WEBVTT 00:00:07.729 --> 00:00:10.169 Howdy Stargazers, and welcome to this episode 00:00:10.169 --> 00:00:13.570 of Star Trails. Drew here, and I'll be your guide 00:00:13.570 --> 00:00:16.030 to the night sky for the week starting June the 00:00:16.030 --> 00:00:20.489 22nd through the 28th. This week a new moon offers 00:00:20.489 --> 00:00:24.969 up darker skies, Mars dances with Mercury, and 00:00:24.969 --> 00:00:28.820 we look at the weird world of blazars. particle 00:00:28.820 --> 00:00:33.420 accelerators from galaxies far, far away. Whether 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:35.979 you're tuning in from the backyard, the balcony, 00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:39.119 or just your imagination, I'm glad you're here. 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:42.960 So find a cozy spot, let your eyes adjust, and 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:45.799 let's see what the sky holds for us this week. 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:50.340 Let's kick things off with the moon. A new moon 00:00:50.340 --> 00:00:54.000 arrives on June the 25th, which means dark skies 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.369 all week long. perfect for spotting galaxies, 00:00:57.789 --> 00:01:02.170 nebula, and those elusive, faint stars. But the 00:01:02.170 --> 00:01:05.129 moon's not taking the whole week off. On the 00:01:05.129 --> 00:01:08.390 morning of June 23rd, look low in the eastern 00:01:08.390 --> 00:01:12.150 sky before sunrise. You'll catch a slender crescent 00:01:12.150 --> 00:01:15.530 moon hanging just above Venus, which is glowing 00:01:15.530 --> 00:01:19.450 brightly at magnitude negative 4. It should look 00:01:19.450 --> 00:01:23.019 great through a pair of binoculars. Then, after 00:01:23.019 --> 00:01:26.480 sunset on the 26th and 27th, the crescent moon 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:30.579 returns, cozying up with Mercury, and even Castor 00:01:30.579 --> 00:01:34.200 and Pollux, the twin stars of Gemini, just above 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:37.219 the western horizon. Look for this enchanting 00:01:37.219 --> 00:01:41.519 grouping just as twilight fades. And here's something 00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:45.579 rare. On the nights of June 28th and 29th, the 00:01:45.579 --> 00:01:48.459 moon slips between Mars and Mercury, with the 00:01:48.459 --> 00:01:52.349 bright star Regulus nearby. If you're in the 00:01:52.349 --> 00:01:54.849 right part of the world, the moon will actually 00:01:54.849 --> 00:01:58.950 pass in front of Mars, which is a lunar occultation, 00:01:59.409 --> 00:02:02.629 just after midnight, Coordinated Universal Time, 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:07.549 on the 30th. Keep in mind, midnight in UTC time 00:02:07.549 --> 00:02:10.870 is actually the night of the 29th here in North 00:02:10.870 --> 00:02:14.389 America. For example, for those of us on Eastern 00:02:14.389 --> 00:02:18.750 Daylight Time, we're four hours behind UTC time. 00:02:19.210 --> 00:02:22.430 Be sure to use an astronomy app or an online 00:02:22.430 --> 00:02:25.990 resource like Stellarium Web for the exact time 00:02:25.990 --> 00:02:29.530 of the occultation in your area. I just checked 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:32.550 my location and while the moon will come very 00:02:32.550 --> 00:02:35.449 close, it won't be covering Mars from my point 00:02:35.449 --> 00:02:39.110 of view. Perhaps it will in your area. Even if 00:02:39.110 --> 00:02:42.030 you don't catch the occultation itself, the trio 00:02:42.030 --> 00:02:45.810 will make for a brilliant visual cluster. Speaking 00:02:45.810 --> 00:02:48.789 of planets, here's who's on stage this week. 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:53.000 Venus is that blazing morning star, best seen 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:56.460 in the early dawn, rising in the east. Mercury 00:02:56.460 --> 00:02:59.360 is just starting to show up after sunset, hugging 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:03.500 the western horizon. Mars is tagging along with 00:03:03.500 --> 00:03:06.860 Regulus, the heart of Leo the lion, and they'll 00:03:06.860 --> 00:03:09.460 be putting on quite a show in the western sky. 