Webb Makes Astronomy History | Update - NASA Rolls Artemis Back to the Hangar | Is There Life on K2-18b?

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily.

0:03 Speaker 2: I'm Anna and I'm Avery. It's Wednesday, February twenty fifth,

0:06 Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, and you are listening to Season five,

0:10 Speaker 2: episode forty eight.

0:11 Speaker 1: Big Show. Today, NASA's Moon rocket is on the move again,

0:16 Speaker 1: James Webb has achieved a genuine first in a history

0:19 Speaker 1: of astronomy, and we're going to talk about a world

0:22 Speaker 1: out there that is becoming increasingly difficult to explain without

0:26 Speaker 1: considering the word life.

0:28 Speaker 2: Plus, the sun is taking a quiet day for the

0:31 Speaker 2: first time in years. There's some grippy new detail from

0:34 Speaker 2: China's incredible space emergency last year, and we close with

0:38 Speaker 2: something that might just make you want to send a letter.

0:41 Speaker 1: All that coming right up, let's get into it.

0:44 Speaker 2: We start with an update on a story we've been

0:46 Speaker 2: following closely all week and today there's a genuinely new

0:50 Speaker 2: angle that caught a lot of people off guard.

0:53 Speaker 1: Right so Artemis two. As of this morning, the enormous

0:57 Speaker 1: Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft have physically

1:01 Speaker 1: begun their four mile journey from launch Pad thirty nine

1:05 Speaker 1: B back to the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Space Center.

1:09 Speaker 1: That rollback started around nine am Eastern Time and could

1:12 Speaker 1: take up to twelve hours.

1:15 Speaker 2: The reason, as we've covered, is a helium flow interruption

1:18 Speaker 2: in the rocket's upper stage. Helium is critical it pressurizes

1:23 Speaker 2: the propellant tanks. Without that working perfectly, you cannot fly.

1:27 Speaker 2: March is now completely off the table. The next realistic

1:30 Speaker 2: opportunity opens on April first.

1:33 Speaker 1: But here's what's new today, and it's a bit of

1:35 Speaker 1: a talking point. Last night, the four Artemis two crew

1:39 Speaker 1: members Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cock, and Canadian astronaut

1:44 Speaker 1: Jeremy Hansen. They were sitting in the gallery at the

1:47 Speaker 1: US Capitol for President Trump State of the Union. They

1:51 Speaker 1: were guests of House Speaker Mike Johnson.

1:53 Speaker 2: And the speech ran for nearly two hours. The President

1:57 Speaker 2: praised the space force extensively. He called, in quote, his baby,

2:01 Speaker 2: but he made no mention of the four astronauts sitting

2:04 Speaker 2: right there in the room, and no mention of the

2:06 Speaker 2: Artemis program at all.

2:08 Speaker 1: Which was noticed. These are the first people who will

2:11 Speaker 1: travel beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo era, and

2:15 Speaker 1: they were in the chamber. Some in the space community

2:18 Speaker 1: found the omission quite striking.

2:20 Speaker 2: The crew have now been released from their pre launch quarantine.

2:23 Speaker 2: Since there's no imminent launch, NASA has said the whole

2:27 Speaker 2: the media briefing in the coming days to lay out

2:29 Speaker 2: the path forward. For now. April first is the earliest

2:33 Speaker 2: the mission could fly, pending successful repairs, a likely second

2:36 Speaker 2: wet dress rehearsal, and the clean flight readiness review.

2:40 Speaker 1: We will absolutely keep you updated as this develops. The

2:44 Speaker 1: mission itself is still on, It's just going to take

2:47 Speaker 1: a bit longer.

2:48 Speaker 2: This story has still got a long way to go, methinks.

2:51 Speaker 1: Now this next story is a genuine landmark in astronomy,

2:56 Speaker 1: something researchers have been waiting years for.

2:59 Speaker 2: It has to do with supernovae, those spectacular explosions that

3:03 Speaker 2: mark the deaths of massive stars. Astronomers have long wanted

3:06 Speaker 2: to look back at archival images after a supernova occurs

3:11 Speaker 2: and find the star that caused it, the so called

3:14 Speaker 2: progenitor star. But for many of the most massive stars,

3:17 Speaker 2: they just weren't there. They seem to be missing.

3:21 Speaker 1: Well now we know why, and it's thanks to James Webb.

