Probing Where the Sun Does Shine: A Holiday Special
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Radio Lab. From... WNYC. See? Yeah. Hey, I'm Latif Nasser, and this is Radio Lab. And... That's great. Amazing. Today... I've been looking forward to talking to you for so long. No, thank you. Thank you. It's really a pleasure to talk to you. We're doing something a little bit different, because this episode is coming out at the tail end of December 2024. Wow.

And so far this month, we have traced the kind of bogus origin story of Stockholm Syndrome. And our staff went in on a bit of a romp, fact-checking, a bunch of the old chestnuts, you know, the adages you hear all the time. So those were our two new episodes for this month. That's what we do. We make two new episodes a month.

We wanted to do a little something extra, a little sneaky holiday gift, a Christmas-ish offering, you could call it. It's actually two little Christmas-ish offerings, one from me, one from Lulu. They're similar, but also very different. And I'm going to start off with this story. This is the especially Christmassy one that I heard from this guy, Noor.

I am Noor Rawafi, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. And Noor is part of a project, actually a mission, that, I don't know, a few weeks ago, I didn't even think was physically possible. There are things, now I've been on this mission for 16 years, and there are certain aspects for me, the way they work is still like magic.

Okay, but if we back up all the way, like, how did you even get interested in all of this? So my interest in space was as a very young child. Nour is originally from Tunisia. Born in the countryside, and being in the countryside, there is no light pollution at all. So the sky is just, in particular in summertime, it's just mesmerizing. It's just captivating. And that's actually probably the first thing that got me interested into space, because

After that, my interest shifted a little bit on the sun, being really fascinated by it, how much heat in particular we get in the summer.

And they did all sorts of experiments. He says when he was a kid, he actually made his own light prism out of plexiglass. To create the rainbow spectrum from violet to red. He started playing with lenses. Focusing the sunlight. Some of them actually, they caused fire, but it's not really big fire at all. But still, the power of the sun...

was so fascinating to me. And Noor says that as he got older, he got interested in other fields. Fields like particle physics, like nuclear physics, like optics, quantum mechanics. He ends up going to study in France, starts working in the States at different observatories. But around 2008, he hears about this mission that NASA's working on. Put forth in 1958, many, many years before I was born.

That is so monumental. That is going to make history. That is going to make a first just in a few weeks from now. So, to explain, 2008, Noor starts working with NASA on this mission. And then, 2018, Noor and a team of NASA scientists launch this rocket.

Out into space. And being carried by that rocket was this... Couple meters wide. It almost looks like cone-shaped. So once it got into space, this little cone-shaped spacecraft detached from the rocket...

And Noor and his team fired it up and sent it to Venus. And kind of slowed the spacecraft a little bit down. So that the spacecraft would get caught in Venus's orbit. And then as it swung around Venus, they hit the jets. And it just went out toward the sun. Then around the sun. Then back to Venus. Where again, it goes whoosh.

slingshots around Venus, out around the sun, and back again, and again, and again. And as it's yo-yoing back and forth between Venus and the sun, it's getting faster and faster and faster. More than 430,000 miles per hour. Like that's just so fast you can't even comprehend it. Yes, it's the fastest human object flying in space.

And as it gets faster, that orbit around the sun and Venus, it gets tighter and tighter and tighter to the point that this little spacecraft will get so close to the sun that we will basically, for the first time ever, touch it. Nobody has ever done this. Nobody has ever gone so close to a star.

This is the mission, the mission that Noor became obsessed with, the mission that NASA spent decades developing. Generations who invested into this mission. To try and understand our sun. Because there are certain phenomena that happening on the sun or in the environment of the sun that are so puzzling that for decades now, we don't really have a full understanding of them.

For instance, Noor says, take the surface of the sun that we see with the naked eye. The temperature is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But, he says, if you move just a couple thousand miles away out from the sun, the temperature will jump to 2 million or 3 million degrees Fahrenheit. It's more. It's way, way, it's over 300 times hotter. So nobody knows why that is? No, no.

