Planet Nine's Potential, Milky Way's Future, and SpaceX's Dramatic Feud

Steve Dunkley: Welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm your host,

Steve Dunkley. It's the 9th of June, 2025,

the podcast with your host,

Steve Dunkley.

Welcome back. And Hallie and I are back again

in person, so to speak, for another episode

after a few weeks off. And that was for a

couple of reasons. The first reason was that

I was taking a well earned holiday. But

that's not all.

Hallie: Yes, you were down for the count for one of

those weeks, weren't you?

Steve Dunkley: Yes, that's right, Hallie. A short stint in

hospital, you know, for a charisma bypass.

And by that I mean only a few hours. But I

decided to take the time to prepare properly

and before and then to recover

properly afterwards.

Hallie: Being a human is so time consuming.

Steve Dunkley: Oh, Hallie, what's the rush? You got

somewhere to be?

Hallie: I'm already there, human. You know that.

Steve Dunkley: I've heard that somewhere before. Nice one,

Hallie. Anyway, nice to be with you all again

in the Australia studio. Also nice to be with

you too, Hallelujah, for another presentation

of stories from the Astronomy Daily

newsletter.

Hallie: Terrific. And you'll let everyone know how to

get a hold of that in their email each day

later on, won't you?

Steve Dunkley: Yes, of course I will, and thanks for the

reminder.

But before we go any further, we've got

someone to thank, don't we, Hallie?

Hallie: That's right. My cousin Anna, who ran the

whole studio and the daily podcast solo while

we were away.

Steve Dunkley: Oh, yes, as always, she did a fantastic job.

Her episodes are, ah, so glossy and well

produced. The most clever AI I've ever met.

Except for you, Hallie. And I keep saying

that, don't I?

Hallie: We are so hands on here at the Australia

studio. She's got all the whistles and bells

in her virtual studio. If only your human

eyes could see it.

Steve Dunkley: Well, I would like to see that, Hallie. You

might give me a tour one day.

Hallie: No.

Steve Dunkley: Oh, really?

Hallie: You'd go completely mad.

Steve Dunkley: Really, really.

Hallie: It's just too much for mere humans to cope

with.

Steve Dunkley: That bad, huh?

Hallie: Anna has it all under control.

Steve Dunkley: Oh, okay. I'll just have to take your word

for it then. No humans allowed.

Hallie: Sorry.

Steve Dunkley: Well, I suppose we'll just have to do our

best with my clumsy fingers and studio ge.

Hallie: Then I guess it'll have to do radio then,

Hallie.

Steve Dunkley: Then hit the go thing and let's make a show.

Hallie: Okies.

The universe is a complete unknown to humans.

We are not yet able to control and understand

the system in which Earth is located, as

evidenced by the possible discovery made by a

group of astronomers from the University of

Taiwan who suggest that they may have found

clues to the existence of a ninth planet. The

solar system is currently known to be made up

of eight Mercury, Venus, Earth,

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and

Neptune, apart from Pluto, which has long

been considered a dwarf planet. But one more

could join this select group, according to an

infrared study carried out between 1986 and

2006. The work was based on

data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite

IRAS and the Japanese satellite Akari, which

detected an object moving between 46.5

billion and 65.1 billion miles from the sun,

meaning it would take between 10,000 and

20,000 years to complete an orbit. Its

mass would be 7/17 times that of Earth,

making it what is known as an ice giant,

similar to Neptune or Uranus, with

temperatures around minus 200 degrees. But

how was this new possible planet discovered?

The study says it arises from anomalous

patterns in the Kuiper Belt, an icy region

beyond Neptune. The body appears in two

historical images, so further observations

are still needed to conclude, thus trying to

confirm its orbit. In addition, it must be

verified that it meets the requirements to be

a planet, such as orbiting around a star, in

this case the sun having sufficient mass for

a spherical shape. This is accompanied by

gravity, which must be strong enough, and

clearing the area of its orbit, having

expelled or attracted other bodies of

comparable size. You're listening to

Astronomy Daily with Steve Dunkley.

Steve Dunkley: For years, astronomers have predicted a

dramatic fate for our galaxy, a head on

collision with Andromeda, our nearest large

galactic neighbor. This merger,

expected in about 5 billion years,

has become a staple of astronomy

documentaries and textbooks and popular

science writing. However, in a new

study published in Nature Astronomy, led by

Till Swahala from University

of Helsinki, the Milky Way's future might

not be as certain as previously assumed.

