Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily. Your
go to source for the latest happenings in
space and astronomy. I'm Anna.
Avery: And I'm, um, Avery. We're thrilled to have
you join us for today's episode packed with
fascinating updates from around our universe.
Anna: We've got a lot to cover, from
SpaceX's incredibly speedy trip
to the International Space Station to some
intriguing new findings at CERN that could
shed light on one of the universe's biggest
mysteries.
Avery: Plus, as always, we'll be sharing our
top tips for what to look for in the night
sky this month, including a stunning
planetary conjunction and a famous
meteor shower. So let's dive right in.
Anna: First up, let's talk about an impressive
feat from SpaceX which just delivered a
new crew to the International Space Station
in a lightning fast 15 hours.
Avery: That's incredibly quick, Anna. Uh, for
context, that's just over half a day.
The four astronauts, a mix of U.S.
russian and Japanese crew members, launched
from NASA's Kennedy Space center and arrived
at the orbiting lab. Feeling pretty good, I
imagine.
Anna: Absolutely. Mike Thinke one of the
NASA astronauts even radioed hello,
Space Station. As soon as their tapsule
docked high above the South Pacific. They're
set to spend at least six months up there
swapping places with the current crew who've
been aboard since March.
Avery: What's really interesting about this
particular crew are their backstories.
Zena Cardman and Mike Finke from NASA,
Japan's Kimiya Ui and Russia's
Oleg Plutonov each had quite a journey
to get to this mission.
Anna: That's right for Cardman. She was pulled from
a SpaceX flight last year to make room for
the two NASA astronauts who ended up stuck on
the station due to the Boeing Starliner
issues. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Avery: And speaking of Starliner, both Mike
Finke and Kimiya Yui had actually been
training for the next Starliner mission.
But with Starliner still grounded by
thruster problems and other issues
potentially until 2026,
they switched over to SpaceX. It's a clear
sign of how dynamic and sometimes
unpredictable spaceflight scheduling can be.
Anna: And Oleg, uh, Platanov, the Russian
cosmonaut, has his own story too. He was
bumped from a Soyuz launch lineup a couple of
years ago due to an undisclosed illness.
So it's great to see him back in action.
Avery: It really is. With their arrival, the
International Space Station temporarily has
a population of 11. Imagine
that many people living and working together
in that confined space.
Anna: Zena Cardman expressed her awe once on board,
saying it was such an unbelievably
beautiful sight to see the space station come
into our view for the first time. It just
goes to show that even for seasoned
astronauts, the wonder of space never fades.
Avery: And while this 15 hour trip was speedy
by US standards, it's worth noting that the
Russians still hold the record for the
fastest trip to the space station, clocking
in at a lightning fast three hours.
Quite a difference.
Anna: Following up on that speedy delivery to the
iss, there's been some significant
diplomatic movement in space this week that
we need to talk about.
Avery: Uh, you're talking about the first high level
face to face meetings between NASA and
Roscosmos in almost eight years,
right? This is a huge deal
considering the last time their leaders met
was back in October 2018, which
was before a lot of the major
geopolitical shifts and leadership changes
on both sides.
Anna: Exactly. The relatively new head of
Roscosmos, Director General Dmitry
Bakanov actually visited the United
States. He was here to view the launch of the
Crew 11 mission, which included the cosmonaut
Oleg Plitinov we just mentioned. And he also
met with some of NASA's human space flight
leaders in Houston.
Avery: What's particularly striking about this visit
is the disparity in how it was covered.
NASA barely mentioned it, providing almost no
public coverage. But the state operated
Russian news service published
multiple updates, clearly wanting to
highlight the interaction.
Anna: It definitely points to a different agenda.
Toss reported that Bakanov and acting
NASA Administrator Sean Duffy
discussed the future of the International
Space Station at Kennedy Space Center.
Bakanov was quoted saying they
agreed to continue using the ISS
until 2028 and would work
on the deorbiting process until
2030. They also reportedly
discussed potential collaborations beyond
2030. Before Bakanov's visit,
there was speculation that relations might
cease entirely after the ISS's
demise. So this suggests a potential
shift towards some kind of ongoing
partnership.
Avery: This brings us to what's been termed Russia's
charm offensive with NASA. It's clear
Bakanov wants to reestablish warmer
relations, but the question is, why
now? What's driving this push?
