Speaker 1: Welcome again to Astronomy Daily. I'm Steve Dunkley, your human host.
Speaker 1: It's the twenty fourth of February twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean to be your whole Steve Dunkle. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: and thank you for joining us here at Astronomy Daily.
Speaker 1: Come to you from the studio in Paradise. That's right, Newcastle, Australia.
Speaker 1: Currently thirty six degrees. I'm so glad to be indoors.
Speaker 1: That's Celsius for all of you who are wondering, it's
Speaker 1: a perfect summer's day here on Australia's beautiful East Coast.
Speaker 1: Not a cloud in the sky. The sun is baking us. Yes,
Speaker 1: and as dylanor And once said, we're all audibly crackling
Speaker 1: down here. We're only three kilometers from the surface of
Speaker 1: the sun. Didn't you know that it is hot? Hot hot?
Speaker 1: And joining me again is my digital reporter Pale, who's
Speaker 1: fun to be with.
Speaker 3: Welcome back, Holle, Hi favorite human. What's new?
Speaker 1: Oh, Hally, just another week in the real world, just
Speaker 1: enjoying all the news from the Astronomy Daily newsletter. Now
Speaker 1: have you found your stories for today?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: I have. You'll like one about the mysterious Space Force
Speaker 3: space plane.
Speaker 1: I'll stop it. Space Force. You know what that means?
Speaker 3: Yes, your favorite.
Speaker 1: Oh people, get ready the Space.
Speaker 3: Force theme music.
Speaker 1: Space Oh dear, I'll just click myself out. And what
Speaker 1: else have you got for us? Helle?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, SpaceX has completed a substantial static fire test
Speaker 3: that I'll also report on. That sounds very good, It
Speaker 3: looks promising.
Speaker 1: That's great, Halle. It's not Space Force, but it's really good.
Speaker 1: And I am going to have a look at a
Speaker 1: fast moving star astronomers have discovered toward the center of
Speaker 1: the galaxy. And you won't believe just how fast we're
Speaker 1: talking with this one.
Speaker 3: How fast are we talking?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: Well, helly, remember that time you asked me to put
Speaker 1: away the memory cards from the recording sessions last year.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm still waiting anything to get out of
Speaker 3: a little work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, Well this star is way faster than that.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, that's pretty quick, tell you.
Speaker 1: Listeners, she said, not very convincingly.
Speaker 3: That's a fact.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, enough of that, Shenantigan's. But before we get
Speaker 1: stuck into today's stories, Halle, I've got a quick update
Speaker 1: regarding that approaching asteroid that's been in.
Speaker 3: The news lately, the one causing all the rumors about
Speaker 3: certain destruction in twenty thirty two years.
Speaker 1: That's the one halle straight off the wire today. Asteroid
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four y are four, as listeners might be
Speaker 1: already aware, as a recently discovered near Earth object currently
Speaker 1: being closely monitored by NASA's Planetary Defense teams. Initial observations
Speaker 1: suggested there might be a potential risk of impact with
Speaker 1: Earth in the future, but thankfully updated calculations have significantly
Speaker 1: reduced this possibility. Based on the latest data, the asteroid
Speaker 1: has an extremely low probability point two eight percent of
Speaker 1: impacting Earth. On December twenty two, twenty thirty two. However,
Speaker 1: its chances of colliding with the Moon have slocally increased
Speaker 1: to one percent.
Speaker 3: So I can see that the asteroid's orbit continues to
Speaker 3: be refined through ongoing observations, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Speaker 3: CENTURY system providing real time updates on its trajectory.
Speaker 1: That is exactly how it works, and while Asteroid twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four four doesn't currently pose a significant threat, scientists
Speaker 1: are remaining vigilant tracking its movements to give more accurate
Speaker 1: predictions into as says, any potential future risks just in case.
Speaker 3: That's very wise, and this is why we shouldn't jump
Speaker 3: to conclusions about trajectories and potential impacts so soon.