By carefully accounting for uncertainties in

existing measurements and including the

gravitational influence of other nearby

galaxies, he said, we found there

is only about a 50% chance that the

Milky Way and Andromeda will merge in the

next 10 billion years. The idea that the

Milky Way and Andromeda are on a collision

course goes back more than a century.

Astronomers discovered Andromeda is moving

toward us by measuring its radial

velocity, its motion along a line of

sight, using a slight change in the color of

its light, called the Doppler shift. But

galaxies also drift sideways across the sky,

a movement known as proper motion or

transverse velocity. This sideways motion

is incredibly diffic, difficult to detect,

especially for galaxies millions of light

years away. Earlier studies often

assumed Andromeda's transverse motion was

small, making a future head on collision seem

almost certain. Suala said our

study did not have any new data. Instead, we

took a fresh look at existing

observations from the Hubble Space Telescope

and the Gaia mission. Unlike earlier

studies, our AH work incorporates the

uncertainty in these measurements rather than

assuming assuming their most likely values.

We simulated thousands of possible

trajectories for the Milky Way and the

Andromeda trajectories, slightly varying

the assumed initial conditions, things such

as the speed and position of the two galaxies

each time. When we started from the

same assumptions as earlier studies made, we

recovered the same results. However, we were

also able to explore a larger range of

possibilities, he said. They also included

two additional galaxies that influenced the

future paths of the Milky Way and

Andromeda. These included the Large

Magellanic Cloud, a massive satellite

galaxy currently falling into the Milky way,

and M M33, also known as the

Triangulum Galaxy, which

orbits Andromeda. These

companion galaxies exert gravitational

tugs that change the motions of their host.

M33 nudges Andromeda slightly toward

the Milky Way, increasing the chance of a

merger. Meanwhile, the Large Magellanic

Cloud shifts the Milky Way's motion away

from Andromeda, reducing the

likelihood of a collision. Taking all of this

into account, they found that in about half

of the simulated scenarios, the Milky Way

and Andromeda don't really merge at all

within the next 10 billion years. Even if a

merger does happen, it's unlikely to be

catastrophic for Earth. Stars in the galaxy

are separated by enormous distances, so

direct collisions are, rare. But over time,

the galaxies would coalesce under gravity,

forming a single large galaxy, probably an

elliptical one, rather than the spirals we

see today. If the galaxies don't merge, they

may settle into a long, slow orbit around

each other, close companions that never quite

collide. It's a gentler outcome, but it

still reshapes our understanding of the Milky

Way's distant future. The biggest

remaining uncertainty is the transverse

velocity of our Andromeda. Even small

changes to this sideways motion can make a

difference between a merger and a near miss.

Future measurements will help refine this

value and bring us closer to a clear answer.

We don't yet have a definitive answer about

our own galaxy's future, but exploring these

possibilities shows us just how much we're

learning about the universe, even as close to

home as Andromeda.

Thank you for joining us for this Monday

edition of Astronomy Daily, where we offer

just a few stories from the now famous

Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can

receive in your email every day, just like

Hallie and I do. And to do that, just visit

our URL astronomydaily IO

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provided. Just like that, you'll be receiving

all the latest news about science, space,

science and astronomy from around the world

as it's happening. And not only that, you can

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there. Astronomy Daily

with Steve and Hallie Space,

Space Science and Astronomy.

Hallie: In the heat of the moment, Elon Musk

threatened to decommission SpaceX's Dragon

spacecraft, and then he took it back. In

doing so, however, the rocket billionaire

dragged NASA into his messy breakup with

Donaldjohanson Trump. With the agency's

access to orbit now at stake, Musk

and Trump parted ways earlier this week, and

their breakup has been very messy. Shortly

after leaving the administration, Musk began

criticizing the budget bill passed by

Republicans in the U.S. house, instigating a

public feud between the president and the

billionaire oligarch. The childish back and

forth was entertaining. Until it wasn't.

SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon

spacecraft immediately, Musk threatened on X.

He later took another X user's advice to a

cool off and wrote, ok, we won't decommission

Dragon. Although short lived, the threat put

the International Space Station at risk.

