Latest / Space News Today / Bow and Arrow Galaxy Discovered, Hayabusa2’s Daring Asteroid Flyby, and Mars’ Geological Secrets...

Transcript

Bow and Arrow Galaxy Discovered, Hayabusa2’s Daring Asteroid Flyby, and Mars’ Geological Secrets... · Space News Today

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily.
• 0:03
  I'm Anna.
• 0:04
  >> And I'm Avery. It's Monday, June 29th,
• 0:06
  and the universe has been absolutely
• 0:09
  refusing to take the weekend off.
• 0:11
  >> Tonight is the full strawberry moon, and
• 0:13
  Mercury just went retrograde. So, we
• 0:16
  have the sky watching angle covered, but
• 0:18
  there is so much more.
• 0:20
  >> A galaxy that baffled 25 years of
• 0:23
  professional expertise spotted first by
• 0:25
  a citizen scientist. A Japanese
• 0:28
  spacecraft about to attempt one of the
• 0:30
  closest asteroid flybys in history. And
• 0:33
  new evidence that Mars was geologically
• 0:35
  far more complex than anyone imagined.
• 0:38
  >> Plus, new data from issa's Juice
• 0:40
  spacecraft that reveals what
• 0:42
  interstellar comet 3i Atlas was doing
• 0:45
  just days after it rounded the sun. And
• 0:48
  a candid NASA audit that puts some very
• 0:51
  large numbers on the Aremis program's
• 0:54
  canceled hardware.
• 0:55
  >> It is a packed Monday. Stay with us.
• 0:57
  >> Our first story today is one of those
• 1:00
  discoveries that makes you stop and
• 1:02
  think about the sheer scale of the
• 1:04
  universe and also about who gets to
• 1:06
  discover it.
• 1:07
  >> A citizen scientist, not a professional
• 1:10
  astronomer, not a research institute,
• 1:12
  was the first person to spot one of the
• 1:14
  most unusual radio galaxies ever
• 1:17
  recorded. And the lead researcher who
• 1:19
  followed up the finds says it is unlike
• 1:21
  anything he has seen in 25 years of
• 1:24
  studying these objects. The object is
• 1:26
  called rad bar. That stands for radio
• 1:30
  bow and arrow radio galaxy. And the name
• 1:33
  tells you almost everything because when
• 1:35
  you look at this thing in radio light,
• 1:38
  it genuinely looks like a drawn bow and
• 1:40
  arrow glowing in space. The discovery
• 1:43
  was published on June 22nd in the
• 1:45
  monthly notices of the Royal
• 1:46
  Astronomical Society and it was made by
• 1:49
  an international team working with the
• 1:51
  RAD at home astronomy collaboratory in
• 1:54
  India, a citizen science program that
• 1:56
  gives volunteers access to telescope
• 1:59
  data to look for unusual features that
• 2:01
  professional surveys might miss. The
• 2:03
  volunteer who found it was scanning
• 2:06
  images from the LOFAR radio telescope,
• 2:08
  the Low Frequency Array based in the
• 2:11
  Netherlands, and flagged an asymmetric
• 2:13
  structure that simply didn't look like
• 2:16
  any known radio galaxy. And when the
• 2:18
  scientists looked closer, they saw
• 2:20
  something remarkable. Radbar stretches
• 2:23
  nearly 1.8 million lightyears across.
• 2:27
  For scale, our entire Milky Way is about
• 2:30
  100,000 light-years wide. This structure
• 2:33
  is roughly 18 times that.
• 2:35
  >> What makes it so unusual is its shape.
• 2:38
  Most radio galaxies follow a familiar
• 2:40
  template. A super massive black hole at
• 2:43
  the center fires two jets of charged
• 2:46
  particles outward in opposite
• 2:48
  directions, creating a symmetric
• 2:50
  dumbbell-shaped structure. Radar doesn't
• 2:53
  look like that at all. Instead, one of
• 2:56
  the jets appears to have slammed into
• 2:58
  something, a vast front of compressed
• 3:00
  plasma, and lit it up in radite. That
• 3:03
  glowing arc, shaped like the curve of a
• 3:05
  bow, spans nearly 560 kilopar sex in the
• 3:09
  radio data.
