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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily dose of

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what's happening out there in the cosmos.

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Speaker 2: I'm Anna and I'm Avery. It is Thursday, the twelfth

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of March twenty twenty six, and today's show is a

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packed one.

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Speaker 1: We've got an interstellar comment that's absolutely loaded with alcohol,

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a rocket that bounced back from an explosive year to

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nail its seventh flight, and the biggest NASA briefing in months,

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the Artemis two flight readiness review is happening right now

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as we record.

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Speaker 2: We've also got some beautiful science from deep inside the Sun,

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a satellite that came home early thanks to the solar cycle,

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and the brand new gas cloud discovered swirling around the

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black hole at the heart of our Milky.

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Speaker 1: Way Dick's stories, Let's get into it.

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Speaker 2: Our first story is one of my favorites in a

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while because it involves an interstellar comment that's frankly a

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little bit drunk.

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Speaker 1: You're going to milk that headline all episode, aren't you?

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Speaker 2: Every chance? I get so? Three iatls. If you've been

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listening to us over the past several months, you'll remember

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this as only the third confirmed interstellar object ever detected

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passing through our solar system. It came from somewhere out there,

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from a completely different planetary system, and it's been one

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of the most intensely observed objects in recent memory.

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Speaker 1: And now astronomers using ALMA the ATACOMMA large millimeter submillimeter

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array in Chile have published new findings about its chemical makeup,

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and what they found is genuinely surprising.

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Speaker 2: Using Alma's ATACOMMA compact array, researcher studied the coma that

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glowing halo of gas and dust around the comet's core

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as three IATLS was warming up on its approach towards

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the Sun in late twenty twenty five. They focused on

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the fingerprints of two molecules, methanol, which is a type

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of alcohol, and hydrogen cyanide, and.

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Speaker 1: The results were extraordinary. In most Solar system comets, those

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two molecules show up in roughly comparable amounts. In three iatls,

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the ratio of methanol to hydrogen cyanide was between seventy

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and one hundred twenty to one. That's not just unusual,

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it places it among the most methanol rich comets ever studied. Period.

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Speaker 2: Nathan Roth, the lead researcher from American University put it

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really beautifully. He said, observing three iatls is like taking

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a fingerprint from another solar system. The details reveal what

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it's made of, and it's bursting with methanol in a

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way we just don't usually see in comments from our

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own solar system.

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Speaker 1: There's another fascinating detail here too. In most comments, hydrogen

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cyanide flows out from the nucleus the central core. Methanol

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usually does the same, but in three iatls, the methanol

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is coming from two places, the nucleus and from tiny

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icy grains drifting in the coma around the comet. Those

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grains are essentially acting like miniature comets of their own,

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releasing methanol as they warm up in sunlight. It's a

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level of structural complexity we haven't seen traced in an

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interstellar object before.

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Speaker 2: What does all this methanol tell us It points to

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a comet that forms in an extremely cold environment, possibly

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a dark molecular cloud packed with carbon monoxide ice, and

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that its icy material was incorporated into the comet's nucleus

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with very little alteration. Essentially, this thing is a chemical

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time capsule from a distant planetary system, and it's older

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than our own Sun.

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Speaker 1: And here's a fun watch this space moment. Three IATLS

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is currently about three point eight astronomical units from the Sun,

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roughly the distance between Mars and Jupiter, and heading outward

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at around twenty eight kilometers per second. On March sixteenth,

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just four days from now, it makes its closest approach

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to Jupiter, passing within about zero point three six AU.

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It's one of the last major milestones before this visitor

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disappears into interstellar space for good.

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Speaker 2: It's been one of the most scientifically productive interstellar visitors

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we've ever had the luck to catch. Every observation has

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taught us something new about how planetary systems, not ours,

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form and evolve.

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Speaker 1: Story two is a proper comeback story, and those are

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always fun to tell. Firefly Aerospace successfully launched its Alpha

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rocket last night, Wednesday the eleventh, from Vandenberg Space four

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space in California, and it was a mission called Stairway

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to seven Flight seven, and it absolutely nailed it.

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Speaker 2: For context, Firefly had a rough twenty twenty five two

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major mishaps, a failed launch in April and then an

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explosive ground test in September. That destroyed a first stage.

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The rocket had been grounded for nearly eleven months, so

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this was a significant moment for them.

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Speaker 1: The mission lifted off at five point fifty pm Pacific time,

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completed nominal stage separation, achieved orbital insertion, and delivered a

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demonstrator payload for Lockheed Martin. The second stage engine even

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performed a relight, a bonus milestone for validating new systems.

