Astronauts in Limbo, Lunar Wonders, and the Discovery of New Moons: S04E62

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, space enthusiasts.

0:01 Speaker 2: Today's headlines are packed with some big developments in astronomy

0:05 Speaker 2: and space exploration. We've got quite a lineup for you,

0:08 Speaker 2: from mission complications that affects the International Space Station to

0:12 Speaker 2: groundbreaking discoveries that are reshaping our understanding of the cosmos.

0:16 Speaker 2: We'll dive into the latest about a crucial NASA SpaceX

0:20 Speaker 2: mission delay that's affecting two astronauts who've been waiting months

0:23 Speaker 2: to return home. Then we'll explore an intriguing debate or

0:28 Speaker 2: would that be a developing spat over potential interstellar artifacts

0:32 Speaker 2: and what they might tell us about our cosmic neighborhood.

0:35 Speaker 2: Get ready for an enlightening discussion about tonight's lunar eclipse

0:39 Speaker 2: and its scientific significance, plus an absolutely stunning announcement about Saturn,

0:44 Speaker 2: our ring giant has just gotten a lot more crowded

0:47 Speaker 2: with the discovery of over one hundred new moons.

0:50 Speaker 1: We'll also unravel the.

0:51 Speaker 2: Mystery behind a peculiar deep space radio signal and take

0:55 Speaker 2: a fascinating look at the powerful jets emanating from super

0:58 Speaker 2: massive black holes. There's a lot to cover, so let's

1:01 Speaker 2: get started. A critical NASA SpaceX mission has hit an

1:06 Speaker 2: unexpected snag at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, where

1:10 Speaker 2: a hydraulic ground issue forced controllers to postpone the much

1:13 Speaker 2: anticipated Falcon nine launch. This delay has particularly significant implications

1:18 Speaker 2: for two NASA astronauts, Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore, who

1:22 Speaker 2: have been stationed aboard the International Space Station far longer

1:25 Speaker 2: than originally planned. These veteran astronauts launched into space on

1:29 Speaker 2: June fifth, twenty twenty four, expecting an eight day mission. However,

1:34 Speaker 2: as we well know, their stay has stretched to more

1:36 Speaker 2: than nine months. After their Boeing spacecraft was deemed unsafe

1:40 Speaker 2: for return travel. The postponed SpaceX mission was meant to

1:44 Speaker 2: be their ticket home, potentially allowing them to return to

1:47 Speaker 2: Earth as early as Sunday. The specific issue involved one

1:51 Speaker 2: of the launch pad's clamp arms, with engineers expressing concerns

1:55 Speaker 2: that it wouldn't open fully during launch. While there's another

1:58 Speaker 2: potential launch window available tomorrow, SpaceX hasn't yet confirmed whether

2:02 Speaker 2: the equipment will be ready in time. Despite their extended stay,

2:07 Speaker 2: both Williams and Wilmore have maintained remarkable composure about their

2:11 Speaker 2: situation During a September news conference from the ISS, they

2:15 Speaker 2: emphasized their training to expect the unexpected. Williams, age fifty eight,

2:21 Speaker 2: even referred to the space station as her happy place,

2:24 Speaker 2: though she admitted to missing her family and two dogs

2:27 Speaker 2: back on Earth. Wilmore sixty one acknowledged their decision not

2:31 Speaker 2: to return on the Starliner spacecraft they arrived in, noting

2:35 Speaker 2: they weren't comfortable with that option given the technical issues.

2:39 Speaker 2: He highlighted that ninety percent of their training focused on

2:42 Speaker 2: preparing for unexpected situations and their willing to remain in

2:46 Speaker 2: orbit for as long as necessary to ensure a safe return.

2:50 Speaker 2: The extended mission has given Williams additional perspective on our

2:53 Speaker 2: home planet, as she poignantly noted, being in space has

2:57 Speaker 2: opened her mind to thinking differently about Earth, emphasizing that

3:02 Speaker 2: it's the one planet we have and we should be

3:04 Speaker 2: taking care of it.

3:06 Speaker 1: Now.

3:07 Speaker 2: An update to a story we brought you yesterday, an

3:09 Speaker 2: intriguing scientific debate has erupted in the astronomical community centered

3:14 Speaker 2: around Harvard physicist Avi Lobe's bold claims about metallic spherrales

3:18 Speaker 2: recovered from the seafloor near Papua New Guinea. Lobe suggests

3:23 Speaker 2: these tiny fragments might not just be from space, but

3:26 Speaker 2: potentially from an interstellar source, and more controversially, could be

3:31 Speaker 2: evidence of an alien civilization from another star system. As

3:37 Speaker 2: we reported yesterday, the story begins with a meteor that

3:39 Speaker 2: blazed across the South Pacific Ocean on January eighth, twenty fourteen.

