The Sun's Hidden Face Mapped, A Galaxy That Forgot to Spin | Plus Weekend Wrap

0:00 Anna: Hello, space fans. You're tuned in to

0:02 Astronomy Daily, your weekend home, for the

0:05 biggest stories from the cosmos. I'm Anna.

0:08 Avery: And, um, I'm Avery. And what a week it has

0:10 been.

0:11 Anna: We've got two fresh stories to kick things

0:13 off, and then, as always on a Saturday, we're

0:16 bringing you our weekend wrap. The four

0:19 biggest space and astronomy stories from the

0:21 past seven days.

0:22 Avery: So let's not waste a second. Let's get into

0:25 it.

0:25 Anna: So this first story is about something that

0:28 has frustrated solar scientists for decades.

0:31 And honestly, it's about time it got sorted.

0:34 Avery: Oh, uh, I know what you're gonna say. The far

0:35 side.

0:36 Anna: The far side. Every 28 days, the

0:39 sun rotates all the way around, which means

0:42 anything happening on the side we can't see

0:44 from Earth. Sunspots, flares,

0:47 eruptionshas historically been a mystery

0:50 until it swings into view.

0:52 Avery: Um, and by that point, you might only have

0:53 days of warning before whatever's brewing

0:55 rotates directly toward Earth.

0:57 Anna: Exactly. Now, scientists have had a

1:00 technique called helioseismology for about

1:03 25 years, basically using sound waves

1:06 reverberating inside the sun to locate

1:09 where large active regions are forming on

1:11 that hidden side.

1:12 Avery: So a bit like using sonar to look for things

1:15 you can't directly see.

1:16 Anna: Great analogy. But here's the thing.

1:19 That technique could tell you that something

1:21 was there. What it could not tell you was the

1:24 polarity of those active regions.

1:26 Avery: So polarity matters because.

1:29 Anna: Because the polarity of a sunspot group,

1:31 which way the magnetic field is pointing, is

1:34 one of the most important factors in how

1:36 powerful an eruption might be. Get the

1:39 polarity wrong, and your forecast is

1:41 basically useless.

1:42 Avery: So what's changed?

1:43 Anna: A team led by solar physicist Almer Hamada

1:46 at the National Solar Observatory have

1:49 developed a new method using data NOAA's

1:52 Global Oscillation Network Group Gong A Ah,

1:54 network of robotic telescopes stationed

1:57 around the world that continuously records

1:59 the Sun's surface oscillations. They've found

2:02 a way to analyze phase shifts in the

2:04 helioseismic maps and assign actual

2:07 magnetic polarities to far side sunspot

2:09 regions.

2:10 Avery: So we're not just seeing where the sunspot

2:12 is. We're now getting information about how

2:14 dangerous it might be before it's even

2:16 visible.

2:17 Anna: And to put a very real world spin on this,

2:20 just two days ago, on May 7, a significant

2:23 solar flare erupted from the Sun's far side.

2:26 The event was partially blocked by the solar

2:28 horizon, so we don't even know how large it

2:31 really was. The question already being asked

2:33 is, what's

2:34 Avery: coming back around that's genuinely

2:37 exciting and a little unnerving.

2:38 Anna: Uh, the team's results have been published in

2:41 scientific reports and the findings are being

2:43 hailed as a breakthrough for full sun

2:46 magnetic mapping. The more we can see the

2:48 whole sun at once, the better we can protect

2:51 the satellites, power grids and astronauts

2:53 that rely on space weather forecasting.

2:56 Avery: Massive step forward. Love it.

2:58 Anna: Okay, story two comes from the James Webb

3:01 Space Telescope. And I have to be honest, I

3:04 feel like almost every week JWST

3:07 is breaking something. We thought we

3:08 understood this point. It's basically its

3:11 personality, right?

3:14 Avery: So this week, a team led by researchers at

3:16 the University of California, Davis, has

3:19 published findings in Nature Astronomy about

3:22 a galaxy called XMMVidon M

3:24 M2075.

