Avery: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy
Daily, the podcast that brings you the
universe one story at a time. I'm
Avery.
Anna: And I'm Anna. It's great to have you with us
today. We're covering everything from
exploding rockets and sugars on
asteroids to a cosmic ray that might have
sent an airplane into a dive.
Avery: It's going to be a wild ride. Let's get
started with our first story, which takes us
to the rapidly evolving world of commercial
spaceflight in China.
Anna: There is so much going on with space
technology in China at the moment, isn't
there? What's the latest?
Avery: So, Anna, there's big news from a company
called Landspace. They just launched their
Zhuqi 3 rocket, and it's a major
step forward in the reusable rocket race.
Anna: That's right, Avery. This is a methane
powered rocket, similar in concept to
SpaceX's Starship, designed for
reusability. And the big news is that the
first launch was, in large part, a, uh,
success. The the rocket successfully reached
orbit.
Avery: Reaching orbit on a brand new rocket is the
single biggest hurdle. So that's fantastic
news for them. But I hear the second half of
the test didn't go quite so smoothly.
Anna: Yes, the reusable part of the test hit a
snag. The first stage booster, which is
supposed to fly back and land itself for
reuse, experienced what the company calls a
mishap.
Avery: A, uh, mishap is putting it mildly. It
exploded during the landing attempt, right?
Anna: It did. But Land's base is still
framing the overall mission as a success.
And in the world of rocket development, they
have a point. Proving your design can reach
orbital velocity is a massive achievement.
Avery: That makes sense. It's an iterative process.
They've nailed the hardest part, and now they
can use the data from the failed landing to
figure out how to stick it next time.
Anna: Precisely. It shows that the global
competition for reusable rockets is heating
up, and it's not just limited to a few big
players anymore. This is a significant
milestone for China's commercial space
industry.
Avery: And of course, we'll be keeping an eye on all
their developments in the coming months.
Anna: From rockets soaring up, we turn to a
planet that is falling apart. The James
Webb Space Telescope has given us an
extraordinary view of an exoplanet that
is actively losing its atmosphere.
Avery: I love a good JWST story.
Which planet are we talking about? And, um,
what does that even look like? A planet
shedding its atmosphere. What?
Anna: The planet is WASP 107B.
It's a gas giant, but it's unusually
Puffy. It's very large for its mass
because it orbits extremely close to its
star. The intense radiation is boiling its
atmosphere away into space.
Avery: Wow. So it's just venting gas out into
the void.
Anna: Exactly. And Webb's instruments were able to
detect a massive cloud of helium being
stripped from the planet. This cloud is so
large that it actually forms a giant T
that travels ahead of the planet in its
orbit.
Avery: It travels ahead of the planet? How does that
work?
Anna: It's due to the complex interaction between
the stellar wind and the planet's own orbital
motion. It's a bit like a boat's wake
appearing in front of it in a strong current.
Avery: That's incredible. So this gives us a real
time look at how planets can die
or at least transform over billions of
years.
Anna: Yes, It's a vital piece of the puzzle for
understanding planetary evolution. By
studying planets like Wasp 1, we can
learn more about how our own solar system may
have formed and changed over time.
Avery: Alright.
From the ingredients of planets being
stripped away, let's talk about the
ingredients for life being found in a very
exciting place. The samples from Asteroid
Bennu are back. And they did not
disappoint.
Anna: They certainly did not. After years of
travel, NASA's Osiris Rex mission
returned pristine samples from the asteroid.
And the initial findings are groundbreaking.
Scientists have confirmed the presence of
essential sugars within the asteroid
material.
Avery: And we're not talking about table sugar here,
we're talking about the fundamental building
blocks, uh, of life, right?
Anna: Precisely. They have positively identified
sugars like ribose, which is a critical
component of rna, the molecule that may have
preceded DNA in the earliest forms of life.
They also found other vital sugars like
glucose.
Avery: So this adds huge weight to the theory
that asteroids and comets could have
delivered these prebiotic ingredients to the
early Earth, kickstarting life here.
Anna: Mm mhm. It's some of the strongest evidence
to date. It tells us that these fundamental
building blocks were likely common in the
early solar system, available to planets like
ours.
Avery: Okay, I have to ask about my favorite part of
this story. The space gum. What on Earth is
that?
