Asteroid Close Calls, Lunar Missions Debate, and the Fiery World of TOI 2431b

0:00 Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, everyone. I'm

0:03 Anna.

0:04 Avery: And I'm Avery. We're thrilled to have you

0:06 join us, for another dive into the cosmos.

0:09 Bringing you the latest and most fascinating

0:11 news from across the universe.

0:13 Anna: Today on this show, we're going to demystify

0:16 a plane sized asteroid making

0:18 headlines with its upcoming close approach to

0:21 Earth. NASA says it's pretty routine,

0:24 but we'll get into why it's still worth

0:26 talking about.

0:27 Avery: Then we'll turn our attention closer to home

0:30 and reignite an age old debate.

0:32 Is it truly worth going back to the moon?

0:35 We'll explore the compelling arguments for

0:38 human lunar missions versus robotic

0:40 exploration.

0:42 Anna: And finally, prepare to be amazed as we

0:44 introduce you to a newly discovered

0:46 exoplanet that's pushing the boundaries of

0:49 what we thought possible. With an incredibly

0:52 short year and, and some truly

0:54 extreme conditions.

0:56 Avery: It's going to be an exciting episode, so

0:58 let's jump right in.

1:00 Anna: All right, first up, let's talk about that

1:03 asteroid that's been buzzing through

1:05 headlines, 2025 ow.

1:08 It's being described as plane sized.

1:10 And while that might sound a bit alarming to

1:13 some, NASA experts are really keen on

1:16 emphasizing that this encounter is far

1:19 more routine than it is remarkable.

1:22 Avery: That's right, Ena. This asteroid, named, uh,

1:24 2025 ow measures about

1:26 210ft in length. It's scheduled to

1:29 pass Earth on July 28th at a distance of

1:32 roughly 393,000 miles.

1:35 To put that in perspective, that's about 1.6

1:38 times the average distance to the Moon.

1:41 Anna: And despite it zipping by at an impressive

1:44 46,908 miles per

1:47 hour near NASA, scientists are saying there's

1:50 absolutely nothing to lose sleep over.

1:53 Ian J. O', Neill, a, uh, media relations

1:55 specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion

1:58 Laboratory, or JPL, put it quite

2:01 simply, stating this is very routine.

2:04 If there was a threat, you would hear from

2:06 us, we would always put out alerts on our

2:08 planetary defense blog.

2:10 Avery: David Farnocchia, an asteroid expert at

2:13 NASA's center for Near Earth Object Studies,

2:17 echoed that sentiment, explaining that space

2:20 rocks passing by Earth are just business as

2:22 usual in our solar system. He even mentioned

2:24 that his team typically tracks several

2:26 asteroids passing Earth each week, with five

2:28 on their radar for next week alone.

2:32 Anna: So while 2025 OW is

2:34 certainly large enough to be of interest to

2:36 scientists, its orbit is incredibly

2:39 well understood, meaning it poses no

2:42 danger whatsoever. O' Neill confidently

2:45 stated, we know exactly where it's going to

2:48 be. We'll probably know where it's going to

2:50 be for the next hundred years. So no need

2:53 to dust off your asteroid bunker plants for

2:55 this one.

2:56 Avery: For those hoping to catch a glimpse,

2:58 Sparnochia noted that 2025 OW

3:00 won't be visible with binoculars. However, he

3:03 did point to a much more exciting event on

3:06 the horizon. The 2029 approach of asteroid

3:08 Aphofus. This one is estimated to be about

3:11 1,115ft in length

3:14 and will come within an astonishing 38,000

3:17 kilometers of earth in April 2029, which

3:20 is actually closer than our geostationary

3:22 satellites.

3:23 Anna: And the best part, due to that exceptionally

3:26 close approach, Apophis will actually be

3:29 visible to the naked eye. That's going to be

3:32 a rare and incredible opportunity for public

3:34 observation of an asteroid. Both

3:37 Farnochia and o' Neill also emphasized that

3:40 that while Earth is struck by roughly 100

3:42 tons of space material daily, most of it

3:45 is harmless dust.

3:47 Avery: Larger, more potentially hazardous impacts

3:50 are extremely rare. For Nokia calculated

3:52 that, uh, for an object the size of 2025 ow,

3:56 while close approaches might happen yearly,

3:58 an actual Earth impact would only occur

4:01 roughly every 10,000 years. It's

4:04 good to know NASA's planetary defense

4:05 programs are keeping a close watch,

4:08 maintaining public transparency, and

4:09 reminding us that most asteroid headlines are

4:12 more sensational than genuinely concerning.