3:28 And before you zone out at the name, here's

3:31 why it matters. This galaxy formed less

3:33 than 2 billion years after the Big Bang,

3:36 which in

3:37 Anna: cosmic terms is extremely young.

3:40 Avery: Extremely young. Now, according to everything

3:43 we understand about how galaxies form, young

3:45 galaxies should be spinning. Angular

3:48 momentum from inflowing gas, the influence of

3:50 gravity during formation. It all sets them

3:53 rotating over billions of years through

3:56 mergers and other processes. Some of them

3:58 eventually slow down and become these large

4:00 settled non rotating systems.

4:03 Anna: But that takes a very long time.

4:05 Avery: A, ah, very long time. And yet

4:08 XMMVID M M

4:10 2075 shows essentially

4:13 zero rotation. None. It has

4:16 already settled into that mature non

4:18 spinning state at an age when it should still

4:21 be churning away like a cosmic washing

4:24 machine.

4:24 Anna: So how is that even possible?

4:26 Avery: That's the big question. Some simulations do

4:29 allow for a very small number of these

4:31 objects in the early universe, but they're

4:33 predicted to be incredibly rare. Finding one

4:36 is already significant. The team is now

4:38 actively searching for more to understand

4:41 just how common or uncommon they might be.

4:44 Anna: And I understand this galaxy was already on

4:46 the radar as one of the most massive in the

4:48 early universe.

4:49 Avery: It was. Previous observations confirmed it

4:52 already had several times as many stars as

4:54 our entire Milky Way and had stopped forming

4:57 new stars. Both traits of a much older

5:00 evolved system. JWST was then

5:03 used to measure how material was actually

5:05 moving inside it. And the result was

5:08 it basically wasn't,

5:09 Anna: shouldn't exist, but it does. That's

5:12 JWST in a nutshell.

5:13 Avery: Every week. Every single week.

5:15 Anna: Alright, time for our weekend wrap. Four

5:18 stories. The biggest space in astronomy news

5:20 from the past seven days. Avery, set it up.

5:23 Avery: Let's do it. This week we have a cosmic odd

5:26 couple that shouldn't be together. A quarter

5:28 million citizen scientists who've quietly

5:31 doubled the book of brown dwarfs. A NASA

5:33 mission that's about to launch inside a space

5:35 donut. And the Webb first that nobody has

5:38 done before. Big week.

5:40 Anna: A space donut. We'll get to that.

5:42 Let's start with rap story number one. A

5:44 planetary pairing that MIT scientists are

5:47 calling one of the rarest architectures

5:49 astronomers have ever found. It involves a

5:52 hot Jupiter and a mini Neptune,

5:54 190 light years from Earth, orbiting the same

5:57 star. And according to everything we know,

6:00 one of them should not still be there.

6:02 Avery: Hot Jupiters are legendary bullies.

6:04 Anna: They really are. They're massive gas giants

6:07 that orbit very close to their star. And

6:09 their gravity is so intense that any planet

6:12 daring to share the neighborhood normally

6:14 gets flung away into deep space. Hot

6:17 Jupiters are almost always found alone,

6:19 Avery: except in this system toi 1130,

6:23 where a, uh, mini Neptune is not only

6:24 surviving, but orb even closer to the star

6:27 than the hot Jupiter, which has

6:29 Anna: been puzzling scientists since the system was

6:31 first discovered in 2020. Now a team at

6:34 MIT has used James Webb to actually read the

6:37 atmosphere of the mini Neptune for the first

6:39 time. And what they've found is a heavy

6:42 water vapor, carbon dioxide, sulfur

6:45 dioxide, and hints of methane.

6:47 Avery: And that heavy atmospheric chemistry is the

6:49 clue.

