Idaho Skies Transcript for October 30th and 31st

RACHEL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for October 30th and 31st. We’re your hosts, Rachel...

PAUL
...and Paul.

RACHEL
Hey, there’s a bright star below and to the right of the moon on the 30th.

PAUL
That star’s name is Fomalhaut and its 25 light years away.

RACHEL
Astronomers have discovered that Fomalhaut emits more infrared radiation than other stars like it.

PAUL
Turns out, that excess infrared is from a ring of dust surrounding the star.

RACHEL
Ring of dust? Well, that sounds an awful like the disk of dust and gas that stars form from.

PAUL
Exactly. Fomalhaut is so young that it’s still surrounded in its birth cocoon.

RACHEL
Even more interesting is that its dusty ring is forming planets.

PAUL
And one of those planets has been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

RACHEL
We said Fomalhaut is young, but what does young mean to a star?

PAUL
In Fomalhaut’s case, it means it’s only on the order of 300 million years old.

RACHEL
Three hundred million years ago, much of Earth was covered in forests that would eventually create most of our coal deposits.

PAUL
And life on Earth was mostly insects and amphibians.

RACHEL
I wonder if Fomalhaut will be around long enough for life on its planets to evolve into something similar.

PAUL
The problem is that stars having twice the mass of sun only live for 1.7 billion years before turning into a red giant.

RACHEL
When Earth was 1.7 billion years old, the only life on it was single cell in form.

PAUL
And none of it is believed to have inhabited the surface.

RACHEL
So poor Fomalhaut, none of its planetary lifeforms will ever be aware of this star.

PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the 30th and 31st of October.

RACHEL
Be sure to read our blog at idahoskies.blogspot.com for additional information.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel...

PAUL
...and Paul.

RACHEL
Dark skies and bright stars.