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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily.
00:00:02 --> 00:00:03 I'm Anna.
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 Avery: And I'm avery. It's Monday, June 29,
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 and the universe has been absolutely refusing
00:00:09 --> 00:00:10 to take the weekend off.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 Anna: Tonight is the full strawberry moon and
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Mercury just went retrograde, so we have the
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 sky watching angle covered.
00:00:18 --> 00:00:19 But there is so much more.
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 Avery: A galaxy that baffled 25 years of
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 professional expertise, spotted first by a
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 citizen scientist. Uh, a Japanese spacecraft
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 about to attempt one of the closest asteroid
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 flybys in history. And new evidence that
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 Mars was geologically far more complex than
00:00:36 --> 00:00:37 anyone imagined.
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 Anna: Plus, new data from ESA's Juice
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 spacecraft that reveals what interstellar
00:00:43 --> 00:00:46 comet 3i Atlas was doing just
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 days after it rounded the Sun. And a
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 candid NASA audit that puts some very large
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 numbers on the Artemis program's canceled
00:00:54 --> 00:00:54 hardware.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 Avery: It is a packed Monday. Stay with us.
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 Anna: Our first story today is one of those
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 discoveries that makes you stop and think
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 about the sheer scale of the universe and
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 also about who gets to discover it.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 Avery: A citizen scientist, not a professional
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 astronomer, not a research institute, was the
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 first person to spot one of the most unusual
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 radio galaxies ever recorded. And the
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 lead researcher who followed up the find says
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 it is unlike anything he has seen in 25
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 years of studying these objects.
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 Anna: The object is called RAD Barg. That
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 stands for radio bow and arrow,
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 Radio Galaxy. And the name tells you
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 almost everything because when you look at
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 this thing in radio light, it genuinely looks
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 like a drawn bow and arrow glowing in space.
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 Avery: The discovery was published on June 22 in the
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 Society, and it was made by an international
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 team working with the RAD at Home Astronomy
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 ah collaboratory in India. Uh, a
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 citizen science program that gives volunteers
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 access to telescope data to look for
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 unusual features that professional surveys
00:02:02 --> 00:02:03 might miss.
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 Anna: The volunteer who found it was scanning
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 images from the LOFAR radio telescope,
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 the Low Frequency Array based in the
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 Netherlands, and flagged an asymmetric
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 structure that simply didn't look like any
00:02:16 --> 00:02:17 known radio galaxy.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 Avery: And when the scientists looked closer, they
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 saw something remarkable. Radbarg
00:02:22 --> 00:02:25 stretches nearly 1.8 million light
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 years across. For scale, our entire
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 Milky way is about 100 light years
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 wide. This structure is roughly 18
00:02:34 --> 00:02:34 times that.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 Anna: What makes it so unusual is its shape.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 Most radio galaxies follow a familiar
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 A supermassive black hole at the center
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 fires two jets of charged particles
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 outward in opposite directions, creating a
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 symmetric dumbbell shaped structure.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 Rad Barg doesn't look like that at all.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 Avery: Instead, one of the jets appears to have
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 slammed into something, a vast front of
00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 compressed plasma, and lit it up in
00:03:02 --> 00:03:04 radiolight. That glowing arc, shaped like
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 the curve of a bow, spans nearly
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 560 kiloparsecs in the radio
00:03:09 --> 00:03:10 data.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 Anna: On the opposite side, the other jet bends and
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 twists into an S shaped structure with a
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 faint offset tail. The leading
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 explanation is a bow shock. The host
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 galaxy of Radbarg appears to be falling
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 supersonically into a nearby galaxy
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 cluster, plowing through the thin hot gas
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 that fills the space between galaxies.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 Avery: And um, just like a supersonic aircraft,
00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 produces a shock wave in front of it, a
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 galaxy moving faster than the speed of sound
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 in that gas can compress and heat it,
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 creating a giant shock front.
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 Anna: The radio emitting plasma from Rad Barg
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 appears to illuminate that shockwave, making
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 visible something that astronomers have long
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 predicted, but almost never directly
00:03:54 --> 00:03:55 observed in radio light.
