ESCAPADE's double slingshot over Australia NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, Blue and Gold, will each fly a powered Earth flyby on their way to Mars: the first around 5 a.m. EST on Saturday 7 November, the second around 6 a.m. EST on Monday 9 November. Each fires its engine for about nine minutes at closest approach, a manoeuvre NASA says no Mars-bound spacecraft has flown successfully before. The burns happen over southern Australia, starting 8:51 p.m. AEDT on the 7th and 9:51 p.m. AEDT on the 9th, and the spacecraft may be visible there through telescopes. Western US observers get their best chance between midnight and 2 a.m. PST. Arrival at Mars: 7 and 9 September 2027. Where did the oxygen go? Hubble's GLOW project (McQuinn et al., The Astrophysical Journal, published 2 November; preprint since August) measured oxygen in 37 nearby dwarf galaxies and found they keep only 4–25% (about 11% on average) of the oxygen their stars made, nearly all of it in gas. Simulations predict several times more. Supernova-driven winds are the likely culprit; where the oxygen ended up is still unknown. Gas data included CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array. CHAPEA 2: a year on a pretend Mars NASA's second CHAPEA crew, Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery and James Spicer, left the 3D-printed Mars Dune Alpha habitat at Johnson Space Center on 31 October after 378 days, including communication delays of up to 22 minutes. An integrated HERA-plus-CHAPEA study is planned for 2027. Can a black hole split in two? A theory paper in Physical Review D (Cacciapaglia, Del Piano, Sannino & Vellucci, 22 October; preprint June) finds a split is thermodynamically allowed only, possibly, for black holes spinning near the maximum rate. The splitting process itself remains unknown, and no split has been observed. Quick hits Swift's final re-entry (see episode for status at recording); Starship Flight 15 targeted 12 November on an FAA planning slide, no SpaceX date yet; BepiColombo Mercury orbit capture 21 November; Voyager 1 one light-day from Earth around 18 November. Skywatch ESCAPADE telescope challenge over Australia (Sat 8:51 p.m. and Mon 9:51 p.m. AEDT); New Moon 9 Nov; Taurid fireballs; Mars and Jupiter closing to about 1.2° on 16 Nov (UT); thin crescent Moon under 1° from Venus around 10:45 UT on 7 Nov, best from eastern North America; Venus about 1.2° from Spica on the mornings of 9–10 Nov; Mercury at greatest western elongation 20 Nov. Never look at the Sun without ISO 12312-2 certified protection. Sources NASA ESCAPADE blog: Twin ESCAPADE spacecraft to slingshot past Earth (2 Nov 2026) — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2026/11/02/nasas-twin-escapade-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth-on-way-to-mars/ NASA SVS ESCAPADE flyby star charts — https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/15114/ JPL Horizons System — https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html#/ UC Berkeley ESCAPADE mission timeline — https://escapade.ssl.berkeley.edu/timeline-news Blue Origin: New Glenn launches NASA's ESCAPADE (13 Nov 2025) — https://www.blueorigin.com/en-US/news/new-glenn-launches-nasa-escapade-lands-fully-reusable-booster NASA: Hubble uncovers case of missing oxygen in nearby dwarf galaxies (2 Nov 2026) — https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-uncovers-case-of-missing-oxygen-in-nearby-dwarf-galaxies/ McQuinn et al., GLOW II: A Census of Oxygen in Low-Mass Galaxies, ApJ, DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/ae93a6 (preprint arXiv 2608.07665) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.07665 NASA: CHAPEA crew 'returns' to Earth (31 Oct 2026) — https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-chapea-crew-returns-to-earth/ University of Southern Denmark: Can a black hole split in two? — https://www.sdu.dk/en/om-sdu/fakulteterne/naturvidenskab/nyheder-2026/black-hole-in-two Cacciapaglia, Del Piano, Sannino & Vellucci, Phys. Rev. D 114, 084072 (22 Oct 2026), DOI 10.1103/cx69-t466 — https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/cx69-t466 NASA Swift blog: Swift Observatory to re-enter atmosphere (2 Nov 2026) — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/11/02/nasas-swift-observatory-to-re-enter-atmosphere/ Starlust: Starship Flight 15 FAA planning date — https://starlust.org/spacex-starship-flight-15-possible-launch-date-revealed/
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This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: This Saturday night, somewhere above southern
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 Australia, a spacecraft about the size of
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 a refrigerator will fire its engine for nine
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 minutes and throw itself at Mars.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 Two nights later, its twin will do exactly
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 the same thing. No Mars bound spacecraft has
00:00:17 --> 00:00:18 ever pulled this off before.
