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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb here Right now, Mars

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Speaker 1: and Earth are dancing around the Sun for an event

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Speaker 1: that's formally called the Mars Solar conjunction. In simple terms,

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Speaker 1: it's a period when Mars and Earth are on opposite

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Speaker 1: sides of the Sun. So what's the big deal? For

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Speaker 1: roughly two weeks every two years, the solar conjunction takes place.

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Speaker 1: This year, it's happening between October two and October four.

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Speaker 1: During this time, the Sun obscures the two planets from

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Speaker 1: each other, essentially making Earth and Mars invisible to each other.

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Speaker 1: That means communication with NASA spacecraft on Mars is reduced

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Speaker 1: to a quiet chatter. But why no calms? Normally, the

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Speaker 1: Sun ejects hot ionized gas from its corona, which then

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Speaker 1: makes its way deep into space. It's not usually a problem,

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Speaker 1: but during solar conjunction, this gas can interfere with radio signals.

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Speaker 1: When engineers try to communicate with their spacecraft on and

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Speaker 1: above Mars, commands can be corrupted and result in unexpected

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Speaker 1: behavior from Mars's mission equipment. So a communication moratorium is

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Speaker 1: put in place, and during this mission controllers at NASA's

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Speaker 1: Jet Propulsion Lab turn off some instruments and collected store

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Speaker 1: data from the Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance orbiters, which in

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Speaker 1: turn accumulate data from the on surface Curiosity and Perseverance

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Speaker 1: rovers and Insight Lander, although those are stationary during this time.

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Speaker 1: Only the Odyssey orbiter will attempt to relay any data

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Speaker 1: to Earth during the Solar conjunction, knowing that some info

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Speaker 1: will be lost. However, NASA will stop sending new instructions

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Speaker 1: to Mars during this time to avoid unexpected results from

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Speaker 1: misinterpreted signals. While NASA stopped sending new signals to its

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Speaker 1: spacecraft during the solar conjunction, control ers front load their

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Speaker 1: communications and send two weeks worth of messages in advance

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Speaker 1: to avoid the increased risk of radio interference. And it's

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Speaker 1: a rare opportunity for those working on these missions to

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Speaker 1: take time off, assuming there's no other projects needing their attention,

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Speaker 1: just like when you have your out of office message

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Speaker 1: on They'll check in after the Solar conjunction ends, and

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Speaker 1: when it's over, the spacecraft will send the data they've

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Speaker 1: collected to NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of massive

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Speaker 1: Earth based radio antenna managed by the JPL. Engineers will

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Speaker 1: spend about a week downloading the information before resuming normal

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Speaker 1: communication operations. If it's determined that any of the collected

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Speaker 1: data is corrupted, engineers can usually have that data retransmitted,

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Speaker 1: similar to your asking a colleague to re send a

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Speaker 1: lost or unreadable file, just from a lot further away.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article so We'll Go

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Speaker 1: Silent during the Mars Solar Conjunction on how staff works

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Speaker 1: dot Com, written by Shery's Cunningham. The Brain suffs production

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Speaker 1: of Our Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot

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Speaker 1: Com and it's produced by Tyler klang. Be four more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from My Heart Radio. Visit the heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.