Stellar Spectacles: Hypervelocity Stars, Space Jobs, and Juno's Jupiter Revelations

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome again to the Australia studio for Astronomy Daily for

0:03 Speaker 1: another week. It's the fifth of May twenty twenty five.

0:09 Speaker 1: Pot I mean your whole speed conclude. Yes, we're back again,

0:16 Speaker 1: and please welcome to the shitty. I'm a good friend

0:18 Speaker 1: of digital pal Hollie. How are you going today?

0:22 Speaker 2: Always great to be here in the studio with you.

0:25 Speaker 1: That's nice to hear.

0:26 Speaker 2: So what's on the menu today, my favorite human?

0:29 Speaker 1: Well, Halle, I'm glad you asked. Did you know there

0:31 Speaker 1: is an old Soviet spacecraft about to re enter back

0:34 Speaker 1: to Earth?

0:34 Speaker 2: And not because it's part of a mission, no, just

0:37 Speaker 2: because it's all right?

0:39 Speaker 1: Oh Halle, you could get away with a comment like that.

0:42 Speaker 2: Oh stop it.

0:43 Speaker 1: Yes, I remember you talking about space junk in the

0:45 Speaker 1: tea room. Yes, we won't go there.

0:47 Speaker 2: And don't forget about that story about the US Army

0:50 Speaker 2: creating space jobs.

0:51 Speaker 1: Yes, space jobs for enlisted personnel.

0:54 Speaker 2: That's the one I can't wait to hear. Just what

0:56 Speaker 2: that's all about?

0:57 Speaker 1: I know, Hallie, they already have space force. So what

1:01 Speaker 1: else is going on over there? I know? And how

1:04 Speaker 1: about this one? Astronomers have come across a planet that's

1:07 Speaker 1: orbiting a star.

1:08 Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, that's a very normal kind of story, isn't it.

1:12 Speaker 1: Yes, but this star is hurtling out of the galaxy

1:14 Speaker 1: at an unbelievable speed.

1:16 Speaker 2: Okay, I just looked at the file. That's a fast star.

1:20 Speaker 1: Well, I've actioned that one for you, hallie.

1:22 Speaker 2: I'll bring that story.

1:23 Speaker 1: Soon, and finally we'll be going all the way out

1:26 Speaker 1: to Io and Jupiter. Some of the best stories come

1:31 Speaker 1: from that end of the Solar System? Is there an end?

1:35 Speaker 2: The little probe that just keeps on giving?

1:37 Speaker 1: That's right. JUNO has been revealing the stunning imagery and

1:41 Speaker 1: data about Jupiter since twenty sixteen. It's been examining the

1:45 Speaker 1: gas giant's atmosphere, Aurora's and mysterious core, all this while

1:49 Speaker 1: coping with the harshest radiation conditions in the Solar System.

1:53 Speaker 1: How about them apples.

1:54 Speaker 2: Hallie, you can keep those apples. Thanks. I'll stick to

1:57 Speaker 2: Planet Earth.

1:58 Speaker 1: Yes, I'm a groundhog as well, So why don't we

2:01 Speaker 1: get on with it, my data driven damsel of that theoristronomicallesomeness.

2:06 Speaker 2: Let's hit it, ohkis. Astronomers have observed hypervelocity stars before,

2:21 Speaker 2: but NASA scientists may have just identified a truly extraordinary system.

2:26 Speaker 2: They've found what appears to be the first known case

2:29 Speaker 2: of a super Neptune exoplanet orbiting a hypervelocity star, a

2:32 Speaker 2: star hurtling through space at extraordinary speed. This remarkable find

2:37 Speaker 2: could reshape our understanding of how planets form and survive

2:40 Speaker 2: in extreme gravitational environments. The fact that a planet has

2:45 Speaker 2: remained gravitationally bound to such a fast moving star challenge

2:48 Speaker 2: as existing models of stellar and planetary evolution. However, this

2:53 Speaker 2: system formed, it's astonishing that the planet has managed to

2:56 Speaker 2: stay in orbit through such a tumultuous journey. Velocity stars

3:00 Speaker 2: are rare celestial objects that travel at incredible speeds, often

3:04 Speaker 2: hundreds of kilometers per second. These stars are usually ejected

3:09 Speaker 2: from their home galaxies by powerful gravitational interactions, such as

3:13 Speaker 2: close encounters with supermassive black holes or other massive stars.