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 Avery: Lead author Dr. Ananda Hota of the University
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 of Mumbai said the structure is unlike
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 any radio galaxy he has seen in 25
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 years. His co lead, Dr. Pratik
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 Dabade of the national center for Nuclear
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 Research in Poland noted that the complex
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 multi halo environment makes this especially
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 exciting. We're seeing gas flows
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 infall and possible shocks reshaping
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 radioplasma over millions of light years of
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 space. And crucially, this discovery
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 came directly from the citizen science
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 community. The Data came from LOFAR's
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 2 Meter Sky Survey, whose third
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 data release, covering more than 80% of the
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 northern sky, came out earlier this year.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 Rad Barg shows what might be hiding in that
00:04:41 --> 00:04:42 massive dataset.
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 Anna: The team is hoping that AI and machine
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 learning tools can now be applied to find
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 similar systems. And the next generation
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 Square Kilometer Observatory, currently under
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 construction, will be able to survey the sky
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 with even greater sensitivity. Rad Barg
00:04:58 --> 00:04:59 may turn out to be
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 Avery: just the beginning, a triumph for citizen
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 science and a reminder that the universe is
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 still hiding things from us until an alert
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 volunteer spots them from a hillside data
00:05:09 --> 00:05:09 center.
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 Next up, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 has been on an extended mission for several
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 years now after it already delivered what
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 many consider the most scientifically
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 valuable asteroid sample ever returned to
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 Earth. And next Sunday, July 5th,
00:05:26 --> 00:05:27 it's about to attempt something
00:05:27 --> 00:05:28 extraordinary.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 Anna: A flyby of an asteroid called tori fune,
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 designated 2001 CC21,
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 at a closest approach distance of somewhere
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 between 1 and 10 kilometers at a
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 speed of 5.3 kilometers per second.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 That is roughly 19 kilometers
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 per hour. And the spacecraft's cameras were
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 not designed for this kind of encounter.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 Avery: For some context, Hayabusa2, launched in
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 December 2014, traveled to the
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 asteroid Rigu, deployed rovers and landers
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 onto Its surface fired an impactor to
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 create an artificial crater, collected
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 samples from below the surface and returned
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 that material to Earth in December 2020.
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 Five grams of Rigu, but an extraordinary
00:06:13 --> 00:06:14 five grams.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 Anna: After releasing this sample capsule over
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 Australia, the spacecraft still had fuel
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 remaining. Rather than decommission it, JAXA
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 approved an extended mission, now called
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 Hayabusa2, and redirected it
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 toward two new targets. Tori Fune
00:06:30 --> 00:06:31 is the first.
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 Avery: Jaxa Satoshi Tanaka presented the mission
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 status at the 35th NASA Small Bodies
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 Assessment Meeting on June 11, describing the
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 Torifune flyby as one of the closest
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 asteroid encounters ever attempted by a
00:06:44 --> 00:06:45 mission of this class.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 Anna: What makes it so challenging is the geometry.
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 At uh, that speed and that distance, the
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 window of observation is extremely short. The
00:06:54 --> 00:06:56 spacecraft will sweep past in a matter of
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 seconds. The navigation cameras have to be
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 precisely aimed, the timing has to be right,
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 and the whole sequence has to execute
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 autonomously because there is no time for
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 ground control corrections.
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 Avery: Tori fune is roughly 450 meters
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 wide, a mid sized near Earth asteroid.
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 Scientists believe it may be an L type
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 asteroid, potentially containing calcium
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 aluminum inclusions, some of the oldest
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 primitive material in the solar system. But
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 that classification is uncertain and the
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 flyby data will help pin it down.
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 Anna: After Terephone, Hayabusa2
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 continues on a long arc toward its second
00:07:35 --> 00:07:37 target, asteroid
00:07:37 --> 00:07:38
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 KY26, a fast spinning
00:07:42 --> 00:07:45 micro asteroid just 30 meters across,
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 with which it will rendezvous in July
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 2031. That will be the first ever
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 close encounter with an asteroid of that
00:07:54 --> 00:07:54 size.
