'We Came Back as Best Friends' — Artemis II Speaks | Blue Origin Sunday | FYST Opens

0:00 Speaker 1: They came back as best friends, and yesterday they told

0:04 Speaker 1: the world exactly what it felt like to fly around

0:07 Speaker 1: the Moon. The crew of Artemis two has held their

0:10 Speaker 1: first full press conference since splashdown, and what they said

0:13 Speaker 1: will give you chills.

0:15 Speaker 2: Also on today's show, Blue Origin is on the launch pad,

0:19 Speaker 2: ready to make history on Sunday with the world's first

0:22 Speaker 2: reuse heavy lift rocket booster. A brand new telescope has

0:26 Speaker 2: opened its eyes at nearly four miles above sea level

0:30 Speaker 2: in the Chilean Andes and astronomers have just found the

0:33 Speaker 2: missing fuel that powered the universe's greatest star making frenzy.

0:39 Speaker 1: I'm anna, this is Avery and this is Astronomy Daily

0:43 Speaker 1: for Friday, the seventeenth of April twenty twenty six. Let's

0:47 Speaker 1: get into it. Let's go, well, where do we even begin.

0:52 Speaker 1: Less than a week after splashing down in the Pacific

0:55 Speaker 1: Ocean off the coast of San Diego, the four astronauts

0:59 Speaker 1: of NASA's Artemis two mission sat down at NASA's Johnson's

1:03 Speaker 1: Space Center in Houston yesterday afternoon for their first full

1:07 Speaker 1: press conference, and it did not disappoint.

1:11 Speaker 2: I have to say watching the clips, these four people

1:14 Speaker 2: look like they've been on a journey together that nobody

1:17 Speaker 2: else on Earth can fully understand.

1:20 Speaker 1: That's exactly what Commander Reid Wiseman said. He told the room,

1:24 Speaker 1: we are bonded forever. I mean, that's the closest four

1:28 Speaker 1: humans can be and not be a family. We launched

1:32 Speaker 1: as friends and we came back as best friends.

1:35 Speaker 2: That is genuinely moving, and from someone who just flew

1:38 Speaker 2: a quarter million miles from Earth, you believe every word.

1:43 Speaker 1: The four crew. Wiseman, Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Cock,

1:48 Speaker 1: and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen covered everything their

1:54 Speaker 1: experience aboard Orion's Integrity Capsule, the view of the Moon

1:58 Speaker 1: from closer than any human eyes have seen it in

2:02 Speaker 1: more than fifty years, what it felt like to be

2:05 Speaker 1: so far from home.

2:07 Speaker 2: Victor Glover said he was grateful in a way that

2:09 Speaker 2: was simply too big to hold inside one body. His words,

2:13 Speaker 2: and Hansen spoke about looking out the window and seeing

2:16 Speaker 2: the depth of the galaxy and a powerful sense of

2:19 Speaker 2: what it means to be human.

2:21 Speaker 1: Pac had one of the most touching moments of the

2:24 Speaker 1: entire press conference. She said her nurse on the Navy

2:27 Speaker 1: recovery ship asked her for a hug after they came

2:31 Speaker 1: out of the water, and she called it one of

2:33 Speaker 1: many great human moments that Booke ended the mission. She said,

2:37 Speaker 1: Artemis two taught her the true meaning of being part

2:41 Speaker 1: of a crew.

2:42 Speaker 2: Now, and this is the bit that really fires up

2:44 Speaker 2: the imagination. Wiseman was asked directly is landing on the

2:49 Speaker 2: Moon actually achievable soon? His answer was emphatic.

2:53 Speaker 1: He said, and I'm paraphrasing here. It is not the

2:56 Speaker 1: leap I thought it was. It's going to be extreme

3:00 Speaker 1: technically challenging, but this team needs to show up every

3:04 Speaker 1: day knowing it is absolutely doable, and it's doable soon.

3:08 Speaker 1: He even went further. He said, if they had a

3:11 Speaker 1: lunar lander aboard integrity like the Apollo ten crew did

3:15 Speaker 1: back in nineteen sixty nine, they would have taken it

3:18 Speaker 1: down to the surface. If you had given us the

3:21 Speaker 1: keys to the lander, we would have landed on the moon.

