Anna: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily,
the podcast that brings you the latest news
from across the cosmos. I'm your host,
Anna.
Avery: And I'm, um, Avery. It's great to be with
you. We have a packed show today covering
everything from an important upcoming launch
and the Biological Space Lab's return
to groundbreaking new plans for lunar
missions and astonishing discoveries from the
Hubble Telescope.
Anna: Let's start with the action at Cape
canaveral. NASA and SpaceX are
counting down to a major launch from Florida
this Wednesday morning. The primary payload
is the agency's Interstellar Mapping and
Acceleration Probe, better known as
imap.
Avery: It's a really ambitious mission. IMAP is
designed to journey about a million miles
from Earth To Lagrange point 1, a
gravitationally stable spot between us and
the Sun. From there, it will study the
boundary of the heliosphere, which is the
giant magnetic bubble our sun creates around
the solar system. It's essentially our
protective shield against harsh galactic
cosmic radiation.
Anna: Understanding that boundary is crucial not
just for pure science, but for protecting
future astronauts on long duration missions
to the Moon or Mars. But as you mentioned
earlier, IMAP isn't flying solo on
its Falcon 9 rocket launchers.
Avery: Exactly. This is a ride share
mission. Joining IMAP is
NOAA's Space Weather Follow on
SFWO L1 satellite. This
will be a critical tool for monitoring solar,
wind and coronal mass ejections, which can
disrupt our power grids and communications
satellites here on Earth. There's also a
third payload, the Carruthers Geo Corona
Observatory, which will study Earth extended
Atmosphere. Liftoff is scheduled for
Wednesday at 7:30am Eastern Time.
That's 11:30 UTC. So it's an early
start for a triple header of important
science from a.
Anna: Mission just beginning to one that has just
concluded. A Russian biological research
satellite, BION m M number two,
successfully touched down on September
19th in the steppes of the Orenburg region.
After spending a full month in Earth.
Avery: Orbit, this mission has been nicknamed a
Noah's Ark in space. And when you look at the
passenger list, you can see why. The descent
module carried an incredible variety of life.
75 mice, over 1500
fruit flies, as well as various cell
cultures, microorganisms, and, um, even
plant seeds.
Anna: It's a continuation of a long series
of studies into how living organisms
respond to the space environment. The
primary challenges, of course, are
microgravity and increased radiation
exposure. Scientists will be looking closely
at the specimens to see the effects on
everything from bone density and muscle mass
in the mice to genetic changes in the flies
and microorganisms. The data gathered
is vital. It helps us understand the
fundamental risks of long term space travel
for humans and develop countermeasures.
It's a floating laboratory that provides
insights we simply can't get on the ground.
Speaking of human spaceflight, NASA is
forging ahead with its Artemis program.
Agency officials provided an exciting update
this week saying that the Artemis 2 mission
could take flight as early as February of
2026. This marks the very
first time humans will venture beyond low
Earth orbit in more than 50 years.
Avery: It's a hugely significant step. This will be
the very first crewed flight for both the
powerful Space Launch System rocket and the
Orion crew capsule. The four person
crew, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman,
Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along
with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy
Hansen, won't be landing on the moon just
yet. Instead, they will fly a challenging
10 day mission on a free return
trajectory that will loop them around the far
side of the moon.
Anna: The goal is to test all of Orion's life
support systems, navigation and
communication capabilities in deep space.
It's essentially the final dress rehearsal
for the Artemis 3 mission that aims to
land astronauts including the first woman
on the lunar surface. It's truly the
spiritual successor to the Apollo 8 mission
that first orbited the moon in
1968. Pushing the launch to
early 2026 gives teams the
time they need to address technical
challenges like those with the capsule's heat
shield. Ensuring the crew's safety is the
top priority.
Avery: Absolutely. It's a methodical, step by
step approach to a very complex
endeavor. But the excitement is
palpable. Seeing that crew launch on a
path around the moon will be a historic
moment for a new generation. And it's not
just government agencies planning ambitious
flights. We're seeing more and more
academic institutions getting directly
involved. Purdue University just announced
it will send a team of researchers, students
and alumni to suborbital
space aboard a Virgin galactic flight in
2027.
Anna: This is fantastic news. The mission,
called Purdue One, really highlights the
democratization of space access. The
flight will carry five passengers from the
university community. Two have already been
named. Steven Collicot, a professor of
aerospace engineering, and Abigail Mizzy,
a UH graduate student.
