO telescope, now the Goody telescope, served as a prototype in a way for the DCIST? Yes, in many ways, actually. It's the first off-axis telescope of this kind that we use for the sun. So a very fast optical system, very far off-axis. It's something that took a lot of guts and risk-taking to implement something like this, and also, you know, technical skills by a team that implemented this. Jeff, we've heard that this is a pretty small community, heliophysicists, people who study the sun. Is that your experience?

people who study the sun. Is that your experience? It is, and I think that this is going to change with time. So we've already seen with the Goody Solar Telescope the number of papers that have come out and the number of students that are engaged in it, and it's attracting attention. And it's that first step towards the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, which is going to end up, I think, really changing the landscape for the science that we do here related to studying the sun. It's a huge jump, and I'm fond of saying that in terms of the increment in what we've been able to do from the ground, it's comparable to Galileo's first look at the sun with a telescope. comparable to Galileo's first look at the sun with a telescope.

We're doing it with a similar increment in light collecting and just the raw power of being able to see new things with the sun. What is the DCIST, with roughly three times the diameter of its primary mirror, going to be able to do for us to add to our knowledge of the star that drives life here? Well, it's a whole slew of things, of course. But let me just start maybe with the outer layer of the sun, the corona. We still don't understand why the corona is a million degrees, where the surface of the sun is only 6,000 degrees. That's counterintuitive.

As you move away from a hot plate, you would expect the temperature to drop, but it's actually increasing by a lot. Just the mechanisms on how that happens, we think it's through magnetic fields, tangled magnetic fields that reconnect or wave patterns that travel up into the corona and deposit energy. Just understanding that is one of the big questions that we're trying to answer. the big questions that we're trying to answer. In addition to that, there is the whole aspect of space weather. The sun produces flares, coronal mass ejections. Those are driven, again, by the magnetic field. In particular, the coronal magnetic field is of interest. And the DCIST, pretty much for the first time, will let us routinely measure the coronal magnetic field in the corona with an instrument,

for example, that Jeff is building here. This mystery of the temperature of the corona, I thought that we were closing in on an answer for that. Well, we are in a way. We know it's magnetism, I think. Thomas alluded to that fact. And of course, it's also, you know, the answer in the end is the devil is in the details. And we care about those details because the connection of the sun to the earth and all our technology and a lot of what happens in the modern world is related to that connection. And we just don't have a clue as to what makes the sun do these explosive things when they happen and how they propagate from the sun do these explosive things when they happen and how they propagate from the sun to the earth. And so the sun is also, for us, of course, the most important

astrophysical object to humankind that matters. And so it's also in that spirit that the DECIST and also the Goody Solar Telescope are going to start pushing answers at us that let us predict how the sun affects the earth. And that's pretty exciting. Sticking with that science for a moment, but looking further out, what is it really that strikes you about learning about our own star that is helping us to understand not just other stars, but other solar systems? Life exists on the earth because of the sun. Of course,

the evolution of the sun is something that matters. The change in temperature of the solar environment and the change in temperature of the Earth is where life came from, caused life. You know, we're trying to learn the language of the sun. We're trying to understand what its rhythm is, the 11-year rhythm that makes sunspots. And some people believe that life evolved and was affected by the radiation environment, that mutation and genetic evolution and the timescale for genetic evolution are related to that radiation environment. And all of that has to do with magnetism. And in our field, the key to that is building instruments that can measure magnetic fields, to do it in a way that lets us

be able to predict what happens. The sun's our Rosetta Stone, right? And the language we're trying to learn is the physics of magnetism. By looking at the sun in the detail that we can with the D-KIST, we have a chance of breaking 50, 100-year-old barriers to some of the problems that are great mysteries related to magnetic variability. Obviously a lot to look forward to. When do you expect first light for DCAST? First engineering light will be at the end of 2018, roughly, and then fully operational we expect to be in early 2020. So not far off. Much farther off, probably,

is, Jeff, another telescope that I've heard of and just heard that you are also part of the effort to bring about a much, much, much bigger telescope than anything currently in existence. Well, there's a small group of scientists that have been pushing the idea that we could build telescopes in a different way. DECIST is a telescope that's built in a different way, just like the Goody Solar Telescope is, where the mirror's moved off axis and the amount of scattered light is reduced because nothing sits in front of the mirror to put light where it doesn't belong in the final image. So there's a group that's building a telescope called Colossus,

belong in the final image. So there's a group that's building a telescope called Colossus, which combines some of the ideas of interferometry with some of the classical ideas of telescopes, like the ones we're talking about right now. The notion is that within five to ten years, there's the capability of building telescopes that could actually find signatures of life on nearby exoplanets. We're at this fabulous time. The nearest star outside of the sun to us has planets around it, or at least one planet, which appears to be about the right temperature to have water. And it's the nearest one to us. And we only learned about it because we had that capability.

