Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm
Anna bringing you the latest developments in
space and astronomy news. Today we have a
packed episode covering a wide range of
fascinating stories from across the cosmos.
We'll check in with NASA astronauts Butch
Wilmore and Suni Williams as they recover
from what was meant to be an eight day
mission, but turned into a nine month stay
aboard the International Space Station. I'll
also tell you about a truly mysterious star
that pulses every 44 minutes in both radio
waves and X rays, leaving scientists
puzzled about its true nature. Then we'll
explore China's ambitious Tianwen 2 mission
that just launched to collect samples from a
living fossil asteroid. We'll round
up this week's busy launch schedule from
around the world and end with some slightly
unsettling news about Earth's long term
orbital stability and a potential cosmic
fate that thankfully remains extremely
unlikely. Stay with me for all this and more
on today's Astronomy Daily.
Lets kick off with a story I'm sure most
folks thought was done and dusted. Turns out
there's an epilogue. NASA astronauts
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are making
steady progress in their recovery after
returning to Earth following what became an
unexpectedly extended mission in space.
What was originally planned as an eight day
test flight aboard Boeing's Starliner capsule
turned into a nine month stay on the
International Space Station when propulsion
system issues forced NASA to bring the
capsule back without its crew. The
astronauts, now back on solid ground since
March, have been undergoing intensive
physical therapy as part of the standard 45
day reconditioning period for long duration
space travellers. Wilmore, who is
62, described the challenging readjustment to
Earth's gravity in a recent interview, noting
that gravity stinks for a period as
astronauts deal with balance issues and
muscle weakness as after extended time in
microgravity. Williams, 59,
shared that some of her post spaceflight side
effects were slower to resolve. She
experienced significant fatigue during the
later stages of recovery as dozens of muscles
re engaged after months of disuse. The
veteran astronaut couldn't maintain her
preferred early morning routine until
recently when she happily reported then
I'm up at 4 in the morning and I'm like aha,
uh-huh, I'm back. For
Wilmore, the return to Earth reintroduced him
to some familiar discomfort. He had
experienced neck pain before his mission that
completely disappeared in the weightlessness
of space. Remarkably, he
felt that same pain return while still in the
Starliner capsule bobbing in the ocean even
before extraction teams had reached them. The
human body, having evolved over millions of
years in Earth's gravity undergoes
significant changes during spaceflight.
Without gravity's constant pull, astronauts
experience muscle atrophy, cardiovascular
shifts and other physical changes that
require dedicated rehabilitation upon return.
While recovering physically, both astronauts
have been ramping up their work schedules
with Boeing's Starliner programme, NASA's
Space Station Operations in Houston, and
agency researchers. Williams described
the past months as a bit of a whirlwind
as they balance their recovery with
professional obligations. Meanwhile,
NASA faces important decisions regarding
Boeing's troubled Starliner programme.
Williams has publicly advocated for requiring
Boeing to fly Starliner uncrewed before
putting humans aboard again, calling it the
logical thing to do and drawing comparisons
to SpaceX and Russian spacecraft that
underwent similar safety validation.
NASA officials have indicated that that
additional testing, planned throughout the
summer, will determine whether Starliner can
carry humans on its next flight.
As you know, I love a good mystery here on
Astronomy Daily. And here's Today's
Scientists have discovered a truly puzzling
cosmic object that's breaking all the rules
of what we thought we knew about stars. It's
called ASCAP J
1832, and what makes it so
extraordinary is its unusual pulsing
behaviour. It sends out bursts of energy
every 44 minutes with clockwork precision.
ASCAP J1832 belongs to a
rare category known as long period radio
transients, which were only first discovered
in 2022. Unlike typical pulsars that
flash multiple times per second, these
objects pulse much more slowly. But what
truly sets ASCAP J1832 apart
is that it's the first of its kind to emit
both radio waves and X rays on the exact same
44 minute cycle. This groundbreaking
discovery came through the combined
observations of NASA's powerful Chandra X Ray
Observatory and Australia's ASCAP radio
telescope. When scientists created composite
images using data from these telescopes,
along with infrared information from NASA's
Spitzer Space Telescope, they revealed a
vivid portrait of this stellar enigma. The
mystery deepened when researchers noticed
that ASCAP J
1832's emissions
faded dramatically over a six month period in
both radio and X ray wavelengths. This
combination of short term pulses with long
term changes makes it unlike anything
previously observed in our Milky Way galaxy.
