Cosmic Jousts, Jupiter's Giant Past, and Interstellar Microbial Mysteries

Anna: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily. Your

cosmic connection to the stars and beyond.

I'm Anna, and today we're exploring some

truly mind bending stories from across the

universe. Coming up on today's show, we'll

witness a celestial joust between two massive

galaxies on a collision course, with one

firing a beam of radiation through the other

like a knight's lance. We'll also discover

that Jupiter, the architect of our solar

system, was once twice its current size, with

a magnetic field 50 times stronger than it

is today. Then we'll

examine the often overlooked challenges

of interstellar travel. Not the rockets

and propulsion systems, but the microscopic

passengers that would need to make the

journey with us. Plus, we'll explore one

of the strangest planetary systems ever

discovered, featuring a planet that orbits

perpendicular to everything we thought we

knew about orbital mechanics. And finally,

we'll check in on Tom Cruise's ambitious

plans to become the first actor to film a

movie in actual outer space. It's a packed

episode exploring the biggest and smallest

wonders of our universe. So let's dive right

in to today's Astronomy Daily.

Astronomers have recently observed what

they're describing as a cosmic joust.

Two massive galaxies hurtling toward each

other in deep space. This remarkable

celestial event gives us a glimpse of a

galactic merger as it was happening 11.4

billion years ago, when the universe was just

about one fifth of its current age. The

observation, made using two powerful

telescopes in Chile, the Atacama Large

Millimeter Submillimeter Array and the

European Southern Observatory's Very Large

Telescope, reveals two galaxies, each

containing roughly the same number of stars

as our own Milky Way. But what makes this

encounter particularly fascinating is what's

happening at the heart of one of these

galaxies. One of the galaxies contains a

quasar, an extraordinarily luminous

object powered by a supermassive black hole.

As gas and other material fall into this

cosmic monster, it heats up due to friction,

creating a disk that emits extremely powerful

radiation in two opposite directions.

These are called biconical beams, and one of

them is directly piercing through the

companion galaxy. The researchers have

likened this interaction to medieval knights

charging toward each other in a joust. As

astrophysicist Sergei Balashev from the IofA

Institute in St. Petersburg puts it. One of

them, the quasar host, emits a powerful beam

of radiation that pierces the companion

galaxy like a lance. This

radiation lance is actually disrupting the

molecular clouds in the companion galaxy, the

very clouds that would normally give rise to

new stars. Instead of forming stars, these

clouds are being transformed into tiny Dense

cloudlets that are too small to create

stellar nurseries. It's effectively wounding

its opponent by disrupting the gas structure

necessary for star formation. The

supermassive black hole powering this cosmic

joust is estimated to be about 200 million

times the mass of our sun, far larger than

the one at the center of our own Milky Way,

which is only about 4 million solar masses.

What makes this observation particularly

special is that it's the first time

scientists have witnessed this kind of

phenomenon, a, quasar's radiation directly

affecting the molecular clouds in another

galaxy. The unique alignment of these

galaxies from our perspective on Earth

allowed researchers to observe the radiation

passing directly through the companion

galaxy. According to astronomer Pasquier

Notre Dame of the Paris Institute of

Astrophysics, these two galaxies will

eventually coalesce Into a single, larger

galaxy as their gravitational interaction

continues to. The quasar will gradually fade

as it exhausts its available fuel. Most

galactic mergers observed by astronomers

Occurred later in the universe's history,

making this early cosmic collision

particularly valuable for understanding how

galaxies evolved in the young universe. It's

a dramatic snapshot of the violent processes

that have shaped the cosmos since its

earliest days, a cosmic joust that will

ultimately end in union rather than victory

for either contestant.

