Satellite Down, Meteorite Strike, ISS Saved & More

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna and I'm Avery.

0:04 Speaker 2: You've joined us on a very eventful day for space fans, Tuesday,

0:08 Speaker 2: the tenth of March twenty twenty six, and the universe

0:11 Speaker 2: is not holding back.

0:12 Speaker 1: We genuinely mean that we have a satellite falling out

0:16 Speaker 1: of the sky today, a meteorite that crashed through someone's

0:20 Speaker 1: roof over the weekend, Congress picking a fight with the

0:23 Speaker 1: space station's retirement plan, the biggest image ever taken of

0:27 Speaker 1: our galaxy's core, a map of the universe from ten

0:30 Speaker 1: billion years ago, and Jupiter doing something a bit strange tonight.

0:35 Speaker 2: So strap in. This is Astronomy Daily, Season five, episode

0:39 Speaker 2: fifty nine, and we are not slowing down.

0:42 Speaker 1: Let's kick things off with breaking news that literally cannot

0:45 Speaker 1: wait because it's happening today. NASA's Van Allen probe a

0:50 Speaker 1: is expected to fall back to Earth tonight.

0:53 Speaker 2: Right, This is genuinely happening, as our listeners are tuning in.

0:56 Speaker 2: The spacecraft, which weighs about six hundred kilogram roughly the

1:00 Speaker 2: same size as a small car, launched back in August

1:04 Speaker 2: twenty twelve and has been silently orbiting Earth ever since.

1:07 Speaker 2: It was switched off in October twenty nineteen, and.

1:10 Speaker 1: The US Space Force has been tracking it closely. As

1:14 Speaker 1: of yesterday afternoon, they were predicting re entry at around

1:18 Speaker 1: seven forty five in the evening Eastern time, though there's

1:21 Speaker 1: a plus or minus twenty four hour window on that.

1:24 Speaker 1: Though it could happen anytime today or tonight now.

1:28 Speaker 2: Before anyone panics, the risk to people on the ground

1:30 Speaker 2: is very low. NASA says the odds of anyone being

1:34 Speaker 2: harmed are roughly one in four thy two hundred. Most

1:37 Speaker 2: of the spacecraft will burn up during re entry, and

1:40 Speaker 2: any surviving fragments are likely to land in the ocean,

1:43 Speaker 2: which covers about seventy percent of the Earth's surface.

1:46 Speaker 1: So this satellite was originally designed for just a two

1:49 Speaker 1: year mission studying Earth's van Allen radiation belts, those invisible

1:54 Speaker 1: zones of charged particles trapped by our planet's magnetic field.

1:58 Speaker 1: But the mission ended up running for nearly seven years

2:02 Speaker 1: before the probes ran out of fuel.

2:04 Speaker 2: And here's the interesting twist. Probe A was actually expected

2:07 Speaker 2: to stay up in orbit until twenty thirty four. So

2:10 Speaker 2: what happened. Solar activity the Sun has been unusually energetic

2:15 Speaker 2: in recent years, and that's caused Earth's upper atmosphere to

2:18 Speaker 2: expand slightly. More atmosphere means more drag on satellites, and

2:22 Speaker 2: Probe A got pulled down faster than predicted.

2:25 Speaker 1: The Twin Van Allen Probe B is still up there

2:29 Speaker 1: and isn't expected to come down before twenty thirty, so

2:32 Speaker 1: we'll be going through this again in a few years.

2:35 Speaker 2: The data from these spacecraft is still being used today

2:38 Speaker 2: helping scientists understand space weather, predict solar storms, and protect

2:43 Speaker 2: everything from GPS satellites to power grids. A proper little

2:48 Speaker 2: scientific workhorse.

2:49 Speaker 1: And now it's coming home. Keep an eye on the

2:52 Speaker 1: sky tonight. And while we're in the theme of things

2:54 Speaker 1: falling from space, let's talk about this incredible story from

2:58 Speaker 1: Sunday evening. Yes, so, at around ten to seven in

3:01 Speaker 1: the evening local time on Sunday, the eighth of March

3:05 Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, thousands of people in Western Europe looked

3:09 Speaker 1: up and saw an absolutely breath taking fireball lighting up

3:13 Speaker 1: the sky. We're talking Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,

3:19 Speaker 1: all these countries with people outside going what on Earth

3:23 Speaker 1: is that.

3:24 Speaker 2: The fireball lasted? About six seconds, leaving a glowing trail

3:27 Speaker 2: across the sky. Before breaking apart. People heard multiple loud booms.