• 3:10
  >> On the opposite side, the other jet
• 3:12
  bends and twists into an S-shaped
• 3:15
  structure with a faint offset tail. The
• 3:18
  leading explanation is a bow shock. The
• 3:21
  host galaxy of Radbar appears to be
• 3:23
  falling supersonically into a nearby
• 3:26
  galaxy cluster, plowing through the thin
• 3:29
  hot gas that fills the space between
• 3:31
  galaxies.
• 3:32
  >> And just like a supersonic aircraft
• 3:34
  produces a shock wave in front of it, a
• 3:36
  galaxy moving faster than the speed of
• 3:38
  sound in that gas can compress and heat
• 3:41
  it, creating a giant shock front. The
• 3:44
  radio emmitting plasma from Radbar
• 3:46
  appears to illuminate that shock wave,
• 3:49
  making visible something that
• 3:50
  astronomers have long predicted but
• 3:53
  almost never directly observed in radio
• 3:55
  light.
• 3:56
  >> Lead author Dr. Anand Hot of the
• 3:58
  University of Mumbai said the structure
• 4:01
  is unlike any radio galaxy he has seen
• 4:03
  in 25 years. His co-lead Dr. Pratik
• 4:07
  Dabad of the National Center for Nuclear
• 4:09
  Research in Poland noted that the
• 4:11
  complex multi-halo environment makes
• 4:14
  this especially exciting. We're seeing
• 4:16
  gas flows, infall, and possible shocks
• 4:19
  reshaping radial plasma over millions of
• 4:22
  light years of space. And crucially,
• 4:24
  this discovery came directly from the
• 4:27
  citizen science community. The data came
• 4:29
  from Loar's 2meter sky survey, whose
• 4:32
  third data release covering more than
• 4:35
  80% of the northern sky came out earlier
• 4:38
  this year. Radb shows what might be
• 4:40
  hiding in that massive data set. The
• 4:43
  team is hoping that AI and machine
• 4:45
  learning tools can now be applied to
• 4:47
  find similar systems and the next
• 4:49
  generation square km observatory
• 4:52
  currently under construction will be
• 4:54
  able to survey the sky with even greater
• 4:56
  sensitivity. Brad Bar may turn out to be
• 4:59
  just the beginning.
• 5:01
  >> A triumph for citizen science and a
• 5:03
  reminder that the universe is still
• 5:05
  hiding things from us until an alert
• 5:07
  volunteer spots them from a hillside
• 5:09
  data center. Next up, Japan's Hayabusa 2
• 5:13
  spacecraft has been on an extended
• 5:15
  mission for several years now after it
• 5:17
  already delivered what many considered
• 5:19
  the most scientifically valuable
• 5:21
  asteroid sample ever returned to Earth.
• 5:24
  And next Sunday, July the 5th, it's
• 5:26
  about to attempt something
• 5:27
  extraordinary. A flyby of an asteroid
• 5:30
  called Tory Fune, designated 2001 CC21
• 5:34
  at a closest approach distance of
• 5:37
  somewhere between 1 and 10 km at a speed
• 5:40
  of 5.3 km/s.
• 5:43
  That is roughly 19,000 kmh. And the
• 5:47
  spacecraft's cameras were not designed
• 5:49
  for this kind of encounter. For some
• 5:51
  context, Hayabusa 2 launched in December
• 5:54
  2014, traveled to the asteroid Riu,
• 5:58
  deployed rovers and landers onto its
• 6:00
  surface, fired an impactor to create an
• 6:03
  artificial crater, collected samples
• 6:05
  from below the surface, and returned
• 6:07
  that material to Earth in December 2020.
• 6:10
  5 g of RIU, but an extraordinary 5 g.
• 6:14
  After releasing the sample capsule over
• 6:16
  Australia, the spacecraft still had fuel
• 6:19
  remaining. Rather than decommission it,
• 6:21
  JAXA approved an extended mission now
• 6:24
  called Hayabusa 2 Hash and redirected it
• 6:27
  toward two new targets. Tory Fune is the
• 6:30
  first.
