Russian satellite explodes in space. A lot of debris.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is this Sunday morning? Is Steve Kates, otherwise known as Doctor Sky, and he entertains us every Sunday morning by expanding on mind. And so many things are happening, Well, Steve Kate’s long Fourth of July weekend? What the heck is going on that? When I look up in the sky?

0:18 What am I going to see?

0:20 Speaker 2 Oh? John, Well, I hope everybody listening had a great Fourth of July as America celebrates. Of course it’s two hundred and forty eighth birthday. But John, this is interesting. We talk about the heat of summer, and how about the story of the dog days of summer? And we all know with summer here hot, humid, sultry days. Where

0:39 does the term the dog days of summer actually come from? Well, if we go back to Latin, the term is called dance canicularis Earth language translates into the days of the dog star. And it actually started in early July to mid August. And why is and what is all this about? Well, the brightest star in the heavens, John, is other than

1:00 the sun, and at this time of year, toward the end of July, serious rises with the sun and the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks and Romans basically looked at this as a measure of time on the calendar. The Egyptian goddess who was called Stoptet, and the Greeks of course had a goddess known as Sothos. So we find

1:20 out that this particular time of year the significance of the dog days of summer. But the reminder, obviously is to make sure everybody hydrates that animals and people and enjoy this particular time of year. But make sure that you hydrate interesting stuff, don’t you think yes?

1:37 Speaker 1 And any updates what’s going on with the Boeing Stalin.

1:41 Speaker 2 Well, John, here’s the scoop on that the people of course at Boeing are working very hard to fix what they call the big thruster issues that are on this spacecraft and many of those thrusters. They had a problem with the helium leaks that continue when they tried to dock with the space station. So here’s the latest schedule

2:00 to return anytime soon. But they held a press conference just a few days ago which clarifies this. They’re not stranded in space, so, in other words, if they actually had to leave, if something happened to the space station.

2:12 They could actually deploy on the Soyuz spacecraft, but they could also actually depart with this particular Boeing Starliner. They’ve got issues, of course to work out on the many trusters and helium links, so they could be up there for another couple of weeks, if not more, and it’ll mark one month as of July the fifth. Interesting, it

2:34 doesn’t sound good.

2:36 Speaker 1 Do they have enough food?

2:38 Speaker 2 Oh? Sure, there’s plenty of food in the ISS, but the quarters up there are pretty crowded. I mean, now we have a maximum almost maximum amount of people on board the International Space Station. But there’s something else, John that happened in space that people need to hear about.

2:53 And a Russian satellite it broke up in orbit. Now this is strange. It was called the research P one Russian space a few weeks ago it exploded or it blew up. So one hundred pieces are in orbit, sailing through the orbital plane, not exactly where the International Space Station is. But they had a shelter in place for

3:12 a while because there’s about one hundred pieces of space debris. The orbit of that Russian spacecraft is two hundred and twenty miles above the Earth Space station is about two sixty. But here’s the problem we’ve talked about here, this particular problem on your show, The Cats Round Table for a long time. Space obviously in lower th orbit, John is

3:31 getting so crowded. There’s a phenomenon that an astrophysicist and an aerospace engineer called the cat syndrome. What’s that? He said, Well, when we have one object that breaks up, those pieces hit another object and it’s just like a bunch of billiard balls on a table. One smacks the other and then they all move around. So hopefully in the near future,

3:52 if not sooner, we might be able to do something to help us get rid of space in lower th orbit debris. It’s too much up there.

4:00 Speaker 1 You really talked about it. You need a sanitation department to pick up that crack, Absolutely, John, What else do we have for this Sunday morning?

4:10 Speaker 2 Well down the mystery of the week, we talk about something. Now we’re talking about a massive hurricane down in the Caribbean called Barrel. Surprisingly, it reached category five and now maybe downgraded to four headed to the Caribbean towards the Yucatan.

4:25 But let’s look at Jupiter. The largest tune in the Solar System. John has one of the largest anti cyclones in the entire Solar system, one and a half times the size of the Earth, and it spins counterclockwise on Jupiter, and nobody understands why it’s there. Them say, it comes and goes over a period of maybe seventy or eighty years,

4:44 maybe more time and space. But what’s interesting about that is the giant storm, which rotates counterclockwise, turns every four and a half days. If you compare it to the size of the Earth. Well, John, Earth hurricanes are massive than typhoons, but what lies on Jupiter is even more fascinating, and it certainly buggles the mind on this giant and

5:07 gas giant which actually controls much of the motion of the other planets of the Solar System. How about that pretty powerful stuff out.

5:14 Speaker 1 That anything new on Mars or the Moon.

5:18 Speaker 2 Well, we have something that people can actually see, John, and I recommend this if you look to the skies wherever you’re listening to the Cats Round Table this coming Saturday night on the thirteenth of July, East coast viewers, by around just before ten pm, we’ll see the left edge, or the dark area of the moon, and your eyes

5:36 are not playing tricks on you. There’ll be a star hanging right to the edge of the moon. It’s called Speaker in Virgo. Well, if you keep watching, you’ll notice, maybe in binoculars with a naked eye, that particular star will become eclipsed by the moon. They call it an occultation.

5:52 It’s rather rare. Just convert those times of course ten pm Eastern and of course in the Western time zone it may be about dusk. That’s a rare event in the sky. We recommend everyone check out the Doctor Sky Experience for great information as you tell us and everybody else does on astronomy, space, aviation, and weather, and of

6:11 course John interlaces, as we remove ourselves temporarily from the problems on the Earth, we talk about American exceptionalism and proud to do it here on talk radio seventy seven WABC.

6:23 Speaker 1 Steve against have a great footagely weekend, and we’ll catch up with you again soon.

6:29 Speaker 2 Thank you, John. Thanks j