Jupiter's Dance, India's Space Rise, and Barnard Star Mysteries

Hello again. It's Steve Dunkley with Astronomy Daily. Thanks for joining us. It's the second of October twenty twenty three. My goodness, where has the year gone? Who quit? Yes, it all just seems to be flying by us so quickly this year. I don't know what it is. Must be something in the water. And please welcome my favorite digital assistant, Hallie, who's always here, so intrepid and diligent. How are you, Hallie? Thank you for that fine introduction, my favorite human. How was your week? Oh, same old, same old work, work work. I did get to see that magnificent Superman though, Hallie. It was quite something I've seen. Some of your local photographers have captured some amazing images. That's the great thing about living in the beautiful part of the world here in Newcastle, which is just north of Sydney. If you don't know, it's home to some breathtaking beaches and coastlines, and the Superman was caught in fine form in that environment by our local photographers. If you search super Newcastle, New South Wales and click images, you'll find what they've captured from this and previous supermoon events. That's right and the same as true if almost any city on Earth. Try it out and let us know what you find. On the Facebook page, which is Space Nuts podcast group. We're looking forward to hearing from you. You can even show us your own photos. That would be sensational. Oh that's for sure. My little phone just wasn't good enough, so I'll have to depend on our listeners. So Hallie, what have you got for us today? I know you're going to chat about the Moon and Jupiter later. That's right. I've got a good story and I've got news about Barnard's Star. The Indian private space sector going bonkers, I guess, following the success of the Chundray Young mission and some celestial skywatching news. That sounds great, So let's go. Barnard's Star is a small red dwarf just six light years from Earth. Despite its proximity, it was only noticed in nineteen sixteen, when E. E. Barnard found it had a particularly high proper motion. It had appeared in photographic plates taken by Harvard Observatory in the late eighteen hundreds, but as a small, dim star, no one took notice of it. Since its discovery, Barnard's Star has been one of the most studied red dwarfs. Interestingly, Barnard's Star is one of the first stars claimed to have planets. As far back as the nineteen seventy studies claimed the presence of orbiting gas giants, though further observations overturned these results. Then, in twenty eighteen, astronomers measured the radial motion of the star, which suggested the presence of a close orbiting super Earth with a mass of about three earths. Further observations, however, overturned this discovery, suggesting that the radial fluctuations observed were due to solar flares. Recent studies have confirmed Barnard's star has no close orbiting or potentially habitable planets larger than seventy percent of Earth's size. This makes Barnard Star a bit unusual since most red dwarfs have planets. For example, the red dwarf star Kepler forty two is similar in size and age to Barnard's Star and has at least three terrestrial planets. So while Barnard's star isn't a strong candidate for alien life, a recent study has made detailed observations of the star looking for any signs of an extraterrestrial signal. The study used the five hundred meter aperture spherical Telescope FAST. The Chinese telescope is a fixed dish design similar to the Arecibo observatory, but significantly larger. FAST is particularly sensitive in frequency ranges useful to long distance communication, making it a good tool in the search for aliens. So wait a minute, howly did they find anything? As you might expect, the study found no evidence of an alien signal, But this study was mostly a test of what FAST could do. When Indian entrepreneurs Akmed founded his satellite startup in Bangalore in twenty nineteen, his country was still a year away from opening the space industry to the private sector. When we started, there was absolutely no support, no momentum, said Achmed, who was twenty one when he founded Pixel, a company deploying a constellation of Earth imaging satellites. Since then, the private space sector has taken off in India, joining a rapidly growing global market. There are now one hundred and ninety Indian space startups, twice as many as a year earlier, with private investments jumping by seventy seven percent between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two. According to Deloitte Consultancy, a lot of Indian investors were not willing to look at space technology because it was too much of a risk Earlier, Achmed said in an interview with AFP. Now you can see more and more companies raising more investment in India, and more and more companies have started coming up now, he added, Pixel makes hyper spectral imagaging satellites technology that captures a wide spectrum of light to provide details that are invisible to ordinary cameras. The company says it is on a mission to build a health monitor for the planet. It can track climate risks such as floods, wildfires, or methane leaks. Pixel had initially sought to use rockets from the state run Indian Space Research organization ISRO. I remember having a conversation with with someone in ISRO. We were trying to book a launch and they said, look, we don't even have a procedure to launch an Indian satellite. But if you were a foreign company then basically there's a process which didn't make sense when we started, Achmed said. Pixel ended up having to hire US rocket firm SpaceX to launch its first two satellites. Pixel has raised seventy one million dollars from investors, including thirty six million dollars from Google, which will allow the company to launch six more satellites next year. The startup has also won a contract with a u AS spy agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, to provide hyper spectral images. Celestially speaking, this month's big news is an annular ring eclipse of the Sun on October fourteenth. The path crosses all of the Americas, starting in the Pacific Northwest before slicing across Nevada, Utah, and Texas. Then it passes over the Yucatan Peninsula, much of Central America, and central South America. This ring of fire event will last nearly five minutes or more along the center line, and on that day, virtually everyone in the Americas will see a partial solar eclipse, whether permitting. Of course, two weeks later, on October twenty eighth, comes this year's full