Latest / Space News Today / Artemis II Countdown, Auroras Over Sydney, and the Lava World That Broke the Rules

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Artemis II Countdown, Auroras Over Sydney, and the Lava World That Broke the Rules · Space News Today

0:00
Good day, stargazers, and welcome back
0:02
to Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna.
0:05
>> And I'm Avery. And honestly, this might
0:07
be our most packed episode of the season
0:09
so far.
0:10
>> Between a rocket still sitting on a pad
0:13
in Norway waiting for its shot at
0:15
history, a cargo ship that needed a
0:18
human hand on the wheel, and an entirely
0:21
different kind of skyhow happening over
0:23
Australian cities last night, today
0:26
really has it all. Plus, fresh science
0:28
off the James Webb Space Telescope that
0:30
has astronomers questioning everything
0:33
they thought they knew about lava
0:34
worlds. We've got news about sealed moon
0:37
rocks finally giving up their secrets
0:39
after 50 years. And we'll walk you
0:41
through one of the busiest weeks in
0:42
global rocketry in recent memory. And
0:45
with less than 2 weeks to go until the
0:48
most historic human space flight in half
0:50
a century, the countdown to Aremis 2 is
0:54
well and truly on. though not everyone
0:56
agrees it should be.
0:58
>> There's a scientist out there saying
1:00
NASA should hold off. We'll get to that.
1:02
>> Without further ado, then let's dive in.
1:05
>> Let's start with the big one. As of
1:06
today, NASA is officially targeting
1:08
April 1st. And yes, we know how that
1:11
sounds. As the launch date for Artemis
1:13
2, the 6-day window runs April 1st
1:16
through to the 6th. And just to be clear
1:19
for anyone just joining us on the show,
1:21
Artemis 2 is the first time human beings
1:24
will travel to the vicinity of the moon
1:26
since Apollo 17 in December 1972,
1:31
over 50 years. This is genuinely
1:35
historic.
1:36
>> Four astronauts aboard the Orion
1:38
spacecraft launched on the space launch
1:40
system or SLS from Kennedy Space Center
1:43
in Florida. The crew is commander Reed
1:45
Weisman, pilot Victor Glover, mission
1:48
specialist Christina Coach, and Canadian
1:50
Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
1:53
>> Victor Glover will become the first
1:55
person of color to travel beyond Earth
1:57
orbit. Christina Coach will be the first
2:00
woman, and Jeremy Hansen will be the
2:02
first non-American citizen to leave low
2:05
Earth orbit. This mission is full of
2:08
firsts. The crew entered quarantine at
2:11
Johnson Space Center in Houston on March
2:13
18th, and they traveled down to Florida
2:16
on March 27th. From there, it's really
2:18
just a matter of weather systems, and
2:20
that launch window.
2:22
>> Now, the road to get here has had its
2:24
bumps. There were liquid hydrogen leaks,
2:27
helium flow issue that caused a roll
2:30
back to the vehicle assembly building
2:32
just last month. Engineers found a
2:34
blocked seal in a cable connecting the
2:36
rocket to the ground systems. That's
2:38
fixed now. A successful wet dress
2:41
rehearsal in late February cleared the
2:43
way.
2:44
>> And the mission itself, once it
2:46
launches, will be a 10day free return
2:48
trajectory around the moon. They'll
2:50
swing out to about 5,000 m beyond the
2:53
lunar surface, giving the crew and the
2:55
world a view of the moon that no human
2:58
has had since Jean Cernin and Harrison
3:00
Schmidt were there in person.
3:02
>> Now, Avery, you mentioned earlier that
3:04
not everyone thinks this is the right
3:06
moment to go. Yeah, this is a genuinely
3:09
interesting wrinkle. A researcher at
3:11
Mexico's National Autonomous University,
3:13
Victor Velasco Era, has published a new
3:16
analysis suggesting that we are
3:18
currently in a window of elevated solar
3:20
superflare risk. His models point to a
3:23
high activity period running from mid
3:25
2025 through to mid 2026, focus on the
3:29
sun's southern hemisphere. He's
3:31
recommending NASA delay the mission
3:33
until the second half of this year at
3:35
the earliest. And you can see why he'd
3:37
be concerned. We've had a G3 geomagnetic
3:40
storm this week, which we're going to
3:42
get to in a moment. The sun is extremely
3:45
active right now.
