Exciting Signs of Life Beyond Earth

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your cosmic connection to the stars

0:03 Speaker 1: and beyond. I'm anna, and today we have an absolutely

0:06 Speaker 1: stellar lineup of space news that you won't want to miss.

0:09 Speaker 1: We're diving into what scientists are calling the strongest evidence

0:12 Speaker 1: yet for life beyond our Solar System, a discovery that

0:15 Speaker 1: could fundamentally change our understanding of our place in the universe.

0:20 Speaker 1: We'll also explore why the Bahamas has suspended SpaceX landings

0:24 Speaker 1: and take you on a journey to a newly discovered

0:26 Speaker 1: planet that orbits two stars in a configuration previously only

0:30 Speaker 1: seen in science fiction. Plus, does the entire universe rotate?

0:34 Speaker 1: A new theory suggests it might, and this could solve

0:37 Speaker 1: one of astronomy's biggest puzzles. And finally, we may have

0:41 Speaker 1: cracked the six decade mystery of where the most powerful

0:44 Speaker 1: particles in space come from. So strap in as we

0:48 Speaker 1: journey through today's cosmic headlines and explore the wonders waiting

0:52 Speaker 1: for us among the stars. Let's get started in what

0:56 Speaker 1: might be the most exciting astronomical discovery in recent Yearsists

1:00 Speaker 1: are reporting what they describe as the strongest evidence yet

1:03 Speaker 1: for extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system. A team of

1:07 Speaker 1: astrophysicists led by Professor Niku Madusudan from the University of

1:12 Speaker 1: Cambridge has made observations using the James Webb Space Telescope

1:17 Speaker 1: that could bring us closer to answering humanity's age old question,

1:21 Speaker 1: are we alone in the universe. The observations focus on

1:25 Speaker 1: a planet called K two eighteen B, which is located

1:28 Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty four light years away from Earth

1:31 Speaker 1: in the Leo constellation. This planet is significantly larger than Earth,

1:36 Speaker 1: nearly nine times as massive and two point six times

1:39 Speaker 1: the size, and orbits in what scientists call the habitable

1:42 Speaker 1: zone of its star, a cool red dwarf that's less

1:45 Speaker 1: than half the size of our Sun. What's truly remarkable

1:49 Speaker 1: about these findings is the detection of two chemical compounds

1:51 Speaker 1: in the planet's atmosphere, demethyl sulfide or DMS and demethyl

1:56 Speaker 1: disulfide or dmds. What makes these chemicals so significut is

2:00 Speaker 1: that on Earth there primarily produced by marine phytoplankton microscopic

2:04 Speaker 1: marine algae. In other words, they're biological in origin. Professor

2:08 Speaker 1: Madhusudan describes this as potentially a tipping point in our

2:11 Speaker 1: search for extraterrestrial life, telling reporters decades from now, we

2:16 Speaker 1: may look back at this point in time and recognize

2:18 Speaker 1: it was when the living universe came within reach. The

2:22 Speaker 1: scientific team is being appropriately cautious, however. The findings published

2:26 Speaker 1: in the Astrophysical Journal Letters report the signals with what's

2:30 Speaker 1: called three sigma significance, meaning there's about a zero point

2:34 Speaker 1: three percent probability they occurred by chance. While impressive, this

2:38 Speaker 1: falls short of the gold standard for discoveries in physics.

2:42 Speaker 1: There are also important questions about whether K two eighteen

2:45 Speaker 1: b's overall conditions are favorable to life. The Cambridge team

2:49 Speaker 1: suggests the planet could be covered by a vast deep ocean,

2:53 Speaker 1: potentially making it the most habitable known world beyond our

2:56 Speaker 1: Solar System, but other scientists dispute this interpretation, suggesting it

3:00 Speaker 1: might be a gas planet or have oceans made of

3:03 Speaker 1: magma rather than water. Doctor Nora Hani, a chemist at

3:07 Speaker 1: the University of Berne who wasn't involved in the study,

3:10 Speaker 1: points out that there might be alternative explanations for the

3:13 Speaker 1: presence of these chemicals. Life is one of the options,

3:17 Speaker 1: but it's one among many, she notes, adding that we

3:20 Speaker 1: would need to rule out all other possibilities before claiming

3:23 Speaker 1: definitive evidence of life. Doctor Joe Barstow from the Open

3:27 Speaker 1: University shares this skepticism, saying her skepticism dial for any

3:32 Speaker 1: claim relating to evidence of life is permanently turned up

3:35 Speaker 1: to eleven. She clarifies that this isn't because she doubts

3:39 Speaker 1: extraterrestrial life exists, but because such a profound discovery requires

