As our last podcast episode, Connor and Nik interview each other. We summarize the highlight of the observatory program and our scientific works.

Why the Dark Age?

• There is certainly plenty of light to go around but there is no new light being made. We won't see any new light until the stars start to form. Hence the dark ages.
• Where we left off, about 300,000 years after the big bang the universe is a balmy 3,500 degrees celsius. More or less the entire universe looks like the area just above the surface of the sun. 
• At this point something subtle begins to happen. During the early stages of the universe (inflation) tiny quantum fluctuations slowly grew until they were very large.
• The regions of slight hot/cold we discussed in the previous episode which make up the cosmic microwave background now form regions of slightly high/low density. High density areas have slightly more gravity and pull more material towards them while the low density regions lose material.
• This continued on for hundreds of millions of years. Slowly material piled together into the first galaxies and compressed further to become the first stars.
• At this point the universe would be 200-400 million years old and about -200 degrees celsius. We’ve come a long way from the over a thousand trillion degrees we had early in the last episode!

The First Stars:

• You may recall that at this point the universe is filled with hydrogen, helium, and a bit of lithium. This is the material which would make the first stars.
• This has two major effects. First, it means the gas would cool slowly. For gas to form stars it needs to cool down and collapse to become very compact. 
• Second, the stars themselves would be very different. It’s quite possible that the first generation of stars with only hydrogen and helium to power their fusion would have grown to enormous sizes of around 1,000 times the mass of our sun.
• The first stars would have been incredible candles in the darkness. They would shine incredibly brightly, each one thousands of times brighter than our sun.
• So bright in fact that they would be able to split off electrons from hydrogen molecules. 
• The first population of stars would have been created in the first galaxies.

The First Galaxies:

• The first galaxies would be quite different from the Milky Way Galaxy that we call home today. These galaxies would have been much smaller.
• A galaxy is basically a region with above average dark matter and gas and some stars.
• These galaxies would immediately begin merging with each other. The universe would be noticeably smaller and more cramped than it is today.
• This means that galaxies would be constantly colliding with each other. Quickly, we end up with big galaxies that swallow up smaller ones in their path, astronomers call the process “Hierarchical Merging”.

The Universe Today:

• So about 3 billion years after the big bang, star formation had really picked up. From this point, and for a couple billion more years, the universe would be in its most active star formation period. 
• During the next 10 billion years, the galaxies would settle to what we know today. Some ancient galaxies that look like giant balls of stars whizzing around in all directions, they dont really make new stars for themselves, they just absorb other galaxies. 
• The latest generation of stars also has the kinds of material around them to form rocky planets.
• At this point we have essentially made it up to today as far as astronomy is concerned.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

The Beginning of the Universe:

• Age of the Universe: 13.8 billion year
• It is just as easy to say “the universe was 1 second old” as it is to say “the universe was 10 billion degrees celsius”
• It’s called the “Big Bang” for a reason, this would have been the most cataclysmic explosion ever.
• The earliest moment: A Planck Epoch
• At about a billion billion billion billionth of a second in, the three primary forces (electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear force) of the standard model would be about to separate from one unified force.
• After about a trillionth of a second, the universe starts to take on properties that are well represented by the standard model and has reached temperatures of about a thousand trillion degrees celsius which we can test in the lab. 
• However, at about a 10,000th of a second as the universe cooled to about 10 billion degrees, protons and neutrons could start to form. These are the building blocks that make up us, once they join together to make atoms, but that isn’t for a while yet.
• After less than an hour from the big bang things get pretty boring. The universe has expanded enough that atoms don’t collide with each other enough to build up to bigger atoms, so mostly the universe is a big ball of very consistent plasma.
• It’s important to emphasize how consistent the plasma is, fluctuations were on the scale of one in 100 thousand. So at this point the universe is about 10 million degrees and from one point to the next the temperatures are exactly the same except by about a hundred degrees. That’s very smooth!
• As the universe cools to about 4000 kelvin, crossing just below the temperature of the surface of the sun, it is finally cold enough for electrons to match up with the hydrogen/helium to form neutral atoms.  This happens after about 300,000 years.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Looking for Extraterrestrial life:

The Arecebo message:

• The numbers one to ten 
• The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) 
• The formulas for the chemical compounds that make up the nucleotides of DNA 
• The estimated number of DNA nucleotides in the human genome, and a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA 
• The dimension (physical height) of an average man, a graphic figure of a human being, and the human population of Earth
• A graphic of the Solar System, indicating which of the planets the message is coming from 
• A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish

Have there been any other attempts?

