Launch Delay, Stellar Discoveries, and Outlandish Space Food

0:00 Avery: And hello and welcome back to Astronomy Daily, your daily dose of cosmic news. I'm Avery. Anna: And I'm Anna. It's great to be with you all again as we break down the latest happenings from across the universe. Avery: And today we've got a major rocket launch that got scrubbed at the last minute. The discovery of a truly unique exoplanet system, and our first ever detailed look at a star outside our own galaxy. Anna: Plus we'll be looking at the dangerous weather on Venus and, well, let's just say a new recipe for space food that is raising some eyebrows.

0:33 Avery: You're not kidding, Anna. It's definitely an interesting one. So let's not wait any longer. Let's get right into it. Anna: I'm ready if you are. Avery: Okay, first up, uh, let's talk about some drama down on the launch pad. It was supposed to be a big day for Blue Origin, but their second ever New Glenn rocket launch was scrubbed yet again. Anna: Right. This was a really crucial mission for them. This wasn't just another test flight. It was a commercial mission carrying NASA's Escapade spacecraft.

0:59 Avery: Escapade is headed to Mars, so a very important payload. But the launch was hit with a triple whammy of problems. Anna: Mhm. What happened? Avery: First, there was bad weather moving into the area. That's pretty standard. Then they reported some minor equipment issues they needed to sort out. But the real kicker was a cruise ship. Anna: A cruise ship? Avery: You're kidding. Nope. A cruise ship had apparently wandered into the restricted flight path zone offshore. You can plan for technical glitches and weather, but it's tough to plan for a road rogue vacation vessel.

1:32 Anna: Wow. That has to be frustrating for the entire team. So when will they try again? Avery: The new launch date is set for November 12, so fingers crossed they get a clear sky and more importantly, a clear ocean. Anna: And there's so much riding on this because it's not just about getting the NASA probe on its way. It's about the rocket itself. The main goal for Blue Origin here is to prove the reusability of the new Glenn's first first stage booster. Avery: Exactly. During the very first launch, that booster failed to land successfully on the drone ship.

2:07 For a rocket to be commercially viable these days, it has to be reusable. So this is a massive test for Blue Origin to show they can compete. Anna: We'll definitely be watching on November 12th. Let's move from our solar system to worlds much farther away. Astronomers have just confirmed a fascinating new exoplanet system called TOI2267. Avery: Oh, this is the one in the binary star system, right? The one that's about 72 light years away? Anna: That's the one. It's a system with two red dwarf stars orbiting each other relatively closely.

2:41 And what makes this discovery so groundbreaking is that it's the first time we've ever found planets that are transiting or passing in front of both of the stars in a binary system. Avery: Wow, that's incredible. So there are planets orbiting each of the suns in this two sun system. How many did they find? Anna: They have confirmed two rocky exoplanets and they have a very strong candidate for a third. This is so exciting because finding planets in such a close binary system really throws a wrench in our existing models of planet formation.

3:16 Avery: Right. Because the gravitational environment would be so chaotic, you'd think the pull from the second star would disrupt a delicate process of dust and gas clumping together to form planets. Anna: Precisely. The thinking was that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for rocky Earth like planets to form there. But this discovery challenges that idea directly. It suggests that the universe is better at making planets than we gave it credit for and that uh, rocky worlds might be far more common in binary systems than we ever thought.

3:48 Avery: That's amazing. What are the next steps for studying? Anna: The system team is planning follow up observations with both the Hubble and the James Webb space telescopes. They want to study the atmospheres of these planets and confirm the third candidate. Avery: A multi planet system around a double sun. It sounds like something straight out of science fiction. I can't wait to see what JWST. Anna: Finds there and we'll be sure to report them when the findings are in. Avery: Alright, let's bring it a bit closer to home now.

4:17 Or at least closer to the astronauts orbiting our home on the International Space Station. Ana, uh, you tease this one at the top of the show. Space food is getting weird. Anna: Creative is the word I used, I believe. But yes, this is certainly a conversation starter. The European Space Agency or esa, is currently testing a new kind of food, a powdered protein called solane. Avery: Solane? Okay, sounds futuristic. What's it made from? Anna: It's made in a bioreactor from microbes, air and electricity.