Anna: Yes. The team also discovered a strange
black, viscous organic material that
they've playfully nicknamed Spacegum.
They're still analyzing its exact
composition, but it appears to be a very
complex carbon rich substance. Just
another fascinating piece of this cosmic
puzzle.
Avery: From asteroids to our own celestial neighbor.
Let's bring it closer to home. Sky watchers
are in for a special event this December. In
coming days, in fact.
Anna: That's right, the final full moon of
2025. Has a few special things going
for it. It's known as the cold Moon. And
this year, it will also be a supermoon.
Avery: Supermoon? That means it'll appear larger and
brighter in the sky because it's closer to
Earth and its orbit. I always love a good
supermoon.
Anna: It does. But there's an even more rare
event happening at the same time. Something
called a major lunar standstill.
Avery: Okay, a major lunar standstill. That sounds
very official and very dramatic. Break that
down for us.
Anna: It's a point in the moon's 18.6
year cycle where its orbit is tilted
to the maximum degree relative to Earth's
equator. For those of us in the northern
hemisphere, it means this full moon will
trace a much higher arc across the winter sky
than usual.
Avery: Right, so it's not just closer, it's also
taking the high road across the sky. The.
That should make it visible for longer and
easier to see.
Anna: Exactly. It will rise in the northeast and
set in the northwest, Similar to the sun's
path in the summer. And it will stay above
the horizon for an extended period. It's a
perfect combination for a beautiful lunar
spectacle.
Avery: So make sure you get outside and look up, as
we like to remind you.
Anna: And while we're on the subject of our moon,
we have a beautiful but bittersweet story
from the Japanese lunar lander Hataku
Matu R. Oh, right.
Avery: This was the private mission that attempted
to land on the moon last year. Sadly, it
crashed in the final seconds of its descent.
Anna: It did. But before the mission ended, it
captured some truly breathtaking imagery.
And one photo in particular has been making
the rounds. It's a stunning shot of our
own planet.
Avery: I've seen it. It's an image of Earth during a
total solar eclipse Taken from space.
You can clearly see the round shadow of the
moon moving across the Earth's surface.
Australia in particular. It's just an
incredible perspective.
Anna: It really is. It's a viewpoint we so rarely
get to see. It's a powerful reminder of the
beauty of our world and the celestial dance.
It's a part of a final, beautiful piece of
data from, um, a mission that came so close
to achieving its goal.
Avery: Okay, for our final story, we're coming back
down to Earth, but it's a story with a truly
cosmic origin story.
This sounds like pure science fiction, Anna,
but an expert is suggesting a cosmic ray may
have been responsible for forcing a JetBlue
airliner into an emergency landing.
Anna: It's a fascinating theory. The flight in
question experienced a sudden, unexpected
drop in altitude. And while there's no
official cause yet, one plausible,
though unproven explanation involves a
high energy particle from deep space.
Avery: A single particle can do that to a massive
airplane? How is that even possible?
Anna: To a phenomenon called a single event
upset? High energy cosmic
rays, often accelerated by distant
supernovas, are constantly
bombarding our atmosphere. If one
of these particles, traveling at near the
speed of light, happens to strike a
microscopic transistor in one of the
plane's flight computers. Uh-huh. It can
deposit enough energy to. To flip
a bit of memory. It can change a
digital one to a zero or vice
versa. In a non critical system,
you'd never notice. But if it
hits a crucial part of the processor,
it could cause a temporary glitch or
even a system reboot.
Avery: So the plane's electronic brain could have a
momentary hiccup caused by a particle from
an exploded star millions of light years
away. That is mind blowing.
Anna: It is. And while it's important
to note this is just one expert's
hypothesis, it is scientifically
plausible. Modern avionics have
extensive shielding and redundant
systems to prevent this. But the
possibility, however remote, is always
there. It's a wild reminder that
we're never truly separate from the
events of the wider cosmos.
Avery: That really is a mind bending connection.
And on, um, that cosmic note, that's all the
time we have for today's episode of Astronomy
Daily. What a trip across the universe it's
been.
Anna: It certainly has. Thank you all so
much for joining us. We'll be back again
tomorrow with another roundup of the latest
news from around and beyond our world.
Avery: Until then, clear skies. And one more
reminder, Keep looking up.