Anna: Well, there are a few interesting theories
floating around. One highly speculative
angle involves internal Russian
politics. Bakanov is reportedly
popular in Russia and he's managed to
navigate a very complex political
landscape, especially given the recent
dismissal and tragic death of a former
colleague from his Transportation Ministry
days. His very public trip could be
seen as a way to bolster his image and
show strong international ties.
Avery: That's quite a twist. But on a more
direct space related note, a significant
motivation might be tied to The International
Space Station's deorbiting contract.
NASA awarded SpaceX a nearly $1 billion
contract a year ago to ensure a safety
orbiting of the station into the Pacific.
Anna: And before that, NASA and Roscosmos
had actually considered using three Russian
Progress vehicles for the deorbiting.
However, NASA ultimately decided that the
Russian vehicles would not provide sufficient
margin to lower the public risk to an accept.
Avery: So Roscosmos under Bakanov
has apparently been urging NASA to reconsider
using Russian vehicles. And there might be
some interest from certain White House
officials to reduce reliance on Elon
Musk's companies for federal contracting.
Especially after some reported falling out
between President Trump and Musk a couple of
months ago, although NASA's press
secretary was not aware if this specific
issue was discussed.
Anna: It's a complex web of motivations for sure.
Another key factor is NASA's current
reliance on SpaceX's Dragon
spacecraft for crewed transport to the ISS.
Boeing's Starliner vehicle isn't expected
to fly crew again until
2027, and it's unlikely to
be price competitive with Dragon.
Avery: So having Russian Soyuz spacecraft as a
viable option could provide NASA with a
crucial means of avoiding a, uh, SpaceX
monopol on crew transport, especially
as they look towards commercial space
stations in the 2000 and 30s. It provides
leverage and redundancy in their access to
space.
Anna: It makes a lot of sense from NASA's
perspective to keep their options open and
maintain diverse access to space. It's not
just about one mission, but the long term
strategic needs for human spaceflight.
Avery: Absolutely. This visit, despite the
geopolitical backdrop, highlights the unique
collaborative nature of space exploration
and the enduring need for international
partnerships, even when things are tense on
Earth.
Anna: From navigating geopolitical tensions,
let's shift our focus to an even grander
mystery, why our universe exists
at all. A, uh, groundbreaking discovery at
CERN could bring us much closer to
answering one of the most fundamental
questions in physics.
Avery: You're talking about the new findings from
the LHCB experiment, aren't you? This
goes right to the heart of the matter
antimatter imbalance. Which is just mind
boggling when you think about it.
Anna: Exactly. The core problem is,
according to our cosmological models,
the Big Bang should have created equal
amounts of matter and antimatter. And if
matter and antimatter meet, they
annihilate each other, leaving behind
nothing but pure energy. So
if that were strictly true, our
universe should just be a, uh, cosmic soup of
energy with no stars, no
galaxies, and certainly no us.
But obviously that's not the case.
Astronomical observations show that our
universe is overwhelmingly made of
matters with hardly any antimatter
left. This tells us that matter
and antimatter must behave
differently. Somehow. There has to be
some asymmetry that allowed matter
to survive and dominate, while
antimatter largely vanished. Our
best theory of fundamental quantum physics,
the Standard Model, does account for
some differences between matter and
antimatter. But these differences are
far too small to explain the vast
imbalance we observe. And
that's where the new discovery comes in.
The LHCB team at CERN
has reported finding differences in the decay
rates of matter particles, called
baryons, compared to their
antimatter counterparts,
antibaryons. M for context,
baryons are particles made of three
quarks, like protons and neutrons,
which make up most of the known matter in our
universe. Antibaryons are made
of three antiquarks.
Previously, we'd seen differences in
particles like mesons, which are made of
a quark and an antiquark. But this is
the first time these differences have been
observed in baryons, which is
hugely significant because they're the
building blocks of most of the visible
universe.
Avery: Specifically, they studied over 80,000 lambda
B baryons and their anti baryon counterparts.
They found that these matter baryons decayed
to specific subatomic particles, a proton,
a kaon, and two pions, about
5% more often than the same process happened
with the antiparticles.