• A second attempt at communication with aliens is the Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977
• The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. The records are a sort of a time capsule.
• Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals. To this they added audio content to represent humanity: spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages and a greeting by Sagan's six-year-old son, Nick;  the inspirational message Per aspera ad astra in Morse code; and musical selections from different cultures and eras. 

What are we doing to look for extraterrestrial life now?

• SETI started with a NASA program but has since grown into it’s own institute. They run a lot of outreach and education. Their main goal is to detect intelligent life in the universe. 
• The Perseverance rover on mars is another one. Listen to the Perseverance rover episode here.
• The Kepler telescope has completed its primary mission and has detected thousands of other worlds in our galaxy.
• Along with JWST which would look at atmosphere of planets to study complex compounds - watch our podcast here.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

We interview Mike Smith, a PhD student, at University of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom.

• Hertfordshire in the UK
• He has also spent time in Kingston at Queen’s University, working with our group.
• He is also associated with the Alan Turing Institute in the UK as well.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• Plan today is to try and solve the paradox from Living Universe E1. If life should be everywhere and we don’t see it, then what happened?
• The Fermi paradox: Why don't we see life everywhere?

Simple Solutions:

• The “Rare Earth” solution just means that in some way, Earth-like planets are very rare. Maybe there is some mechanism that stops rocky planets from forming in the habitable zone.
• The “Rare Chemistry” solution means that maybe Earth got lucky in having just the right mix of chemicals to support life.
• The “Rare Intelligence” solution means that there is some factor which limits the development of intelligent life. 
• Finally, the “Rare Technology” solution means that intelligent life develops but rarely in a way that develops tools/technology. 

Other Mechanism for restricting life:

• “Shielded Earth” Hypothesis in which our Earth is protected by our special solar system. We know that Jupiter has absorbed many asteroids/comets that could have instead hit us and wiped out life on the planet. 
• “Early self-limiting life” where an early stage of life does something that inhibits growth or kills life all together.
• Another possible limit on life is “late annihilation” where a civilization becomes technologically advanced but destroys itself with nuclear weapons.

Fermi paradox with life:

• First, there is the “Firstborn” hypothesis. The idea is that life is as common as we think it is, we are just the first.
• Another possibility is the “zoo world” hypothesis. Where Earth is an experiment by aliens to observe how life evolves. 
• A similar possibility is the “prime directive” hypothesis. This is popularized in star trek, where there is a collaboration of advanced civilizations that hide themselves from new civilizations until they reach a certain technology level.
• A more sinister version is the “Dark forest” hypothesis. This is the idea that there are indeed many civilizations that are technologically advanced, but they are all hiding from each other.
• A less sinister version is the “Secluded world” hypothesis. Where a civilization just isn’t interested in exploring, they develop really good virtual reality technology and end up just playing games and simulations instead of exploring.
• Finally, the least sinister is the “Transcension hypothesis”. Where some technology vastly beyond our understanding allows a civilization to leave our universe altogether and venture into some different plane of existence. 

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

We interview Dr. Charles Joseph Woodford, a knowledge translation specialist at Arthur B. McDonald Institute at Queen’s University.

• Recently moved to Kingston to work at Queen’s University with the McDonald Institute.
• From Newfoundland; Bachelor in Physics and Applied Mathematics. With also a minor in Russian studies from Memorial University of Newfoundland
• PhD. in Theoretical and Numerical Astrophysics from University of Toronto.

Binary Black holes:

• Black holes are essentially dead stars. There can be three kinds of BH; stellar black holes, intermediate-mass black holes, and supermassive black holes. You go up the mass axis via eating other stars or merging with other black holes.
• Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) first saw a black hole collision/merger in September 2015. LIGO also won the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 2017.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

What is life?

• Life is considered a characteristic of something that preserves, furthers or reinforces its existence in the given environment This characteristic exhibits all or most of the following traits: Homeostasis, Organization, Metabolism, Growth, Adaptation, Response to Stimuli, Reproduction.
• It is important as well to specify what kind of life we are looking for. One may search for intelligent life by looking for radio signals, but bacteria may just change the chemistry of a planet’s atmosphere.

