Proving Einstein, Birth of a Gas Giant, and SpaceX's Milestones

0:00 Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, the podcast

0:03 that brings you the latest discoveries from

0:05 across the cosmos. I'm Anna.

0:08 Avery: And I'm Avery. We've got an

0:10 absolutely incredible episode for you today.

0:13 We're talking about black holes that are

0:15 proving Einstein and hawking right.

0:18 SpaceX's latest mission success. And for

0:21 the first time ever, astronomers have

0:23 actually caught a baby planet in the act

0:26 of being born.

0:28 Anna: Plus, we'll explore a mind bending

0:30 prediction about exploding primordial

0:33 black holes that could revolutionize

0:36 physics. So grab your favorite

0:38 beverage and let's dive into the wonders of

0:41 the universe.

0:42 Avery: Alright, Anna, let's start with what might be

0:45 the most significant gravitational wave

0:48 discovery since LIGO first detected

0:50 these cosmic ripples. Scientists have now

0:53 confirmed some of Einstein and Hawking's

0:56 most important predictions about black holes.

0:59 Tell us what happened.

1:01 Anna: This is absolutely fascinating,

1:03 avery. Back in January

1:05 2025, LIGO detected

1:08 gravitational waves from two black holes

1:10 colliding 1.3 billion light

1:13 years away. But what makes this discovery

1:16 special isn't just the detection

1:19 itself. It's what the scientists were

1:21 able to prove using the data.

1:24 Avery: Right. They actually confirmed Hawking's area

1:27 theorem, which states that a black hole

1:29 surface area can never decre.

1:32 That's pretty remarkable when you think about

1:34 it. We're talking about testing theoretical

1:37 physics on some of the most extreme objects

1:40 in the universe.

1:41 Anna: Exactly. The numbers are

1:43 staggering too. Before the collision,

1:46 the combined surface area of both black

1:49 holes was about 240,000

1:52 square kilometers. After they merged,

1:55 the final black hole had a surface area

1:58 of 400,000 square kilometers.

2:01 So even though these massive objects crashed

2:03 together and merged, the total surface area

2:07 actually increased, just as Hawking

2:10 predicted.

2:10 Avery: What I find incredible is that they also

2:13 confirmed the merged black hole matches

2:16 Einstein's Kerr metric. This provides

2:19 the strongest evidence yet that these

2:21 astrophysical black holes behave exactly

2:24 as general relativity predicts. We're

2:26 literally watching Einstein's equations play

2:29 out on a cosmic scale.

2:31 Anna: It's mind blowing to think that theories

2:34 developed nearly a century ago are being

2:36 proven correct by observations of events

2:39 that happened over a billion years ago.

2:42 Science is truly amazing.

2:45 Avery: Speaking of impressive achievements, let's

2:48 talk about SpaceX's latest success.

2:50 On September 11, 2025, they

2:53 launched the Nusantara Lima satellite for

2:56 Indonesian telecom company psn.

3:00 Anna, uh, this wasn't just an ordinary

3:02 launch.

3:04 Anna: Not at all, Avery. This launch had

3:06 some impressive milestones. First, they

3:09 had to deal with three days of weather delays

3:12 at Cape Canaveral, which shows how

3:14 seriously SpaceX takes safety conditions.

3:17 But when they finally launched the Falcon

3:20 9 first stage made its 23rd

3:23 successful landing on the drone ship. A

3:26 shortfall of gravitas 23

3:28 flights for.

3:29 Avery: A single rocket booster. I still get

3:32 amazed by the reusability SpaceX has

3:34 achieved. And, um, this Boeing built

3:36 satellite is going to make a real difference

3:38 for people in Indonesia, right?

3:41 Anna: Absolutely. Indonesia has over

3:43 17,000 islands, so

3:46 providing reliable telecommunications across

3:49 such a geographically challenging region

3:52 is no small feat. The Nusantara

3:55 Lima satellite will operate from

3:57 geosynchronous orbit with a capacity of over

4:00 160 gigabits per second.

4:03 That's enough bandwidth to connect millions

4:05 of people across these REM island

4:07 communities.

4:08 Avery: And this was SpaceX's

4:10 114th Falcon 9 mission

4:13 of 2025. That's more than two

4:16 launches per week on average. The pace

4:18 of space activity these days is just

4:21 incredible.

4:22 Anna: Now, Avery, let's move to what might be

4:25 my favorite story of the day. For the

4:28 first time ever, astronomers have actually

4:31 observed a baby planet carving out

4:34 gaps in the dusty disk around its

4:36 newborn star. This is like catching

4:39 planet formation in the act.

4:41 Avery: This is absolutely groundbreaking, Anna.

4:44 Uh, the planet's called Wispit2b,

4:47 and it's orbiting a star with the Wonderfully

4:49 complex name Wispit 2

4:53 TYC 5709

4:56 354, located

4:58 434 light years away. What

5:01 makes this discovery so special?

