Speaker 1: Welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm anna bringing you the latest
breakthroughs from the cosmos right to your ears. Today's episode
is packed with fascinating developments that are reshaping our understanding
of the universe around us. We've got quite the stellar
lineup of stories to explore. NASA's James Web Space Telescope
has been examining a building sized asteroid, giving us new
insights about these smaller space rocks and what they're made of.
Then we'll look at Amazon's Project Kuyper as it prepares
for a major satellite launch that could transform global Internet connectivity.
The Web Telescope has also uncovered something quite remarkable galaxies
that were already dying out just seven hundred million years
after the Big Bang, challenging our previous models of galactic
evolution and forcing astronomers to rethink the timeline of our universe.
We'll also explore Japan's innovative approach to Mars landing, using
inflatable technology that could revolutionize how we deliver rovers to
the Red planet. And speaking of Mars, scientists have made
progress in understanding what triggers those massive planet covering dust storms,
a crucial step for future missions and potential human exploration.
These discoveries aren't just academic curiosities. They represent the cutting
edge of human knowledge, pushing the boundaries of what we
know about our cosmic neighborhood and beyond. So let's launch
into today's cosmic news and explore these frontiers together. Kicking
things off, the James Web Space telescope recently set its
sites on asteroid twenty twenty four yr four, a near
Earth object that had previously raised some concern. While NASA
announced back in February that the risk of this asteroid
hitting Earth in twenty thirty two had been downgraded to
near zero, these observations provided valuable information about what asteroids
of this size are actually like, particularly as this one
appears to be growing. According to Andy Rivkin of Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who led the Web observation program,
this is the smallest object WEB has targeted to date,
and one of the smallest objects to have its size
directly measured from space. What makes this particularly interesting is
how Web approached the task. Most telescopes observe asteroids by
measuring sunlight reflected from their surfaces, which doesn't always provide
precise size information. Web, however, used both its near infrared
camera and mid infrared instrument in tandem. The mid infrared
wavelengths allowed scientists to measure the heat given off by
the asteroid itself, providing a direct measurement of its size.
The observations revealed that twenty twenty four yr four is
approximately sixty meters across, about the height of a fifteen
story building. But it's not just the size that proved interesting.
The asteroid's thermal properties are notably different from those of
larger asteroids. Rivkin's team believes this is likely due to
a combination of the asteroid's very fast spin rate and
a surface that lacks fine grained and instead the surface
appears to be dominated by larger rocks, perhaps fist sized
or bigger. While this particular asteroid no longer poses a
threat to Earth or the Moon, these observations have significant
value for planetary defense. As more sensitive asteroid search programs
come online in the coming years, we can expect to
discover more potential impactors. Understanding how to best use our
most powerful telescope to gather critical data quickly will be
invaluable during a more urgent scenario. Involving a potentially hazardous asteroid.
These observations also provided additional data about the asteroid's position,
helping improve our knowledge of its orbit and future trajectory.
When combined with ground based measurements of its spin rate
and spectral properties, scientists now have a comprehensive understanding of
what this building size space rock is like. Riv can
emphasize that this gives scientists a window into understanding what
other objects of similar size might be like, including the
next one that might be heading our way. The observations
demonstrate Web's versatility as not just a deep space observatory,
but also as a tool for planetary defense. Closer to home.
Next on today's story list, Amazon's project Kiper is poised
to take a major leap forward with the launch of
its first operational satellites. United Launch Alliance is scheduled to
send twenty seven satellites into low Earth orbit on April ninth,
using an Atlas five rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force
Station in Florida. This mission, dubbed KA zero one or
Kuyper Atlas one, represents the first step in Amazon's ambitious
plan to create a constellation of more than three thousand,
two hundred satellites for global broadband Internet coverage. These aren't
just test satellites, according to Amazon, These operational units feature
significant upgrades over the two prototypes launched last year. They
come equipped with improved phased array antennas, more powerful processors,
enhanced solar arrays, better propulsion systems, and optical inter satellite links.
All this technology has been packed into satellites manufactured at
the company's facility in Kirkland, Washington. The launch is happening
about a year behind Amazon's original schedule, pushing potential beta
services into later this year rather than late twenty twenty
four as initially planned. This timeline is particularly important because
Amazon faces strict deployment deadlines from the Federal Communications Commission.
Half the constellation must be deployed by July twenty twenty six,
with the remainder by July twenty twenty nine. Project Kuiper
vice president Rajiv Badial acknowledged the challenges ahead, noting that
while extensive ground testing has been conducted, some things can
only be learned in actual flight conditions. This will also
be the first deployment of multiple satellites simultaneously for the project.