3:43 Speaker 2: Tracked by the US Department of Defense. Last year, Lob

3:47 Speaker 2: led a mission to recover fragments from this object, but

3:50 Speaker 2: his findings have met with significant skepticism from the scientific community.

3:55 Speaker 2: A team led by Johns Hopkins University researchers has particularly

3:59 Speaker 2: challenged the evidence, suggesting that what was thought to be

4:02 Speaker 2: seismic data from the meteorite's impact was actually caused by

4:05 Speaker 2: something far more mundane, a truck passing by the seismic

4:09 Speaker 2: station on Manus Island. However, Lobe maintains that the expedition's

4:13 Speaker 2: location was determined primarily by NASA's Center for Near Earth

4:17 Speaker 2: Object Studies calculations of the meteor's trajectory, not the seismic data.

4:23 Speaker 2: The controversy deepens when it comes to the composition of

4:25 Speaker 2: these recovered spherals. While Lobe's team argues that their chemical

4:29 Speaker 2: analysis rules out Earth based contamination. Other physicists contend that

4:34 Speaker 2: the only definitive proof of interstellar origin would come from

4:38 Speaker 2: dating the material and finding it to be older than

4:41 Speaker 2: our Sun. This debate highlights a fundamental tension in the

4:45 Speaker 2: search for extraterrestrial evidence, the challenge of distinguishing truly exotic

4:50 Speaker 2: materials from more conventional explanations. The scientific community continues to

4:55 Speaker 2: scrutinize these findings, emphasizing the importance of rigorous verification before

5:00 Speaker 2: making extraordinary claims about potential alien artifacts. And here's another

5:06 Speaker 2: update and reminder. Get ready for a spectacular celestial show

5:10 Speaker 2: coming up tonight, March thirteenth into the early morning hours

5:14 Speaker 2: of March fourteenth, as will witness a total lunar eclipse.

5:18 Speaker 2: During this event, our moon will pass through Earth's shadow,

5:21 Speaker 2: transforming from its usual bright white glow to an eerie,

5:25 Speaker 2: reddish hue, earning it the popular nickname blood Moon. But

5:29 Speaker 2: this isn't just a pretty light show in the sky.

5:32 Speaker 2: These eclipses have been teaching us about our world since

5:35 Speaker 2: ancient times.

5:36 Speaker 1: In fact, it was ancient Greek.

5:38 Speaker 2: Philosophers who first realized Earth must be round by observing

5:41 Speaker 2: the curved shadow it cast on the Moon during eclipses,

5:44 Speaker 2: one of humanity's earliest scientific breakthroughs from watching these events. Today,

5:50 Speaker 2: lunar eclipses continue to be valuable scientific tools, particularly for

5:54 Speaker 2: studying Earth's atmosphere. That distinctive red color we see during

5:57 Speaker 2: totality happens because sunlight bends through our atmosphere before reaching

6:01 Speaker 2: the Moon. Our atmosphere filters out blues and greens, letting

6:05 Speaker 2: mostly red light through the same process that gives us

6:08 Speaker 2: those gorgeous sunset colors. The Moon's appearance during eclipses can

6:12 Speaker 2: actually tell us about what's happening in our atmosphere. Sometimes

6:16 Speaker 2: it appears bright red, while other times it takes on

6:18 Speaker 2: a darker, brownish gray color, especially after major volcanic eruptions

6:23 Speaker 2: that have added particles to our atmosphere. These events are

6:26 Speaker 2: also providing insights about the Moon itself. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance

6:31 Speaker 2: Orbiter has made fascinating discoveries during previous eclipses, revealing that

6:36 Speaker 2: the lunar surface doesn't cool uniformly when it enters Earth's shadow.

6:40 Speaker 2: These temperature variations tell us about differences in the Moon's

6:44 Speaker 2: surface properties that we might otherwise miss. What makes lunar

6:49 Speaker 2: eclipses particularly special is their accessibility. Unlike solar eclipses that

6:54 Speaker 2: are only visible along a narrow path, lunar eclipses can

6:57 Speaker 2: be seen by everyone on the night side of Earth.

7:00 Speaker 2: This upcoming eclipse will be visible to more than a

7:02 Speaker 2: billion people, and if you're watching, keep your eyes peeled.

7:06 Speaker 2: During a twenty nineteen eclipse, observers even caught glimpse of

7:10 Speaker 2: a meteor impact on the lunar surface. In an extraordinary

7:14 Speaker 2: astronomical discovery, an international team of researchers has found one

7:18 Speaker 2: hundred and twenty eight new moons orbiting Saturn, dramatically expanding

7:22 Speaker 2: our understanding of the ringed planet's satellite system. This breakthrough,

7:27 Speaker 2: confirmed by the Minor Planet Center just days ago, makes

7:30 Speaker 2: Saturn the undisputed champion of moons in our Solar system,

7:33 Speaker 2: with a total of two seventy four known natural satellites.

