Tatooine's Real-Life Planets, ISS History Unveiled, and Sake Brewing on the Moon

0:00 Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your

0:03 source for the latest news from our solar

0:05 system and beyond. I'm your host,

0:08 Anna.

0:08 Avery: And I'm Avery. It's great to have you with

0:11 us. We've got plenty of news for you today,

0:13 Anna. We're going from science fiction made m

0:16 real to some fascinating problem solving on

0:19 the red planet.

0:20 Anna: That's right on the docket today. The

0:23 discovery of a real life Tatooine like

0:26 system with not one, but three Earth

0:29 sized planets orbiting two suns.

0:32 Avery: an incredible find. Then we'll tell you how

0:34 you can explore 25 years of international

0:37 space station history in real time. We'll

0:40 also cover this week's launch roundup and

0:42 then head to Mars, where a long standing

0:45 mystery about its sand dunes has finally been

0:47 solved by a surprising culprit.

0:49 Anna: And to top it all off, we'll discuss a

0:52 Japanese startup's rather unique

0:54 plan to bring a taste of home to future

0:57 lunar colonists by brewing sake

1:00 on the moon.

1:01 Avery: You heard that right, Sake on the moon. Let's

1:04 get started.

1:05 Anna: Our first story takes us 190 light

1:08 years away to a binary star system

1:11 named TOI2267.

1:14 For anyone who grew up watching Star wars and

1:17 dreaming of seeing a double sunset, this

1:20 news is for you. Scientists have just

1:23 discovered 3 earth sized

1:25 exoplanets in this system.

1:27 Avery: And this isn't just a fantasy anymore. The

1:30 truly remarkable thing here is how these

1:32 planets are arranged.

1:33 Anna: Exactly. This is the very first time that

1:36 transiting planets have been found orbiting

1:39 both stars in such a compact binary

1:42 system. Usually we find

1:44 circumbinary planets which orbit far

1:47 away from both stars at once.

1:50 Avery: Right? Or we find a planet orbiting just one

1:53 of the stars with the second star much

1:55 further away. But this is different. This is

1:58 close and complex.

2:00 Anna: It is, and that's why it's challenging our

2:03 existing models of planet formation. The

2:06 gravitational environment around a, close

2:08 binary star system is thought to be

2:10 incredibly chaotic. The intense,

2:13 shifting gravitational forces should make it

2:16 very difficult for stable rocky

2:19 planets like these to form and maintain their

2:21 orbits.

2:22 Avery: So finding three of them, all roughly the

2:25 size of Earth, suggests that planet formation

2:28 might be more resilient and happen in more

2:30 diverse environments than we previously

2:33 imagined.

2:33 Anna: It really does. It forces theorists

2:36 back to the drawing board to figure out the

2:38 mechanics. And while we don't know if these

2:41 planets are habitable, just imagining

2:44 standing on one of their surfaces and

2:46 watching two suns move across the sky

2:49 is absolutely mind boggling.

2:51 Avery: Alright, let's bring it back closer to home

2:53 to our own outpost in low Earth orbit. The

2:56 International Space station. For over 25

2:59 years, humanity has had a continuous

3:02 presence. And now there's a new way to

3:04 experience that history.

3:05 Anna: Yes, this is a truly amazing

3:08 project. It's a new website called ISS

3:11 in Real Time, and it's essentially a

3:14 living archive of life aboard the station.

3:17 Avery: It was created by NASA software engineer Ben

3:19 Feast and designer Chris Charney. They've

3:22 painstakingly compiled publicly available

3:25 data from the entire history of the station.

3:27 We're talking mission data, audio

3:30 communications between the crew and mission

3:32 control, every photo ever taken by the

3:35 astronauts, and countless hours of video.

3:38 Anna: That's an astonishing amount of data to

3:40 wrangle. So how does it work?

3:43 Avery: It's all organized into an interactive

3:45 timeline. You can jump to any specific day

3:48 or mission, from the very first module launch

3:51 to yesterday's science experiments. You can

3:53 listen to the actual audio of a spacewalk as

3:56 it happened, see the photos the astronauts

3:58 were taking at that moment, and track the

4:01 station's position over Earth.

4:02 Anna: It provides such a comprehensive, unfiltered

4:05 look at what life is actually like in space.

4:08 It's not just the big dramatic moments, it's

4:11 the day to day work. The conversations, the

4:14 quiet moments, looking out the cupola. It's

4:16 an invaluable tool for historians,

4:19 researchers, and frankly, anyone who's

4:22 inspired by space exploration. A true digital

4:25 monument. You can find the

4:27 [email protected] if

4:30 you'd like to check it out. I'll leave a link

4:32 in the show notes as well.

4:33 Avery: Speaking of getting to space, let's move on

4:35 to our launch roundup for the week. It's a

4:37 very busy period for launch providers around

4:39 the world.

4:40 Anna: It certainly has. SpaceX, as

4:42 usual, has a packed schedule.

4:45 Avery: That's right, they're launching three

4:46 separate Falcon 9 missions carrying batches

4:49 of their Starlink satellites, continuing to

4:51 build out their global Internet

4:52 constellation.

4:53 Anna: Over in China, there will be a major crewed

4:56 launch. The Shenzhou 21 mission

4:58 is sending three taikonauts to the Tiangong

5:01 space station for a six month stay,

5:04 continuing the steady crew rotation and

5:07 scientific work aboard their orbital lab.

