Stunning Sculptor Galaxy Images, Black Hole Breakthroughs, and Moths Navigating by Stars

Anna: Hey there, space enthusiasts. Welcome to

Astronomy Daily, your go to podcast for all

the latest happenings in the cosmos and right

here on Earth too. I'm your host, Anna, and

I've got a really exciting episode lined up

for you today. We're going to dive into some

truly stunning new images of distant

galaxies, talk about some groundbreaking new

space missions that are just around the

corner, and even get this, learn about a

surprising animal adaptation right here on

our own planet that involves, you know,

stars. So buckle up because we're about to

explore the universe one fascinating story at

a time. Let's get started.

Alright, let's kick things off with some

absolutely breathtaking news from the cosmos.

Astronomers have managed to capture what is

truly an unprecedented and intricate image of

the Sculptor Galaxy. This isn't just any

picture, it's painted in thousands of

colours, revealing all these amazing complex

details of galactic systems. This

incredible shot of the galaxy, which is also

known as NGC 253 and is about 11

million light years away. That's a pretty

good distance, right? Was actually collected

with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer,

or MUSE instrument, located at

the Very Large Telescope, the VLT in Chile.

What's really cool is that beyond just giving

us this galaxy wide view, the image shows

these super intricate details of NGC

253. It's hoped that this kind of detail

can really help reveal the finer points of

the poorly understood and often complex

systems that galaxies actually are.

As team leader Enrico Conju from the

Universidad de Chile put it, the Sculptor

Galaxy is in a sweet spot. He explained that

it's close enough that we can resolve its

internal structure and study its building

blocks with incredible detail, but at the

same time big enough that we can still see it

as a whole system. To get this kind of

detail, covering 65,000 light years of the

90,000 light year wide galaxy required a

lot of work. We're talking 100

exposures collected over 50 hours of Muse

observing time. But honestly, that effort

was totally justified by the unprecedented

detail we're seeing. Team member Katherine

Krekel from Heidelberg University in Germany

noted that they can zoom in to study

individual regions where stars form at nearly

the scale of individual stars. But we, we can

also zoom out to study the galaxy as a whole.

And speaking of discoveries, an initial look

at this image has already yielded some

amazing results. The team has been able to

find 500 new planetary nebulae within the

image. These are shells of gas and dust

ejected from stars like our sun after they

die and go into that puffed out red giant

phase. This is pretty extraordinary

because finding detections like this beyond

the Milky Way and its immediate neighbours is

really rare. Fabian Scheuerman, another

Heidelberg University researcher, pointed out

that beyond our galactic neighbourhood, we

usually deal with fewer than 100 detections

per galaxy. Now, despite the name, these

planetary nebulae have absolutely nothing to

do with planets, just to be clear. But they

could be really fruitful in the future

because astronomers can actually use them to

make distance measurements. Adam Leroy,

a researcher from Ohio State University and a

team member, explained, finding the planetary

nebulae allows us to verify the distance to

the galaxy, a critical piece of information

on which the rest of the studies of the

galaxy depend. The team isn't done with

this image of the Sculptor Galaxy just yet,

by the way. The next step for these

astronomers is to explore how hot gas flows

through NGC 253, changing its

composition and helping to create new stars.

Enrico Konju wrapped up by saying

how such small processes can have such a big

impact on a galaxy whose entire size is

thousands of times bigger is still a mystery.

Their fascinating research was published just

recently in the journal Astronomy and

Astrophysics.

Moving on to our own galactic backyard, we

have some absolutely wild news about the

supermassive black hole at the heart of our

Milky Way. Sagittarius A, or CESKAR

A for short. New analysis of

data collected by the Event Horizon

Telescope, or eht, reveals that

this monster black hole is actually spinning

almost as fast as physics allows. And get

this, its rotational axis is pointed right in

Earth's direction. These findings are pretty

groundbreaking and honestly, they kind of

challenge some existing theories about how

black holes behave. It gives us these

incredible new insights and into the centres

of galaxies. So how did they figure this out?

Well, astrophysicists

developed and applied a brand new method to

really tease out the secrets hidden in those

supermassive black hole observations from the

eht. You might remember the EHT

collaboration from when they gave us the very

first direct images of black hole shadows.

First M, um, 87 star in a galaxy

55 million light years away. And then of

course, our own Sagittarius A.

These images are truly incredible, but they

are also super difficult to interpret. So

to understand what they're looking at,

scientists use simulations. They basically

build a bunch of virtual characteristics and

then figure out which ones look most like the

actual observational data. This technique has

been used a lot with EHT images, but now it's

been taken up a notch. A team led by

astronomer Michael Janssen used high

throughput computing to develop millions of

simulated black holes. Then they

used all that data to train a neural network,

which helped them extract as much information

as possible from the EHT data and really

identify the properties of these black holes.