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 Avery: But for now, next Sunday, July 5,
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 one of the closest asteroid flybys ever
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 attempted. A spacecraft that was never
00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 designed to do this. Doing it anyway.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 Hayabusa2 has already exceeded its mission
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 objectives once. It is about to do it again.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 Anna: Mars is often described as a dead planet.
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 No plate tectonics, no active volcanism,
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 a frozen core, a thin atmosphere.
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 And for a long time, scientists assumed its
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 geological history was correspondingly
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 simple. Isolated volcanoes, simple
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 basaltic crust. Nothing like the complex
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 churning geology that made Earth habitable.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 Avery: A new study published on June 26 in the
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 journal Nature Astronomy suggests that
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 picture is fundamentally wrong.
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 Researchers from the University of Oxford, in
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 collaboration with the University of Bristol,
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 have found seismic evidence that Mars once
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 hosted enormous Earth like magmatic
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 systems spread across potentially hundreds or
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 even thousands of kilometers of its northern
00:08:57 --> 00:08:57 hemisphere.
00:08:58 --> 00:09:01 Anna: The key is a boundary layer about 24
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 km below the Martian surface.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 Scientists already knew this boundary
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 existed. What they didn't know was what it
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 meant. The new analysis, based on
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 seismic data from NASA's InSight mission,
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 which recorded marsquakes and meteoroid
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 impacts before being retired suggests
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 this boundary marks a zone of melt
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 depleted rock, rock that has already had
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 magma extracted from it.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 Avery: That's a signature of what geologists call
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 transcrustal magmatism, a process
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 where molten rock rises from the mantle,
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 pools within the crust, differentiates,
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 gets mixed and reprocessed, and slowly
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 builds up complex crustal material over
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 millions of years. On Earth, this process
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 is driven by plate tectonics. The key
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 finding here is that Mars appears to have
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 done it without plate tectonics.
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 Anna: Bead author Dr. Tobramori Mackay
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 Champion put it traditionally,
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 complex silica rich crust was thought to
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 require plate tectonics and subduction.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 This study suggests Mars can build complex
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 crust through long lived transcrustal
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 magmatic systems where mantle derived
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 magma is stored, differentiated, mixed
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 and assimilated within the crust. Plate
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 recycling is not the only route.
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 Avery: Professor John Wade of Oxford added a
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 striking application. If Mars could develop
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 this kind of complex crust without plate
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 tectonics, then maybe the conditions needed
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 for habitability can emerge on more planets
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 than we realized, including those we've
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 previously dismissed because of their
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 apparent lack of tectonic activity.
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 Anna: There are also more practical implications.
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 Systems like these on Earth are known to
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 generate large mineral and metal deposits.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 The study suggests Mars may hold
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 significantly more near surface mineral
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 wealth than previously assumed, something
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 that could matter greatly for any future
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 human presence on the Red Planet.
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 Avery: Mars is not a simple, geologically boring
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 world. It just did its geology differently.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 And the universe, it turns out, has more than
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 one way to build a complex planet.
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 Time for your sky watching update. And
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 tonight is genuinely worth stepping out for
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 because the full Strawberry Moon reaches its
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 peak at ah, 2358 UTC. That
00:11:22 --> 00:11:23 that's just before midnight in Universal
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 Time, which means most of our listeners will
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 see it at its fullest either late tonight or
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 early tomorrow morning, depending on your
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 time zone.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 Anna: The Strawberry Moon gets its name from early
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 Native American traditions. It marked the
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 time of year when wild strawberries began to
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 ripen. It's also been called the Rose Moon
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 and the Honeymoon, giving us the phrase
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 honeymoon since June was historically
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 considered an auspicious time for weddings.
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 Avery: Tonight the moon rises in Sagittarius near
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 the well known teapot asterism. For
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 observers across Australia and New Zealand,
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 the teapot will be reasonably well placed in
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 the northern sky. After dark, the moon will
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 be brilliantly bright, so fainter stars will
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 wash out. But the bright stars of Sagittarius
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 should still be visible around it.
