Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie 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.
Speaker 2: I want you to just transport yourself to a very
Speaker 2: specific moment in the nots of distant future. Okay, picture
Speaker 2: yourself on a Friday night, specifically Friday, April thirteenth, twenty.
Speaker 3: Twenty nine, the classic Friday the thirteenth, right exactly.
Speaker 2: So you step out your back door. Maybe there's like
Speaker 2: a slight chill in the air, you have a jacket on,
Speaker 2: maybe a cup of coffee in your hands. That's nice, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you look up at the night sky and there,
Speaker 2: just moving visibly steadily across the darkness is a massive object.
Speaker 3: And we're not talking about a little streak of light either.
Speaker 2: No, you don't need a telescope, you don't need binoculars.
Speaker 2: You just need your own two eyes to witness essentially
Speaker 2: a mountain hurtling past our planet. We are talking about
Speaker 2: the asteroid of p Office.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: It's a really profound image to consider, especially when we
Speaker 3: you know, scale it properly in our heads, because in
Speaker 3: that scenario, you are looking at a rock that is
Speaker 3: roughly three hundred and seventy five.
Speaker 2: Meters across, which is huge.
Speaker 3: It's massive. That is not a shooting star burning up
Speaker 3: in the upper atmosphere. That is an object with the
Speaker 3: mass of a modern aircraft carrier or like the height
Speaker 3: of the Empire State Building, just coasting through the void
Speaker 3: right in our orbital backyard.
Speaker 2: It's just wild to think about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to see something of that immense scale moving
Speaker 3: in real time against the backdrop of the fixed stars.
Speaker 3: I mean, it'll be a visceral reminder of the dynamics
Speaker 3: sometimes really violent solar system we inhabit totally.
Speaker 2: And let's establish the most critical fact immediately, because the
Speaker 2: date Friday the thirteenth, combined with the giant asteroid sounds
Speaker 2: entirely like the setup for a disaster movie.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the media field day is going to be.
Speaker 2: Intense, for sure, but there is absolutely zero risk of
Speaker 2: impact in twenty twenty nine zero. We know it's trajectory.
Speaker 2: It is not hitting Earth, right, so it's going to
Speaker 2: skim past us in a way that is so incredibly rare.
Speaker 2: It is like mobilizing the entire global scientific community.
Speaker 3: It's a once in a lifetime, actually many lifetimes opportunities exactly.
Speaker 2: So we are looking at this monumental international effort to
Speaker 2: literally chase this asteroid down.
Speaker 3: We're going after it.
Speaker 2: We are, and today we're going to examine the rams's mission,
Speaker 2: the unprecedented alliance between Europe and Japan making it possible.
Speaker 2: And you know what this incredibly close shave means for
Speaker 2: the actual applied science of planetary.
Speaker 3: Defense, because this event, it really alters our entire approach
Speaker 3: to near Earth.
Speaker 2: Object It changes everything, right.
Speaker 3: It really does. This shift in perspective here is foundational
Speaker 3: because for the entirety of human history, our relationship with
Speaker 3: asteroids has been remote, like, right, we find them as
Speaker 3: faint pixels on a telescope sensor, or you know, we
Speaker 3: spend a decade planning to launch a highly specialized probe
Speaker 3: deep into the quiet isolation of the Solar System just
Speaker 3: to get a.
Speaker 2: Brief look at one, just a quick flyby.
Speaker 3: Exactly, but a pofice. In twenty twenty nine, inverses that
Speaker 3: entirely the cosmos is coming to us.
Speaker 2: It's delivering it right to our front.
Speaker 3: Door, delivering a pristine relic of the early Solar system
Speaker 3: right to our doorstep. And the logistical, the engineering, and
Speaker 3: the scientific ambition required to meet it and to launch
Speaker 3: a companion spacecraft to observe it up close during this flyby.
Speaker 3: It just demonstrates an incredible maturation of our capabilities as
Speaker 3: a spacefaring species.
Speaker 2: It really does. So let's break down the mechanics of
Speaker 2: this cosmic close shave, because the numbers here are just staggering.
Speaker 3: They are.
Speaker 2: We established the three hundred and seventy five meters scale.
Speaker 2: But the proximity is what makes this historic. A pofice
Speaker 2: will pass just thirty two thousand kilometers above Earth's surface,
Speaker 2: which is incredibly close right now. Thirty two thousand kilometers
Speaker 2: might sound like a vast distance if you're driving a car,
Speaker 2: but in astronomical terms, it is a hair's breadth. It's
Speaker 2: nothing that is less than one tenth of the distance
Speaker 2: to the Moon. Yeah, and what really puts us into
Speaker 2: perspective for me is that it is closer than our
Speaker 2: own satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
Speaker 3: That altitude is a highly specific and sensitive zone.
Speaker 2: So explain that because that sounds terrifying.
Speaker 3: Well, geosynchronous orbit is about thirty five thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty six kilometers above the equator. We put telecommunication satellites,
Speaker 3: weather monitors, early warning defense systems there because at that
Speaker 3: specific altitude, a satellite's orbital period perfectly matches Earth's rotation.