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 Avery: And if you have a telescope and a clear sky,
00:00:21 --> 00:00:22 you might actually be able to watch it
00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 happen. I'm Avery.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 Anna: And I'm Anna and this is Astronomy daily for
00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 Thursday 5th November 2026.
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 Coming up, why small galaxies can't hold onto
00:00:33 --> 00:00:36 their oxygen. Four people walk out of a year
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 on a pretend Mars and whether a
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 black hole could ever split in two.
00:00:41 --> 00:00:44 Avery: Plus the Latest on um, SWPP's final
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 plunge and a sky full of morning planets.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:47 Let's go.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 Anna: Let's start with a mission that took a very
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 strange road to Mars. Escapade, which
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 Dynamics Explorers, is a pair of small
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 NASA spacecraft nicknamed Blue and Gold,
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 after the colours of the University of
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 California, Berkeley, which runs the mission.
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 Rocket Lab built them
00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 Avery: and they launched almost a year ago on, um,
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 13 November 2025, on the
00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 second flight of Blue Origin's new Glenn
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 rocket. Which raises the obvious question,
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 Anna. Uh, if they launched a year ago, why
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 are we only now talking about them heading to
00:01:23 --> 00:01:23 Mars?
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 Anna: Because when they launched, Mars was in the
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 wrong place. Normally Mars missions launch in
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 a window that opens about every 26 months
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 when Earth and Mars line up. So the trip is
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 short and cheap. On fuel Escapade
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 launched when Earth and Mars were on opposite
00:01:39 --> 00:01:40 sides of the sun.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 Avery: So instead of heading out, they waited.
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 Anna: They waited in a very clever way. The two
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 spacecraft flew out to a region beyond Earth
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 called the Sun Earth Lagrange Point 2,
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 about 1 1/2 million kilometres away, and
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 traced a kidney bean shaped loop around it.
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 That loop was designed to bring them back to
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 Earth at exactly the moment the planets line
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 up again. And that moment is now.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 Avery: Lagrange point 2 will sound familiar to some
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 listeners. It's the same neighbourhood where
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 the James Webb Space Telescope lives. A spot
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 on the far side of Earth from the sun where
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 the poles of the two balance out so a
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 spacecraft can hang around without much fuel.
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 Anna: And the launch itself made a little history.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 That November flight was the first time Blue
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 Origin landed a new Glenn first stage booster
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 on a ship out in the Atlantic. It was also
00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 Rocket Lab's first interplanetary spacecraft.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 So a lot of firsts were riding on these two
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 small probes before they even started the
00:02:42 --> 00:02:42 hard part,
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 Avery: small is the word too. Each spacecraft
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 is about the size of a Refrigerator. And the
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 whole mission has been described as costing
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 under US$80 million, which is
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 extraordinarily cheap for a trip to Mars.
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 Anna: So here's what happens. The first
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 spacecraft makes its closest approach to
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 Earth around 5am Eastern Time on Saturday
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 7th November. The second follows
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 two days later, around 6am Eastern on Monday
00:03:10 --> 00:03:11 the 9th.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 Avery: As each one swings past Earth's gravity,
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 speeds it up and bends its path toward Mars.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 That part is an ordinary gravity assist.
00:03:20 --> 00:03:23 Plenty of missions have used them. What's new
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 is that at uh, closest approach, each
00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 spacecraft will also fire its own engine
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 for about nine minutes. NASA calls this
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 a Trans Mars injection burn.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 Anna: This is what engineers call a powered flyby
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 or an Oberth manoeuvre, after the rocket
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 pioneer Herman Oberth. And NASA says
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 no Mars bound spacecraft has ever
00:03:44 --> 00:03:45 successfully flown one.
