Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna and
Speaker 1: I'm Avery.
Speaker 2: It's Friday, February the twentieth, twenty twenty six, and our
Speaker 2: producer has absolutely loaded us up. Today. We've got eight
Speaker 2: stories to get through.
Speaker 1: Eight, that's right, and honestly, they're all worth it. We've
Speaker 1: got huge breaking news from the Kennedy Space Center about
Speaker 1: Artemis two, a genuinely damning report that NASA itself has
Speaker 1: described as we failed them, some absolutely mind bending deep
Speaker 1: space discoveries. And yes, we are going to briefly talk
Speaker 1: about UFOs.
Speaker 2: We absolutely are, just briefly and responsibly.
Speaker 1: Responsibly that is the word. Right, let's dive in. There
Speaker 1: is a lot of ground to cover.
Speaker 2: I think this might be the biggest episode we've ever done,
Speaker 2: but there's plenty to cover today.
Speaker 1: We are going to start with the biggest space story
Speaker 1: of the week, and it's one that broke overnight. DASA
Speaker 1: has just completed its second wet dress rehearsal of the
Speaker 1: Artemis two Space launch System rocket, and from everything we're hearing,
Speaker 1: it went well.
Speaker 2: Really well. Actually, teams ran the SLS through a full countdown,
Speaker 2: fueling the rocket with its super cold liquid hydrogen and
Speaker 2: liquid oxygen, simulating launch day procedures right down to closing
Speaker 2: the orion crue caudal hatch, and they got all the
Speaker 2: way to T minus twenty nine seconds before wrapping up.
Speaker 2: That is exactly where they wanted to stop.
Speaker 1: And this matters enormously because the first wet dress rehearsal
Speaker 1: back on February second and third had to be called
Speaker 1: off early due to hydrogen fuel leaks at launch Pad
Speaker 1: thirty nine B. That was a setback. NASA had to
Speaker 1: go in and replace seals and there was very real
Speaker 1: uncertainty about whether they'd solve the problem.
Speaker 2: And it looks like they have. NASA is holding a
Speaker 2: media briefing this morning eleven am Eastern, and we'll be
Speaker 2: watching that closely, but the early word is positive.
Speaker 1: So for anyone who needs refresher on what this mission
Speaker 1: actually is, Artemis two is the first crude flight of
Speaker 1: the Artemis program. It's not a moon landing that comes
Speaker 1: later with Artemis three, but it is the first time
Speaker 1: humans will travel to lunar distance since Apollo seventeen in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. We are talking more than fifty years
Speaker 1: and the.
Speaker 2: Crew is Commander Read Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist
Speaker 2: Christina cock All NASA, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from
Speaker 2: the Canadian Space Agency. They're going to fly around the
Speaker 2: Moon in a free return trajectory and come home ten days.
Speaker 2: No landing, but an absolutely historic journey.
Speaker 1: And if this morning's press conference gives the all clear,
Speaker 1: the launch window we're looking at is as early as
Speaker 1: March sixth, That is just two weeks away. Avery, What
Speaker 1: does that feel like to you?
Speaker 2: Honestly, it feels surreal. We've been living in the Artemis
Speaker 2: era for years now. Artemis ie flew in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and it's been a long road to get here. But
Speaker 2: two weeks from now there could be four astronauts on
Speaker 2: their way to the Moon.
Speaker 1: We will have full coverage as things develop, and if
Speaker 1: that briefing produces any surprises, we'll update you in tomorrow's episode.
Speaker 1: For now, though, looking very good for Artemis three now.
Speaker 2: While NASA is very much in celebratory mode for this morning,
Speaker 2: yesterday they were facing a very different kind of news day.
Speaker 2: An independent review board release its full report into the
Speaker 2: Boeing Starliner crude flight test, and it is a damning document.
Speaker 1: Damning is the word. The report formally classifies the Starliner
Speaker 1: mission as a quote type A mishap, the most serious
Speaker 1: category in NASA's safety framework. That means it was an
Speaker 1: event that could have resulted in death or permanent disability.
Speaker 1: And NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stood up in front of
Speaker 1: the cameras yesterday and said, and I'm paraphrasing here, we
Speaker 1: almost did have a really terrible day.
Speaker 2: We failed them, them being astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams,
Speaker 2: who launched in June twenty twenty four expecting to be
Speaker 2: gone for eight to ten days and ended up spending
Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty six days in orbit.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's just remind listeners how we got here.