Life outside Earth:

• First, life exists on Earth, so we know it’s possible for complex life to evolve.
• Second, the scale of the Universe. As they said in the movie Contact “The Universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space”

The Paradox: Why don't we see life everywhere?

• The simple answer is that we just haven’t been looking long enough. If you consider the radio signals we send out into space, our communications have only reached a few hundred or thousand stars, and they are too faint to really register. 
• But this does miss one key point. If a civilization slightly more advanced than us could make spacecraft that went 10% the speed of light (200 times faster than Voyager probes, 20 times faster than our fastest probe ever), which is quite reasonable with some effort, then it would be possible to visit most stars in the galaxy in a few million years. Since the galaxy is billions of years old, this really should have happened already if life is as common as the Drake equation implies.

What does it take for there to be life?

• Liquid water
• Complex chemistry
• Stability
• Energy
• Gradients

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

We interview Dr. Nathan Deg, a Software developer for the Canadian Institute for Radio Astronomy:

• Resides at Queen’s University and comes from Nova Scotia but was born in Kingston
• focuses on numerical simulations of isolated and interacting pairs of galaxies
• Achieved a bachelor’s from Saint Mary’s University and Astrophysics
• And then a Masters and PhD in simulations of galaxies here at Queen’s
• Left Canada for a little while and worked in University of Cape Town in South Africa

Parts of the Milky Way:

• A Bulge
• A Bar
• A Disk
• Stellar Halo
• Dark Matter Halo
• Stellar Streams : Streams with stars from other galaxies as a result of interactions between galaxies

The Future of Radio Astronomy: the Square Kilometre Array, planned to be in Australia and South Africa.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• Last episode in the “Dangerous Universe” series, Cosmic Calamity today
• Next series Living Universe
• Content Warning: this episode can get a bit depressing, if that’s not something you need in your life right now, please feel free to skip this episode.

Overview:

• What is the Cosmos or Universe? 
  • Currently, one part matter, five parts dark matter, and 14 parts dark energy
  • The universe is our word for everything.
  • When we talk about it expanding, it is expanding into itself (which is a whole other thing…)
• What does it mean to kill the Cosmos?
  • We think of the universe as the place where things happen. It’s got lots of structure from filaments, to clusters, to galaxies, to stars, to planets, to people, there are lots of things in the universe and those things do stuff.
  • If any of those stopped happening then the universe would be dead
• What methods are there to destroy a galaxy?
  • Most straightforward, again, just wait. Entropy always wins 
  • Big rip, big crunch, big freeze
  • Vacuum Decay (the cosmic firewall)
  • How to avoiding universe destruction?

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• We have Arnaud Michel, a master’s student in Astrophysics at Queen’s
• He focuses on formation of planets in our galaxy
• Hails from Fribourg, Switzerland.
• Completed his bachelor degree in Physics at Quest University in Sqamish, BC.
• Has worked as a research assistant at UVic and University of Bern in Switzerland.
• Leading cutting edge research using telescopes like ALMA and JCMT.

Research:

• To study how proptoplanetary disks evolve around young stars.
• Focuses on the evolution and the movement of dust in these disks that later collect together to form planet (such as the Earth).
• Not all material in Protoplanetary disks ends up in planets, some remains in large boulders that later collide to make a new disk of dust called debris disks.
• Arnaud also studies the connection between Protoplanetary and debris disk around stars.
• To study planet formation, Arnaud uses the ALMA telescope which is an interferometer observing in millimetre wavelength (same things as the microwaves in your kitchen!)

