- Axiom Mission Delay: In this episode, we discuss the indefinite postponement of the Axiom Space AX-4 mission to the International Space Station, caused by a newly detected air leak in the Russian Zvezda module. NASA and Roscosmos are working diligently to investigate the situation, ensuring the safety of future missions.
- SpaceX Starship Flight 8 Investigation: The FAA has concluded its investigation into the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap, attributing the incident to a hardware failure. We review the corrective measures implemented by SpaceX ahead of their Flight 9 mission and what this means for the future of space exploration.
- Discovery of a Massive Cosmic Cloud: Astronomers have uncovered a colossal cloud of energetic particles enveloping a galaxy cluster, stretching over 20 million light years. This astonishing find challenges existing theories about particle energisation over vast distances, prompting a re-evaluation of our understanding of the universe.
- Ancient Lunar Glass Beads: Explore the fascinating discovery of tiny orange glass beads on the Moon, remnants of ancient volcanic eruptions. New research is uncovering their secrets, providing insights into the Moon's volcanic history and its geological evolution over billions of years.
- The Teenage Vampire Star: Meet Gaia22ayj, a white dwarf star engaging in a unique "vampiric" behaviour by feeding on plasma from a companion star. This discovery offers significant clues to the life cycle of white dwarfs and the dynamics of binary star systems.
- Terraforming Mars: Scientists unveil an ambitious three-phase plan to terraform Mars, aiming to transform the Red Planet into a habitable environment. From warming the planet to introducing engineered organisms, this long-term vision could reshape our understanding of planetary ecosystems and benefit Earth in the process.
For more cosmic updates, visit our website at astronomydaily.io. Join our community on social media by searching for #AstroDailyPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music, TikTok, and our new Instagram account! Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you for tuning in. This is Anna signing off. Until next time, keep looking up and stay curious about the wonders of our universe.
Chapters:
00:00 - Welcome to Astronomy Daily
01:10 - Axiom mission delay
10:00 - SpaceX Starship Flight 8 investigation
15:30 - Discovery of a massive cosmic cloud
20:00 - Ancient lunar glass beads
25:00 - The teenage vampire star
30:00 - Terraforming Mars
✍️ Episode References
Axiom Space Mission Updates
[NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/)
SpaceX Starship Investigation
[SpaceX](https://www.spacex.com/)
Cosmic Cloud Discovery
[Astronomy Journal](https://www.astronomy.com/)
Lunar Glass Beads Research
[Lunar Science Institute](https://www.lunarscience.org/)
Gaia22ayj Discovery
[Astrophysical Journal](https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0004-637X)
Terraforming Mars Research
[Mars Society](https://www.marssociety.org/)
Astronomy Daily
[Astronomy Daily](http://www.astronomydaily.io/)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your source for the latest news from
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 the cosmos. I'm your host Anna, and I'm
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 thrilled to guide you through today's fascinating stories.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 We've got a jam packed episode lined up for you. We'll
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 be diving into everything from yet another delay to the
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 Axiom mission due to an air leak on the iss
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 to a giant cosmic cloud that's baffling scientists
00:00:21 --> 00:00:24 and even a plan to terraform Mars.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 So buckle up and let's explore the universe together.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 Alright, first up, NASA and Axiom Space
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 are putting the brakes on the axe 4 private
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 astronaut mission to the International Space Station.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 Yeah, apparently there's a bit of a hiccup with an air
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 leak in the Russian Zvezda module.
00:00:43 --> 00:00:46 This leak which they actually spotted back in 2019.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:49 It's been a headache for Roscosmos, but now
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 NASA says they've detected a new pressure signature
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 in the module. So to give everyone
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 a bit more time to investigate and figure out what's going
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 on, they've decided to delay the mission
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 indefinitely. Roscosmos is doing
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 their thing, inspecting the module, sealing
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 off different areas and trying to keep the pressure stable.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 The mission was supposed to launch shortly, but has been delayed to
00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 allow further analysis of the situation.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 Now switching gears a little bit with a quick update. The
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 FAA has officially closed its investigation into
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap.
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 The culprit, a hardware failure in one of the
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 engines apparently. But the good news is
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 SpaceX has taken some corrective actions to prevent
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 this from happening again. And the faa,
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 they've gone ahead and verified that those actions were
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 implemented before The Starship Flight 9 mission just last
00:01:42 --> 00:01:42 month.