Speaker 1: Boeing won a four point two billion dollar contract from
Speaker 1: NASA back in twenty fourteen to build the Starliner as
Speaker 1: a second commercial crew vehicle alongside SpaceX's Crew Dragon. Starliner
Speaker 1: ran into problems on its very first uncrewed test flight
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, needed a second unpiloted flight before it
Speaker 1: was deemed ready, and Butch and Sunny finally launched in
Speaker 1: June of last year.
Speaker 2: The trip up went ok. They docked successfully with the
Speaker 2: International Space Station, but during the rendezvous approach, the capsule
Speaker 2: experienced multiple helium leagues in the propulsion system and several
Speaker 2: of the maneuvering prusters failed. There was a moment where
Speaker 2: they temporarily lost with a report calls six degrees of
Speaker 2: freedom control. Had things gone differently in those minutes, had
Speaker 2: the thrusters not recovered, docking might not have been possible.
Speaker 1: And what's really chilling about reading the report is discovering
Speaker 1: just how many warning signs were there. The investigation found
Speaker 1: that NASA and Boeing were aware of concerns that weren't
Speaker 1: fully understood, but were considered acceptable for flight anyway. There
Speaker 1: was pressure, institutional pressure to make this mission succeed because
Speaker 1: the entire commercial crew program's credibility depended on having two
Speaker 1: viable crew vehicles.
Speaker 2: The report quotes unnamed massive personnel saying things like there
Speaker 2: was yelling in meetings, it was emotionally charged and unproductive,
Speaker 2: and if you weren't aligned with the desired outcome, your
Speaker 2: input was filtered out or dismissed. One person said they
Speaker 2: stopped speaking up entirely because they knew they'd be dismissed.
Speaker 1: That is a profoundly troubling portrait of an organization under pressure,
Speaker 1: and what makes it worse is this, One NASA worker
Speaker 1: told the investigation panel roughly eleven months after the mission,
Speaker 1: nobody within NASA or outside of NASA has been held accountable.
Speaker 2: Nobody Administrator Isaacman addressed that head on. He said there
Speaker 2: will be accountability. He said, the report reveals that advocacy
Speaker 2: for the missions success quote exceeded reasonable bounds and placed
Speaker 2: the mission, the crew, and America Space program at risk.
Speaker 2: He also made clear that NASA will not fly another
Speaker 2: crew on Starliner until the technical causes are understood, the
Speaker 2: propulsion system is fully qualified, and all sixty one recommendations
Speaker 2: from this report are implemented.
Speaker 1: Sixty one recommendations spanning technical, organizational, and cultural domains. Boeing,
Speaker 1: for its part, said they've made substantial progress and driven
Speaker 1: significant cultural changes.
Speaker 2: We'll see. It's worth noting, Butch and Sony are safe.
Speaker 2: They got home in a SpaceX crew drag in early
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five and have since retired from NASA. But
Speaker 2: this report is a stark reminder of just how close
Speaker 2: things came to going very wrong, and how important is
Speaker 2: that the lessons are actually learned.
Speaker 1: One more thing before we move on. Isaacman confirmed the
Speaker 1: eventual cost of Starliner's woes exceeded the two million dollar
Speaker 1: type A mishap threshold by quote one hundredfold, So not
Speaker 1: just a safety crisis, an enormous financial one too.
Speaker 2: All right, we promised you this, and here it is.
Speaker 2: President Trump has been making noise again about UAPs, unidentified
Speaker 2: aerial phenomena, and the possibility of releasing classified government files,
Speaker 2: including apparently what's actually going on at Area fifty one.
Speaker 1: And look, the serious astronomy community broadly keeps its distance
Speaker 1: from this territory for good reasons. We're not going to
Speaker 1: go deep on it today because there is genuinely not
Speaker 1: much new substance to report yet, its hints and statements
Speaker 1: rather than actual declassification.
Speaker 2: But and this is an honest butt, if genuine classified
Speaker 2: data about UAP encounters were actually released in a verifiable,
Speaker 2: scientifically usable form, that would be worth serious examination. The
Speaker 2: scientific community has actually been pushing for more transparency in
Speaker 2: this area for years. The issue has never been whether
Speaker 2: UFOs are real as a phenomenon. There are clearly things
Speaker 2: being observed that pilots and sensors can't immediately explain. The
Speaker 2: question is what they actually are.