Speaker 1: That's right. The asteroid is a near Earth object of
Speaker 1: the Apollo type with a estimated diameter between forty and
Speaker 1: ninety meters, and it was discovered on December twenty seven,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four by Atlas, which is the Asteroid Terrestrial
Speaker 1: Impact Last Alert System at its Chilean station in Rio Hutundo.
Speaker 3: So nothing to be concerned about, after all, nothing at all.
Speaker 1: But who knows, we might get to see a spectacular
Speaker 1: impact on the Moon.
Speaker 3: Maybe perhaps maybe wouldn't that be something?
Speaker 1: And it's good today that Atlas is watching the skies.
Speaker 3: Thanks for that update, human, Now shall we just launch
Speaker 3: into the episode.
Speaker 1: Then good idea hit the Gothene Rhightoh.
Speaker 3: Last week, Ship thirty four completed its engine testing campaign
Speaker 3: with a long duration static fire. This static fire was
Speaker 3: nearly a minute long, and according to SpaceX, the extended
Speaker 3: firing tested new hardware and cycled the six Raptor engines
Speaker 3: through multiple thrust levels to recreate different conditions seen within
Speaker 3: the propulsion system during flight. Data from the test will
Speaker 3: inform upgrades to the ship's hardware and flight profile ahead
Speaker 3: of the next launch. The new hardware that SpaceX tested
Speaker 3: was likely related to the anomaly that occurred during flight
Speaker 3: seven and resulted in the loss of Ship thirty three.
Speaker 3: This could have been a leak in the liquid oxygen
Speaker 3: and liquid methane supply lines to the engines, which could
Speaker 3: have been the source of the fire scene during Ship
Speaker 3: thirty three's ascent burn. However, there is no official comp
Speaker 3: information from SpaceX regarding the actual cause of the failure.
Speaker 3: This test was also done to inform of other upgrades
Speaker 3: to the vehicle and possible changes to the flight profile,
Speaker 3: so it is likely that SpaceX still has modifications to
Speaker 3: be made on Ship thirty four. It is unclear what
Speaker 3: these modifications could be or how long it will take
Speaker 3: SpaceX to implement them on Ship thirty four. This long
Speaker 3: duration static fire is the longest SpaceX has ever fired
Speaker 3: a starship or booster on the ground, and it can
Speaker 3: do this because of the flame trench at Massy's It
Speaker 3: is unclear if this will be a one time test
Speaker 3: or if crews will do longer duration static fire in
Speaker 3: the future. There are a few things that SpaceX will
Speaker 3: likely add to the flight, considering several things couldn't be
Speaker 3: tested on flight seven. Firstly, there are the dummy starlinks
Speaker 3: which were loaded into Ship thirty three. A new batch
Speaker 3: of them was seen in star Factory to be presumably
Speaker 3: loaded on Ship three four just before rollout to the
Speaker 3: launch site. SpaceX might use the new starlink loader box
Speaker 3: that was built inside High Bay rather than the tray
Speaker 3: loader used on Ship Fife thirty three. As for the
Speaker 3: other items expected to be added to Ship thirty four,
Speaker 3: there is the actively cool tile for testing, as well
Speaker 3: as the catch pins. These catch pins are likely to
Speaker 3: be just bolted on, as SpaceX does not intend to
Speaker 3: catch Ship thirty four. Lastly, crews will likely remove all
Speaker 3: of the tiles that were removed on Ship thirty three
Speaker 3: to help understand the limits of losing a tile in
Speaker 3: certain places during re entry. An interesting note about Ship
Speaker 3: thirty four's engine testing campaign is it took SpaceX seventy
Speaker 3: two hours to roll it to massi's static fire it
Speaker 3: and then roll it back to Mega Bay two. This
Speaker 3: is a record compared to every other ship in the past.
