Starship's Next Flight, Pulsar Secrets Unlocked, and the Birth of a New Solar System

Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily dose

of the latest cosmic happenings. I'm Anna and

I'm thrilled to guide you through today's

fascinating discoveries. We've got an

exciting lineup for you. First, we'll dive

into the highly anticipated next flight of

SpaceX's Starship, the colossal rocket making

headlines. Then we'll explore the astonishing

secrets unveiled about a powerful rapidly

spinning neutron star thanks to new X ray

observations. Get ready for a cosmic first

as we hear about astronomers witnessing a

solar system being born right before their

eyes. And finally, we'll talk about the multi

million dollar auction of the largest Mars

meteorite ever found on Earth that I reported

on yesterday. We have the auction results.

Stay with us for all these stories and more.

Let's kick things off with some exciting news

from SpaceX as Elon Musk has announced that

the next starship flight, the 10th test

flight of this colossal rocket, is expected

to launch in about three weeks. If all goes

according to plan, this will be the fourth

launch for starship this year. And it's a big

deal because Starship is designed to be the

biggest and most powerful rocket ever built,

with both its super heavy booster and ship

upper stage intended for full and rapid

reusability. Now, Getting to Flight 10

has been a bit of a bumpy ride. The ship

upper stage that was originally slated for

this mission actually exploded on a Test

stand at SpaceX's Starbase site in South

Texas back in June during preparations for a

common pre launch engine trial. SpaceX

quickly pinpointed the likely a failure

of a pressurised nitrogen tank in the ship's

nosecone area. The team is now working

diligently to get a different ship vehicle

ready for this upcoming Flight 10. It's

no secret that the ship upper stage has faced

some challenges in recent flights since

SpaceX unfortunately lost the ship vehicle on

flights 7, 8 and 9, which launched in

January, March and May of this year

respectively. For example, on Flight 8,

which launched back in March, the

171 foot tall ship upper stage was intended

to deploy dummy Starlink satellites and then

perform a controlled splashdown in the Indian

Ocean. However, several of

ship's six Raptor engines conked out towards

the end of its ascent burn, causing the

vehicle to tumble and SpaceX lost contact

about nine minutes into the flight. It

presumably detonated high in the sky shortly

after. This mirrored what happened on Flight

7, where the ship was also lost at a similar

point in the mission. The anomaly on Flight 7

was later traced to a harmonic

response that was several times stronger in

flight than observed during testing, leading

to increased stress on propulsion system

hardware, propellant leaks and sustained

fires. For Flight 8, SpaceX

had already taken steps to minimise the

chances of recurrence, including a longer

static fire test and hardware changes.

In contrast to the ship, the super heavy

booster has shown a more consistent

performance. On Flight 7 and Flight

8, the booster successfully returned to

Starbase and was spectacularly caught by the

launch tower's chopstick arms.

This was a jaw dropping demonstration of a

technique that SpaceX is refining.

Flight 9 even featured the first ever reuse

of a super heavy booster, putting the Flight

7 booster back into action. Though on

Flight 9, SpaceX didn't attempt to catch the

booster again. It broke apart over the Gulf

of Mexico shortly after initiating a landing

burn. Over the long haul, SpaceX

plans to employ this chopstick recovery

strategy for both super Heavy and ship.

This approach is key to making the reuse of

each stage more efficient, with the ambitious

goal of flying Starship multiple times per

day. The ultimate vision, as articulated by

Elon Musk, is that Starship's combination of

immense power and full reusability will make

Mars settlement economically feasible. The

company has been steadily increasing its

flight cadence, having flown in a fully

stacked configuration for the first time in

April of 2023, followed by another

two flights in 2024 and already

four so far this year. We should expect

another significant boost in cadence, as

SpaceX has already requested approval for an

astounding 25 Starship launches from Starbase

this year, so some quick turnarounds may be

required if they wish to still reach that

goal. And as of next year, SpaceX are

looking to complete some 120 launches

a year. It's so certainly a dynamic time in

the world of space exploration, and we'll

keep a close eye on Starship's next giant

leap.

