Latest / Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder / Cosmic Fireworks and a Crazy Week of Space News

Transcript

Cosmic Fireworks and a Crazy Week of Space News · Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder

• 0:08
  Howdy stargazers, and welcome to this episode
• 0:10
  of Star Trails. Drew here, and I'll be your guide
• 0:14
  to the night sky for the week starting June 29th
• 0:17
  through July the 5th. If you're in the US, many
• 0:21
  of us will be out on the evening of July the
• 0:23
  4th catching fireworks with friends or family.
• 0:26
  But there's a cosmic fireworks show overhead
• 0:29
  too. Also, last week seemed to bring a never
• 0:34
  -ending array of wild astronomy news. From the
• 0:38
  largest comet ever detected, the oldest galaxy
• 0:42
  ever photographed, to discoveries in the weird
• 0:45
  world of dark matter. We'll talk about all that
• 0:49
  and even more in the second half of the show.
• 0:52
  Whether you're tuning in from the backyard, the
• 0:55
  balcony, or just your imagination, I'm glad you're
• 0:58
  here. So find a cozy spot, let your eyes adjust,
• 1:02
  and let's see what the sky holds for us this
• 1:05
  week. Let's start with one of the prettiest pairings
• 1:09
  of the week. Tonight, June 29th, look to the
• 1:13
  western sky just after sunset. There you'll see
• 1:16
  a delicate waxing crescent moon, only about 22
• 1:20
  % illuminated, hanging out close to the planet
• 1:24
  Mars. Nearby, you'll also spot Regulus, the brightest
• 1:29
  star in the constellation Leo. If you have a
• 1:32
  pair of binoculars, this little triangle of light,
• 1:35
  the Moon, Mars, and Regulus, makes a perfect
• 1:38
  early evening target. And, for those of you in
• 1:42
  North and South America, there's a chance the
• 1:45
  Moon might even briefly pass in front of Mars,
• 1:48
  what astronomers call an occultation. We won't
• 1:52
  all be able to see it. So check in on an astronomy
• 1:56
  app such as Stellarium to see if the occultation
• 1:59
  is visible in your area. Between now and July
• 2:03
  the 5th, we're also catching the tail end of
• 2:06
  the June boated meteor shower. This one's usually
• 2:10
  pretty mellow, maybe a few meteors per hour,
• 2:13
  but every now and then it surprises us with a
• 2:16
  sudden outburst. If you're outside late in the
• 2:19
  coming days, especially under dark skies, keep
• 2:22
  an eye out for slow bright streaks drifting out
• 2:25
  of the northern sky near the constellation Boötes.
• 2:30
  There's a small planetary parade for early risers.
• 2:33
  Just before sunrise, look toward the eastern
• 2:36
  sky to catch Venus, shining like a cosmic spotlight.
• 2:40
  It's the brightest thing in the sky after the
• 2:43
  moon right now. Further to the east, Saturn is
• 2:46
  climbing higher each day. Jupiter is rising as
• 2:50
  well, but it's just ahead of the morning sun
• 2:53
  and lost in the glare. Uranus is hanging out
• 2:56
  around the Pleiades, but as usual, you'll need
• 2:59
  a telescope to see it. Back in the evening sky,
• 3:04
  Mercury is peeking out of the twilight haze.
• 3:07
  Between now and June 30th, it passes near the
• 3:10
  Beehive Cluster. also known as Messier 44 in
• 3:14
  the constellation Cancer. Grab a pair of binoculars
• 3:18
  and try to catch this pairing in the northwest
• 3:21
  right after sunset. The beehive cluster looks
• 3:24
  like a soft sprinkling of stars, and Mercury
• 3:27
  will be just nearby, like a bright pearl in a
• 3:30
  field of fireflies. It will set quickly, and
• 3:33
  you'll need a clear view to the western horizon.