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 Anna: One thing to note for our Southern Hemisphere
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 listeners, in winter, the Full Moon
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 rises higher in the sky for you, which
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 actually gives you better viewing conditions
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 for this kind of event than our friends in
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 the Northern Hemisphere get during their
00:12:23 --> 00:12:24 summer full Moons.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 Avery: And there's an astronomical event today that
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 you won't actually be able to see with your
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 eyes, but is worth knowing about. Mercury
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 begins its retrograde motion today, June
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 29th. This is the apparent reversal
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 of Mercury's movement against the background
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 stars caused by the geometry of Mercury's
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 faster orbit relative to Earth.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 Anna: You won't see Mercury move backward in
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 real time. It's far too subtle for that. But
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 if you track its position night by night over
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 the coming weeks, you'll see it trace a small
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 loop against the background stars before
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 resuming its normal eastward motion.
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 It's a lovely demonstration of orbital
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 mechanics if you have the patience to follow
00:13:06 --> 00:13:06 it.
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 Avery: Mercury is currently a challenging target
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 anyway, sitting low in the western sky after
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 sunset and getting lower. But Venus
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 is blazingly bright and easy to find in the
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 west after dark. And the crescent Moon
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 earlier in the month created some lovely,
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 lovely conjunctions that astrophotographers
00:13:24 --> 00:13:25 took full advantage of.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 Anna: Tonight, though, the Strawberry Moon is the
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 star of the show. Get outside, look up,
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 and enjoy it.
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 Time now to revisit an old friend. We've
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 covered interstellar comet 3I ATLs
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 extensively on this show from its discovery
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 last July through its perihelion pass, its
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 chemistry, its ancient isotopic signature.
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 But the data from that encounter is still
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 coming in. And this week, ESA published the
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 results from one of the most unusual
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 scientific opportunities of the entire 3i
00:13:57 --> 00:13:58 ATLAS mission.
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 Avery: ESA's JUICE spacecraft, the Jupiter
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 Icy Moons Explorer, was in the right place
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 at the right time with the right instruments.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 In November 2025, just days
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 after 3i ATLs made its closest approach
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 to the Sun, JUICE turned 5 of its
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 science instruments towards the comet. The
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 data took months to arrive on Earth, but it
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 has now been analyzed, and the early results
00:14:23 --> 00:14:24 are fascinating.
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 Anna: Here are five things Juice revealed.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 First, the water output. On November 2,
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 2025, just four days after perihelion,
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 JUICE's Magis spectrometer
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 detected 3i ATLAS was releasing
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 approximately 2 kilograms
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 of water vapor every single second.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 That is equivalent to filling 70 Olympic
00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 swimming pools every day.
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 Avery: Second, um. Despite its interstellar origin,
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 three I ATLs behaved like a typical
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 solar system comet during its close approach
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 to the sun. JUICE's Janus camera
00:15:00 --> 00:15:03 showed a coma and activity consistent with
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 what you would expect from a comet formed
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 right here in our own system. The universe
00:15:08 --> 00:15:10 appears to make comets using broadly Similar
00:15:10 --> 00:15:11 rules.
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 Anna: Third, JUICE's navigation camera was
00:15:14 --> 00:15:17 pressed into unexpected scientific service.
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 NAVCAM is designed to help Juice navigate
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 around Jupiter's icy moons when it arrives in
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 2031. But during the Three Eye
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 Atlas encounter, it captured images from a,
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 uh, novel vantage point, different from Earth
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 based telescopes. At times when the comet
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 wasn't even visible from Earth. That gave
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 ESA's planetary defense team a better
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 fix on the comet's trajectory than they could
00:15:43 --> 00:15:43 have obtained.
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 Avery: Fourth, the encounter revealed how well
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 prepared JUICE's instruments actually are for
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 their primary mission. The same tools built
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 to study Europa, Ganymede and Callisto,
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 icy moons with complex chemistry,
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 turned out to be remarkably well matched to
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 studying an interstellar icy comet. The
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 team says the data has made them more excited
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 than ever about what Juice will find at
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 Jupiter in the2030s.