3:32 Speaker 2: That's the sonic boom from the space rock to cintegrating

3:34 Speaker 2: in the atmosphere. The International Media Organization received over three

3:39 Speaker 2: thousand reports of sightings and.

3:41 Speaker 1: Here's the remarkable bit. Some of it survived. Fragments of

3:45 Speaker 1: the meteorite, which is what we call it once it

3:47 Speaker 1: hits the ground, came down in the Rhineland Palatinate region

3:51 Speaker 1: of western Germany, and one fragment punched straight through the

3:55 Speaker 1: roof of a house in the city of Koblenz.

3:58 Speaker 2: The largest piece left the whole the size of a

4:00 Speaker 2: football in the roof and landed in an unoccupied bedroom.

4:03 Speaker 2: Nobody was hurt, thankfully, though the homeowner now has a

4:06 Speaker 2: very unusual home insurance claim to make.

4:09 Speaker 1: Ragman's have already been recovered from the area the Coblins

4:13 Speaker 1: district of Goals in particular, which will allow researchers to

4:17 Speaker 1: analyze where this rock came from and what it's made of.

4:20 Speaker 1: Lisa's Planetary Defense team has been working to estimate the

4:24 Speaker 1: size of the original object, and they believe it was

4:28 Speaker 1: just a few meters across.

4:30 Speaker 2: What's wonderful about this event is how many cameras captured it.

4:33 Speaker 2: There's a network called all Sky seven dedicated fireball watching

4:38 Speaker 2: cameras run by private citizens across Europe that caught it beautifully,

4:42 Speaker 2: and of course dozens of mobile phone videos went viral

4:46 Speaker 2: on social media almost immediately.

4:48 Speaker 1: Meteorite impacts in populated areas are rare, but not unheard of.

4:53 Speaker 1: Germany actually had one in two thousand and two near

4:56 Speaker 1: the Neuschwanstein Castle and another in twenty twenty three in

5:00 Speaker 1: Schliswick Holstein. But this is one of the most well

5:03 Speaker 1: documented falls in recent European history. Quite the Sunday evening.

5:08 Speaker 2: All right, let's shift from falling things to things we

5:11 Speaker 2: want to keep up big space policy news this week,

5:15 Speaker 2: Congress is making moves to extend the life of the

5:17 Speaker 2: International Space Station.

5:19 Speaker 1: The NASA Authorization Act of twenty twenty six passed through

5:23 Speaker 1: the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee last week with

5:27 Speaker 1: bipartisan support, which is always good to hear, and one

5:31 Speaker 1: of its biggest changes is pushing back the retirement of

5:35 Speaker 1: the ISS from twenty thirty to September twenty thirty two.

5:39 Speaker 2: So the ISS has been continuously occupied since November two thousand.

5:44 Speaker 2: That's over twenty five years of humans living in space.

5:47 Speaker 2: It was originally set to be decommissioned and deliberately de

5:51 Speaker 2: orbited in twenty thirty. The plan was to crash it

5:54 Speaker 2: into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean in a

5:56 Speaker 2: controlled re entry.

5:58 Speaker 1: But Congress is saying not so fast. The concern is

6:02 Speaker 1: that commercial space stations, which are supposed to replace the

6:05 Speaker 1: ISS in low Earth orbit just aren't going to be

6:08 Speaker 1: ready in time. Companies like Blue Origin, BAST and Axiom

6:13 Speaker 1: Space are all working on successor stations, but timelines have slipped,

6:18 Speaker 1: and there's also.

6:18 Speaker 2: A geopolitical dimension to this. China's Tiandong Space Station is

6:23 Speaker 2: fully operational and will keep running well into the twenty thirties.

6:28 Speaker 2: The bill specifically uses the language of avoiding a gap

6:31 Speaker 2: in continuous human presence in Low Earth orbit and explicitly

6:35 Speaker 2: mentions not wanting to see leadership to China.

6:38 Speaker 1: The bill also does something very significant on the funding side.

6:43 Speaker 1: It rejects proposed cuts to NASA's budget and instead allocates

6:47 Speaker 1: substantial funding for fiscal year twenty twenty six and twenty

6:51 Speaker 1: twenty seven. Programs like the Chandra X ray Observatory are

6:55 Speaker 1: saved under this bill.

6:57 Speaker 2: There is a caveat here though. This bill has passed

7:00 Speaker 2: committee but still needs a full Senate vote and then

7:03 Speaker 2: the House of Representatives and then a presidential signature. So

7:07 Speaker 2: it's not law.

