#725: Looking ahead

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Show Notes

We are listing out all the things we think are going to happen… and in a few months we’ll know how right or wrong we’ve been.

• Chang’e 6 lands June 26 – It did!
• Ariane 6 is predicted for 1st week of July?
• Starliner returning 2nd week of July? We think? (We will be proven wrong)
• Polaris Dawn 2nd week of July? With civilian space walk that scares Pamela
• Chandrayaan-3 2nd week of July?
• StarShip 5
• Starship HLS needed for Artemis and again Pamela has concerns
• IAU Meeting in August
• New Glenn (and Blue Moon) coming in the Fall

Transcript

Fraser Cain [00:00:49] Join Patreon for an ad -free experience at patreon .com slash AstronomyCast. AstronomyCast, episode 725, looking ahead this summer. Welcome to AstronomyCast, our weekly facts -based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain. I’m the publisher of Universe Today. With me as always is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of CosmoQuest. Hey Pamela, how are you doing? 

Pamela Gay [00:01:19] I am doing well and I am gearing up to spend my summer working on research, both science and social science. And I actually have a request for everyone out there listening to this podcast. If you could go to bit .ly slash capital A -S -T, capital E -C -O. So basically, bit .ly asked eco for astronomy economics. I’m trying to understand what factors are preventing people from getting more engaged in astronomy than they already are. Whether it be they’re too busy, they have jobs, they have other hobbies. Whatever it is that might be preventing you from fully engaging the way you’d like, I want to know. And I have a survey, so please go fill it out so that I can find out more about all of you. Those links will be in our show notes, in the podcast summary, in the YouTube thing. Go click it, go fill out my survey. Thank you. Science. 

Unidentified [00:02:24] Science. 

Speaker 3 [00:02:25] Yeah. 

Fraser Cain [00:02:26] So this is of course our last episode of this season. And I should really remember what season we’re in. 16, 17? 

Pamela Gay [00:02:34] 17. 

Fraser Cain [00:02:36] Alright, 17. This is the last episode of season 17. We are about to begin our two -month hiatus, where we replenish our energy, work on a bunch of projects that require focused long -term attention, ability to travel, things like that. Now, normally, Pamela refuses to think about the future. But today, on our final episode before hiatus, she’s throwing out those rules. 

Speaker 3 [00:03:02] It’s like the purge. 

Fraser Cain [00:03:04] Here’s what we’re excited about for the future, especially in the next couple of months until we return in September. And we will talk about it in a second, but it’s time for a break. 

Speaker 3 [00:03:14] If you’ve always dreamed of exploring the world, Rhodes Scholar welcomes you. Rhodes Scholar offers educational travel adventures for adults, 50 -plus, in more than 100 countries, and throughout the United States. When you travel with Rhodes Scholar, you’ll be an active learner, not a passive tourist. Every day is thoughtfully planned to open your eyes to new discoveries, ideas, and people. You’ll learn from local experts and meet others who share your passions. Find your next adventure at RhodesScholar .org. 

Fraser Cain [00:03:45] And we’re back. All right, Pamela, first, thank you so much for allowing me to think about the future. Finally, I have so much that I think about, and you won’t let me talk about it. Missions that are coming up. But you’ve set some very firm constraints, which is really what we’re looking at in the next couple of months. And so that’s brutal. 

Pamela Gay [00:04:09] Sorry. 

Fraser Cain [00:04:10] But I, you know, I’ll see what I can do to get through this. But I’m always thinking about the future. Well, why don’t you go first? Tell me what you’re thinking about as we move into our summer hiatus. 

Pamela Gay [00:04:25] Right now, I’m thinking that the second week of July, we die as science communicators. We are potentially looking at Starliner hopefully maybe returning back to the planet Earth. They’re doing lots and lots of testing of its fully discardable storage area, the trunk, that they can only do well on orbit. So they’re staying up. They don’t have a definitive time to return. But it’s going to be in July because the spacecraft is going to expire. 