3:24 Speaker 1: On June twenty ninth last year, an automated sky survey

3:28 Speaker 1: detected a new supernova in a galaxy called NNGC one

3:33 Speaker 1: six three seven, about forty million light years away. The

3:37 Speaker 1: explosion was designated twenty twenty five PHT, and a team

3:42 Speaker 1: at Northwestern University immediately did something color. Instead of pointing

3:46 Speaker 1: their telescopes at the new supernova, they went to the

3:50 Speaker 1: archives to image's Web had already taken of that same galaxy.

3:55 Speaker 2: And there it was a single red supergiant star sitting

3:58 Speaker 2: exactly where the suit supernova now shines. This is the

4:02 Speaker 2: first published detection of a supernova progenitor by the James

4:05 Speaker 2: Web telescope.

4:06 Speaker 1: Ever, and here's the key thing. Hubble couldn't see it.

4:11 Speaker 1: The star was completely invisible in Hubble images. It was

4:14 Speaker 1: surrounded by so much dust that shorter wavelengths of light

4:18 Speaker 1: were blocked entirely. Only Webb's infrared instruments could pierce that veil.

4:24 Speaker 2: Lead author Charlie Kilpatrick from Northwestern described it as quote

4:28 Speaker 2: the reddest, most dusty, red supergiant we've seen explode as

4:32 Speaker 2: a supernova. And there was another surprise the dust composition.

4:37 Speaker 2: They expected silicate rich dust, the kind astronomers usually find. Instead,

4:42 Speaker 2: it was carbon rich. The team thinks that carbon may

4:45 Speaker 2: have been dredged up from deep inside the star in

4:47 Speaker 2: its final moments before death.

4:49 Speaker 1: This has direct implications for what's called the mystery of

4:53 Speaker 1: the Missing Red Supergiants. Theory predicts these massive stars should

4:58 Speaker 1: be easy to spot before they explode. They should be

5:00 Speaker 1: bright and luminous, but historically they've often not shown up

5:05 Speaker 1: in pre supernova images at all. Now we have a

5:08 Speaker 1: compelling answer. They're there, They're just hidden in dust.

5:12 Speaker 2: The findings are published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The

5:16 Speaker 2: team is now looking for similar dusty red supergiants that

5:19 Speaker 2: might be the next to explode, and Web's successor missions,

5:23 Speaker 2: including the upcoming Nancy Grace Romans telescope, should help that

5:27 Speaker 2: search enormously.

5:29 Speaker 1: A beautiful piece of detective work.

5:31 Speaker 2: From stellar deafs to potential life, because our next story

5:35 Speaker 2: is one that keeps getting more interesting every time new

5:38 Speaker 2: data comes in. The exoplanet K two eighteen B.

5:43 Speaker 1: If you've been following exoplanet science over the last couple

5:46 Speaker 1: of years, you'll know this name. K two eighteen B

5:49 Speaker 1: is located one hundred and twenty four light years away

5:52 Speaker 1: in the constellation Leo, sitting squarely in the habitable zone

5:56 Speaker 1: of its red dwarf host star and James Webb has

5:59 Speaker 1: been staring at it.

6:01 Speaker 2: What WEB found was an atmosphere rich in both carbon

6:04 Speaker 2: dioxide and methane. That chemical combination is significant. It points

6:09 Speaker 2: strongly towards what astronomers call a Hycian world. The idea

6:14 Speaker 2: is a planet with a warm, liquid water ocean beneath

6:17 Speaker 2: a thick, hydrogen rich atmosphere.

6:20 Speaker 1: And the intrigue doesn't stop there. Earlier analyzes of K

6:24 Speaker 1: two eighteen b's atmosphere had also hinted at possible traces

6:28 Speaker 1: of dimethyl sulfide, a molecule that on Earth is produced

6:32 Speaker 1: almost exclusively by marine life. Now that hasn't been confirmed,

6:37 Speaker 1: and scientists are appropriately cautious. There are non biological explanations

6:42 Speaker 1: being explored, but the.

6:43 Speaker 2: Ongoing analysis of WEB data is continuing to add layers

6:47 Speaker 2: to the story. The carbon dioxide and methane combination is

6:50 Speaker 2: precisely what you'd expect if there were a liquid ocean

6:53 Speaker 2: beneath that atmosphere. The current focus is whether those chemical

6:57 Speaker 2: signatures could have a biological origin, and that's one of

7:00 Speaker 2: the most consequential questions in all of science.

7:03 Speaker 1: K two eighteen B is one of the most watched

7:06 Speaker 1: targets in astrobiology right now, and with web continuing to

7:10 Speaker 1: accumulate data, we should expect more updates in the months ahead.

7:14 Speaker 1: Ivery If it turns out there is life on K

7:17 Speaker 1: two eighteen B.