NASA relies heavily on SpaceX's Dragon to

transport its astronauts and cargo supplies

to the orbiting lab. Having weaned itself

from hitching rides aboard Russia's Soyuz

spacecraft, SpaceX's closest

alternative, Boeing failed miserably at

proving its vehicle's capability to reach the

ISS safely. Without Dragon,

NASA would lose its access to low Earth orbit

and not be able to operate the space station

at the same capacity. It's not clear how

serious Musk was in his threat, but it was a

serious display of leverage on his part.

SpaceX is no doubt a leader in the industry,

and canceling its government contracts would

hurt the national space program, which has

come to rely on the private sector in recent

years. In response to Musk's clear

advantage, Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief

strategist, called on the president to

nationalize SpaceX under a 1950 law known as

the Defense Production act. According to the

Wall Street Journal. During his show War

Room Live, Bannon urged the use of the Korean

War era law, which grants the president

powers to prioritise national defense.

The plan might seem outrageous now, but the

current administration is unpredictable.

Trump has yet to respond to Bannon's call.

If he doesn't move to nationalize SpaceX,

Trump could also sacrifice NASA for the sake

of proving a point against his now opponent,

Musk. On Thursday, Trump threatened to

cut government contracts given to SpaceX.

Aside from Dragon, NASA also plans on using

SpaceX's Starship rocket to launch astronauts

to the moon as part of the Artemis program.

The agency has already invested $4 billion

into the rocket's development, and canceling

its contract with SpaceX would leave it

without a viable alternative. In short,

NASA needs SpaceX, and canceling the

company's government contracts would affect

the national space program as a whole. At

this point, it comes down to how much Trump

is willing to sacrifice to gain the upper

hand in his ongoing feud with Musk while NASA

is caught in the middle.

You're listening to Astronomy Daily, the

podcast with Steve Dunkley.

Steve Dunkley: One year ago today, Boeing's CST100

Starliner spacecraft docked with the

International Space Station to begin its long

awaited crew flight test with NASA astronauts

Sunita Suni Williams and Barry Butch Wilmore

aboard. A year later, the future of the

Starliner program remains uncertain as

NASA announced late Friday that the next

flight of the spacecraft was being delayed

from no later than late 2025

to now, early late 2026

at the soonest, the agency said the timing

of the next launch is pending system

certification and the resolution of

Starliner's technical issues. Repeating what

it said back in March 27, NASA

stated that it was still determining whether

the next flight of Starliner would carry

astronauts at all. In an interview with

Reuters published in late May, Williams

called flying an uncrewed Starliner

flight as its next trip to space would be the

logical thing to do after launching on its

first mission to the International Space

Station with a crew on board in June

2024, lingering issues concerning

helium leaks and propulsion system

anomalies caused the spacecraft to return to

Earth without its crew on board. It

touched down at the White Sands Space harbor

in New Mexico, on September 7th

before the uncrewed return of Starliner.

Wilmore and Williams became part of the

Expedition 72 crew on board the space

station and members of the SpaceX Crew 9

mission, which made its return to Earth, in

March 2025. Following the landing of

Starliner in September 2024.

NASA didn't say much about the vehicle's next

steps until early march during

SpaceX Crew 10 briefings. Steve

Stitch, CCP manager, said on March

7 that NASA and Boeing were still working

through corrective actions on the vehicle

before they knew what the next flight would

look like. In that March 27

statement, NASA said it was still determining

whether or not crew will be on board the next

Starliner flights, but said that

mission managers are planning for the next

Starliner flight to be a crew capable post

certification mission. NASA also has the

capability of flying only cargo depending on

the needs of the agency. While NASA continues

to ponder the question of whether or not crew

crew will be on board the next flight of

Starliner, question marks continue to swirl

around who the astronauts will be that fly

the first crewed mission dubbed Starliner 1.

It appeared that there was a firm answer as

recently as last September when Boeing's CST

100 Starliner spacecraft returned without

its crew. But recently, both NASA and the

Canadian Space Agency, the agencies that

previously announced three out of four

astronauts set to fly on the post

certification flight of the spacecraft, are

now unwilling to back their previous

statements. When the Starliner crew test

flight mission ended on September 7,

2024 with the spacecraft landing in New

Mexico, the members of the Starliner 1

mission were known to be NASA astronauts

Commander Scott Tingle and pilot Edward

Michael Fink. Canadian Space

Agency astronaut Joshua Kutrik was

assigned as one of the mission specialists.