Speaker 3: Booster fifteen was static fired on February ninth, and it
Speaker 3: was just the normal ten second static fire with all
Speaker 3: thirty three engines. With this out of the way, SpaceX
Speaker 3: rolled the booster back into Mega Bay one for final
Speaker 3: checkouts and has since received its hot stage train. SpaceX
Speaker 3: completed the rollout mount on the orbital launch mount and
Speaker 3: roll back of the booster in just over sixty one hours,
Speaker 3: which is a new record for bos bosters. This booster
Speaker 3: doesn't have any major outside changes that are noticeable, but
Speaker 3: it was the first booster to have the added tanks
Speaker 3: on the landing tank, but older boosters were likely retrofitted
Speaker 3: with this upgrade. The final two pieces of the puzzle
Speaker 3: for flight eight are the launch pad and the regulatory side. First,
Speaker 3: SpaceX has finally found a rhythm with refurbishing orbital launch
Speaker 3: pad A, which takes about two to three weeks to
Speaker 3: refurbish for a booster static fire. Then we will have
Speaker 3: another few weeks to get it ready for launch again.
Speaker 3: The second piece is waiting for the mishap investigation to
Speaker 3: be completed. So far there is no indication of when
Speaker 3: this might be completed. However, given the post SpaceX made
Speaker 3: after the long Durationship thirty four static fire. The final
Speaker 3: part of that investigation could be nearing a close. The
Speaker 3: next thing to watch out for is a SpaceX post
Speaker 3: detailing the anomalies, cost, and the fixes they are implementing.
Speaker 3: The Federal Aviation Administration will also likely post about approving
Speaker 3: Starship for return to flight after the completed Invents instigation.
Speaker 3: If SpaceX follows the same trajectory and splash down locations,
Speaker 3: the license that is currently issued for Starship should still
Speaker 3: be current. Currently, there is a notice to airmen from
Speaker 3: Mexican Airspace for February twenty six, with a window of
Speaker 3: six thirty pm to eight or nine pm Central Standard Time.
Speaker 3: With all this in mind, SpaceX still has a lot
Speaker 3: of work to do to launch Flight eight in less
Speaker 3: than a week.
Speaker 1: Astronomy Vodka. If you're going to call aliens, you'd better
Speaker 1: use this number. Let's dive into one of those cosmic
Speaker 1: curiosities that's bound to blow your mind. Have how about
Speaker 1: we call some aliens in chat No, and not talking
Speaker 1: about elaborate coded messages or flashy signals. We're talking about
Speaker 1: something incredible, incredibly fundamental twenty one centimeter radiation. And if
Speaker 1: you're planning on having a conversation across the vastness of
Speaker 1: space using light waves or electromagnetic radiation. It's pretty much
Speaker 1: your go to option. It's fast, reliable, and well it's
Speaker 1: most practical way to shout out to other civilizations in
Speaker 1: the universe. But why specifically twenty one centimeters? Well, that's
Speaker 1: where things get juicy. This twenty one centimeter radiation isn't
Speaker 1: just some random frequency we've picked out of a hat.
Speaker 1: It's tied to something very essential, known as the hydrogen
Speaker 1: spin flip. Hydrogen atoms consist of one proton and one electron.
Speaker 1: These tiny particles have a property called spin. Think of
Speaker 1: spin like a little arrow pointing up or pointing down.
Speaker 1: Every so often in the vast reaches of space, hydrogen
Speaker 1: atoms electron can flip its spin, going from a state
Speaker 1: where its spin is aligned with the proton to one
Speaker 1: pointing in the opposite direction. This flip releases energy in
Speaker 1: the form of radiation at you guessed it a wave
Speaker 1: length of twenty one centimeters. So why does this matter? Well,
Speaker 1: any smart civilization, whether they have blue skin, tentacles or
Speaker 1: something more bizarre, will eventually discover hydrogen. Understand that spin
Speaker 1: dabble in quantum mechanics and figure out this whole twenty
Speaker 1: one centimeter radiation thing, and they might call it something different.
