Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomy podcast. Each episode offers a
Speaker 1: gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
Speaker 1: unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
Speaker 1: of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
Speaker 1: slumber under the night sky. This week in Astronomy, SPHEREx,
Speaker 1: Dark dwarfs and an interstellar object. SPHEREx, NASA's new telescope
Speaker 1: maps the entire sky in infrared. NASA recently launched a
Speaker 1: new space telescope called SPHEREx, which started its mission in March.
Speaker 1: This telescope is now orbiting the Earth and has begun
Speaker 1: scanning the entire sky to create a massive, detailed map
Speaker 1: of the universe. What makes this mission special is that
Speaker 1: Spherrex sends the data it collects to a public archive
Speaker 1: every week. That means anyone, scientists, students, or curious people
Speaker 1: can use this information to explore space and study how
Speaker 1: the universe works. SPHEREx stands for Spectrophotometer for the History
Speaker 1: of the Universe, Epic of Reonization, and ICE's Explorer. It
Speaker 1: looks at the sky using infrared light, a type of
Speaker 1: light that's invisible to our eyes but very useful in
Speaker 1: space science. Unlike some past missions, like NASA's earlier Wise telescope,
Speaker 1: which used four infrared wavelengths, SPHEREx observes the sky in
Speaker 1: one hundred and two different infrared wavelengths. This gives scientists
Speaker 1: a much more detailed view. By using all of these
Speaker 1: wavelengths together, researchers can detect the presence of specific molecules
Speaker 1: in space through a technique called spectroscopy. This allows them
Speaker 1: to study where frozen water and organic molecules, ingredients important
Speaker 1: for life, are located in the Milky Way Galaxy, the
Speaker 1: key pieces of the puzzle for understanding how stars, planets,
Speaker 1: and possibly life itself begin to form. But that's not
Speaker 1: all SPHEREx can do. Scientists will also use the data
Speaker 1: to investigate what caused the universe to expand after the
Speaker 1: Big Bang and how much light all the galaxies have
Speaker 1: emitted over time. Because the data has made public, scientists
Speaker 1: around the world can study many different things that go
Speaker 1: beyond what the original SPHEREx team could cover by themselves.
Speaker 1: NASA is committed to open science, which means they want
Speaker 1: everyone to have access to the data, so SPHEREx sends
Speaker 1: its data to a public archive within sixty days of
Speaker 1: collecting it. In that short time, the SPHEREx team processes
Speaker 1: the data. They clean it up, correct technical issues from
Speaker 1: the detectors, and make sure everything is properly aligned with
Speaker 1: the stars and galaxies in the sky. Over its two
Speaker 1: year main mission, SPHEREx will skin the entire sky twice
Speaker 1: a year, making four full sky maps in total. After
Speaker 1: one year, they plan to release a full map showing
Speaker 1: the sky in all one hundred and two infrared wavelengths.
Speaker 1: The data from SPHEREx is especially useful when combined with
Speaker 1: other space missions. For example, it can help NASA's James
Speaker 1: Webb Space Telescope choose better targets to study. It can
Speaker 1: also improve the accuracy of planet data from the Test
Speaker 1: mission and support research into dark matter and dark energy
Speaker 1: when used with the European Space Agency's EUCLID mission or
Speaker 1: NASA's future Roman Space Telescope. All this data is stored
Speaker 1: in NASA's IRSA Archive Infrared Science Archive, which already holds
Speaker 1: information from past space missions. Together, this creates a rich
Speaker 1: collection of space data that researchers can use to explore
Speaker 1: all kinds of cosmic mysteries. SPHEREx is now part of
Speaker 1: NASA's long tradition of space surveys. As one scientist said,
Speaker 1: people are going to find all sorts of creative and
Speaker 1: surprising ways to use the data, many of which we
Speaker 1: can't even imagine yet. Dark dwarfs may reveal the true
Speaker 1: nature of dark matter. Some scientists think there might be
Speaker 1: a new kind of object hidden in the center of
Speaker 1: our galaxy. These mysterious things are called dark dwarfs, and
Speaker 1: they could help explain one of the biggest mysteries in
Speaker 1: the universe, what dark matter really is. A group of
Speaker 1: researchers from the UK and Hawaii wrote a paper about
Speaker 1: these dark dwarfs. They believe we could find them using
Speaker 1: powerful telescopes we already have, like the James Webb Space Telescope.
Speaker 1: They gave them the name dark dwarfs because of their
Speaker 1: strong connection with dark matter, not because they are actually
Speaker 1: dark in appearance. Dark matter is a strange kind of
Speaker 1: matter that makes up about twenty five percent of the universe.
Speaker 1: We can't see it because it doesn't give off flight,
Speaker 1: but we know it's there because of the way it
Speaker 1: affects gravity. Even those scientists have studied it for decades,
Speaker 1: nobody knows exactly what it is. That's why research like
Speaker 1: this is exciting. It might give us clues. There's a
Speaker 1: popular idea that dark matter is made of very heavy
Speaker 1: particles that don't interact with normal matter. These particles are
Speaker 1: called whimps, weakly interacting massive particles. They're invisible and silent,
Speaker 1: but they do have gravity. If dark matter is made
Speaker 1: of whimps, then it might be possible for some stars
Speaker 1: to catch and hold them. If enough of this dark
Speaker 1: matter builds up inside a star, the particles might destroy
Speaker 1: each other annihilate, which releases energy and makes the star shine.
