Podcaster: Loretta Cannon for the AAS-HAD
Title: H’ad astra historia Ep 204 – Interstellar, Part 2
Organization: Historical Astronomy Division
Link: https://had.aas.org/
Description: Today’s guest: Dr. Jamie Rankin, Voyager Deputy Project Scientist, talks with us today about all things Interstellar. She is also an Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Space Physics at Princeton University. NASA-JPL continues to communicate with both Voyagers 1 and 2 as they explore interstellar space. Closer to home, IBEX and three soon-to-be-launched new spacecraft study the protective bubble of our star system from the inside, while also investigating our star’s ever-changing effect on Earth.
H’ad astra historia is the official podcast for the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society. We’re here to share stories from and about the people who study the stars, planets, and the cosmos. We’ll be hearing from individuals who not only study the history of astronomy, but also those who lived it, who were “in the room” during pivotal events within the last 50 years or so.
H’ad astra historia is the official podcast for the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society. We’re here to share stories from and about the people who study the stars, planets, and the cosmos. We’ll be hearing from individuals who not only study the history of astronomy, but also those who lived it, who were “in the room” during pivotal events within the last 50 years or so.
podcast music: “Frost Waltz” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under creative commons: by attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Bio: Loretta Cannon (an AAS affiliate via Rose City Astronomers) is a science-and-word-nerd who really likes the stars. She quite enjoys working as HAD’s podcaster, bringing astronomy stories to you.
Today’s sponsor: Big thanks to our Patreon supporters this month: Paul M. Sutter, Chris Nealen, Frank Frankovic, Frank Tippin, Jako Danar, Michael Freedman, Nik Whitehead, Rani Bush, Ron Diehl, Steven Emert, Brett Duane, Don Swartwout, Vladimir Bogdanov, Steven Kluth, Steve Nerlich, Phyllis Foster, Michael W, James K Wood, Katrina Ince, Cherry Wood.
Please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.
Please visit our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy
or you can consider to sponsor a day of our podcast : https://cosmoquest.org/x/365daysofastronomy/product/sponsor-an-episode-of-365-days-of-astronomy/
Transcript:
Rather than provide a complete transcript, we’re sharing links for further reading for the topics or names you’ve heard in today’s episode: “Interstellar”.
Dr. Jamie S. Rankin: https://spacephysics.princeton.edu/people/jamie-s-rankin-phd
IBEX (NASA mission site): https://science.nasa.gov/mission/ibex includes a youtube video of IBEX discoveries
NASA article on IBEX ribbon (Feb 2016): https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ibex/nasas-ibex-observations-pin-down-interstellar-magnetic-field/
includes graphic of ribbon (a narrow region of energetic neutral atoms)
Princeton Univ’s IBEX site: https://ibex.princeton.edu/
includes information on the IBEX Education & Public Outreach Program!
and see https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/06/11/nasas-ibex-charts-11-years-change-boundary-interstellar-space
NASA: Studying the Edge of the Sun’s Magnetic Bubble (Oct 2021):
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ibex/studying-the-edge-of-the-suns-magnetic-bubble/
excellent article that defines terms, discusses Voyagers and IBEX, and includes great graphics
IMAP (Princeton website): https://imap.princeton.edu/
IMAP Updates: https://imap.princeton.edu/news/mission-updates
IMAP Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imapspacemission/
IMAP facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IMAPSpaceMission
Carruthers Geocorona Observatory: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/carruthers-geocorona-observatory/
NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 (SWFO): https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/future-programs/swfo/space-weather-follow-l1-mission
Parker Solar Probe: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/parker-solar-probe/
Coronal Mass Ejections: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/coronal-mass-ejections
and https://earthsky.org/sun/is-a-solar-flare-the-same-thing-as-a-cme/
Carrington Event of 1859: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
and https://www.space.com/the-carrington-event
and https://www.planetary.org/articles/should-you-be-worried-about-solar-storms
NASA-JPL’s video ‘ringing of space’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIAZWb9_si4
Voyager 1’s Communication Solved: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth/
NASA-JPL video (49:24) Fixing Voyager: How NASA Restored Communications with Voyager 1 From Across the Solar System:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpA8NBzzy00
descriptive text “After more than four and a half decades exploring our solar system and beyond, Voyager 1 has had a challenging year. In November 2023, the spacecraft suddenly and unexpectedly stopped sending scientific and engineering data back to Earth, beginning a months-long process to diagnose and problem-solve with a spacecraft billions of miles away and built on systems designed in the 1970s.