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction

• What is a Galaxy? 
  • Mostly a ball of dark matter, but really a whole bunch more
  • Gas, dust, stars, black holes and other dead stars
  • As a very rough gauge it’s dark matter, 1/10th stars, 1/100th gas, 1/1000th dust
  • Often galaxies travel together, with one or a few big galaxies and lots of smaller ones swirling around.
• What does it mean to kill a galaxy?
  • We think of galaxies as being active/alive if they are forming new stars. However the biggest galaxies grow mostly by eating other galaxies.
  • “Red and dead” is real terminology
• Option 1: Just Wait:
  • What’s the easiest way to destroy a galaxy?
    • Well, if you wait long enough, they tend to do it to themselves.
    • Galaxies need constant new sources of gas, or else they will use it up and run out.
    • If too many stars build up in the center of a galaxy it can change the gravitational potential enough that gas no longer efficiently collapses to form new stars.
    • Dwarf galaxies are sensitive and the very stars they form can turn off new star formation by heating up the gas.
• Option 2: Galaxy Collisions
  • Galaxy collisions are the ultimate case of “slow motion train crash”
    • Satellite galaxies Small galaxies orbiting a larger one. 
    • If they pass too close they can get torn up. Our milky way has done this many times. Some of the remains can be seen as “streams” swirling around the sky
    • This cycle ultimately keeps the milky way alive longer by supplying fresh gas. Cosmic recycling.
    • Milky-Way: The milky-way will collide with Andromeda in ~4billion years
    • The collision has a chance of being so violent that the combined “milkdromeda” will boost and cese star formation.
    • Cluster galaxies Gas can be stripped out of galaxies.
    • While passing through a cluster, a galaxy may have its gas heated and stripped away by the hot gas trapped in the cluster.
• Option 3: Active Black Hole Feedback
  • What is an AGN?
    • Essentially it is a black hole that is currently gobbling up a lot of material. Material doesn’t fall straight onto a black hole, it swirls around picking up speed as it gets closer (like a tetherball, as it gets closer to the pole). This increased speed means that it bumps into nearby material much faster, heating up and creating intense magnetic fields. The intense heat can create high energy radiation like X-rays and gamma rays. The magnetic fields can be powerful enough to funnel material away from the black hole before it falls in. 
  • The jets are often pointed out of a galaxy, so it’s not guaranteed that an AGN will kill a galaxy. This is a good thing since most galaxies likely go through many AGN phases as the black hole gets more/less material funneled to it.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• Dr. Mark Richardson is the Educational and Outreach Officer at the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute.
• Got his start at St. Mary’s University with an honours in Astrophysics, and Masters and Ph.D. at Arizona State University.
• Expertise in modelling galaxy formation and evolution using cosmological simulations.
• A big advocate for Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity in Physics (or STEM in general)

Research:

• To study the evolution of galaxies in the Universe, one needs cosmological simulations. These simulations track the evolution of dark matter and luminous matter over 13.8 Billion years.
• He compares different methods of simulating the Universe: particle method and grid method.
• Particle methods are easy to simulate and intuitive. However, grid method allow for capturing the mixing of gas in galaxies more robustly.

Dr. Mark Richardson is also highly involved in various outreach events such as Astronomy of Tap, Ignite events, etc.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Overview:

• What is a star? 
  • Ball of hydrogen
  • Balance of fusion and gravity (talk by Connor Stone on elements in the universe)
  • Radiation transfer, convection, radiation
  • From very small (a tenth of the mass of our sun) to very large (thousand times the mass of our sun)
• What methods are there to destroy a star?
  • Most straightforward, just wait. It’ll turn into a planetary nebula, or go supernova
  • Have a nearby white dwarf pull off material
  • Fall into a black hole
• Wait for it:
  • Small stars potentially live for 1Trillion years or more (they burn their fuel much slowly and regulate their temperature much better)
  • Sun-like stars tend to puff out after ~10 billion years. Red giant phase, then planetary nebula and white dwarf.
• Nearby white dwarf:
  • Having white dwarfs nearby can rip stars apart!
  • How close does a star need to be: It actually changes with time. If the two are close enough to each other to trade mass, it means at least part of the main star is in the “Roche limit”
  • It is the same process that gives Saturn it's rings.
  • It is possible that these don’t always completely destroy the star and so it could happen multiple times.
• Falling into a Black hole:
  • It’s not what you would immediately expect. Space is big and by comparison, stars and black holes are small, so the chance of them being in a head-on collision is miniscule. Instead a star will orbit the back hole and slowly get closer, or come in and just miss it, swinging around like a comet almost.
  • These are called tidal disruption events. The star comes within the roche limit and is torn apart.
  • Black holes are messy eaters, most of the star gets sloppily added to the accretion disk and eventually pushed away from the black hole.
  • Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies have eaten many stars this way.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Asteroids:

• Asteroids are failed planets. During the formation of our solar system, there was a lot of dust cooling down and coming together due to gravity, called protoplanets. In these objects, heavy metals sank to the center, and lighter elements (carbon & silicates) remained on the surface. Some of these objects became planets, others became asteroids. 
• There are two kinds: rubble piles (small rocks held together with gravity) and solid metal cores.
• Most of the asteroids live in stable orbits between Jupiter (largest planet; more gravity) and Mars. However, a large number of these rocks are between Mars and Earth (called near-earth objects).
• The Chelyabinsk meteor was about 20 m in size and it hit Russia in the year 2013 causing damage to buildings and injuries to people. Bigger asteroids will cause more damage -> A few hundred meters → will wipe out a small country or Province in Canada. 
• Preventing a hit: Nuke the asteroids, gravity tractor, or covering the asteroid with reflective plastic. 
• Chance of an impact: Depends on the size. The big one, really nothing for the next 100 years. The smaller one is a yes and no answer. We haven’t seen all of them and predicting their trajectories is a very complicated task.