Speaker 2: It essentially just hovers over one spot on the.
Speaker 3: Globe exactly, and apofice is coming in at thirty two
Speaker 3: thousand kilometers. It is slicing completely inside that multi billion
Speaker 3: dollar ring of infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Which immediately raises a red flag for anyone visualizing this. Sure,
Speaker 2: of course, if you have this ring of vital satellites
Speaker 2: and that three hundred and seventy five meter rock plows
Speaker 2: through the middle of it at incredible velocity, I mean,
Speaker 2: the instinct is to worry about our orbital infrastructure.
Speaker 3: Are we going to lose our GPS?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah? Like, are we talking about a cosmic bowl
Speaker 2: in a China shop? Or are we going to lose
Speaker 2: global communications? Is this going to trigger a cascading debris
Speaker 2: event up there?
Speaker 3: It's a completely logical concern, but it stems from a
Speaker 3: misunderstanding of the volume of space. Okay, how so we
Speaker 3: often visualize orbital rings like like lanes on a highway,
Speaker 3: packed bumper to bumper with metal.
Speaker 2: Like the rings of Saturn or something.
Speaker 3: Right, But the reality is that space, even near Earth space,
Speaker 3: is profoundly empty. Okay, Yes, Apophe is crossing the orbital plane,
Speaker 3: but the distance between individual satellites and the geosynchronous belt
Speaker 3: is typically one hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers, So it's.
Speaker 2: Not like threading a needle through a crowded row.
Speaker 3: Not at all. Furthermore, orbital dynamics isn't a game of chance.
Speaker 3: Astrometric radar tracking has mapped apophesis trajectory down to the kilometer.
Speaker 2: They know exactly where it's going exactly.
Speaker 3: We know its orbital inclination, its exact velocity, and the
Speaker 3: specific keyhole of space it will occupy. At every single
Speaker 3: second of the flyby. It will pass safely through the
Speaker 3: vacuum without coming anywhere near a satellite.
Speaker 2: So the danger to our infrastructure is essentially zero, even
Speaker 2: though it feels uncomfortably close.
Speaker 3: Right, zero danger.
Speaker 2: But I want to talk about how rare an approach
Speaker 2: like this actually is because asteroids fly by Earth all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: They do.
Speaker 2: We read the headlines every month about some rock passing us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why is a pof is different? The difference is
Speaker 3: the intersection of extreme proximity and massive scale. Okay, we
Speaker 3: have small rocks objects maybe a few meters across pass
Speaker 3: us frequently. Often they burn up in the atmosphere as
Speaker 3: bullides or.
Speaker 2: Fireballs, right, shooting stars.
Speaker 3: But an object three hundred and seventy five meters in
Speaker 3: diameter coming within thirty two thousand kilometers statistically, an event
Speaker 3: of this magnitude occurs only once every five thousand to
Speaker 3: ten thousand years.
Speaker 2: Wait, let's pause on that one. In ten thousand years,
Speaker 2: if we rewind the clock ten thousand years to the
Speaker 2: last time an object this massive got this close, what
Speaker 2: were we even doing?
Speaker 3: We were a completely different species in terms of our
Speaker 3: societal development.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's practically the Stone Age right.
Speaker 3: Literally ten thousand years ago marks a transition from the
Speaker 3: Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch. The great glaciers of the
Speaker 3: last Ice Age were just retreating. Wow, we are talking
Speaker 3: about the dawn of the Neolithic Revolution. Human beings were
Speaker 3: just beginning to experiment with agriculture in the Fertile.
Speaker 2: Crescent, so farming was barely a thing.
Speaker 3: Barely. There are no cities, no written languages, no metal working.
Speaker 3: If an asteroid of this size passed that close to
Speaker 3: Earth back then, our ancestors might have looked up from
Speaker 3: newly planted fields, seen a bright point of light moving
Speaker 3: unnaturally fast against the stars, and had absolutely no astronomical
Speaker 3: framework to comprehend what it was.
Speaker 2: It would have just been pure myth and mystery, like
Speaker 2: a god walking across the sky.
Speaker 3: Completely And fast forward to April twenty twenty nine, and
Speaker 3: the contrast is just mind.
Speaker 2: Bending, because not only do we know exactly what it is,
Speaker 2: but up to two billion people across Europe, Africa, and
Speaker 2: parts of Asia will be able to walk outside and
Speaker 2: track it with their naked eyes.
Speaker 3: The viewing geometry is exceptionally favorable for this pass.
Speaker 2: How does that work?
Speaker 3: Because of the trajectory and the time of day it
Speaker 3: makes its closest approach, a massive swath of the populated
Speaker 3: globe will be in darkness, which provides perfect viewing conditions.
Speaker 2: Think about the sociological impact of that for a moment.
Speaker 2: It's going to be huge, right If you are listening
Speaker 2: to this right now in twenty twenty nine, you are
Speaker 2: going to participate in a shared planetary event.
Speaker 3: A collective experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a quarter of the human population looking up at
Speaker 2: the exact same time, watching the same rock.