• 3:37
  Now is also the perfect time to get reacquainted
• 3:40
  with the Summer Triangle. This asterism made
• 3:44
  up of the bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair
• 3:48
  dominates the southern sky by 10pm and leads
• 3:51
  you right into the rich star fields of the Milky
• 3:54
  Way. Look higher overhead and you'll find Cygnus
• 3:58
  the Swan flying along the Milky Way's path. while
• 4:02
  Boötes and its bright orange star Arcturus glide
• 4:06
  westward. If the sky is clear, you'll be able
• 4:09
  to see the Milky Way as a faint misty band stretching
• 4:13
  across the sky from northeast to southwest. It's
• 4:17
  one of the best times of the year to see our
• 4:19
  galaxy from the inside. The new moon just passed
• 4:24
  us on June 25th, which still means we're getting
• 4:27
  darker skies earlier in the week. The first quarter
• 4:31
  moon lands around July 2nd and will rise near
• 4:35
  sunset, staying bright until past midnight. It's
• 4:39
  a good opportunity to study lunar craters with
• 4:42
  a small telescope. Some weeks it feels like the
• 4:52
  universe is just showing off, and lately it's
• 4:55
  been putting on a real show. Whether it's ancient
• 4:59
  galaxies turning up in the deep field, mysterious
• 5:03
  matter finally stepping into the light, the largest
• 5:06
  comet ever spotted, or an asteroid on a moonshot
• 5:10
  trajectory, there's been no shortage of cosmic
• 5:13
  headlines to catch our eye this week. Oh, and
• 5:17
  I almost forgot, down south in my neck of the
• 5:20
  woods, we had a giant daytime meteor light up
• 5:24
  the summer skies a few days ago. complete with
• 5:27
  a sonic boom. It was caught by everything from
• 5:30
  security cameras to dash cams across the southeast
• 5:34
  states. Before we dig into our big story about
• 5:38
  one of the most powerful telescopes ever built
• 5:41
  finally opening its eye on the universe, let's
• 5:44
  take a quick spin through some of the quirkiest
• 5:47
  and most fascinating space news of the week.
• 5:50
  First up, an asteroid dubbed 2024 YR4, a near
• 5:56
  -Earth object roughly 250 meters across, has
• 6:01
  made headlines for a pretty unusual reason. Unlike
• 6:05
  most asteroids we worry about hitting us, this
• 6:08
  one's projected to strike the Moon sometime in
• 6:11
  late 2028. Scientists are actually taking it
• 6:15
  seriously, not because it'll destroy the moon,
• 6:18
  but because it could create a blast visible from
• 6:21
  Earth and possibly threaten satellites orbiting
• 6:24
  nearby. Even more fascinating, the impact would
• 6:28
  provide an unplanned but valuable experiment
• 6:31
  in lunar geology and space debris dynamics. Instruments
• 6:36
  from NASA and the European Space Agency could
• 6:39
  get real -time data on the effects of a mid -sized
• 6:42
  asteroid collision on the moon's surface. So,
• 6:47
  while it's technically a city killer, fortunately,
• 6:50
  it's not aiming for us. Next up, let's meet Zhulong,
• 6:55
  which means red dragon in Mandarin. This beauty
• 6:59
  is the most distant grand design spiral galaxy
• 7:03
  ever discovered, spotted by the James Webb Space
• 7:07
  Telescope at an eye -watering 12 .3 billion light
• 7:11
  -years away. Now remember, the universe is believed
• 7:15
  to be around 13 .8 billion years old, so the
• 7:19
  light from this galaxy has taken almost as long
• 7:23
  to travel here as the universe has been in existence,
• 7:27
  and that's absolutely mind -blowing when you
• 7:30
  think about it. And here's the kicker, spiral
• 7:33
  galaxies, those majestic pinwheels like our Milky
• 7:37
  Way, aren't supposed to be this well -formed
• 7:40
  so early in the universe. At this distance, we're
• 7:44
  seeing Zhulong as it looked just 1 .5 billion
• 7:48
  years after the Big Bang. That's a baby photo,
• 7:52
  cosmically speaking. Most galaxies back then
• 7:56
  were chaotic blobs, still in their awkward teenage
• 8:00
  phase. But Zhulong is already posing for the
• 8:04
  Hubble catalog. Its existence suggests galaxy
• 8:07
  formation models may need some tweaking, or that
• 8:11
  cosmic order arrived much sooner than we thought.
• 8:15
  And speaking of cosmic giants, one of the solar
• 8:18
  system's true leviathans is stirring out past
• 8:22
  Saturn. Meet comet C2014UN271, also known as
• 8:29
  Bernardinelli -Bernstein. a name almost as massive
• 8:34
  as the object itself. This isn't your typical
• 8:37
  icy visitor. Bernardinelli Bernstein is estimated
• 8:41
  to be between 120 and 150 kilometers wide. That's
• 8:47
  about 10 times the size of a typical comet and
• 8:50
  roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island.