Fraser Cain [00:04:59] Well, so that’s probably. Yeah. So NASA published a status update on Friday afternoon where they sort of talked about the situation and they said, OK, we said June 12th. Then we said June 19th. Then we said June 26th. Then we said July 2nd. And now, you know what? Who knows? Who knows when this thing will come home? But they said they reassured everybody that the astronauts have enough supplies to be on the station for months. It’s no big deal. And there was some just just before we were recording this, there was some tentative improvements in the thruster situation on Starliner. So it might be that, in fact, they’re going to get this resolved sooner than later. But and the end of schedule for the summer is wide open. They don’t have a lot of missions coming to and from the International Space Station. So so there’s no gigantic drumbeat. You’re right. The spacecraft will expire. But but only that it’s like it’ll be out of warranty, only that it’ll be beyond the expiry date. And come on, we’ve all eaten stuff out of the fridge after the expiry date on the regular. 

Pamela Gay [00:06:17] This is how I lived my life dangerously. Yeah, exactly. And and the problems that they’re working on are related to the trunk, not the capsule. So there’s concerns and they’re getting data. But NASA is assuring everyone Boeing is assuring everyone they can get back through the atmosphere. There are no concerns. It’s the trunk that they’re worried about, which gets discarded and burned up in the atmosphere. 

Fraser Cain [00:06:45] Yeah. Yeah. The service module. 

Pamela Gay [00:06:47] So do you know what else is going on the second week of July, which is my personal bet for when Starliner is coming back? 

Fraser Cain [00:06:54] The launch of Ariane 6. 

Pamela Gay [00:06:59] So what is flying on Ariane 6? Oh, no, this is their new rocket. I don’t know what’s flying on their new rocket. Is that also the second week of July? 

Fraser Cain [00:07:08] First week, first week of July. 

Pamela Gay [00:07:09] OK, first week of July. All right. So tell us about Ariane 6. This is I know very little about this. 

Fraser Cain [00:07:15] Well, so, I mean, we all watched excitedly as James Webb launched on an Ariane 5 rocket back last Christmas. Two year and a half ago, two years ago, two years ago, more than two years ago. And this was, I think, the last Ariane 5 that Ariane’s base had around. And they’ve been sort of kicking this around because this was the plan. And James Webb got delayed. But Ariane has been working on their next generation launcher. This is the Ariane 6. And all of the bits and pieces have all been coming together at the spaceport in French Guiana, the Kura spaceport. And they have been assembling it and putting everything together and doing tests. And the plan is to launch this on July 9th, 2024. And so, you know, will it they’ve completed a wet dress rehearsal. So, you know, will it actually launch exactly on time on July 9th? Almost certainly not that there is, you know, they will like a butterfly flaps in the Amazon rainforest. They will delay the launch to make sure that the wing beats haven’t caused any kind of upper air disturbance. But still, this is the plan. So a few things about it. It is liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen engines for both stages. It has an improved version of the engine that the Ariane 5 was using. And it also has various sort of amounts of solid rocket boosters that they can attach to this. But it’s very strange that Europe has put in all this energy and effort to build this new rocket system. And yet there really isn’t any reusability plans when you think about how SpaceX is just running away with the market. Now they’re testing Starship that could bring a fully reusable two -stage rocket into the market. And yet still, we’re not sort of seeing a big investment into reusable rocketry from Europe. So but anyway, July 9th, we should see the Ariane 6 launch. 

Pamela Gay [00:09:22] So we definitely die. The second week of July is what I am learning in terms of how much news we’re going to have to tell. Because July 12th is that potential Polaris Dawn space tourist rich humans by flight on Crew Dragon. And this is where they’re looking to do the first commercial EVA out of a capsule, which is about as scary as it gets, in my personal opinion. So like if you’re on the International Space Station, you go into an airlock, you get suited up, you check everything out. You go into outer space after they suck all the air out of the airlock. You go back into the airlock. They put the air back in. You get undressed. Life is good. And if there’s something wrong, you go into the airlock. They put the air back in. And your crewmates who have their fingers not in spacesuits fully dexterous come and rescue you. With Polaris Dawn, we’re back to the situation that we saw with Apollo and Gemini. There is no airlock. 

Fraser Cain [00:10:34] Right. They just evacuate the atmosphere from the capsule and then go to open it up to space and then go for a spacewalk. 