Next, let's take a new look at one of our

cosmic neighbors. Jupiter, the largest

planet in our solar system, Was once even

more massive and magnetically powerful than

it is today. According to a groundbreaking

new study published in the journal Nature

Astronomy, Researchers from Caltech

and the University of Michigan have

determined that approximately 3.8 million

years after the formation of the solar

system's first solids, Jupiter was about

twice its current size, with, a magnetic

field 50 times stronger than what we observe

now. This revelation comes from an ingenious

approach that bypasses traditional

uncertainties in planetary formation models.

Rather than relying on assumptions about gas

opacity or accretion rates, the researchers

focused on something more concrete. The

orbital dynamics of Jupiter's tiny moons

Amalthea and Thebe. These small

moons, which orbit even closer to Jupiter

Than the Galilean moon IO, have slightly

tilted orbits. By analyzing these orbital

discrepancies, Constantine Batygin,

professor of planetary science at Caltech,

and Fred C. Adams, professor of physics and

astronomy at the University of Michigan, were

able to calculate Jupiter's original

dimensions. Their findings paint a picture of

a truly enormous early Jupiter, with a volume

equivalent to over 2000 Earths. This isn't

just an interesting factoid. It provides

critical information about a pivotal moment

in our solar system's development. The

Research establishes a clear snapshot of

Jupiter at the precise moment when the

surrounding solar nebula evaporated,

effectively locking in the primordial

architecture of our solar system. Our

ultimate goal is to understand where we come

from, and pinning down the early phases of

planet formation is essential to solving the

puzzle, explains Batygin. This brings

us closer to understanding how not only

Jupiter but the entire solar system took

shape. What makes this research

particularly valuable is that it provides

independent verification of long standing

planet formation theories, which suggest that

Jupiter and other giant planets formed via

core accretion, a process where a rocky and

icy core rapidly gathers gas. These

theories have been developed over decades by

many researchers, including Caltech's Dave

Stevenson. And this new study adds crucial

specificity to our understanding.

Understanding Jupiter's early evolution has

broader implications for our solar system's

development. Jupiter's gravity has often been

called the architect of our solar system,

playing a critical role in shaping the

orbital paths of other planets and sculpting

the disk of gas and dust from which they

formed. As Fred Adams notes, it's

astonishing that even after 4.5 billion

years, enough clues remain to let us

reconstruct Jupiter's physical state at the

dawn of its existence. While Jupiter's very

first moments remain obscured, this research

establishes what Batygin calls a valuable

benchmark, a point from which scientists can

more confidently reconstruct the evolution of

our solar system, bringing us closer to

answering fundamental questions about our

cosmic origins and the processes that made

our planetary neighborhood what it is today.

Our next story today features a subject I

know many of us wonder about. When we think

about interstellar travel, our minds

typically gravitate toward the technological

challenges of propulsion systems and

spacecraft design. But according to physicist

and author Paul Davies, we're overlooking

perhaps the most critical obstacle to human

space exploration beyond our solar system.

The complex biological requirements for

creating a sustainable ecosystem. In

Davies's analysis, traveling between stars

will inevitably be a one way journey. Even

with the most optimistic technological

advances. This means any mission would

require creating a completely self sustaining

ecological environment. It's not simply about

growing enough, food and generating oxygen.

It's about replicating Earth's intricate web

of life on a cosmic scale. The true

complexity lies in the microbial realm. As

Davies points out, almost all terrestrial

species are microbes, bacteria,

archaea and unicellular eukaryotes.

And they form the foundation of Earth's

biosphere. These microorganisms aren't

merely passengers on our planet. They're

essential components of our life support

system. Recycling materials and exchanging

genetic Components in ways we're only

beginning to understand. Even within our

own bodies, microbes play a crucial role.

Your personal microbiome, the microbial

inhabitants of your gut, lungs and other

organs outnumber your own cells.

Without them, you would die. So

astronauts cannot journey to the stars

without, at minimum, their own microbiomes.

