Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Taking Back the Night -- International Dark Skies Week

Episode Date: April 16, 2012

There are millions of urbanites who have never seen the wonders of a truly dark night sky. Scott Kardel of the International Dark Sky Association is fighting to restore the sky our ancestors knew so well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When did you last see the Milky Way? This week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. April 14 to 20 is International Dark Sky Week, sponsored by the International Dark Sky Association. Scott Cardell is the Association's Public Affairs Director. He wants to help all of us take back the sky, and he'll explain how in a few minutes. You may think SOS stands for Save Our Ship.

You're right, but it also means Save Our Space. Bill Nye will drop by to ask for help in getting the U.S. Congress to restore funding for planetary science and exploring our solar system. Ever so much later in the show, we'll spend a few moments with Bruce Betts. He's the astronomer and the Planetary Society Director of Projects who helps us take a look at that too-often-obscured night sky. Stay tuned for the space trivia contest, too. We've got an extra special prize to announce.

And here's another special announcement. Those of you who live within reach of Washington, D.C., have a great event to look forward to. The USA Science and Engineering Festival comes to the Washington Convention Center Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29. It's absolutely free, and I'll be there with Bill and the rest of the Planetary Radio gang in the Planetary Society booth. But wait, there's more! On that Saturday evening, we'll journey to the National Air and Space Museum for the Celestron Stargazing Party.

That's where we'll produce another edition of Planetary Radio Live in front of an audience. The details are at www.usasciencefestival.org. Time to talk with Planetary Society blogger Emily Lakdawalla. Emily, I say Lutetia, you say Lutetia. Did I get that right? I say Lutetia because that's the way the Germans say it. And I'm referring to the Germans who built the camera, the OSIRIS camera aboard Rosetta, Europe's comet chasing spacecraft. That's eventually going to get to a comet. But on the way, it traveled past two asteroids.

And it's been a long time coming, but the team has finally released all of their data from the second asteroid flyby, which was Lutetia. At the time, it was the largest asteroid that had ever been visited by a spacecraft, although it was quickly overshadowed by Vesta, which is just more than three times the diameter, much, much bigger than this one. But Lutetia is really a fascinating one to look at up close, and it's been a delight to see these new images as processed, of course, by my friends in the amateur image processing community. And one of the things that really struck me about them is how the strange shape of the craters on Lutetia reminds me of the craters that we've been seeing on Vesta.

And what makes the crater so unusual is that they have one sharp edged side and one very smooth edged side. And what the Dawn team has been saying about those craters on Vesta is that they're characteristic of craters that have formed on steep slopes. So something comes in, it impacts a very steep slope. The upslope side is very sharp, but while the crater forms, there's like a landslide that washes over the downhill side of the crater. And so all over Lutetia, you see the same kind of craters that you see on Vesta. It makes me realize how important it is that each time we go to a new body, it kind of multiplies what we can understand about the things that we visited in the past. So it's been really great to see these pictures. And also, you just have to go check out the blog

entry because there's an amazing flyby movie that was created from the whole image archive by Ian Regan. I just watched it and it is terrific. So do take a look. It's an April 10 entry in the Planetary Society blog. You can get there from planetary.org. Also, just a very brief mention of something from another of your contributors. That's right. This is from Doug Ellison, my co-conspirator on unmannedspaceflight.com, who had his HiWish granted earlier this year. HiWish is the program through which you can request images to be taken of certain spots on Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. And he wanted to see not Spirit, but the other hardware that landed with Spirit in color. They've taken lots and lots of color images of spirit but because of the unusual way that the high-rise camera works that means that almost all of the images that they've gotten of the

back shell and the parachute and the lander that spirit came in on were in black and white and so he finally got his high wish granted he saw the back shell and the parachute in color but unfortunately it's really hard to target these things and they just missed the color strip on the lander itself. So they're going to have to go back and try again. But he did a real nice summary of all the images that high-rises have ever taken of Spirit, and they're really interesting to look at. Well, hang in there, Doug.