3:43 Speaker 1: an extraordinarily high burden of proof. At one hundred and

3:46 Speaker 1: twenty four light years away, we won't be sending probes

3:49 Speaker 1: to K two eighteen B anytime soon to confirm these findings. But,

3:54 Speaker 1: as Professor Madhusudan points out, astronomy has never been about

3:57 Speaker 1: physically visiting distant objects. We're trying to establish if the

4:01 Speaker 1: laws of biology are universal in nature. He explains, I

4:05 Speaker 1: don't see it as we have to go and swim

4:07 Speaker 1: in the water to catch the fish. If confirmed, this

4:11 Speaker 1: discovery would represent a monumental shift in our understanding of

4:14 Speaker 1: life in the cosmos. Even as a tentative finding, it

4:18 Speaker 1: provides compelling evidence that the chemical signatures of life may

4:21 Speaker 1: be detectable on distant worlds, opening new frontiers in our

4:25 Speaker 1: search for extraterrestrial neighbors in this vast universe. Next up today,

4:31 Speaker 1: some not so good news for SpaceX. The Bahamas government

4:34 Speaker 1: has announced a significant suspension of all SpaceX Falcon nine

4:37 Speaker 1: rocket landings in the country, pending a comprehensive environmental assessment.

4:43 Speaker 1: According to Bahamian Director of Communications La Tree Raming, no

4:47 Speaker 1: further clearances will be granted until a full environmental assessment

4:50 Speaker 1: is reviewed. This decision marks a sudden halt to what

4:54 Speaker 1: had been an expanding relationship between the Caribbean nation and

4:57 Speaker 1: Elon Musk's private space company. Just two months ago, in February,

5:02 Speaker 1: the Bahamian government had approved nineteen more landings throughout twenty

5:06 Speaker 1: twenty five, all subject to regulatory approval. Now those plans

5:11 Speaker 1: have been put on indefinite hold. The suspension follows a

5:14 Speaker 1: concerning incident last month, when a SpaceX Starship spacecraft exploded

5:18 Speaker 1: in space minutes after lifting off from Texas. Social media

5:22 Speaker 1: videos captured fiery debris streaking through the skies near South

5:26 Speaker 1: Florida and the Bahamas after the spacecraft broke up in space.

5:29 Speaker 1: According to Bahamian officials, debris from the spacecraft fell into

5:33 Speaker 1: the country's airspace though they stated the debris contained no

5:37 Speaker 1: toxic materials and wasn't expected to significantly impact marine life

5:41 Speaker 1: or water quality. It's important to note that while this

5:44 Speaker 1: suspension directly affects the Falcon nine landing program, the incident

5:48 Speaker 1: that prompted the review involved SpaceX's larger Starship vehicle. The

5:52 Speaker 1: Starship program is separate from the Falcon nine operations that

5:55 Speaker 1: had been taking place in Bahamian territory. This development highlights

5:59 Speaker 1: the growing complexity of managing space operations as private companies

6:03 Speaker 1: like SpaceX dramatically increase the frequency of launches and landings.

6:08 Speaker 1: The Bahamas, with its proximity to US launch sites and

6:12 Speaker 1: relatively sparse population, had emerged as an attractive location for

6:16 Speaker 1: SpaceX's expanding operations. For SpaceX, this suspension creates a significant

6:21 Speaker 1: logistical challenge. The company has been working to increase its

6:24 Speaker 1: launch cadence and relies on successful rocket recovery to maintain

6:28 Speaker 1: its reusable rocket business model. Finding alternative landing sites or

6:33 Speaker 1: adjusting mission profiles could impact the company's launch schedule and costs.

6:38 Speaker 1: The incident also draws attention to broader concerns about space

6:42 Speaker 1: debris and environmental impacts, as space activities increase globally. While

6:46 Speaker 1: space agencies and companies have long addressed the issue of

6:49 Speaker 1: orbital debris, the potential for launch failures to affect territories

6:53 Speaker 1: beneath flight paths is becoming a more pressing regulatory concern.

6:58 Speaker 1: As space activities continue to grow and diversify, countries like

7:02 Speaker 1: the Bahamas are establishing their own regulatory frameworks to balance

7:05 Speaker 1: economic opportunities with environmental protection and safety concerns. This incident

7:11 Speaker 1: may well serve as an important precedent for how nations

7:14 Speaker 1: handle the complex relationship between commercial space operations and their

7:18 Speaker 1: own sovereign interests. If you're a fan of Star Wars,

7:22 Speaker 1: this next story is for you. You're probably familiar with

7:25 Speaker 1: the iconic double sunset seen from the planet Tattooin. While

7:29 Speaker 1: that seemed like pure science fiction, astronomers have actually discovered

7:33 Speaker 1: several planets orbiting binary star systems over the years. But

7:37 Speaker 1: now they've found something truly unprecedented that pushes our understanding