But it gets even more complicated. Microbes

don't exist in isolation. They form vast

networks of biological interactions that

remain poorly understood. There's horizontal

gene transfer, cell to cell signaling,

viral interactions, and collective

organization that creates an ecological web

of staggering complexity. Scientists have

barely begun to map this intricate planetary

scale information flow. This raises what

Davies calls a Noah's Ark conundrum with a

vengeance. Which species get chosen for the

journey? What is the minimum complexity of an

ecosystem necessary for long term

sustainability? At what point does removing

certain microbes cause the entire system to

collapse? The problem is that we simply

don't know. We haven't identified the

smallest self sustaining, purely microbial

ecosystem, let alone which microbes are

crucial for human survival in space.

Imagine compiling a list of plants and

animals to accompany humans on a one way

cows, pigs, vegetables. But then consider

how many and which microbial species these

organisms depend on and which other microbes

those microbes depend on. Space conditions

add another layer of complexity. Research

shows that bacteria can change their gene

expression in zero gravity. Michelle

Levin's experiments with planaria worms that

had flown on the space station revealed that

some returned with two heads instead of the

normal one. How might other organisms change

in the harsh environment of space? Davies

suggests our best hope may lie not in

cataloging genes, but in discovering the

underlying principles governing the flow and

organization of information in living

systems, what he calls the software of

life. If we can identify universal

informational patterns in biology, we might

create a transplantable ecosystem robust

enough to withstand space conditions. Without

solving these fundamental biological

challenges, our dreams of establishing

permanent human settlements beyond our solar

system may remain just dreams.

The tiniest organisms may pose the biggest

obstacles to our cosmic ambitions.

Next up. Today, will the cosmos ever stop

surprising us? I hope not. In what

might be the most unusual planetary

arrangement ever discovered, astronomers have

recently identified a system that defies our

conventional understanding of how planets

form and orbit. The system,

informally known as 2M M1510,

features what appears to be a planet tracing

an orbit that carries it directly over the

poles of two brown dwarfs and that are

orbiting each other. If you're having trouble

visualizing this, imagine two spinning

tops circling each other on a table while a

marble rolls around them in a path that goes

over and under the table. It's a

configuration that until now, existed only in

theoretical models. In typical planetary

systems like our own solar system, Planets

orbit their stars in, a relatively flat plane

that aligns with the star's equator. This

makes sense because planets form from the

same rotating disk of material that formed

the star. Everything stays nice and orderly,

Moving in roughly the same plane. But

candidate planet 2m M1510B breaks all

these rules. Its orbital plane appears to be

perpendicular at a 90 degree angle to the

plane in which its two host brown dwarfs

orbit each other. Brown dwarfs themselves are

fascinating objects, Too massive to be

considered planets, but not massive enough to

sustain the nuclear fusion that powers stars.

They're cosmic in betweeners, and this system

has two of them at its center, With a third

brown dwarf orbiting at an extreme distance.

The detection method for this perpendicular

planet Is itself remarkable. Most

exoplanets today are found using the transit

method, where we detect tiny dips in

starlight as planets cross in front of their

stars. But that wouldn't work in this unusual

orbital arrangement. Instead,

researchers used what's called the radial

velocity method, Measuring subtle shifts in

the brown dwarf's light spectrum Caused by

the gravitational pull of the orbiting

planet. More specifically, they

detected how the planet subtly alters the 21

day mutual orbit of the brown dwarf pair.

After extensive analysis, the research team

concluded that only a polar orbiting planet

could explain these perturbations. This

discovery is significant because circumbinary

planets, those orbiting two stars at once,

Are already quite rare. Of the more than

5,800 confirmed exoplanets, only

16 are known to orbit binary systems, with

Most discovered by NASA's now retired Kepler

space telescope. A circumbinary planet in a

polar orbit Takes this rarity to another

level entirely. Scientists have previously

observed debris disks and protoplanetary

disks in polar orbits, which led to

speculation that polar orbiting planets might

exist. 2m,

um1510 appears to be the first confirmed case

Validating these theoretical predictions.

