How to build your own radio telescope!. In this episode, Louisa talks to Dr. Danny Jacobs about radio cosmology and the physical challenges that face building and operating radio telescopes today. In October’s Jodbite, Honor and Phoebe talk about their masters projects, and it’s all things lunar with back-to-back moon news.

The News

Our Moon to be joined by a mini moon this month!

A small asteroid has been found that is headed our way. Luckily it’s not on a collision course, but it has been recently found that it will make an orbit of the Earth. As the asteroid approaches the Earth, it will get close enough to become bound by the Earth’s gravity for about a month. This is a rare phenomena as it requires the incoming asteroid to approach close enough that it becomes influenced by Earth’s gravity, but not too close that it comes crashing down. This is not our moon’s first friend though, it has been joined in its orbit by asteroids before for example in 2006 and 2020.

This asteroid was first discovered in August by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) and has been found to be on its way to becoming a mini moon by a pair of researchers at the Complutense University of Madrid.It was found to be 10 metres across, and by pairing this knowledge with its speed and path researchers were able to calculate its path over the next few months. They found it will circle the earth once, taking 53 days, starting about now and leaving in mid November to continue its journey through the solar system. They also believe that it will return in 2055. Its orbital dynamics suggest that it most likely came from the Apollo asteroid region, which is a collection of asteroids located near the earth.

Volcano on the Moon:

New data from the moon has come out to show that the moon was volcanically active in its past. From a sample of 3000 glass beads recovered from the moon during Chang’s e-5 lunar mission, a team at the Chinese Academy of Science have discovered 3 beads that are thought to be of volcanic origin. Using radioisotope dating, which involved measuring the Uranium-Lead isotopic content of the beads, using secondary ion mass spectrometry, most of the beads were spheroidal or elliptical in shape, largely with smooth edges, A couple of beads had rough splits, possibly from impact breakages. Any that weren’t spheroidal or elliptical were of more irregular shape, such as teardrop. The colours of the beads also varied, but most of them were black, with some being orange, green or colourless. The beads show a volcanic past to our neighbour the moon, occurring at around 123 million years ago. The team found this to align with remote sending observation of young volcanic activity on the moon. The beads have high proportions of KREEP, which is an acronym standing for the high potassium (K), rare earth elements (REE) and phosphorus (P) in the magma. These KREEP materials potentially originate from the crystallisation of the last liquid of a magma ocean on the lunar surface, or from a concentration of evolved basaltic magma.The timing of the volcanic activity does raise further questions, which are still unanswered. One such question involves the lithosphere, the outermost rocky surface of the moon's layer. How was the moon active during this time, when the interior cooling and thickening of the lithosphere, would have made it unlikely that volcanic activity could occur.

Interview with Dr Danny Jacobs

Louisa and Dr Danny Jacobs from Arizona State University discuss his involvement in the development of the HERA array in South Africa, difficulties dealing with radio interference and other telescopes he is involved in. Together, they go over various possibilities and challenges in conducting observations, using very different telescopes from ground-based observatories to cube satellites that fit in your hand.

Jodbite with Honor & Phoebe

Since it is Honor & Phoebe’s last episode as Masters students, they talk to us about what they have been working on this year! Honor has been researching quiescent galaxies using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), understanding how these high-redshift galaxies evolve. Phoebe has been working with the POSSOM project into Faraday rotation by extragalactic sources along the Galactic Plane. Both incredible research projects!

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Interview : Dr Danny Jacobs and Louisa Mason
Night Sky : Phoebe Ryder and Honor Harris
Presenters : Phoebe Ryder and Honor Harris
Editors : Jessy Marin and Louisa Mason
Segment Voice : Lily Correa Magnus
Website : Lily Correa Magnus & George Bendo
Producer : Lily Correa Magnus
Cover Art : Photograph of the HERA (Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array) radio telescope dedicated to observing large scale structure during and prior to the epoch of reionization. CREDIT:Credit:South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).