5:04 Anna: Well, for decades, astronomers have theorized

5:06 about how planets form by accreting, uh,

5:09 material from these dusty disks around young

5:12 stars and how they carve out gaps

5:15 as they grow. But we've never actually seen

5:18 it happening in real time. This baby

5:20 planet is a gas giant about five times the

5:23 mass of Jupiter, orbiting 54

5:26 astronomical units from its star.

5:28 Avery: The technology they use to spot this is

5:31 incredible, too. They used the Mag

5:34 AOX adaptive optics system on the

5:36 Magellan telescope, and they actually

5:39 detected H Alpha light from hot

5:41 hydrogen gas falling onto the forming

5:44 planet. That's like watching a cosmic

5:47 construction site in action.

5:49 Anna: What I love about this discovery is that it

5:51 confirms decades of theoretical work.

5:55 Scientists have been modeling planetary

5:56 formation for so long, and now

5:59 we're finally seeing direct evidence that our

6:02 understanding is correct. And it's like

6:04 watching a baby take its first steps. Except

6:07 the baby is a gas giant five times bigger

6:10 than Jupiter.

6:11 Avery: And this opens up so many possibilities for

6:14 studying planetary formation in other

6:16 systems. We might be able to watch entire

6:19 solar systems being born and understand

6:23 how common different types of planetary

6:25 architectures really are.

6:27 Anna: And speaking of new discoveries, Avery, I

6:30 think our listeners would love to hear about

6:31 some of the other incredible breakthroughs

6:33 happening in space exploration right now.

6:36 We've Been focusing a lot on the distant

6:38 universe, but there's actually been some

6:40 fascinating developments much closer to home

6:43 on Mars.

6:44 Avery: Oh, absolutely, Anna. Uh, the Perseverance

6:47 rover has been making some incredible

6:49 discoveries lately. As we reported yesterday,

6:52 just this past month, it found organic

6:54 molecules in what appears to be an ancient

6:56 river delta and Jeissero Crater. But what's

6:59 really exciting is that these aren't just

7:02 simple organic compounds. They're complex

7:04 molecules that could potentially be

7:06 biosignatures.

7:08 Anna: That's exactly right, Avery. And what makes

7:10 this discovery even more compelling is the

7:13 geological context. Perseverance has been

7:16 analyzing rock samples from what scientists

7:18 believe was once a vast lake system

7:21 complete with flowing rivers and deltas,

7:23 exactly the kind of environment where early

7:26 life might have thrived billions of years

7:28 ago.

7:29 Avery: The technology behind these discoveries is

7:31 just as fascinating as the findings

7:33 themselves. Perseverance is using its

7:36 supercam instrument to analyze rocks with

7:38 laser spectroscopy, literally vaporizing

7:41 tiny portions of Martian rocks and

7:44 analyzing the resulting plasma. It's like

7:47 having a complete chemistry lab rolling

7:49 around on another planet.

7:51 Anna: And here's where it gets really exciting for

7:53 the future. Avery Perseverance has been

7:56 carefully collecting and caching the most

7:58 promising samples in sealed tubes that are

8:01 designed to be retrieved by future missions.

8:04 The Mars Sample Return campaign, a

8:06 collaboration between NASA and esa, aims to

8:09 bring these samples back to Earth, where they

8:11 can be analyzed with instruments far more

8:13 sophisticated than anything we can send to

8:16 Mars.

8:17 Avery: The timeline for Mars Sample return is

8:20 ambitious, but achievable. We are looking at

8:22 potential sample retrieval in the

8:24 early2030s, which means that within

8:27 this decade, we could have actual pieces of

8:30 Mars sitting in laboratories here on Earth.

8:33 Imagine being able to study Martian rocks

8:35 with electron microscopes, mass

8:37 spectrometers, and other advanced instruments

8:40 that would be impossible to miniaturize for a

8:43 rover mission.

8:44 Anna: What I find most compelling about all these

8:46 discoveries from the baby planet we discussed

8:49 earlier to these potential biosignatures on

8:52 Mars, is how they're reshaping our

8:54 understanding of how common life might be

8:57 in the universe. We're learning that the

8:59 basic building blocks and conditions for life

9:02 appear to be surprisingly widespread, both

9:05 in our solar system and beyond.

9:07 Avery: And it's not just Mars that's showing

9:09 promise, Anna. Uh, we've got the Europa

9:11 Clipper mission launching soon to study

9:13 Jupiter's moon Europa, which likely has a

9:16 subsurface ocean with more water than all

9:19 of Earth's oceans combined. Then there's the

9:21 Dragonfly mission to Titan, Saturn's largest

9:24 moon, where we'll have a nuclear powered

9:26 helicopter searching for signs of prebiotic

9:29 chemistry. The next two decades are going to

9:32 be absolutely incredible for astrobiology.

9:35 Anna: Amazing. How's astronomy and space

9:37 exploration keep expanding our perspective

9:39 from searching for life in our cosmic

9:41 backyard to probing the fundamental physics

9:44 of the universe itself.

9:46 Speaking of fundamental physics, Avery, let's

9:49 shift gears to something that sounds like

9:51 pure science fiction, but could become

9:53 reality very soon. Our final major

9:56 story today takes us into some truly

9:59 mind bending theoretical physics.