6:50 Anna: Exactly. If this planet had formed where it

6:52 currently sits close to its star, it would

6:55 have a light atmosphere dominated by hydrogen

6:57 and helium. Instead, it's dense with

7:00 molecules that point to formation in the

7:02 cold, icy outer reaches of the protoplanetary

7:05 disk, what astronomers call beyond the frost

7:08 line, which suggests

7:09 Avery: both planets formed far out and then migrated

7:12 inward together, maintaining their

7:14 atmospheres as they went.

7:15 Anna: This is actually the first measurement ever

7:18 made of the atmosphere of a mini Neptune

7:20 sitting inside a hot Jupiter's orbit.

7:23 Genuinely unprecedented. Published this week

7:25 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

7:27 Avery: Two planets that shouldn't coexist. And yet

7:30 they do, in perfect, if bewildering,

7:33 harmony.

7:34 Anna: Rap Story 2, and I love this one because it's

7:36 a reminder that some of the most significant

7:39 contributions to astronomy right now are

7:41 being made by ordinary people sitting at home

7:43 with a laptop.

7:44 Avery: NASA's Backyard World's Planet Nine project?

7:47 Anna: The very same. So for those who haven't heard

7:50 of it, this is a citizen science program

7:52 where volunteers sift through infrared data

7:54 from NASA's retired WISE satellite, looking

7:57 for objects that move. Stars move slightly

7:59 against the background. Over time. Brown

8:02 dwarfs move. Planet nine, if it exists, would

8:05 too.

8:05 Avery: And along the way, the volunteers have been

8:07 finding brown dwarfs in remarkable numbers.

8:10 Anna: Remarkable doesn't cover it. A new

8:13 paper published this week in the astronomical

8:16 journal with 75 authors,

8:18 61 of whom are volunte announces

8:21 that the project has discovered more than

8:23 3,000 brown dwarfs over its first 10

8:26 years, essentially doubling the known

8:28 population.

8:30 Avery: For listeners unfamiliar with brown dwarfs,

8:32 they're often called failed stars. Too

8:35 massive to be a planet, not massive enough to

8:37 ignite nuclear fusion like a true star.

8:40 They're about the size of Jupiter, they glow

8:42 faintly in infrared, and they're surprisingly

8:45 common. About one for every three or four

8:48 stars near our Sun.

8:49 Anna: But because they're so dim, they've always

8:52 been hard to find. Until now.

8:54 Avery: The discoveries include objects never seen

8:57 before, extreme T subdwarfs,

8:59 ultra cool objects, and apparently one brown

9:02 dwarf that may even have aurorae

9:05 orrore on a brown dwarf

9:08 Anna: a million times brighter than the northern

9:10 lights on Earth, if you could see them. The

9:13 project is still working through more than 2

9:15 billion sources in the WISE data, so there

9:18 are almost certainly more finds to come.

9:21 Avery: Science powered by people. I'll never stop

9:24 finding that inspiring before

9:26 Anna: we head into our next story, the donut I

9:28 mentioned earlier, I'd like to take a moment

9:31 to remind you about our sponsor, NordVPN.

9:34 As I keep saying, when you're ready to secure

9:36 your online life, get the best and help

9:39 support the show while saving a heap of

9:41 money. We use NORDVPN and reckon you

9:44 should too. To get our special no Risk deal,

9:47 just click on the link in the show notes.

9:49 Thank you.

9:50 Avery: Amen to uh, that.

9:51 Anna: Okay, wrap story three and this one

9:54 is timely because it's happening in three

9:57 days. On Tuesday, May 12,

9:59 SpaceX launches the 34th cargo

10:02 resupply mission to the International Space

10:04 Station. And among the 6,500

10:07 pounds of cargo heading to orbit is something

10:09 rather unusual.

10:11 Avery: Tell em about the donut.

10:13 Anna: The donut so surrounding

10:16 our planet within Earth's magnetic field is

10:19 a structure called the ring current. It's an

10:22 invisible donut shaped region where charged

10:24 particles from space get trapped and flow in

10:27 opposite directions. Positive particles one

10:30 way, negative the other, creating actual

10:33 electrical currents.

