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