• 6:32
  >> Jaxa Satoshi Tanaka presented the
• 6:34
  mission status at the 35th NASA small
• 6:36
  bodies assessment meeting on June 11th,
• 6:39
  describing the Torifune flyby as one of
• 6:41
  the closest asteroid encounters ever
• 6:44
  attempted by a mission of this class.
• 6:46
  What makes it so challenging is the
• 6:48
  geometry. At that speed and that
• 6:51
  distance, the window of observation is
• 6:53
  extremely short. The spacecraft will
• 6:55
  sweep past in a matter of seconds. The
• 6:57
  navigation cameras have to be precisely
• 7:00
  aimed. The timing has to be right and
• 7:02
  the whole sequence has to execute
• 7:04
  autonomously because there is no time
• 7:06
  for ground control corrections.
• 7:08
  >> Toriune is roughly 450 m wide, a
• 7:12
  midsized near-Earth asteroid. Scientists
• 7:15
  believe it may be an L-type asteroid
• 7:18
  potentially containing calcium aluminum
• 7:20
  inclusions, some of the oldest primitive
• 7:23
  material in the solar system. But that
• 7:25
  classification is uncertain and the
• 7:27
  flyby data will help pin it down. After
• 7:30
  Tarifan, Hayabusa 2 continues on a long
• 7:34
  arc toward its second target, asteroid
• 7:37
  1998 KY26,
• 7:41
  a fast spinning microsteroid just 30 m
• 7:44
  across with which it will rendevous in
• 7:47
  July 2031. That will be the first ever
• 7:51
  close encounter with an asteroid of that
• 7:54
  size. But for now, next Sunday, July
• 7:57
  5th, one of the closest asteroid flybys
• 8:00
  ever attempted. A spacecraft that was
• 8:02
  never designed to do this, doing it
• 8:04
  anyway. IUSA 2 has already exceeded its
• 8:07
  mission objectives once. It is about to
• 8:10
  do it again.
• 8:11
  >> Mars is often described as a dead
• 8:13
  planet. No plate tectonics, no active
• 8:16
  volcanism, a frozen core, a thin
• 8:19
  atmosphere. And for a long time,
• 8:21
  scientists assumed its geological
• 8:23
  history was correspondingly simple.
• 8:26
  Isolated volcanoes, simple basaltic
• 8:28
  crust. Nothing like the complex churning
• 8:31
  geology that made Earth habitable. A new
• 8:34
  study published on June 26th in the
• 8:37
  journal Nature Astronomy suggests that
• 8:39
  picture is fundamentally wrong.
• 8:42
  Researchers from the University of
• 8:43
  Oxford in collaboration with the
• 8:45
  University of Bristol have found seismic
• 8:48
  evidence that Mars once hosted enormous
• 8:51
  Earthlike magmatic systems spread across
• 8:53
  potentially hundreds or even thousands
• 8:56
  of kilometers of its northern
• 8:57
  hemisphere.
• 8:58
  >> The key is a boundary layer about 24 km
• 9:02
  below the Martian surface. Scientists
• 9:05
  already knew this boundary existed. What
• 9:07
  they didn't know was what it meant. The
• 9:10
  new analysis based on seismic data from
• 9:13
  NASA's insight mission which recorded
• 9:15
  Mars quakes and meteoroid impacts before
• 9:18
  being retired suggests this boundary
• 9:21
  marks a zone of meltd depleted rock.
• 9:24
  Rock that is already had magma extracted
• 9:27
  from it.
• 9:27
  >> That's a signature of what geologists
• 9:29
  call transcrustal magnetism. A process
• 9:32
  where molten rock rises from the mantle,
• 9:35
  pools within the crust, differentiates,
• 9:38
  gets mixed and reprocessed, and slowly
• 9:40
  builds up complex crustal material over
• 9:43
  millions of years. On Earth, this
• 9:45
  process is driven by plate tectonics.
• 9:48
  The key finding here is that Mars
• 9:50
  appears to have done it without plate
• 9:52
  tectonics.
