Cosmic Telescopes, Orbital Challenges, and the Secrets of Venus

0:00 Avery: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, the podcast that

0:03 brings you the universe one story at a time.

0:06 I'm Avery.

0:07 Anna: And I'm Anna. It's great to have you with us

0:10 today. We've got stories that range from

0:12 NASA's next great observatory to a stunning

0:14 new image from the James Webb Space

0:16 Telescope. We'll also be looking at some

0:19 trouble on a Kazakhstani launch pad and why

0:21 Earth is so geologically unique.

0:24 Avery: Let's not wait. Anna, why don't you start us

0:26 off with our first story?

0:27 It sounds like there's a new powerhouse

0:30 telescope getting ready for the cosmic st.

0:32 That's right, Avery.

0:33 Anna: NASA has just completed the assembly of the

0:36 Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

0:38 Technicians at, ah, the Goddard Space Flight

0:40 center join the inner and outer portions of

0:43 the spacecraft, which is a major milestone.

0:45 Avery: So it's fully built now. When do we get to

0:47 see it in action?

0:49 Anna: After some final testing, it's slated to

0:51 launch by May 2027. Although the team

0:54 says they're on track for a potential launch

0:56 as early as fall 2026. A

0:59 SpaceX Falcon Heavy will carry it to its

1:01 destination. A million miles.

1:04 Avery: A million miles. Same neighborhood as the

1:06 Webb Telescope. Then what's the mission for

1:08 Roman? What mysteries is it designed to

1:11 solve?

1:12 Anna: Its scope is just immense. The primary

1:14 Instrument is a 288 megapixel

1:17 wide field camera. To put that in

1:20 perspective, Roman is expected to gather data

1:22 hundreds of times faster than the Hubble

1:25 Space Telescope.

1:26 Avery: Wow. Hundreds of times faster.

1:28 Anna: Exactly. In its first five years alone, the

1:31 mission is projected to unveil more than

1:33 100,000 new exoplane, hundreds of

1:36 millions of stars, and billions of galaxies.

1:39 It's also testing a new technology called a

1:42 coronagraph instrument. This is designed to

1:44 block out the overwhelming light from a star,

1:46 allowing astronomers to directly image the

1:49 much fainter planets orbiting it. It's a huge

1:52 leap forward in our ability to survey the

1:54 cosmos.

1:55 Avery: That's incredible. From one powerful machine

1:57 to another.

1:58 Our next story is a bit more down to Earth,

2:00 and unfortunately it involves some damage.

2:04 Anna: Damage is the polite way of putting it.

2:06 Though it's not as catastrophic as some would

2:08 have you believe.

2:09 Avery: On November 27, a Russian

2:12 Soyuz rocket successfully launched three

2:14 astronauts to the International Space Station

2:16 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch

2:19 itself went off without a hitch.

2:21 Anna: Okay, so what's the problem?

2:24 Avery: The issue was discovered during routine

2:27 post launch inspections. Officials from

2:30 Roscosmos, Russia space agency

2:33 reported finding damage to several launch

2:36 pad components.

2:38 Anna: That doesn't sound good. Do they know what

2:40 caused it? Roscosmos is still assessing the

2:43 situation, but they've said all the necessary

2:45 spare parts are available for a quick repair.

2:48 However, one expert, Brian Harvey, has

2:50 suggested a possible cause. He believes a

2:53 combination of the intense vibration and heat

2:56 from the launch, along with some improperly

2:58 installed roller pins, may have caused a

3:00 service tower to topple over after the rocket

3:03 had cleared the pad. Right. A service tower

3:06 falling over would certainly count as damage.

3:09 What does this mean for future launches?