The Sun:

• Three ways to damage the earth with the Sun: Solar flares, the energy from the Sun, and the death of the Sun. 
• The Sun is powered through nuclear fusion where it combines hydrogen atoms to create helium. This is a very energetic process. If all the energy created by the Sun could be pointed towards the Earth, it would be cooked in about a year. 
• Towards the end of its lifetime, the Sun will swell up like a balloon destroying the Earth.

More Resources:

• Connor's talk about the formation of elements in the Universe: here 
• Nikhil Talk about how to destroy the Earth: here
• More about asteroids impacts: here 

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• Simran Nerval recently received her Masters Degree at Queen's University
• She is very active in science outreach as a coordinator for Let's Talk Science, GEMINI-P, and the IDEAS initiative. She has given several public talks including one for the Queen's Observatory, Astronomy on Tap, and the Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club
• She studies observational signatures of cosmic inflation
• Cosmic inflation is a hypothesized early stage in the universe where it would have expanded very rapidly and smoothed out the energy in the universe
•  Some versions of inflation could create gravitational waves which we would still see today, kind of like how the static on an old TV is partly from the big bang!

Understanding Inflation:

• Today we can observe the Cosmic Microwave Background and see that the universe is very smooth, but that shouldn't be possible. Light isn't fast enough for opposite sides of the universe to reach a common temperature, density, etc.
• Inflation solves this problem by suggesting an initially small patch of the universe could have been stretched out to mostly the size we see now. Thus smoothing out differences across the visible universe.
• The "Inflaton" is a hypothetical particle that allows cosmologists to write out the math of what could have happened to cause inflation.
• When the Inflaton is first created it would have a "potential" that it could fall into, releasing energy along the way (kind of like how a ball on top of a hill has potential).
• Simran studies two possible models for the potential, the E and T models (changing how the ball rolls down the hill).
• She found that these models could produce observable gravitational wave signatures.
• New experiments are needed to detect these gravitational waves though. 

A Cosmic Big Picture:

• Simran got her results using code that she adapted from a different cosmology project. It is common in astronomy to share and build on each others code.
• There are lots of other models for inflation, although Simran chose the E and T models as they are representative of many models. 
• Once experiments can measure gravitational waves from the period of inflation, we will need a program like Simran's except one that can run backwards to tell us which model best explains the data.
• Inflation is a mystery of astronomical proportions, finding out the answer may lead to clues about other mysteries in astronomy such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy.
• Simran's advice to future cosmologists and scientists: make sure to take care of yourself!

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• NASA Dragonfly mission is an 8-blade drone on the Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Pencilled to launch in 2027 and arrive in 2035.
• Dragonfly will sample and examine dozens of promising sites around Titan and search for the building blocks of life. 
• Dragonfly’s main aim is going to be to study the building block of life. So, answer questions like “what happened in the past that made life possible on Earth?” 
• Titan is hard to study from Earth because it has methane clouds
• However, those clouds are a result of the unique weather (clouds, rain, oceans, rivers) occurring on Titan, except all with methane instead of water

Why Titan?:

• Dragonfly won't be the first to land on Titan
• The Cassini space mission (1997) had lander named Hugyens which landed on Titan to study properties.
• Huygens directly sampled aerosols in the atmosphere and confirmed that carbon and nitrogen are the major constituents. 
• Rippling sand dunes, like those in Earth's Arabian desert, can be seen in the dark equatorial regions of Titan. 
• Huygens also measured radio signals during its descent that strongly suggested the presence of an ocean 35 to 50 miles (55 to 80 kilometers) below the moon's surface. This means Titan potentially contains habitable environments.