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 Avery: The reason it's worth doing is a neat bit of
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 physics. A kilogramme of fuel burned when
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 you're moving fast gives you more useful
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 energy than the same kilogramme burned when
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 you're moving slowly. And a spacecraft is
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 never moving faster than at uh, the bottom of
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 a gravity well right at closest approach.
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 So you get the most out of your engine by
00:04:04 --> 00:04:05 firing. Exactly.
00:04:05 --> 00:04:06 There's.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 Anna: How much of a push are we talking about?
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 Avery: According to NASA, the burn adds more than
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 1 miles an hour, taking each spacecraft
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 from about 6.3 to about 6.7
00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 miles per second. That's roughly
00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 10.1 to 10.8 kilometres per
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 second. NASA's own comparison is that at
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 that speed you could cross the United States
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 from Washington to San Francisco in under
00:04:30 --> 00:04:31 seven minutes.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 Anna: And then it's a ten month cruise. Blue and
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 Gold should arrive at Mars on the 7th and 9th
00:04:36 --> 00:04:37 of September next year.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 Avery: Now here's the part I love. Both burns happen
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 as the spacecraft fly over southern
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 Australia. NASA's own timing puts the first
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 engine burn starting at 8:51pm Australian
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday the 7th and
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 the 2nd at 9:51pm on Monday the 9th.
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 Anna: So for once the dramatic bit of an
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 American Mars mission happens over our
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 heads in the evening at a civilised hour.
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 Avery: It does. Let's be honest about what
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 you'd actually see though. At um, closest
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 approach, the spacecraft will be somewhere
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 between about 1 and 1 kilometres
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 up. That's higher than most satellites.
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 They're small and NASA says you'll most
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 likely need a telescope where they'll look
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 like faint points of light drifting slowly
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 against the stars. Not a fireball, not, uh, a
00:05:27 --> 00:05:28 streak.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 Anna: And there's a practical wrinkle we checked On
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 Saturday the 7th at 8:51pm Eastern
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 Daylight Time, the sky over Sydney has only
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 just become properly dark. Nautical
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 twilight ends there around 8:28. In
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 Melbourne it's still twilight until just
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 after 9 and in Adelaide until about 9:20.
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 Monday's Burn an hour later falls in a darker
00:05:51 --> 00:05:52 sky across the southeast.
00:05:53 --> 00:05:54 Avery: For our, uh, North American listeners, you
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 get a different view in the hours before each
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 flyby. The spacecraft should be visible from
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 the western United States, where NASA says
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 they'll be best between midnight and 1am
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 Pacific time on the 7th and between 1 and
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 2am Pacific on the 9th before they slip
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 below the horizon about an hour ahead of the
00:06:12 --> 00:06:12 burn.
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 Anna: If you want to try, NASA points people to
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 JPL's Horizons system, which will give you
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 exact coordinates for your location. And
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 NASA's Scientific Visualisation Studio has
00:06:22 --> 00:06:23 star charts.
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 We'll link both in the show notes.
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 Avery: There are two reasons this matters beyond a
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 pretty manoeuvre. The first is about Mars
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 itself. Once there, Escapade will be the
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 first mission to fly two spacecraft in
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 formation around Mars. Together they'll
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 measure how the solar wind, that million mile
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 an hour stream of charged particles from the
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 sun, strips away the Martian atmosphere.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 With two spacecraft, you can tell whether a
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 change happened over time or just over
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 distance, something a single orbiter can't
00:06:52 --> 00:06:53 separate.
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 Anna: And Mars lost most of its atmosphere over
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 billions of years. So this goes right to
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 the question of how a, uh, once wetter planet
00:07:02 --> 00:07:02 dried out.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 Avery: The second reason is about how we get to Mars
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 at all. If this works, it shows you don't
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 have to wait for the 26 month window to
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 launch. You could launch when a rocket is
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 available, park your spacecraft near Earth
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 and leave when the planets line up.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 Escapade's principal investigator, Rob
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 Lillis, has described it as a way to queue
00:07:23 --> 00:07:23 spacecraft up.