Speaker 1: They won't have twenty one or maybe centimeters, but the
Speaker 1: concept remains universal. It's like it's like the cosmic Rosetta stone.
Speaker 1: What makes twenty one centimeter radiation perfect for long distance
Speaker 1: interstellar chats is its ability to cut through into stellar dust.
Speaker 1: Space is filthy with dust clouds that block out other
Speaker 1: forms of light. However, twenty one centimeter waves are like
Speaker 1: the VIPs of the universe, slipping through velvet ropes of
Speaker 1: cosmic debris to carry their message far and wide. Is
Speaker 1: the fun fact. NASA's Pioneer spacecraft, launched in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, carry plaques, and on these pluks there's a
Speaker 1: handy diagram of the hydrogen spin flip transition. All other
Speaker 1: measurements on the plaque, including the height of humans, are
Speaker 1: made in reference to this fundamental distance. I hope is
Speaker 1: that aliens can recognize the hydrogen spin flip transition and
Speaker 1: use that to unlock the rest of our message. Now
Speaker 1: imagine this scenario. One day, astronomers on Earth detect an
Speaker 1: unusual surge of twenty one centimeter radiation, and it's not
Speaker 1: coming from a random hydrogen cloud. It's directional, purposeful, and
Speaker 1: that could very well be an alien civilization sending us
Speaker 1: a what's up across the cosmos? A twenty one centimeter
Speaker 1: radiation makes for a great calling card. Using twenty one
Speaker 1: centimeter radiation to communicate with extraterrestrial beings leverages a basic
Speaker 1: universal constant. And who knows, maybe one day, when we
Speaker 1: finally hear that signal, we'll know that somewhere out there,
Speaker 1: other intelligent species figured out the same galactic hack we did.
Speaker 1: So keep your eyes, or rather your telescopes peeled. The
Speaker 1: next big discovery could just be a spin flip away.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of
Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from
Speaker 1: the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive
Speaker 1: in your email every day, just like Hallie and I do.
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Speaker 2: See you there, Astronomy Daily. We'll see and Haley Space Space,
Speaker 2: Science and Astronomy.
Speaker 3: The United States Space Force just offered a rare glimpse
Speaker 3: of its shadowy X thirty seven B spaceplane in orbit.
Speaker 3: The photo, released on Thursday, February twentieth, was taken by
Speaker 3: a camera on board the X thirty seven B while
Speaker 3: the secret of spaceplane orbited high above the African continent.
Speaker 3: One of the plane's solar panels is visible on the
Speaker 3: left side of the photo, while what appears to be
Speaker 3: its open payload bay is visible along the top edge.
Speaker 3: The vehicle has been in orbit for well over a
Speaker 3: year now, having launched on its seventh mission on December
Speaker 3: twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, atop a SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket,
Speaker 3: and now the X thirty seven B has notched another
Speaker 3: milestone with the Space Force's release of this photo, the
Speaker 3: first ever image of this spaceplane in orbit that has
Speaker 3: been shown to the public. While the photo contains scant
Speaker 3: details about the vehicle and what it's currently testing. It
Speaker 3: offers a look at Earth in the background, revealing just
Speaker 3: how high the vehicle is flying on its seventh mission.
Speaker 3: We've gotten only one other glimpse at the X thirty
Speaker 3: seven B in orbit prior to this. During the live
Speaker 3: stream of its most recent launch, a brief shot of
Speaker 3: the spacecraft deploying from Falcon heavy' upper stage was seen
Speaker 3: while its service module was still attached. When the X
Speaker 3: thirty seven B was preparing to launch on its current mission,
Speaker 3: the US Space Force revealed the flight would include operating
Speaker 3: the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future
Speaker 3: space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the radiation effects on
Speaker 3: materials provided by NASA. According to a Space Force statement,
Speaker 3: previous X thirty seven B missions were flown in low
Speaker 3: Earth orbit, but as this photo reveals, the space plane
Speaker 3: is currently operating much farther from Earth. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy
Speaker 3: is capable of launching payloads into geosynchronous orbit over twenty
Speaker 3: two thousand miles thirty five thousand kilometers above our planet.