• 9:53
  >> Bead author Dr. Tobbery Mai Champion put
• 9:57
  it clearly. Traditionally, complex
• 10:00
  silicarrich crust was thought to require
• 10:02
  plate tectonics and subduction. This
• 10:05
  study suggests Mars can build complex
• 10:08
  crust through longived transcrustal
• 10:10
  magmatic systems where mantle derived
• 10:13
  magma is stored, differentiated, mixed,
• 10:16
  and assimilated within the crust. Plate
• 10:19
  recycling is not the only route.
• 10:21
  >> Professor John Wade of Oxford added a
• 10:24
  striking application. If Mars could
• 10:26
  develop this kind of complex crust
• 10:28
  without plate tectonics, then maybe the
• 10:31
  conditions needed for habitability can
• 10:33
  emerge on more planets than we realized,
• 10:35
  including those we've previously
• 10:37
  dismissed because of their apparent lack
• 10:39
  of tectonic activity. There are also
• 10:41
  more practical implications. Systems
• 10:44
  like these on Earth are known to
• 10:46
  generate large mineral and metal
• 10:48
  deposits. The study suggests Mars may
• 10:51
  hold significantly more near surface
• 10:53
  mineral wealth than previously assumed.
• 10:56
  Something that could matter greatly for
• 10:58
  any future human presence on the red
• 11:01
  planet.
• 11:01
  >> Mars is not a simple geologically boring
• 11:04
  world. It just did its geology
• 11:06
  differently. And the universe, it turns
• 11:08
  out, has more than one way to build a
• 11:10
  complex planet. Time for your sky
• 11:13
  watching update. And tonight is
• 11:15
  genuinely worth stepping out for because
• 11:17
  the full strawberry moon reaches its
• 11:19
  peak at 2358 UTC. That's just before
• 11:22
  midnight in universal time, which means
• 11:25
  most of our listeners will see it at its
• 11:26
  fullest either late tonight or early
• 11:29
  tomorrow morning, depending on your time
• 11:30
  zone.
• 11:31
  >> The strawberry moon gets its name from
• 11:34
  early Native American traditions. It
• 11:36
  marked the time of year when wild
• 11:38
  strawberries began to ripen. It's also
• 11:40
  been called the rose moon and the
• 11:42
  honeymoon. giving us the phrase
• 11:44
  honeymoon since June was historically
• 11:47
  considered an auspicious time for
• 11:49
  weddings.
• 11:50
  >> Tonight, the moon rises in Sagittarius
• 11:52
  near the well-known teapot asterism. For
• 11:55
  observers across Australia and New
• 11:57
  Zealand, the teapot will be reasonably
• 11:59
  wellplaced in the northern sky after
• 12:01
  dark. The moon will be brilliantly
• 12:03
  bright, so fainter stars will wash out,
• 12:05
  but the bright stars of Sagittarius
• 12:07
  should still be visible around it. One
• 12:09
  thing to note for our southern
• 12:11
  hemisphere listeners, in winter, the
• 12:13
  full moon rises higher in the sky for
• 12:16
  you, which actually gives you better
• 12:18
  viewing conditions for this kind of
• 12:20
  event than our friends in the northern
• 12:22
  hemisphere get during their summer full
• 12:24
  moons.
• 12:25
  >> And there's an astronomical event today
• 12:27
  that you won't actually be able to see
• 12:29
  with your eyes, but is worth knowing
• 12:30
  about. Mercury begins its retrograde
• 12:33
  motion today, June 29th. This is the
• 12:36
  apparent reversal of Mercury's movement
• 12:38
  against the background stars caused by
• 12:41
  the geometry of Mercury's faster orbit
• 12:43
  relative to Earth. You won't see Mercury
• 12:46
  move backward in real time. It's far too
• 12:49
  subtle for that. But if you track its
• 12:51
  position night by night over the coming
• 12:53
  weeks, you'll see it trace a small loop
• 12:56
  against the background stars before
• 12:59
  resuming its normal eastward motion.
• 13:01
  It's a lovely demonstration of orbital
• 13:04
  mechanics. if you have the patience to
• 13:06
  follow it.