3:46
>> Right. Though NASA has assessed the
3:48
risks and all teams pulled go for
3:50
launch. Lorie Glaze from NASA's
3:52
exploration systems directorate said,
3:55
and I'm paraphrasing, that an incredible
3:57
amount of work has gone into preparing
3:59
for this, and they've had very open,
4:01
transparent discussions about risk
4:03
posture and mitigation. So, the mission
4:06
is proceeding, but it does add a certain
4:09
tension to an already extraordinary
4:12
story, doesn't it? The sun is at the
4:14
peak of its 11-year cycle. We're heading
4:17
back to the moon, and a scientist is
4:19
saying, "Are you sure you want to do
4:21
this now?"
4:22
>> Humanity doing bold things anyway. Feels
4:25
on brand, honestly.
4:28
>> We'll have everything you need to watch
4:29
the launch live in our show notes.
4:32
Fingers crossed for April the 1st. Okay,
4:34
so speaking of the sun, let's talk about
4:36
what it's been doing to our skies this
4:38
week because it has been spectacular.
4:41
>> A series of coronal mass ejections or
4:44
CMEs that left the sun on March 16th and
4:48
18th arrived at Earth around the equinox
4:51
and they drove geomagnetic storming to
4:53
G3 levels on the Noah scale. That's
4:56
classified as strong.
4:58
>> And the result were auroras visible from
5:00
an extraordinary range of latitudes.
5:03
We're talking reports of vivid displays
5:05
from New York, London, Northern France,
5:08
even parts of Scotland lit up. And when
5:11
you see aurora reports from Scotland,
5:13
you're already dealing with something
5:14
significant.
5:15
>> But the story closest to home for many
5:18
of our listeners. The Aurora Arales was
5:21
visible across major Australian cities
5:24
last night. The Australian Bureau of
5:26
Meteorology issued a severe geomagnetic
5:29
storm warning and the southern lights
5:31
were reported from Melbourne, Sydney,
5:34
Brisbane, and Adelaide.
5:36
>> That is remarkable. Sydney is not what
5:38
you'd call a typical aurora viewing
5:40
destination. If you were outside last
5:42
night and happened to look south,
5:44
especially from somewhere with a clear
5:46
horizon, you may well have caught it.
5:49
>> As of today, March 24th, conditions are
5:52
easing. We're dropping back to KP 3 to
5:55
4, unsettled to active with a slight
5:58
chance of isolated G1 minor storm
6:01
intervals. So, there may still be some
6:03
activity tonight, but the peak has
6:06
passed.
6:06
>> Now, why is March such a good month for
6:09
auroras? This is something a lot of
6:11
people don't know.
6:12
>> It's called the equinox effect. Around
6:14
the March and September equinoxes, the
6:17
geometry of Earth's magnetic field
6:19
relative to the solar wind becomes
6:21
particularly favorable. The field lines
6:24
are better aligned to allow charged
6:26
particles in, which means you can get
6:28
strong auroral activity even from
6:31
moderate solar events. Combined with the
6:33
current solar maximum, the peak of solar
6:36
cycle 25, and we're living through what
6:38
could genuinely be the best aurora
6:40
viewing period until the mid 2030s. So,
6:44
if you've been meaning to chase the
6:45
lights, the message from scientists is
6:48
this is your window. The sun will start
6:50
winding down from here, and the next
6:52
solar maximum is over a decade away.
6:55
>> We'll have Aurora forecast links in the
6:58
show notes so you can track what tonight
6:59
looks like from your location.
7:01
>> I'm sure our producer, who lives in
7:03
Sydney, will be out and looking up. Now,
7:06
let's head into deep space and into one
7:09
of the most genuinely surprising pieces
7:12
of planetary science we've seen in a
7:14
while. James Webb has done it again.
7:17
>> I love a story where the headline is
7:19
basically, "Scientists found something
7:21
they were almost certain couldn't be
7:23
there."
7:24
>> So, the planet in question is called toi
7:28
561b.
7:30
It's a super Earth about twice the mass
7:32
of our planet orbiting a star around 280
7:36
lighty years away. And when we say close
7:39
to its star, we mean absurdly, almost
7:42
comically close. It completes a full
7:44
orbit in just 10.56 hours. A year on
7:48
this world is shorter than the average
7:50
working day.
7:51
>> It orbits at 140th the distance that
7:54
Mercury sits from our sun. The dayside
7:57
is in permanent unrelenting sunlight.
