China has built a new supersonic airliner.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning with us is Steve Kates, otherwise known as Doctor Sky, and he tells us a lot of interesting things on Sunday morning. So when we look up in the skies, at least maybe we know what we’re looking at. Well, Steve, I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving and it’s Sunday morning.

0:19 Did you finish the whole tucky yet?

0:22 Speaker 2 Well, we’ve still got a lot left, John, and good morning, and happy holidays and Merry Christmas. Isn’t that coming quickly? We have so much to talk about here, but we begin John with a brief analysis. You and I have always talked about the moon. What do we know about what’s inside the moon? So here’s some news. Geologists have

0:40 now determined through seismic activity that we measure on the moon. Remember the Apollo spacecraft left a little seismometer, but we have more sophisticated things today, that the Moon has a solid metal cor John, one hundred and sixty miles in diameter.

0:54 They say, unfortunately the moon has lost its magnetic field. But there’s ill the open conversation about hollowness maybe in some parts of the moon. No, I don’t mean like the size of the Grand Canyon.

1:07 Speaker 3 But who knows.

1:08 Speaker 2 Isn’t that interesting We’re talking about Earth’s nearest neighbor. It has a solid iron core one hundred and sixty miles in diameter.

1:16 Speaker 3 Boy, that must be pretty incredible down there.

1:18 Speaker 1 Well, it must be. I remember seeing the movie.

1:22 Speaker 2 What was the movie?

1:23 Speaker 1 The movie we saw about a year ago or two ago, but the Moon was hollow and the aliens had a basin inside the Moon.

1:31 Speaker 2 Yeah, and I forget I think it was Moonscape or something like that. I should know better, But it was a really good movie. Yeah, it was good for the sci fi stuff. But isn’t that amazing that we’re finding out that the Moon. We cannot discount that there are these regions on the Moon that maybe have you know,

1:48 more hollowness to them. As the Apollo astronauts when they went around the Moon, they noticed that there was a deviation when they put the spacecraft on autopilot, and they called the changes in the gravity on the surface of the Moon mas cons. So there still are untold and unknown things on the Moon. But John, if we come

2:07 back to the Earth, here here’s another weird one. We’re finding out now that the Earth’s tilt of its axis, so it’s actually shifted by thirty one and a half inches. Now, that may not steam like a lot, but it’s because they believe the pumping of too much groundwater on the Earth. Though, isn’t that amazing Mother Earth? Maybe funded by us pumping

2:27 too much water?

2:29 Speaker 1 Well, either that of pumping too much fracking of oil.

2:33 Speaker 3 There you go, could very well be.

2:35 Speaker 1 We don’t really know. I mean, the Earth is a living entity that makes adjustments all the time. And I’ve said that many times, and I think it’s true.

2:47 Speaker 2 You say it, so, well, let’s go to China and talk about something new, John, there’s a new Chinese space plane.

2:54 Speaker 3 How about that?

2:54 Speaker 2 They have one up there already, but there’s a new one pulled, the Kuan Tiangho. Heck does that mean? Well, it’s a space plane that allegedly can take off from the ground go to space land again. And they also have this design that they’ve built a supersonic type of aircraft for passenger travel. But here’s the story they’ve copied.

3:15 If you look at the designs, job one of the fastest American aircraft. And I’ve known some of these pilots who’ve flowned the Maybu two the great Lockheed Sr. Seventy one Blackbird. If you look at their new space plane, John, it looks like an exact copy. Is if they put it in one of those little baking ovens and created

3:32 a whole new thing based out of a whole old thing. So it’s amazing how much they copy our designs, at least from the shape and appearance.

3:40 Speaker 3 That’s amazing stuff.

3:41 Speaker 1 Steve Kate said, do that all the time. The Chinese are very famous book copying everything in almost every industry.

3:50 Speaker 2 Absolutely, And we wonder how this space plane will operate. We don’t know if it’s really up in space yet. But John, we always talk about the mystery of the week. How about this one as we talk about the holidays, the mystery as we get into December of the Christmas Star?

4:04 What was it that herald in the Birth of Christ the King. Well, we find a super giant star, John, that has a funny name called Beetlejuice. Not like the movie with Michael Keaton. It rises in our skies that people look into the east by around eleven PM and it’s a giant star, an old star five hundred light

4:22 years away. But many are saying it’s long overdue to blow and become a super nova.

4:27 Speaker 1 And if that did.

4:28 Speaker 2 Happen, John, we’re in the safe zone five hundred light years away. We’re not going to be affected, but it would be effectively as bright as maybe a quarter moon in the sky for maybe upwards of the year in our skies. So that’s something incredible. The path, the evolutionary path of stars when they go from normal to old

4:47 age and then they collapse and explode. So beetlejuice is on the radar. You never know when it’ll happen.

4:53 Speaker 1 Well, billion here, year, billion years here, billion years there, You never know.

4:58 Speaker 3 You know that’s true.

5:01 Speaker 1 It is you have to have that attitude because we are a little drop in the ocean when it comes to time of the universe.

5:13 Speaker 2 Yes, and John, as Carl Sagan called it, we live on the pale blue dot. And people always say it. I know, I agree, and I know you would. Why the heck can’t we all just get along seven and a half billion zols on this little spect of solar driftwood.

5:27 But that gets into the philosophy. So to wrap it up in the live sky, these are things people can see as you herald in the season of Christmas, in the holidays. What’s the likability of maybe what the star of Bethlehem was. If you look in the southwest at sunset Venus the brightest planet in the sky Jupiter bright

5:44 and in the northeast, they can’t miss it. The mystery goes on. Learn more The Doctor Sky Experienced where WABC Radio dot com where we talk about everything from astronomy, space, aviation, and weather and stories like you always talk about American optionalism.

6:01 Happy holidays, great time.

6:02 Speaker 1 To be with Steve Kates, Doctor Sky. Thank you so much. And right now, how many weeks the Christmas? Maybe four? Maybe three?

6:12 Speaker 3 It’s amazing, Yeah, three weeks. Actually, there you go.

6:14 Speaker 1 It’s getting Thank you so much, and God bless America and let’s have a great new year.

6:23 Speaker 3 Absolutely, John, thank you for having me.