Speaker 3: It's rare.
Speaker 2: In an era where we are incredibly segmented by screens
Speaker 2: and time zones and borders, having a singular, unifying cosmic
Speaker 2: event visible to the naked eye is just it's powerful.
Speaker 2: It reminds us that we are all riding the same
Speaker 2: rock through a very busy solar system.
Speaker 3: The cultural impact will be significant, absolutely, But for the
Speaker 3: international scientific community, the philosophical beauty of the moment kind
Speaker 3: of takes a back seat to the physics.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure they're probably drooling over the data.
Speaker 3: Oh they are. This isn't just a celestial lite show.
Speaker 3: Because Apophus is getting so deep into Earth's gravity. Well,
Speaker 3: it is going to be subjected to immense physical forces, right,
Speaker 3: and that is what makes this the opportunity of a millennium.
Speaker 2: So let's dive into the physics of that flyby, because
Speaker 2: this is where the science gets deeply strange and fascinating.
Speaker 2: To me.
Speaker 3: It really does.
Speaker 2: When you say it's getting deep into the gravity. Well,
Speaker 2: we're talking about tidal forces, right. Earth's gravity isn't just
Speaker 2: pulling the asteroid off its path. It's going to physically
Speaker 2: warp the asteroid itself exactly.
Speaker 3: To understand how Earth is going to reshape a pofae,
Speaker 3: we have to look really closely at what tidal stress
Speaker 3: actually is.
Speaker 2: Okay, break it down for us.
Speaker 3: Gravity is not a uniform feel. Its strength decreases with
Speaker 3: the square of the distance.
Speaker 2: Meaning the farther way you are, the weaker.
Speaker 3: The pole right so apof is is three hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy five meters across when it is thirty two thousand
Speaker 3: kilometers away from us. The side of the asteroid facing
Speaker 3: Earth is technically a few hundred meters closer to the
Speaker 3: center of Earth's mass than the far side of the
Speaker 3: asteroid is.
Speaker 2: Oh I see, which means the gravity pulling on the
Speaker 2: bottom of the asteroid the side facing us is measurably
Speaker 2: stronger than the gravity pulling on.
Speaker 3: The top exactly, and that gravitational differential.
Speaker 2: Creates tension like it's being pulled apart.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's the exact same mechanism that allows the Moon
Speaker 3: to pull Earth's oceans into high and low tides, just
Speaker 3: on a much more acute scale. Given the proximity and
Speaker 3: the solid nature of the bodies involved, Earth is effectively
Speaker 3: going to stretch a poffice like.
Speaker 2: An invisible pair of hands kneading a giant rocky ball
Speaker 2: of dough, or a massive magnet pulling apart a cluster
Speaker 2: of iron filings. We aren't just watching it fly by.
Speaker 2: We are watching Earth give a deep tissue massage.
Speaker 3: I like that analogy. Nature is essentially conducting the experiment
Speaker 3: for us.
Speaker 2: But wait, Earth's oceans are liquid, They flow easily, so
Speaker 2: tides make sense. A poffice is a rock. How does
Speaker 2: a mountain of rock stretch without just shattering or does
Speaker 2: it shatter?
Speaker 3: Well, that depends entirely on its internal structure, which is
Speaker 3: actually one of the primary mysteries we are trying to
Speaker 3: solve here.
Speaker 2: Really we don't know what's inside it.
Speaker 3: Not exactly. In the early days of asteroid signs, we
Speaker 3: assumed these bodies were solid, monolithic chunks of iron or silicate.
Speaker 2: Like a giant boulder, right, And if.
Speaker 3: A Poffas were a solid monolith, the tidal forces would
Speaker 3: cause it to groan, perhaps inducing seismic quakes that would
Speaker 3: ripple through the solid rock asteroid quakes exactly. But our
Speaker 3: recent missions to other asteroids like Benu and Riugu have
Speaker 3: shown us that many of these objects are not solid
Speaker 3: at all. They are what we call rubble piles.
Speaker 2: Rubble piles so basically a collection of gravel, boulders, and
Speaker 2: dust held together by their own incredibly weak mutual gravity.
Speaker 3: Yes, millions of distinct fragments just clinging to one another
Speaker 3: in the dark.
Speaker 2: That's so creepy to think about.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: The gravity on these rubble piles is so microscale that
Speaker 3: forces we ignore on Earth, like Vanderval's forces, actually play
Speaker 3: a major role.
Speaker 2: Wait, Vanderval's forces, Remind me what that is.
Speaker 3: It's the slight electrostatic attraction between molecules, or, in this case,
Speaker 3: between grains of dust. It's what allows geckos to climb walls.
Speaker 2: Oh right, So dust is basically just statically clinging to
Speaker 2: other dust exactly.
Speaker 3: That plays a huge role in holding the entire asteroid together.
Speaker 3: So when a loosely bound rubble pile like that enters
Speaker 3: Earth's gravitational grip at thirty two thousand kilometers, the tidal
Speaker 3: stress can easily overcome those extremely weak cohesive forces.