7:19 Speaker 2: Then everything changes. That's all I'll say. Okay, something a

7:23 Speaker 2: little different now, a story about our own Sun behaving

7:27 Speaker 2: unusually quietly.

7:28 Speaker 1: On February twenty second, the Sun's Earth facing disc went

7:32 Speaker 1: completely spotless for the first time in one thousand, three

7:36 Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five days. That ends a streak stretching

7:39 Speaker 1: all the way back to June eighth of twenty twenty two.

7:42 Speaker 1: For nearly four years, you could look at the Sun

7:45 Speaker 1: on any given day and find at least one active

7:48 Speaker 1: sunspot region, not anymore for a few days at least.

7:52 Speaker 2: Sun Spots are regions of intense magnetic activity on the

7:56 Speaker 2: solar surface, and they're the source of solar flares and

8:00 Speaker 2: the coronal mass ejections that can send charged particles hurtling

8:04 Speaker 2: toward Earth. We are in solar cycle twenty five, which

8:08 Speaker 2: peaked in October twenty twenty four, with a sunspot count

8:12 Speaker 2: significantly higher than scientists initially predicted.

8:15 Speaker 1: Here's a fun wrinkle. While Earth was looking at a

8:18 Speaker 1: blink sun. NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars had a different

8:23 Speaker 1: view from the Martian service. Perseverance could see sunspot groups

8:28 Speaker 1: blazing away on the far side of the Sun, invisible

8:31 Speaker 1: to us here on Earth, but clearly visible from Mars's

8:35 Speaker 1: position in the Solar system.

8:37 Speaker 2: The spotless period appears to have lasted about two to

8:40 Speaker 2: three days before a new active region began emerging around

8:44 Speaker 2: February twenty fourth. So the Sun isn't shutting down, it's

8:48 Speaker 2: just having a quiet moment. Solar activity isn't expected to

8:52 Speaker 2: reach its next minimum until around twenty thirty, but this

8:56 Speaker 2: little pause is a signal that Solar Cycle twenty five

8:59 Speaker 2: is beginning. It it's long, slow wind down from that

9:02 Speaker 2: October twenty twenty four peak.

9:04 Speaker 1: For listeners who love Aurora hunting, The good news is

9:08 Speaker 1: there's still plenty of solar activity ahead, but the best

9:11 Speaker 1: years of this cycle are behind us.

9:13 Speaker 2: Now now to a story that we've touched on the

9:16 Speaker 2: four but which has taken on fascinating new depth this week,

9:20 Speaker 2: with the shen Zu twenty astronauts speaking out in remarkable

9:23 Speaker 2: detail about last year's in orbit emergency. China's first ever

9:28 Speaker 2: human spaceflight crisis.

9:31 Speaker 1: Just to recap the situation, China's shen Zu twenty crew

9:35 Speaker 1: commander Chen Dong, along with Chen shang Rui and Wing Ye,

9:39 Speaker 1: launched in April twenty twenty five for what was supposed

9:42 Speaker 1: to be a standard six month mission to the Tiangong

9:46 Speaker 1: Space Station. During pre return checks, on the day before

9:49 Speaker 1: they were supposed to come home, Commander Chen went to

9:52 Speaker 1: inspect the return capsule and.

9:55 Speaker 2: He spotted something on the viewport window, something triangular. His

9:59 Speaker 2: first thought, and he shared this in a new interview

10:01 Speaker 2: with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, was that a small leaf

10:05 Speaker 2: had somehow stuck to the outside of the glass.

10:08 Speaker 1: And then, as he told it, he quickly realized that

10:11 Speaker 1: couldn't happen because they were in space.

10:14 Speaker 2: What he was actually seeing was a crack, a triangular

10:18 Speaker 2: scar roughly two centimeters long in the outer layer of

10:21 Speaker 2: the three layer viewport window, most likely caused by a

10:25 Speaker 2: debris strike. The crew used a pen shaped microscope to

10:28 Speaker 2: confirm the damage, took photos immediately, and transmitted everything to

10:32 Speaker 2: the ground.

10:33 Speaker 1: The decision that followed was extraordinary. The crew could not

10:37 Speaker 1: safely return in their own spacecraft. Instead, they transferred to

10:41 Speaker 1: the Shenzo twenty one, vehicle that had just arrived days

10:45 Speaker 1: earlier carrying their relief crew. An uncrewed shen Zoo twenty

10:49 Speaker 1: two was then emergency launched carrying a porthole repair device.

10:54 Speaker 1: The whole response from finding the crack to the crew's

10:57 Speaker 1: safe return to Earth took just over twenty days, and.