Pamela Gay [00:10:43] Which means that they’re testing spacesuits on the entire crew simultaneously. And these are not professional astronauts. 

Fraser Cain [00:10:54] No. And these are new spacesuits. So we got the reveal a couple of months ago of the new spacesuits that they’re going to be using. And they look dramatically different than what NASA would use for an EVA. I mean, they look very similar to the existing spacesuits. When you see the NASA astronauts that are flying on Crew Dragon, they’re these kind of sleek. They almost look like race car suits. 

Pamela Gay [00:11:22] Superhero outfits. 

Fraser Cain [00:11:23] Yeah, with a helmet. And they have no oxygen tank. Instead, they’re going to be using umbilicals to connect their oxygen to the spacecraft. And so it’ll be, if you think about the Gemini mission when they were doing the spacewalks on that, and you’ve got the astronaut in this sort of fairly sleek suit attached with an umbilical to the spacecraft, that’s what you’re going to get. Uh 

Pamela Gay [00:11:43] -huh. 

Speaker 3 [00:11:45] Yes. 

Pamela Gay [00:11:45] With non -professional astronauts. 

Fraser Cain [00:11:48] Yes. They’ve been training. Come on, how hard could it be? 

Pamela Gay [00:11:52] I’m just, yeah, I have thoughts, I have feels, I have memories of the tank that they train in down in Huntsville and all the years of underwater training and everything astronauts go through, and I have feels. 

Speaker 3 [00:12:08] Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:12:09] But we can continue on. 

Speaker 3 [00:12:11] Sure. Do you 

Pamela Gay [00:12:12] know what else is happening that week in July? 

Fraser Cain [00:12:13] Well, you know what? I want to find out, but first we need another break. 

Speaker 3 [00:12:18] If you’ve always dreamed of exploring the world, Rhodes Scholar welcomes you. Rhodes Scholar offers educational travel adventures for adults, 50 plus, in more than 100 countries and throughout the United States. When you travel with Rhodes Scholar, you’ll be an active learner, not a passive tourist. Every day is thoughtfully planned to open your eyes to new discoveries, ideas, and people. You’ll learn from local experts and meet others who share your passions. Find your next adventure at RhodesScholar .org. 

Fraser Cain [00:12:49] And we’re back. Uh, what else is happening that July? 

Pamela Gay [00:12:53] Have you heard of a little mission called Chandrayaan 3? 

Fraser Cain [00:12:57] Yes. 

Pamela Gay [00:12:59] It’s July 14th, nominal launch. 

Fraser Cain [00:13:03] I had no idea Chandrayaan 3 was launching this quickly. 

Pamela Gay [00:13:08] Yeah. So Chandrayaan 3 should be going up July 14th, give or take. That’s always the case. This is India’s next foray into lunar exploration, where they’re looking to achieve a soft landing. They have a next generation rover. They’re hoping to rove this time. And so hopefully we’re about to see a new nation successfully soft landing and roving on the surface of the moon. 

Fraser Cain [00:13:32] Oh, that’s really cool. Speaking of the moon, we’ve got the sample return mission coming back from Chang ‘e 6, which landed in early June, collected its samples, deployed a rover. That’s main job was to take selfie images of the lander. And it was able to extract a sample from several meters below the surface of the moon, which is really cool. And then it used an ascent capsule to fly our ascent module to fly up into orbit, docked with the return capsule. And the return capsule has been on its way back to Earth. And it’s going to be reentering the Earth’s atmosphere on June 25th. Now we’re recording this on June 24th, but by the time you hear this, it will have already returned. And there’s no changing the schedule on this. This is the orbit that’s coming in. And so hopefully scientists will have access to samples from the far side of the moon for the first time, which is going to be pretty exciting. 

Pamela Gay [00:14:35] It’s just this wild period that we’re suddenly in that seems to have started two or three weeks ago where the planet has gone spaceship crazy. And it’s a good problem to have. But as a space journalist, it’s just sort of like, where did these all come from? And couldn’t you have spaced yourselves out? Because, wow, it’s just remarkable and amazing. And then, of course, we’re looking for Starship 5 test launch sometime this summer. They’re working on doing updates to the current Starship. Having watched, oblation is the word I’m going to choose to use, occur. I’m going to let you explain that one as you giggle over there. 