Speaker 2: So if you're looking at this with a high powered telescope,
Speaker 2: what are you actually seeing happen to the surface. Is
Speaker 2: it pulling apart?
Speaker 3: We expect to see the surface undergo radical alteration as
Speaker 3: the tidal forces stretch the body. Boulders might become dislodged,
Speaker 3: just floating off or rolling. We could see localized avalanches
Speaker 3: where gravel and dust slide down the microgravity slopes of
Speaker 3: the astral exposing fresh, unweathered material from beneath the surface.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Furthermore, the gravitational interaction will likely torque the asteroid, changing
Speaker 3: its spin rate.
Speaker 2: It'll make it spin faster or.
Speaker 3: Slower, or change its axis. It currently tumbles through space
Speaker 3: in a complex non principal axis rotation, kind of like
Speaker 3: a wobbly football. Okay, Earth's gravity could alter that spin,
Speaker 3: which in turn creates centrifugal forces that might cause the
Speaker 3: asteroid to bulge at its equator. We are quite literally
Speaker 3: letting Earth's gravity conduct a deep tissue physical exam of
Speaker 3: this object.
Speaker 2: Which is such a brilliant reversal of how we normally
Speaker 2: do space exploration.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 2: Usually, if we want to know what's inside an asteroid,
Speaker 2: we have to spend a decade building a probe, launching it,
Speaker 2: flying it for millions of miles, and shooting a projectile
Speaker 2: into the rock.
Speaker 3: And that's if everything goes perfectly right.
Speaker 2: But here the Solar System is delivering the asteroid to
Speaker 2: our laboratory, and Earth itself is the testing apparatus perfectly.
Speaker 2: But push back on the necessity of this for a second. Okay, sure,
Speaker 2: it's undeniably cool physics, right watching a rock get stretched.
Speaker 2: But if we already know apophes isn't going to hit us,
Speaker 2: why is it so critical that we measure every single
Speaker 2: pebble shifting on its surface? Why are we treating this
Speaker 2: like an urgent planetary defense mission?
Speaker 3: Because planetary defense relies entirely on understanding how asteroids react
Speaker 3: to kinetic stress, and right now our data is severely limited.
Speaker 2: We just don't know enough exactly.
Speaker 3: Imagine a scenario twenty years from now where we discover
Speaker 3: a four hundred meter asteroid that is on a confirmed
Speaker 3: collision course with Earth.
Speaker 2: Okay, terrifying, but go on.
Speaker 3: Our primary defense strategy is kinetic impact, which means flying
Speaker 3: a heavy spacecraft into the asteroid at high velocity to
Speaker 3: slightly alter its momentum, pushing it off its collision course.
Speaker 2: Ah, the billiard ball method to smack it out of
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 3: In theory, yes, but the reality is vastly more complex.
Speaker 3: If you hit a solid, monolithic block of iron, the
Speaker 3: momentum tre ansfer is highly efficient. The rock moves predictably.
Speaker 2: Just like hitting a Cuball right, But.
Speaker 3: What if that asteroid is a rubble pile with high macroporosity.
Speaker 3: What if it's mostly empty space inside? Oh?
Speaker 2: I see, Then hitting it with a spacecraft would be
Speaker 2: like firing a bullet into a sandbag. The sandbag just
Speaker 2: absorbs the energy. It doesn't move.
Speaker 3: That's a great analogy. It absorbs the kinetic energy. Or
Speaker 3: even worse, the impact shatters the weak cohesive forces holding
Speaker 3: the rubble pile together. Oh no, yeah. Instead of one
Speaker 3: large asteroid on a collision course, you have just created
Speaker 3: a shotgun blast of one hundred smaller, deeply destructive fragments,
Speaker 3: like a cluster bomb, exactly, all still heading toward Earth's atmosphere,
Speaker 3: but now completely impossible to deflect.
Speaker 2: Because you can't hit one hundred different rocks at once.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 2: So we desperately need to know the structural integrity of
Speaker 2: these things before we ever try to hit one.
Speaker 3: We have to know the anatomy of the threat. We
Speaker 3: need to know the yield strength, the porosity, and how
Speaker 3: the internal friction of the bulk absorbs kinetic energy.
Speaker 2: And Apofice is giving us that data for free.
Speaker 3: Well not for free, but it's presenting the opportunity. By
Speaker 3: watching how Apophus behaves when subjected to the maximum title
Speaker 3: stress of Earth's gravity, we gain invaluable empirical data on
Speaker 3: how a three hundred and seventy five meter rock holds
Speaker 3: itself together. It acts as a proxy for any future thread.
Speaker 2: But the catch is we can't get that data just
Speaker 2: by looking at it from our backyards.
Speaker 3: No binoculars won't cut it right.
Speaker 2: Even our best ground based observatories can't resolve the granular
Speaker 2: shifting of dust on an object moving that fast thirty
Speaker 2: two thousand kilometers away.
Speaker 3: It's moving too quickly and the details are too fine.