7:41 Speaker 1: of planetary systems even further. A team led by Thomas Baycroft,

7:46 Speaker 1: a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, has discovered

7:50 Speaker 1: an exoplanet with a configuration never seen before. This planet

7:54 Speaker 1: named two M one thy five hundred and ten ab

7:57 Speaker 1: b orbits not just any binary star system, but a

8:00 Speaker 1: pair of brown dwarfs, objects that are larger than gas

8:03 Speaker 1: giant planets but too small to be proper stars. What

8:06 Speaker 1: makes this discovery particularly remarkable is the planet's orbit. Unlike

8:11 Speaker 1: previously discovered planets around binary stars that typically orbit in

8:15 Speaker 1: roughly the same plane as their host stars, this planet

8:18 Speaker 1: follows a path that's perpendicular at a right angle to

8:22 Speaker 1: the orbit of its two host stars. I am particularly

8:25 Speaker 1: excited to be involved in detecting credible evidence that this

8:28 Speaker 1: configuration exists, said Baycroft about the discovery, published in Science Advances.

8:34 Speaker 1: His colleague, professor Amory Trio, added that a planet orbiting

8:38 Speaker 1: not just a binary but a binary brown dwarf, as

8:42 Speaker 1: well as being on a polar orbit, is rather incredible

8:45 Speaker 1: and exciting. The discovery was actually serendipitous. The team wasn't

8:49 Speaker 1: specifically looking for such a planet when they made their

8:52 Speaker 1: observations using the ultraviolet and visual Aeshell spectrograph instrument on

8:56 Speaker 1: the European Southern Observatory's Very Large telescope in Chile. They

9:01 Speaker 1: were actually studying the brown dwarf pair known as two

9:04 Speaker 1: M one five hundred ten, which is only the second

9:07 Speaker 1: pair of eclipsing Brown dwarfs ever discovered. While observing the

9:11 Speaker 1: orbital path of the two Brown dwarfs, the astronomers noticed

9:15 Speaker 1: something unusual. The stars were being pushed and pulled in

9:18 Speaker 1: ways that couldn't be explained by their interaction alone. After

9:22 Speaker 1: reviewing all possible scenarios, they concluded that the only explanation

9:26 Speaker 1: consistent with their data was the presence of a planet

9:29 Speaker 1: orbiting on a polar axis. This discovery is significant because

9:33 Speaker 1: while theoretical models had suggested such configurations were stable and

9:38 Speaker 1: planet forming disks on polar orbits around stellar pairs had

9:42 Speaker 1: been detected, we lacked concrete evidence that planets could actually

9:46 Speaker 1: form and persist in such arrangements. It opens up new

9:49 Speaker 1: possibilities for understanding the diversity of planetary systems and challenges

9:54 Speaker 1: conventional theories about how planets form. As Professor Triau noted,

9:59 Speaker 1: the discovery was serendipitous in the sense that our observations

10:03 Speaker 1: were not collected to seek such a planet or orbital configuration.

10:06 Speaker 1: As such, it is a big surprise overall. I think

10:09 Speaker 1: this shows to US astronomers, but also to the public

10:12 Speaker 1: at large. What is possible in the fascinating universe we

10:15 Speaker 1: inhabit while we're reporting on surprising discoveries. What if everything

10:20 Speaker 1: in the universe is spinning, not just galaxies and planets,

10:23 Speaker 1: but the entire cosmos itself. A groundbreaking new study published

10:28 Speaker 1: in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests this

10:32 Speaker 1: might actually be the case. Researchers, including Isfan Saputi from

10:36 Speaker 1: the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, have proposed that

10:40 Speaker 1: the universe may indeed rotate, just extremely slowly. How slowly

10:45 Speaker 1: they estimate it might complete a single rotation once every

10:48 Speaker 1: five hundred billion years, which would be far too gradual

10:51 Speaker 1: for us to easily detect. This seemingly simple idea could

10:55 Speaker 1: help resolve one of astronomy's most persistent puzzles, the hubble tension.

11:00 Speaker 1: This problem emerges from the fact that we have two

11:02 Speaker 1: different methods of measuring how fast the universe is expanding,

11:06 Speaker 1: and frustratingly, they give us different answers. One method examines

11:10 Speaker 1: distant exploding stars or supernovae to measure the expansion rate

11:15 Speaker 1: over the past few billion years. The other technique analyzes

11:19 Speaker 1: the cosmic microwave background radiation, essentially the afterglow of the

11:23 Speaker 1: Big Bang, to determine how fast the very early universe

11:27 Speaker 1: was expanding some thirteen billion years ago. The discrepancy between

11:31 Speaker 1: these two measurements has left astronomers scratching their heads for years.