The international research team led by Thomas

A. Baycroft from the University of Birmingham

Published their findings in the journal

Science Advances in April. With the planet

officially entered into NASA's exoplanet

archive on May 1st of this year. This

bizarre system challenges our understanding

of planetary formation and orbital dynamics,

Suggesting that the universe has many more

surprises in store. As we continue to explore

the cosmos, it reminds us that nature often

finds ways to create arrangements Far more

exotic than what we might imagine.

Finally, today, this news will horrify some

and delight others in the realm of space

exploration, One unlikely pioneer may soon

make the transition from movie star to actual

astronaut Tom Cruise, known for performing

his own death defying stunts in the Mission

Impossible franchise, appears to be inching

closer to perhaps his most ambitious project

yet, filming a movie in actual outer

space. According to Cruise's IMDb

page, an untitled Tom Cruise SpaceX

project is currently listed in pre

production. The tantalizing description

states that Cruise and director Doug Liman

plan to travel far beyond Earth to film

the first ever Hollywood motion picture in

outer space. While no official launch date

has been announced, this development suggests

the long rumored space movie may indeed be

moving forward. The concept first gained

traction back in 2020 and 2021 following

a successful SpaceX NASA rocket launch from

Cape Canaveral. NASA confirmed at the time

that they were in discussions with crews

about filming a movie aboard the

International Space Station, though updates

about this potential collaboration have been

scarce since then. Interestingly,

during SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission in

September 2021, the four person

civilian crew, which included Jared Isaacman

Mann, who would later become President

Trump's pick to lead NASA, actually spoke

with Cruise via a zoom call during their

orbital flight. At that time,

reports suggested Cruise was set to fly on a

different crew Dragon Mission to film scenes

for an upcoming movie. While Cruise would be

the first Hollywood actor to film in space,

he wouldn't be the first to shoot a feature

film there. That distinction belongs to

Russian actress Yulia Peresild and director

Klim Sippenko, who traveled to the

International space station in October 2021

to film scenes for the Challenge, a drama

about a surgeon sent to space to save a

cosmonaut suffering from a heart attack.

Released in 2023, it became the first

feature length film with professional actors

shot in space. For Cruise, who turned

63 this year and is fresh off the success of

Impossible, the Final Reckoning, a journey to

space would represent the ultimate frontier

in his career of pushing physical boundaries.

The actor has already hung from airplanes,

scaled the world's tallest building, and

performed halo jumps from extreme altitudes,

space would certainly be the next logical, if

extraordinarily ambitious step. Whether

this project ultimately launches remains to

be seen, but one thing seems certain. If

anyone in Hollywood has the determination and

influence to make filming in space a reality,

it's Tom Cruise.

And that wraps up another incredible journey

through the cosmos on today's episode of

Astronomy Daily. From those two galaxies

engaged in a cosmic joust billions of years

ago, to Jupiter's surprisingly massive past,

to the complex microbial challenges of

interstellar travel, the universe continues

to amaze and humble us with its mysteries.

We also explored that fascinating

perpendicular planetary orbit in the

2M1510 system, a

configuration astronomers had only theorized

until now. And of course, Tom

Cruise's potential journey to become the

first Hollywood actor to film in actual space

certainly pushes the boundaries of what's

possible when human ingenuity meets cosmic

ambition. The universe is vast,

mysterious, and full of stories waiting to be

told. If you want to stay on top of all the

latest developments in space and astronomy, I

encourage you to visit our

[email protected] where you can

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with the latest discoveries and breakthroughs

in cosmic exploration. Don't forget to

subscribe to Astronomy Daily on Apple

Podcasts, Spotify, YouTubeMusic, or

wherever you get your podcasts. To ensure

you never miss an episode, this has been

Anna, your guide to the Cosmos, and I'll be

back tomorrow with more fascinating stories

from the final frontier. Until then, keep

looking up.

In this episode