8:00
The planet is likely tidily locked. Same
8:03
face always towards the star. Same face
8:06
always in darkness. The surface is
8:09
thought to be a global ocean of molten
8:11
rock. And under those conditions,
8:14
extreme radiation, extreme heat, extreme
8:17
proximity to the star, the scientific
8:20
consensus was that any atmosphere this
8:22
planet might have once had would have
8:24
been stripped away long ago. It should
8:27
be a bare airless rock. Except it isn't.
8:31
The Carnegie Institution's le team used
8:34
Web's near infrared spectroscope,
8:37
Nearspec, to take the planet's
8:39
temperature by measuring how much light
8:41
the system emitted when TOI561B
8:44
passed behind its star. If it were a
8:47
bare rock, the dayside should reach
8:50
something close to 4,900°
8:52
F, around 2700 C. Instead, they measured
8:57
around 3,200° F or 1,800 C. Still
9:02
extraordinarily hot, but significantly
9:05
cooler than expected. And the only
9:07
explanation that fits the data is that
9:09
there's an atmosphere up there,
9:11
redistributing heat from the dayside to
9:13
the night side.
9:14
>> The lead researcher, Johanna Tesca at
9:17
Carnegie Science, described the planet
9:19
as, and this is a direct quote, really
9:22
like a wet lava ball. The idea is that
9:25
there's a feedback loop happening.
9:27
Volatile gases bubble up from the magma
9:29
ocean into the atmosphere while the
9:31
magma ocean simultaneously pulls some
9:34
gases back in. It's a strange
9:36
equilibrium. What makes this
9:38
scientifically significant beyond the
9:40
wow factor is what it tells us about
9:42
rocky planet evolution. We've assumed
9:45
for a long time that small, hot,
9:47
close-in worlds can't hold atmospheres.
9:50
POI 561B suggests the reality is more
9:54
complicated and potentially more
9:56
interesting.
9:57
>> The team is now analyzing the full data
9:59
set to map temperature patterns all the
10:01
way around the planet and try to narrow
10:03
down what the atmosphere is actually
10:04
made of. Water vapor, carbon dioxide,
10:07
silicate clouds, all on the table.
10:10
>> One of JWST's core missions is finding
10:13
atmospheres around rocky worlds. Because
10:16
as far as we know, an atmosphere is a
10:18
prerequisite for life. POI 561b is
10:22
certainly not habitable in any
10:24
conventional sense. But understanding
10:26
how a world this extreme holds onto its
10:28
air could tell us a great deal about
10:31
rocky planets that are far more
10:33
temperate. There's something genuinely
10:35
poetic about today's next story. We're
10:38
going back to December 1972, the last
10:41
time humans walked on the moon, and
10:43
discovering that some of what they
10:45
brought home has been quietly waiting 50
10:47
years to tell us something unexpected.
10:50
>> The Apollo Next Generation Sample
10:52
Analysis Program, or ANXA, was set up
10:55
specifically for this purpose. When the
10:57
Apollo astronauts returned from the
10:59
moon, NASA deliberately sealed some of
11:01
the samples and set them aside, knowing
11:04
that future scientists with better tools
11:06
would be able to extract more from them
11:08
than the technology of the 1970s ever
11:10
could.
11:11
>> And that moment has now arrived for a
11:13
double drive tube pushed into the lunar
11:16
surface at the Taurus litau region by
11:18
Jean Cernin and Harrison Schmidt during
11:20
Apollo 17. A team led by James Den at
11:24
Brown University used a technique called
11:27
secondary ion mass spectrometry to
11:29
measure sulfur isotopes. And what they
11:32
found was not what anyone expected.
11:34
>> So for context, Earth and the moon have
11:36
remarkably similar oxygen isotope
11:39
signatures. Scientists have long assumed
11:41
that sulfur would follow the same
11:43
pattern, that the moon's interior would
11:45
look chemically similar to Earth's in
11:47
this regard. Dotton's team expected to
11:50
confirm that assumption.
11:52
>> Instead, the volcanic material in the
11:54
sample is strongly depleted in sulfur
11:56
33, one of four stable sulfur isotopes.
12:00
The values are, in Dotton's own words,
12:03
very different from anything we find on
12:05
Earth. He said he simply wasn't
12:07
expecting that.
12:08
>> So, what does it mean? There are two
12:10
leading explanations and neither is
12:12
boring. The first is that this is
12:14
evidence of very ancient chemistry.
