One Sleep to Splashdown: Artemis II Heads Home + Lunar Science Bombshell

0:00 Speaker 1: One more sleep after nine days in deep space, nine

0:04 Speaker 1: days that took humanity further from Earth than we have

0:07 Speaker 1: ever been. The Artemis two crew is coming home. Splashdown

0:11 Speaker 1: is tomorrow, and we have the full countdown.

0:14 Speaker 2: Plus the NASA scientists who literally screamed when the astronauts

0:18 Speaker 2: spotted something nobody expected to see on the Moon. We'll

0:21 Speaker 2: tell you what it was and why it matters so

0:23 Speaker 2: much for future missions.

0:25 Speaker 1: A brand new class of star has been discovered. Meet

0:29 Speaker 1: Gandolf and Moon sized, two cosmic oddballs that have just

0:33 Speaker 1: rewritten the stellar rule book.

0:35 Speaker 2: Mars still very much not welcoming visitors. We have the

0:39 Speaker 2: science to prove it, and four planets are lining up

0:42 Speaker 2: in the April sky for a rare celestial parade.

0:45 Speaker 1: And we close with the most relatable space story in years.

0:49 Speaker 1: What happens when four astronauts take their iPhones a quarter

0:53 Speaker 1: of a million miles from Earth.

0:55 Speaker 2: Boiler The photos are extraordinary.

0:58 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily, Season five, Episode eighty five.

1:03 Speaker 2: I'm Anna and I'm Avery. It is Thursday, the ninth

1:07 Speaker 2: of April twenty twenty six, and we are broadcasting from

1:10 Speaker 2: Astronomy Daily dot io on the BYTES dot com podcast network.

1:15 Speaker 1: It has been a big week in space, and it

1:17 Speaker 1: is about to get even bigger.

1:20 Speaker 3: Let's go.

1:20 Speaker 2: I'm ready.

1:21 Speaker 1: It is day nine of the Artemis two mission, and

1:24 Speaker 1: right now the Orion spacecraft, call sign Integrity, is hurtling

1:29 Speaker 1: back toward Earth at extraordinary speed. Tomorrow evening, it will

1:33 Speaker 1: splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of

1:36 Speaker 1: San Diego, and when it does, four astronauts will have

1:39 Speaker 1: completed the most significant human spaceflight since the Apollo program.

1:44 Speaker 2: The splashdown is scheduled for around eight pm Eastern time,

1:47 Speaker 2: that's Friday morning for US here in Australia and New Zealand,

1:51 Speaker 2: and NASA says the weather window is looking favorable. The

1:54 Speaker 2: USS John P. Murtha, the naval recovery vessel, is already

1:58 Speaker 2: on station in the Pacific with hell copters and divers

2:01 Speaker 2: ready to retrieve the crew and avery.

2:03 Speaker 1: Before any of that can happen, there's a critical sequence

2:06 Speaker 1: of events. The crew module, the part that carries the astronauts,

2:10 Speaker 1: has to separate from the service module. Then it plunges

2:14 Speaker 1: into the atmosphere at around twenty five thousand miles an hour.

2:18 Speaker 1: There'll be a blackout period of several minutes when mission

2:21 Speaker 1: control loses all contact as the plasma sheath forms around

2:25 Speaker 1: the capsule.

2:26 Speaker 2: And then parachutes. First, the drogue choots to slow them

2:29 Speaker 2: down dramatically, then the main parachutes and orion drops to

2:33 Speaker 2: about seventeen miles per hour for a soft ocean landing

2:37 Speaker 2: after nine days and nearly seven hundred thousand miles of travel.

2:41 Speaker 1: Now the heat shield. This is the thing that has

2:43 Speaker 1: been quietly keeping engineers awake at night. After the uncrewed

2:47 Speaker 1: Artemis one mission, inspectors found that chunks of the heat

2:51 Speaker 1: shield had sheared away unevenly during reentry. NASA and Lockheed

2:55 Speaker 1: Martin spent four years investigating and redesigning it. Both say

3:00 Speaker 1: they are highly confident it will perform perfectly tomorrow, but

3:04 Speaker 1: it will be the real world test.

3:06 Speaker 2: Once safely aboard the MIRTHA, the crew will undergo medical

3:09 Speaker 2: evaluations before flying to Johnson's Space Center in Houston. Commander

3:13 Speaker 2: Red Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Kock, and

3:18 Speaker 2: Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hanson.

3:22 Speaker 1: History makers, every single one of them. Victor Glover, the

3:25 Speaker 1: first person of color to travel to the Moon, Christina Cock,

3:29 Speaker 1: the first woman, Jeremy Hanson the first person from a

3:32 Speaker 1: country other than the United States to reach lunar distance.

3:36 Speaker 2: And when they get home, President Trump has apparently already

3:39 Speaker 2: promised them a White House visit. I'd say they've earned it.

