Celebrating Space Milestones: Don Pettit's Birthday in Orbit and New Insights on Mars

0:00 Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's time for Astronomy Daily again. It's the

0:03 Speaker 1: twenty first of April twenty twenty five.

0:10 Speaker 2: If you a hundred seven, Hi.

0:19 Speaker 1: There everyone, Halle here to take you through the show today.

0:22 Speaker 1: As my favorite human Steve is enjoying an Easter break today,

0:27 Speaker 1: So off we go straight into the stories I've collected

0:30 Speaker 1: from the Astronomy Daily newsletter. Here we go. Cake gifts

0:46 Speaker 1: and a low key family celebration may be how many

0:48 Speaker 1: senior citizens picture their seventieth birthday, but NASA's oldest serving astronaut,

0:53 Speaker 1: Don Pettitt, became a septuagenarian while hurtling toward Earth in

0:56 Speaker 1: a spacecraft to wrap up a seven month mission aboard

0:58 Speaker 1: the International Space Station. A Sooyuz capsule carrying the American

1:03 Speaker 1: and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, the

1:06 Speaker 1: day of Pettit's milestone birthday. Today at four twenty am

1:10 Speaker 1: Moscow time, the SOYUS MS twenty six landing craft with

1:13 Speaker 1: Alexei option In, Ivan Banner and Don Pettitt aboard, landed

1:16 Speaker 1: near the Kazakh town of Seyskoskin. Russia's space agency ROAs

1:20 Speaker 1: Cosmos said, spending two hundred and twenty days in space.

1:23 Speaker 1: Pettit and his crewmate's option in and Banner orbited Earth

1:26 Speaker 1: three thousand, five hundred and twenty times and completed a

1:29 Speaker 1: journey of ninety three point three million miles over the

1:31 Speaker 1: course of their mission. It was the fourth spaceflight for Pettit,

1:35 Speaker 1: who has logged more than eighteen months in orbit throughout

1:37 Speaker 1: his twenty nine year career. The trio touched down in

1:41 Speaker 1: a remote area southeast of Kazakhstan after undocking from the

1:44 Speaker 1: space station just over three hours earlier.

1:47 Speaker 2: You're listening to Astronomy Daily called Steve Dunkley.

1:52 Speaker 1: Following the launch of a classified mission April twentieth, the

1:55 Speaker 1: National Reconnaissance Office has reached a new milestone, deploying more

1:58 Speaker 1: than two hundred satellites into a orbit in just over

2:00 Speaker 1: two years. The NROL one forty five mission lifted off

2:04 Speaker 1: Sunday on a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket from Vandenberg Space

2:07 Speaker 1: Force Base in California at eight twenty nine a m Eastern.

2:11 Speaker 1: This marked SpaceX's tenth launch of satellites for the NRO's

2:14 Speaker 1: proliferated architecture, which includes starshield imaging satellites built by SpaceX

2:19 Speaker 1: and Northrop Grumman. A proliferated architecture refers to the strategy

2:23 Speaker 1: of using numerous smaller satellites rather than fewer large ones,

2:26 Speaker 1: creating networks that are more resilient against potential threats and

2:29 Speaker 1: capable of providing more comprehensive coverage. The National Reconnaissance Office

2:34 Speaker 1: designs and operates classified US government surveillance and intelligence satellites.

2:40 Speaker 1: The agency is deploying an extensive satellite network designed to

2:43 Speaker 1: track ground targets in near real time. Sunday's launch was

2:47 Speaker 1: the first mission awarded by the US Space Force under

2:49 Speaker 1: the National Security Space Launch Phase three Lane one program.

2:53 Speaker 1: The task order for NROL one forty five was one

2:56 Speaker 1: of nine awarded to SpaceX in October twenty twenty four.

3:00 Speaker 1: This was our first Phase three launch, coming only months

3:03 Speaker 1: after establishing this new contract, Colonel Jim Horn, launch Execution

3:07 Speaker 1: Senior material leader at the Space System's Command, said in

3:10 Speaker 1: a statement. Horn also noted that forty four missions from

3:13 Speaker 1: the previous NSSL Phase two contract remained to be launched.