Speaker 3 [00:15:22] Well, right. 

Fraser Cain [00:15:23] So, I mean, for those of you who did watch the fourth launch of Starship, it was tremendous. It was quite an exciting time. Now, the first stage, one of its engines failed, but it was still able to reach the right velocity. It was able to do its boost back burn and landed gently into the ocean and then sunk to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. And then Starship flew up to orbit and then did its reentry maneuver. And we could see the amazing ionized gasses coming off of the spacecraft as it was reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. And then the gasses kept getting sort of hotter. And then you could start to see bits and pieces of debris and like wounds opening up on one of the grid, more of the fins that it uses to stabilize itself. And then it just kept burning and you could see like fires inside and yet it continued to work, you know, the little thing that could. And they also were able to land gently in the ocean and then sink to the bottom of the Indian Ocean. And we’ve heard a lot of comments from the SpaceX folks that they’re going to be attempting their next launch sooner than later. So we’re probably they’ve streamlined the FAA process so that they should be able to get their approvals a lot more quickly. And so we should see another test this time provisionally. The plan is to attempt to actually capture the super heavy booster on the launch tower. 

Pamela Gay [00:16:59] And if they fail too profoundly, they lose their FAA fast track because you have to have an investigation when you destroy things. 

Fraser Cain [00:17:10] But they’re also building a second one. So if they lose one, then they’ve got to spare. And they’re actually building two of them in Florida as well. So within the next couple of years, they’re going to have four launch platforms. And then, you know, you just lose one every few months. Who cares? Classic SpaceX style. 

Pamela Gay [00:17:27] And it’s kind of imperative in a way. I never thought I’d find myself saying that they get this done quickly because they are relying on the whole Starship brand. I don’t know if that’s quite the right word. Model moving forward so they can get to development of the Starship HLS, the Artemis program. And if the Artemis program gets delayed, that means we have a great vacuum of funding from NASA occurring again. The way we had a vacuum when Curiosity had issues, the way we had a vacuum when JWST was delayed for a decade -ish. It felt like a decade. So we need Starship to get back on track so that we can have at least one test landing, which requires on -orbit refueling of the still not flown at all Starship HLS before the tentative no earlier than September 26. I think it’s 26. Is it September 26 or 25? 

Fraser Cain [00:18:37] Oh, 26. Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:18:38] Okay. Of a human, a crewed Starship HLS. So we need this to work. 

Fraser Cain [00:18:48] And if you were going to take this brand new skyscraper -sized spacecraft and figure out a way that you were going to test it in incremental approaches to get to the point that you felt reasonably comfortable with this being a fully functional spacecraft, what kinds of test payloads would you assign to it? Where would putting humans inside of the thing show up on your Gantt chart? For me, it would be right at the very end. And yet, the only approved payload for a Starship is people. Isn’t that crazy? 

Pamela Gay [00:19:35] The only NASA approved. 

Fraser Cain [00:19:36] No, the only approved, the only confirmed Starship. And before, it was also people with the Dear Moon, but that’s been canceled. So really… Wait, 

Pamela Gay [00:19:47] Dear Moon was last week. When did it get canceled? No, not Dear Moon. I’m thinking Blue Moon. Ignore me. 

Fraser Cain [00:19:53] No, Dear Moon. Yeah, Dear Moon. This is the Japanese billionaire who’s going to take a bunch of people around the moon. That’s been canceled. But so you would think like, let’s launch a telescope. Let’s launch bricks. Let’s launch whatever, water. Let’s try refueling, all this kind of stuff. But no, unfortunately… But 

Pamela Gay [00:20:12] the next generation Starlinks. 

Fraser Cain [00:20:15] Sure. But none have actually, they haven’t said we’re going to launch Starlinks. No one has put down any calendar. Here’s the payload. Here’s the timeline. It’s just the only thing that is confirmed is putting humans into this thing to land them on the moon. 

Pamela Gay [00:20:31] That’s wild because SpaceX sent out messages to their Starlink consumers on boats saying, what translates to, for the love of God, do not be a boat in the wrong place because we’re trying to get you a spacecraft that can launch the next generation Starlinks that will make your situation better. 