Astronomers are struggling to explain what
could cause such behaviour. ASCAP
J1832 doesn't
fit neatly into any known category of stellar
objects. It's unlikely to be a typical pulsar
or a neutron star pulling material from a
companion star because the intensities of its
radio and X ray signals don't match what we'd
expect. Some of its properties suggest it
could be an extremely magnetic neutron star,
what astronomers call a Magnetar that's over
500,000 years old. However, other
features, like its bright and variable radio
emission, are difficult to explain for such
an aged magnetar. Initially,
scientists thought ASCAP J1832
might be associated with a nearby supernova
remnant, as these exploded stars often
contain neutron stars. However,
further investigations suggested this
proximity is likely just coincidence. The
research team is now considering more exotic
possibilities, including that it might be a
white dwarf star with a companion. If true,
it would require the strongest magnetic field
ever recorded for a white dwarf in our
galaxy. For now, ASC
APJ1832 remains a, one of a kind
cosmic mystery that could potentially
represent an entirely new class of
astronomical objects.
Next up Today, China has taken a major step
forward in its space exploration programme
with the successful launch of the Tianwen 2
probe, the country's first ever asteroid
sample return mission. A long March 3rd B
rocket carrying the spacecraft blasted off
from the Sichung launch site in southwestern
Sichuan Province early Thursday morning local
time. About 18 minutes after liftoff,
the probe was successfully inserted into its
transfer orbit from Earth to asteroid
20002016 HO3, also known
by its official name, Kamo Oalawa. The
China National Space Administration confirmed
that the spacecraft deployed its solar panels
as planned and declared the launch a complete
success. This ambitious mission targets what
scientists describe as a living fossil
asteroid. Measuring between 40 to 100
metres in diameter, Kamu' Oalawa orbits
relatively close to Earth and consists of
ancient materials that could provide crucial
insights and into the formation of our early
solar system. What makes Chen Wei
particularly interesting is its complex
mission profile. The spacecraft will spend
approximately 30 months on its journey to and
from the asteroid. Once it arrives, it will
perform two different types of sample
collection. First, the probe will touch down
on the asteroid's surface to collect material
using a drill. Then it will perform a touch
and go sample collection similar to NASA's
Osiris Rex mission. In total, the
spacecraft aims to collect about 1000 grammes
of asteroid material. But the mission doesn't
end there. After delivering the precious
samples back to Earth, the main spacecraft
will continue its journey through space.
Using Earth's gravity as a slingshot. Tianwen
2 will be redirected toward a fascinating
object called 311P
Panstars in the main asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter. This second target is
particularly intriguing to scientists because
it exhibits characteristics of both asteroids
and comets, making it a valuable subject for
further investigation. The entire mission is
expected to last approximately a decade. This
latest achievement represents another
significant milestone in China's rapidly
advancing space programme, which President Xi
Jinping has described as the country's space
dream. In recent years,
China has established its own space station,
landed rovers on Mars and the moon, and is
planning crewed lunar missions later this
decade.
It's been an exceptionally busy week in the
rocket launch sector, with multiple missions
taking off from launch pads around the world.
SpaceX continues its rapid fire cadence with
several Starlink deployments already underway
or scheduled in the coming days. On
Wednesday, a Falcon 9 rocket thundered off
Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space
Centre in Florida carrying 27 Starlink
V2 mini satellites into low Earth orbit.
Despite only a 60% chance of favourable
weather, SpaceX managed to launch right
at the beginning of their four hour window.
The mission used booster B1080, which
incredibly was flying for its 19th time,
a remarkable testament to SpaceX's
reusability programme. Looking ahead,
SpaceX has at least two more launches planned
this week. On Friday, they're scheduled to
launch the GPS 3 SV08 mission
for the US Space Force from Cape Canaveral.
This mission was actually originally assigned
to ULA's Vulcan rocket before being
reassigned to Falcon 9. Then just one minute
after the GPS launch window opens in Florida,
another Falcon 9 is set to lift off from
Vandenberg Space Force Base in California
with yet another batch of Starlink
satellites. Then early next week,
SpaceX has scheduled Starlink Group 12th 9 to
launch from Cape Canaveral, continuing their
rapid deployment of their Internet
constellation. China has also been active
beyond the Tianwen 2 mission we just
discussed. The China Aerospace Science and
Technology Corporation launched another
mission on Thursday using a, Changjiang
2D rocket from the Jukwan satellite launch
Centre. The payload for this particular
flight remains undisclosed, marking the fifth
Changjiang 2D mission of 2025 and
the 99th overall for this reliable Chinese
launch vehicle. Meanwhile, Blue Origin is
preparing for its fourth New Shepard mission
of the year. Scheduled for Saturday morning.