Speaker 2: To actually measure the reshaping of the asteroid. To see
Speaker 2: the before and after of this gravitational stress test, we
Speaker 2: need an observatory right next to it, which brings us
Speaker 2: to the logistics of actually intercepting this thing.
Speaker 3: And this is where the engineering reality meets the scientific ambition.
Speaker 2: Yes, let's talk about the rams's mission right.
Speaker 3: To maximize this opportunity, we need a spacecraft to rendezvous
Speaker 3: with APOFUS before the APE twenty twenty nine close approach,
Speaker 3: fly alongside it during the flyby, and remain with it
Speaker 3: afterward to measure the permanent alterations. Enter the Ramsey's mission.
Speaker 2: The Rapid Apopus Mission for Space Safety RAMSES. It's a
Speaker 2: great acronym, it really is. But the timeline here is
Speaker 2: what absolutely baffles me. The plan is to launch rams's
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty eight, to arrive before April twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 2: That's right now. Historically, deep space missions take ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen years of development, testing and bureaucratic maneuvering before they
Speaker 2: ever sit on a launch pad.
Speaker 3: Oh easily, sometimes longer.
Speaker 2: But rams's is being pushed through at a blistering page unprecedented,
Speaker 2: and the way they're achieving this speed is through a
Speaker 2: newly solidified, deeply integrated alliance between the European Space Agency
Speaker 2: ESA and the japan Airspace Exploration Agency JXA.
Speaker 3: The geopolitical and administrative achievements of rams's are honestly almost
Speaker 3: as impressive as the flight dynamics. Also well, you cannot
Speaker 3: spin up a bespoke deep space mission in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four to thirty six months if you start from scratch.
Speaker 3: The traditional procurement and supply chain bottlenecks would make it impossible.
Speaker 2: It just takes too long to order the parts.
Speaker 3: Exactly. The only way to meet the unyielding deadline of
Speaker 3: celestial mechanics, I mean, Apofice is arriving in twenty twenty nine,
Speaker 3: whether we are ready or not.
Speaker 2: The asteroid doesn't care about our paperwork.
Speaker 3: It doesn't, so the only way to meet it is
Speaker 3: to leverage existing flight proven partnerships and distribute the engineering load.
Speaker 2: And the foundation of this was formalized recently. On May seventh,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, they signed a memorandum of cooperation along
Speaker 2: with a dedicated agreement specifically for ramseys. Yes, and they
Speaker 2: did this in Berlin at the Embassy of Italy, which
Speaker 2: is an interesting geographical mix for a European Japanese agreement.
Speaker 3: Why there the location highlights the pan European industrial base
Speaker 3: that ESA relies upon. ESA selected OHB Italia as the
Speaker 3: prime contractor to build the rams's spacecraft oh ohb Italia
Speaker 3: has significant expertise in rapid satellite integration hosting. The signing
Speaker 3: in Berlin, in collaboration with thet Space Agency, signifies the
Speaker 3: deep multinational industrial cooperation within Europe.
Speaker 2: It's a team effort, very much.
Speaker 3: So, and that European team is now locking together with
Speaker 3: Japan's state of the art aerospace sector. It was signed
Speaker 3: by ESA Director General Joseph Ashbacher and JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa,
Speaker 3: surrounded by the industrial leadership that will actually weld the
Speaker 3: metal and write the code.
Speaker 2: So how are they actually splitting the workload to hit
Speaker 2: this twenty twenty eight launch window, Because I imagine integrating
Speaker 2: tech from two different continents on a rush schedule is
Speaker 2: an engineer's nightmare.
Speaker 3: It could be, yes, but they mitigate the risk by
Speaker 3: dividing the labor along lines of pre existing.
Speaker 2: Expertise, meaning they stick to what they know exactly.
Speaker 3: They aren't trying to co develop new components from scratch.
Speaker 3: They are integrating fully mature technologies. ESA is taking the
Speaker 3: lead on the overall spacecraft design, the systems integration, and
Speaker 3: the deep space mission operations.
Speaker 2: They're building the car and driving it.
Speaker 3: Basically, they are effectively built the bus, the chassis, and
Speaker 3: the brain of the spacecraft. JXA, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: is stepping in to provide highly specific critical hardware that
Speaker 3: ESA would otherwise have to spend years developing and qualifying
Speaker 3: for deep space.
Speaker 2: What specific hardware are we talking about? Like, what does
Speaker 2: Japan bring into the table?
Speaker 3: Primarily the lightweight solar arrays and the thermal infrared imager.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's start with the solar rays. Why are those
Speaker 2: so critical?
Speaker 3: Deep space missions are severely mass constrained. Every extra gram
Speaker 3: of weight requires exponentially more fuel to accelerate. Right, JAXA
Speaker 3: has developed incredibly advanced ultra lightweight thin film solar array technology.
Speaker 3: These arrays can generate the necessary electrical power for the
Speaker 3: spacecraft's instruments and communication arrays without adding the massive bulk
Speaker 3: of traditional rigid panels.
Speaker 2: Oh, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: By JXA handing over a flight ready proven solar array system,
Speaker 3: ESA shaves years off the design phase.