Speaker 1: Regular stars like our sun shine because of nuclear fusion
Speaker 1: in their course, but that only happens when a star
Speaker 1: is big enough. If a star is too small, like
Speaker 1: only eight percent the size of our sun, it can't
Speaker 1: start fusion. These small stars are called brown dwarfs, and
Speaker 1: they're usually very dim. But if a brown dwarf is
Speaker 1: in a place with lots of dark matter, like the
Speaker 1: center of the galaxy, it could collect enough of it
Speaker 1: to start glowing, not because of fusion, but because of
Speaker 1: the energy from the dark matter inside it. When that happens,
Speaker 1: it's no longer just a brown dwarf. It becomes a
Speaker 1: dark dwarf. This only works if dark matter is made
Speaker 1: of the heavy self interacting kind like whimps. Other ideas
Speaker 1: for dark matter, like axioms or ultra light particles wouldn't
Speaker 1: work because they're too light and can't create the same
Speaker 1: energy inside stars. The scientists also thought of a way
Speaker 1: to tell if something is a dark dwarf and not
Speaker 1: just a normal brown dwarf. They say to look for
Speaker 1: lithium seven, a special version of lithium. Regular stars burn
Speaker 1: through lithium seven quickly, so if we find a glowing
Speaker 1: object with lithium seven still in it, it could be
Speaker 1: a sign that it's a dark dwarf. Telescopes like James
Speaker 1: Webb might already be able to spot these dark dwarfs,
Speaker 1: especially if we look at groups of faint stars and
Speaker 1: study their patterns. If we find one or more dark dwarfs,
Speaker 1: that would be a strong clue that dark matter is
Speaker 1: made of whimps or something very similar. We still wouldn't
Speaker 1: be one hundred percent sure what dark matter is, but
Speaker 1: it would narrow it down a lot. Finding a dark
Speaker 1: dwarf wouldn't solve the whole mystery, but it would be
Speaker 1: a big step forward in understanding this invisible part of
Speaker 1: the universe. Late on July first, twenty twenty five, astronomers
Speaker 1: watching the skies with an asteroid warning system spotted something unusual.
Speaker 1: A big, bright object was moving quickly through the Solar System.
Speaker 1: It immediately caught the attention of scientists around the world
Speaker 1: because it looked like it might have come from outside
Speaker 1: our Solar system. The next day, the European Space Agency
Speaker 1: confirmed that this object, first called a eleven PL three
Speaker 1: and later renamed three ice slash Atlas, really did come
Speaker 1: from beyond the Solar System. It's only the third object
Speaker 1: ever found that isn't originally from our solar neighborhood. Three
Speaker 1: ice slash Atlas is very large, about twenty kilometers wide,
Speaker 1: and although it won't come close to Earth, it's still
Speaker 1: very interesting. Scientists believe it could help explain how planets
Speaker 1: form in other Solar systems and give more insight into
Speaker 1: the other two interstellar objects that were found before, Umyuamua
Speaker 1: and two ice slash Borisov. Each of those had very
Speaker 1: different features. Umyuamua didn't have a tail and moved in
Speaker 1: strange ways that weren't fully explained by gravity. Borisov looked
Speaker 1: more like a regular comet, but still had unusual parts
Speaker 1: in its makeup. Everyone expected the next object to look
Speaker 1: like one of those, but three ice slash atlasts doesn't
Speaker 1: look like either. That surprised and excited scientists. Object is
Speaker 1: much brighter than the others and is also much farther away,
Speaker 1: yet telescopes can still see it clearly. That's because it's
Speaker 1: so big. Since it's visible from far away, astronomers will
Speaker 1: have more time to study it than they did with
Speaker 1: Umuamua or boris Off. It's also moving very fast, which
Speaker 1: makes it even more unusual. At first, scientists weren't sure
Speaker 1: if it was really from outside the Solar System. Sometimes
Speaker 1: things seem interesting at first, but as more information comes
Speaker 1: in they turn out to be less exciting. But in
Speaker 1: this case, as more data was gathered, experts became more
Speaker 1: convinced that it really is interstellar. They could tell by
Speaker 1: looking at how the object moves. One of the main
Speaker 1: things that tells astronomers if something came from another star
Speaker 1: system is its orbit. Most objects in the Solar System
Speaker 1: travel in circles or stretched out circles called ellipsies. But
Speaker 1: if an object travels in a way that never loops
Speaker 1: back and instead shoots off into space, that's called a
Speaker 1: hyperbolic orbit. It means the object is not tied to
Speaker 1: the Sun's gravity and didn't come from this solar system.
Speaker 1: Scientists can figure this out by watching how fast the
Speaker 1: object is moving and comparing its position to the stars
Speaker 1: in the background. As they get more data, they update
Speaker 1: their understanding of its path through space. Interstellar objects like
Speaker 1: three ice slash Atlas are special because they are leftovers
Speaker 1: from how other solar systems formed. In our own solar system,
Speaker 1: small objects like asteroids and comets have taught us a
Speaker 1: lot about how planets were created. If we study an
Speaker 1: object from another system, we can learn how that system
Speaker 1: was different or similar to ours. Scientists are still trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what kind of object three ice slash
Speaker 1: Atlas is. It might be a comet like Borisov, or
Speaker 1: it might behaved strangely like Umuamua. If it turns out
Speaker 1: to be a comet, they will want to know if
Speaker 1: it contains ice. Ice tells scientists a lot about where
Speaker 1: the object came from. If the object still has ice
Speaker 1: it probably didn't spend much time near a star because
Speaker 1: the heat would have melted it. That would mean the
Speaker 1: object formed far from its star and was possibly pushed
Speaker 1: out by a giant planet like Jupiter or Neptune. In
Speaker 1: the end, this object might help scientists understand more about
Speaker 1: other parts of the galaxy. It's still early, but many
Speaker 1: telescopes are already focusing on it. In the coming days
Speaker 1: and weeks, scientists hope to gather much more information and
Speaker 1: possibly unlock new secrets about how planets form in distant
Speaker 1: solar systems. To do, as the name m