It's an April 13 entry in the blog. Emily, we'll talk to you again next week. Looking forward to it, Matt. She is the Science and Technology Coordinator for the Planetary Society, and Ms. Lakdawalla is a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. And here's Bill, once again on the road. Bill, as I understand it, we're going to talk about SOS, and it has nothing to do with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

That's right. SOS is Save Our Science at the Planetary Society. The NASA budget for planetary science has been cut over $300 million, this line item. And that's not just for this year, that's for the coming years, what at NASA they call the out years. And with this much cutting, I mean, one and a half billion dollars or what have you, it precludes or makes it impossible to mount a so-called flagship mission, a mission to an exciting new place like the geysers on Enceladus, the ice on Europa, or perhaps the most important in the immediate future is looking for signs of water and life on Mars. The Jet Propulsion Lab, if NASA loses that ability,

if those people who work there go off into other businesses, I don't know what else you do, video games or something, the human race will lose its ability to land on other worlds, at least for the next few decades, at least in my lifetime. And this would be just very undesirable. Tragic, I would say. Tragic, yes. So we hope to have this political campaign, grassroots campaign from listeners like yours, and get your congressman and representative to redirect things, to rebalance the budget a little bit so that we do not lose this capability, which would be just bad for everyone on Earth. We want to look for those

two big questions. Where did we come from? And are we alone? And in order to do that, you got to explore space and you want to explore the places that are likely to have life. And people can learn more at planetary.org? Absolutely. It's your homepage, isn't it? Of course it is. Naturally. Now then, Matt, also I'm going to the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. You're already on the road, headed in that general direction, a big, big gathering of the space community, especially military, right? That's right. A lot of military, a lot of spy satellite people, a lot of people that make hardware, rockets and satellites for space. And I'm on a panel talking about the passion, beauty and joy, the PB&J of space exploration. And I am concerned there's a letter from these astronauts and NASA employees to Charlie Bolden, the head of NASA,

saying they don't believe that humans cause climate change. And they think it's inappropriate for NASA to be claiming that humans do. But, I mean, with all due respect, they're just not right about that. They're wrong about that. So we'll see what happens at the Space Symposium. It should be quite a little controversial day or two. Well, I look forward to getting a report on that from you next week. And then we'll be leading up to the USA Science and Engineering Festival.

Maybe we'll talk about that, too. Thanks, Bill. Thank you, Matt. I've got to fly. Bill Nye, the planetary guy. He is the CEO of the Planetary Society, and we will talk to him again next week. Right now, though, let's talk about dark skies and a week devoted to that. When were you last in the dark? No, really, when did you city dwellers last see a truly dark and magnificent night sky?

There's a group out there that wants to take back the night by showing individuals, families, companies, and whole communities what they can do to keep stray light from polluting the sky and save energy while they do it. The message seems to be reaching people. Scott Cardell is Public Affairs Director for the International Dark Sky Association. The IDSA is the major force behind International Dark Sky Week, running till April 20. But as you'll hear, dark skies are something we can work toward

all year round. I called up Scott via Skype to learn more. Scott, great to talk to you again. Happy dark skies, or should I say clear skies? Both, actually. That's just the kind of thing that's nice to have, clear, dark skies. Now, we're talking on, it's actually Sunday, the 15th, and International Dark Sky Week has already been underway for a couple of days. In fact, you're just back from doing something in the desert. Yeah, I was in Borrego Springs, California, which is one of the four international dark sky communities in the world. Just yesterday, they had a star party. They had a screening of a movie called The City Dark, which is a documentary

about light pollution. And they had a movie about another documentary that was made in Korea about light pollution as well. Let's talk first about this week. Some of our listeners will have missed it. So we'll talk about things you can do any time of year to help make our skies darker and more beautiful. But what else is in store for people who hear this in the next couple of days? Are there things going on all over? Absolutely, yeah. Across the United States, even some spots in Europe and Canada, people are celebrating International Dark Sky Week, and one of the best ways to do that is to just get outside at night and enjoy the sky, hopefully away from city lights. But, you know, wherever you happen to be is good, and to go out and appreciate the night sky, and then also to

think about what it is you can do to help preserve the night sky by fighting light pollution. Is there a website that has gathered all the events around the world? Yeah, if you go to the website of the International Dark Sky Association, darksky.org slash IDSW for International Dark Sky Week, you can find all the events there. Excellent. And I'm sure even if you just go to darksky.org, I bet there's a big link there as well. We'll put that link up at planetary.org slash radio where people can find this show as well. I certainly encourage people to go and take a look there because there's all kinds of information that is going to be relevant well beyond this week that celebrates dark skies. In fact, I was listening a few minutes before we got started talking to your contribution to 365 Days of Astronomy.