Speaker 2: It's plug and play at a multi billion dollar level, precisely.
Speaker 3: Furthermore, JXA is providing the thermal infrared imager.
Speaker 2: And why do we need thermal imaging for a rock?
Speaker 3: It is the exact instrument needed to map the heat retention,
Speaker 3: and radiation of the asteroid's surface.
Speaker 2: Ah, like how quickly it warms up in the sun
Speaker 2: and cools down in the dark.
Speaker 3: Exactly. That thermal data is crucial for understanding the macroporosity
Speaker 3: of the rubble pile we discussed earlier. Solid rock holds
Speaker 3: heat differently than a loose pile of dust and gravel.
Speaker 2: Oh, that is so clever. So you don't even need
Speaker 2: to touch it to know what it's made of. You
Speaker 2: just watch how it cools down.
Speaker 3: Right, But the biggest piece of the puzzle JXA is
Speaker 3: bringing to the table isn't on the spacecraft at all.
Speaker 3: It's the launch vehicle. JXA is providing the ride to
Speaker 3: space aboard their H three rocket.
Speaker 2: Which is huge, right, because getting a rocket isn't like
Speaker 2: hailing a cab.
Speaker 3: Not at all. Securing a launch vehicle is traditionally one
Speaker 3: of the most fraught aspects of mission planning. Launch manifests
Speaker 3: for heavy lift rockets are often booked out years in advance.
Speaker 2: You can't just squeeze in, no.
Speaker 3: And the integration of a space craft into a specific
Speaker 3: rockets fairing requires extensive acoustic and vibration testing. You have
Speaker 3: to make sure the rocket's engines don't shake the spacecraft
Speaker 3: to pieces on the way up right. The H three
Speaker 3: rocket is Japan's new flagship launch vehicle designed for high
Speaker 3: reliability and flexibility. By JXA committing an H three specifically
Speaker 3: for Ramsey's they instantly clear the largest logistical bottleneck of
Speaker 3: the entire mission.
Speaker 2: It fundamentally changes the pace of space explorer. It really
Speaker 2: does if two distinct space agencies can trust each other
Speaker 2: enough to just hand over major components. Here's the rocket,
Speaker 2: here are the solar panels, you build the chassis. It
Speaker 2: proves that the bureaucratic red tape can be cut when
Speaker 2: the scientific payoff is high enough.
Speaker 3: JAXA President Hiroshiamakawa explicitly stated that this partnership advances international
Speaker 3: efforts in the field of space safety, and ESA Director
Speaker 3: General Joseph Aschbacker echoed that sentiment, noting that planetary defense
Speaker 3: is inherently a global responsibility. He pointed out that RAMSES
Speaker 3: demonstrates how reliable partners turn ambition into action.
Speaker 2: Ambition indiaction.
Speaker 3: I like that, and it's not blind trust either. They
Speaker 3: are building upon previous successful joint ventures like the EarthCare
Speaker 3: Climate satellite and the Beepoclumbo mission to mercury. The trust
Speaker 3: is already there. Now they are weaponizing that trust to
Speaker 3: beat a ticking clock.
Speaker 2: And I love that phrase. Planetary defense is a global
Speaker 2: responsibility because it's undeniable.
Speaker 3: It's just a fact of life, right.
Speaker 2: An asteroid doesn't target a specific latitude or longitude. It
Speaker 2: doesn't recognize sovereign airspace. The atmosphere doesn't care about geopolitics.
Speaker 3: It's not at all.
Speaker 2: A significant impact anywhere creates a thermal pulse, shock waves,
Speaker 2: and atmospheric dust injection that affects the entire biosphere. You
Speaker 2: cannot build a dome over one country. The only logical
Speaker 2: response to a global threat is a global infrastructure.
Speaker 3: Which brings us to a vital realization about the current
Speaker 3: state of space exploration.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's that.
Speaker 3: Ramsey's is an incredible mission, but it is purely observational, right,
Speaker 3: it's just watching. It is going to ride alongside of office,
Speaker 3: map its surface and watch it stretch. It is gathering intelligence,
Speaker 3: but gathering intelligence is only step one.
Speaker 2: You have to actually be able to do something with
Speaker 2: that intelligence.
Speaker 3: Exactly what we are seeing now with ESA and j
Speaker 3: XA and other international partners is the construction of a comprehensive,
Speaker 3: multi layered architecture for planetary defense. We are moving away
Speaker 3: from theoretical white papers and entering the era of applied
Speaker 3: operational planetary defense.
Speaker 2: Let's look at how that architecture actually functions in reality.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. For so long, the public consciousness around
Speaker 2: planetary defense was shaped entirely by Hollywood. Bruce willis drilling
Speaker 2: a hole in an asteroid armageddon, right, But the actual
Speaker 2: science is much more methodical. It starts with finding the
Speaker 2: rocks before they find us, and a massive hub for
Speaker 2: that is ESA's Near Earth Object Coordination Center the EOCC.
Speaker 3: The INEOCC is the foundational layer of the shield. Can
Speaker 3: deflect an object you haven't tracked.