Hunter's Moon. On that night, a bit of its disc slips into Earth's umbrel shadow, creating a partial lunar eclipse. This event isn't visible from North America, but if you're in the eastern hemisphere you'll be able to see it. That night once evening twilight fades and left from the sunset point, so that you're facing southeast. Saturn is right there, kind of by itself, and roughly a third of the way from the horizon to overhead. It looks like a brighter than average star. Don't confuse it with somewhat dimmer fomal Hot, which really is a star situated lower down by about twice the width of your clenched fist at arm's length and closer to the horizon. An hour or two after sunset, you'll see Jupiter, all of twenty five times bigger than Saturn. Jupiter doesn't reach opposition when it's closest to Earth until the first week of November, but October is close enough, and so Jupiter looks very obvious, and the Moon will pair dramatically with Jupiter twice this month, on the nights of the first and the twenty eighth. Happy skywatching, and that's enough for today. Don't forget to check out the Astronomy Daily newsletter for daily space science and astronomy news in you email right, Steve, that's right, Hallie, and just go tobites dot com that's b s z or z dot com or space nuts dot Io and sign up for a free and you'll receive an amazingly informative Astronomy Daily newsletter each day. It's full of everything from launches to lunches, space lunches, satellites to starlight. And I noticed you've got another food reference and they're Steve. Well, even astronauts have got to eat, Hallie. I hope our skywatchers have their opticals at the ready. Jupiter is on the rise this month, I know. And we get two chances to observe this celestial dance in October with the Jupiter and the moon. And who won't want to check out the moons of Jupiter, Yes, the Galilean moons. That's a great time to check them out. So polish off the binoculars and telescopes and pack some sandwiches. Again with the food, Steve, always with the food. Astronomy Daily, the podcast with Steve Dunkley and Hallie. Yes, why not? So Jupiter is stealing the show this month, so bring it back lunch now. Skywatchers who are out during the late evening hours on Sunday will almost certainly be attracted towards the eastern sky, where two brightest visible objects at that are readily evident. The moon, now waning Gibber's phase, will be poisoned near a brilliant, silvery, non twinkling star. That object is not a star, however, but the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter. As Hallie mentioned earlier, Jupiter comes up over the eastern horizon just before nine pm local daylight time, and about four minutes earlier each night, so by the end of October it will be beaming before the end of the evening twilight. By then the plant will be so bright it will be essentially at its peak brilliance for twenty twenty three that is easy to see before the sky gets fully dark. A couple of hours after it is written, Jupiter has climbed higher above the horizon haze and gleams with a brighter, pure light. It blazes high above the southern horizon during the quiet morning hours after midnight, finally paling in the western sky during dawn. On Sunday night, Jupiter will sit about two point three degrees below and to the right of the Moon. Remember that your clenched fist held at arms length measures roughly ten degrees. On Monday, the Moon will have shifted to a position nearly sixteen degrees to Jupiter's left. Jupiter is situated in the small and relatively dim constellation of Aries, and there it will remain until April twenty seven. Every passing day brings our own world closer to shooting between the giant planet and the Sun. When we finally do on November three, Jupiter will be at opposition, meaning it will be the opposite to the Sun in our sky. Now is also a fine time to start examining the famous Galilean satellites, the four largest of Jovian moons. In theory, they are also bright enough to see with the naked eye, but for the rest of us who lack that acute vision like me, optical aid is almost always required to separate the moons from the glare of the mighty King of the planets. Steadily held binoculars can reveal all four moons, though you may have to make special plans to catch the innermost io close to the time of elongation. Telescopes will almost always show all four At moderate powers, you can detect a change in their positions in an hour or so, and sometimes when two are close together, in just a few minutes. On Sunday night. In fact, all four satellites will be clearly in view. Two will be to the east of June, while the other two will be to the west. The two that appear closest to Jupiter, as well as to each other, are going outbound from the big planet Io and Europa. The other two on Jupiter's other side will be Ganymede and the furthest out Callisto. One well known lunar cycle is the sidereal month, a period of time it takes the Moon to orbit once around the Earth with respect to the background stars, a period equal to approximately twenty seven point two days. Being a planet, Jupiter actually shifts its position relative to the stars, but only slightly during a span of about a month's time. So if we were to add twenty seven point two days to add October one, that would bring us to October twenty eight, and sure enough, on that night, the Moon will once again be passing relatively close to Jupiter. So if cloudy skies obscure your view of the Moon and Jupiter on Sunday night, don't fret. You'll get another opportunity to see them together on final Saturday night of October. And that's another episode finished, So thank you for joining us. In our regular reminder that you can find all the episodes of Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson, as well as current and back episodes our podcast Astronomy Daily with Tim Gill from the studio in Bath, England and yours truly Steve Dunkley from the Australian studio at this address space nuts dot io or bytes dot com. That's b I, t ees zorz dot com. So head over there and click the links and enjoy your fill of space science and stuff. But that's not all. While you're there, sign up and receive the Astronomy Daily newsletter. It's an ord you can eat buffet of all the news that's orbital and astronomical and way out there so close at a home. You can also drop into the Space Nuts Facebook group page and say hi, we'd love to hear from you. I know I would. Thanks again for joining us on Astronomy Daily. Bye for now, catch you next time to Day is the podcast with your host, Steve Dunklin