7:37 Speaker 2: The team made these discoveries using the Canada, France, Hawaii Telescope,

7:42 Speaker 2: conducting observations between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one. They

7:46 Speaker 2: employed an innovative technique of combining multiple images to reduce

7:50 Speaker 2: noise and strengthen the signals from these previously undetected moons. Initially,

7:54 Speaker 2: they found sixty four new moons, but follow up observations

7:57 Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three revealed even more. What's particularly fascinating

8:01 Speaker 2: about these new moons is that they're all irregular moons,

8:05 Speaker 2: following wide elliptical orbits that are often highly inclined. Unlike

8:11 Speaker 2: regular moons such as our own moon, which formed alongside

8:14 Speaker 2: their parent planet, these irregular moons were likely captured by

8:18 Speaker 2: Saturn's gravity. Even more intriguingly, scientists believe these moons are

8:23 Speaker 2: actually fragments from violent collisions that occurred in Saturn's past.

8:27 Speaker 2: The majority of these newly discovered moons are clustered near

8:31 Speaker 2: what's known as the Mundalfari group, suggesting this region was

8:35 Speaker 2: the site of a significant collision within the last one

8:37 Speaker 2: hundred million years. This finding adds weight to the theory

8:41 Speaker 2: that Saturn's complex system of moons and rings is constantly

8:44 Speaker 2: evolving through a series of cosmic crashes and gravitational interactions.

8:50 Speaker 2: Doctor Edward Ashton, who led the research, suggests that Jupiter,

8:54 Speaker 2: which currently has ninety five confirmed moons, will likely never

8:59 Speaker 2: catch up to Saturn's impressive count. This discovery not only

9:03 Speaker 2: cements Saturn's position as the planet with the most moons,

9:06 Speaker 2: but also provides valuable insights into how planetary systems evolve

9:11 Speaker 2: and interact over millions of years. For now, these new

9:14 Speaker 2: moons are identified by number sequences, but they'll eventually receive

9:18 Speaker 2: proper names, following the tradition of naming Saturn's moons after Norse,

9:22 Speaker 2: Gallic and Canadian Inuit gods. With this discovery, Saturn now

9:27 Speaker 2: hosts almost twice as many moons as all other planets

9:29 Speaker 2: in our Solar System combined, truly making it the king

9:32 Speaker 2: of moons in our cosmic neighborhood. In another fascinating breakthrough

9:37 Speaker 2: in space science, astronomers have finally cracked the case of

9:40 Speaker 2: a mysterious repeating radio signal that has puzzled researchers since

9:44 Speaker 2: its discovery last year. The signal, which pulses every two

9:48 Speaker 2: hours like clockwork, has been traced back to an unusual

9:52 Speaker 2: binary star system located about one thousand, six hundred light

9:55 Speaker 2: years away in the direction of the Big Dipper. This

9:59 Speaker 2: cosmic dou zo consists of a white dwarf the dense

10:02 Speaker 2: remnant of a dead star, and its companion, a red

10:06 Speaker 2: dwarf star. What makes This discovery particularly exciting is that

10:10 Speaker 2: it represents an entirely new source for these types of

10:13 Speaker 2: long period radio bursts, which were previously only associated with

10:16 Speaker 2: neutron stars. The signal first appeared in data collected by

10:20 Speaker 2: the Low Frequency Array or Low Far Back in twenty fifteen.

10:24 Speaker 2: After its initial detection, researchers found six more pulses from

10:28 Speaker 2: the same source. These radio flashes can last anywhere from

10:31 Speaker 2: several seconds to a few minutes, but they maintain that

10:34 Speaker 2: precise two hour regularity that caught astronomer's attention. The team's

10:39 Speaker 2: detailed follow up observations using the Multiple Mirror Telescope in

10:42 Speaker 2: Arizona and the McDonald Observatory in Texas revealed that these

10:46 Speaker 2: two stars are locked in an incredibly tight orbital dance,

10:50 Speaker 2: circling each other every one hundred twenty five point five minutes.