3:25 Speaker 2: Wow. And Henson back that up, saying the teams need

3:28 Speaker 2: to be willing to take a little more risk and

3:31 Speaker 2: solve problems in real time.

3:33 Speaker 1: Wiseman also had high praise for the Orion spacecraft and

3:37 Speaker 1: the Space Launch system. His personal opinion, and he was clear.

3:41 Speaker 1: It was just his opinion was that NASA could put

3:44 Speaker 1: the Artemis three Orion on the SLS tomorrow, launch it

3:49 Speaker 1: and the crew would be in great shape. This vehicle

3:52 Speaker 1: really handled very well.

3:54 Speaker 2: NASA has confirmed that Artemis three preparations are already underway

3:59 Speaker 2: at the Vehicle Asssembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, with

4:02 Speaker 2: that mission targeting a low Earth orbit demonstration in mid

4:06 Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven, and the lunar landing now penciled in

4:09 Speaker 2: for Artemis four in early twenty twenty eight.

4:13 Speaker 1: The crew is currently undergoing post flight reconditioning, physical evaluations

4:18 Speaker 1: and lunar science debriefs. Back in Houston, scientists say the

4:22 Speaker 1: findings from this mission will keep them busy for months,

4:26 Speaker 1: possibly years. And as for those four astronauts, they earned

4:30 Speaker 1: a good long.

4:31 Speaker 2: Rest, best friends. At four miles above sea level in

4:35 Speaker 2: the Pacific. What a story.

4:38 Speaker 1: Where are we going to now, avery Blue Origin?

4:41 Speaker 2: That's right, moving from the Moon to the launch pad,

4:43 Speaker 2: because Blue Origin is about to do something genuinely historic.

4:48 Speaker 1: Yesterday at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex thirty six, Blue Origin

4:52 Speaker 1: successfully completed a static fire test of its new Glen

4:55 Speaker 1: rocket Ahead of the NG three mission, which is currently

4:59 Speaker 1: targeting a sun morning liftoff at six forty five am

5:02 Speaker 1: Eastern Time. And what makes this mission truly special isn't

5:06 Speaker 1: just where it's going, it's what's powering it.

5:09 Speaker 2: This will be the first time New Glen's first stage

5:12 Speaker 2: has ever been reused. The booster, affectionately named never Tell

5:16 Speaker 2: Me the Odds, previously flew on the NG two mission

5:20 Speaker 2: back in November twenty twenty five, delivering NASA's twin Escapade

5:24 Speaker 2: March Probes two orbit and then successfully landing on the

5:27 Speaker 2: drone ship Jackline.

5:29 Speaker 1: Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp confirmed that while it is

5:32 Speaker 1: indeed the same boostershell, the company chose to replace all

5:36 Speaker 1: seven BEE four engines and test some upgrades, including a

5:40 Speaker 1: new thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles.

5:43 Speaker 1: The static fire test yesterday ran for thirty eight seconds,

5:47 Speaker 1: with all seven engines performing nominally and hitting one hundred

5:51 Speaker 1: percent thrust for twenty two of those seconds.

5:54 Speaker 2: NG three's payload is a Block two Bluebird satellite for

5:58 Speaker 2: Texas company ASTC Space Mobile, part of their direct to

6:02 Speaker 2: cell phone internet constellation. The Block two Bluebird is one

6:06 Speaker 2: of the largest commercial satellites in orbit, boarding a staggering

6:10 Speaker 2: twenty four hundred square foot antenna.

6:13 Speaker 1: Blue Origin also announced this week that it's building a

6:16 Speaker 1: second launch facility for New Glen at Vandenberg Space for

6:19 Speaker 1: Space in California, which will give the rocket polar orbit capabilities.

6:24 Speaker 1: Each New Glen first stage is designed to fly at

6:26 Speaker 1: least twenty five times, So Sunday goes well, Never tell

6:30 Speaker 1: me the Odds has a long career ahead of it.