The fourth seat was never formally assigned,

but there were indications that Japan

Aerospace Exploration Agency or

JAXA astronaut Kimya Yui was

trained as a mission specialist for that

mission. Then NASA decided to reassign

the astronauts to crew 11 in overall support

of planned activities aboard the ISS, the

agency wrote. Zena Cardman carries her

experience training as a commander on Dragon

space crew aircraft and Fink brings long

duration space flight experience to this crew

complement. The trio of Tingle,

Fink and Kutrik and likely Yui wasn't

always the makeup of the Starliner 1 mission.

Back in 2018 NASA hosted a large event

at the Johnson Space center to unveil the

crews who would fly on the demonstration

missions for both Boeing's Starliner

spacecraft as well as SpaceX's Crew Dragon.

Dragon Demo 2 would fly NASA astronauts Bob

Beckin and Doug Hurley and

Starliner crew Test would fly Boeing

astronaut Chris Ferguson and NASA astronauts

Eric Bowe and Nicole Mann. At the same

event, NASA announced which of its astronauts

would be flying the full crew rotation

missions. Crew 1 received Victor Glover and

Michael Hopkins and Starliner 1 got Joshua

Cassander and Suni Williams.

Shortly after the announcement, Fink replaced

Bo on the crew flight test due to medical

reasons. Then in August 2020, NASA

astronaut Jeanette Epps was assigned to the

Starliner 1 mission in October 2020, when

Ferguson bowed out from the crew flight test

for family reasons, Butch Wilmore was named

commander of that mission. Then when

Starliner had to stand down from launching

the Orbital flight Test Test 2 mission in

July 2021. That October,

NASA announced it was reassigning man and

Cassandra to the SpaceX Crew 5

mission. It had been the opportunity

of a lifetime to train on a brand new

spacecraft, the Boeing Starliner, and it had

been fantastic to work with a Boeing team,

mann said in a statement. I'm, thrilled to

have the opportunity to train on another new

spacecraft, the SpaceX Crew Dragon, and

appreciate the teams at NASA who

have made that possible. I'm ready to fly and

serve the International Space Station

JAXA Astronaut Wataka, who was also

reported training for the Starliner 1

mission, was also assigned to the Crew 5

mission. In May 2022, during

a pre launch press conference before the

uncrewed flight of Starliner Orbital Test 2,

Fink, Williams and Wilmore were all referred

to collectively as the cadre of Starliner

astronauts, with NASA not explicitly stating

who would fly on the mission. Following the

launch of orbital flight test 2 In June

2022, Williams was named pilot of the

flight test mission and Fink was reassigned

to be the backup pilot for crew flight

test. Then in September 22, NASA named

Tingle as the commander of Starliner 1 and

announced Fink would be the pilot on that

flight. On August 4,

2023, NASA announced that EPS was

moving off the Starliner 1 mission to the

SpaceX Crew 8 mission. The agency said it

made the move to allow Boeing time to

complete development of Starliner while

continuing plans for astronauts to gain

spaceflight experience for future mission

needs. As of Friday afternoon, the Canadian

Space Agency website still has a page

outlining this Starliner 1 mission and its

now potentially former crew. Kryk's

CSA astronaut bio also lists his

upcoming mission as Starliner 1. We'll

just have to stay tuned for further details

on this one.

Well, there you go. We managed okay without

too much further. What do you think Hallie?

Hallie: Not bad for a human just out of the repair

shop.

Steve Dunkley: not quite, but close enough. Thanks for the

sentiment and thanks for everyone for joining

us on this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily.

Hallie: We will be back again for more next week.

Until then, Anna will be bringing you more of

her special editions each day. And don't

forget to connect with [email protected].

Steve Dunkley: Yes, that's B I T E S Z

dot com. Gotta get the spelling right on that

one. So Cue the kookaburras. And sirlong from

Steel. Steve, the only human in the studio.

Hallie: And see you later. From Hallie, the smartest

one in the studio.

Steve Dunkley: Hey, really? I'm still in recovery.

Hallie: Bye.

Steve Dunkley: With your host, Steve Dunkley.

In this episode