10:54 Speaker 2: The interaction between their magnetic fields appears to be the

10:57 Speaker 2: source of these radio pulses as they slam together during

11:00 Speaker 2: their cosmic waltz. What's particularly intriguing about this system is

11:05 Speaker 2: that while it shares some similarities with fast radio bursts

11:08 Speaker 2: or FRBs, these pulses are distinctly different. They have lower

11:12 Speaker 2: energy levels, and last much longer than typical FRBs, which

11:15 Speaker 2: usually flash for just milliseconds. This discovery opens up new

11:19 Speaker 2: possibilities for understanding the variety of radio signals we detect

11:22 Speaker 2: from space, and suggests there might be many more such

11:26 Speaker 2: systems waiting to be found. This breakthrough not only solves

11:30 Speaker 2: a compelling cosmic mystery, but also provides astronomers with a

11:33 Speaker 2: new category of objects to study as they work to

11:36 Speaker 2: understand the complex interactions between stars and binary systems. The

11:41 Speaker 2: team is now planning to study the system's high energy

11:44 Speaker 2: ultraviolet emissions, which could reveal even more details about this

11:48 Speaker 2: fascinating stellar partnership. Next, let's dive into some groundbreaking research

11:53 Speaker 2: about supermassive black holes and their incredible cosmic fountains. Nearly

11:58 Speaker 2: every large galaxy in our universe harbors one of these

12:01 Speaker 2: cosmic giants at its center, including our own Milky Way

12:04 Speaker 2: with its black hole Sagittarius a star. These objects are

12:08 Speaker 2: the densest known in the universe, with masses that can

12:12 Speaker 2: reach billions of times that of our Sun. What's particularly

12:16 Speaker 2: fascinating is what happens when these sleeping giants wake up.

12:20 Speaker 1: When a neighboring.

12:21 Speaker 2: Galaxy supplies fresh gas and dust. These black holes spring

12:25 Speaker 2: into action, but it's far from a peaceful process. As

12:30 Speaker 2: they consume this cosmic material, it becomes superheated to temperatures

12:34 Speaker 2: millions of degrees hotter than our Sun's surface. This superheated

12:38 Speaker 2: matter doesn't just disappear quietly. It gets ejected from the

12:41 Speaker 2: galaxy at speeds approaching that of light, creating spectacular jets

12:45 Speaker 2: that resemble enormous cosmic fountains. These high speed plasma jets

12:50 Speaker 2: produce radio signals that we can detect with powerful telescopes,

12:54 Speaker 2: earning their host galaxies the name radio galaxies.

12:58 Speaker 1: But here's the thing.

13:00 Speaker 2: While black holes are common, radio galaxies are relatively rare,

13:03 Speaker 2: making up only about ten to twenty percent of all galaxies.

13:07 Speaker 2: Even more exceptional are the giant radio galaxies, which represent

13:12 Speaker 2: just five percent of all radio galaxies. These cosmic behemoths

13:16 Speaker 2: can produce jets stretching and astounding sixteen million light years.

13:19 Speaker 2: That's nearly six times the distance between our galaxy and Andromeda.

13:23 Speaker 2: The largest known jet spans an incredible twenty two million

13:26 Speaker 2: light years. Recent research using sophisticated computer simulations has helped

13:30 Speaker 2: us understand how these massive structures form and evolve. By

13:34 Speaker 2: creating models that follow the fundamental laws of physics, scientists

13:37 Speaker 2: can now track how these jets develop over hundreds of

13:40 Speaker 2: millions of years, something we could never observe directly in

13:43 Speaker 2: real time. These simulations suggest that these cosmic fountains play

13:47 Speaker 2: a crucial role in maintaining the balance of our universe,

13:50 Speaker 2: preventing galaxy clusters from collapsing under their own gravity by

13:54 Speaker 2: heating the surrounding gas. The most exciting part, scientists believe

13:59 Speaker 2: there could be thousands more giant radio galaxies yet to

14:02 Speaker 2: be discovered. Thanks to powerful telescopes like Meerkat and Lofar,

14:07 Speaker 2: combined with advanced supercomputing capabilities, we're continuing to uncover new

14:11 Speaker 2: secrets about these fascinating cosmic phenomena, and that brings us

14:16 Speaker 2: to the end of today's fascinating journey through space. I'm

14:20 Speaker 2: anna and thank you for joining me on Astronomy Daily.

14:24 Speaker 2: From so called stranded astronauts awaiting their return from the

14:27 Speaker 2: ISS to Saturn's incredible new family of moons and the

14:31 Speaker 2: mysterious binary system creating those puzzling radio signals, we've covered

14:35 Speaker 2: quite a bit of cosmic ground today.

14:37 Speaker 1: If you'd like to dive deeper into.

14:39 Speaker 2: Any of these stories, or stay up to date with

14:41 Speaker 2: the latest developments in space and astronomy, visit us at

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14:52 Speaker 2: You'll also find all our previous episodes available for listening

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15:10 Speaker 2: And speaking of our community, I want to extend a

15:12 Speaker 2: special thank you to all our early followers who've joined

15:16 Speaker 2: us on this cosmic journey.

15:17 Speaker 1: Your support means the world to us.

15:20 Speaker 2: Until next time, keep looking up and wondering about the

15:23 Speaker 2: mysteries of our universe. This is Anna signing off from

15:26 Speaker 2: Astronomy Daily.

15:28 Speaker 1: Sunday star is Starz Story