He said there's all these other mysteries as well, like solar wind or something called the dust-free zone. These mysteries about the sun, how the sun works. The hope is to solve some of these mysteries. Basically rewriting textbooks for us about the sun.

But, I mean, how could you possibly send something? And now what you're telling me is that not even touching the sun, but even further away from the sun, it's even hotter than the surface of the sun. So how can you get something even remotely close to that without it just melting into a puddle? The spacecraft, when you look at it in terms of technology,

It's really a marvel of technology. So, for instance, Noor says, NASA had spent decades trying to make a heat shield for a solar spacecraft. But the heat shield was so heavy. So basically, it's not really doable. You cannot do it. So what is the solution? The solution is...

You will be surprised. It's basically a piece of carbon foam. What? It's a piece of carbon foam. How? How does that work? This is not any carbon foam. This is a very sophisticated carbon foam. Okay, tell me about the sophisticated carbon foam. So the heat shield, it is 4.5 inch thick.

That's it? And basically all of it is a carbon foam. On top of it, we have also ceramic coating that is white to reflect as much light as possible. But that's the heat shield. Okay. And when we are closest to the sun, the heat shield side facing the sun will be glowing at more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, my God. You know, at that temperature, you can melt almost all metals we know of.

So the nice thing about this, that the backside of the heat shield, which is just four inch and a half thick, it will be at 700 degrees Fahrenheit. Huh. So way less. So in a way, in four inch and a half, we already lost 1800 degrees. Holy cow. About a yard or a meter behind that. Yeah. It is almost room temperature. No.

How does it do that? Well, that's actually the magic of engineering. And that's just the heat shield. Like the spacecraft also has solar panels to power it. But of course, if you get that close to the sun, those could like vaporize. So they develop these like radiator pipes that go on the back of the solar panels. Can you guess what is the liquid we use to cool the solar panels? Like liquid nitrogen or something.

It's simply water. Water? And it's just a gallon of water. They also angled all the solar panels so they could be like in the shadows of the spacecraft so they also don't overheat. I mean, it's really, it's just wild. Every piece of it is basically edge-cutting technology. And so on November 6th, this little spacecraft full of edge-cutting technology and sophisticated carbon foam and a gallon of water...

rounded Venus and began its nearly 67 million mile journey to the sun. And on December 24, 2024, which is the Christmas Eve, will be this historical moment where for the first time ever, we will basically reach out and touch a star. We will be basically embracing a star. To me, that's like magic.

So that's the quick conversation I had with Noor. And why I was so excited to play it for you now is that I really have this image in my mind of you, the listener,

Just sometime over the holiday, you'll be doing something holiday related, like maybe lighting a candle or gathering with friends around a fire or even just like microwaving your mom's leftovers. It'll be a heat related thing. And then, boom, it'll just hit you that at that very moment, up in the firmament, this little probe is moving faster than anything.

any human-made object has ever moved, putting itself, and by proxy all of us, closer to the sun than we have ever been before.

That's what I hope happens. I plan on checking back with Noor at some point in the new year to hear how everything went down, what he and his team learned. And that is exactly the kind of bonus update that we like to put in our lab member feed. So if you're already a member of the lab, keep your eyes peeled for that. If you are not a member, that is the best way to...

To help us do the things we love to do. Like dig up buried archival tape. Like when we did that for the NYPD psychologist who literally coined the term Stockholm Syndrome. Or, you know, when we like to go out and add a live dimension to a historical story. Like when we cooked up

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are vital.

If you are not a member, well, just know that joining the lab is the best way to make sure that we can keep reliably bringing you deeply researched, carefully produced, rigorously fact-checked, edge-cutting radio journalism. So consider going to radiolab.org slash join and becoming a lab member today. If you already are a member, we just did introduce a new premium level that you could join. It also makes a great holiday gift. Uh,

radiolab.org join. As a member, you get extra content, ad-free listening, all kinds of extra little benefits. And we are actually, this month, as a reward for joining, we're giving out this very cool poster, which comes from an episode of our sibling show, Terrestrials, hosted by Lulu Miller. And after we come back from a short break, we're going to play a little bit from the episode that inspired the poster, where Lulu, kind of like myself...

also became very, very obsessed about a tiny little spacecraft that in her case was heading out in the opposite direction, saddled with a little less edge-cutting technology, but carrying a much more emotional payload. And that's after the break. This year, at both Radiolab and our family-friendly spinoff, Terrestrials, we've spent a lot of time up in the heavens.