Speaker 1: Right, And the history of these big reveals is, shall
Speaker 1: we say, not encouraging. You get a lot of heavily
Speaker 1: redacted documents, a lot of blurry footage, and then not much.
Speaker 2: Area fifty one, though that is a name. If files
Speaker 2: about what's actually been going on out there, and then
Speaker 2: Nevada Desert come out, even if it's all just experimental aircraft,
Speaker 2: that's going to be a fascinating day. Regardless.
Speaker 1: We will watch this space pun an tended. If something
Speaker 1: genuinely newsworthy emerges from the UAP file story, we will
Speaker 1: cover it properly. For now, back to the actual cosmos.
Speaker 2: Now, this is one of those stories that really makes
Speaker 2: you stop and think about how strange the universe is.
Speaker 2: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has identified what may be the
Speaker 2: most heavily dark matter dominated galaxy ever discovered.
Speaker 1: The object is called CDG two and CDG stands for
Speaker 1: circumgalactic diffuse galaxy, which is already a fascinating description. It's
Speaker 1: an extraordinarily faint, low surface brightness galaxy that's basically invisible
Speaker 1: when you look at it. There are only a sparse
Speaker 1: scattering of faint stars, but according to the measurements, the
Speaker 1: vast majority of its total mass is dark matter.
Speaker 2: We should take a moment here to explain what dark
Speaker 2: matter actually is for anyone who's new to the show.
Speaker 2: Dark matter is the name we give to whatever makes
Speaker 2: up most of the mass of the universe that we
Speaker 2: can't see, can't di tech directly, and don't fully understand.
Speaker 2: We know it exists because of its gravitational effects, the
Speaker 2: way galaxies rotate, the way light bends around galaxy clusters,
Speaker 2: but beyond that, it remains one of the great unsolved
Speaker 2: problems in physics.
Speaker 1: And CDG two is interesting because it seems to be
Speaker 1: almost entirely dark matter. The few stars it contains are
Speaker 1: almost an afterthought. It's like finding a house that's built
Speaker 1: almost entirely of invisible walls. You could only see the wallpaper.
Speaker 2: What makes this particularly significant is that we've long theorized
Speaker 2: that galaxies like this should exist. In the standard model
Speaker 2: of cosmology, dark matter forms the scaffolding that ordinary matter
Speaker 2: gas stars planets falls into and clumps around, but most
Speaker 2: galaxies have converted a good portion of that gas into
Speaker 2: stars by now. CDG two seems to have barely bothered.
Speaker 1: The question is why why did so little star formation
Speaker 1: occur here? Was it stripped of its gas by interactions
Speaker 1: with neighboring galaxies? Is it in an unusually isolated environment.
Speaker 1: Those are the questions that will keep astronomers busy for
Speaker 1: a while, but as a window into dark matter's dominant
Speaker 1: role in shaping the cosmos, this.
Speaker 2: One is remarkable. Aimen to that.
Speaker 1: From one galaxy mystery to another, astronomers have spotted a
Speaker 1: candidate jellyfish galaxy, one of the most visually striking types
Speaker 1: of galaxies we know of, dating back to just five
Speaker 1: billion years after the Big Bang. And the reason this
Speaker 1: is extraordinary is because theory said this shouldn't be possible.
Speaker 2: Let me explain what a jellyfish galaxy is for anyone
Speaker 2: picturing an actual jellyfish floating through space, which honestly is
Speaker 2: not a bad mental image. A jellyfish galaxy gets its
Speaker 2: name from the long streamers of gas and young stars
Speaker 2: that trail behind it like tentacles. They form through a
Speaker 2: process called ram pressure stripping.
Speaker 1: Ram pressure stripping is a essentially what happens when a
Speaker 1: galaxy moves through the hot diffuse gas that fills galaxy
Speaker 1: clusters what astronomers call the inter cluster medium. The galaxy
Speaker 1: is moving so fast through this medium that it gets
Speaker 1: the cosmic equivalent of a blast of wind from the front,
Speaker 1: and the gas in its outer regions gets blown backwards,
Speaker 1: forming those trailing streams.
Speaker 2: Now. The reason this discovery is so significant is that
Speaker 2: ram pressure stripping was thought to require a dense enough
Speaker 2: cluster environment to operate, and in the early universe, five
Speaker 2: billion years after the Big Bang, clusters weren't expected to
Speaker 2: be dense enough. Yet the universe was younger, less evolved,
Speaker 2: clusters were less mature.