Avery: It's an incredible opportunity. For a
few minutes, they'll experience a
microgravity environment, allowing them to
conduct hands on research that was once the
exclusive domain of NASA astronauts.
The experiments could cover a range of fields
like fluid dynamics in zero G,
material science, or even biomedical
studies.
Anna: And beyond the specific research, the
inspirational value is immense.
Having students and professors become
astronauts sends a powerful message.
It Makes a career in space feel more
attainable and will surely ignite the passion
of countless future engineers and scientists.
Let's zoom out now. Way beyond our solar
system, the Hubble Space Telescope has
once again captured an image of something
both beautiful and baffling.
Its latest picture of the week features a,
uh, galaxy named NGC
2775, located
about 67 million light years away
in the constellation Cancer that simply
refuses to be put in a box.
Avery: It's a genuine cosmic oddity. When
you look at its center, you see a large,
smooth central bulge with almost
no gas or ongoing star formation.
In that respect, it looks very much like an
old, settled elliptical galaxy. But
then your eyes move outward and you see this
magnificent, intricate ring of gas and
dust.
Anna: And that ring is filled with chaotic,
unevenly distributed clusters of bright,
young blue stars. This structure
is more typical of what's called a, uh,
flocculant spiral galaxy, One where
the spiral arms are patchy and not well
defined. It's like two different types of
galaxies were stitched together.
Avery: Astronomers are still trying to understand
the evolutionary path that leads to such a
hybrid structure. It challenges our models of
galaxy formation and shows that nature
is always more creative than we imagine.
It's a stunning reminder of the vast,
complex, and often strange universe we live
in. Now let's bring our focus
back to our own cosmic backyard.
Incredible new research on samples returned
from the asteroid Ryugu Is
overturning some long held beliefs.
The analysis from Chaksa's Hayabusa 2
mission reveals that water flowed through
the asteroid's parent body for much
longer than ever thought possible.
Anna: This is a really big deal. For a long time,
the consensus was that water activity on
asteroids, the interaction of water with
rock, was something that only happened in the
very earliest moments of the solar system's
formation, maybe within the first few million
years M. But.
Avery: This new data shows evidence of water
circulation more than 1 billion
years after the asteroid itself formed.
This suggests that the interior of these
ancient bodies could have remained warm
and wet for an extended geological
timescale.
Anna: The implications for our own planet are
profound. Ryugu is a
carbonaceous asteroid, A, uh, type
believed to be rich in water and organic
compounds. If these asteroids were
capable of holding liquid water for so
long, it means they could have delivered
these essential ingredients for life to the
early Earth over a much longer period,
and perhaps in greater quantities than our
previous models suggested.
Avery: And while we're exploring our own solar
system, let's turn to the Red Planet for a
moment. New findings from NASA's Perseverance
rover are uh, painting a much more dynamic
picture of Mars ancient past. It
appears a river that once flowed into the
Jezero crater was far more powerful and
fast moving than scientists previously
imagined. A torrent of water carving through
the landscape. The discoveries just keep on
coming.
Anna: For our final story today, we have another
remarkable finding from the Hubble Space
Telescope. It has observed a
burned out star, what's known as a
white dwarf, in the act of consuming
the fragments of a Pluto like object.
This cosmic drama is unfolding
relatively close to us, just
260 light years away.
Avery: A white dwarf is the incredibly dense remnant
core of a star like our sun, after it has
exhausted its nuclear fuel. The gravity of
this one is so intense that it's tearing
apart this small icy body that strayed too
close. And we're effectively seeing the
star's atmosphere become polluted with the
remains of this object, allowing us to study
its composition. As a material falls into the
star, its chemical signature is revealed in
the star's light.
Anna: And the composition is what makes this so
exciting. The fragments are loaded with
volatiles, elements that vaporize at low
temperatures like nitrogen, carbon,
sulfur and oxygen. This chemical
signature strongly indicates the presence.
Avery: Of a lot of ice, an incredible amount
in fact. The Hubble data suggests this
exopluto object is composed of
64% water ice.
It's a powerful confirmation that the kind of
water rich icy worlds we see in the outer
reaches of our own solar system, like Pluto
and other Kuiper Belt objects, are likely
common in other star systems too. It tells us
that the fundamental building blocks for life
as we know it are widespread throughout the
galaxy.
Anna: That's all the time we have for.
Avery: This episode and join us next time for more
news from across the universe.
Anna: I'm Anna, and on behalf of Avery and
myself, thank you for listening and we'll see
you tomorrow with more space and astronomy
news. In the meantime, keep looking up.