• 8:53
  It's currently inbound from the Oort cloud, that
• 8:57
  distant shell of icy bodies that surrounds our
• 9:00
  solar system like a cosmic deep freezer. Even
• 9:04
  though it's still more than 16 astronomical units
• 9:07
  from the Sun, that's beyond the orbit of Uranus,
• 9:11
  it's already active, venting gas and long frosty
• 9:15
  jets. In fact, it was one of the most distant
• 9:18
  comets ever observed with a visible coma. Its
• 9:22
  closest approach will bring it only as near as
• 9:25
  11 AU, and you may recall 1 AU is the distance
• 9:31
  from the Earth to the Sun. It will remain well
• 9:34
  outside Saturn's orbit by 2031, but its sheer
• 9:39
  size and activity make it an incredible object
• 9:42
  of study. It's basically a time capsule from
• 9:45
  the solar system's earliest days, and we're getting
• 9:49
  a front row seat. as it thaws out. And here's
• 9:53
  one more quick news item. It's a true mystery
• 9:56
  with a twist ending. For decades, astronomers
• 9:59
  have known that the visible matter in the universe,
• 10:03
  the stuff made of protons, neutrons, and electrons,
• 10:07
  also known as baryonic matter, just didn't add
• 10:11
  up. The math said it should be there, but when
• 10:14
  we looked, only about half of it could be found
• 10:17
  in stars, gas clouds, and galaxies. Enter fast
• 10:22
  radio bursts, or FRBs, those strange ultra -short
• 10:27
  flashes of radio waves from deep space. Scientists
• 10:31
  realized they could use FRBs like X -rays, tracking
• 10:35
  how much ordinary matter each signal passed through.
• 10:39
  Using a network of these bursts, astronomers
• 10:42
  found the missing baryons in long, wispy filaments
• 10:46
  of gas stretched between galaxies. It's kind
• 10:49
  of like finding socks that fell behind the dryer,
• 10:53
  except on a cosmic scale. The science is evolving
• 10:56
  as we speak, so hopefully we'll learn more in
• 11:00
  the near future. And now for the big story this
• 11:03
  week, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, named after
• 11:08
  the pioneering astronomer who helped discover
• 11:10
  dark matter. It's finally awake and it's already
• 11:15
  making waves. Last Monday, the Rubin team released
• 11:19
  the telescope's first full -color, first light
• 11:22
  image, taken with its 3200 -megapixel camera,
• 11:27
  the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy.
• 11:31
  This thing is an absolute monster in the best
• 11:35
  possible way. Imagine a camera the size of a
• 11:38
  small car, sensitive enough to detect a flashlight
• 11:41
  from the moon, snapping the entire night sky
• 11:45
  again and again for 10 years. The Rubin Observatory
• 11:50
  is located in northern Chile, taking advantage
• 11:53
  of some of the clearest skies on Earth. Its main
• 11:56
  project is the legacy survey of space and time.
• 12:00
  a decade -long scan of the southern sky that
• 12:03
  will create the most detailed time lapse of the
• 12:06
  universe ever made. Three things make Rubin stand
• 12:10
  out from other observatories. One, its size and
• 12:14
  speed. Rubin has an 8 .4 -meter mirror and can
• 12:18
  image the entire southern sky every few nights.
• 12:22
  Two, its resolution. With 3 .2 gigapixels per
• 12:27
  image, Rubin can pick up faint, fast, and fleeting
• 12:30
  objects, like asteroids zipping by or supernovae
• 12:35
  popping off across the universe. And three, it's
• 12:39
  collecting a massive amount of data. Over 10
• 12:43
  years, Rubin will collect about 20 terabytes
• 12:46
  of data per night, building a vast database of
• 12:50
  how the sky changes over time. The first image
• 12:53
  from Rubin is a beauty. The debut features regions
• 12:57
  including the Virgo Cluster with hundreds of
• 13:00
  galaxies packed into view, the Lagoon and Trifid
• 13:03
  Nebula bursting with color and gas, and a segment
• 13:07
  of the large Magellanic Cloud that looks like
• 13:10
  a cosmic wave cresting. Even more impressively,
• 13:14
  in just its first 10 hours of scanning, Rubin
• 13:17
  detected more than 2 ,000 new asteroids, most
• 13:22
  of which were unknown to previous sky surveys.
• 13:26
  Eventually, Rubin is expected to detect billions
• 13:29
  of galaxies, millions of supernovae, and track
• 13:32
  hundreds of thousands of near -Earth objects,
• 13:36
  all while helping scientists tackle the biggest
• 13:38
  questions in astronomy. from dark matter and
• 13:41
  dark energy to the origin of the Milky Way. And
• 13:45
  with the data pouring in, who knows what surprises
• 13:48
  the telescope might catch next? Rogue planets,
• 13:52
  asteroid impacts, or the blink of a dying star?
• 14:10
  where you can contact me and explore past episodes.
• 14:14
  Be sure to follow us on Blue Sky and YouTube.
• 14:18
  Links are in the show notes. Until we meet again
• 14:20
  beneath the stars, clear skies everyone.