And your April 12 podcast had a lot to do with what people can do on their own. I mean, it's a real case of think universally, I guess, act locally. Yeah. So if you take a good look at the lights that you happen to have control of, you can really evaluate them and make a positive difference. And there's a variety of ways to do that. One is just to make sure whether they're shielded or not so that the light is actually directed downward where it's needed instead of up into the sky or out into somebody's face. But also perhaps if it's a security light, maybe a motion sensor would help. And that way the light is on only when it's needed,

and it really ends up saving you a tremendous amount of energy. You know, one of the things that's kind of interesting about the whole dark sky situation is if you really do have good lighting and you use it the way it should, it's going to be much more effective for visibility and for energy savings too. And in the process, you're going to help save the night sky. You know, that was not something that I had even thought about until I read something from the International Dark Sky Association a few years ago. You know, you're doing your pocketbook some good as well as helping all of us enjoy the night sky.

You mentioned in the podcast a couple of, I think there were two, a couple of citizen science projects that people might also want to check out. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. One of them is called Globe at Night. And Globe at Night, you can actually measure light pollution from your backyard or your favorite campsite or downtown, wherever it is that you want to help measure that by going outside and looking at the stars that you can see in the constellation of Leo, which is prominently featured in the evening sky this time of year, and then comparing that to charts on the Globe at Night website, which is just globeatnight.org.

That program goes through to the 20th of April, but there's also another program that we have linked up on our site where you can take pictures of constellations. They give you some guidelines, and then they're going to use those pictures from all the way around the world to do the same kind of thing. So what happens with this data? I mean, you're not just collecting data. Aren't you actively working with communities

and trying to get them to pay more attention to the light they're wasting by sending it up and out? Yeah, I haven't made a presentation to a community about outdoor lighting and how they can improve it since Thursday. So yeah, IDA does a lot of that. You know, these citizen science campaigns do two things. One is they give you actual data as to what the conditions are in different places. But it also helps to get people thinking about why those conditions

are that way and what it is they can do to make a difference. So it's really an integrated kind of program. Get measurements on the night sky and light pollution, but also get people involved in thinking about it. We'll continue this illuminating conversation with Scott Cardell of the International Dark Sky Association. You're listening to Planetary Radio. I'm Sally Ride.

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Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. Do you live in the country? We city dwellers have good reason to envy you. Scott Cardell is dedicated to restoring something that urban humanity lost when we started to light up the night more than a century ago. Scott is Public Affairs Director at the International Dark Sky Association, where they are leading the effort to give us back star-filled skies.

The message just might be catching on through efforts like the International Dark Sky Week and other public outreach throughout the year. Early on in this conversation, you mentioned now four communities around the world, four locations that have gotten special recognition. Tell me more about that. Sure. It's part of our program, the International Dark Skies Places Program. And the very first community to apply for that was Flagstaff, Arizona. The lighting in Flagstaff is truly exceptional in that it is safe, everybody can see to get around, but there are protections in place, not just for the professional astronomy community that's nearby, but for people that just want to

be out camping under the pines or in their backyard and look at the night sky. And it really has tremendous community buy-in at all levels, government, citizens, everybody. It was a number of years before there was another community that decided they wanted to take the step and try that. Borrego Springs became the second one. Since then, there's an island in the English Channel between the United Kingdom and France called Sark. So in fact, that's a dark sky island. And then the fourth one was named just last fall. And that's a suburb of Chicago. And Chicago, as you probably know, is not really known for being