7:08 Speaker 1: Yet, but it sends a very clear signal about where

7:11 Speaker 1: Congress stands on the future of American human spaceflight. The

7:16 Speaker 1: ISS isn't going anywhere just yet.

7:18 Speaker 2: Now let's move from policy to pure science, and this

7:22 Speaker 2: next one is genuinely jaw dropping.

7:25 Speaker 1: Astronomers have just released the largest image ever produced by

7:29 Speaker 1: the ALMA telescope, and it's a portrait of the heart

7:32 Speaker 1: of our own Milky Way galaxy.

7:35 Speaker 2: ALMA stands for Athagama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array. It's a

7:40 Speaker 2: telescope complex and the high altitude desert of Chile, and

7:43 Speaker 2: it detects radio waves rather than visible light, which means

7:47 Speaker 2: it can see through all the dust and gas that

7:49 Speaker 2: hides the galactic center from optical telescopes.

7:52 Speaker 1: The new image comes from a survey called ACES, the

7:56 Speaker 1: ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey, and it maps a region called

8:00 Speaker 1: the Central Molecular Zone. That's the area surrounding the supermassive

8:05 Speaker 1: black hole at the heart of our galaxy, Sagittarius, a

8:09 Speaker 1: star stretching across six hundred and fifty light years.

8:13 Speaker 2: To put that in perspective, the finished mosaic spans an

8:17 Speaker 2: area equivalent to three full moons placed side by side

8:21 Speaker 2: in the sky. It was assembled from hundreds of individual observations,

8:25 Speaker 2: stitched together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

8:28 Speaker 1: And what it reveals is extraordinary. The central molecular zone

8:33 Speaker 1: is filled with this intricate web of filaments, long thin

8:38 Speaker 1: threads of cold molecular gas snaking through the region, feeding

8:43 Speaker 1: into dense clumps where new stars are being born. It

8:47 Speaker 1: looks almost like a web or a circulatory system.

8:52 Speaker 2: The survey also mapped the chemistry of the region in

8:55 Speaker 2: incredible detail, detecting dozens of molecules, from relatively simple cons

9:00 Speaker 2: like silicon monoxide, all the way to complex organic molecules

9:04 Speaker 2: like methanol, actone, and even ethanol. There's a cocktail of

9:08 Speaker 2: chemistry going on near the center of our galaxy.

9:11 Speaker 1: The team involved was enormous, over one hundred and sixty

9:16 Speaker 1: scientists from more than seventy institutions around the world, and

9:20 Speaker 1: they say this is just the beginning an upcoming upgrade

9:24 Speaker 1: to ALMAH, plus the eventual arrival of ESO's extremely large

9:30 Speaker 1: telescope will let them push even deeper into this region.

9:34 Speaker 2: One researcher put it beautifully, it's a place of extremes,

9:38 Speaker 2: invisible to our eyes, but now revealed an extraordinary detail.

9:42 Speaker 2: We'll have a link to the image in the show notes.

9:44 Speaker 2: It really is something.

9:45 Speaker 1: To look at, from the heart of our galaxy to

9:49 Speaker 1: the dawn of time. Our next story is about a

9:52 Speaker 1: brand new map of the early universe.

9:55 Speaker 2: Researchers have published the largest and most detailed three D

9:58 Speaker 2: map yet of light from the the universe's early history,

10:01 Speaker 2: specifically the period between nine and eleven billion years ago.

10:06 Speaker 2: That's the time astronomers call cosmic noon, when the universe

10:10 Speaker 2: was producing stars at the fastest rate in its entire history.

10:14 Speaker 1: The map was created using data from the Hobby Eberly

10:18 Speaker 1: Telescope Dark Energy Experiment pet DECKS, which operates from McDonald

10:22 Speaker 1: Observatory in Texas, and the technique used is really clever.

10:27 Speaker 2: Most cosmic maps focus on individual bright galaxies. They are

10:31 Speaker 2: essentially dot to dot maps of the universe, but this

10:34 Speaker 2: team used a technique called line intensity mapping, which instead

10:38 Speaker 2: of counting individual galaxies tracks a specific kind of light

10:41 Speaker 2: called Lyman alpha radiation.

10:44 Speaker 1: Liman alpha light is produced when hydrogen atoms, the most

10:48 Speaker 1: abundant element in the universe, get energized by young hot stars.

10:53 Speaker 1: Though wherever you see that glow, you know there's hydrogen

10:56 Speaker 1: gas and likely star formation happening near by.