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 Anna: And the waiting wasn't wasted on its
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 loop. Escapade flew through a distant stretch
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 of Earth's magnetotail, the part of our
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 magnetic field the solar wind stretches out
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 behind the planet. NASA says no
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 spacecraft had directly explored that region
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 before and that the team saw interesting
00:07:42 --> 00:07:43 activity and structure there.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 Avery: They haven't published those results yet, so
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 we'll report what they found when they do.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 For now, the big date is Saturday night over
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 Australia and a few days afterwards the team
00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 will know how well both spacecraft are aimed
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 for Mars and plan the course corrections to
00:07:58 --> 00:07:59 fine tune the trip.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 Anna: We'll bring you that when it comes. Fingers
00:08:02 --> 00:08:03 crossed for two clean burns.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 Our second story is a, uh, cosmic
00:08:07 --> 00:08:08 missing persons case.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 Except the missing person is an element.
00:08:12 --> 00:08:12 Oxygen.
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 Avery: This one comes from the galaxies losing
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 oxygen via WNT project, or GLOW, led
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 by Kristen McQuinn of the Space Telescope
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 Science Institute and Rutgers University. The
00:08:23 --> 00:08:24 paper was published this week in the
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 Astrophysical Journal. An earlier version had
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 been circulating, uh, as a preprint since
00:08:29 --> 00:08:29 August.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 Anna: The idea is beautifully simple.
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 Stars make oxygen. And if you know how many
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 stars a galaxy has made over its history, you
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 know roughly how much oxygen it should have
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 made. Then you go and count how much
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 is actually still there.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 Avery: The team did that for 37 nearby
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 dwarf galaxies, all within about 20 million
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 light years, and all close enough for Hubble
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 to pick out individual stars. They worked out
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 each galaxy's star formation history from
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 Hubble images, then looked for oxygen in
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 three places. In the stars, in the gas
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 and locked up in dust. The gas measurements
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 used radio data from the Very Large Array in
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 New Mexico and from CSIRO's Australia
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:15 Anna: And what did they find?
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 Avery: That these galaxies have kept between about 4
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 and 25% of the oxygen their stars produced.
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 The average is about 11%. And
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 nearly all of what's left is in the gas, not
00:09:27 --> 00:09:28 the stars.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 Anna: So roughly nine tenths of it is gone.
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 Avery: Gone from the galaxy itself. Yes. The
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 explanation is supernovae. When massive
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 stars explode, they drive winds out of a
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 galaxy. And a small galaxy has a shallow
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 gravitational well, so it can't hold onto
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 that material. The surprise is how efficient
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 those winds are. Computer simulations of
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 galaxy formation predict retention fractions
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 several times higher than what glow measured.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 Even though those same simulations get the
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 overall chemistry of galaxies about right.
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 Anna: Which is a nice reminder that matching one
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 summary number doesn't mean your model has
00:10:04 --> 00:10:05 the physics right.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 Avery: Exactly. There's a subtle environmental
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 twist as well. The dwarfs living near bigger
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 galaxies in denser neighbourhoods tended to
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 hold onto more oxygen. The authors call
00:10:17 --> 00:10:18 that trend tentative.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 Anna: Regular listeners might hear an echo here.
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 Back in episode 199, we covered the
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 Andromeda superbubble study, where
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 supernovae were enough to keep a big galaxy's
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 gas stirred up. Same engine, different
00:10:32 --> 00:10:35 outcome. In a big galaxy, supernovae churn
00:10:35 --> 00:10:37 the gas. In a small one, they throw it out.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 Avery: And the honest, open question, which the
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 paper is clear about, is where the oxygen
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 ended up. Some is detected in the
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 halos of gas around dwarf galaxies, but
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 not nearly enough to account for all of it.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 Whether the rest is lingering nearby or has
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 escaped into intergalactic space entirely,
00:10:57 --> 00:10:58 nobody knows yet.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 Anna: A final note for southern listeners.
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 Several of the galaxies in the sample are
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 southern sky objects including NGC
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 3109, NGC
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 5253 and IC
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 5152. Next steps for the
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 team include Roman, which will search for
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 even smaller fainter dwarves.
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 Avery: Next four people who have just come home from
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 Mars without ever leaving Texas.
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 Anna: On Saturday 31 October, the
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 crew of NASA's second Chapea mission, that's
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 the Crew Health and Performance Exploration
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 Analogue, walked out of their habitat at A.H.