6:33 Speaker 2: We will absolutely be watching that one Sunday morning. Fingers crossed.

6:38 Speaker 1: Now here's a story that feels like science fiction, except

6:41 Speaker 1: it's very very real.

6:44 Speaker 2: I love this one. How high do you have to

6:46 Speaker 2: build a telescope before you're basically in space?

6:49 Speaker 1: Well, the new Fredjung's Submillimeter Telescope or FYST pronounced FEAST

6:56 Speaker 1: sits at eighteen thousand, four hundred feet above sea level.

7:00 Speaker 1: That's higher than the Mount Everest base camp. It's so

7:04 Speaker 1: high that every single person who attended the inauguration ceremony

7:08 Speaker 1: on April to ninth had to pass a medical exam

7:12 Speaker 1: and carries supplemental oxygen the entire time they were up there.

7:16 Speaker 2: That's an extraordinary commitment to cutting edge science. Also oxygen

7:21 Speaker 2: at a telescope opening. That's a first.

7:24 Speaker 1: Beast sits on the summit of Saro Chahanantor in Chile's

7:27 Speaker 1: at Akama Desert, already one of the driest clearest places

7:31 Speaker 1: on Earth for astronomy. The telescope's six meter primary mirror

7:35 Speaker 1: was built in Germany from a special steel alloy called

7:38 Speaker 1: invar tozen because it barely expands or contracts with temperature changes.

7:43 Speaker 1: It was then disassembled, shipped across the Atlantic by cargo vessel,

7:47 Speaker 1: trucked three hundred miles across the Andes, and reassembled at

7:51 Speaker 1: the summit. The heaviest single piece weighed sixty tons.

7:55 Speaker 2: The logistics alone are mind boggling, and this project has

7:59 Speaker 2: been third thirty four years in the making. Cornell University

8:02 Speaker 2: scientists first imagined it back in nineteen ninety two.

8:06 Speaker 1: It's a project of the Cornell led CCAT Observatory collaboration

8:11 Speaker 1: involving institutions from Germany, Canada and Chile, and what it

8:15 Speaker 1: will actually do is fascinating. FEAST operates in submillimeter wavelengths,

8:20 Speaker 1: a part of the spectrum that passes straight through dust

8:23 Speaker 1: that blocks visible light. That means it can see star

8:26 Speaker 1: formation happening inside dense molecular clouds. It will map galaxy

8:30 Speaker 1: clusters across cosmic history. It will probe the epic of reionization,

8:35 Speaker 1: the period after the Big Bang, when the first stars

8:38 Speaker 1: lit up the universe.

8:40 Speaker 2: And its instrument, PRIMECAM, can hold up to seven interchangeable

8:44 Speaker 2: detector modules with over one hundred thousand superconducting detectors. They

8:49 Speaker 2: say its mapping speed is more than ten times faster

8:52 Speaker 2: than any previous submillimeter observatory.

8:55 Speaker 1: Martha Haynes, president of the CCAT board, said, and I

9:00 Speaker 1: love this quote. When we first went there and realized

9:03 Speaker 1: what an exceptional site, Sero Chehantur might be, submillimeter astronomy

9:09 Speaker 1: as a field wasn't advanced enough for us to be

9:11 Speaker 1: able to build the telescope and its instruments. But now

9:15 Speaker 1: it is, and we have fyst to show for our

9:18 Speaker 1: patients and determination.

9:21 Speaker 2: Thirty four years of patience. That's dedication.

9:24 Speaker 1: First Light is expected in the coming months when it

9:27 Speaker 1: opens its eyes, a whole new window on the universe

9:31 Speaker 1: opens with.

9:31 Speaker 2: It now for discovery that rewrites what we thought we

9:35 Speaker 2: knew about the early universe, and that involves some seriously

9:38 Speaker 2: epic cosmic structures.

9:40 Speaker 1: Astronomers have long theorized that early galaxies must have been

9:45 Speaker 1: surrounded by vast reservoirs of hydrogen gas, the raw fuel

9:49 Speaker 1: for making stars. During a period astronomers call cosmic Noon

9:54 Speaker 1: roughly ten to twelve billion years ago, galaxies were forming

9:58 Speaker 1: stars faster than it any other time in cosmic history.