3:42 Speaker 1: We'll, of course have the full splashdown coverage intomorrow's episode

3:46 Speaker 1: of Astronomy Daily. Set those alarms.

3:49 Speaker 2: Now, while all the drama of the homeward journey has

3:51 Speaker 2: been unfolding, the science team at Johnson Space Center has

3:55 Speaker 2: been going absolutely wild over what the crew observed during

3:58 Speaker 2: the lunar flyby on Monday.

4:00 Speaker 1: And I do mean wild avery NASA's lunar science lead

4:04 Speaker 1: Kelsey Young described, and this is a direct quote from

4:08 Speaker 1: the press conference, audible screams of delight in the science

4:12 Speaker 1: evaluation room.

4:13 Speaker 2: What were they screaming about?

4:15 Speaker 1: Micro meteorite impact flashes. During the solar eclipse phase of

4:20 Speaker 1: the flyby, when the Moon blocked the Sun and Orion

4:23 Speaker 1: was in darkness, the crew spotted between four and six

4:27 Speaker 1: distinct flashes of light on the lunar surface, brief, colorless

4:31 Speaker 1: pinpricks of light lasting just milliseconds. Each one was a

4:36 Speaker 1: tiny rock traveling thousands of miles per hour slamming into

4:41 Speaker 1: the Moon.

4:42 Speaker 2: Now. Scientists had hoped the crew might see one or

4:44 Speaker 2: two of these. Apollo astronauts reported a handful across all

4:48 Speaker 2: the missions, but to see multiple flashes so quickly, so clearly,

4:53 Speaker 2: they genuinely weren't expecting it.

4:55 Speaker 1: Commander Wiseman described it beautifully in the post flyby debrief.

5:00 Speaker 1: He said they had five minutes of what he called

5:03 Speaker 1: human emotional reaction just staring at the darkened Moon during

5:07 Speaker 1: the eclipse, and then the impacts started showing up.

5:11 Speaker 2: And why does this matter? Scientifically? Because knowing the frequency

5:15 Speaker 2: and location of micro meteorite impacts is critical engineering data.

5:20 Speaker 2: When future Artemis crews are living and working on the

5:23 Speaker 2: lunar surface, building habitats, doing spacewalks, those tiny rocks are

5:28 Speaker 2: going to be falling on their heads and their equipment.

5:31 Speaker 2: Every data point about impact rates helps engineers design better protection.

5:36 Speaker 1: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbitter team is right now using the

5:40 Speaker 1: crew's sketches and timing notes to hunt for fresh craters

5:44 Speaker 1: from those specific impacts. They may actually be able to

5:48 Speaker 1: see the new craters from orbit.

5:50 Speaker 2: And there's a beautiful human moment buried in all of

5:52 Speaker 2: this too. During the flyby, the crew proposed names for

5:56 Speaker 2: two previously unnamed craters on the lunar far side, suggested

6:00 Speaker 2: Integrity after their spacecraft, and Carol, in honor of Commander

6:05 Speaker 2: Wiseman's late wife. Those names have been submitted to the

6:08 Speaker 2: International Astronomical Union for official consideration.

6:12 Speaker 1: That stopped me in my tracks when I read it,

6:15 Speaker 1: History made names written into the Moon.

6:19 Speaker 2: Moving now to a story that has absolutely nothing to

6:22 Speaker 2: do with Artemis but is just as extraordinary in its

6:25 Speaker 2: own way. Astronomers have just identified a brand new class

6:29 Speaker 2: of stellar objects, and they've named them gandolf and moon sized.

6:34 Speaker 1: I'm immediately interested.

6:37 Speaker 2: As you should be so context. When a starlike our

6:40 Speaker 2: Sun runs out of fuel, it eventually collapses into what's

6:44 Speaker 2: called a white dwarf, an incredibly dense Earth sized remnant.

6:48 Speaker 2: These are common, we know them well. But when two

6:51 Speaker 2: white dwarfs in a binary system collide and merge, the

6:55 Speaker 2: resulting object can be strange, define strength, ultramassive, highly magnetic,

7:03 Speaker 2: rapidly rotating. And this is the weird part, emitting X

7:08 Speaker 2: rays even though they're completely alone, no companion star, no

7:12 Speaker 2: material being pulled in from somewhere else, just X rays

7:16 Speaker 2: from a solo stellar remnant.

7:19 Speaker 1: Normally, X ray emissions from white dwarfs come from accretion

7:23 Speaker 1: one star stealing material from another, so to see it

7:27 Speaker 1: happening in isolation is genuinely new.

7:30 Speaker 2: Exactly, and researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology

7:34 Speaker 2: Austria ISTA have now confirmed two of these objects share

7:39 Speaker 2: five distinct characteristics ultramassive, highly magnetic, rapidly rotating, companionless, and

7:47 Speaker 2: X ray emitting. Two is enough to define a class.