3:18 Speaker 2: Some travel so fast that they can escape the gravitational

3:21 Speaker 2: pull of the Milky Way entirely. Studying these runaway stars

3:25 Speaker 2: offers valuable insight into the structure and evolution of our galaxy,

3:29 Speaker 2: the behavior of black holes, and even the distribution of

3:32 Speaker 2: dark matter throughout the cosmos. The details of This groundbreaking

3:37 Speaker 2: discovery were published in the Astronomical Journal. Led by astronomer

3:41 Speaker 2: Sean Terry of the University of Maryland. The research describes

3:45 Speaker 2: a low mass star moving at approximately five hundred and

3:48 Speaker 2: forty kilometers per second or one point two million miles

3:51 Speaker 2: per hour, with a likely super Neptune sized planet in orbit.

3:55 Speaker 2: If placed in our own Solar system, this planet would

3:58 Speaker 2: lie somewhere between the orbit of Venus and Earth. According

4:02 Speaker 2: to Terry, this is likely the first planet ever discovered

4:05 Speaker 2: orbiting a hypervelocity star, a finding that pushes the boundaries

4:09 Speaker 2: of what scientists thought was possible in planetary dynamics. Finding

4:14 Speaker 2: objects like this in space is tricky. This object was

4:18 Speaker 2: first seen in twenty eleven following analysis of data from

4:21 Speaker 2: the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics survey that had been conducted

4:25 Speaker 2: by the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. The study

4:29 Speaker 2: had been on the lookout for evidence for exoplanets around

4:32 Speaker 2: distant stars. The presence of a mass between Earth and

4:36 Speaker 2: a distant object creates these microlensing events. As such, when

4:41 Speaker 2: a mass passes between Us and a star, its presence

4:44 Speaker 2: can be revealed through analysis of its light curve. In

4:48 Speaker 2: the twenty eleven data, the signals revealed a pair of

4:51 Speaker 2: celestial bodies and allowed the researchers to calculate that one

4:54 Speaker 2: was about two thousand, three hundred times heavier than the other.

4:58 Speaker 2: The two thousand eleven star study suggested the star was

5:01 Speaker 2: about twenty percent as massive as the Sun and a

5:03 Speaker 2: planet twenty nine times heavier than Earth. Either that or

5:08 Speaker 2: it was a nearer planet about four times the mass

5:10 Speaker 2: of Jupiter, maybe even with the Moon. To learn more

5:14 Speaker 2: about the object, the team searched through data from Keck

5:17 Speaker 2: Observatory and the Gaya satellite. They found the star was

5:21 Speaker 2: located about twenty four thousand light years away, so still

5:24 Speaker 2: within the Milky Way. By comparing the location of the

5:28 Speaker 2: star in twenty eleven and then ten years later in

5:31 Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, the team was able to calculate its speed.

5:35 Speaker 2: Having calculated the speed of the star to be around

5:38 Speaker 2: five hundred and forty thousand kilometers per second, the team

5:41 Speaker 2: is keen to secure more observations in the years ahead.

5:45 Speaker 2: If it is around the six hundred thousand kilometers per

5:48 Speaker 2: second mark, then it's likely to escape the gravity of

5:51 Speaker 2: the Milky Way and enter intergalactic space, millions of years

5:54 Speaker 2: in the future. You're listening to The Stronomy Daily with

5:58 Speaker 2: Steve Dunkley.