Speaker 2: You have to see coming right.
Speaker 3: The NEOCC operates as an international clearing house for astronomical data.
Speaker 3: Telescopes all over the world, like pan Stars, the Catalina
Speaker 3: Sky Survey and Essay's own optical ground stations are constantly
Speaker 3: scanning the night sky, taking sequential images of starfields.
Speaker 2: Looking for the one pixel that moves exactly.
Speaker 3: It's a massive data processing effort. When an anomaloust moving
Speaker 3: object is detected, that astrometric data is fed into the NEOCC,
Speaker 3: and what do they do with it? Their algorithms instantly
Speaker 3: begin calculating potential orbits, projecting the object's path years or
Speaker 3: decades into the future to assess the probability of Earth impact.
Speaker 3: They characterize the object's size based on its absolute magnitude,
Speaker 3: and they coordinate follow up observations to refine the trajectory.
Speaker 2: So they're the ones crunching the numbers.
Speaker 3: The NEOCC is the early warning system. They are the
Speaker 3: reason we know apothesis coming, and they are the reason
Speaker 3: we know it will miss.
Speaker 2: So layer one is the NEOC detect and track. Layer
Speaker 2: two is missions like Ramseys intercept and characterize the physical
Speaker 2: structure under stress. Yes, but that still leaves layer three
Speaker 2: the action.
Speaker 3: The intervention.
Speaker 2: If the INNEOCC finds a rock and Ramses tells us
Speaker 2: it's a loosely bound rubble pile, and the math says
Speaker 2: it's going to hit us in ten years, what is
Speaker 2: the actual mechanism for stopping it? How do we prove
Speaker 2: we can actually move a mountain in space?
Speaker 3: Which is the ultimate question.
Speaker 2: It is, and that brings us to the most aggressive
Speaker 2: part of this global architecture, the hair emission.
Speaker 3: The hair emission is the necessary corollary to everything we've
Speaker 3: discussed so far. Hara is another major ESA led initiative
Speaker 3: with critical JAXA partnership, but its objective is entirely different
Speaker 3: from Ramsey's.
Speaker 2: When is Hara happening?
Speaker 3: Hara's arriving later this year in twenty twenty six at
Speaker 3: the Didimos asteroid system, and its purpose is to study
Speaker 3: the aftermath of humanity's first actual test of asteroid deflection.
Speaker 2: We have to give some context to Didimos because it's
Speaker 2: a brilliant piece of orbital physics, very clever. Dedimos is
Speaker 2: a binary asteroid system. It's a larger asteroid roughly seven
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty meters across, orbited by a smaller moonlet
Speaker 2: called Dimorphos, which is about one hundred and sixty meters across.
Speaker 3: Basically an asteroid with its own little moon exactly.
Speaker 2: Now, why did we choose a binary system to test
Speaker 2: our planetary defense capabilities? Why not just pick a lone
Speaker 2: asteroid flying around the Sun and hit that.
Speaker 3: The choice of a binary system is an elegant solution
Speaker 3: to a massive measurement problem.
Speaker 2: Howso, if you.
Speaker 3: Take a solitary asteroid orbiting the Sun and hit it
Speaker 3: with a spacecraft, you will alter its velocity, but the
Speaker 3: change will be incredibly minute, perhaps fractions of a millimeter.
Speaker 2: Per second, which doesn't sound like a lot.
Speaker 3: It's not, though over years it adds up. But trying
Speaker 3: to measure that microscopic change and a massive, multi year
Speaker 3: heliocentric orbit from Earth is incredibly difficult. It would take
Speaker 3: years of observation to confirm if we actually moved it.
Speaker 2: But with a binary system, it's different.
Speaker 3: With a binary system, you have a small moon orbiting
Speaker 3: a primary body very quickly. Dimorphous orbited ditimos roughly every
Speaker 3: eleven hours and fifty five minutes orbit very fast. If
Speaker 3: you impact the moonlit and change its velocity by that
Speaker 3: same fraction of a millimeter per second, you change its
Speaker 3: orbital period around the primary asteroid by several minutes. That
Speaker 3: is a massive, highly visible change that ground based telescopes
Speaker 3: on Earth can measure almost immediately by watching the dip
Speaker 3: in light as the moonlit eclipses the larger body.
Speaker 2: It's basically a celestial clock, and we smashed a spacecraft
Speaker 2: into it to see if we could make.
Speaker 3: It run fast exactly, which we did with the Dart mission.
Speaker 2: The double asteroid redirection test.
Speaker 3: Yes, Dart hit dimorphous and it drastically shortened its orbit,
Speaker 3: but Dart destroyed itself in the process. We know the
Speaker 3: orbit change, but we don't know exactly what the impact
Speaker 3: did to the structure of the moonlet. And that is
Speaker 3: why Hara is arriving in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Hara is going back to the scene of the crash.
Speaker 3: Hara is conducting the vital post impact crime scene investigation.
Speaker 3: Dart proved that kinetic impact can change in orbit. But
Speaker 3: to turn kinetic impact into a reliable operational planetary defense technique,
Speaker 3: we need the exact math.