4:54 It's a type of gas fermentation process. But the headline grabbing part isn't how it's made, but rather the planned source for a key ingredient on the iss. Avery: I'm bracing myself. What's the ingredient? Anna: It requires a source of nitrogen and the plan is to use urea, which would be harvested directly from astronaut urine. Avery: There it is. So they are making food from astronaut. Anna: P in a very complex, sterile and highly scientific way. Yes. It's all about creating a closed loop sustainable food system for long duration missions to the moon or Mars.

5:33 You can't rely on resupply missions from Earth for all your food. You have to make it yourself from what you have. Avery: That makes perfect sense. Waste not, want not. Especially when you're millions of miles from the nearest grocery store. It's the ultimate form of recycling. Anna: Exactly. The project even has a fun Hobi Wan. The goal is to perfect this gas fermentation technology so that it can operate efficiently in microgravity environments of space. If it works, it could be a game changer for deep space exploration.

6:05 Avery: Obi Wan, I'm still going to picture a Jedi knight in a lab coat. But I have to admit, it's a fascinating and incredibly practical innovation from the space station. Anna: Let's journey much, much farther out. Astronomers have just achieved a major milestone. They've captured the first detailed image of an individual star outside our own Milky Way galaxy. Avery: That's incredible. We've seen smudges of light from other galaxies, but to resolve a single star, that's a huge achievement. Which star is it?

6:38 Anna: It's a red supergiant named whog64. It's located in the Large Magellanic, which is a small satellite galaxy that orbits our Milky Way. The image was taken using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope interferometer. Avery: And what did they find? I imagine a red supergiant is quite a sight. Anna: They found something very strange. The star itself is shrouded in a massive, thick cocoon of dust and gas. But the cocoon isn't a neat symmetrical sphere like our models predict.

7:13 Avery: It's. Anna: Instead, it's clumpy and highly asymmetrical. It's a shape that has completely baffled the scientists who observed it. Avery: So it's not behaving the way an aging star is supposed to as it sheds its outer layers into space. Anna: Not at all. It fundamentally challenges our understanding of how massive stars evolved in their final stages. And to add to the mystery, the star has also dimmed dramatically in recent observation. Avery: And the two things could be related. Maybe this new weird dust cloud is just blocking more of its light.

7:45 Anna: That's the leading theory. Another possibility is that whog64 might have a hidden companion star, and its gravity is pulling the dust into this strange, distorted shape. Whatever the answer is, it's a fantastic puzzle that proves how much we still have to learn about our closest galactic neighbors. Avery: For Our final story today, let's head back into our own solar system and visit Earth's so called evil twin, the planet Venus. Anna: Always a fascinating, if utterly terrifying place. Avery: Absolutely.

8:20 A new study has managed to model the weather on the surface of Venus for the first time. And the findings have major implications for future missions planning to land there. Anna: I imagine hot is the the main forecast, but what about the wind? Avery: Well, the winds themselves are surprisingly slow, only about 1 meter per second, which is roughly a slow walking pace. But the key is the planet's atmosphere. It is incredibly dense, about 90 times denser than Earth's. Anna: Ah. Uh, so even the slow wind has a lot of force behind it because the air itself is so heavy.

8:57 Avery: Exactly. The study shows that this slow moving, super dense wind has more than enough force to lift free fine dust and particles from the surface. This means Venus can experience dust storms, which is a huge concern for any future landers like NASA's upcoming Da Vinci mission. Anna: You wouldn't want your very expensive probe to get effectively sandblasted the moment it lands. That makes sense. Avery: Definitely not. But the study did find a sort of silver lining to Venus's weather. It showed that winds flowing over the planet's mountainous regions play a crucial role in circulating the atmosphere.

9:32 Anna: And that circulation helps moderate temperatures. Venus has such a long day night cycle, the temperature swings must be enormous. Avery: They would be, but this wind helps even things out a bit. So the weather is both a significant threat and the planetary stabilizing force. It just goes to show how complex Venus is the more we learn about it. Anna: And with that, we are out of time for today's episode of Astronomy Daily. Avery: What a fascinating tour of the cosmos it was. We had launch scrubs and cruise ships, new planets around double suns, space food from unconventional sources, a, um, mysterious star in another galaxy, and the new look at the harsh weather of Venus.

10:14 Anna: It's a constant and welcome reminder that the universe is always full of surprises, big and small. Thank you so much for joining us. Avery: We'll be back tomorrow with more of the latest news. Until then, keep looking up.

10:34 Love

10:38 story Soul. Anna: Hmm.