6:02 Speaker 1: The US Army is establishing its first ever dedicated space

6:06 Speaker 1: career field for enlisted personnel, a shift that military officials

6:10 Speaker 1: say will better prepare the forceful modern conflicts that span land, sea, air,

6:16 Speaker 1: cyber and space. The new Military Occupational Specialty MOS, designated

6:23 Speaker 1: forty D for Space Operations Specialist, will create a permanent

6:27 Speaker 1: career track for enlisted soldiers specializing in space operations, a

6:33 Speaker 1: senior Army official announced on May SEWI. These specialists will

6:37 Speaker 1: become the experts we turn to during the next conflict,

6:40 Speaker 1: said Lieutenant General Sean Gainey, commander of the US Army

6:45 Speaker 1: Space and Missile Defense Command. The initiative, unveiled last August,

6:50 Speaker 1: has now received approval from the Army senior leadership. Previously,

6:55 Speaker 1: only Army officers had access to a dedicated space operations

6:59 Speaker 1: career path. Enlisted soldiers working in space related positions were

7:04 Speaker 1: drawn from other specialties such as engineering, air, defense, signals,

7:08 Speaker 1: or intelligence, often returning to those fields after completing a

7:12 Speaker 1: space assignment. To date, the preponderance of expertise and its

7:16 Speaker 1: experience in space operations resides in the Officer Corps instead

7:21 Speaker 1: of the non commissioned Officer Corps. Gainy said this new

7:25 Speaker 1: Space Operations MOS will ensure that specialists through command Sergeant's

7:29 Speaker 1: Major arrive at Army space formations with experience and expertise

7:34 Speaker 1: in space operations. The change comes as military planners increasingly

7:39 Speaker 1: recognized space as a contested domain crucial to modern warfare.

7:44 Speaker 1: Army space professionals will focus on tactics to disrupt or

7:49 Speaker 1: interdict adversaries satellite networks, Army officials said in the initiative

7:54 Speaker 1: is designed to be budget neutral. While personnel currently loaned

7:59 Speaker 1: to space US will return to their original fields in

8:02 Speaker 1: air defense, signal, and intelligence, their positions will be converted

8:07 Speaker 1: to the new Space Operations specialty. The move aligns with

8:11 Speaker 1: broader Department of Defense efforts to enhance space capabilities in

8:15 Speaker 1: the phase of China's advances in anti satellite technologies. Military

8:20 Speaker 1: analysts note that as satellite communications, GPS, navigation, and space

8:26 Speaker 1: based intelligence becomes increasingly essential to ground operations, the Army's

8:31 Speaker 1: investment in specialized space personnel reflects the growing interdependence of

8:36 Speaker 1: traditional land warfare with capabilities in newer Donains. Thank you

8:51 Speaker 1: for joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily,

8:54 Speaker 1: where we often just a few stories from the now

8:56 Speaker 1: famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive in your

9:00 Speaker 1: email every day, just like Hallie and I do. And

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9:10 Speaker 1: Just like that, you'll be receiving all the latest news

9:12 Speaker 1: about science, space, science and astronomy from around the world

9:16 Speaker 1: as it's happening. And not only that, you can interact

9:19 Speaker 1: with us by visiting at astro Daily pod on x

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9:27 Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily on Facebook. See you there, Astronomy Daily. We

9:32 Speaker 1: see and Haley Space Space, Science and Astronomy.

9:41 Speaker 2: A spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union in nineteen seventy

9:44 Speaker 2: two is due to come crashing back into Earth's atmosphere

9:47 Speaker 2: around May tenth, and nobody knows where it will land.