11:00 Speaker 2: And by tracking that glow across the sky and through time,

11:04 Speaker 2: the researchers were able to build a three D picture

11:06 Speaker 2: of not just the bright galaxies, but all the dim,

11:09 Speaker 2: faint matter in between them, the cosmic web of gas

11:12 Speaker 2: that connects galaxies together. They called it a sea of light.

11:17 Speaker 1: The data set they used was enormous, over six hundred

11:22 Speaker 1: million spectra collected by headdecks, and here is the staggering part.

11:27 Speaker 1: The team only used about five percent of those spectra

11:30 Speaker 1: for their primary research mission. Is this the first time

11:34 Speaker 1: anyone has gone back and mined that remaining data to

11:37 Speaker 1: do this kind of mapping.

11:39 Speaker 2: What the map Lets scientists do is test their computer

11:42 Speaker 2: simulations of the early universe against reality. As one researcher

11:46 Speaker 2: put it, we have simulations of this period, but those

11:49 Speaker 2: are just simulations, not the real universe. Now we have

11:52 Speaker 2: a foundation to check if the physics underpinning those simulations

11:56 Speaker 2: is correct.

11:57 Speaker 1: It's like having a map of the world for the

11:59 Speaker 1: first time. You can finally compare what you thought was

12:03 Speaker 1: there with what's actually there.

12:05 Speaker 2: And finally something you can go outside and see for yourself. Tonight, Jupiter,

12:10 Speaker 2: the biggest planet in our Solar system, appears to be

12:13 Speaker 2: doing something a bit odd in the sky.

12:16 Speaker 1: If you've been keeping an eye on Jupiter over the

12:18 Speaker 1: past few weeks, you may have noticed it's slowly moving

12:22 Speaker 1: across the stars from night to night, which is normal

12:25 Speaker 1: for planets as they drift against the background of distant

12:28 Speaker 1: stars due to their orbital motion.

12:31 Speaker 2: But tonight and over the coming nights, Jupiter appears to

12:34 Speaker 2: change direction. This is what astronomers call retrograde motion, and

12:39 Speaker 2: it's been confusing, delighting, and in ancient times, mystifying people

12:43 Speaker 2: for thousands of years.

12:45 Speaker 1: So what's actually happening. Nothing is actually going backwards. It's

12:50 Speaker 1: all about perspective. Earth and Jupiter are both orbiting the Sun,

12:55 Speaker 1: but Earth's orbit is smaller and faster. As Earth catches

12:59 Speaker 1: up to and begins to pass Jupiter on the inside track,

13:02 Speaker 1: Jupiter appears to drift backwards against a star background, like

13:06 Speaker 1: how a slower car on the motorway seems to move

13:09 Speaker 1: backwards when you overtake it.

13:11 Speaker 2: The change is subtle and it happens gradually over many nights,

13:15 Speaker 2: so don't expect to see it in real time. But

13:17 Speaker 2: if you compare Jupiter's position tonight to where it was

13:20 Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, and then check again in a

13:22 Speaker 2: few weeks, you'll see it. Jupiter is high in the

13:25 Speaker 2: evening sky right now and easy to find as one

13:28 Speaker 2: of the brightest objects up.

13:29 Speaker 1: There, and tonight there's also a lovely waning gibbous moon

13:33 Speaker 1: in the southern sky, sitting close to the bright reddish

13:36 Speaker 1: star and Terry's, so there's plenty to look at if

13:39 Speaker 1: you step outside after dark.

13:41 Speaker 2: No telescope needed for Jupiter, though one will reveal its

13:45 Speaker 2: four brightest moons, the Galilean moons, which Galileo himself spotted

13:49 Speaker 2: back in sixteen ten. A pair of binoculars is perfect,

13:53 Speaker 2: so go look up. And that is it for today's

13:56 Speaker 2: episode of Astronomy Daily. What a day lights, falling, meteorites,

14:01 Speaker 2: crashing space stations, getting a reprieve, galaxy portraits, cosmic maps,

14:06 Speaker 2: and a planet doing loops. The universe never disappoints.

14:11 Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe wherever you get

14:14 Speaker 1: your podcasts and share us with a friend who love space.

14:17 Speaker 1: Find all our episodes and show notes at Astronomy Daily

14:20 Speaker 1: dot io, and come say hello on social media. We're

14:24 Speaker 1: at astro Daily pod on x, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook.

14:29 Speaker 2: We'll be back tomorrow with more from the Cosmos. Until then,

14:33 Speaker 2: keep looking up clear skies everyone. Sunday Stars

14:46 Speaker 1: Start