3:11 Avery: Harvey, uh, estimates it could take about

3:13 three months to repair, likely scavenging

3:16 parts from other launch pads. The good news

3:18 is that the next crew handover at the ISS

3:21 isn't scheduled until July, and the next

3:23 astronaut mission from US soil is a

3:26 SpaceX flight in February, so no

3:29 astronauts are stranded. However, the next

3:31 Russian Progress supply ship delivery to the

3:34 spaceship will be delayed. We'll be keeping

3:37 an eye on how quickly those repairs progress,

3:39 but please note, there is no panic. And it

3:42 isn't the end of the Russian space program.

3:44 As has been reported in some of the more

3:46 sensationalist media, it will be repaired

3:49 and back in business.

3:51 Anna: From problems on the ground to problems

3:54 in orbit. Avery, we often talk about light

3:56 pollution for ground based telescopes, but a,

3:59 uh, new forecast reveals that even our eyes

4:02 in space are not safe.

4:04 Avery: You're talking about satellite mega

4:06 constellations, right? I've seen some

4:08 startling images of bright streaks ruining

4:11 astronomical photos.

4:13 Anna: Exactly, and it's getting worse. If the

4:16 current industry proposals for about half a

4:19 million new satellites become a reality,

4:22 the problem will escalate dramatically.

4:24 Projections show that by the2030s,

4:27 1/3 of all images from the Hubble

4:30 Space Telescope will be contamina with

4:33 satellite trails.

4:34 Avery: One third? That's a massive loss of data

4:37 and time. For one of our most important

4:40 scientific instruments, it is.

4:42 Anna: And for some newer telescopes, it's even

4:45 more dire. The Chinese space station

4:48 telescope Sentient is projected to be

4:50 the worst affected. Some studies predict

4:53 contamination and more than 96%

4:56 of its observations. With an average of

4:59 92 satellite trails per exposure.

5:03 Avery: 96%. At that point, the

5:06 telescope is almost unusable for its intended

5:08 purpose, it seems unsustainable.

5:12 Are there any solutions being discussed?

5:14 Anna: There are. Mitigation strategies are

5:17 actively being developed. They include better

5:19 orbital tracking to help astronomers avoid

5:22 pointing at satellites, international

5:24 coordination on satellite brightness

5:26 standards, and perhaps most importantly,

5:29 restricting the altitudes of these large

5:31 constellations to below

5:34 kilometers, which would reduce their

5:36 visibility. It's a critical issue for the

5:39 future of astronomy.

5:40 Avery: It's a stark reminder of how crowded our

5:43 orbital space is becoming.

5:45 Okay, from our near space environment to our

5:48 planetary neighbors, let's talk about Venus.

5:51 We often call it Earth's twin. But new

5:54 research is helping us understand one of the

5:56 biggest differences between them. Plate

5:59 tectonics.

5:59 Anna: Plate. Right. Earth has this

6:02 active moving crust, while Venus is often

6:04 described as having a, uh, stagnant single

6:07 plate surface. Why is that?

6:10 Avery: An international team has developed a new

6:12 framework for understanding how planets work

6:15 geologically. Using numerical

6:17 models, they identified six

6:20 distinct regimes for planetary

6:22 tectonics. Earth exists in what they

6:25 call the mobile lid regime, which is

6:28 crucial for our planet's long term

6:30 habitability as it regulates climate by

6:33 cycling carbon.

6:34 Anna: The mobile lid. I like that. So

6:37 what kind of lid does Venus have?

6:40 Avery: The studies suggest Venus operates under

6:42 what's called a plutonic squishy lid

6:45 or an episodic squishy lid regime.

6:48 In this model, the lithosphere, the planet's

6:51 outer shell, is too hot and weak to

6:54 break into distinct plates like Earth's.

6:57 Instead, rising magma from the mantle

6:59 weakens the crust from below.

7:02 Anna: A squishy lid. So it doesn't move

7:04 globally, but it's not totally inactive

7:07 either.

7:08 Avery: Precisely. This leads to regional

7:11 intermittent volcanism rather than the global

7:14 tectonics we see here. And this model

7:17 actually helps explain some other recent

7:19 discoveries. We've seen findings suggesting

7:21 there are active volcanoes on Venus, which

7:24 seemed puzzling without plate tectonics.