4:15 Anna: So from objects passing by Earth, let's

4:18 pivot to something that's always been a hot

4:20 topic in space exploration. Whether

4:22 it's truly worth sending humans back to the

4:25 Moon. It's true that crewed missions are

4:28 notoriously expensive, difficult and

4:30 dangerous.

4:31 Avery: Absolutely, Anna. And we've got decades of

4:34 reliable, dependable robotic exploration

4:37 under our belts. Fantastic flybys, orbiters,

4:40 landers, rovers. So the natural question,

4:44 why don't we just take all the money human

4:46 spaceflight would cost to return to the Moon

4:48 and spend it on a ton of robots instead?

4:51 Anna: That's a great point, and one often debated.

4:54 But the answer surprisingly leans heavily

4:56 towards the human element. No matter how

4:59 capable our little robotic explorers are,

5:02 they simply can't match what a human can do.

5:05 Avery: Exactly. Compared to a robot, a human is

5:07 stronger, at least stronger than the kinds of

5:10 robots we can send to the moon. We can

5:12 troubleshoot and solve problems much faster

5:14 without constant guidance from Earth based

5:16 engineers. We're also far more creative and

5:19 flexible when it comes to scientific

5:21 investigation. I mean, a typical rover

5:24 speed is around 0.1 miles

5:27 per hour, or a blazing 152

5:30 meters per hour. Humans are just

5:33 better in almost every aspect.

5:35 Anna: For hands on work, it's truly astonishing.

5:38 The typical benchmark is that what a robot

5:40 can accomplish in an entire day, a human can

5:43 often do In a minute. Of course, the

5:45 downsides are significant. Sending humans is

5:48 much more expensive and much riskier. No

5:51 one sheds a tear when a robot crash lands on

5:54 the surface. But a crewed mission is going to

5:56 be at least 10 times more expensive than an

5:59 equivalent robotic mission.

6:00 Avery: And yet, while human missions are more

6:02 expensive, their productivity totally

6:04 eclipses that of robots. Look at the Apollo

6:07 missions. A total of 12.5 contact

6:10 days on the Moon resulted in nearly 3,000

6:13 scientific papers. Compare that to the

6:15 thousand or so papers written about Mars from

6:18 years of rovers and landers on its surface.

6:21 On a cost per science result basis, it

6:24 seems we'd be foolish not to keep sending

6:26 humans into space.

6:27 Anna: And science isn't the only compelling reason.

6:30 The Moon also holds a lot of easily

6:32 accessible resources that could provide the

6:34 basis for space based industry. We're talking

6:37 about mining and manufacturing on the Moon.

6:40 Utilizing rich deposits of methane,

6:42 ammonia and atomic oxygen in the lunar

6:45 regolith.

6:46 Avery: This is where it gets really exciting for

6:48 future expansion. These operations could

6:50 funnel back either manufactured or refined

6:53 materials to Earth, or become the backbone of

6:56 further off world industry. As a steady

6:58 supply of water and fuel, the Moon has a much

7:01 shallower gravitational well than Earth,

7:03 meaning it's significantly easier to come and

7:05 go from its surface. You could literally

7:08 build advanced rocket parts or habitats there

7:10 and get them out to Mars or the asteroid

7:13 belt. Far, far easier than doing the same

7:15 thing from Earth.

7:16 Anna: While we can fantasize about fully automated

7:19 factories or mining operations on the lunar

7:21 surface, the truth is we don't have nearly

7:24 the experience or expertise develop those

7:27 kinds of systems outside of Earth. Yet lunar

7:29 manufacturing and mining are still a long way

7:32 off. We have to figure out how mining and

7:34 machining can operate in low gravity. How to

7:37 deal with all that super fine lunar dust,

7:40 how to haul all that mining gear there, and

7:43 where the good stuff is on the Moon in the

7:45 first place.

7:45 Avery: And to kickstart that entire process, we're

7:48 going to need a lot of humans doing a lot of

7:50 grunt work. And lastly, and perhaps

7:53 most fundamentally, it's just plain fun.

7:56 Humans are natural explorers. We've always

7:59 expanded into every habitable biome of Earth,

8:02 making our way across ice bridges and over

8:04 the horizons of endless seas to find new

8:06 homes. It's truly in our nature to explore

8:09 and expand.

8:10 Anna: The Moon is right there, waiting for us.

8:13 For millennia, we thought it was just a

8:15 mysterious part of the heavens. Now we

8:18 understand that it's a world in its own

8:20 right. A place to plant our flags and build

8:22 our homes. A place where a branch of humanity

8:25 could potentially Create new communities, and

8:28 there.