dark. Not particularly, no. Yeah. But in the village of Homer Glen, the citizens there and the local government there has taken really exceptional strides to protect the night sky and have dark sky friendly, energy efficient lighting there. And because of the work they've done, they really have earned that award. Now, I should say that since they've done that, Cook County, which Chicago resides in, has adopted its own lighting ordinance. So there are situations where the smaller communities can lead the larger ones, which is great. I have to think that in large urban areas,

like the one that I live in, and I feel like I'm lucky if I can see more than 40 stars, people don't know what they're missing. I mean, there are people who, sad to say, have never really seen a dark sky. And my goodness, what an eye-opener, quite literally, when they get the opportunity. Yeah. In fact, in the 1990s, there was an earthquake in California that knocked out the power at night. And people then saw the Milky Way, some of them, for the first time in their lives. And there were people that called 911 because of these strange luminous clouds in the sky. That was the Milky Way. They thought it was perhaps connected to the earthquake.

But it's just astonishing to know that we've developed this situation where we're really effectively cutting ourselves off from half of what nature can give us, the night. For all of human history, that's been there, except for the last 100, 150 years since lighting at night has really grown. And it's been there to inspire people. It's been there, you know, for many people, it's connected them to religion and to their feelings about our place in the cosmos. And that's something we're cutting ourselves off from now. One of the other dark sky programs we have is dark sky parks. And there's a growing interest in the national park system here in the U.S. And there's two parks that are part of this program now.

But because those parks are so heavily visited, it's a great place for people to go and experience wonderful vistas of nature both day and night. And so some more of those are becoming dark sky parks too. I was going to mention even more recently than that earthquake that you mentioned, there was a blackout not long ago in San Diego, California, where my daughter and son-in-law live. And the lights went out out not for too long but it happened to be a clear day they went outside and looked up at the sky in wonder but the great thing is that their neighbors all started coming out and taking a look and

pointing at things in the sky and it became a real community yeah absolutely amazing people didn't sit inside and watch tv they got out out and they were under the stars and they met their neighbors. And one of the things I checked out very closely after the San Diego blackout was to see if there was a spike in crime and things and there wasn't, which is really great. great. Scott, what can people do if they would like to encourage their community, their city, their town to learn more about how they can be more dark sky friendly? Well, we have a lot of resources on our website for the International Dark Sky Association. You could certainly go and visit our website and check that out. And we even have resources that are sort of directed towards getting their own ordinance. You know, it's really great if you can fix the lights on your own porch. That makes a difference. But if you can fix the light on all the porches in your entire town or to see about getting an ordinance passed in your town to start using more dark sky friendly lighting on street lights, for instance, you can make a huge difference.

sky-friendly lighting on streetlights, for instance, you can make a huge difference. And we have some guidelines posted on the website, and you can always contact us directly by phone or email. Again, that information is there. And we'll do our best to try to help you out. And that site, once again, is darksky.org. Take a look. They've got all kinds of great resources. Scott, thank you very much.

It's great to talk to you again, and thank you for shedding a little dark on this subject. My pleasure, Matt, and keep up the good work with the Planetary Society. We'll try. Scott Cardell is the Public Affairs Director for the International Dark Sky Association. And if you haven't seen the dark sky lately, get out there. I had to stop. I was driving back from Las Vegas a year ago, and it's quite amazing to get out of the car in the middle of the desert, because that's what you have to do in Southern California, and take a look at that incredible night sky. That's what we're going to do in just a moment here, too. We'll take a look at it with Bruce Betts for this week's edition of What's Up.

Oh, is this embarrassing? Bruce Batts is on the line. I mean literally on the line, on the cell phone line, because of technical difficulties. We can't even use a landline phone, much less Skype this week. I say, are you there? Yes. Does it work better if you have a British accent? Not this week, actually, because the wireless operator has gone to bed oh okay it's it's not the audio quality that we're worried

about it's the quality of the night sky oh the night sky is having technical difficulties but only in places where it's been raining like here but. But other than that, it's doing fine. Still got those glorious, beautiful planets looking clear and crisp and faboo. In the evening sky, Jupiter and Venus over in the west, Venus being the higher and brighter of the two, and Saturn rising in the east around sunset and setting in the west around sunrise. It is at opposition.