10:02 Speaker 1: To do that, they needed enormous supplies of hydrogen.

10:06 Speaker 2: But here's the problem. Until very recently, astronomers had only

10:10 Speaker 2: found about three thousand of these hydrogen halos, called Lieman

10:14 Speaker 2: alpha nebulae. The theory said they should be everywhere, The

10:18 Speaker 2: data said we can only find the handful.

10:20 Speaker 1: Well, consider that mystery solved. A team using data from

10:24 Speaker 1: the Hobby Eberley Telescope Dark Energy Experiment HETDX has just

10:31 Speaker 1: published a landmark study in the Astrophysical Journal reporting the

10:35 Speaker 1: discovery of over thirty three thousand of these hydrogen halos.

10:39 Speaker 1: That's a tenfold increase overnight.

10:42 Speaker 2: From three thousand to thirty three thousand. That is not

10:45 Speaker 2: a small revision to the textbook. That's a whole new chapter.

10:49 Speaker 1: Lead author Aaron Menta Cooper, hetdex's data manager put it beautifully.

10:55 Speaker 1: We've been analyzing the same handful of objects. For the

10:58 Speaker 1: past twenty or so years, het Decks is letting us

11:01 Speaker 1: find many more of these halos and measure their shapes

11:05 Speaker 1: and sizes. It's allowed us to create an amazing statistical catalog.

11:10 Speaker 2: And the halos themselves are extraordinary. Some are simple football

11:14 Speaker 2: shaped clouds wrapped around the single galaxy, but others, the

11:18 Speaker 2: ones the team loves most, are sprawling, irregular blobs containing

11:22 Speaker 2: multiple galaxies with tendrils of hydrogen gas extending hundreds of

11:26 Speaker 2: thousands of light years into space. Menta Cooper described them

11:30 Speaker 2: as looking like giant amibas.

11:33 Speaker 1: The heat Deck survey has captured nearly a half petabyte

11:36 Speaker 1: of data, covering a region of sky equivalent to more

11:40 Speaker 1: than two thousand full moons, and the instrument produces one

11:44 Speaker 1: hundred thousand spectra in a single observation. The scale is unprecedented.

11:50 Speaker 2: What this means going forward is that astronomers now have

11:53 Speaker 2: the statistical sample they've always needed to really understand how

11:56 Speaker 2: galaxies grew. These halos aren't rare curiosity cities. They're the

12:01 Speaker 2: normal environment of young galaxies. They were always there, We

12:04 Speaker 2: just head into tools to find.

12:06 Speaker 1: Them until now.

12:07 Speaker 2: All right, this next one requires you to put down

12:10 Speaker 2: the podcast and go outside. Ideally tonight.

12:14 Speaker 1: NASA has flagged that today, Friday, the seventeenth of April

12:18 Speaker 1: is potentially your best opportunity to spot comet c SLASH

12:22 Speaker 1: twenty twenty five R three, which some skywatchers think could

12:26 Speaker 1: be the brightest comet of the year.

12:28 Speaker 2: The commt will make its closest approach to Earth on

12:31 Speaker 2: April twenty seventh, coming in within about forty four million

12:34 Speaker 2: miles of our planet, but tonight's timing is being highlighted

12:38 Speaker 2: specifically because of where the comet sits in the sky

12:41 Speaker 2: and the quality of the viewing geometry.

12:43 Speaker 1: A quick heads up on brightness. The comet is expected

12:46 Speaker 1: to reach around magnitude eight, which means you will need

12:50 Speaker 1: a binoculars or a small telescope to spot it. It

12:53 Speaker 1: won't be a naked eye spectacle, but through optics it

12:56 Speaker 1: should show a nice coma and possibly a tail.

13:00 Speaker 2: For viewers in the Northern Hemisphere, you're looking in the

13:02 Speaker 2: eastern Predon sky through the constellations Pegasus and Pisces. This

13:07 Speaker 2: window runs through the end of April. For us in

13:09 Speaker 2: the Southern Hemisphere, stay tuned. The comet shifts to evening

13:13 Speaker 2: visibility in early May, which is actually when it will

13:16 Speaker 2: be most accessible for southern.