A crucial operational test. The upcoming launch is notable in
several other ways. According to Amazon, it will be the
heaviest payload ever flown on an Atlas five rocket, which
will use its mother most powerful configuration for this mission,
featuring five solid rocket boosters plus the main booster. The
satellites will be deployed approximately four hundred and fifty kilometers
above Earth. This is just the beginning of a massive
launch campaign. Amazon has secured an impressive array of launch
contracts to deploy its full constellation, including seven more Atlas
five rockets and thirty eight launches on ULA's larger Vulcan
Centaur rocket. The company has also contracted three SpaceX Falcon
nine missions, eighteen Ariani six launches from Ariani Space, and
up to twenty seven new Glen rockets from Blue Origin.
Amazon has already lined up several partners to deliver Project
Kuiper services, including US telecommunications giants Verizon and Vodafone, as
well as Japan's Sky Perfect, JSAT and Nipon Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation, who plan to sell services to Japanese businesses
and government organizations. With this launch, the race to establish
the next generation of satellite Internet constellations intensified as Amazon
joined SpaceX's Starlink and other competitors in the increasingly crowded
low Earth orbit environment. Next up, we have another update
from the JWST. One of the most remarkable discoveries from
the James Web Space Telescope has completely upended our understanding
of galactic evolution. Astronomers have found evidence that massive galaxies
were already dying just seven hundred million years after the
Big Bang, a finding that challenges fundamental assumptions about how
the earliest galaxies formed and evolved. According to the standard
cosmological model, the first stars and galaxies began forming around
three hundred four hundred million years after the Big Bang.
During this period, enormous clouds of neutral hydrogen gas collapsed
to trigger rapid star formation, a process that was thought
to continue uninterrupted for about a billion years. The expectation
was that all early galaxies would be vigorously forming stars, young, active,
and growing. That's what makes the recent findings from an
international team led by astronomers from the University of Geneva
so surprising. As part of the Revealing the Universe with
the James Webb Space Telescope, program known as Rubies. They've
identified what appears to be a quenched galaxy from this
extremely early cosmic era. This particular galaxy, designated Rubies UDS
qgz seven, had already accumulated more than ten billion solar
masses of matter before rapidly becoming quiescent. In astronomical terms,
quenching refers to how galaxies stop forming new stars and
become what scientists sometimes call red and dead galaxies. As
the younger, brighter stars die off, these galaxies become dominated
by older, redder stars. The discovery of Ruby's udsqgz seven
implies that massive quiescent galaxies in the first billion years
of the universe are more than one hundred times more
abundant than predicted by any existing cosmological model. This creates
significant tension between our theoretical understanding and the observational evidence
from web. What's even more astonishing is the galaxy size.
It measures just about six hundred and fifty light years
in diameter, giving it a much higher stellar mass density
than similar quiescent galaxies we observe in the local universe today.
Scientists believe these incredibly dense galaxies may have evolved into
the cores of the massive elliptical galaxies we see in
the modern cosmos. The prevailing theories about what causes galaxies
to stop forming stars include stellar winds, outflows, and activity
from supermassive black holes, but conventional models suggested this process
would take much longer than what we're now observing. Finding
a red and dead galaxy so early in cosmic history
means that star formation and subsequent quenching must have happened
far more rapidly than anyone anticipated. According to Andrea Wibel,
the PhD student leading the study, this finding provides the
first strong evidence that the centers of some nearby massive
elliptical galaxies may have been in place since the first
few hundred million years after the Big Bang, essentially preserving
the fossil record of the earliest era of galaxy formation.
It's been a while since we had any good news
from JACKSA, but today we have some. Japan is taking
an ambitious new approach to Mars exploration that could revolutionize
how we land spacecraft on the Red planet. According to
Masaki Fujimoto, the newly appointed Director General of the Institute
of Space and Astronautical Sciences within JACKSA, the Japanese Space
Agency is developing a novel landing system using inflatable decelerators
that could enable more efficient missions to Mars. The concept
combines proven technologies from two of Japan's recent space achievements.
It leverages capabilities from the upcoming Martian Moons Exploration mission,
which aims to collect samples from Phobos, and incorporates lessons
learned from the Smartlander for investigating Moon, space craft that
achieved a remarkably precise lunar landing earlier this year, despite
experiencing a thrust or malfunction. At the heart of this
innovative approach is an inflatable soft aeroshell that would handle
the challenging entry, descent, and landing phases of a Mars mission.