It is just past that, so opposite side of the Earth from the sun. And we've got Mars also in the evening sky, higher up, kind of reddish as it will do. And it keeps fading as we move farther away in our orbits from Mars. And we've also got, peaking on April 21st and 22nd, the Lyrids meteor shower, kind of an average shower, usually about 20 meteors per hour at the peak from a really dark side. But the good news is no moon, essentially, to get in the way with seeing it. So it'll actually make it a pretty decent shower. Got a few listeners who are pretty excited about this, so we wish them luck. Good luck and good hunting.

This week in space history, it was 40 years ago this week that Apollo 16 launched for the moon. 40 years. We move on to random space fact. Gee, it just loses something when it's not high five, but go ahead. You know, you need to let the audio attention go. Gee, it just loses something when it's not high-five, but go ahead. You know, you need to let the audio attention go. I'm a radio guy. What do you want from me? Oh, yeah, I guess we want you to be a radio guy. All right, never mind.

Neptune. Neptune has a lot of internal heat. Yes, that's right, heat and gas. It radiates about 2.6 times as much energy as what it receives from the sun. It puts out more than twice as much energy as it gets from the sun due to that internal heat and heartburn. Great space fact. And speaking of Neptune, let's talk about its neighbor. Okay, Nice segue. We move on to the trivia contest, and I asked you innocently,

when was a dark spot first discovered on Uranus? How'd we do, Matt? You're afraid to ask, aren't you? Yes, I am. A lot of listeners are far more mature than yours truly, apparently. Most of them resisted. In fact, like Kirk Lewis said, he's not going to even bother with a joke for this one. I mean, you know, he said, where's the challenge?

But among those who couldn't resist the challenge is Torsten Zimmer, who did mention the NASA recommendation that a planetary diaper mission be planned. Anyway, you still with us, everyone? Okay, here's our winner. First-time winner, Wesley Haynes of Gainesville, Georgia. Wesley, congratulations. His answer was August 23, 2006, by the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, and on the team that made this discovery, a friend of the Planetary Society, past guest, Heidi Hamel.

Yes, indeed. Planetary Society board member. Yep, dark spot, Uranus, 2006. Amazingly recent. There are a few people, a couple of people, who said that there may have been evidence of this spot years before, but wasn't really confirmed until this observation in 2006. So there you go. Everyone was afraid to look carefully. Yeah, we did get a couple of proctologist discovery jokes as well, but let's move on. discovery jokes as well. But let's move on. Let us please move on. Speaking of which, I've got a question about a tail section of an aircraft. I don't know what I'm thinking. So they're moving the space shuttles around to their home, their museum homes, and they're using, once again, one of the shuttle carrier aircraft, the converted 747s.

They put it on the back of the 747 and fly it around. What is unusual about the tail section of the shuttle carrier aircraft compared to a normal 747? I mean, quite unusual, visually unusual. If you picture it in your mind, you may be able to tell me. I actually know, because I've stood underneath it. How do I enter? Well, you don't. Everyone else can go to planetary.org slash radio and find out how to enter.

You have until the 23rd of April, Monday, April 23, at 2 p.m. Pacific time, to get your tail in gear and get us that entry. And get this, a very special prize this week. Turns out the folks at Skype, who are going to be disappointed with our conversation this time, the folks at Skype, there are some at their headquarters who apparently listen to Planetary Radio. And they got a hold of their PR folks and said, give these people something. So our prize this week is a Free Talk and

Skype buddy video chat pack. Two webcams, two headsets, and 60 minutes of free international calling time via Skype. So that's what you'll win if you're chosen by Random.org this week. Very cool.

It is very cool. Just to be clear, it's my local phone line. It has nothing to do with Skype. No, no. And I saw the little buddies. They're cool. So enter, everyone. Okay, everybody, go out there,

look up in the night sky, and think about babbling Brooks. Thank you, and good night. Will that be Mel Brooks? He's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society, who joins us every week, usually with much better frequency response, right here for What's Up. Don't forget, the USA Science and Engineering Festival is Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29, in Washington, D.C. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California

and made possible by a grant from the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation and by the members of the Planetary Society. Dark Skies. Thank you.