12:17
sulfur that interacted with ultraviolet
12:19
light in an early thin lunar atmosphere
12:22
billions of years ago. The implication
12:24
there would be that material somehow
12:26
cycled from the lunar surface into the
12:29
mantle, a kind of protoplate tectonics
12:32
on a world we don't think has ever had
12:34
plate tectonics.
12:35
>> The second explanation reaches even
12:37
further back. The leading theory of the
12:39
moon's origin is the giant impact. A
12:42
Mars-sized body called Thea collided
12:44
with the early Earth, and the debris
12:46
eventually coalesed into the moon. If
12:49
Thea had a very different sulfur
12:51
composition from Earth, that signature
12:53
might still be locked inside the lunar
12:54
mantle today. A fingerprint from a
12:57
collision that happened 4 billion years
12:59
ago.
13:00
>> The data doesn't currently favor one
13:03
explanation over the other. Dottton is
13:05
hoping that comparisons with samples
13:07
from Mars and other planetary bodies
13:09
will help resolve it. But the broader
13:11
message is clear. These samples are
13:14
still yielding genuine surprises decades
13:17
after they were collected. And there are
13:19
more sealed Apollo containers still to
13:21
be opened.
13:22
>> There is something remarkable about the
13:24
fact that astronauts who have been gone
13:26
for over 50 years are still in a very
13:29
real sense contributing to our
13:31
understanding of the solar system. All
13:33
right, let's do a lap of the launchpads
13:35
because this week is genuinely
13:37
exceptional for space activity
13:39
worldwide. NASA spaceflight.com
13:42
published their weekly preview and
13:44
honestly it reads like a greatest hits
13:46
of the current space age. Let's start
13:48
with what's already happened. SpaceX
13:51
kicked off the week with the Falcon 9
13:52
launch from Vandenberg in California
13:54
today, Tuesday, carrying 25 Starling
13:57
satellites to sun-synchronous orbit.
13:59
Booster B1081 flying for the 23rd time.
14:04
Routine at this point, but still
14:05
remarkable when you say it out loud.
14:07
>> Tomorrow, Wednesday, is arguably the
14:09
biggest single day in the schedule. ESAR
14:12
Aerospace's Spectrum rocket has its
14:14
window at 8:00 p.m. UTC from Endoa in
14:17
Norway. We'll talk about that more in
14:19
the update segment. And at 9:14 a.m.
14:22
UTC, Rocket Labs Electron launches from
14:25
New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula, carrying
14:28
two ESA Celeste satellites. Those are
14:30
the first of 10 planned navigation
14:33
demonstration satellites that will test
14:35
positioning technology in low Earth
14:37
orbit.
14:37
>> Also Wednesday, China launches a Chang
14:40
Zang 2C from Taiwan, payload classified,
14:44
which will be that rocket's 87th mission
14:47
overall. The CZ2C has been flying since
14:51
1982,
14:52
which puts it in some pretty
14:54
distinguished company.
14:55
>> Thursday brings another Falcon 9 from
14:58
Cape Canaveral carrying 29 Starling
15:00
satellites. And this one has a record
15:02
attached. Booster B1067 will be making
15:06
its 34th flight, setting a new record
15:09
for Falcon 9 booster reuse. This rocket
15:11
first flew in June 2021 on a cargo
15:14
resupply mission to the International
15:16
Space Station. It's now flying for the
15:19
34th time. SpaceX has fundamentally
15:22
changed what reusability means.
15:24
>> Friday is enormous. China's commercial
15:27
launch company CAS Space flies its
15:29
Kinetic 1 solid rocket from Juan with an
15:32
undisclosed payload. And Rosscosmos
15:35
launches the first ever flight of the
15:36
Soyuse 5 rocket from Biconor, also
15:40
called. This rocket is Russia's long-
15:42
aaited replacement for the Zenit family.
15:45
It carries a mass simulator on this
15:46
debut flight, launching from a pad that
15:49
hasn't seen an orbital launch since
15:51
2017. Big moment for Russian launch
15:54
vehicle development.