The Dragonfly Mission:

• The mission could last 2.7-years (32-month) where Dragonfly will explore Titan’s diverse environments by flying like a drone. 
• Apart from astrobiology, its instruments will investigate the moon’s atmospheric and surface properties, subsurface ocean, liquid reservoirs, and areas where water and complex organic materials key to life once existed
• Communicating with Dragonfly is very challenging because it is so far from Earth. A large dish will be needed to send strong enough signals
• Dragonfly will be powered by a nuclear RTG which won't need sunlight to power the drone.
• Flying in Titan is relatively easy given the low gravity (about 1/8th of Earth), and thick atmosphere (about 4 times Earth). However, it must avoid breaking the lower sound bearer on Titan.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• In the last episode (it has been a while, go back and listen to it), we talk about the science goals of the JWST mission.
• Today, we will talk about the technologies in the JWST mission.

Launch:

• JWST is currently scheduled to be launched in Nov 2021.
• The James Webb Space Telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket. The launch vehicle is part of the European contribution to the mission. 
• Webb will be launched from Arianespace's ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana. It is beneficial for launch sites to be located near the equator - the spin of the Earth can help give an additional push. The surface of the Earth at the equator is moving at 1670 km/hr. 

Destination:

• - The James Webb Space Telescope will actually orbit the Sun, 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. 
• What is special about this orbit is that it lets the telescope stay in line with the Earth as it moves around the Sun. This allows the satellite's large sunshield to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun and Earth (and Moon). 

Sunshield:

• Webb primarily observes infrared light, which can sometimes be felt as heat. Because the telescope will be observing the very faint infrared signals of very distant objects, it needs to be shielded from any bright, hot sources.
• The sunshield serves to separate the sensitive mirrors and instruments from not only the Sun and Earth/Moon.

Technical Advantages:

• Near-infrared detectors technology is also being used for Earth science and national security missions. An early pathfinder version of Webb’s HAWAII-2RG 4 Megapixel array has been used in several NASA missions including Hubble, Deep Impact/EPOXI, WISE, and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, and the HAWAII-2RG is already in use at dozens of ground-based observatories around the world.
• To solve the vibration problem at low temperature, 4D Technology Corporation of Tucson, Arizona has developed several new types of high-speed test devices that utilize pulsed lasers that essentially “freeze out” the effects of vibration.
• Restoring Hubble: Webb investments in cryogenic Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) led to the development of the ASICs that are now flying on the Hubble Space Telescope. 
• Webb’s mirror and laser eye surgery: The Webb telescope program has enabled a number of improvements in measurement technology for measurement of human eyes, diagnosis of ocular diseases and potentially improved surgery.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction - A telescope for the past:

• JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) is an orbiting infrared observatory that is a successor to HST. Using the infrared wavelength.  JWST will be able to look at the start of galaxies, stars, planetary systems. 
• In the universe, the further away you look the further back in time you are looking. JWST is designed to look at the beginning of the universe, going back 13 billion years in the past.

A Successor to Hubble:

• Hubble: Optical and UV, JWST: Infrared. Most JWST science had its foundations laid by Hubble.
• JWST has a 6 times larger collecting area. Hubble has a primary mirror of 2.4m and JWST 6.5m.
• JWST’s orbit is going to L2  (As the Earth orbits the Sun, Webb will orbit with it - but stay fixed in the same spot with relation to the Earth and the Sun) which is about 1millon km away from the Earth. Hubble a telescope in low Earth orbit (500 km). 

JWST's Science Goals:

• JWST has 4 primary science goals: Study the formation of First stars and reionization, how galaxies assemble in the Universe, How do stars and planets get their start and finally study exoplanets.
• First Stars: Webb will be a powerful time machine with infrared capabilities to see the first stars peering out of the darkness of the early universe.
• Formation of galaxies: JWST will study the earliest galaxies to today's grand spirals and ellipticals, helping us to understand how galaxies assemble over billions of years.
• Birth of Star and Planets: See right through and into massive clouds of dust that are opaque to visible-light observatories.
• Origins of Life and Formation of Planets: Study atmospheres of extrasolar planets. In addition to other planetary systems, Webb will also study objects within our own Solar System.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction: 

• Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo in Greek Mythology
• Includes “Lunar Gateway” space station that will orbit the moon instead of Earth.
• Canadarm 3 will help construct the Lunar Gateway
• Landers will shuttle between the Lunar Gateway and the moon surface. Likely Shackleton Crater in the South Pole
• New space suits are being designed for landing on the moon, which will provide more mobility while on the surface.
• SLS (space launch system), will take astronauts to the moon.
  • At 98 meters tall it’s taller than the statue of liberty
  • Weighs about 9 million lbs (4 million kg)
  • Able to carry 27 tons to the moon for first iteration (block 1) eventually will carry 46 tons (note Saturn V was ~49 tons)
  • Main stage runs on liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the combustion product is water
  • Will be tested this year
• Beginning next year, equipment will be sent to the Lunar Gateway so it is ready when humans arrive
• Likely 2023, will send missions to the moon and back without extended operations. These will test all systems
• 2024 land first person on the moon since Apollo missions

Why are we doing this:

• Why go to the moon:
  • Demonstrate new technologies, capabilities, and business approaches needed for future exploration including Mars
  • Inspire a new generation and encourage careers in STEM
• What to do on the moon:
  • Find and use water and other critical resources needed for long-term exploration
  • Learn how to live and operate on the surface of another celestial body where astronauts are just three days from home
  • Prove the technologies we need before sending astronauts on missions to Mars, which can take up to three years round trip. 
  • Lots of oxygen on the moon, but it is stuck in oxides like rust, silicon oxide (quartz), and titanium oxide. So separating the oxygen also gives Iron, win-win!
  • The moon has Helium-3, a promising fuel for nuclear fusion. Although collecting the helium-3 will be challenging as it is very diffusely spread out on the surface.
• Artemis Accords: 
  • Build on “outer space treaty” which states that all activities in space must be peaceful (no weapons) and that no one can claim sovereignty over objects in space. 
  • Accords allow for mining and use of space resources, but only for facilitating activities in space.
  • Accords affirm peaceful space exploration and transparency of operations
  • Refrain from harmful interference
  • Russia has not signed it
  • Canada has signed it (Lisa Campbell, president of Canadian Space Agency)

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

• The Ingenuity drone is a part of the Perseverance mission which landed on Mars in the middle of February 2021.
• The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is a technology demonstration to test powered flight on another world for the first time. This is very important for bringing samples back from Mars and thinking about round trips to Mars.
• Ingenuity will perform a series of test flights over a 30-Martian-day experimental window beginning in early April.
• The key obstacle is that Mars has a much thinner atmosphere. Flying a helicopter on Mars is similar to flying the same thing on Earth at an altitude of 30 km. For reference, commercial airplanes fly at an elevation of 11 km.
• The best way to overcome the thin atmosphere is to spin the blades of the drone much faster. Ingenuity will spin its blade at 2300-2900 rpm. Helicopters on Earth spin at 500rpm. So Ingenuity is about 5-6 times faster. 
• However, there is another problem with the weaker gravity. It is much harder to test Ingenuity on Earth. NASA has a 25ft.  flight simulation chamber can simulate pressure conditions. For simulating the weaker gravity, the engineers just hung it in the air with fishing lines. 
• There are batteries on the drone that charge using solar panels. The drone will essentially charge for a complete Martian day.
• However, most of the energy on the battery is used to keep the drone warm so the electronics can work properly. Martian temperature can fluctuate a lot (-62C to 35C). Only about ⅓ of the energy left for flying. The electronic are sealed into CO2 for insulation
• It can fly for about 90 sec at a time. It can travel to 300 m going about 5m.
• The sequence of flying:
  • The drone has been stored on the belly of Percy. On command, Percy turns the drone and lowers it. Then there a bolt connecting the drone to Percy. To unscrew the bolt, they will just blow it up!
  • Then Percy will walk away about 100m from the drone. The waking up sequence on the drone will start (this will take 2 hours.)
  • Once awake, the drone will wait for a signal from Percy, and then it is ready to fly!
• Future use: Learn to make the design better and send it with future missions to reach places that rover cannot reach and bring back samples not only from Mars but from other extraterrestrial bodies (Dragonfly mission).