Their results show, among other things, that

Sagittarius A isn't just spinning at close to

its maximum speed, but also that the glow

around it is generated by hot electrons.

Perhaps the most intriguing part is that the

magnetic field in the material swirling

around Sagittarius A doesn't seem to be

behaving in a way that's predicted by current

theory. They also looked at M

M87 and found that it's also

rotating rapidly, though not quite as fast as

Sagittarius A. But here's the Twist. With M

M87, it's rotating in the

opposite direction to the material swirling

in a disc around it. Scientists think this

could be because of a past merger with

another supermassive black hole. As

Janssen put it. That we are defying the

prevailing theory is of course, exciting. He

also added that he sees their AI and machine

learning approach as just a first step, with

more improvements and data expected,

especially once the Africa millimetre

telescope joins in. This incredible

research was detailed in three papers

published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Speaking of groundbreaking research and

pushing the boundaries of what we understand,

let's look forward to a truly monumental

event in astronomy. The astronomical

community is eagerly awaiting another

historic moment with the Vera C. Rubin

Observatory. This incredible new generation

telescope, named after the trailblazing

astronomer Vera Rubin, who, if you

remember from earlier, was instrumental in

uncovering the existence of dark matter

through her observations of galactic rotation

and is poised to continue her revolutionary

work. It's been under construction in Chile's

Atacama Desert, and honestly, it's a

technological marvel. The Rubin Observatory

is set to conduct the most comprehensive

survey of the night sky ever attempted.

Imagine this. It's going to photograph the

entire visible southern sky every few nights

for a full 10 years. At its heart is the

world's largest digital camera, packing an

astounding 3.2 billion pixels.

To give you a sense of scale, it features an

8.4 metre primary mirror with a three

mirror design, providing an exceptionally

wide 3.5 degree field of view. That's like

seven times the area of the full moon. Its

LSST camera, the Legacy Survey of Space and

Time camera, is made up of 189

individual CCD sensors, weighs in at

3200 kilogrammes and operates at

a chilling minus 100 degrees Celsius to

minimise electronic noise. Located

high up at over 2,600 metres

elevation on Chile's Caro Pachon.

This observatory isn't just going to search

for the subtle effects of dark matter. It's

going to catalogue billions of stars and

galaxies, track dangerous asteroids,

and monitor the universe's constant changes

in real time. When it finally begins

operations, the Rubin Observatory is expected

to generate more astronomical data in its

first month than all previous telescopes

combined have collected throughout history.

That's a lot of data. It can even slew

between targets in just five seconds and will

operate using six optical filters, completing

a full sky survey every three nights. With

just 15 second exposures. Over its 10 year

mission, it's estimated it will catalogue 20

billion galaxies and 17 billion stars.

It really is incredible to think about how

far we've come in just over 400 years since

Galileo first peered at the universe through

his telescope. And now we're on the cusp of

another incredible milestone. So mark your

calendars for June 23, 2025

at 15:00-clock UTC. That's when the

Rubin Observatory will unveil its first

spectacular images in what they're calling

the first look event. This event will be

live streamed via YouTube, allowing people

worldwide to witness this exciting moment

together. It represents more than just

another technological achievement. It

symbolises our relentless pursuit to

understand the universe, carrying forward

Vera Rubin's legacy of discovery into an age

where the observatory that carries her name

will give us a whole new view of the cosmos.

Definitely check that out. When it drops.

Okay. From massive new observatories, we're

going to pivot a bit to something else that's

really exciting in space exploration. Firefly

Aerospace is getting ready for its next

mission to the moon. And they're hoping to

once again make history. But this time,

even before they reach the lunar surface, the

company recently unveiled something super

cool called Ocula, which is a new lunar

imaging service. They're aiming to become the

very first company to offer this type of high

resolution imaging capability in lunar orbit

from a commercial provider. How awesome is

that? Jason Kim, the CEO of Firefly

Aerospace, said that this idea, you know,

getting more imagery of the lunar surface,

looking for minerals, understanding activity,

or even doing space domain awareness has

always been something they were exploring. He

thinks Ocula will be super beneficial for

NASA as well as for science, commercial and

national security missions out there. And

here's a fun fact for you. Like a lot of

Firefly Aerospace's hardware and software,

this new imaging service also pays homage to

the movie Serenity, which is a sequel to the

sci fi series Firefly Ocula

is actually the name of one of the spaceships

in the film, Kim said. It's just a great name

for a game changing mission like this, and

it's fitting for what they're doing. It's the

first of its kind, the first commercial

mission to do this imaging and mapping around

the moon. Now, unlike their

previous Blue Ghost Mission 1, which landed

on the earth facing side of the moon, Blue

Ghost Mission 2 is going to try a landing on

the far side. But before it even attempts

that landing, it will deploy the Elytra

spacecraft with Ocula on board.