Speaker 1: And yet here we have what looks like a fully
Speaker 1: formed jellyfish galaxy from that early era. It challenges our
Speaker 1: timeline of how galaxy clusters developed and how ram pressure
Speaker 1: stripping operated in the young universe.
Speaker 2: There's also a bonus mystery here. The discovery may shed
Speaker 2: light on the so called red nugget galaxies compact red
Speaker 2: massive galaxies from the early Universe that have puzzled astronomers
Speaker 2: for years. The theory is that ram pressure stripping in
Speaker 2: jellyfish galaxies could be one of the mechanisms that transform
Speaker 2: normal star forming galaxies into those quiescent red nuggets. If confirmed,
Speaker 2: this single galaxy could be a crucial missing link in
Speaker 2: understanding how galaxies evolve.
Speaker 1: It does still need to be confirmed. It's officially a
Speaker 1: candidate at this stage, but the evidence looks strong. And
Speaker 1: this is exactly the kind of thing that makes deep
Speaker 1: sky astronomy so endlessly fascinating.
Speaker 2: All right, here's a story that's a little different in flavor.
Speaker 2: It's part wow, cool science, part should we be thinking
Speaker 2: about this more carefully? Yes.
Speaker 1: For the first time ever, scientists have observed a cloud
Speaker 1: of air pollution forming in near real time as a
Speaker 1: SpaceX rocket burned up during re entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 1: And I want to be clear about what we mean,
Speaker 1: I burned up here. This isn't a failed mission. This
Speaker 1: is the normal end of life process for a rocket
Speaker 1: stage where it re enters the atmosphere and disintegrates through
Speaker 1: the heat of reentry.
Speaker 2: So these things happen routinely, And what sciences have now
Speaker 2: been able to do using atmospheric monitoring instruments is actually
Speaker 2: watch in something close to real time the chemical cloud
Speaker 2: that forms as the rocket material vaporizes, metals, aluminum oxide, particles,
Speaker 2: various combustion products, all of it lighting up in the instruments.
Speaker 1: And this matters because we're launching things at an ever
Speaker 1: increasing rate. SpaceX alone is launching dozens of missions per year.
Speaker 1: If every re entry deposits a cloud of metallic particles
Speaker 1: and other pollutants into the upper atmosphere, and we're doing
Speaker 1: this hundreds of times a year, what does that add
Speaker 1: up to over a decade.
Speaker 2: The honest answer right now is we don't fully know.
Speaker 2: This is genuinely new science. Researchers have been raising concerns
Speaker 2: about the potential impact of rocket exhaust and re entry
Speaker 2: pollution in the stratosphere for a few years now, but
Speaker 2: being able to observe it in real time to actually
Speaker 2: characterize what's happening, is a significant step towards understanding the
Speaker 2: cumulative effect.
Speaker 1: It's one of those stories where the science itself is fascinating,
Speaker 1: but the implications quietly deserve more attention than they're getting.
Speaker 1: The space economy is booming. That's wonderful in many ways,
Speaker 1: but what are the environmental costs of a high cadence
Speaker 1: launch industry is a question that needs answering, and researchers
Speaker 1: are now developing the tools to start answering.
Speaker 2: It something to watch, and full credit to the scientists
Speaker 2: making these observations pioneering work.
Speaker 1: Now we come to a story that, and I say
Speaker 1: this with genuine enthusiasm, is about as mind bending as
Speaker 1: astronomy gets. Researchers may have confirmed the very first true
Speaker 1: dark galaxy. Not just a galaxy dominated by dark matter
Speaker 1: like CDG two we discussed Earth, but a galaxy made
Speaker 1: almost entirely of dark matter with effectively no stars at all.
Speaker 2: A dark galaxy, in theory, is a region of space
Speaker 2: where dark matter has clumped together in sufficient quantity to
Speaker 2: form a gravitationally bound structure, essentially a galaxy shaped thing,
Speaker 2: but where ordinary matter has never clumped enough to form
Speaker 2: stars or has been stripped away entirely. We've theorized they
Speaker 2: should exist for decades, and now we may finally have one.