Instead of having a complicated operational supersonic parachute and a
hard aeroshell, you can do all the job just with
this single technology, Fujimoto explained during a presentation at the
National Academy's Space Science Week. This approach offers significant advantages
over traditional Mars landing systems. Current methods typically rely on
complex combinations of heat shields, supersonic parachutes, and retrorockets, all
of which must function perfectly in sequence for a successful landing.
The Japanese concept streamlines this process considerably, with the inflatable
aeroshell delivering the spacecraft through the Martian atmosphere and thrusters
handling only the final touchdown phase. JAXA envisions using this
technology to deliver relatively small rovers weighing between one hundred
to two hundred kilograms to the Martian surface. While modest
in scale compared to NASA's car sized Perseverance Rover, these
smaller vehicles could still conduct valuable scientific research at a
fraction of the cost and complexity. The project is receiving
financial support from the Space Strategic Fund, a Japanese government
initiative providing six point seven billion dollars over a decade
to advance critical space technologies. JACKSA is collaborating with an
unnamed commercial company to develop the inflatable aeroshell technology. While
no specific timeline has been announced for when this technology
might be ready for an actual Mars mission, the fact
that it's beginning to materialize now suggests that Japan is
serious about joining the small group of nations capable of
successfully landing spacecraft on Mars. If successful, this approach could
significantly lower the barriers to Martian exploration and potentially pave
the way for more frequent mission to study the Red
planet's surface. Speaking of Mars, if you've ever wondered what
the weather is like on Mars, it turns out it
can be quite dramatic. New research from planetary scientists at
the University of Colorado, Boulder has revealed fascinating insights into
the massive dust storms that occasionally engulf the entire Red planet,
making cloudy with a chance of catastrophic dust a legitimate
Martian forecast. These planet wide dust storms are truly awe
inspiring phenomena. They typically begin as smaller storms swirling around
mars polar ice caps during the latter half of the
Martian year, but under certain conditions they can rapidly expand
toward the equator, covering millions of square miles and lasting
for days. Unlike the dramatic scene in The Martian where
Matt Damon gets tossed around by powerful winds, the reality
is less physically forceful, but equally problematic for equipment and
future astronauts. Lead researcher Hashani Pieris and her team have
made a significant breakthrough in unders standing what triggers these
massive events. By analyzing eight Mars year's worth of data
from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter, they discovered that approximately sixty
eight percent of major dust storms were preceded by unusual
warm spells on the planet's surface. The pattern is remarkably consistent.
The planet experiences a period of increased warmth as more
sunlight filters through Mars's thin atmosphere, and then weeks later,
massive dust storms develop. As Pieris explains, when you heat
up the surface, the layer of atmosphere right above it
becomes buoyant and it can rise, taking dust with it.
This process mirrors similar weather patterns we experience on Earth,
where warm air rising from the ground can lead to
towering storm clouds. While these dust storms might not generate
enough force to knock over equipment due to Mars's thin atmosphere,
they pose serious threats to exploration efforts. In twenty eighteen,
NASA's Opportunity Rover met its end when a global dust
storm covered its solar panels, cutting off its power supply.
For future missions, especially those involving human explorers, these light,
but clingy dust particles will present significant challenges as they
stick to equipment and potentially damage sensitive components. The research
team is continuing to gather more recent observations to further
explore these explosive weather patterns. Their ultimate goal is to
develop forecasting capabilities for Martian weather, similar to how meteorologists
predict conditions on Earth. Being able to anticipate these massive
storms could be crucial for the safety and success of
future Mars missions, both robotic and human. As study co
author Paul Hayin noted, we need to understand what causes
some of the smaller or regional storms to grow into
global scale storms. This research represents an important step toward
that understanding, potentially giving future Mars explorers the ability to
prepare for or avoid the worst of the planet's dusty tempests.
And that wraps up today's exploration of the cosmos, from
Web's asteroid adventures to early galaxy surprises, Amazon's satellite constellation plans,
Japan's innovative Mars landing technology, and the fascinating weather patterns
on the Red Planet. I'm ana, and I hope you've
enjoyed this journey through the latest developments in space science
and exploration. Whether you're fascinated by the tiniest asteroids or
the grandest cosmic mysteries. There's always something new to discover
in our ever expanding universe. If you'd like to hear more,
please visit our website at astronomydaily dot io, where you
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looking up and wondering about the magnificent cosmos that surrounds us.
This has been Astronomy Daily. I'm ana signing off. You did.
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