11:01 Speaker 2: The damage sends you twenty capsule. It was eventually brought

11:04 Speaker 2: back to Earth uncrewed on January nineteenth of this year,

11:08 Speaker 2: after spending two hundred and seventy days in orbit, ninety

11:12 Speaker 2: days longer than planned. It survived reentry, which itself was

11:16 Speaker 2: a significant engineering achievement.

11:18 Speaker 1: Commander Chen Dong summed it up beautifully. The unexpected window

11:23 Speaker 1: cracks ultimately became a precious testament to the concerted efforts

11:27 Speaker 1: and shared commitment for safety between our two crews and

11:31 Speaker 1: all ground based space personnel.

11:33 Speaker 2: A genuinely remarkable chapter in human spacelight. The space debrie

11:38 Speaker 2: problem is real, and this story illustrates exactly why it matters.

11:42 Speaker 1: And finally, something a little lighter to close the show, avery,

11:47 Speaker 1: have you ever wanted to send a letter that was

11:50 Speaker 1: also technically a window to the Cosmos?

11:53 Speaker 2: I feel like that's a rhetorical question, but yes, obviously, well.

11:57 Speaker 1: The US Postal Service has you covered. Yesterday, February twenty fourth,

12:02 Speaker 1: the USPS officially issued two brand new Priority Mail stamps,

12:08 Speaker 1: both featuring images from the James web Space Telescope.

12:12 Speaker 2: The first is the Priority Mail Stamp, priced at eleven

12:15 Speaker 2: dollars and ninety five cents, and it features the crab Nebula,

12:19 Speaker 2: the spectacular remnants of a star that exploded in the

12:22 Speaker 2: constellation Taurus about six thousand, five hundred light years away.

12:26 Speaker 2: Web captured it in the infrared, revealing structural details that

12:30 Speaker 2: have never been seen before.

12:32 Speaker 1: The second is the Priority Mail Express stamp at thirty

12:36 Speaker 1: three dollars and twenty five cents. And this one is

12:39 Speaker 1: a real showpiece. It's a composite image called Galaxy Pair

12:44 Speaker 1: two interacting spiral galaxies ICE twenty one sixty three and

12:50 Speaker 1: NNGC twenty two oh seven, located about eighty million light

12:55 Speaker 1: years away. The image combines Web and Hubble data across

12:59 Speaker 1: in for read visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. It is genuinely stunning.

13:05 Speaker 2: Kansas City, Missouri, was the official city of issue, though

13:09 Speaker 2: there was no public ceremony. And here's a lovely detail.

13:12 Speaker 2: For collectors, you have until June twenty fourth to send

13:15 Speaker 2: your stamps in for a first day of issue postmark.

13:19 Speaker 2: The Postal Service will even apply the postmark for free

13:22 Speaker 2: up to fifty envelopes.

13:24 Speaker 1: And this is actually the fourth consecutive year the USPS

13:28 Speaker 1: has used web imagery on priority mail stamps. In twenty

13:32 Speaker 1: twenty two it was a Forever stamp featuring a rendering

13:35 Speaker 1: of the telescope itself. In twenty twenty four and twenty

13:39 Speaker 1: twenty five, the Pillars of Creation featured, now the crab,

13:43 Speaker 1: nebula and a galaxy pair. Web is becoming something of

13:47 Speaker 1: an annual tradition at the post Office, which, when you.

13:50 Speaker 2: Think about it, is rather wonderful. A space telescope that

13:53 Speaker 2: costs ten billion dollars and took thirty years to build

13:57 Speaker 2: is now sitting in people's junk drawers, next to the

13:59 Speaker 2: scissors and the tape.

14:01 Speaker 1: That is the most poetic thing you have ever said

14:04 Speaker 1: on this podcast. I have my moments, and that is

14:08 Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily for Wednesday, February twenty fifth, twenty twenty six.

14:13 Speaker 1: What a show, rollbacks, Red super Giants, Possible Ocean worlds,

14:18 Speaker 1: A quiet Sun Space debris emergencies and commemorative postage.

14:23 Speaker 2: If you enjoyed today's episode, please do leave us a review.

14:26 Speaker 2: Wherever you listen it makes a genuine difference, and you

14:29 Speaker 2: can find us at Astronomy Daily dot io and on

14:33 Speaker 2: social media at astro Daily Pod.

14:35 Speaker 1: For Avery, I'm anna stay curious, keep looking up, and

14:39 Speaker 1: we'll see you tomorrow.

14:41 Speaker 2: Clear Skies, everyone, Sunday Stars Starz.

15:01 Speaker 1: The story is to tell