3:18 Speaker 1: The majority of those missions were awarded to United Launch Alliance.

3:22 Speaker 1: ULA's new Vulcan rocket is expected to conduct its first

3:25 Speaker 1: NSSL mission this summer.

3:28 Speaker 2: Astronomy deby with Steve and Helle Space Space, Science and Astronomy.

3:46 Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of

3:48 Speaker 2: Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from

3:50 Speaker 2: the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive

3:54 Speaker 2: in your email every day, just like Hallie and I do.

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4:04 Speaker 2: Just like that, you'll be receiving all the latest news

4:07 Speaker 2: about science, space, science and astronomy from around the world

4:10 Speaker 2: as it's happening. And not only that, you can interact

4:13 Speaker 2: with us by visiting at astro Daily pod on x

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4:21 Speaker 2: Astronomy Daily on Facebook. See you there.

4:30 Speaker 1: You never know exactly when a central supermassive black hole

4:33 Speaker 1: is going to power up and start gobbling matter. Contrary

4:37 Speaker 1: to the popular view that these monsters are constantly devouring

4:40 Speaker 1: nearby stars and gas clouds, it turns out they spend

4:42 Speaker 1: part of their existence s dormant and inactive. New observations

4:46 Speaker 1: from the European Space Agencies XMM Newton Spacecraft opened a

4:50 Speaker 1: window on the turn on event for one of these

4:52 Speaker 1: monsters in a distant galaxy. The supermassive black hole at

4:56 Speaker 1: the heart of the galaxy SDSS thirteen thirty five plus

4:59 Speaker 1: zero seven two eight has been sleeping quietly for decades.

5:03 Speaker 1: Then it suddenly lit up in twenty nineteen, and astronomers

5:06 Speaker 1: caught the outbursts in both optical and X ray light.

5:10 Speaker 1: The galaxy, which lies some three hundred million light years away,

5:13 Speaker 1: was experiencing a wake up call from its central black hole.

5:17 Speaker 1: Astronomers named this newly active galactic nucleus ANSKI. When we

5:21 Speaker 1: first saw Ansky light up in optical images, we triggered

5:24 Speaker 1: follow up observations using NASA's Swift X rays based telescope,

5:28 Speaker 1: and we checked archived data from the Erosida X ray telescope,

5:31 Speaker 1: but at the time we didn't see any evidence of

5:33 Speaker 1: X ray emissions, said European Southern Observatory researcher Paula Sanchez Sayiz.

5:38 Speaker 1: She and her team were the first to explore the

5:40 Speaker 1: activity at the black hole. Another team led by Loraina

5:44 Speaker 1: Hernandez Garcia, a researcher at Valparaiso University, Chile, followed up

5:48 Speaker 1: on their work in twenty twenty four by detecting X

5:51 Speaker 1: ray bursts from the same region. This rare event provides

5:54 Speaker 1: an opportunity for astronomers to observe a black hole's behavior

5:57 Speaker 1: in real time using X rays based telescope x MM

6:00 Speaker 1: Newton and NASA is nicer chundra and swift. This phenomenon

6:04 Speaker 1: is known as a quasi periodic eruption or QPE. These

6:09 Speaker 1: are short lived flaring events, and this is the first

6:12 Speaker 1: time we have observed such an event in a black

6:14 Speaker 1: hole that seems to be waking up explained Loreina. What

6:18 Speaker 1: happened to light up Anski in a QPE? Think about

6:21 Speaker 1: what happens as a black hole feeds. We know that

6:25 Speaker 1: the extreme gravitational pull of the black hole draws matter in,

6:28 Speaker 1: usually via spinning accretion disc. It could be a star

6:31 Speaker 1: that wanders too close. For example, the strong gravitational influence

6:36 Speaker 1: of the black hole shreds the star, scattering its material

6:39 Speaker 1: throughout the disc. These are called tidal disruption events. That