7:51 Speaker 1: And one of them is surrounded by a half ring

7:54 Speaker 1: of ionized gas trapped in its own asymmetrical magnetic field.

7:59 Speaker 1: Hydrogen emission spectra that looked like and I love this

8:02 Speaker 1: description cat ears cat ears.

8:06 Speaker 2: The spectral signature kept switching between two peaks in sync

8:09 Speaker 2: with the objects six minute rotation period, something no one

8:13 Speaker 2: had ever seen in a white dwarf before, which is

8:16 Speaker 2: why they named it after the Tolkien character who famously

8:19 Speaker 2: speaks in riddles.

8:20 Speaker 1: Gandolf, who likes to speak in riddles.

8:23 Speaker 3: That is perfect and moon size is its companion in

8:27 Speaker 3: this new class, a white dwarf so dense that a

8:30 Speaker 3: mass equivalent to our entire sun is compressed into something

8:34 Speaker 3: roughly the size of the moon.

8:36 Speaker 1: I need a moment to process that.

8:38 Speaker 2: Take your time. The universe will wait.

8:42 Speaker 1: So what does it all mean? Are there more of

8:44 Speaker 1: these out there?

8:45 Speaker 2: Almost certainly? The researchers say, finding two objects with five

8:49 Speaker 2: overlapping features is and I'm paraphrasing here, more than enough

8:54 Speaker 2: to start a search. The hunt for more gandolfs and

8:57 Speaker 2: moon sizes is on down to.

8:59 Speaker 1: The red place in it and a story that offers

9:01 Speaker 1: a rather sobering perspective on humanity's ambitions there.

9:05 Speaker 2: New research published this week suggests that Mars's surface was

9:09 Speaker 2: never really a viable candidate for life, not just now,

9:13 Speaker 2: but potentially at any point in its history. Scientists at

9:16 Speaker 2: Universe Today have been covering a study that consolidates a

9:19 Speaker 2: growing body of evidence radiation bombardment, toxic perclorates in the soil,

9:25 Speaker 2: and the near total absence of a protective atmosphere.

9:28 Speaker 1: We've known for a long time that Mars is hostile now.

9:31 Speaker 1: The question has always been whether there was a window

9:34 Speaker 1: billions of years ago when Mars had liquid water in

9:37 Speaker 1: a thicker atmosphere, when life could have gained a foothold.

9:41 Speaker 2: And the emerging picture is that even then, the surface

9:44 Speaker 2: may have been too brutal. The radiation levels alone, without

9:47 Speaker 2: a magnetic field to the flex soolar particles, would have

9:50 Speaker 2: been devastating to any surface biology. Whatever life Mars may

9:54 Speaker 2: have had, if any, would have needed to be underground

9:57 Speaker 2: almost immediately.

9:58 Speaker 1: Which actually may missions like Artemis even more striking. By contrast,

10:04 Speaker 1: Earth got it right. We're here, we evolved, We survived

10:08 Speaker 1: long enough to send four people around the Moon on iPhones.

10:13 Speaker 1: Mars just didn't make it.

10:15 Speaker 2: The subsurface is still the focus of active scientific interest.

10:19 Speaker 2: There may be liquid water deep below the Martian crust,

10:22 Speaker 2: there may be microbial life sheltering from the surface hellscape,

10:26 Speaker 2: But the romantic notion of ancient surface life basking under

10:30 Speaker 2: a warm Martian sun, the science is increasingly against.

10:33 Speaker 1: It, and it makes the search for life elsewhere feel

10:37 Speaker 1: even more precious, and the protection of life here feel

10:41 Speaker 1: even more urgent.

10:42 Speaker 2: Well said, onto something a little more uplifting, at least visually.

10:47 Speaker 1: Guy watching time, and this month's night sky is offering

10:51 Speaker 1: up a genuinely lovely alignment. Four planets are currently visible

10:55 Speaker 1: together in April skies Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune.

11:00 Speaker 2: Now Neptune you'll need binoculars or small telescope for it's

11:04 Speaker 2: not naked eye under any practical conditions, but Mercury, Mars

11:08 Speaker 2: and Saturn are all available to the unaided eye if

11:11 Speaker 2: you know where and when to look.

11:14 Speaker 1: For our Southern Hemisphere listeners in Australia and New Zealand,

11:17 Speaker 1: the best viewing window is the eastern sky and the

11:20 Speaker 1: hours before dawn. Mercury is the trickiest. It's always close

11:24 Speaker 1: to the sun, but right now it's at a reasonable

11:27 Speaker 1: elongation and worth hunting.