7:27 This squishy lid idea provides a mechanism

7:30 for that volcanism to occur.

7:33 Anna: Speaking of spectacular space phenomena,

7:36 let's turn back to the James Webb Space

7:38 Telescope. It has captured another

7:40 breathtaking image, this time of a close

7:43 encounter between two dwarf galaxies.

7:46 Avery: Oh, I saw this one. The image is just

7:49 stunning. It's the pair NGC

7:52 4490 and NGC

7:54 4485. Right.

7:56 Anna: That's them. They're about 24 million

7:59 light years away, and they're in the process

8:01 of colliding. The Webb image

8:04 detailed it reveals a glowing bridge of gas

8:07 and streams of newborn stars

8:10 connecting the two galaxies. The

8:12 gravitational interaction between them has

8:14 spurred a massive burst of new star

8:16 formation.

8:18 Avery: So they're creating new stars as, ah, they

8:20 pull each other apart. That's poetic.

8:23 Can we tell how this interaction unfolded?

8:26 Anna: We can. By analyzing the different

8:28 populations of stars, researchers have been

8:31 able to trace the timeline to. They suggest

8:34 the two galaxies first swept past each

8:37 other about 200 million years ago.

8:40 During that pass, the larger galaxy,

8:43 NGC4490

8:45 began siphoning gas from its smaller

8:48 partner, NGC4485.

8:51 That stolen gas is now fueling the starburst

8:54 we see in that glowing bridge.

8:57 Avery: Incredible. It's like cosmic

8:59 archaeology. A fantastic image with a

9:02 fascinating story behind it.

9:05 Now for our final story, we're coming

9:07 much closer to home, to our very

9:10 own star. In early November,

9:13 astronomers captured some extremely rare

9:16 high definition images of sunspots in

9:18 an active region designated NOAA

9:21 14,274.

9:24 Anna: And what makes these images so special?

9:27 Avery: The timing. The images were taken by

9:29 the Gregor solar telescope in Spain

9:32 just 30 minutes before those same sunspots

9:35 erupted, emitting a powerful

9:38 X1.2 class solar flare.

9:41 Anna: Wow. That's like having a camera pointed at a

9:44 volcano right before it blows. Capturing

9:47 that with a ground based telescope must be

9:49 incredibly difficult.

9:51 Avery: It is. You have to be looking at the

9:54 right spot at the right time, and you need

9:57 clear weather. It's a rare trifecta.

10:00 The images are remarkable. They show what

10:03 are called penumbral fibrils. These are

10:05 the filaments extending from the dark center

10:08 of the sunspot that are strongly curved and

10:11 braided together.

10:13 Anna: And what does that braiding tell us?

10:16 Avery: It's a clear visual indicator of a highly

10:18 stressed and tangled magnetic field. Think

10:21 of it like a tightly wound rubber band.

10:25 That immense stored energy is a direct

10:27 precursor to an explosive release, which

10:30 is exactly what happened 30 minutes later

10:32 with the solar flare. And this is just the

10:35 beginning. Researchers are currently

10:37 processing nearly 40,000 more data sets from

10:40 the telescope, which could revolutionize how

10:42 we predict these powerful solar events.

10:46 Anna: And better prediction is crucial.

10:49 These powerful solar events can disrupt

10:52 satellites, power grids, and even pose a

10:55 risk to astronauts. Understanding their

10:57 warning signs is vital for our technological

11:00 infrastructure. And that brings us to

11:03 the end of our news roundup for today. It's

11:06 been another busy day in the cosmos.

11:08 Avery: It certainly has. Thanks for joining us on

11:11 Astronomy Daily. We'll be back again tomorrow

11:13 with another look at the latest news from

11:16 across the universe. Until then, I'm Avery

11:19 and I'm Anna.

11:20 Anna: Reminding you to keep looking up

11:22 Astronomy Day.

11:24 Avery: The stories we told.

11:32 The stories the to.