We've named quasi-moons. We've pondered the poetry being sent into space. In general, we spent 2024 marveling at the expanse that surrounds our planet. But as the year ends, we're coming back down to Earth. We have a whole host of stories cooking for you all, but we need your help to keep it all going. We're a public radio show, and because of that, we rely on the generosity of our listeners, that's you, to keep this show afloat.

If you join our membership program, The Lab, you will get members-only content, swag, and an incredibly beautiful poster of one of the most beautiful pieces of episode art we've made this year. If the holiday spirit really has a hold of you, if you're feeling extra generous, we have a new ultra-premium tier of The Lab called Whale Sharks.

Anyone joining at this tier will get a special thank you in an upcoming episode. To learn more, check out the poster or other details. Go to radiolab.org slash join. That's radiolab.org slash join. And thanks.

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Latif, Radiolab. So we're now leaving behind the spacecraft that was going to the sun and turning to a spacecraft going out the opposite direction to Jupiter, in particular to Europa. One of Jupiter's moons that has an ocean of water is a possible other place in our solar system that can sustain life.

Now, again, this was a story that was part of our Kids and Family podcast, Terrestrials, hosted by Lulu Miller, my co-host. This spacecraft that this episode is about, it launched just recently in October 2024. And the reason why Lulu became obsessed with it is because on the side of the spacecraft, there was going to be a poem etched into it. And tasked with writing that poem, this message to represent all of us here on Earth, was

was U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon. But she was stuck. Like, real stuck. Terrified. So we resume with the tale of what she did to move through that. Well, I had about three months to write the poem, and I was going to Hawaii to a town, I'm not kidding, named Haiku. Haiku.

And I was staying in the house of a former U.S. Poet Laureate, W.S. Merwin. And so my husband and I went there. It's inside an incredible palm forest. All of these beautiful different varieties of palm trees. And so I got to watch all of the different species of birds and all the geckos inside and outside the house. And I had this real space inside.

to think and sit with the idea of what I wanted to offer. And so I began writing the poem. I was trying to imagine the audience being sort of out in space, right? Whether there were other beings out there, whether the audience was the stars themselves. I kept imagining a loneliness. And I would read a draft to my husband, and he would say,

You know, I think you need to stop writing a NASA poem. What do you think your husband heard when he said that? I think he was hearing maybe more of a scientific approach, more stiff and formal type of writing, maybe more of following the assignment, thinking of it as presenting facts about Europa.

poets have one really beautiful way of procrastinating. And let me tell you about it. What we love to do is research. And it means that instead of writing the poem, I think, you know what, I'm going to go Google everything about this moon of Jupiter. And it's a wonderful distraction and it's a great way of learning.

But it often doesn't actually help you make the poem. But it is our way of just not writing. So I think that that's part of what I was doing, was thinking, oh, I'm going to teach people about Europa. And that's what he was hearing. And so what I needed to shift was, oh, no, I need to speak to Europa and have this be a reaching out poem.

Was there anything that like a bird or a tree or a moment that led you down the right path or the rabbit hole that would then turn into the more us poem? I don't know. There might not be, but was there – do you have anything in your head? Yeah. Yeah.

I was in Hawaii and I was staring at this palm frond and the palms really move. They sort of glow and move. They have a bounciness to them in the wind. And there was a little gecko.

that was stuck on the underside. It was completely upside down and he was hanging on this palm frond. And I thought, how amazing that little dude is just, you know, bouncing in the wind back and forth. And I thought of the line, "We too are made of wonders." "We too," meaning like both Europa and Earth are made of wonders? Yeah. That's where the poem shifted.

Then I realized that really the audience was us here on this beautiful planet. And it includes everyone on Earth. And it also includes plants and animals. So it needed to be from all of us to all of us. And the I, me, Ada, had to be taken out of it.