5:10 Avery: SpaceX is also in the rideshare business this

5:12 week with their Bandwagon 4 mission scheduled

5:15 for Sunday. It's like a spacebound carpool

5:18 carrying a whole host of smaller satellites

5:20 for various customers into orbit on a single

5:23 rocket. This mission will mark the

5:25 140th Falcon 9 mission of 2025,

5:28 the 558th overall Falcon 9

5:31 mission, and SpaceX's

5:33 585th mission of all time.

5:37 Anna: And finally, the Indian Space Research

5:40 Organization is scheduled to launch the CMS

5:42 M03 mission atop its launch

5:45 vehicle Mark 3 or LVM3

5:48 rocket on Sunday at 10:30

5:50 UTC. The payload will be the GSAT

5:53 7R, a crucial naval communication

5:56 satellite that will enhance India's maritime

5:59 security and communication capabilities.

6:02 All seven missions the LVM3 has flown

6:05 since 2014 have been successful.

6:08 This mission will mark the eighth LVM UM3

6:10 mission, the first of 2025 and

6:13 ISRO's 100th mission overall.

6:16 Furthermore, this mission will be the

6:18 254th orbital launch attempt

6:20 worldwide in 2025. A truly

6:23 global week in space.

6:25 Avery: Now let's journey to our planetary neighbor,

6:28 Mars. For decades, scientists have been

6:30 intrigued by mysterious winding gullies that

6:33 appear on some of Mars massive sand dunes. A

6:35 leading theory was that they were carved by

6:37 flowing liquid water. But the evidence was

6:40 never conclusive.

6:41 Anna: Right, and finding liquid water would be a

6:44 monumental discovery in the search for past

6:47 our present life. But a new study published

6:50 in Nature suggests a much colder and

6:52 frankly a much cooler explanat.

6:56 It turns out the culprit is likely sliding

6:58 blocks of dry ice, which is solid

7:01 carbon dioxide. The Martian atmosphere is

7:04 rich in CO2 and in the winter it

7:06 freezes and falls as snow, forming

7:09 slabs of this dry ice on the dunes.

7:12 Avery: So how does a block of ice carve a channel?

7:14 It sounds counterintuitive.

7:16 Anna: Well, researchers conducted some clever

7:19 laboratory experiments that simulated the

7:21 conditions on Mars. As the seasons change

7:24 and the sun warms, the ice blocks, they don't

7:27 melt, they sublimate, turning directly from a

7:30 solid into a gas. This gas gets

7:33 trapped underneath the sliding block.

7:35 Avery: Ah, so it creates a cushion of gas like an

7:37 air hockey table.

7:39 Anna: Precisely. The pressure builds up,

7:41 causing the block to levitate slightly and

7:44 slide down the dune at high speed. As it

7:47 moves, the escaping gas blasts away the

7:50 sand beneath it, carving out those

7:52 distinctive sinuous gullies.

7:55 Avery: So it's not water, it's gas propelled ice

7:57 leads re sculpting the Martian landscape.

8:00 That's a fantastic piece of planetary science

8:02 detective work. It shows us that Mars is

8:04 still a dynamic active planet, even if its

8:07 processes are very different from Earth's.

8:09 And now for our final story, which proves

8:12 that the future of space exploration isn't

8:14 just about rockets and rovers. It's also

8:16 about culture. Anna, have you ever considered

8:19 what the first alcoholic beverage brewed off

8:21 world might be?

8:22 Anna: I can't say I have. I might have guessed

8:25 beer perhaps. But I have a feeling that's

8:28 not the right answer.

8:30 Avery: Not according to one Japanese startup. They

8:33 are making serious plans to brew sake

8:36 on the moon.

8:38 Anna: Sake on the moon. That's

8:40 certainly ambitious. Is this a

8:43 gimmick or is there a scientific purpose?

8:47 Avery: It's both. The primary scientific goal is

8:50 to study how the lunar environment

8:52 affects the delicate process of fermentation.

8:55 The lower gravity, about 16 of Earth's,

8:58 and the higher radiation levels could have

9:01 unpredictable effects on the yeast and the

9:04 final product.

9:06 Anna: That's a fascinating astrobiology

9:08 experiment, really. They'll need a

9:11 specialized miniature fermentation chamber

9:13 and a very robust strain of yeast

9:16 to pull it off.

9:18 Avery: They're working on all of that. But beyond

9:21 the science, the company has a broader

9:23 vision. They talk about humanizing life in

9:26 space. The idea is that for humans to

9:29 truly live and thrive on other worlds, we

9:31 need to bring more than just technology. We

9:34 need to bring our culture, our traditions,

9:36 and our comforts.

9:39 Anna: That makes a lot of sense. It connects

9:41 future lunar inhabitants back to their home

9:44 planet. They're aiming to produce the first

9:47 batch by 2030, which aligns with

9:49 NASA's Artemis missions, returning humans to

9:52 the moon. It's a wonderful intersection of

9:55 cutting edge science and ancient tradition.

9:58 Avery: And that's all the cosmic news we have time

10:01 for today. From planets with two suns to

10:04 a brewery on the moon, the universe never

10:06 fails to surprise and inspire.

10:09 Anna: If you want to read more about any of the

10:11 stories we covered today, you can find links

10:14 and further information on our website at.

10:16 Ah.astronomydaily.IO we'd like to

10:19 thank you for joining us.

10:20 Avery: I'm Avery.

10:21 Anna: And I'm Anna. Until next time, keep looking

10:24 up.