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• Mars GO
• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• Prof. Judith Irwin is a professor at Queen's University
• Judith Irwin is the Principle Investigator (leader) of the CHANG-ES collaboration
• Her team studies edge on spiral galaxies and their magnetic fields
• The magnetic fields can be seen in the halo of these galaxies. CHANG-ES has created award winning photos of these magnetic fields
• To detect magnetic fields there must also be cosmic rays

The CHANG-ES Collaboration:

• CHANG-ES stands for: Continuum Halos in Nearby Galaxies - an EVLA Survey
• Observing many galaxies they can combine the data to see the very faint average galaxy halo
• They have found a consistent X-shaped magnetic field coming out of edge on spiral galaxies
• Theoretically this can be explained with a galaxy scale magnetic dynamo (which is the same theory for Earth's magnetic field)
• The dynamo model of galaxy magnetic fields is also consistent with an exciting new observation of alternating field directions 

Looking to the Future:

• The CHANG-ES collaboration plans plans to seek even fainter magnetic fields using new powerful telescopes such as the MeerKAT and in the future the SKA
• Observing these magnetic fields in other galaxies (like Elliptical galaxies) is challenging unless they have a good source of cosmic rays
• Adding more galaxies to the CHANG-ES collection of observations will help for detecting faint signals

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• Canada France Hawaii Telescope
• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Introduction:

• Prof. Sarah Sadavoy is an Assistant Professor at Queen's University
• She studies star forming regions and the dust within them
• Star forming regions are large clouds of gas that compress under their own gravity. The gas collects tor form stars and disks of material around the stars
• Dust in astronomy refers mostly to silicate and carbon particles, unlike the dust you find around the house
• protoplanetary disks are disks of dust and gas that form around new stars
• It is easier to observe star forming regions in infrared light

Studying Star Forming Regions:

• The ALMA observatory has many telescopes that work together to take excellent astronomical pictures 
• Light from star forming regions is often polarized, this can be from scattering or from magnetic alignment of dust grains
• Sarah finds that protoplanetary disks have polarized light from scattering while the filaments between stars have polarized light from magnetic alignment (although it can change depending on factors like the dust grain size)
• Dust plays a critical role in star formation, and is the basis of planet formation
• Dust is created by dying stars, although the mechanisms are still being worked out

Going Bigger:

• Dust wouldn't have been around when the first stars formed, meaning they were possibly quite different from stars we see today. More research will be needed to find out
• The dust we see today may be able to tell us what those first stars were like
• Star forming regions have many stars forming at the same time, this has several effects
• Stars often form so close that they become a pair (or triple, or more) and can affect each others protoplanetary disk
• Bright stars can change nearby protoplanetary disks
• New material can be added to protoplanetary disks after they first form by following filaments

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• Canada France Hawaii Telescope
• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music, also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Notes:

• Perseverance (aka Percy) launched on July 30th, 2020, and is scheduled to arrive on Mars on February 18th, 2021.
• It was named by Alexander Mather, a 13-year-old student from Virginia who wrote "Curiosity, Insight, Spirit, Opportunity. If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. But if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race, we missed the most important thing: Perseverance."
• On Feb 18th, around 3:30 pm EST, Percy will begin its Entry, Descent, and Landing procedure into Mars. Watch the simulation of it here.
• During its planned 687 days mission, Percy will explore:
  • Martian Geology to answer key questions about the potential for ancient life on Mars: Was it warm? Was it wet? Was it hospitable to life? This is NASA's first Astrobiologically focused mission to Mars.
  • It will also prepare the way for Human exploration by demonstrating a way that future explorers might produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for propellant and for breathing.
  • It will also store samples on board that can be brought back to Earth by future missions. By the end of the mission, it will collect nearly 30 samples. Read more.

Don't forget to join our virtual Perseverance Landing Party on Feb 18th! More details about the event can be found on our Facebook page.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• Mars GO
• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!

Notes:

• The most recent expeditions to Mars has been NASA's Mars Exploration Series which started with the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004
• Here are some highlights of their findings:
  • Opportunity found Hematite which typically forms in water. The opportunity found showed to have an acidic nature.
  • Spirit, on the other hand, found chemicals that indicate that Mars had a warm, wet history with a thicker carbon dioxide atmosphere where it landed. It also found signs of near-neutral water.
  • More information on their findings can be found here.
• Next up in the series was the Curiosity rover in 2012.
• Here are some of the key findings from Curiosity:
  • Found persistent liquid water in the past that would have been there for over a million years or longer.
  • Found the necessary chemistry needed for life (Sulfur, N, C, P, O). Soil samples showed not much evidence of salt which might suggest drinkable water.
  • Found a seasonally varying background level of atmospheric methane and observed a ten-fold increase in methane over a two-month period.
  • More details here.

Links to Science Outreach Material:

• Mars GO
• McDonald Institute
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Astronomy on Tap

Special thanks to Colin Vendromin for the music also thanks to Zac Kenny for the logo!