Fraser Cain [00:20:52] We know this is the plan. People ask, what are they going to use Starship for? They’re going to launch 40 ,000 Starlinks. They’re going to launch big, powerful Starlinks at infinitum as they take all of the telecommunications money on planet Earth. That’s the plan. And so any other uses of Starship are incremental at best compared to that plan. But there is no right now. I’m surprised they could have filled the last Starship with Starlinks, but they didn’t. So maybe the next one will have them or they’re just going to keep testing them empty. I don’t know. All right, we’re going to take another break. 

Speaker 3 [00:21:34] If you’ve always dreamed of exploring the world, Rhodes Scholar welcomes you. Rhodes Scholar offers educational travel adventures for adults 50 -plus in more than 100 countries and throughout the United States. When you travel with Rhodes Scholar, you’ll be an active learner, not a passive tourist. Every day is thoughtfully planned to open your eyes to new discoveries, ideas, and people. You’ll learn from local experts and meet others who share your passions. Find your next adventure at RhodesScholar .org. 

Fraser Cain [00:22:06] And we’re back. All right. OK, so I’ve got another one for you. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:12] Go for it. 

Fraser Cain [00:22:13] Which is that the IAU, the International Astronomy Union, has its meeting in early September. Sorry, August. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:21] Last week of August. 

Fraser Cain [00:22:23] No, it’s August. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:25] Well, it’s the middle two weeks of August. 

Speaker 3 [00:22:28] August 6th. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:28] I currently have a SAD because I have registration, I have a hotel, and I don’t have funding to actually go. 

Fraser Cain [00:22:38] Right, to South Africa. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:40] Yeah. 

Speaker 3 [00:22:40] Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:42] I’m a member of the IAU. 

Speaker 3 [00:22:44] Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:44] I sit on committees. This is, I have SADs. 

Fraser Cain [00:22:50] Well, maybe you should talk to CosmoQuest about sending you to the IAU. 

Pamela Gay [00:22:55] I know, I know. 

Fraser Cain [00:22:57] So, I mean, this is, I always say that people who live in academia live in a bit of a sort of weird fantasy land when they’re like, oh, are you going to go to this conference? I’m like, of course not. I don’t have $5 ,000 to spend to fly to this data hotel to go to that conference. That’s ridiculous. Oh, I guess, yeah, maybe that is a lot of money. 

Speaker 3 [00:23:18] Yeah. 

Fraser Cain [00:23:18] So, of course. And so now you have to prioritize your budget. And keeping employees employed, keeping the servers running is more important than attending a conference. 

Pamela Gay [00:23:32] But I can be sad. 

Fraser Cain [00:23:34] Yes, absolutely. And what if Pluto’s vote comes up again? 

Pamela Gay [00:23:39] Yeah, that’s not going to happen. But, but anyways, yes, IAU is in August. And then in September, moving on to somehow I’m like all spacecraft today. So the other thing that I’m paying attention to, because again, I am deeply concerned about the Artemis program becoming the great vacuum that removes all science funding from NASA. New Glenn is going to have its first launch, hopefully late September, early October. And they need the New Glenn rocket to work so they can carry the Blue Moon lander in the future, which is what they’re looking to use for Artemis V. So we are now on a race between Starship, which has many different purposes, and Starship HLS is a special model just for NASA. We are on a race between SpaceX getting Starship HLS done and human certified. And now Blue Moon riding on New Glenn, getting the new rocket certified and getting first their Mark 1 cargo and then their Mark 2 human certified doing their thing on the moon. 

Fraser Cain [00:24:53] I am not going to hold my breath. I mean, we have been waiting 15 years to see New Glenn. Yes, we’ve seen New Shepard fly, but we have just not seen anything of New Glenn. And I understand that this rocket does exist, according to people out there. You know, I have to see this thing actually fly before I will. I’m going to pull a Pamela on this one, which is just like I await some kind of confirmation that this is even a thing because we have been. I’ve wasted so much time reporting on things that Blue Origin is planning to do. 

Pamela Gay [00:25:43] That’s fair. Yeah, that is fair. 