10:02 Researchers at UMass Amherst M are

10:04 predicting a 90% chance that we'll

10:07 observe an exploding primordial black

10:10 hole within the next decade. This

10:13 sounds like science fiction, but it's very

10:15 real science.

10:16 Avery: It really does sound like sci fi, Anna.

10:19 These primordial black holes would have

10:21 formed shortly after the Big Bang. And

10:24 according to Hawkins theory, they could

10:26 eventually explode through Hawking radiation.

10:29 But the timeline was always thought to be

10:31 incredibly long. Like once every

10:34 hundred thousand years.

10:36 Anna: Right. But this team has developed something

10:38 called a dark QED toy model

10:41 that suggests charged primordial black holes

10:44 could explode much more frequently,

10:46 potentially once every 10 years instead of

10:49 once every hundred thousand years. That's a

10:52 massive difference.

10:53 Avery: The implications are staggering.

10:56 If we actually observed one of these

10:58 explosions, it would revolutionize our

11:01 understanding of physics. We'd essentially

11:03 get a complete inventory of all subatomic

11:06 particles, including potentially discovering

11:09 new ones we didn't even know existed.

11:11 Anna: It's like having a cosmic particle

11:13 accelerator that operates at energies far

11:16 beyond anything we can create on Earth. If

11:19 their predictions are correct, the next

11:21 decade could see some of the most important

11:23 discoveries in the history of physics.

11:26 Avery: Before we wrap up, Anna, uh, we've got time

11:28 for a few quick bonus stories that caught our

11:31 attention. First up, uh, something a bit

11:33 different. Darth Vader's lightsaber from

11:36 the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the

11:39 Jedi just sold at auction for

11:41 $3.6 million.

11:44 Anna: That's an astronomical price for a movie

11:47 prop. But I have to admit, Star wars

11:50 has inspired countless people to pursue

11:52 careers in science and space exploration. And

11:55 speaking of space exploration, scientists are

11:57 proposing that rectangular telescopes could

12:00 help us find Earth Earth 2.0 by providing

12:02 better resolution for exoplanet detection.

12:05 Avery: Rectangular telescopes. Who would have

12:07 thought? And here's one more quick story

12:10 that's pretty incredible. New research shows

12:13 that solar flares can reach temperatures of

12:15 108 million degrees, which

12:18 is six times hotter than scientists

12:20 previously thought. That's absolutely mind

12:23 boggling when you think about the energies

12:25 involved.

12:26 Anna: Before we sign off, Avery, I want to take a

12:29 moment to reflect on something that really

12:31 strikes me about today's stor. We've

12:34 covered discoveries Spanning from the very

12:36 formation of the universe with primordial

12:39 black holes to the birth of new worlds

12:42 to the search for life itself. What

12:45 amazes me is that all of these breakthroughs

12:47 are happening simultaneously right

12:50 now in what future historians might call the

12:53 golden age of astronomy.

12:55 Avery: You're absolutely right, Anna. Uh, and what's

12:58 particularly exciting is how these

13:00 discoveries are interconnected. The same

13:03 gravitational wave detectors that confirmed

13:05 Einstein's predictions about black holes are

13:08 the ones that might detect exploding

13:10 primordial black holes. The same

13:12 spectroscopic techniques we use to study

13:15 exoplanets are helping us analyze potential

13:17 biosignatures on Mars. The telescopes

13:20 observing baby planets forming are also

13:23 searching for signs of life in other solar

13:25 systems.

13:26 Anna: It really demonstrates how astronomy is

13:29 becoming increasingly interdisciplinary.

13:32 We're not just astronomers anymore. We're

13:34 astrobiologists, particle physicists,

13:37 geologists, and atmospheric scientists,

13:41 all working together to understand our place

13:43 in the cosmos. And perhaps most

13:46 importantly, we're sharing these discoveries

13:49 with everyone, inspiring the next generation

13:52 of scientists who will make even more

13:54 incredible discoveries in the decades to

13:57 come. What an incredible journey through the

13:59 cosmos we've had today, Avery. From

14:02 confirming Einstein and Hawking's predictions

14:04 with gravitational waves, to watching

14:07 planets being born, to the possibility of

14:10 observing exploding black holes in the next

14:13 decade, it really.

14:14 Avery: Shows how dynamic and exciting astronomy

14:17 is right now. Anna. We're living in a golden

14:20 age of discovery, with new technologies

14:22 allowing us to observe phenomena that were

14:25 purely theoretical just a few years ago.

14:28 Anna: Thank you for joining us on Astronomy Daily.

14:31 Keep looking up, keep asking questions,

14:34 and remember, the universe is full of

14:36 wonders waiting to be discovered. And

14:39 remember to visit our

14:40 [email protected]

14:43 to check out these stories in more detail and

14:46 catch up on the latest news with our

14:48 continually updating Space News feed.

14:51 Avery: Until next time, this is Avery and Anna

14:54 signing off. Clear skies, everyone.