11:28 Speaker 2: For Bars has been a reliable presence in our skies

11:31 Speaker 2: for months now, and Saturn is that beautiful, steady golden

11:35 Speaker 2: glow that never twinkles the way stars do. If you

11:38 Speaker 2: grab even a modest pair of binoculars and point them

11:41 Speaker 2: at Saturn, you can make out the ring system. It

11:44 Speaker 2: never gets old.

11:45 Speaker 1: This is a great time to get kids outside and

11:48 Speaker 1: look up four planets at once. Artemis two coming home tomorrow.

11:53 Speaker 1: The timing couldn't be better for a bit of genuine wonder.

11:56 Speaker 2: Clear skies permitting, check the star Walk app or your

11:59 Speaker 2: localist astronomy society for specific viewing times from your location.

12:03 Speaker 2: Links has always in our show notes and.

12:05 Speaker 1: We close today with perhaps the most delightfully human story

12:09 Speaker 1: of the entire Artemis two mission.

12:12 Speaker 2: You know, amongst all the orbital mechanics and the heat

12:15 Speaker 2: shield engineering and the science about micro meteorite impacts, there's

12:19 Speaker 2: this other story quietly running alongside it all. Before Artemis two,

12:24 Speaker 2: astronauts brought their iPhones.

12:26 Speaker 1: Not to make calls, there's no signal two hundred and

12:29 Speaker 1: fifty two thousand miles from Earth, but NASA Administrator Jared

12:34 Speaker 1: Isaacman made a deliberate decision to allow the crew to

12:37 Speaker 1: bring iPhone seventeen pro maxes on board as personal cameras.

12:42 Speaker 1: The idea was simple, give the crew the tools to

12:45 Speaker 1: capture their own story.

12:48 Speaker 2: And they have. Christina Coach and Commander Weisman use the

12:52 Speaker 2: iPhone's front camera, the selfie camera, to take what are

12:55 Speaker 2: being described as genderinely the greatest selfies in human history,

13:00 Speaker 2: their faces softly lit from inside the cabin, and behind them,

13:04 Speaker 2: suspended in the black of space, our entire planet, a

13:08 Speaker 2: pale blue crescent from a quarter of a million miles away.

13:12 Speaker 1: The EXIF data from the images shows they kept the

13:16 Speaker 1: camera on default settings, no special filters, no complicated exposures,

13:21 Speaker 1: just point the phone at the window, press the button.

13:25 Speaker 2: And then there's Reed Weizman during the lunarflyby turning off

13:28 Speaker 2: all the cabin lights so there's no reflection on the windows,

13:31 Speaker 2: zooming his iPhone seventeen to eight X and photographing Chebyshev

13:36 Speaker 2: Crater on the far side of the Moon, a place

13:38 Speaker 2: that had never been photographed by a human holding a

13:41 Speaker 2: camera in their hands.

13:42 Speaker 1: Before you could argue Apple should just retire the shot

13:47 Speaker 1: on iPhone ad campaign. Now it has been definitively one.

13:51 Speaker 2: The crew has reportedly shot more images on their phones

13:54 Speaker 2: than through the professional Nikon cameras, and NASA says everything

13:59 Speaker 2: captured will be made publicly available within six months, so

14:02 Speaker 2: there's a lot more to come.

14:04 Speaker 1: There's something quietly extraordinary about this story. We're in an

14:09 Speaker 1: era of such technological sophistication, orbital mechanics, deep space navigation,

14:16 Speaker 1: radiation shielding, and yet one of the most resonant moments

14:20 Speaker 1: of the entire mission is for humans far from home

14:24 Speaker 1: pulling out their phones to take pictures of each other.

14:27 Speaker 2: Because that's what people do, that's what we've always done.

14:31 Speaker 2: We go somewhere extraordinary, we look at each other, We

14:34 Speaker 2: press the button.

14:36 Speaker 1: That's humanity right there.

14:38 Speaker 2: And that is Astronomy Daily for Thursday, the ninth of

14:41 Speaker 2: April twenty twenty six. We'll be back tomorrow with everything

14:45 Speaker 2: you need for Artemis two splash down Day. Set your alarms.

14:49 Speaker 1: You can find us on all major podcast platforms. Search

14:52 Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily or head to Astronomy Daily dot io. We

14:57 Speaker 1: are on x and Instagram as astro Daily Pod, on TikTok,

15:01 Speaker 1: YouTube and tumbler.

15:03 Speaker 2: If today's episode gave you something to think about, or

15:05 Speaker 2: if the Gandalf story made you look up at the

15:07 Speaker 2: sky a little differently, share it with someone. That's how

15:10 Speaker 2: we grow.

15:11 Speaker 1: From all of us at the bytes dot com podcast network.

15:15 Speaker 1: Clear skies and we'll see you tomorrow.

15:17 Speaker 2: Goodbye Sunday, starstz

15:29 Speaker 3: Start