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Speaker 2: And this wasn't just any flight. Spare Way to seven

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was the last flight of Alpha's Block one configuration. Firefly

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is now transitioning to Block two, which is an upgraded

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version of the rocket, longer, more capable, with a new

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in house avionic suite and improved thermal protection. Those systems

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were tested in shadow mode on this flight and confirmed.

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Speaker 1: Working FEO Jason Kim said the mission was quote flawlessly

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executed and while Alpha has now had full mission success

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just three times in seven attempts, the trajectory is clearly improving,

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and Firefly's lunar landing success with Blue Gost last year

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showed they can absolutely get the job done.

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Speaker 2: The first Block two flight will carry a US Space

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Force mission called Victis Hayes jackaled for no earlier than

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the second quarter of this year. Firefly also as plans

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to expand Alpha operations to Wallops Island in Virginia and

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the s Range Space Center in Sweden. Good times ahead

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for this team.

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Speaker 1: All right, story three, and this one is literally happening

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as we speak. NASA held its Artemis two flight readiness

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review today Thursday the twelfth, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida,

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with a press conference at three pm Eastern featuring NASA

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Administrator Jared Isaacman.

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Speaker 2: A flight readiness review is a critical milestone. It's the

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formal process where all the key mission stakeholders come together

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and evaluate whether every system, every procedure, and every person

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is ready to fly. It's one of the last major

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gates before a launch date gets set.

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Speaker 1: To recap where we are. Artemis two is the first

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crude mission of the Artemis program. Four astronauts flying around

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the Moon and back inside the Orion spacecraft from Earth

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than any humans have ever traveled. The crew is Reed Wiseman,

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Victor Glover, Christina Cock and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

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Speaker 2: The mission hit a snag in late February when a

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helium flow issue was found in the upper stage of

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the Space Launch System rocket after a wet dress rehearsal.

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The stack had to be rolled back into the vehicle

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assembly building for repairs. NASA has since identified and fixed

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to seal obstruction in the quick disconnect causing the problem,

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and technicians have been validating the repairs.

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Speaker 1: The rocket is currently targeting a second rollout to the

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launch pad later this month, with an April launch window

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on the table. We'll have the outcome of today's press

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conference in our show notes. This story is moving fast

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and we'll be covering every step of it as we

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get closer.

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Speaker 2: It has been over fifty years since humans flew beyond

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low Earth orbit. Artemis two is going to change that,

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and we are so close.

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Speaker 1: Well, we certainly hope so.

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Speaker 2: Story four is a beautiful piece of long game science.

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Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Yale University have

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published a study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal

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Astronomical Society that reveals something fundamental and surprising about our star.

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The Sun's internal structure shifts measurably from one solar cycle

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to the next.

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Speaker 1: This might sound like it should be obvious of course,

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the Sun changes. But here's the thing. During solar minimum,

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the Sun is supposed to be at its calmest, fewer

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sun spots, weaker magnetic fields, a quieter, more uniform surface.

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The assumption had always been that these quiet periods were

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basically the same each time around.

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Speaker 2: And they're not. The team used a network of six

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ground based telescopes called the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network BISON,

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which has been listening to the sun hum for over

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forty years. They analyze tiny vibrations inside the Sun, essentially

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sound waves trapped inside the star to infer what was

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happening beneath the surface. This field is called helio seismology

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and it's essentially the same principle as using seismic waves

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to map the interior of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: They looked at four successive solar minima, the quiet periods

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between solar cycles twenty one and twenty five, and found

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that the minimum between cycles twenty three and twenty four,

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which fell in two thousand and eight to two thousand

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and nine, was structurally different from the other three. That

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minimum was already known to be one of the quietest

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and longest on record, but now they've shown it left

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a measurable internal.

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Speaker 3: Fingerprint, specifically, a sound wave glitch caused by helium ionization

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just below the Sun's surface was significantly stronger than in

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the other three minima, and the speed of sound in

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the outer layers was slightly.

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Speaker 2: Higher, suggesting subtly different gas pressures, temperatures, and magnetic field

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strengths deep inside the Sun.

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Speaker 1: Why does this matter because how the Sun behaves during

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its quiet periods has a strong bearing on how active

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the next cycle will be. Better understanding solar minima means

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better space weather forecasting and space weather affects satellites, GPS,

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power grids, and communications infrastructure here on Earth.

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Speaker 2: Professor Bill Chaplin from Birmingham summed it up perfectly. For

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the first time they've been able to clearly quantify how

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the Sun's internal structure shifts between one cycle minimum and

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the next, and the techniques used here could eventually be

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applied to other Sun like stars using esay's upcoming Plato mission.