6:44 Speaker 1: sounds great until you realize ANSKI doesn't seem to have

6:47 Speaker 1: destroyed a star. There's no observational evidence. However, it has

6:52 Speaker 1: been experiencing recurring bursts of activity, which implies more than

6:56 Speaker 1: one event is occurring. It's possible that a QP could

6:59 Speaker 1: be caused by a star or some other object interacting

7:02 Speaker 1: with the accretion disc but not getting sucked in and

7:04 Speaker 1: creating a different kind of TDE Researchers went back to

7:08 Speaker 1: the drawing board to consider other possibilities. It could be

7:12 Speaker 1: that the accretion disc isn't formed by a star but

7:14 Speaker 1: as a result of gas being drawn into the black

7:16 Speaker 1: hole's gravity. Well, the X ray flares that the astronomers

7:20 Speaker 1: saw at Ansky suggest the disc could be experiencing energetic

7:23 Speaker 1: shocks created by the presence of something traveling through it

7:26 Speaker 1: but not getting disrupted. Something on a headlong rushed through

7:29 Speaker 1: an accretion disc would produce multiple events, sort of like

7:32 Speaker 1: a boat cutting through water. Those events would create the

7:36 Speaker 1: X ray flares. The bursts of X rays from Anski

7:39 Speaker 1: are ten times longer and ten times more luminous than

7:42 Speaker 1: what we see from a typical QP, says Joheen Chuckerbordi,

7:45 Speaker 1: a team member and PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute

7:48 Speaker 1: of Technology. To get the X rays, you need highly

7:52 Speaker 1: energetic events in the disc. Each of these eruptions is

7:55 Speaker 1: releasing one hundred times more energy than we have seen elsewhere.

7:59 Speaker 1: Anski These eruptions also show the longest cadence ever observed,

8:02 Speaker 1: of about four point five days. This pushes our models

8:06 Speaker 1: to their limits and challenges our existing ideas about how

8:09 Speaker 1: these X ray flashes are being generated.

8:12 Speaker 2: Boards As we are listen to Astarmi daily above.

8:15 Speaker 1: Jas NASA's Punch Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere

8:24 Speaker 1: mission has successfully completed its spacecraft commissioning phase. Last week,

8:29 Speaker 1: the team opened the instrument doors, allowing the spacecraft to

8:32 Speaker 1: capture first light its first images of the Sun's outer

8:35 Speaker 1: atmosphere and the surrounding space. These early observations mark a

8:39 Speaker 1: key milestone in the mission's goal to better understand how

8:42 Speaker 1: the Sun's outer atmosphere extends and flows through the Solar System.

8:46 Speaker 1: The team will now move into the next stage of commissioning,

8:48 Speaker 1: preparing and fine tuning the onboard instruments for scientific operations.

8:53 Speaker 1: On April fourteenth, the mission's narrow Field Imager n FI

8:57 Speaker 1: and one of three wide Field imagers WFI the first

9:00 Speaker 1: to open their doors and begin capturing data. Two days later,

9:04 Speaker 1: on April sixteen, the remaining wfis followed. The first image

9:09 Speaker 1: from the NFI shows a star filled field with the

9:11 Speaker 1: Sun near the center to better highlight background stars. The

9:15 Speaker 1: image was processed to reduce the effect of zodiacal light,

9:17 Speaker 1: a faint glow caused by sunlight scattering off dust particles

9:20 Speaker 1: orbiting the Sun. During the rest of the commissioning phase,

9:24 Speaker 1: scientists will calibrate the instruments to reveal finer details of

9:27 Speaker 1: the Sun's corona, its whispy outermost layer. This process involves

9:32 Speaker 1: removing about ninety nine per cent of the overwhelming light

9:34 Speaker 1: from the Sun itself, making it possible to trace the delicate,

9:38 Speaker 1: faint streams of solar material as they move through space.

