Avery: Hello and welcome to Astronomy AstroDailyPod,
your essential guide to the latest news from
across the cosmos. I'm Avery.
Anna: And I'm Anna. Coming up on today's episode,
a diplomatic clash over space regulations
between the US and the European Union.
We'll revisit a 50 year old scientific
mistake that changed the course of Mars
exploration.
Avery: Plus, we'll look at an unexpected dual crew
situation aboard, uh, the Tiangong Space
Station, check in on this week's launch
schedule and explore a new theory that sheds
light on what happened less than a second
after the Big Bang.
Anna: Let's begin with our top story.
The United States government has formally
pushed back against the European Union's
proposed EU Space act, calling its
regulations potentially unfair and
unwarranted.
Avery: That's right. The EU Space act, introduced in
June 2025, is designed to create a
unified regulatory framework for Europe's
space industry. It's built on three main
safety, which involves tracking space objects
and mitigating debris Resilience,
focusing on cybersecurity and the continuity
of space based services and sustainability,
which aims to reduce environmental impact and
simplify market access.
Anna: But in a, uh, formal Response released on
November 4, the US State and Commerce
Departments representing over 70American
space companies warned that the act would
impose unacceptable regulatory
burdens. A, uh, primary concern is the
addition of new environmental protection
rules, which the US argues would
significantly drive up costs for operators.
Avery: The response also takes issue with provisions
that seem to favour European operators. In
what appears to be a thinly veiled defence of
SpaceX's Starlink, the document claims the
proposed rules unfairly target large
telecommunications satellite constellations
simply because of their size and success.
Anna: This is particularly evident in the section
addressing satellite brightness. Starlink
has faced criticism for the visual brightness
of its satellites and the US response argues
that a regulation limiting brightness would
be impossible to implement and would
disproportionately harm US companies that
operate at lower altitudes.
Avery: Interestingly, the US document strikes a
somewhat contradictory tone. It first
suggests that space operations are too new
and novel for strict regulation. But
then it highlights that the US already has a
world leading regulatory framework, having
licenced over a thousand launches. The
core request is for the EU to recognise
US licencing to avoid burdensome
duplication.
Anna: With the public consultation period now
closed, the European Commission will review
the feedback, including these pointed
criticisms from the us. The draught, um, may
be revised before it is presented to the
European Parliament and Council for potential
adoption, setting the stage for a critical
phase in transatlantic space policy.
Avery: From modern policy to a decades old
mistake.
Our next story looks at How a scientific
error in the 1970s derailed the search
for life on Mars nearly 50 years
ago, NASA's Viking Lander Mission delivered a
verdict that echoed for generations
Mars was lifeless.
Anna: This conclusion was based on the announcement
from principal investigator Klaus Beeman
that the landers had found no organic
compounds on the Martian surface. While other
life detection experiments on Viking returned
ambiguous results, the absence of organics
was seen as the final word. Without
organic carbon, life as we know it couldn't
exist.
Avery: But here's the critical Beaman's
instrument had in fact detected organic
compounds, specifically methyl chloride and
methylene chloride. However, his team
interpreted them as contaminants brought from
Earth. Even though the mechanism for that
contamination.
Anna: Was unclear, the impact was immediate
and profound. Believing Mars to be
sterile, NASA shifted its focus. It
took another 20 years before the next
successful landing mission, Mars Pathfinder,
touched down. For half a century, the story
of a lifeless Mars has been accepted
wisdom.
Avery: Now that consensus is finally changing.
Thanks to the Curiosity and Perseverance
rovers, we have multiple detections of
various organic compounds, including the same
chlorinated organics found by Viking. It's
now clearer than ever that the original
conclusion was wrong.
Anna: The scientific community is now calling to
correct this longstanding mistake and more
importantly, to shed the negative mindset it
created. The next step, many argue, is to
launch a new robotic mission dedicated
explicitly to the search for life on Mars,
picking up where we should have been decades
ago.
Avery: Next up, let's take a look at this week's
launch roundup. It's a busy schedule
featuring several high profile missions that
were scrubbed last week.
Anna: The second ever launch of Blue Origin's new
Glenn carrying the Mars Bound escapade
payload is now scheduled for no earlier than
Wednesday, November 12th. That's followed a
day later by ULA Atlas v launching the
Viasat 3F2 satellite. Then
on Friday, SpaceX has two Starlink missions
on the manifest.
Avery: The week is expected to close out with a
suborbital electron haste mission from
Wallops and the Sentinel 6B mission.
However, there's a significant factor
affecting the schedule an ongoing U.S.
government shutdown.
Anna: Due to staffing shortages caused by the
shutdown, the FAA issued an emergency
notice banning launches during peak hours
from 6am to 10pm local time
starting Monday, Nov. 10. While a deal
to end the shutdown is reportedly being
worked out, missions like Transporter 15 have
already been pushed to later in the month.
Once the shutdown ends and staffing levels
return to normal, the FAA is expected to lift
the ban.
Avery: Now let's turn our attention to China's
Tiangong Space Station, which is currently
hosting an unprecedented dual crew operation
after a suspected space debris impact delayed
the return of the Shenzhou 20 astronauts.
Anna: That's right, the Shenzhou 20 crew was
scheduled to return, but on November 5, the
China Manned Space Agency, or CMSA,
postponed the landing citing concerns over
possible damage to their return capsule. As a
result, crew Commander Chen Dong and his two
colleagues have remained aboard the station.
Avery: They have now been joined by the newly
arrived three member Shenzhou 21 crew,
creating a temporary six person occupancy on
Tiangong. The CMSA has activated its
emergency plans, emphasising that crew safety
is the absolute top priority.
Anna: Both crews are reportedly conducting joint
scientific experiments, leveraging the robust
systems and ample supplies. Meanwhile,
engineers on the ground are performing
simulations and system tests on the Shenzhou
20 capsule, which remains docked to the
station. No official return date has been
announced, but reports suggest preparations
are underway for a near future return using
the original Shenzhou 20 spacecraft
and finally, let's journey.
Avery: Back to the very beginning of time
Cosmologists have a strong understanding of
the universe's earliest moments, from the
initial explosive inflation to the formation
of the first atomic nuclei. But a period in
between lasting just fractions of a second
has remained the mystery.
Anna: A new study published in Physical Review D
suggests this era was far more dynamic than
previously thought. Researchers explored a
scenario where, for a brief moment, dense
clouds of particles temporarily overpowered
radiation in the newborn cosmos. This shift
would have created a matter dominated era.
Avery: During this time, tiny ripples in density
could have grown into massive halos of
matter. While small by today's standards,
these halos were massive enough to collapse
under their own gravity, leading to a
fascinating the creation of the
universe's very first black holes.
Anna: These primordial black holes would have been
extremely small, far less massive than the
black holes we observe today. Some may have
survived and could even constitute a part of
the dark matter that shapes our universe.
Others would have evaporated long ago through
Hawking radiation.
Avery: The energy released by these evaporating
black holes could have left fingerprints on
the cosmos, potentially altering the
formation of the first elements or the growth
of large scale structures. This work
opens a new window into exploring the
dark, hidden history of our universe's first
second.
Anna: And that brings us to the end of today's
episode. We covered the brewing regulatory
tensions in space policy, corrected a
50 year old misconception about Mars, and
peered into the universe's earliest moments.
Avery: Thank you for joining us from both of us here
at Astronomy AstroDailyPod. Keep looking up
Astronomy Day Mhm.
Stories we told.