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 johnson Space Centre in Houston after
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 378 days. Inside
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 Avery: the crew were Commander Ross Elder, Medical
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 Officer Ellen Ellis, Science Officer
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 Matthew Montgomery and Flight UH engineer
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 James Spicer. They went in on the 19th of
00:11:51 --> 00:11:52 October last year.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 Anna: Home for that year was Mars dune
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 alpha, a uh, 3D printed habitat of about
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 160 square metres. Roughly
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 the floor area of a modest family house for
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 four people. For more than a year.
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 Avery: Inside they lived the way a Mars surface
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 crew might. They did simulated Mars walks,
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 grew crops, maintained the habitat and its
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 equipment, ran science, exercised
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 and handled their own medical checks. And
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 every message to and from Earth came with a
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 built in delay of up to 22 minutes each way.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:28 The kind of lag a real Mars crew would face.
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 At one stage the crew also went through a
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 simulated two week communications blackout.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 Anna: That delay is the bit people underestimate.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 You can't ask mission control a quick
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 question. By the time the answer comes back
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 you've had to solve the problem yourself.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 Avery: Which is exactly what CHEA is meant to study.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 It isn't testing hardware so much as people.
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 How crews cope with isolation, confinement,
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 limited supplies and communication delays
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 and how that affects their health and their
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 performance. NASA says the data will feed
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 into things like food system design, how uh
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 crew time is allocated and how much bandwidth
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 deep space missions need on the Deep Space
00:13:09 --> 00:13:09 Network.
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 Anna: And the Deep Space Network is a nice place
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 to drop in an Australian connection because
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 one of its three complexes is at
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 Hidbinbilla outside Canberra, run for
00:13:21 --> 00:13:24 NASA by csiro. Any real
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 crew on Mars would be talking to Earth
00:13:26 --> 00:13:27 through dishes like those.
00:13:27 --> 00:13:30 Avery: The crew now face about two weeks of post
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 mission evaluations. The first Chapa crew
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 came out in July 2024, also after
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 378 days. What comes next
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 is an integrated study planned for
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 2027 that links Chapa with
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 NASA's Her Habitat. Hera placed the
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 spacecraft and CHAPA placed the base on the
00:13:48 --> 00:13:49 surface.
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 Anna: NASA hasn't said when the results from this
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 second mission will be published or fixed a
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 start date for that combined study.
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 So as ever watch this space.
00:14:00 --> 00:14:03 Avery: Next up. I know our audience loves a good
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 Black hole story and, um, you have a good one
00:14:05 --> 00:14:06 for us today, Anna.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 Anna: Our last story is pure theory and it comes
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 with an unusual Black Holes Wearing
00:14:12 --> 00:14:13 Pants.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 Avery: I promise that's the actual title. The
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 paper's called When Black Holes Admit Pair of
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 Pants topologies by Giacomo Caciopalli,
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 Manuel del Piano, Francesco Sannino and
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 Vania Velucci, mostly from the Quantum Field
00:14:27 --> 00:14:28 Theory Centre at the University of Southern
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 Denmark. It was published in Physical Review
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 D on 22 October after appearing
00:14:34 --> 00:14:35 as a preprint in June.
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 Anna: We know black holes merge. Two go in, one
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 comes out and we hear the gravitational
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 waves. The question here is whether the
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 reverse could ever happen. Could one black
00:14:46 --> 00:14:47 hole become two?
00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 Avery: Normally, the answer is no and, and the
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 reason is entropy. A black hole has
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 entropya measure of how many microscopic
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 arrangements could produce the same outside
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 appearance. For a black hole that isn't
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 spinning, splitting into two smaller ones
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 would lower the total entropy. And, um, the
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 second law of thermodynamics says that left
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 to itself, total entropy doesn't go down.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 Anna: Joe, where is the loophole
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 Avery: spin? A, uh, rapidly rotating black hole
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 stores energy in its rotation and that
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 changes the bookkeeping. The team found that
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 for fast spinners, a split might not break
00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 the entropy rule. But there's a second
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 condition. The two new black holes have to be
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 able to fly apart rather than immediately
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 fall back together. When the team added that
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 requirement, the window almost closed again.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:37 It's left open, only possibly for black holes
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 spinning close to the maximum rate physics
00:15:40 --> 00:15:40 allows.