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The Sun isn't just our star, it's our best laboratory

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for understanding stars everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Following up on a story we brought you a couple

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of days ago, you could say story five has a

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certain poetic quality to it. Yesterday morning, Wednesday, the eleventh

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NASA's Van Allen Probe A re entered Earth Earth's atmosphere

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and burned up over the eastern Pacific Ocean, ending a

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mission that launched back in August twenty twelve, nearly fourteen

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years in space.

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Speaker 2: The Van Allen Probes, there were two of them, A

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and B, were built to study Earth's radiation belts. Those

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are the two massive donut shaped zones of high energy

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charged particles trapped by our planet's magnetic field. They're named

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for physicist James Van Allen, who discovered them in the

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late nineteen fifties. Understanding these belts is critical because they

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shield Earth from cosmic radiation and solar wind, but they

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can also be brutal on satellites and spacecraft passing through them.

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Speaker 1: The probes were originally designed for a two year mission,

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they ran for nearly seven During that time, they made

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a series of landmark discoveries, including the first confirmed observation

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of a transient third radiation belt, which can formed during

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periods of intense solar activity. The spacecraft ran out of

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fuel in twenty nineteen and have been drifting in orbit

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ever since.

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Speaker 2: Here's what made yesterday's re entry newsworthy beyond the usual

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satellite farewell. NASA had originally calculated that Probe A wouldn't

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re enter until twenty thirty four, eight years later than

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it actually did. The culprit the current solar cycle. We're

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in a particularly active phase right now, and increased solar

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activity heats and expands Earth's upper atmosphere, which creates more

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drag on satellites and low to medium orbit, pulling them

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down faster than expected.

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Speaker 1: The six hundred kilogram spacecraft mostly burned up on re entry,

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as expected, with a one in four thy two hundred

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chance of any surviving debris causing harm to anyone on

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the ground. The US Space Force confirmed re entry at

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six thirty seven am Eastern Time over the Eastern Pacific.

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No injuries or debris impact reported, but.

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Speaker 2: Is still up there and its re entry isn't expected

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before twenty thirty, though given what just happened, we might

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want to keep an eye on that estimate too. The

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Sun has a way of accelerating things.

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Speaker 1: And our final story brings us right to the heart

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of our own galaxy and the super massive black holes

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sitting there. Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial

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Physics have discovered a new gas cloud orbiting Sagittarius A star,

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the four million solar mass black hole at the center

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of the Milky Way, about twenty seven thousand light years

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from Earth.

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Speaker 2: The new cloud is called G two T, and it

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was found using the ERIS instrument, the Enhanced Resolution Imager

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and spectrograph mounted on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large

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Telescope in Chile. Two previous clouds, known as G one

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and G two, had been observed orbiting Sagittarius A star

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for years, but their true nature was still hotly debated.

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Were they pure gas clouds or were they hiding stars

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inside them?

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Speaker 1: The discovery of G two T turns out to be

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the key that helps answer that question. Because the three

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clouds don't just share the same general neighborhood. Their three

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d orbits are almost identical, just rotated slightly with respect

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to each other.

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Speaker 2: And here's why that's a big deal. If G one,

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G two, and G two T each contain the hidden

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star at their core, you'd expect those stars to have

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very different orbital histories. The odds of three independent stars

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settling into nearly identical orbits around the super massive black

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hole are extraordinarily slim, so the matching orbits strongly rule

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out the hidden star hypothesis.

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Speaker 1: Instead, the astronomers believe all three clouds likely share a

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common origin, a massive binary star system called IRS sixteen

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s W, which is in that region and is known

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to be expelling enormous amounts of gas. The three clouds

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may have been shed from that pair of stars at

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different times, drifting into similar orbits as they interact with

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the extreme gravitational environment near Sagittarius, a star.

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Speaker 2: The galactic center is one of the most extreme environments

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in the universe. Stars and gas clouds hurtling around the

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black hole at tremendous speeds, and yet we're still finding

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brand new objects there after decades of observation. It's a

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reminder that our own cosmic backyards still hold secrets, extraordinary ones.

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Speaker 1: That's all six stories for today. What a show, A

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tipsy interstellar comet, a triumphant rocket comeback, the imminent Moon

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mission update, the Sun's inner life, a satellite's fiery farewell,

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and a new discovery at the very heart of our galaxy.

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Speaker 2: If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, leave us a review,

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and share us with someone who loves space. You can

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find us at Astronomy do io and on all the

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major platforms at at astro Daily Pod.

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Speaker 1: And keep watching the skies. Jupiter's about to get a

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very unusual close visitor. In just four days three I

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Atlas making its last big swing before heading back to

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the stars.

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Speaker 2: From Anna and me, thanks for listening to Astronomy Daily.

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We'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, keep looking up

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Sunday

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Speaker 3: Stars start