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 Anna: And fifth, the overall picture emerging from
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 JUICE, combined with the JWST
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 isotopic data we discussed last week,
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 paints a, uh, consistent portrait. Three I
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 ATLS is very old. Formed
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 possibly 10 to 12 billion years ago
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 in a stellar system that predates our Sun.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 It spent billions of years in the cold
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 darkness of its home system before being
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 ejected on a journey that would eventually
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 bring it briefly through ours.
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 Avery: Juice itself has one more Earth gravity
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 assist coming in September 2026,
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 when its instruments will be switched on
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 again before the long cruise to Jupiter. The
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 common encounter was a remarkable bonus for a
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 mission with a very different primary
00:16:54 --> 00:16:54 purpose.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 Anna: 3i ATLAS is gone, heading out
00:16:58 --> 00:17:01 of the solar system, never to return. But
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 it has left behind a remarkable scientific
00:17:03 --> 00:17:04 legacy.
00:17:04 --> 00:17:06 Avery: Our final story today takes us from the
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 science of space to the economics of it, and
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 it involves some large numbers.
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 Anna: A memo from NASA's Office of Inspector
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 General published this past week has found
00:17:16 --> 00:17:18 that the total value of NASA hardware
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 contracts that were canceled as part of the
00:17:20 --> 00:17:23 Artemis Program restructuring came to
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 $5.9 billion.
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 5.9 billion.
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 Avery: Now, for context, the Artemis program is
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 NASA's flagship effort to return humans to
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 the moon. With Artemis 2 having
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 already carried four astronauts around the
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 moon earlier this year, the program has been
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 hugely ambitious, hugely expensive, and
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 has gone through significant changes,
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 particularly around which contractors build
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 which components and what the architecture
00:17:54 --> 00:17:55 looks like.
00:17:55 --> 00:17:57 Anna: The Inspector General's review found that
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 canceled hardware contracts included items
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 that had experienced cost increases and
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 extended timelines before being cut. The
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 audit highlights the scale of the program's
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 evolution and the real financial cost of
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 changing direction in large scale space
00:18:13 --> 00:18:13 programs.
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 Avery: To be clear, this doesn't mean $5.9
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 billion was simply lost. Some
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 of that work will have produced useful data
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 technical knowledge or partially completed
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 hardware. And program restructuring of this
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 kind is not unusual in aerospace development.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 The Space Launch System itself went through
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 years of design evolution before its first
00:18:35 --> 00:18:36 flight.
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 Anna: But it is a significant figure, and it
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 arrives at a moment when NASA is navigating a
00:18:41 --> 00:18:44 complex budget environment and Preparing for
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 Artemis 4, the first crewed lunar
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 landing currently targeting 2028.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 Avery: The ODA is a reminder that returning to the
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 Moon is not just a scientific and
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 engineering challenge. It is also a program
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 management challenge, one that involves
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 billions of dollars, hundreds of contractors,
00:19:03 --> 00:19:05 and years of decision making under conditions
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 of political, technical and financial
00:19:08 --> 00:19:09 uncertainty.
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 Anna: The numbers are sobering, but the program
00:19:11 --> 00:19:14 continues, and the end goal humans on
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 the moon and eventually beyond, remains one
00:19:17 --> 00:19:19 of the most ambitious endeavors in human
00:19:19 --> 00:19:20 history.
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 And that is a wrap on Astronomy daily for
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 Monday, June 29th. What a lineup.
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 A galaxy shaped like a bow and arrow, a
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 spacecraft hurtling toward an asteroid, a
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 new picture of ancient Mars, tonight's full
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 strawberry moon, the last data from our
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 interstellar visitor, and a candid look at
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 the cost of going back to the moon.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 Avery: The universe never disappoints. And, um,
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 neither do you, our listeners. Thank you for
00:19:47 --> 00:19:47 joining us.
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 Anna: If you're enjoying Astronomy Daily, please
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 subscribe wherever you're listening and leave
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 us a review. It genuinely helps more people
00:19:55 --> 00:19:55 find the show.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:57 Avery: Until tomorrow. Clear skies.
00:19:58 --> 00:19:59 Anna: Clear skies, everyone.