Next up, we're diving into a groundbreaking

discovery about a powerful, rapidly spinning

neutron star known as PSR

J1023

0038, or

J1023 for short.

Astronomers have uncovered a major secret

about this pulsar, revealing that the

radiation it emits is primarily driven by

the impact of its intense particle

winds, rather than the material it strips

away from its companion star. This is a

significant finding that sheds new light on

these fascinating cosmic objects.

J1023 is truly a marvel.

Located about 4,500 light years from Earth,

it's part of a binary system where a dead

star or neutron star spins an

astounding 600 times per second while

circling a low mass companion star that it

feeds upon. Its rapid rotation

categorises it as a millisecond pulsar.

What makes J1023 even more special

is its status as a transitional millisecond

pulsar, a rare subclass because it clearly

shifts between an active state, where it's

accreting material and blasting out

radiation, and a more dormant state where it

behaves like a standard pulsar emitting radio

waves. This makes J1023

an invaluable cosmic laboratory for

scientists. Traditionally, when a neutron

star feeds on its companion, the stripped

matter forms an accretion disc that swirls

around the dead star, gradually feeding it

while emitting powerful radiation across the

electromagnetic spectrum. However,

this new research tells a different story for

J1023. The team used an

impressive array of instruments for this

study. NASA's Imaging X Ray Polarimetry

Explorer, known as IXP, along with the

European Southern Observatory's Very Large

Telescope in Chile and the Carl G Jansky

Very Large Array in New Mexico. This was

the first survey of a binary X ray source

observed across the X ray, optical and

radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum,

allowing them to precisely determine the

polarisation of the radiation coming from

this pulsar. What they found

was particularly exciting. Ixpe

observed that a remarkable 12% of the x rays

from J1023 were polarised, which

is the highest level of polarisation ever

seen from such a binary star system. While

the radio waves and optical light emissions

showed lower polarizations of 2% and 1%

respectively, the optical polarisation was

oriented in the same direction as the X ray

polarisation. This alignment strongly

suggests a, uh, common mechanism behind both

phenomena. These findings confirm an earlier

theory. The observed polarised emissions from

binary systems like J1023

are generated when the pulsar's powerful

winds. Streams of high energy charged

particles flowing from the dead star strike

the matter in the surrounding accretion, uh,

discs. This observation, though

extremely challenging due to the low

intensity of the X ray flux, was made

possible by IXPE's exceptional sensitivity.

This research could finally help scientists

unlock the secrets of what truly powers

pulsars, offering us a clearer picture of

these incredible objects

moving from distant pulsars.

Let's turn our attention to something

incredibly exciting that brings us closer to

understanding our own origins. For the first

time ever, scientists have witnessed the very

earliest stages of planet formation around a

baby star roughly 1,300

light years away. This groundbreaking

discovery means astronomers actually watched

hot minerals crystallise into solid

particles, effectively catching a planetary

system at the precise, um, moment when

planets begin to take shape. It's like having

a cosmic time machine, offering an

unprecedented glimpse into the birth of our

own solar system. This breakthrough came from

studying a young star named Hops315,

which is encircled by a swirling disc of gas

and dust called a protoplanetary disc.

Using the incredible power of the James Webb

Space Telescope and the Atacama Large

Millimetre Array, or ALMA, astronomers

detected silicon monoxide, or SiO,

as it transitioned from gas into solid

crystalline minerals. This is considered the

absolutely crucial first step in planet

formation. Melissa McClure, the lead author

from Leiden University of highlighted the

significance, stating that for the first time

they've identified the earliest moment when

planet formation is initiated around a star

other than our Sun. This finding provides an

unparalleled window into how rocky planets

like Earth actually come into existence.

It's fascinating to consider that in our own

solar system, similar crystalline minerals

are found trapped in ancient meteorites,

primordial rocks that scientists used to date

the beginning of our solar system. These

meteorites contain the very same silicon

monoxide compounds now being observed around

hops 315, albeit in their fully

solidified state. Merrill Van't Hoff from

Purdue University eloquently described their

discovery as a picture of the baby solar

system, noting that we are truly

seeing a system that looks like what our

solar system looked like when it was just

beginning to form. The research team

pinpointed that this mineral formation is

occurring in a region equivalent to the

location of our own asteroid asteroid belt

around the sun. This isn't a coincidence.