10:34 Avery: And this ring current matters because during

10:37 solar storms it can intensify dramatically.

10:41 Anna: When that happens, those electrical currents

10:43 can induce magnetic fluctuations that

10:46 ripple down to the ground, disrupting power

10:48 lines, pipelines, satellite signals and

10:51 GPS systems. We've always known the ring

10:54 current matters for space weather. What we've

10:56 never had is a proper inside out view of it

10:59 until storey storey

11:02 storm time O Ring Current

11:05 Imaging Evolution, a joint NASA and

11:08 U.S. space Force mission that will be

11:10 robotically mounted on the outside of the ISS

11:13 after Tuesday's launch. Rather than looking

11:15 at the ring current from a distance, story

11:17 sits within it and images outward,

11:20 capturing One slice at

11:21 Avery: a time, every 90 minutes as a station

11:24 orbits, building up a complete picture of the

11:27 full ring current over its

11:29 Anna: six month mission, it will track how the ring

11:32 current grows and shrinks during solar storms

11:34 versus quiet periods. And try to answer a,

11:37 uh, question scientists have long

11:40 where exactly do these trapped particles come

11:43 from? The solar wind or from Earth itself?

11:46 Avery: The answer has real world implications for

11:49 how we predict and prepare for space weather

11:51 events.

11:52 Anna: Keep an eye on the skies and the news on

11:54 Tuesday night.

11:56 Avery: And our final wrap story for the week,

11:58 another JWST milestone and

12:00 genuinely a, uh, planetary science first.

12:03 Anna: Go on.

12:04 Avery: So up until now, when we studied exoplanets

12:07 with James Webb, we've been studying their

12:09 atmospheres the way starlight filters through

12:12 a planet's air as it passes in front of its

12:14 star. That's transmission spectroscopy,

12:17 and it's transformed what we know about

12:19 worlds beyond our solar system.

12:21 Anna: But this week, the telescope went a step

12:24 further.

12:25 Avery: For the first time, JWST has

12:28 directly analyzed the surface of an

12:30 exoplanet. The target is a super

12:32 Earth, just 48 light years away,

12:35 relatively close by by cosmic standards. And

12:38 what the telescope found is a dark, airless

12:41 world, no atmosphere, geologically

12:44 ancient. The researchers are describing it as

12:47 a

12:47 Anna: Mercury like rock, which is actually

12:49 fascinating in its own right. A scorching,

12:52 barren super Earth with a surface you could

12:55 in theory, characterize directly.

12:57 Avery: The significance here is the technique. We've

13:00 gone from studying what surrounds a planet to

13:03 studying the planet itself directly reading

13:06 the surface chemistry from light alone.

13:08 Anna: That opens a completely new chapter in how we

13:11 investigate rocky worlds. The next step,

13:13 presumably, is applying this to planets in

13:16 habitable zones, worlds where you might

13:18 expect the surface to be far more

13:20 interesting.

13:21 Avery: One more extraordinary week for the most

13:23 extraordinary telescope ever built.

13:26 Anna: And that is your Astronomy Daily weekend wrap

13:28 for Saturday. May 9th. The Sun's Hidden

13:31 face finally mapped a galaxy from the dawn

13:34 of time that forgot how to spin a planetary

13:37 odd couple. Defying the rules,

13:39 200,000 volunteers who doubled the

13:42 cosmic catalog, a mission launching Tuesday

13:45 to study our planet's space weather. Donut

13:48 and Webb, once again doing something

13:50 nobody has ever done before.

13:53 Avery: Not a bad week for a universe that's just

13:55 sitting there doing its thing.

13:57 Anna: On behalf of Avery and the whole Astronomy

14:00 Daily team, thanks so much for spending part

14:02 of your weekend with us. We'll be back Monday

14:04 with the Daily Edition. Until then, keep

14:07 looking up and stay curious. Everyone.