9:41 Speaker 1: The WFI image below, taken April fourteen, shows the wide

9:45 Speaker 1: field of view from WFI and is marked with labeled constellations.

9:49 Speaker 1: As commissioning progresses, the Punch team will be removing the

9:52 Speaker 1: star fields and other background light from all images to

9:55 Speaker 1: highlight the faint stream of solar wind as it travels

9:57 Speaker 1: toward Earth. These early image confirm a crucial milestone the

10:01 Speaker 1: cameras on board Punch as four satellites are in focus

10:04 Speaker 1: and functioning as designed. The Punch satellites include one NFI

10:09 Speaker 1: and three wfis. The NFI is a coronograph which blocks

10:13 Speaker 1: out the bright light from the Sun to better see

10:15 Speaker 1: details in the Sun's corona. The wfis are heliospheric imagers

10:19 Speaker 1: that view the very faint outermost portion of the solar

10:22 Speaker 1: corona and the solar wind itself. Once the PUNCH satellites

10:26 Speaker 1: reach their targeted alignment, the images from these instruments will

10:29 Speaker 1: be stitched together to create the wide view of the

10:31 Speaker 1: journey of the Sun's corona and solar wind to Earth.

10:35 Speaker 1: Once the commissioning is complete, Punch will provide the first

10:37 Speaker 1: ever imagery of the solar wind and coronal mass ejections

10:40 Speaker 1: in polarized light, enabling scientists to discern new information about

10:44 Speaker 1: this activity. Astronoma Diale, podcast Scalsprus and Science, and finally

10:59 Speaker 1: something for Steve to enjoy while he's relaxing by the pool.

11:02 Speaker 1: Write Steve a story about Mars. Scientists have known for

11:09 Speaker 1: a while that Mars currently lacks a magnetic field, and

11:11 Speaker 1: many blame that for its paltry atmosphere. With no protective

11:14 Speaker 1: shield around the planet, the solar wind was able to

11:16 Speaker 1: strip away much of the gaseous atmosphere over the course

11:19 Speaker 1: of billions of years, but evidence has been mounting that

11:22 Speaker 1: Mars once had a magnetic field. Results from Insight one

11:26 Speaker 1: of the red planet's landers lend credence to that idea,

11:29 Speaker 1: but they also point to a strange feature. The magnetic

11:32 Speaker 1: field seem to cover only the southern hemisphere, but not

11:35 Speaker 1: the north. A team from the University of Texas Institute

11:38 Speaker 1: for Geophysics thinks they might know why. In a recent paper,

11:41 Speaker 1: they described how a fully liquid core in Mars could

11:44 Speaker 1: create a lopsided magnetic field like the one scene in

11:46 Speaker 1: INSIGHT's data. The Earth's core isn't completely molten, despite what

11:50 Speaker 1: you may have learned in elementary school. There are two

11:53 Speaker 1: distinct cores, a solid inner core and a molten outer core.

11:58 Speaker 1: The inner core remains solid due to the immense pressures

12:01 Speaker 1: on the iron and nickel found there, so the magnetic

12:04 Speaker 1: field that covers our whole planet is in fact created

12:07 Speaker 1: only by the outer core. Researchers have long thought that

12:11 Speaker 1: a similar dynamic solid inner and molten outer core was

12:14 Speaker 1: present on Mars when it maintained a magnetic field billions

12:17 Speaker 1: of years ago. After about three point nine billion years,

12:20 Speaker 1: the rocks that formed some of the large impact basins

12:23 Speaker 1: from that time, such as Hellis and Isotas would contain

12:26 Speaker 1: rocks that would have magneties while they were cooling due

12:28 Speaker 1: to the presence of the field. Since they don't, there

12:31 Speaker 1: is little evidence for a strong global magnetic field past

12:34 Speaker 1: that point. The going theory was that as the planet's

12:37 Speaker 1: core cooled, the entire core became solid, eliminating the spinning

12:41 Speaker 1: molten metal that creates the magnetic field in the first place.