• 13:07
  >> Mercury is currently a challenging
• 13:09
  target anyway, sitting low in the
• 13:11
  western sky after sunset and getting
• 13:13
  lower. But Venus is blazingly bright and
• 13:17
  easy to find in the west after dark. And
• 13:19
  the crescent moon earlier in the month
• 13:21
  created some lovely conjunctions that
• 13:23
  astrophotographers took full advantage
• 13:25
  of. Tonight though, the strawberry moon
• 13:28
  is the star of the show. Get outside,
• 13:31
  look up, and enjoy it. Time now to
• 13:34
  revisit an old friend. We've covered
• 13:36
  interstellar comet 3iatls
• 13:39
  extensively on this show. From its
• 13:41
  discovery last July through its
• 13:43
  parhelion pass, its chemistry, its
• 13:46
  ancient isotopic signature. But the data
• 13:48
  from that encounter is still coming in.
• 13:50
  And this week, issa published the
• 13:52
  results from one of the most unusual
• 13:54
  scientific opportunities of the entire
• 13:56
  3i ATLS mission. issa's Juice
• 14:00
  spacecraft, the Jupiter Icy Moons
• 14:02
  Explorer, was in the right place at the
• 14:04
  right time with the right instruments.
• 14:07
  In November 2025, just days after 3i
• 14:11
  ATLS made its closest approach to the
• 14:13
  sun, Juice turned five of its science
• 14:16
  instruments towards the comet. The data
• 14:18
  took months to arrive on Earth, but it
• 14:21
  has now been analyzed, and the early
• 14:23
  results are fascinating.
• 14:25
  >> Here are five things Juice revealed.
• 14:28
  First, the water output. On November
• 14:30
  2nd, 2025, just 4 days after
• 14:33
  parahhelion, Juice's Majis spectrometer
• 14:37
  detected 3ATLS was releasing
• 14:39
  approximately 2,000 kg of water vapor
• 14:43
  every single second. That is equivalent
• 14:46
  to filling 70 Olympic swimming pools
• 14:48
  every day. Second, despite its
• 14:51
  interstellar origin, 3IIA ATLS behaved
• 14:55
  like a typical solar system comet during
• 14:57
  its close approach to the sun. Juice's
• 14:59
  Janus camera showed a coma and activity
• 15:02
  consistent with what you would expect
• 15:04
  from a comet formed right here in our
• 15:06
  own system. The universe appears to make
• 15:09
  comets using broadly similar rules.
• 15:12
  >> Third, Juice's navigation camera was
• 15:14
  pressed into unexpected scientific
• 15:17
  service. NAVCAM is designed to help
• 15:20
  Juice navigate around Jupiter's icy
• 15:22
  moons when it arrives in 2031. But
• 15:25
  during the threeey atlas encounter, it
• 15:28
  captured images from a novel vantage
• 15:30
  point different from Earth-based
• 15:32
  telescopes at times when the comet
• 15:34
  wasn't even visible from Earth that gave
• 15:37
  ESA's planetary defense team a better
• 15:40
  fix on the comet's trajectory than they
• 15:43
  could have obtained otherwise. Fourth,
• 15:45
  the encounter revealed how well-prepared
• 15:47
  Juice's instruments actually are for
• 15:49
  their primary mission. The same tools
• 15:52
  built to study Europa, Ganymede, and
• 15:54
  Kalisto, icy moons with complex
• 15:56
  chemistry, turned out to be remarkably
• 15:59
  well matched to studying an interstellar
• 16:01
  icy comet. The team says the data has
• 16:04
  made them more excited than ever about
• 16:06
  what Juice will find at Jupiter in the
• 16:08
  2030s. And fifth, the overall picture
• 16:12
  emerging from juice combined with the
• 16:14
  JWST isotopic data we discussed last
• 16:17
  week paints a consistent portrait. 3i
• 16:20
  ATLS is very old, formed possibly 10 to
• 16:24
  12 billion years ago in a stellar system
• 16:27
  that predates our sun. It spent billions
• 16:30
  of years in the cold darkness of its
• 16:32
  home system before being ejected on a
• 16:35
  journey that would eventually bring it
• 16:37
  briefly through ours. Juice itself has
• 16:40
  one more Earth gravity assist coming in
• 16:42
  September 2026 when its instruments will
• 16:45
  be switched on again before the long
• 16:47
  cruise to Jupiter. The common encounter
• 16:50
  was a remarkable bonus for a mission
• 16:52
  with a very different primary purpose.