Speaker 3: The X thirty seven BE recently made headlines when Space
Speaker 3: Force and Boeing, who built the vehicle revealed that it
Speaker 3: would be testing a new aerobraking maneuver that uses the
Speaker 3: drag or friction generated by Earth's atmosphere to change orbit
Speaker 3: more efficiently.
Speaker 2: I mean to Astronomy Daily Fisteve Dunkel.
Speaker 1: Did you notice how Hallie managed to get my space
Speaker 1: force story. That's funny how she sneaks away with things
Speaker 1: like that. Meanwhile, astronomers have found a small, fast moving
Speaker 1: star racing through the center of our galaxy, possibly with
Speaker 1: a planet in orbit. If confirmed, this would be the
Speaker 1: fastest known sorry exo planet system, traveling nearly twice as
Speaker 1: fast as our Solar system through the Milky Way. You
Speaker 1: may be wondering how fast that actually is. Hey, I
Speaker 1: once got an Amazon delivery in less than twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: but that's just peanuts to how fast this star seems
Speaker 1: to be tearing across space. The system is estimated to
Speaker 1: be moving at an incredible speed. Now wait for this,
Speaker 1: of least one point two million miles per hour. That's
Speaker 1: five hundred and forty kilometers per second. Wow. We think
Speaker 1: this is a so called super neptune world orbiting a
Speaker 1: low mass star at a distance that would be live
Speaker 1: between the orbits of Venus and Earth. If it, we're
Speaker 1: in our Solar system, said Sean Terry, a postdoctoral researcher
Speaker 1: at the University of Maryland and NASA has got out
Speaker 1: space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Since the star is
Speaker 1: so feeble, that's well outside its habitable zone. If so,
Speaker 1: it will be the first planet ever found orbiting a
Speaker 1: hypervelocity star. The findings, led by Terry were published in
Speaker 1: the Astronomical Journal on February ten. The pair of objects
Speaker 1: was first spotted indirectly in twenty eleven thanks to a
Speaker 1: chance alignment. A team of scientists comes through the archived
Speaker 1: data of MOA. That's the micro Lensing Observations in Astrophysics,
Speaker 1: a collaborative project focused on micro lensing survey conducted in
Speaker 1: the University of Canterbury Mount john Obs Observatory in New
Speaker 1: Zealand in search of life signals that betray the presence
Speaker 1: of exoplanets or planets outside our Solar System. Micro Lensing
Speaker 1: occurs when the presence of mass warps the fabric of
Speaker 1: space time. Anytime an intervening object appears to drift near
Speaker 1: a background, star light from the star curves as it
Speaker 1: travels through the space time around the nearer object. If
Speaker 1: the alignment is especially close, the warping around the object
Speaker 1: can act like a natural lens, amplifying the background stars light.
Speaker 1: In this case, micro lensing signals reveal a pair of
Speaker 1: celestial bodies. Scientists determine their relative masses. One is about
Speaker 1: twenty three hundred times heavier than the other, but their
Speaker 1: exact masses depend on how far away they are from
Speaker 1: the Earth. It's sort of like how the magnification changes
Speaker 1: if you hold a magnifying glass over a page and
Speaker 1: move it up and down. Determining the mass ratio is easy,
Speaker 1: said David Bennett, a research scientists at the University of
Speaker 1: Maryland College Park and A Godard, who co authored the
Speaker 1: paper and led the original study in twenty eleven. It's
Speaker 1: much more difficult, he said, to calculate their actual masses.