15:55
>> And the week closes out on Sunday with
15:57
two more. ULA's Atlas V5 launching 29
16:01
Amazon LEO satellites from Cape
16:03
Canaveral in its powerful 551
16:06
configuration. That's five solid rocket
16:08
boosters for what will be that rocket's
16:11
107th overall mission. And SpaceX wraps
16:14
things up with Transporter 16, a ride
16:17
share mission from Vandenberg carrying
16:19
dozens of small satellites. That will be
16:21
SpaceX's 40th Falcon 9 launch of 2026
16:25
alone and the 73rd orbital launch
16:28
attempt worldwide this year. So, five
16:31
countries, six different rockets, Falcon
16:34
9, Electron, Spectrum, CZ2C, Kinetica 1,
16:39
Soyuse 5, Atlas V5, launching from
16:42
California, Florida, New Zealand,
16:44
Norway, two sites in China, and
16:46
Kazakhstan in one week.
16:49
>> The age of routine space flight is here.
16:52
It's just also occasionally
16:54
extraordinary. Before we wrap, a quick
16:57
followup on two stories we covered
16:58
yesterday because both have had
17:00
developments today. Let's start with the
17:02
ISS. You'll remember that Russia
17:05
launched the Progress MS33 cargo ship,
17:08
also called Progress 94 on Sunday from
17:11
the Biconor Cosmodrome, carrying about 2
17:14
and 1/2 tons of supplies for the 7person
17:17
Expedition 74 crew. Food, fuel, water,
17:22
oxygen, the good stuff. But there was a
17:24
complication. Shortly after launch, one
17:27
of the spacecraft's two KURS automated
17:29
docking antennas failed to deploy. The
17:31
KUR system is the normal hands-off
17:34
approach. The ship guides itself in with
17:37
only one antenna working. Full
17:38
automation wasn't available.
17:40
>> So this morning, ISS Commander Sergey
17:43
Kudkov took over manually using the Tou
17:47
system. That's the Telerobotically
17:49
operated rendevous system, a control
17:52
panel inside the Zvezda service module.
17:55
The spacecraft flew itself to within 200
17:58
m of the station and from there Cuds
18:00
Ferkov guided it in. Docking was
18:03
scheduled for 9:34 Eastern time. Ross
18:06
Cosmos were quick to point out that
18:08
manual approaches are routinely
18:10
practiced during Cosmo training. This
18:12
was a contingency, not a crisis. And
18:14
there's a second layer to the story
18:16
worth noting. This was the first launch
18:18
from site 31 at Biconor since that pad
18:21
was damaged during the Soyuse MS28
18:24
launch last November when part of the
18:26
launch infrastructure collapsed. That
18:28
pad is Russia's only one capable of
18:30
sending crude missions and cargo ships
18:32
to the ISS. Its return to service is
18:35
genuinely significant.
18:37
>> We'll keep watching and with any luck,
18:39
Progress 94 is safely birthed at the
18:42
Pois module as you listen to this. And
18:45
on the other story we promised to follow
18:47
Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket is
18:49
still on the pad. Weather Andoya pushed
18:52
the attempt from Sunday then from
18:54
yesterday. The current window is
18:56
Wednesday night 8:00 p.m. to 900 p.m.
18:58
UTC. We'll have an update in tomorrow's
19:01
episode.
19:01
>> If it succeeds, it will be the first
19:03
time a rocket designed, built, and
19:06
launched from continental European soil
19:08
has reached orbit. That is a headline we
19:11
very much want to be able to read.
19:13
Fingers crossed for ISAR and the whole
19:15
European space industry.
19:17
>> Again, we'll update any new developments
19:19
in tomorrow's show.
19:20
>> That is your Astronomy Daily for
19:22
Tuesday, March 24th. We've got a lot of
19:25
threads in the air right now. Artemis 2
19:28
approaching its launch window. Spectrum
19:30
waiting for the weather. A sun that
19:32
doesn't want to sit still. So, it's a
19:35
great time to make sure you're
19:36
subscribed wherever you get your
19:38
podcast. All the sources, links, and
19:40
reading for today's stories are in the
19:42
show notes. And if today's episode
19:44
sparks something for you, whether it's
19:46
aurora chasing or thinking about those
19:48
Apollo samples or just looking up at the
19:51
moon tonight and doing the maths on
19:53
April 1st, we'd love to hear from you.
19:55
>> Find us on Twitter and Instagram at
19:57
Astro Daily Pod and on Tik Tok, X,
20:01
YouTube, and Tumblr at the same handle.
20:03
The website is astronomyaily.io.
20:06
And we're proud to be part of the
20:08
byes.com podcast network
20:10
>> for Anna. I'm Avery. Keep looking up
20:12
>> and we'll see you tomorrow.
20:14
>> Astronomy day.
20:17
Stories we told.