Anna: 5% difference might sound small,
but it's statistically significant enough to
be the first direct observation of
different behaviors between baryons and
antibaryons in their decay.
Avery: So while this particular measurement is still
consistent with the Standard Model's
predictions for such small differences, the
fact that we've now observed this asymmetry
in the type of particles that dominate our
universe is a monumental step. It
supports the idea that there must be
additional fundamental particles or effects
beyond the Standard Model that caused the
universe to exist in its current form.
Anna: Like finding a crucial piece of the puzzle,
this discovery doesn't solve the whole
mystery of why matter won out, but it
points us in the right direction. It gives
physicists a new avenue to explore
for signs of that new physics that
could finally explain the cosmic
asymmetry after the Big Bang.
Avery: It's incredibly exciting. With more data from
the LHCB experiment, scientists hope to
forensically study these differences and and
potentially tease out the definitive signs of
those new fundamental particles, or forces
that are currently beyond our grasp.
Anna: Very small to the very large.
Let's turn Our attention now to something you
can observe yourself, the August night
sky. There are some fantastic sights
to behold this month, even with the Moon
getting in the way of one of our favorite
annual events.
Avery: That's right, Ana, uh, kicking things off.
Jupiter and Venus are putting on a show.
They'll be shining brightly in the east each
morning before sunrise, with Venus appearing
particularly brilliant. The real highlight
for these two is their close meetup on August
11th and 12th, when they'll appear just about
a degree apart.
Anna: It's a beautiful conjunction happening
against a backdrop of familiar bright stars
like Orion, Taurus and
Gemini. And later in the month, around the
19th and 20th, a slim lunar
crescent will join Jupiter and Venus in the
eastern sky, creating another
stunning view before sunrise.
Avery: Now, about that moon interference I
mentioned. The annual Perseid meteor shower,
which usually peaks overnight on August 12th
into the 13th, is unfortunately going to be
hampered this year. The Moon will be nearly
84% full on the peak night, and its
glare will wash out all but the brightest
meteors.
Anna: It's a bit of a bummer for Perseid
enthusiasts, but you might still catch a
few bright ones in the pre dawn hours.
The good news is that the Geminids, another
fantastic annual meteor shower in
December, is set for Moon free viewing,
so we have that to look forward to.
Avery: Beyond meteors and planets, August is
also a prime time to observe one of the
easiest to spot nebulas in the sky, the
Dumbbell Nebula. Also known as M
M27. It's located high
overhead on August nights.
Anna: The Dumbbell Nebula is a type of object
called a planetary nebula. Though it has
nothing to do with planets, it's
essentially a giant cloud of gas and
dust that's been shed by a star like our
sun as it reaches the end of its life.
Once nuclear fusion ceases, these
stars blow off their outer layers, leaving
behind a small hot remnant called a
white dwarf.
Avery: That white dwarf then emits a lot of bright
ultraviolet light, which illuminates the
expanding shell of gas, causing it to glow
in visible light. The Dumbbell Nebula,
named for its shape, appears as a small,
faint patch of light. In binoculars or a
small telescope, you.
Anna: Can find it within the summer triangle, a
prominent pattern of stars in the August sky.
It's about a third of the way between the
bright stars Altair and Deneb.
It's truly a glimpse into the future of our
own sun, which will undergo a similar
transformation about 5 billion years from
now.
Avery: It's a powerful reminder of the cosmic
cycle that seeds the galaxy with the
ingredients for new generations of stars and
planets, and potentially even ones not too
different from our own. It's a beautiful
sight and a profound thought.
Anna: And that brings us to the end of another
fascinating episode of Astronomy Daily.
We've covered everything from quick trips to
the ISS and diplomatic dances in
space, to the mysteries of antimatter
and the beauty of our night sky.
Avery: It's been an absolute blast. As always, Anna,
we hope you've enjoyed diving into the latest
space news with us. And remember, there's
always something incredible happening above
us.
Anna: Absolutely. So keep looking up.
You can find Astronomy Daily wherever you get
your podcasts. And be sure to follow us on
social media for more updates and behind the
scenes content.
Avery: Thank you for tuning in. We can't wait to
share more cosmic adventures with you next
time.
Anna: Until then, this is Anna and this is
Avery signing off. Astronomy
Day