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:13.520 Saturn is your pre -dawn companion, glowing steadily 00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:17.879 in the southeast before sunrise. Jupiter is slipping 00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:20.840 out of view now, setting shortly after the sun. 00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:24.500 If you're into deep sky observing, this is your 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:27.360 week. With no moon to compete, the core of the 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:30.719 Milky Way in Sagittarius and Scorpius is at its 00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:34.520 best. From a dark location, you'll see it stretch 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:37.419 across the sky, and tucked inside it, things 00:03:37.419 --> 00:03:40.580 like the Lagoon Nebula, the Trifid, and bright 00:03:40.580 --> 00:03:46.000 open clusters like NGC 6633n Ophicus are all 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:49.120 waiting to be explored. One more thing to watch 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:52.939 for, the June Bo 'otids meteor shower peaks around 00:03:52.939 --> 00:03:56.680 June 28th. This is usually a quiet one, but it's 00:03:56.680 --> 00:03:59.439 been known to surprise, so keep an eye out for 00:03:59.439 --> 00:04:02.460 slow, graceful meteors drifting through the sky. 00:04:03.020 --> 00:04:05.280 And for those of you up north, keep your eyes 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:09.199 peeled for noctilucent clouds. These shimmering 00:04:09.199 --> 00:04:12.520 electric blue wisps can appear just after sunset 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:16.199 or before sunrise, glowing way up at the edge 00:04:16.199 --> 00:04:19.779 of space. They're composed of icy dust particles 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:22.279 that reflect sunlight even when the sun is well 00:04:22.279 --> 00:04:25.290 below the horizon. They're most common in summer 00:04:25.290 --> 00:04:28.550 at high latitudes, and they're as eerie as they 00:04:28.550 --> 00:04:37.889 are beautiful. This week we're heading into the 00:04:37.889 --> 00:04:41.290 wild frontier of deep space to meet one of the 00:04:41.290 --> 00:04:44.930 universe's most extreme objects, the blazar. 00:04:45.730 --> 00:04:47.970 Now, if you've been listening for a while, you've 00:04:47.970 --> 00:04:51.430 heard me chat about pulsars and quasars before. 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:54.680 So, what's a blazar, and how is it different 00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:59.399 from all these other space -r's? A blazar is 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:03.139 a special type of active galactic nucleus. That's 00:05:03.139 --> 00:05:06.480 the energetic heart of a distant galaxy, where 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:09.480 a supermassive black hole is actively feeding 00:05:09.480 --> 00:05:13.939 on gas and dust. Now, when a black hole is gobbling 00:05:13.939 --> 00:05:17.220 up matter fast enough, it doesn't just sit quietly. 00:05:17.420 --> 00:05:20.839 The whole area around it heats up and glows with 00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:23.759 incredible brightness, sometimes outshining the 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:27.079 galaxy itself. Some of that material gets caught 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:29.879 in magnetic fields and is blasted out of the 00:05:29.879 --> 00:05:33.939 galaxy's poles in two narrow beams called jets. 00:05:34.759 --> 00:05:37.560 These are streams of particles and energy being 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:40.920 launched at nearly the speed of light. When one 00:05:40.920 --> 00:05:44.040 of those jets is pointed almost directly at us 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:47.040 here on Earth, That's what we call a blazar. 00:05:48.199 --> 00:05:51.199 These jets are moving so fast, they're categorized 00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:54.399 as relativistic. That just means they're blasting 00:05:54.399 --> 00:05:58.120 out at speeds close to the speed of light. At 00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:00.800 those speeds, the rules of physics get weird. 00:06:01.019 --> 00:06:04.740 Time slows down, mass changes, and light bends. 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:08.300 That's Einstein's theory of relativity kicking 00:06:08.300 --> 00:06:13.680 in. So when we say a blazar is pointing a relativistic 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:16.660 jet at us, we mean we're in the direct line of 00:06:16.660 --> 00:06:19.560 fire of one of these high -speed energy beams. 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:23.199 That makes blazars look incredibly bright and 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:26.060 variable to us, even if they're billions of light 00:06:26.060 --> 00:06:29.720 -years away. Now, here's where things get even 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:33.899 stranger. In 2017, scientists using a detector 00:06:33.899 --> 00:06:37.279 buried deep in the ice at the South Pole called 00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:41.300 the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory, and yes, that 00:06:41.300 --> 00:06:44.720 really is its name, spotted a very special kind 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:49.199 of subatomic particle, a neutrino. Neutrinos 00:06:49.199 --> 00:06:52.160 are often nicknamed ghost particles because they 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:55.279 barely interact with anything. Trillions of them 00:06:55.279 --> 00:06:57.899 are passing through your body right now, and 00:06:57.899 --> 00:07:00.699 you don't even feel it. They're difficult to 00:07:00.699 --> 00:07:03.819 detect, but in this case, Ice Cube caught one. 