Join us for a live talk to learn how the Voyager team at JPL – both current and retired – used an impressive combination of modern and past resources, detective work, trial and error, and decades of experience to solve the problem.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft ever to operate outside the heliosphere and continue to provide valuable scientific data from interstellar space.
Speakers: Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager (NASA JPL) and Dr. Linda Spilker (Voyager project scientist, NASA JPL).
Host: Gregory Smith, communications and education directorate, NASA JPL; Co-host: Calla Cofield, media relations specialist, NASA JPL
(Original Air Date: Nov. 21, 2024)
Saving Voyager-The Pale Blue Dot Legacy with Dr. Linda Spilker (Feb 2025):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmsfHRKtBoU#ddg-play
In this episode of ‘Event Horizon’ Dr. Spilker explains how NASA-JPL restored communication with Voyager 1, and they talk about the 35th anniversary of the Pale Blue Dot image.
Interstellar space: What is it and where does it begin? (space.com, Sept 2023):
https://www.space.com/interstellar-space-definition-explanation
Oort Cloud: https://phys.org/news/2015-08-oort-cloud.html
has a really nice graphic (on a logarithmic scale)
Kuiper Belt: https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/
and this link includes info on the person for whom this region of space is named
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/10-things-to-know-about-the-kuiper-belt/
The Interstellar Medium: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/internal_resources/3569/
This graphic, with a logarithmic size and distance scale, depicts our solar system within the ever larger interstellar medium. It’s supposed to be associated with this website (but I’m not sure): https://science.nasa.gov/missions/voyager-program/10-things-going-interstellar/
Universe Today ‘How Big is the Solar System?’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLKtG6sy13o&t=5s
Voyager Mission Status: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-voyager-1-and-voyager-2-now/
Scroll down on this webpage, and there’s a Table listing all instruments on the two spacecraft, including the dates when instruments were turned off or stopped working.
At the top of this page is a table showing real-time elapsed-mission-time and the distance each spacecraft has traveled (from Earth and from the Sun) – during the Spring (around March-ish), the distance from Earth decreases for a bit before increasing again; this is normal because as Earth orbits the Sun annually it moves closer to, then away from, (relatively) the spacecraft.
A New Plan for Keeping NASA’s Oldest Explorers Going (Jul 2019):
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/a-new-plan-for-keeping-nasas-oldest-explorers-going/
NASA’s Voyager Will Do More Science with New Power Supply (Apr 2023):
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-voyager-will-do-more-science-with-new-power-strategy/
NASA Turns Off 2 Voyager Science Instruments to Extend Mission (March 2025):
https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2025/03/05/nasa-turns-off-2-voyager-science-instruments-to-extend-mission/
Heliosphere (NASA site): https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/components-of-heliosphere/
This webpage has an absolutely delightful poster of the heliosphere, including an IBEX image of the boundary ribbon.
First-Ever 3D Map of Our Solar System’s Heliosphere (June 2021):
https://www.sciencealert.com/for-the-first-time-astronomers-have-mapped-the-boundary-of-the-heliosphere
The initial image shown in this article depicts our system’s bubble as more of a croissant; however, ten years’ of IBEX data supports the single-tailed bullet shape.
Heliophysics Science Division: https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/670/aboutheliophysics.html
NASA’s Voyager HOME page: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager
Voyager Mission Overview: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/mission-overview/
Voyager as seen in NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System:
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_voyager_1
This page is a real treat! You can ‘see’ the spacecraft’s location in real time, or you can move it backwards to watch its travels since 1977, and so much more.
podcast music: “Frost Waltz” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under creative commons: by attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
=====================
The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Planetary Science Institute. Audio post production by me, Richard Drumm, project management by Avivah Yamani, and hosting donated by libsyn.com. This content is released under a creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. Please share what you love but don’t sell what’s free.
This show is made possible thanks to the generous donations of people like you! Please consider supporting our show on Patreon.com/CosmoQuestX and get access to bonus content. Without your passion and contribution, we won’t be able to share the stories and inspire the worlds. We invite you to join our community of storytellers and share your voice with listeners worldwide.
As we wrap up today’s episode, we are looking forward to unravel more stories from the Universe. With every new discovery from ground-based and space-based observatories, and each milestone in space exploration, we come closer to understanding the cosmos and our place within it.
Until next time let the stars guide your curiosity