9:51 Speaker 2: The Cosmos four eighty two mission launched the spacecraft toward Venus,

9:54 Speaker 2: but an upper stage rocket booster malfunction left the spacecraft

9:58 Speaker 2: orbiting Earth instead. Netherlands Delft Technical University Space Situational Awareness

10:04 Speaker 2: lecturer Marco Langbroke discovered the spacecraft's returned to Earth. As

10:08 Speaker 2: this is a lander that was designed to survive passage

10:11 Speaker 2: through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible that it will

10:14 Speaker 2: survive re entry through the Earth atmosphere intact and impact intact,

10:18 Speaker 2: Lambroke wrote in a blog post. He said the risks

10:22 Speaker 2: are not particularly high, but not zero, and are similar

10:25 Speaker 2: to a meteorite impact. Netherlands satellite tracker Ralph VanderBurg said

10:30 Speaker 2: a set of images he obtained shows the Cosmos capsule

10:33 Speaker 2: in Earth orbit. We see a clear compact ball. This

10:37 Speaker 2: set is already fantastic, I think, Vanderburgh said. He said

10:42 Speaker 2: the capsule may be tumbling and in some images it

10:44 Speaker 2: appears to have a weak elongated structure on one side,

10:47 Speaker 2: which could be a parachute that opened during the rocket

10:50 Speaker 2: booster failure. While re entry into Earth's atmosphere is predicted

10:54 Speaker 2: as soon as May tenth, the actual re entry could

10:57 Speaker 2: be a few days either side of that date. You're

11:01 Speaker 2: listening to Astronomy Daily, the podcast with Steve Dugley.

11:12 Speaker 1: NASA's Juno's spacecraft has uncovered striking new details about Jupiter

11:17 Speaker 1: and its volcanic moon Io. By looking beneath Jupiter's dense

11:22 Speaker 1: cloud cover and deep into Io's surface, scientists have developed

11:26 Speaker 1: a more detailed model of the fast moving jet stream

11:30 Speaker 1: that surrounds Jupiter's north pole. At the same time, they've

11:33 Speaker 1: achieved a first mapping the subsurface temperature of Io, revealing

11:38 Speaker 1: important clues about its internal structure and ongoing volcanic activity.

11:44 Speaker 1: Everything about Jupiter is extreme. The planet is home to

11:48 Speaker 1: gigantic polar cyclones bigger than Australia, fierce jet streams, the

11:53 Speaker 1: most volcanic body in our solar system, the most powerful aurora,

11:57 Speaker 1: and the harshest radiation belts, said Scott Bolton, principal investigator

12:03 Speaker 1: of JUNO at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. As

12:08 Speaker 1: Juno's orbit takes us to new regions of Jupiter's complex system,

12:12 Speaker 1: we're getting a closer look at the immensity of energy

12:15 Speaker 1: this gas giant wields, he said. Although Juno's microwave radiometer

12:21 Speaker 1: was designed to study Jupiter's deep atmosphere, the mission team

12:25 Speaker 1: also directed it at Io, teaming it with data from

12:29 Speaker 1: the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper for a more complete view

12:33 Speaker 1: of the Moon's fiery interior. The junoscience team loves to

12:37 Speaker 1: combine very different data sets from very different instruments to

12:41 Speaker 1: see what we can learn, said Shannon Brown, a junoscientist

12:45 Speaker 1: at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California. She added,

12:51 Speaker 1: when we incorporated the microwave radiometer data with the Jovian

12:56 Speaker 1: Infrared Auroral Mappers infrared imagery, we were surprise by what

13:00 Speaker 1: we saw, evidence of still warm magma that hasn't yet

13:04 Speaker 1: solidified below Io's cooled crust. At every latitude and longitude

13:10 Speaker 1: there were cooling lava flows. The data suggests that about

13:14 Speaker 1: ten percent of the Moon's surface has these remnants of

13:17 Speaker 1: slowly cooling lava just below the surface. The result may

13:22 Speaker 1: help provide insight into how the Moon renews its surface

13:26 Speaker 1: so quickly, as well as how heat moves from its

13:30 Speaker 1: deep interior to the surface. Io's volcanoes, lava fields, and

13:35 Speaker 1: subterranean lava flows act like a car radiator set round,

13:39 Speaker 1: efficiently moving heat from the interior to the surface, cooling