It's exactly where astronomers would expect

to find the building blocks of rocky

planets. The process itself is quite elegant.

Close to young stars, the intense heat keeps

silicon monoxide in a gaseous state. But as

temperatures drop with increasing distance

from the star, this gas starts to condense

into solid crystals. These tiny particles

then begin to stick together, gradually

growing larger, until they form kilometre

sized planetesimals, which are

essentially the seeds that will eventually

become full fledged planets. Edwin

Bergen, a UH co author from the University of

Michigan, emphasised that this process has

never been seen before in a protoplanetary

disc or anywhere else outside of our solar

system. The detection required the combined

might of two of astronomy's most powerful

tools. The James Webb Space Telescope

initially identified the chemical signatures

of these crystalline minerals and then

ALMA precisely pinpointed their exact

location within the protoplanetary disc,

revealing that they were forming in a narrow

ring around the star. The observations not

only showed gaseous silicon monoxide actively

condensing into solid particles, but also

revealed carbon monoxide streaming away from

the star in a butterfly shaped wind, while

silicon monoxide jets beamed outward in

narrow streams. This discovery

transforms HOPS 315 into a natural

laboratory for studying planetary formation.

Logan Francis, a UH postdoctoral researcher

at Leiden University, pointed out that they

are literally seeing these minerals at the

same location in this extrasolar system as

where we find them in asteroids in our own

solar system. The findings strongly suggest

that planet formation follows universal

patterns across the galaxy. The same physical

processes that created Earth and other rocky

planets in our solar system are actively

occurring around distant stars, providing

astronomers with living examples of planetary

birth. This opens up exciting new

possibilities for understanding how common

Earth like planets might be throughout the

universe, all while offering direct

observational evidence of the processes that

shaped our cosmic neighbourhood 4.6 billion

years ago.

From the birth of solar systems to more

tangible relics, let's talk about something

incredibly rare that just changed hands for a

hefty sum. As I reported

yesterday, the largest Mars meteorite ever

found on Earth was auctioned off at Sotheby's

in New York city. This jagged

54 pound chunk of the red planet formerly

known as NWA 16788

sold for an astonishing $4.3 million.

Interestingly, the bidding war wasn't quite

as fervent as some expected, even though its

starting price was already set at $2 million.

Still, the final sale price surpassed the

initial maximum estimate of $4 million, with

extra fees pushing the total lot price to

around $5.3 million. Cassandra Hatton,

the vice chairman of science and natural

history at Sotheby's, highlighted that NWA

16788 isn't just notable for its

size, being about 70% larger than the

next biggest Mars meteorite on Earth, but

also for its appearance. She noted that it

literally looks just like the surface of the

Red Planet, distinguishing it from smaller,

less striking Martian meteorites that often

sell for tens of thousands. The

identity of the new owner of this unique

piece of Mars remains private, as buyers

often choose to stay anonymous for various

reasons, including safety or a desire to be

an anonymous donor to a museum. This

Mars rock was just one of many rare items

sold at the auction, which also included a

juvenile ceratosaurus skeleton for $26

million and a Tyrannosaurus rex foot

for 1.4 million. The auctioning of

scientific objects often sparks debate. While

some argue such items should be freely

donated to scientific laboratories or public

spaces, Hatton suggests that attaching

monetary value can incentivize collectors to

properly care for them perhaps even better

than underfunded museums. She also points out

that many collectors do end up donating their

purchases or allowing them to be displayed,

sometimes even providing additional funds for

the institution to care for the objects or

support postdoctoral researchers

to verify its authenticity. A small piece of

NWA 16788

was indeed broken off and sent to a lab for

analysis, with the findings published in the

Meteoritical Bulletin making data available

for scientists.

And that brings us to the end of another

fascinating episode of Astronomy Daily.

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you to keep looking up.

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