This suborbital flight will lift off from
their West Texas facility carrying six
passengers just above the Carmen line, where
they'll experience a brief period of
weightlessness before the capsule returns to
Earth. This will be New Shepard's
12th crewed flight overall, continuing to
advance private human spaceflight
capabilities. Rocket Lab had planned a
launch of their electron rocket from New
Zealand this week, but They've postponed
until June 3rd due to additional checks
needed and unfavourable weather conditions at
the launch site.
Finally today, please don't let this news
keep you up at night. But I've got some
potentially unsettling news about Earth's
cosmic future. New computer simulations have
revealed, a previously underestimated risk to
our planet's orbit. While it's not exactly
time to panic, the findings are certainly
intriguing. Astronomers Nathan Kaib from
the Planetary Science Institute and Sean
Raymond from the University of Bordeaux have
discovered that passing stars could disrupt
our solar system in ways we hadn't fully
appreciated before. Their research
shows that these stellar flybys could
exacerbate an existing vulnerability in our
planetary neighbourhood. It turns out Mercury
is the potential troublemaker here. The
innermost planet already has a fairly
elliptical orbit, and Jupiter's gravitational
influence can make that orbit even more oval
shaped over time. What these new simulations
reveal is that when you add the gravitational
effects of passing stars, Mercury's orbit can
become dramatically more eccentric. Once
Mercury goes haywire, chaos can unfold.
In typical scenarios, Mercury might collide
with Venus or plunge into the Sun. But the
resulting orbital disruption can then trigger
a cascade of planetary instability. In some
simulations, Venus or Mars crash into Earth,
or Earth itself collides with the Sun.
Another possibility is that Venus and Mars
could gravitationally slingshot Earth toward
Jupiter, which could then eject our planet
from the solar system entirely. Before you
start planning for cosmic doom, the
researchers emphasise that the probability of
such catastrophes is extremely low.
Over the next 5 billion years, roughly the
remaining lifespan of our sun, there's only a
0.2% chance of Earth meeting such a
fate. However, that's significantly higher
than previous studies had calculated, as they
didn't fully account for the cumulative
effects of passing stars. The most
dangerous scenarios involve stars that pass
particularly close to our solar system,
within 100 times Earth's distance from the
sun. Or stars that move relatively slowly,
extending their gravitational influence.
There's about a 5% chance of such a close
stellar encounter over the next 5 billion
years. Interestingly, the simulation
suggests that distant Pluto faces even
greater risks despite its protective
orbital resonance with Neptune. Passing stars
could disrupt this arrangement, giving Pluto
a 4% chance of being ejected or colliding
with a planet over the same timeframe, 20
times the risk Earth faces. While these
cosmic timescales far exceed human planning
horizons, they provide fascinating insights
into the long term dynamics of our solar
system and remind us that even in space,
nothing lasts forever.
And with that cheery news, I'll conclude our
cosmic journey for today on Astronomy Daily.
From astronauts readjusting to Earth's
gravity after an extended space mission to
mysterious pulsing stars, asteroid sample
missions, and even the potential long term
fate of our planet, the universe continues to
surprise and fascinate us. I'm
Anna and I hope these stories have sparked
your curiosity about the vast cosmos we're
all a part of. The beauty of astronomy is
that there's always something new to
discover, whether it's a strange stellar
object pulsing every 44 minutes, or
understanding how our own planet is might
navigate cosmic challenges billions of years
from now. If you'd like to stay connected
with the latest developments in space and
astronomy, please visit our website at
astronomydaily IO where you can sign up
for our free daily newsletter. Our site
features a constantly updating news feed with
all the latest space and astronomy news. As
it happens. Don't forget to subscribe to this
podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts
so you never miss an episode. Your support
helps us continue bringing these fascinating
stories to you, and if you could, a review
would be greatly appreciated too. Thank
you for listening to Astronomy Daily. Until
next time, keep looking up
The story.