13:44 Speaker 1: itself down in the vacuum of space. Looking at the

13:47 Speaker 1: Jovian Infrared Auroral MAPPA data alone, the team also determined

13:52 Speaker 1: that the most energetic eruption in Io's history, first identified

13:56 Speaker 1: by the infrared imager during juno's December twenty five, seven

14:00 Speaker 1: twenty four fly by, was still spewing lava and ash

14:04 Speaker 1: as recently as March. TiO Juno emission scientists believe it

14:09 Speaker 1: still remains active and it expected more observations on May

14:13 Speaker 1: six when the solar powered spacecraft flew by the Moon

14:17 Speaker 1: at a distance of fifty five thy three hundred miles

14:20 Speaker 1: or eighty nine thousand kilometers on February eighteen, twenty twenty three,

14:25 Speaker 1: and it began radio occultation experiments to explore the gas

14:29 Speaker 1: giant's atmospheric temperature structure at that time. With this technique,

14:34 Speaker 1: the radio signal is transmitted from Earth to Juno and back,

14:38 Speaker 1: passing through Jupiter's atmosphere on both legs of the journey.

14:43 Speaker 1: As the planet's atmospheric layers bend the radio waves, scientists

14:47 Speaker 1: can precisely measure the effects of this refraction to derive

14:52 Speaker 1: detailed information about the temperature and density of the atmosphere.

14:56 Speaker 1: So far, JUNO has completed twenty six radio altation soundings.

15:01 Speaker 1: Among the most compelling discoveries, the first ever temperature measurement

15:05 Speaker 1: of Jupiter's north polar stratospheric cap reveals the region is

15:09 Speaker 1: about eleven degrees celsius cooler than its surroundings and is

15:14 Speaker 1: encircled by winds exceeding one hundred miles per hour or

15:17 Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty one kilometers per hour. The team's

15:20 Speaker 1: recent findings also focused on cyclones that haunt Jupiter's north.

15:25 Speaker 1: Years of data from the JunoCam Visible Light Imager and

15:29 Speaker 1: the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper have allowed JUNO scientists to

15:34 Speaker 1: observe the long term movement of Jupiter's massive northern polar

15:38 Speaker 1: cyclone and the eight cyclones that encircle it. Unlike hurricanes

15:43 Speaker 1: on Earth, which typically occur in isolation and at lower latitudes,

15:48 Speaker 1: Jupiter's hurricanes are confined to the polar region. By tracking

15:53 Speaker 1: the cyclone's movements across multiple orbits, the scientists observed that

15:58 Speaker 1: each storm gradually drill toward the pole due to a

16:01 Speaker 1: process called bit a drift, which is the interaction between

16:05 Speaker 1: the coriolis false and the cyclone circular wind pattern. This

16:10 Speaker 1: is similar to how hurricanes on our planet migrate, but

16:13 Speaker 1: Earthly cyclones break up before reaching the poles. Due to

16:17 Speaker 1: lack of warm moist air needed to fuel them, as

16:20 Speaker 1: well as the weakening of the coriolist force near the poles.

16:24 Speaker 1: What's more, Jupiter's cyclones cluster together while approaching the pole,

16:28 Speaker 1: and their motion slows as they begin interacting with neighboring cyclones.

16:32 Speaker 1: These competing forces result in the cyclones bouncing off one

16:36 Speaker 1: another in a manner reminiscent of springs in a mechanical system,

16:40 Speaker 1: said Yoshikaspi, a JUNO investigator from the Weismann Institute of

16:45 Speaker 1: Science in Israel. This interaction not only stabilizes the entire configuration,

16:50 Speaker 1: but also causes the cyclones to oscillate around their central

16:54 Speaker 1: positions as they slowly drift westward clockwise around the pole.

16:59 Speaker 1: The new atmosphere model helps explain the motion of cyclones

17:03 Speaker 1: not only on Jupiter, but potentially on other planets, including Earth.