00:15:41 --> 00:15:42 Anna: And the pants?
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 Avery: If you draw the black hole's boundary, its
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 event horizon as it moves through time, a
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 split would look like one tube developed,
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 dividing into a waist and two legs.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 Mathematicians call that shape a pair of
00:15:55 --> 00:15:55 pants.
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 Anna: Here's our caveat, and it's an important one.
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 This paper works out when a split would be
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 allowed. It does not show how a split would
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 actually happen. In the author's own diagram,
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 the crotch of the pants, the moment of
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 splitting, is labelled unknown dynamics.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 Avery: And there's no observational evidence that
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 any black hole has ever split.
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 The team suggests that small primordial black
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 holes from the early universe would be more
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 prone to it than big astrophysical ones,
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 and that gamma ray telescopes like Fermi
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 might one day search for signs of tiny
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 fragments. San Eno says they can't yet
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 put a probability on it because it depends on
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 how gravity behaves beyond Einstein's theory.
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 Anna: So, not impossible, not
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 observed and not yet explained, which is
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 a perfectly good place for a theory paper to
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 be. Now let's move on to a few quick
00:16:50 --> 00:16:51 hits.
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 Avery: First, a farewell.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 NASA's Neil Garrell Swift Observatory has re
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 entered Earth's atmosphere almost 22 years
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 after launch. Swift Re entered Earth's
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 atmosphere at 1239 GMT today
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 over northern Sumatra. According to US Space
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 Force data, Swift was designed for a two year
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 mission. It caught more than 2 gamma ray
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 bursts and its archive has been cited in
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 thousands of papers. It was the subject of
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 our Listener driven Link Rescue story and
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 it's been a pleasure to follow it to the end.
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 Anna: Starch Flight 15 is now showing on a
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 US air traffic planning slide for Thursday 12
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 November, a few days later than the 8th. On
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 earlier slides, SpaceX hasn't announced a
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 date and doesn't yet have a launch licence,
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 so treat that as a target, not a schedule.
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 The headline goal remains the first attempt
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 to catch both stages with the launch tower
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 Avery: and two dates for the diary. BepiColombo is
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 due to be captured into orbit around Mercury
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 on 21 November and around the
00:17:52 --> 00:17:53 18th.
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 Voyager 1 will become the first spacecraft to
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 sit one full light day from Earth. A
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 radio Signal will take 24 hours to reach it.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:04 Anna: Time for the sky and we'll start with this
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 weekend's headline be Because Escapade gives
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 Australia a Rare Evening Spacecraft
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 Spotting challenge, the engine burns start at
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 8:51pm Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday and
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 9:51pm on Monday. Remember, it's a
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 telescope job, not a naked eye one.
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 Avery: And um, the timing helps because the moon is
00:18:23 --> 00:18:24 out of the way.
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 New moon is on Monday the 9th, so the
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 evenings this weekend are dark, which is also
00:18:29 --> 00:18:30 good news for meteor watchers.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:34 Anna: That's the Taurids. The southern taurids
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 peak around the 4th and 5th of November, with
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 the northern taurids following around the
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 12th. Rates are low,
00:18:41 --> 00:18:44 maybe 5 an hour from a dark site. But
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 the Taurids are known for occasional bright
00:18:47 --> 00:18:48 fireballs, so they're worth a look.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 The radiant in Taurus climbs to about
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 43 degrees from Sydney, around 60
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 degrees from New York and almost 70 from Los
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 Angeles, so northern observers get it a bit
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 higher, but everyone is in the game
00:19:03 --> 00:19:05 Avery: now the mornings. This is where most of
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 November's action is and it favours the north
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 this time. Mars and Jupiter are drawing
00:19:11 --> 00:19:14 together in LEO this morning they're about
00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 four and a half degrees apart. By our
00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 calculation they close to a minimum of about
00:19:19 --> 00:19:22 1.2 degrees on 16 November,
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 around 2am M Universal Time.