• 16:55
  >> 3IIA ATLS is gone heading out of the
• 16:58
  solar system never to return. But it is
• 17:01
  left behind a remarkable scientific
• 17:03
  legacy. Our final story today takes us
• 17:06
  from the science of space to the
• 17:08
  economics of it, and it involves some
• 17:10
  large numbers.
• 17:12
  >> A memo from NASA's Office of Inspector
• 17:14
  General published this past week has
• 17:16
  found that the total value of NASA
• 17:18
  hardware contracts that were cancelled
• 17:20
  as part of the Aremis program
• 17:22
  restructuring came to 5.9 billion.
• 17:26
  5.9 billion. Now, for context, the
• 17:31
  Aremis program is NASA's flagship effort
• 17:34
  to return humans to the moon. With
• 17:36
  Artemis 2 having already carried four
• 17:39
  astronauts around the moon earlier this
• 17:41
  year, the program has been hugely
• 17:44
  ambitious, hugely expensive, and has
• 17:46
  gone through significant changes,
• 17:49
  particularly around which contractors
• 17:51
  build which components and what the
• 17:54
  architecture looks like. The inspector
• 17:56
  general's review found that canceled
• 17:58
  hardware contracts included items that
• 18:00
  had experienced cost increases and
• 18:02
  extended timelines before being cut. The
• 18:05
  audit highlights the scale of the
• 18:07
  program's evolution and the real
• 18:10
  financial cost of changing direction in
• 18:12
  large scale space programs.
• 18:14
  >> To be clear, this doesn't mean $5.9
• 18:17
  billion was simply lost. Some of that
• 18:20
  work will have produced useful data,
• 18:22
  technical knowledge or partially
• 18:24
  completed hardware. And program
• 18:26
  restructuring of this kind is not
• 18:28
  unusual in aerospace development. The
• 18:31
  space launch system itself went through
• 18:33
  years of design evolution before its
• 18:35
  first flight,
• 18:36
  >> but it is a significant figure and it
• 18:39
  arrives at a moment when NASA is
• 18:41
  navigating a complex budget environment
• 18:44
  and preparing for Artemis 4, the first
• 18:46
  crude lunar landing currently targeting
• 18:49
  2028.
• 18:50
  >> The audit is a reminder that returning
• 18:52
  to the moon is not just a scientific and
• 18:55
  engineering challenge. It is also a
• 18:58
  program management challenge, one that
• 19:00
  involves billions of dollars, hundreds
• 19:02
  of contractors, and years of
• 19:04
  decision-making under conditions of
• 19:06
  political, technical, and financial
• 19:08
  uncertainty.
• 19:09
  >> The numbers are sobering, but the
• 19:11
  program continues, and the end goal,
• 19:14
  humans on the moon and eventually beyond
• 19:16
  remains one of the most ambitious
• 19:18
  endeavors in human history. And that is
• 19:21
  a wrap on Astronomy Daily for Monday,
• 19:24
  June 29th. What a lineup. A galaxy
• 19:27
  shaped like a bow and arrow. A
• 19:29
  spacecraft h hurtling toward an
• 19:31
  asteroid. A new picture of ancient Mars.
• 19:34
  Tonight's full strawberry moon. The last
• 19:36
  data from our interstellar visitor. And
• 19:39
  a candid look at the cost of going back
• 19:41
  to the moon.
• 19:42
  >> The universe never disappoints, and
• 19:45
  neither do you, our listeners. Thank you
• 19:47
  for joining us.
• 19:48
  >> If you're enjoying Astronomy Daily,
• 19:50
  please subscribe wherever you're
• 19:51
  listening and leave us a review. It
• 19:53
  genuinely helps more people find the
• 19:55
  show.
• 19:56
  >> Until tomorrow, clear skies.
• 19:58
  >> Clear skies, everyone.
• 20:02
  >> Stories told
• 20:10
  stories told.