And that's where the poem really reached momentum where I could follow it through. But I think that what I struggled with the most was how to use a we. To be honest, I am someone that's always been a little suspicious of a we. You know, as a Latina, as a woman, there are times where I even think of we the people and I think, am I included in that we? Yeah.

I want to know if I'm included in that we. And that, of course, is from our constitution. Exactly. And so I think that as a poet, I often don't use we. And so I think the most difficult thing I had to do was actually surrender to the we and remember that the we had to represent everybody and to try to include trees and animals and plants. ♪

And so I had to really release that idea of the I and make room for my most communal voice. And that was where the poem took hold, really took hold. That poem is now engraved into the spacecraft. And Ada's words are literally touching the cold of space, collecting stardust as they blast toward Jupiter's moon. She did it.

She found a way to write a message from all of us here in this water world to Jupiter's water world in under 200 words. All right, well, would you be up for reading it? I would be honored. In Praise of Mystery, a poem for Europa.

Arching under the night sky, inky with black expansiveness, we point to the planets we know. We pin quick wishes on stars. From Earth we read the sky as if it is an unerring book of the universe, expert and evident. Still, there are mysteries below our sky.

the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bow of a wind-shaken tree. We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow. And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space.

but the offering of water. Each drop of rain, each rivulet, each pulse, each vein. Oh, second moon, we too are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas. We too are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small, invisible worlds, of a need to call out through the dark.

Do you feel like a part of you is going to space? I do. I do feel like a part of me is going to space. And because I made the poem and the line breaks and the stanza breaks, that you have my own breath in it. The way that I read it, the way that I, you know, made the poem. And so in some ways it is my little human breath is going to

So like I said earlier, we made a poster inspired by this episode of Terrestrials. It is beautiful. You can check it out on our website or on Instagram. And it can be yours if you go to radiolab.org slash join and become a lab member. Like I said, lab members are a critical part of how we fund the show, how we get to do the work that we do. So please considering if you haven't already subscribed.

joining. You get all sorts of stuff, bonus content, ad-free episodes, this amazing poster. If you are already a member, a small additional one-time gift will also get you the poster. Now, whether you are a Lab member or are about to become one, or...

you know, whatever. You can't afford to do it this time of year. I want to tell you about one more way that you can sort of join our little party here at no cost to you. Because as some of you might know, we are in the last week of our global contest to name one of Earth's quasi-moons, a little rocky buddy that'll be with us for the next 600 laps around the sun. We partnered with the official namers of things in space, the International Astronomical Union, and we solicited...

thousands of names from nearly 100 countries. We winnowed them down to seven finalists. And now, for the next week only, you get to choose the one you like best. The name with the most votes will be the official name for this thing in space that will outlive us all. Vote for the name you like best at Radiolab.org slash moon. But for the end of the year, that's Radiolab.org slash moon. It'll take two minutes, and you can say you made your mark in the heavens.

Our little solar probe journey, by the way, was produced and sound designed by Matt Kilty. And of course, the bit of terrestrials you just heard was produced by the terrestrials team, Ana Gonzalez, Mira Burtwin-Tonick, and Lulu Miller, with help from Tanya Chawla, Alan Kofinsky, Sarah Sandbeck, Valentina Powers, and Joe Plord. Fact-checking by Natalie Middleton. You can hear that whole episode of terrestrials, which is...

packed full of just gorgeous spacey stuff about Europa and not to mention questions being asked by adorable children. You can hear that whole episode. It is called An Ocean in Space over on our kids feed at terrestrialspodcast.org.

That's it for today. That's it for this year. So I will see you in 2025 when we will be diving into the darkest place on the planet. We will be getting high huffing apples and we will be untangling quantum entanglement inside a bird's eyeball. Something to look forward to. Yeah. Happy holidays. Thanks for listening. Catch you next time.

Hey, I'm Lemon, and I'm from Richmond, Indiana, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasir are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Pressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, and

Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton.

Hi, my name is Teresa. I'm calling from Colchester in Essex, UK. Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, the Seymans Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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