We think, and the Colossus group is really dedicated to extrapolating some of these new telescope ideas, like what we do in solar physics, to nighttime problems where there's a potential for being able to find biomarkers, for example, around exoplanets. Like oxygen, methane in the atmosphere. Or even the heat signature of the rotationally modulated heat signature of civilizations. We use five hundredths of a percent of the total energy that the sun illuminates the earth with. So that means that at the level of a few hundredths of a percent, the thermal signature of life is a detectable signal. And that's an astronomical signal. That's something that with

the right instruments you could be able to see. Exciting times. We know this is true across all of astronomy. You've given more proof of that with this development of Colossus, but in solar astronomy as well, in heliophysics. Yeah, sure. This big telescope is something we've been dreaming of for decades, and now it's becoming a reality, and I'm really looking forward to the science that comes out of it and actually being able to do some science again. Gentlemen, thank you both. Mahalo for being part of us today, coming over here across the Pacific to celebrate your colleague and this facility,

which remains the largest solar telescope on Earth until DECIS comes online. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts is the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society with a lot on his plate. Clearly not much time to practice impressions by Gollum or anybody else. Welcome. And lacking a lot of talent in that area.

And lacking any warning from the host of this show. Yeah, that's how we roll. Ben Owens in Bandura, Australia. He says, who sounds creepier, movie Gollum or Bruce Gollum Smeagol? Pretty sure it's the latter. Which is kind of

a compliment. Well, what's up? We've got a couple things close to each other in the sky. So in the evening sky, Mercury is making one of its Mercurian quick appearances in the evening sky. Shortly after sunset looked low in the west, and Saturn's already hanging out there, and Mercury and Saturn will be relatively close on the 28th, the evening of the 28th, but also days before and after that.

Saturn has a yellowish tint to it. And then in the pre-dawn sky, we've got reddish Mars getting close to Spica, the blue star. So there's a nice color contrast. They are closest on the 27th, but will be close for, you know, week before, week after-ish. And we've also got low in the pre-dawn, that's in the pre-dawn east up higher, but in the pre-dawn east down lower, we've got Jupiter coming up looking bright. We move on to this week in space history. It was 2011 that Curiosity launched on its way to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Go Curiosity.

Still headed up to all those revealing layers, right? Indeed, because, you know, you can't get enough layers. In cake or geology. Oh, man, now I want cake. All right, we move on to a hungry and creepy random space fact. Was that a character I should have recognized? It's hungry, Bruce. Get this man some cake.

That's me eat cake. So neutron stars, super weird, super dense. That means if you're on the surface of a neutron star, which I, by the way, do not recommend, the escape velocity to get away from the neutron star and not be pulled back by the gravity, the escape velocity of the surface of a neutron star, about a third to half the speed of light.

Whoa. So does that mean that they're like a third to halfway to being a black hole since then you have infinite escape velocity? Yeah, that's how the math works, I'm sure. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Strangely, less mind bending than a black hole. This is another reason not to have that piece of cake, you know. I'm going to do some density calculations, but I don't think I'm in any danger.

We move on to the trivia contest. Had a fun one, the playing of the game. You know, what is some weird sounding something in space? And that was, what are Bach globules? How'd we do, Matt? Wow. I believe that this set a record for entries in the

contest. And I'm sure it was a combination of this terrific question and the fact that we are giving away a copy of Andy Weir's new novel, Artemis, that we talked about on the show two weeks ago. Our winner, chosen by Random.org, Carrie Hartley.