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 Alright, next up in the news, astronomers
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 have stumbled upon something truly gigantic and kind of
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 mind bending. They've discovered this
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 massive cloud of energetic particles. And
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 when I say massive, I mean massive. This thing is
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 wrapped around a galaxy cluster and stretches out for about
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 20 million light years. To put that
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 in perspective, our entire Milky Way galaxy
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 is only about 100 light years across.
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 So yeah, this cloud is huge. Now what's really
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 interesting is that this discovery is kind of messing with our current
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 theories about how these particles manage to stay
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 energised or over such insane distances.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 It's like we thought we had things figured out and then the
00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 universe throws us a curveball. It's pretty cool stuff.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 M switching gears now, let's talk about something
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 a little closer to home. Well, our
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 celestial home, that is the Moon.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 Remember those Apollo missions? Well,
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 apart from the iconic footprints and moon rocks, the
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 Astronauts found something pretty special.
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 Tiny brilliant orange glass beads scattered, scattered
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 across the lunar surface. And get this,
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 these little beads, each smaller than a grain of
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 sand, are actually ancient time capsules.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 They were formed during volcanic eruptions on the moon
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 billions of years ago. New research is
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 using advanced microscopic techniques to analyse these
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 beads. And they're revealing all sorts of info about the
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 moon's volcanic past. It's like reading the diary of
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 a lunar volcano, only instead of words, the story is
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 written in tiny glass beads. Pretty neat, huh? Huh?
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 Now for a discovery that sounds like something straight out of a sci
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 fi movie. Astronomers have found what they're calling
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 a missing link in the world of dead stars.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 It's a white dwarf named
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 Gaia22ayj. And it's been
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 dubbed a teenage vampire because it's actively feeding on
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 plasma from a nearby companion star. I know,
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 sounds kind of wild, right? This white dwarf is basically sucking the
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 life force or stellar material from its
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 neighbourhood. And this vampiric behaviour is giving astronomers
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 some major clues about the life cycle of white dwarf
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 pulsars. See, stars like our sun eventually turn
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 into these things called white dwarfs after
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 they've used up all their fuel. Sometimes, if
00:03:54 --> 00:03:57 they have a companion star nearby, they can get a second
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 wind, a second chance at life by stealing material
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 from that companion. Gaia22AYJ
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 is special because it's caught in the act of this mass transfer, this
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 vampiric feeding process. It's like finding a
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 missing puzzle piece that helps us understand how these white dwarf
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 pulsars evolve and how binary star
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 systems, where two stars orbit each other,
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 change over time. So a teenage vampire
00:04:20 --> 00:04:23 star. Who knew? The universe is full of surprises, folks.
00:04:23 --> 00:04:24 The universe is full.
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 Okay, so now let's travel to Mars, because
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 scientists have actually outlined a three phase plan to
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 terraform the red planet. Yeah, you heard that right.
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 Terraforming. Using the latest in climate modelling,
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 space tech, and even synthetic biology, they're
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 envisioning a future where Mars could actually be habitable.
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 The first phase, warming up the planet. I mean, Mars is
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 pretty chilly, right? So they're talking about using things
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 like solar mirrors and engineered aerosols to trap more
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 heat and get the temperatures up. Phase
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 two is all about building an alien ecosystem.
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 And that's where it gets really interesting. M
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 scientists want to introduce specially engineered organisms,
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 extremophiles that can withstand the harsh conditions
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 on Mars. These little guys would start to transform
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 the planet's chemistry, maybe even produce oxygen.
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 And the third phase focuses on technologies that could also
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 benefit Earth. So things like crops that
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 can resist drought and better ways to understand and
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 model our own ecosystems. I mean it sounds like a
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 win win situation, right? Terraforming Mars
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 while learning how to better take care of our own planet. It's a long
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 term vision for sure, taking potentially hundreds of years,
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 but it's pretty cool to think about the possibility of a
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 greener, more Earth like Mars in the
00:05:39 --> 00:05:39 distant future.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 And with that idea out there, it's time to say that's
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 all for today's Astronomy Daily. Thanks for
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 listening. This episode was hosted by me, anna.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 Visit astronomydaily.IO to sign up for our
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 free daily newsletter and and catch up on the latest space
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 and astronomy news with our constantly updating
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 newsfeed. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 podcasts, Spotify and YouTube or wherever
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 you get your podcasts. Until next time. You know what to
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 do. Keep looking up. Our universe is an
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 extraordinary place and you never know what you might see.
00:06:13 --> 00:06:13 Bye