Ocula's telescope is designed to capture

incredible 0.2 metre

resolution images of the moon's surface from

an altitude of 50 kilometres. The goal

is to eventually develop a whole

constellation of these in lunar orbit, which

would offer a high revisit rate to a bunch of

different parties. Firefly is already seeing

a lot of demand and interest in the data

Ocula will gather. They're developing

this Ocula technology in partnership with

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in

California, which is pretty cool. Beyond Blue

Ghost Mission 2, which is targeting a launch

in 2026, Firefly also

plans to fly Ocula on the Elytra 3 vehicle,

supporting a Department of Defence project no

earlier than 2027. And get this,

Kim even mentioned the possibility of

deploying the Ocula technology for future

Mars exploration missions too. That's

like a huge leap, right? It just shows

you how versatile and exciting this new

capability could be.

Okay, so speaking of exciting missions, we

have another update with some good news

regarding Axiom Space's AXE 4 private

astronaut mission to the International Space

Station. After a couple of unexpected delays,

it looks like it's back on schedule for a

launch this coming Sunday, June 22nd. This

mission, AXE 4, is Axiom's fourth

crewed flight to the ISS. It was actually

supposed to launch back on June 11th, but

then they found a liquid oxygen leak in the

Falcon 9 booster, which pushed things back a

day. And then, believe it or not, they found

another leak, but this time it was at the ISS

itself in the Zvezda Russian service module.

Zvezda has been a bit leaky for a while,

apparently, but this new pressure signature

prompted an indefinite delay for Axe 4, just

out of an abundance of caution, you know. But

good news, it seems like the appropriate

repairs have been made. NASA said that after

the most recent fix, pressure in the transfer

tunnel has been stable, which could mean

those small leaks have been sealed. They're

still evaluating it to be super sure, but

it's looking positive and the fixes to the

Falcon 9 booster are definitely complete.

SpaceX even did a new fueling test, a wet

dress rehearsal and the rocket is ready to

go.

Alright, from super cool space missions to

something a little closer to home, but no

less amazing. Let's talk about the incredible

journey of the Bogong moth. Scientists

have actually discovered that this Australian

moth might be the first insect ever known

to use stars for long distance navigation.

Yeah, you heard that right, stars. Every

spring, billions of these brown Bogong

moths migrate around a thousand kilometres

or, or about 620 miles north to

the Australian Alps. They hide in cool caves

there to avoid the heat. And then in the fall

or autumn, as they say in Australia, they

head back to their breeding grounds. The

big question for a long time was how do they

travel to a place they've never visited

before? Well, researchers now believe the

answer is stellar navigation. We already knew

they could use Earth's magnetic field to

navigate, but it seemed like they needed

visual landmarks too. And what's a more

obvious visual landmark at night than the

Milky Way? To test this, the scientists

captured some moths, put them in a

planetarium like flight simulator, which

sounds like something out of a sci fi movie,

doesn't it? And blocked Earth's magnetic

field, forcing the moths to rely on their

eyesight. And guess what? The moths flew

in the correct migratory direction based on

the stars. Their brains were even most active

when they were flying the right way in the

simulation. It's truly wild.

This is a pretty big deal because while some

insects use stars for short distance

movements, the Bogong moth is the first known

to use them for these epic long distance

journeys. Understanding how these little guys

navigate is also super important for their

conservation. Especially with light pollution

becoming a bigger issue. Urban lights can

really disorient them. There was even a time

when a whole cloud of moths grew briefly took

over the Australian Parliament. It just shows

you how intricately life on Earth connects

with the celestial sphere.

And before I wrap up this episode, some late

breaking news. SpaceX's newest Starship

vehicle just went up in smoke. The company

was testing a starship upper stage at its

Starbase site in South Texas on Wednesday

night to prepare for the mega rocket's

upcoming 10th flight test. But something went

very wrong. Dreadfully wrong. The

vehicle exploded, sending a massive fireball

high into the dark Texas skies. Video

from sources such as

NASASpaceflight.com showed the vehicle,

designated Ship 36, exploded just after

midnight Eastern while on a test stand at a

site known as Massey's, several kilometres

west from the company's launch pads at

Starbase Texas, SpaceX said in a statement

about 90 minutes after the incident. A safety

clear area around the site was maintained

throughout the operation and all personnel

are safe and accounted for. The company added

it was working to secure the test site in

cooperation with local officials and that

there were no hazards for people in the area.

And with that news, we come to the end of

another episode of Astronomy Daily. I mean,

it's just amazing how much is happening out

there, isn't it? From galaxies painted in a

thousand colours to moths navigating by the

stars, there's always something new and

incredible to discover. Thank you so much for

tuning in. I've been your host. Anna before

you go, remember to visit our website at

astronomydaily IO. That's

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In this episode