Fraser Cain [00:25:45] So I can tell you something that is going to happen, which is that we are going to cross the two year mark of observations from James Webb. So even though it did launch in around Christmas time, it released its first science data in July of 2022. And so now we are about to cross into that two year mark. And last year we did a here’s everything that James Webb saw in the first year of observations. And so we’re working on year two. So it’s a second, you know, all the cool new science that was done with James Webb in the second year. And this is just going to be a monster. Like, there’s so much science that we’ve been reporting on that I wouldn’t be surprised if our video is like an hour and a half long. It’s crazy how much work, how much amazing stuff has been done. So cool pictures, quasars, farthest known galaxy. Like just today, just today, Webb saw globular star clusters forming through a gravitational lens in a galaxy seen when the universe was only 400 million years old. Crazy. 

Pamela Gay [00:26:58] I hadn’t seen that yet. 

Speaker 3 [00:26:59] Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:27:00] The thing that caught my attention is, like, we always talk about how a fragmenting spiraling cloud should form stars that are co -aligned -ish. And we hadn’t been able to see it. And I was like, meh, OK, a theory that’s good, that makes sense. I will teach it. Probably never see it. And JWST saw it. 

Speaker 3 [00:27:21] Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:27:22] So yeah, the serpent’s main filament has order of 20 protostar outflows that appear to be aligned within plus or minus 24 degrees. Yeah, it’s just kind of wild. 

Fraser Cain [00:27:39] Yeah, like all of these protostars are lining up their beams with each other. 

Speaker 3 [00:27:44] Yeah. 

Fraser Cain [00:27:44] Crazy. What else you got? 

Pamela Gay [00:27:47] So I have one thing that is not happening that I want to talk about. 

Speaker 3 [00:27:51] OK. 

Pamela Gay [00:27:53] We still don’t have first light on Reuben Observatory. And for, like, the past three seasons, I’ve been like, and next year LSST is going to get its start. 

Fraser Cain [00:28:04] Spring 25. 

Pamela Gay [00:28:06] Yeah. Yeah. Not so OK with this. 

Fraser Cain [00:28:09] I’m fine. 

Speaker 3 [00:28:11] It’ll be worth it. 

Fraser Cain [00:28:12] It’s going to be worth it. So there’s a couple of things that I think we should just, like, things that happen every year that I’m really excited about. So I guess, well, astronomy -wise, there’s this new nova that’s going to be appearing at some point in the next couple of months. So probably by the time the hiatus is over, the nova will have appeared. And, you know, you need to know your constellations pretty well to know where this, it’s corona borealis. And it is this, like, cup, looks like a cup, that is in between Hercules and Vega, in between Arcturus and Vega. And so if you know where Hercules is and you know where Bootes is, you can measure in between the two of them and you can find corona borealis. It’s, you know, if you do watch the sky, then you’re familiar with it. And then there will be one additional star. It’s a one that will be roughly the brightness of Polaris. 

Pamela Gay [00:29:14] And this is something that should be visible to most of the world. This is a fairly equatorial constellation. And it’s really expected that this will happen before September based on prior eruptions of this system. It’s a two -star system. You have a compact object that is nomming material off of its companion. It’s anticipated to get a bit too full and go flare with light as a nova. It’s something we haven’t seen. And we’re now finally going to get to see it with massive telescopes that can track how it goes back to normal afterwards. 

Fraser Cain [00:29:51] But I think for regular people, unfortunately, it’s going to feel underwhelming. 

Pamela Gay [00:29:56] It’s nothing. Yeah. Yeah. 

Fraser Cain [00:29:58] Yeah. That only if you really knew your constellation, you’d be like, oh, yeah, extra star there. But everybody else, can I see the nova? And I have to say, yeah, but first, here’s how you find coronal borealis. Check out all these stars. Here’s the new one over there. That’s it. 

Pamela Gay [00:30:17] If we’re lucky, it goes off towards the beginning of August when hopefully everyone’s going outside for the Perseids anyways. There’s a first quarter moon. So the first half of the night is going to be kind of miserable with moonlight. But Perseids, you can usually count on for one or two meteors a minute and plan to go camping and get up before dawn. 