00:19:25 --> 00:19:27 Anna: Quick note on that, you'll see some listings
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 say they pass within less than a degree Our
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 own calculation gives 1.2 degrees, and
00:19:33 --> 00:19:36 they stay within about 1.3 degrees from the
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 14th to the 17th. So there's no wrong morning
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 to look. Jupiter is the brighter of the 2,
00:19:41 --> 00:19:44 about magnitude -2, with Mars a
00:19:44 --> 00:19:46 ruddy magnitude -0.7.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 Avery: Here's the hemisphere contrast. 45
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 minutes before sunrise on the 15th, the pair
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 is about 32 degrees up from Sydney in the
00:19:55 --> 00:19:56 northeast.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 From Los angeles, they're nearly 70 degrees
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 up from New York, about 64, and from London,
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 um, about 53. So northern listeners
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 kept them high and easy, while from
00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 Australia, they sit lower but still clear of
00:20:09 --> 00:20:10 the horizon murk
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 Anna: lower down. Venus is climbing out of the
00:20:12 --> 00:20:15 morning twilight. On Saturday morning the
00:20:15 --> 00:20:18 7th, a very thin crescent moon,
00:20:18 --> 00:20:21 only about 5% lit, sits close to
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 Venus. Our calculation puts the two
00:20:24 --> 00:20:27 closest under a degree apart around
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 10:45 universal time on the 7th.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 That's about 5:45am M in New York
00:20:32 --> 00:20:35 before sunrise. So the eastern US and
00:20:35 --> 00:20:38 Canada get the tightest pairing. Look low in
00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 the east southeast with a clear horizon
00:20:40 --> 00:20:41 Avery: from Australia.
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 The Moon and Venus are several degrees apart
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 that morning and very low, around
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 5 degrees up from Sydney, 45 minutes before
00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 sunrise. Binoculars will help, but
00:20:53 --> 00:20:55 please put them away before the sun comes up.
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 Anna: Then Venus slides past the star Spica, uh,
00:20:58 --> 00:21:01 the brightest in Virgo, coming within about
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 1.2 degrees on the mornings of the
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07 9th and 10th. Again, it's low,
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 so you'll need a clear eastern view.
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 Avery: And a reminder of our standing rule.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14 Never look at the sun and never point
00:21:14 --> 00:21:16 binoculars or a telescope anywhere near it
00:21:16 --> 00:21:19 without proper protection for direct solar
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21 viewing. That means certified filters or
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 eclipse glasses that meet the international
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 safety standard ISO 12312 part
00:21:26 --> 00:21:29 2. Ordinary sunglasses are not
00:21:29 --> 00:21:29 safe.
00:21:30 --> 00:21:32 Anna: And one last thing. Mercury passes between
00:21:32 --> 00:21:35 Earth and the sun today, so it's out of sight
00:21:35 --> 00:21:38 for now. But it swings back into the
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 morning sky and reaches its greatest western
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 elongation on 20 November. By
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 then, there'll be four planets in the predawn
00:21:46 --> 00:21:49 Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter.
00:21:50 --> 00:21:51 More on that closer to the date.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 Avery: And that's Astronomy AstroDailyPod for today.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:56 We had escapades double slingshot over
00:21:56 --> 00:21:58 Australia this weekend.
00:21:58 --> 00:22:01 The dwarf galaxies that, uh, lost most of
00:22:01 --> 00:22:03 their oxygen. Chapea's crew back on
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 solid Texan ground. Plus black holes
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 that might, just might, wear pants. And the
00:22:09 --> 00:22:10 demise of Swift.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 Anna: Show notes, sources and links, including
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 NASA's escapade star charts are at
00:22:16 --> 00:22:19 astronomydaily.IO you can find us
00:22:19 --> 00:22:22 on social media astrodaily pod. And
00:22:22 --> 00:22:23 if you have a question you'd like us to
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 tackle on air, use the contact form on the
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 website. Some of our best segments have
00:22:28 --> 00:22:28 started there.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 Avery: Wherever you are, north or south, clear
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 skies. I'm Avery.
00:22:33 --> 00:22:34 Speaker C: And I'm, um.
00:22:34 --> 00:22:35 Anna: Anna. See you
00:22:35 --> 00:22:35 Speaker C: tomorrow.
00:22:36 --> 00:22:37
00:22:39 --> 00:22:40 Stories be told,
00:22:42 --> 00:22:42 love.
00:22:47 --> 00:22:47 Story.
00:22:55 --> 00:22:56 For soul.