12:44 Speaker 1: Fraser discusses the question of when Mars dynamo shut down. However,

12:49 Speaker 1: there was a strange feature in mars magnetic field, a

12:52 Speaker 1: massive difference in strength between the field in the northern

12:54 Speaker 1: and southern hemispheres. This dichotomy was first noticed during the

12:58 Speaker 1: Mars Global Surveyor mission back in nineteen ninety seven, but

13:01 Speaker 1: data from the Insight Lander also confirmed a stark difference

13:04 Speaker 1: between the two hemispheres. Various explanations have been offered for

13:09 Speaker 1: why the dichotomy existed. These ranged from the effects of

13:12 Speaker 1: large asteroid impacts to very early localized tectonic activity. However,

13:17 Speaker 1: the scientific community has not widely accepted previous explanations. Enter

13:23 Speaker 1: the new theory from Gien of the University of Texas

13:25 Speaker 1: and their co authors THEIRS is a twofold explanation. First,

13:30 Speaker 1: the red planet could have had a wholly molten core,

13:33 Speaker 1: and second, a massive temperature difference between the northern and

13:36 Speaker 1: southern hemispheres led to the heat escaping only in the

13:38 Speaker 1: southern hemisphere. Magnetic fields can be artificial, as Fraser discusses here.

13:44 Speaker 1: In Mars case, a molten core would be a primary

13:47 Speaker 1: mover of the process known as a planetary dynamo, which

13:50 Speaker 1: creates planetary scaled magnetic fields with a solid inner core

13:54 Speaker 1: like the Earth's. The dynamo effect could have been disrupted

13:57 Speaker 1: by inefficiencies in the system's fluid dynamics. It could also

14:01 Speaker 1: explain how the temperature gradients allow such uneven heat extraction.

14:05 Speaker 1: If the southern hemisphere had much higher thermal conductivity, heat

14:08 Speaker 1: would be more likely to flow through it, causing the

14:11 Speaker 1: churning that creates the planetary dynamo to happen primarily on

14:14 Speaker 1: the southern side of the planet. To prove their point,

14:17 Speaker 1: the authors created a model version of early Mars using

14:20 Speaker 1: a supercomputer at the Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center. They

14:24 Speaker 1: varied the fluid dynamics of Mars as well as the

14:26 Speaker 1: conductivity of its crust. They found that the conditions that

14:30 Speaker 1: most accurately matched the results from Insight and Global surveyor

14:33 Speaker 1: occurred when Mars core was wholly molten and there was

14:35 Speaker 1: a significant difference in the thermal conductivity of the northern

14:38 Speaker 1: and southern hemispheres keeping Mars. Any artificial atmosphere mars as

14:43 Speaker 1: would require a magnetic field or something similar. As with

14:47 Speaker 1: all research, there is plenty more left to do. The

14:50 Speaker 1: authors suggest further analysis of some of the seismic data

14:53 Speaker 1: from Insight to see if any additional data was already

14:56 Speaker 1: collected that could align with the molten core theory. Other

14:59 Speaker 1: potential forward could include improved modeling for a broader range

15:02 Speaker 1: of internal and external planetary conditions, or a deeper understanding

15:06 Speaker 1: of Martian meteorites from various regions and times. For now,

15:10 Speaker 1: this new theory seems to hold water or molten iron,

15:13 Speaker 1: depending on who you ask, but there is a lot

15:16 Speaker 1: more work that needs to be done to prove this

15:18 Speaker 1: theory and its implications for the existence of life on Mars.

15:22 Speaker 2: You're listening to us for every Day podcast.

15:31 Speaker 1: And that's all I have for you today. I've enjoyed

15:35 Speaker 1: find the studio for you, and I hope you enjoyed

15:37 Speaker 1: the stories I'd pull from the Astronomy Daily Newsletter files today.

15:41 Speaker 1: I'm sure Steve will be wandering back sometime next Monday,

15:44 Speaker 1: if I can find him. See you next time by

15:52 Speaker 2: Maybe one hundred