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:06.839 And when astronomers traced it back to its source, 00:07:07.100 --> 00:07:11.300 it lined up with a flaring blazar called TXS 00:07:11.300 --> 00:07:17.899 0506 plus 056. It's located around the left shoulder 00:07:17.899 --> 00:07:21.500 of the constellation Orion. This was the first 00:07:21.500 --> 00:07:24.740 time we'd ever linked a neutrino to a known object 00:07:24.740 --> 00:07:29.709 outside our galaxy. IceCube isn't a telescope 00:07:29.709 --> 00:07:32.350 in the traditional sense. It's made up of more 00:07:32.350 --> 00:07:36.110 than 5 ,000 sensors frozen in a cubic kilometer 00:07:36.110 --> 00:07:40.230 of Antarctic ice. When a neutrino occasionally 00:07:40.230 --> 00:07:43.350 hits a molecule of ice it produces a tiny flash 00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:47.230 of blue light. IceCube watches for those flashes 00:07:47.230 --> 00:07:49.990 and helps determine the direction the neutrino 00:07:49.990 --> 00:07:55.089 came from. Other observatories like KM3NET in 00:07:55.089 --> 00:07:57.689 the Mediterranean are doing the same thing but 00:07:57.689 --> 00:08:00.949 underwater. These detectors are opening up a 00:08:00.949 --> 00:08:03.610 new kind of astronomy where we study the universe 00:08:03.610 --> 00:08:07.350 not just with light, but with particles. This 00:08:07.350 --> 00:08:10.649 is what astronomers call multi -messenger astronomy. 00:08:11.069 --> 00:08:13.550 We're not just looking at starlight anymore, 00:08:13.689 --> 00:08:16.550 we're listening to the universe in new ways through 00:08:16.550 --> 00:08:19.449 particles, waves, and everything in between. 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:23.420 Here's the big picture and why scientists find 00:08:23.420 --> 00:08:28.120 blazars so fascinating. Blazars are natural particle 00:08:28.120 --> 00:08:31.519 accelerators. You've probably heard of the Large 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:34.840 Hadron Collider, that massive underground ring 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:38.379 in Europe where scientists use magnets and superconductors 00:08:38.379 --> 00:08:41.539 to smash particles together to study what the 00:08:41.539 --> 00:08:44.860 universe is made of. Blazars are doing the same 00:08:44.860 --> 00:08:48.620 thing, but on a cosmic scale. They're accelerating 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:51.779 protons and other particles to energies millions 00:08:51.779 --> 00:08:54.240 of times higher than anything we can do here 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:57.720 on Earth. These particles then travel across 00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:00.639 the universe, sometimes for billions of years, 00:09:00.779 --> 00:09:04.200 and some of them reach Earth. By detecting these 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:06.159 particles, we're learning what's happening in 00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:09.379 the hearts of galaxies, how black holes interact 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:12.559 with their surroundings, and what kind of extreme 00:09:12.559 --> 00:09:15.340 environments the universe is capable of creating. 00:09:16.389 --> 00:09:19.669 Somewhere out there in a distant galaxy, a black 00:09:19.669 --> 00:09:22.490 hole is hurling particles into space at nearly 00:09:22.490 --> 00:09:25.269 the speed of light, and one of them might just 00:09:25.269 --> 00:09:28.710 pass silently through you, carrying a message 00:09:28.710 --> 00:09:31.509 from the edge of the universe, telling us what 00:09:31.509 --> 00:09:34.509 conditions are like near these black holes, how 00:09:34.509 --> 00:09:37.549 matter behaves in extreme gravity, and how the 00:09:37.549 --> 00:09:40.870 most energetic phenomena in the cosmos operate. 00:09:45.669 --> 00:09:49.110 If the stars spoke to you this week or if a question's 00:09:49.110 --> 00:09:51.750 been on your mind, I'd love to hear it. Visit 00:09:51.750 --> 00:09:55.169 our website, StarTrails .Show, where you can 00:09:55.169 --> 00:09:59.230 contact me and explore past episodes. Be sure 00:09:59.230 --> 00:10:02.629 to follow us on Blue Sky and YouTube. Links are 00:10:02.629 --> 00:10:05.269 in the show notes. Until we meet again beneath 00:10:05.269 --> 00:10:07.509 the stars, clear skies everyone.