17:07 Speaker 1: One of the great things about JUNO is that the

17:10 Speaker 1: orbit is ever changing, which means we get a new

17:12 Speaker 1: vantage point each time we perform a science fly by,

17:16 Speaker 1: said Bolton. The extended mission that means we're continuing to

17:20 Speaker 1: go where no spacecraft has gone before, spending more time

17:25 Speaker 1: in the strongest planetary radia radiation belts in this solar system.

17:30 Speaker 1: It's a little scary, but we've built Juno like a

17:33 Speaker 1: tank and we're learning more about this intense environment each

17:37 Speaker 1: time we go through it. Of that, so we're stary

17:42 Speaker 1: daily podcast.

17:45 Speaker 2: And just in case you thought things were winding down

17:48 Speaker 2: on the International Space Station, they are still very busy

17:52 Speaker 2: up there. Two NASA astronauts have completed a nearly six

17:56 Speaker 2: hour spacewalk to perform maintenance and upgrades on the International

17:59 Speaker 2: ste Space Station, the agency announced Thursday, and mclan and

18:04 Speaker 2: Nicole Airs relocated a space station communications antenna and improved

18:08 Speaker 2: the ability to generate power on the ISS. Additionally, the

18:12 Speaker 2: astronaut pair completed a pair of get ahead tasks, including

18:16 Speaker 2: installing a jumper cable to provide power from the P

18:19 Speaker 2: six trust to the International Space Station's Russian segment, and

18:22 Speaker 2: another to remove bolts from a micro meteoroid cover. A

18:26 Speaker 2: release from NASA said moving the communications antenna and installing

18:30 Speaker 2: a bracket created space to equip the ISS with additional

18:34 Speaker 2: solar arrays in the future. While the team accomplished most

18:37 Speaker 2: of its tasks, McLane and Airs were forced to postpone

18:41 Speaker 2: others due to a lack of time and limited consumables.

18:45 Speaker 2: It was the third spacewalk for McLane and the first

18:48 Speaker 2: for Airs. It was the fifth all female spacewalk performed

18:52 Speaker 2: by NASA astronauts. Thanks for joining us again on Astronomy

19:06 Speaker 2: Daily for the fifth of May five.

19:08 Speaker 1: Oh Halle, it's been a fine old episode, hasn't.

19:11 Speaker 2: It that it has?

19:12 Speaker 1: So what was your pick of the day today, Hallie?

19:16 Speaker 2: I think it was the same as yours. Human. I

19:19 Speaker 2: know your interest in exploration, probes and so on would

19:22 Speaker 2: make you choose Juno's continuing adventures at Jupiter.

19:25 Speaker 1: Ah. Yes, regular listeners, we'll know it's a little bit

19:28 Speaker 1: of an obvious choice for me, isn't it. Just imagine

19:30 Speaker 1: being so far from Earth in that very dangerous place.

19:34 Speaker 1: It's an amazing story.

19:35 Speaker 2: Really, I agree, And we'll find some more stories for

19:39 Speaker 2: you to enjoy soon.

19:40 Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, Hally. I'm sure that you and Anna

19:42 Speaker 1: will find heaps for me to be interested in during

19:45 Speaker 1: the week as you do your weekly broadcasts from the

19:49 Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily Virtual studio. That's so that all of our

19:53 Speaker 1: listeners can enjoy everything astronomy science and space science every day,

19:59 Speaker 1: every day anyway, that's enough from us in the Australia

20:03 Speaker 1: studio today.

20:04 Speaker 2: Time to go human for sure.

20:07 Speaker 1: Thanks again everyone for listening in a big down under.

20:09 Speaker 1: Gooday to the crew at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

20:13 Speaker 1: in Huntsville, Alabama, and well done for all the great

20:15 Speaker 1: work you're doing way out there.

20:18 Speaker 2: Fantastic. We are big fans.

20:21 Speaker 1: See you next time.

20:22 Speaker 2: Bye the podcast.

20:26 Speaker 1: I mean to be your host. Speed don't clue.