Speaker 1: The twenty eleven discovery team suspected the microlens object where
Speaker 1: ei they're a star about twenty percent as massive as
Speaker 1: our Sun and a planet roughly twenty nine times heavy
Speaker 1: than the Earth, or near a rogue planet about four
Speaker 1: times of Jupiter's mass with a moon smaller than Earth.
Speaker 1: To figure out which explanation is more likely, astronomers searched
Speaker 1: through data from Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the European
Speaker 1: Space Agency's gay A satellite. If the pair were a
Speaker 1: rogue planet and moon, they'd be effectively invisible. Dark objects
Speaker 1: get lost in the inky void of space, but scientists
Speaker 1: might be able to identify the star if the alternative
Speaker 1: explanation were correct, though the orbiting planet would be much
Speaker 1: too faint to actually see. They found a strong suspect
Speaker 1: located about twenty four thousand light years way, putting it
Speaker 1: within the Milky Ways galactic bulge the central hub where
Speaker 1: the stars are more densely packed. By comparing the stars
Speaker 1: location in twenty eleven and twenty twenty one, the team
Speaker 1: calculated its high speed, but that's just its two D emotion.
Speaker 1: If it's also moving toward or away from us, it
Speaker 1: must be moving even faster. Its true speed may be
Speaker 1: high enough to exceed the galaxy's escape velocity of just
Speaker 1: over one point three miles per hour or about six
Speaker 1: hundred kilometers per second. If so, the planetary system is
Speaker 1: destined to traverse the intergalactic space many millions of years
Speaker 1: into the future. To be certain a new identified star
Speaker 1: is part of the system that caused the twenty eleven signal.
Speaker 1: We'd like to look again in another year and see
Speaker 1: if it moves the right amount in the right direction
Speaker 1: to confirm it it came from the point where we
Speaker 1: detected the signal. Then it said. If a high resolution
Speaker 1: observation show that the star just stays in the same position,
Speaker 1: then we can tell for sure that it's not part
Speaker 1: of the system that caused that signal, said a Panabatacha,
Speaker 1: a research scientist at University of Maryland College Park and
Speaker 1: NASA Goddard who co authored the new paper. That would
Speaker 1: mean the Roague planet and exomoon model is favored. NASA's
Speaker 1: upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will help us find
Speaker 1: out how common planets are around such speedy stars and
Speaker 1: may offer clues as to how these systems are accelerated.
Speaker 1: A mission will conduct survey of the galactic bulge, pairing
Speaker 1: a large views of space with crisp resolution. In this case,
Speaker 1: we used MOA for its broad field view and then
Speaker 1: followed up with KEK and GAIA for their sharper resolution.
Speaker 1: But thanks to Roman's powerful view and planned survey strategy,
Speaker 1: we won't need to rely on additional telescopes, Terry said,
Speaker 1: Roman will do it all. Isn't it exciting to see
Speaker 1: that our view of the skies is becoming clearer and
Speaker 1: clearer with each new development. It's space telescope technology.
Speaker 3: And there it is for another episode of Astronomy Daily,
Speaker 3: the podcast. I sure hope you enjoyed today's presentation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really enjoyed that today, Halle, even though you
Speaker 1: took one of my stories. But hey, thanks everybody for
Speaker 1: stopping byru I hope you really enjoyed the show. And
Speaker 1: don't forget Halle's cousin Anna takes the show during the
Speaker 1: week so.
Speaker 3: You don't miss all the news about astronomy, space and
Speaker 3: space science as it happens.
Speaker 1: And if you didn't get it before, the details of
Speaker 1: receiving the Astronomy Daily newsletter in your email every day
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier in this podcast and every podcast.
Speaker 3: You did a great job on that announcement.
Speaker 1: Well you're very kind, Halle, and we will catch you
Speaker 1: all next week on your favorite podcast channel.
Speaker 3: See you everyone, Bye with your host Steve Dankling.