8:28 Avery: Will always be a segment of the population

8:30 that simply wants to go to the moon for the

8:32 adventure of it and the desire for a new

8:34 life. It's not crazy to imagine

8:37 humanity building cities and homesteads on

8:39 the lunar surface. It may take a very long

8:42 time, but it's not impossible. If those

8:44 people are private individuals spending their

8:46 own money, then good for them. If it's

8:48 publicly funded institutions like NASA

8:51 footing the bill, let's keep in mind that the

8:53 entire space program of the United States

8:55 takes up less than 1% of the total

8:58 federal budget. We're barely spending any

9:00 money on it at all, relatively speaking.

9:03 Anna: From our own moon to asteroids zooming

9:06 past Earth, let's cast our gaze even

9:09 further out to a, uh, truly fascinating

9:12 new world that's challenging our

9:14 understanding of planetary systems. And

9:16 astronomers have just discovered an exoplanet

9:19 named TOI

9:20 2431B.

9:23 Avery: This discovery was made by an international

9:25 team of researchers using NASA's

9:28 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or

9:30 TESS. TOI 2431B is

9:33 an Earth sized planet orbiting a nearby star

9:36 just 117 light years away.

9:39 But what makes this planet extraordinary

9:41 isn't just its size. It's it's how incredibly

9:44 fast it races around its star.

9:46 Anna: You're not kidding, Avery.

9:48 TOI2431B completes

9:51 a full orbit around its host star in just

9:53 5.4 hours. That makes it one

9:56 of the shortest years ever recorded for

9:59 any known planet. To put that into

10:01 perspective, While Earth takes

10:03 365 days to orbit the sun, this

10:06 distant world experiences more than 1600

10:10 years in the same timeframe. It's sitting

10:12 extremely close to its star, only about

10:15 933,000 kilometers away.

10:18 Avery: And that proximity comes with extreme

10:21 consequences. The planet's surface

10:23 temperature reaches approximately 2,000

10:26 Kelvin, which is about

10:27 1727 degrees Celsius.

10:31 That's hot enough to melt most rocks and

10:33 metals. Scientists believe the planet's

10:35 surface is likely molten, creating a

10:37 landscape of liquid rock and metal. Imagine

10:40 that.

10:41 Anna: Despite being classified as earth sized,

10:44 TOI 2431B is

10:47 quite different from our home planet. With a

10:49 radius about 1.53 times

10:52 larger than Earth and a, uh, mass

10:54 6.2 times greater, this world is

10:57 significantly denser than Earth. Its

11:00 density of 9.4 grams per cubic

11:03 centimeter suggests it's made of much heavier

11:06 materials, possibly containing a large iron

11:09 core or other dense metals.

11:11 Avery: And the intense gravitational forces from its

11:13 nearby star have likely changed the planet's

11:16 shape. The team estimates that TOI

11:18 2431B is tidally deformed,

11:21 with its shortest axis being about 9%

11:24 shorter than its longest axis. This gives

11:27 it a somewhat flattened appearance rather

11:29 than a perfect sphere like Earth, but even

11:31 more extreme.

11:32 Anna: Perhaps most intriguingly, this

11:35 planet won't be around forever. The

11:37 Researchers calculated that TOI

11:39 2431B has a tidal decay

11:42 timescale of about 30 million years.

11:44 This is the shortest known among similar

11:47 ultra short period planets. It means the

11:49 planet is gradually spiraling into its star

11:52 and will eventually be consumed, though its

11:55 demise won't happen for many millions of

11:57 years.

11:58 Avery: The discovery team led by Kayahan Tosh

12:01 confirmed the planet using multiple

12:03 observation methods, including TESS data,

12:05 ground based telescopes, and specialized

12:07 spectrographs. Scientists have noted that TOI

12:10 2431B would be an excellent target for the

12:13 James Webb Telescope to study further,

12:15 potentially revealing details about its

12:17 surface composition and whether it retains

12:19 any atmosphere despite the extreme

12:21 conditions. It really adds to our growing

12:23 catalog of extreme worlds.

12:25 Anna: What an episode. Avery from

12:28 routine asteroid flybys and the excitement of

12:31 Apophis in 2029 to the compelling

12:34 arguments for human missions back to the in

12:36 the truly wild discovery of TOI

12:39 2431B with its 5.4 hour

12:42 year and molten surface, it's been a

12:44 journey through some incredible celestial

12:47 events and discoveries.

12:48 Avery: It really has. Ana Our universe continues to

12:51 amaze us every day. And that wraps up another

12:54 episode of Astronomy Daily and a quick

12:56 reminder to visit our website where you'll

12:58 find all the latest space news and all things

13:00 Astronomy daily. Just visit

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13:04 Anna: Thank you so much for tuning in and joining

13:07 us for today's dive into the latest space

13:09 and astronomy news. We hope you enjoyed it as

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13:25 Anna: Until next time, keep looking up.