Speaker 1: I want to sit with that for a second. A
Speaker 1: galaxy a structure that has all the gravitational signatures of
Speaker 1: a galaxy with no stars in it. You literally cannot
Speaker 1: see it with any optical telescope. It's detectable only by
Speaker 1: its gravitational effects on nearby visible matter.
Speaker 2: It's like detecting a ghost by watching how other people
Speaker 2: react to the room it's standing in.
Speaker 1: That is exactly the right analogy. Actually, the way astronomers
Speaker 1: identify these objects is by looking at how their gravity
Speaker 1: warps the light and motion of surrounding galaxies, and when
Speaker 1: they do the maths on the candidate identified in this
Speaker 1: new research, the numbers point to a massive dark matter
Speaker 1: structure with essentially no luminous component.
Speaker 2: If confirmed, this would be a genuinely landmark moment in cosmology.
Speaker 2: We've known for decades that dark matter vastly outweighs ordinary
Speaker 2: matter in the universe, roughly five to one, but actually
Speaker 2: finding a structure that is purely dark matter with no
Speaker 2: ordinary matter hitch hiking along inside it would be extraordinary
Speaker 2: observational proof of how dark matter can organize itself independently.
Speaker 1: The researchers are being appropriately cautious. This requires further confirmation
Speaker 1: and independent verification, but the evidence is compelling. We'll keep
Speaker 1: you posted as this one develops, and.
Speaker 2: We close today with something a little different in mood,
Speaker 2: something poetic actually, comments.
Speaker 1: C Slash two zero two four e one, known as
Speaker 1: comet wear Kosh after its discoverer, as we mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: in the week, is making its closest approach to Earth today.
Speaker 1: Right now, as you listen to this, the comet is
Speaker 1: passing at roughly the same distance from Us as the Sun,
Speaker 1: about one astronomical unit, and it's putting on a genuinely
Speaker 1: beautiful display for those with telescopes or binoculars in the
Speaker 1: right conditions.
Speaker 2: There are images out already, a gorgeous thirty minute exposure
Speaker 2: taken last week from Chile showing a five degree long
Speaker 2: ion tail that's ten times the width of the full
Speaker 2: Moon in the sky, plus three shorter dust tails. The
Speaker 2: coma of the comet glows green from the breakdown of
Speaker 2: dicarbon molecules by sunlight.
Speaker 1: But here's what makes this one special and why we
Speaker 1: wanted to close the show with it. Commetware Coche is
Speaker 1: on a hyperbolic.
Speaker 2: Orbit, which means it is not coming back.
Speaker 1: It is not coming back. This comment has traveled from
Speaker 1: the outermost reaches of the Solar System. It's wung around
Speaker 1: the Sun, passed close by our little blue dot, and
Speaker 1: when it leaves, it will leave forever. Its orbit carries
Speaker 1: it out of the Solar System entirely into interstellar space.
Speaker 1: It will become a wanderer between the stars.
Speaker 2: You know, we had THREEI dot atls this season, the
Speaker 2: interstellar object that came into our solar system from somewhere
Speaker 2: else entirely, that was a visitor from interstellar space commetware
Speaker 2: Koch is going the other direction. It's leaving.
Speaker 1: We're waving goodbye to a comment that no human will
Speaker 1: ever see again. And I find that genuinely moving. So
Speaker 1: if you have clear skies tonight or this weekend, and
Speaker 1: you can get to a dark spot with a pair
Speaker 1: of binoculars, it is worth trying to find it. Check
Speaker 1: the Astronomy apps for its exact position. It is bright
Speaker 1: enough to see last chance, a cosmic farewell. And that's
Speaker 1: a wrap on a genuinely packed episode of Astronomy Daily.
Speaker 1: Eight stories, breaking news, accountability, journalism, mind bending, deep space science,
Speaker 1: and a cosmic goodbody.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for spending part of your Friday
Speaker 2: with us. If you enjoy today's show, please do leave
Speaker 2: a review wherever you listen. It makes a huge difference
Speaker 2: in helping new listeners find us.
Speaker 1: You can find us at Astronomy Daily dot io for
Speaker 1: the blog and show notes, and we're at astro Daily
Speaker 1: Pod across all the social platforms we'll see you again tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and if Artemis two gets a launch date confirmed today,
Speaker 1: we'll make sure that's front and center.
Speaker 2: Until then, keep looking up clear skies.
Speaker 3: Everyone say, star is the tall, Star is the tall
Speaker 2: Story is the