She's a Kiwi down in Christchurch, New Zealand. She says, longtime listener, thanks for sharing the wonder of space with all of us. And she says the Bach globules are small, cold, dense, and isolated clouds of gas and dust, nebulae, where young stars are thought to be born, named after the Dutch-American astronomer Bart J. Bach, B-O-K. That was magnificent. Congratulations, Kerry. We are going to send you that book, the new novel from Andy Weir, along with a Planetary

Society t-shirt from Chop Shop. That's at chopshopstore.com, where the Society has its own little mini store. And a 200-point itelescope.net astronomy account on that worldwide nonprofit network of telescopes that anybody can make use of. Mel Powell in Sherman Oaks, California. He's deeply disappointed that Bruce Betts had to say that Bach globules aren't Klingon. Of course they're not. Everyone knows Damon Bach is a Ferengi ship captain. He's right. We got the same answer from Nathan Hunter. He actually, this Ferengi actually appeared in two episodes of The Next Generation. So Damon Bach, Brian Mangold, and Michael Unger.

I'll use Brian's entry. He says, they are also, these nebula, where interstellar chickens get their native language. You know what he means, right? Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach. Michael Unger added after. Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach. Nobody here but us chickens. After he made the joke, Michael Unger added after... Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach. Nobody here but us chickens.

After he made the joke, Michael Unger added, don't worry, I'll show myself out. Bambi Lynn, who keeps Georgia on my mind, she says, I totally want to start a punk rock band called the Bach Globules. You could just see them, can't you? I can indeed. We got a haiku from Sven Neuhaus in Dortmund, Germany. Here it is.

Bach globule of past, our solar system's birthplace, a small miracle. And that's not the last haiku we've got for this week. Finally, our poet laureate, Dave Fairchild. Bart Bach preferred to talk of things he couldn't touch, like interstellar clouds of dust or bits of gas and such. He once described a globule where protostars might be, and then he added, might as well just name them after me. I thought that was pretty clever. So you want to get us into next week's? Sure. Back to neutron stars. Who first proposed the theoretical existence of neutron stars?

Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. I almost know the answer to this one because I know I've read it several times. I just can't quite place it. It was not Bach. It was not? Really? Oh. I'm giving it several times. I just can't quite place it. It was not Bach. It was not? Really? Oh. I'm giving you a hint.

It was neither the Bach of globule fame or the, you know, that music guy. All right. Two down, 100 billion to go. You've got until Wednesday, the 29th of November at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us this answer. 9th of November at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us this answer. And if you have it right and you're picked by random.org, you will get a Planetary Society t-shirt

from Chop Shop store. You will get a 200-point itelescope.net account. And we're going to throw in the greatest little print that we've just now received from Michelle Roosh, that terrific artist and engineer, aerospace artist. You can see more of

her stuff at www.roosh.com. This is a portrait, a lovely portrait of Neil Armstrong in his Apollo 11 spacesuit, but with the helmet off. So you can see it well. It comes with a certificate of authenticity. I don't know if it was done with colored pencil or pastel. I simply do not know, but I can tell you it's lovely. And this will be yours if you are the winner that we announce in two weeks. That is excellent. I said we have some more haiku to present because, of course, the Planetary Society has invited people to submit their space haiku with hashtag space haiku, one word. We picked out a few special ones here, but there have been hundreds and hundreds of these submitted.

Bruce, would you get us started? I will indeed. Stars all around us. Planets roaming through the skies. A spaceship will fly. That was from Yadira Saldivar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, part of Mr. Rau's seventh grade language arts class at Will Rogers College High School and Junior High. Here's one from Jillian, and I don't know how to pronounce the last name. I apologize. I don't know how to pronounce the last name. I apologize.

Urasich? Urasich? They, the stars, chose me. Their dust burns on in my heart. How could I say no? And now you've got one of your own. I do. I do. Go for deployment. Forearms open shiny sails.

Fly on, LightSail2. And here is one from a Planetary Society board member, Wally Hooser. To look is to see, to wonder is to think, but to explore is to know. Nice work, Wally. Profound. This comes out of a regular

tradition at the Planetary Society where we do haikus, many of us. We submit them via email to each other on Fridays, and now we've expanded it to the world, if not the universe. So please join in. And there will be a Facebook Live event with Bill Nye, Bob Picardo, board member of the Planetary Society, on Tuesday, November 28th at 10 a.m. Pacific time. And they're going to present more of these haiku and have some more nice holiday messages for everybody who tunes in.

It'll all be on the Planetary Society Facebook page. I look forward to it. And now I think we're done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky and think about your hashtag space haiku. And submit it. Who knows? Maybe it'll get on the air, or maybe it'll be on Facebook Live.

He's Bruce Betts. He's the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, 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 Maple Leaf members. Daniel Gunn is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. I'm Matt Kaplan.

Live long and prosper, said the alien to all. I wish this for you. Clear skies. guys.