Speaker 2: We need to see the damage.
Speaker 3: We need to know the massive dimorphois. We need to
Speaker 3: measure the exact size and shape of the crater Dart
Speaker 3: left behind. Did the impact just dent a solid rock
Speaker 3: or did it deform the entire structure of a rubble pile?
Speaker 2: Right going back to the sandbag analogy.
Speaker 3: Exactly did the eject at the debris blown back into
Speaker 3: space act as an additional thruster, enhancing the deflection.
Speaker 2: Oh like rocket exhaust, pushing it further.
Speaker 3: Precisely, Hara will meticulously measure all of these variables to
Speaker 3: give us a complete physical model of the impact.
Speaker 2: The way these missions interconnect is just incredible to me.
Speaker 2: Ramsys and HERA are two halves of the same survival strategy.
Speaker 3: They absolutely are.
Speaker 2: Think about a medical intervention. Hair is analyzing the surgical strike.
Speaker 2: It's studying the exact mechanics of how you hit an
Speaker 2: asteroid and how it reacts to blunt force trauma. And
Speaker 2: Rams's is the MRI beforehand. Rams is watching how a
Speaker 2: similar asteroid's internal anatomy reacts to gravitational stress, so we
Speaker 2: understand the tissue of the target before we ever have
Speaker 2: to operate.
Speaker 3: That is a perfect synthesis. You need the deep structural
Speaker 3: understanding from Ramses and you need the blunt force mechanics
Speaker 3: from HERA to actually build a working planetary shield.
Speaker 2: It represents a profound evolution in human capability, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: It really does. I mean, for four billion years, life
Speaker 3: on Earth has existed at the complete mercy of.
Speaker 2: The cosmos, just crossing our fingers.
Speaker 3: Pretty much. The biosphere has been routinely reset by kinetic impacts.
Speaker 3: The dinosaurs were apex predators, but they lacked a space.
Speaker 2: Program right They couldn't look up and do anything about it.
Speaker 3: Now, for the first time in the history of this planet,
Speaker 3: a species has developed the technological capacity to look out
Speaker 3: into the dark, identify an existential threat, understand its physical composition,
Speaker 3: and actively intervene to alter its trajectory.
Speaker 2: We are engineering our way out out of the probability
Speaker 2: of extinction.
Speaker 3: Exactly. We are taking control of our orbital neighborhood, and we're.
Speaker 2: Doing it not as individual rival nations, but as a collective.
Speaker 3: That's the most important part.
Speaker 2: We are building a defense network made of tracking centers
Speaker 2: in Europe, telescopes in Hawaii, infrared imagers from Japan, and
Speaker 2: global scientific cooperation. It proves that when the stakes are
Speaker 2: literally planetary, humanity possesses the capacity to mobilize across borders.
Speaker 3: As Joseph Aschbacher noted regarding the ESJXA partnership, international cooperation
Speaker 3: remains the absolute cornerstone of our approach to space in
Speaker 3: an increasingly complex environment.
Speaker 2: It has to be.
Speaker 3: Ramsey's Hera and the neocc are concrete proof that shared
Speaker 3: intention can manifest as mission level reality.
Speaker 2: We have covered an immense amount of ground today, from
Speaker 2: orbital mechanics to geopolitical alliances. So let's just briefly return
Speaker 2: to that Friday night in twenty twenty nine to anchor
Speaker 2: all of this sounds good. On April thirteenth, an object
Speaker 2: the size of a skyscraper will fly clo closer to
Speaker 2: our planet than the satellites that beam television to our homes.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a site.
Speaker 2: As it passes, the invisible, crushing gravity of Earth will
Speaker 2: reach out and knead the rock, shifting its boulders, changing
Speaker 2: its spin, testing its structural limits in a display of
Speaker 2: physics we have never witnesseduff close never and writing shotgun
Speaker 2: right next to it, watching every single shutter and micro
Speaker 2: avalanche will be the Rams' spacecraft, born of a rapid,
Speaker 2: unprecedented alliance between Europe and Japan.
Speaker 3: It is a historic astronomical event met with an equally
Speaker 3: historic display of human ingenuity.
Speaker 2: So the next time you walk out into your backyard
Speaker 2: and look up at the night sky, I want you
Speaker 2: to consider what is coming. Yeah, when that specific Friday
Speaker 2: rolls around and two billion people look up to watch
Speaker 2: a pofus skim the edge of our atmosphere, it won't
Speaker 2: just be a terrifying anomaly. It will be a moment
Speaker 2: of profound, undeniable global unity.
Speaker 3: A shared human experience.
Speaker 2: Think about what it will feel like to stand there
Speaker 2: in the dark, watching that silent rock pass, knowing that
Speaker 2: humanity isn't just cowering below, Knowing that right beside that
Speaker 2: mountain in space, an international robotic ambassador is flying in formation,
Speaker 2: silently taking notes, learning its secrets, ensuring that the next
Speaker 2: time the universe throws a rock our way, we won't
Speaker 2: just be watching. We will be ready. We will be ready,