11:35 Speaker 1: Saputi's team took a novel approach. They developed a mathematical

11:39 Speaker 1: model of the universe following standard cosmological rules, but with

11:43 Speaker 1: one key difference. They added a tiny amount of rotation.

11:47 Speaker 1: As Saputi explains, much to our surprise, we found that

11:51 Speaker 1: our model with rotation resolves the paradox without contradicting current

11:54 Speaker 1: astronomical measurements. The idea draws inspiration from the Greek philosopher

11:59 Speaker 1: heraklid Ephesus, who famously said, Panta ray everything moves. So

12:05 Speaker 1: Puti's team thought, perhaps Panta cicluti everything turns might also

12:09 Speaker 1: be true. What's particularly compelling about this theory is that

12:13 Speaker 1: it doesn't violate any known laws of physics. It simply

12:17 Speaker 1: introduces a subtle cosmic spin that affects how space expands

12:21 Speaker 1: over time in a way that could explain our conflicting measurements.

12:26 Speaker 1: The next steps for researchers will be to develop a

12:29 Speaker 1: full computer model based on this theory and identify ways

12:33 Speaker 1: to detect signs of this slow cosmic rotation. If confirmed,

12:38 Speaker 1: this could fundamentally change our understanding of the universe and

12:42 Speaker 1: how it has evolved since the Big Bang. We're on

12:46 Speaker 1: a bit of a roll today with new discoveries, so

12:48 Speaker 1: let's throw one more into the mix. After six decades

12:51 Speaker 1: of mystery, scientists may have finally solved one of the

12:55 Speaker 1: universe's most perplexing riddles, the origin of ultra high energy

12:59 Speaker 1: cosmic ray uhcrs. These extraordinary particles, which were first discovered

13:04 Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, pack energies more than a million

13:08 Speaker 1: times greater than what our most powerful particle accelerators on

13:10 Speaker 1: Earth can produce. Until now, their source has remained elusive.

13:15 Speaker 1: Physicist Glennis Ferrar from New York University has published a

13:18 Speaker 1: groundbreaking paper in Physical Review Letters that offers a compelling explanation.

13:23 Speaker 1: Her research suggests these incredibly energetic particles are created during

13:27 Speaker 1: the violent merger of binary neutron stars when two of

13:30 Speaker 1: these ultra dense stellar remnants collide. According to Ferrar's model,

13:35 Speaker 1: the turbulent magnetic fields generated during these catastrophic mergers provide

13:39 Speaker 1: the perfect environment for accelerating particles to these mind boggling energies.

13:45 Speaker 1: After six decades of effort, the origin of the mysterious

13:49 Speaker 1: highest energy particles in the universe may finally have been identified.

13:53 Speaker 1: Ferrar notes. What makes this theory particularly elegant is that

13:57 Speaker 1: it addresses several long standing puzzles about uhcrs at once.

14:02 Speaker 1: It explains the tight correlation between a cosmic rays energy

14:06 Speaker 1: and its electric charge, a feature that previous theories struggled

14:10 Speaker 1: to account for. It also provides a framework for understanding

14:13 Speaker 1: the extraordinary energy of the highest energy cosmic rays that

14:17 Speaker 1: have been detected in rare events. The theory suggests these

14:20 Speaker 1: particles originate as rare r process elements like xenon and tellurium,

14:25 Speaker 1: which are synthesized during neutron star mergers. These same mergers

14:29 Speaker 1: also produce gravitational waves, which we've already detected through facilities

14:33 Speaker 1: like LEGO and virgo. This connection provides a clear path

14:37 Speaker 1: for experimental validation. Scientists can now look for correlations between

14:41 Speaker 1: gravitational wave detections and the arrival of ultra high energy

14:45 Speaker 1: cosmic rays. They can also analyze UHCR data for the

14:50 Speaker 1: chemical signatures of these r process elements. If confirmed, Ferrar's

14:55 Speaker 1: work represents a major advancement in our understanding of both

14:58 Speaker 1: cosmic rays and neutron star mergers. It gives astronomers and

15:03 Speaker 1: physicists a new lens through which to study some of

15:06 Speaker 1: the universe's most energetic and violent phenomena, potentially opening windows

15:10 Speaker 1: into fundamental physics that we simply cannot replicate in laboratories

15:14 Speaker 1: on Earth. Well that's all for today's cosmic journey. Thank

15:19 Speaker 1: you for joining me on Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna, your host,

15:23 Speaker 1: and I've been delighted to share these fascinating developments from

15:26 Speaker 1: across our universe with you. If you're hungry for more

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16:08 Speaker 1: discoveries in astrophysics, will continue bringing the wonders of the

16:12 Speaker 1: cosmos directly to you. Until next time, keep looking up

16:15 Speaker 1: and wondering about our extraordinary universe. Day Stars, all Star

16:29 Speaker 1: is all s