Fraser Cain [00:30:41] Well, that was the thing that I want to talk about was the return of the Perseids and the return of the core of the Milky Way. So yeah, you know, Perseids in early August and then and the Milky Way is already making an appearance early and earlier in the evening. And that brings you all of those amazing star clusters and nebulae and just the core of our amazing galaxy. And so the nights as the nights get warmer in the northern hemisphere, then we get nice things to watch. The meteors, the Milky Way. It’s a good time to be outside sky watching. 

Pamela Gay [00:31:18] These are the things we’re looking forward to and to look ahead to next season. Europa Clipper finally should take off. 

Fraser Cain [00:31:25] That’s in October, though, right? 

Pamela Gay [00:31:27] October 10th. Like I said, looking ahead to next season. I’m allowed to occasionally get excited early. Again, I’m also afraid of things that don’t leave the planet eating budgets. 

Fraser Cain [00:31:38] I should be encouraging this anyway. 

Speaker 3 [00:31:40] You’re right. It’s good. 

Fraser Cain [00:31:41] We should definitely think about things that are happening in the future. It’s fun, isn’t it? 

Pamela Gay [00:31:46] No, because the reason I’m looking ahead is because I’m worried about them. I’m deeply, deeply worried about them. 

Fraser Cain [00:31:53] Well, we’ve run out of time. We’ve run out of season. So, Pamela, it’s been a blast for this 17th season of Astronomy Cast. I hope you’re going to have fun this summer or at least get a bunch of stuff done off your plate. Some summer cleaning of projects. I know I will. We’ll still be in touch, but hopefully, everybody, we will see all of you when we return in September. Now, do you have some final names to thank? 

Pamela Gay [00:32:28] I do. I would like to thank the $10 amount and up patrons, Kellyanne and David Parker, Kenneth Ryan, Kim Barron, Kimberly Reich, Klombadurov loves science, Christian Golden, Christian Magschlott, Kinsey Penflenko, Larry Dzot, Laura Kettleson, Lee Harborn, Les Howard, Lou Zeeland, Marco Ierasi, Mark Stephen, Raznak, Masa Haleu, Matt Rucker, Matthew Horstman, Mathias Hayden, Maxim Left, MHW 1961 Super Symmetrical, Michael Hartford, Michael Purcell, Michael Regan, Michelle Cullen, Mike Heise, Naila, Nate Detweiler, Paul D. Disney, Paul Esposito, Paul L. Hayden, Peter, Philip Grand, Philip Walker, Planetar, Richard Drum, Robert Cordova, Robert Hunt, Robert Polasma, Ron Thorson, Ruben McCarthy, Zebra Lark, Sam Brooks and his mom, Sharesome, Scott Beaver, Scott Briggs, Scott Cohn, Sean Matz, Semyon Torfuson, Siggy Kemmler, Simon Partson, Slug, Stephen Veidt, Sterling Gray, Stephen Coffey, The Air Major, The Big Squish Squash, The Lonely Sand Person, Thomas Gazeta, Tim Garrish, Timelord Iroh, Tasha Nakini, Wanderer M101, Will Hamilton, William Andrews and Zero Chill. 

Fraser Cain [00:34:07] Thanks everyone. 

Pamela Gay [00:34:08] Thank you everyone and see you next season. 

Fraser Cain [00:34:12] Bye bye. 

Pamela Gay [00:34:19] Astronomycast is a joint product of Universe Today and the Planetary Science Institute. Astronomycast is released under a Creative Commons Attribution License. So love it, share it and remix it, but please credit it to our hosts, Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay. You can get more information on today’s show topic on our website, Astronomycast .com. This episode was brought to you thanks to our generous patrons on Patreon. If you want to help keep this show going, please consider joining our community at Patreon .com slash Astronomycast. Not only do you help us pay our producers a fair wage, you will also get special access to content right in your inbox and invites to online events. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined our Patreon community already. Anyways, keep looking up. This has been Astronomycast. Marvin’s expansive range of options ensures you’ll find the perfect fit for your style and needs. Discover the Mountain West windows and doors difference at our showrooms in Scottsdale, Gilbert, Flagstaff and Tucson. Start your journey today at MWWD .com.