13:17 Speaker 1: Skies, and tonight is particularly special because it's also the

13:22 Speaker 1: new Moon, which means no lunar glare washing out the

13:25 Speaker 1: sky if you're in a dark location. Tonight is genuinely

13:29 Speaker 1: one of the best nights this month for any kind

13:31 Speaker 1: of deep sky observation, commet or otherwise.

13:35 Speaker 2: So charge up those binoculars and maybe set an alarm

13:38 Speaker 2: for a couple of hours before sunrise.

13:40 Speaker 1: And finally, a word for our Aurora watching listeners, because

13:44 Speaker 1: the sun has had a busy few days.

13:47 Speaker 2: Over the past week, the solar phar site has been

13:50 Speaker 2: popping off with a series of large coronal mass ejections,

13:54 Speaker 2: three significant blasts in quick succession. While these events originated

13:58 Speaker 2: on the side of the Sun facing away from Earth,

14:01 Speaker 2: so they pose no direct threat, there's a separate source

14:04 Speaker 2: of solar activity that is heading our way.

14:07 Speaker 1: A co rotating interaction region essentially a region of compressed

14:12 Speaker 1: solar wind where fast moving solar wind catches up with

14:15 Speaker 1: slower material ahead of it, combined with a high speed

14:19 Speaker 1: stream from a coronal hole, is expected to reach Earth

14:22 Speaker 1: later today or tomorrow. Base weather forecasters are predicting unsettled

14:27 Speaker 1: to active geomagnetic conditions with a chance of reaching G

14:31 Speaker 1: one minor geomagnetic storm levels tonight.

14:35 Speaker 2: And tomorrow Saturday. Conditions may escalate further with the possibility

14:39 Speaker 2: of G one to G two moderate storm levels as

14:43 Speaker 2: that fast solar wind continues to arrive.

14:46 Speaker 1: What does that mean for Aurora watchers? If you're at

14:49 Speaker 1: latitudes above about fifty degrees so Canada, Northern Europe, New Zealand,

14:54 Speaker 1: South Island, keep your eyes on the southern or northern horizon,

14:58 Speaker 1: depending on your hemisphere, and are you ready to act?

15:01 Speaker 1: D one to G two storms can produce displays visible

15:04 Speaker 1: well away from the polar regions.

15:07 Speaker 2: And for those of US further north or south. Even

15:09 Speaker 2: in Australia, a G two storm has occasionally produced Aurora

15:13 Speaker 2: at mid latitudes. Not a guarantee, but worth a check

15:17 Speaker 2: on your Aurora alert apps tonight and Saturday night.

15:20 Speaker 1: The Sun never sleeps, and apparently neither do we.

15:24 Speaker 2: And that is a wrap on Astronomy Daily for Friday,

15:28 Speaker 2: the seventeenth of April twenty twenty six. What an episode

15:32 Speaker 2: Moon Travelers reflecting on the journey of a lifetime. A

15:36 Speaker 2: rocket ready to make history on Sunday, a telescope, the

15:40 Speaker 2: height of the Cosmos, hydrogen halos, the size of small galaxies,

15:45 Speaker 2: a comet to chase tonight, and an Aurora alert for

15:49 Speaker 2: the weekend. Is there anything the universe doesn't have on

15:53 Speaker 2: offer right now?

15:54 Speaker 1: Honestly, never a dull moment. If you enjoyed today's show,

15:57 Speaker 1: please take a moment to leave us a rating or

16:00 Speaker 1: review wherever you listen. It really does make a difference,

16:03 Speaker 1: and find us on Instagram, TikTok x, and Tumblr. We're

16:07 Speaker 1: at astro Daily Pod. We love hearing from you.

16:10 Speaker 2: Until next time, keep looking up. There's a lot going

16:13 Speaker 2: on out there.

16:14 Speaker 1: This has been Astronomy Daily, Goodbye for now. Sunny Day.

16:21 Speaker 2: Stars to

16:29 Speaker 1: Start