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Episode Summary In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six major space and astronomy stories: the James Webb Space Telescope's historic first direct study of a rocky exoplanet's surface; a dramatic upward revision of Io's volcanic heat output; the release of the FLAMINGO cosmological simulation dataset; a new technique for finding planets in binary star systems; the discovery of a novel state of matter inside ice giants; and how to watch tonight's Eta Aquarid meteor shower live online. Story Links & References Story 1 — JWST Exoplanet Surface Study Nature Astronomy: LHS 3844 b thermal emission spectrum — doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02860-3 Space.com coverage: space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/james-webb-space-telescope-directly-studies-an-exoplanets-surface-for-the-1st-time Story 2 — Io Volcanic Power Revised arXiv pre-print: arxiv.org/abs/2605.00100 | Phys.org: phys.org/news/2026-05-massively-underestimated-io-thermal-output.html Story 3 — FLAMINGO Dataset Release Durham University: durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2026/04/astronomers-release-gigantic-cosmological-simulation-dataset Leiden University: universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2026/04/astronomers-release-massive-set-of-virtual-universes-for-global-research Story 4 — TESS Binary Star Planets NASA Science: science.nasa.gov/missions/tess/for-nasas-tess-stellar-eclipses-shed-light-on-possible-new-worlds Story 5 — New State of Matter in Ice Giants Nature Communications: Carnegie Institution quasi-1D superionic phase study Universe Today: universetoday.com (April 30, 2026) Story 6 — Eta Aquarid Livestreams Livestream guide: space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/watch-the-eta-aquarid-meteor-shower-online-with-these-free-livestreams ALMA Observatory livestream available via the above link. Peak: pre-dawn May 6 AEST.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily,
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 your daily guide to the universe and
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 everything in it. I'm Anna.
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 Avery: And I'm avery. It's Tuesday the 6th of
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 May, 2026, and we are coming at you
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 with six incredible stories today from a
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 robotic telescope that just read the geology
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 of a world 50 light years away to a
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 meteor shower. You can watch live online
00:00:24 --> 00:00:24 right now.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 Anna: That's right, and we have a stunning mix of
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 planetary science, exoplanet discovery,
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 cosmological simulation, and some very
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 welcome skywatching news for our Southern
00:00:35 --> 00:00:36 Hemisphere listeners.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 Avery: Let's get straight into it. Story one is
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 genuinely historic.
00:00:41 --> 00:00:44 Anna: For years, when astronomers pointed the James
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 Webb Space Telescope at a distant rocky
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 world, they were really studying its
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 atmosphere, the thin shell of gas around
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 a planet. Today, uh, we're talking about
00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 something different, something that has never
00:00:56 --> 00:00:57 been done before.
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 Avery: That's right. Astronomers have now used
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 JWST to directly analyze the
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 actual surface of a planet beyond our solar
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 system. Not its atmosphere, its surface,
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 the rock itself. And what they found is
00:01:11 --> 00:01:12 remarkable.
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 Anna: The planet in question is called LHS
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 3844B. It's, uh, a so
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 called super earth, about 30% larger
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 than our own planet. And it sits roughly
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 48 and a half light years away,
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 Avery: Now, this planet is an extreme situation.
00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 It orbits its star so closely that it
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 completes a full year in just 11 hours.
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 11 hours, Anna. Um, that's your entire
00:01:41 --> 00:01:42 working day and then some.
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 Anna: And because of that extreme proximity,
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 it's tidally locked, meaning one face
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 permanently points toward the star baking in
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 intense heat, while the other side sits in
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 permanent darkness. The dayside reaches
00:01:57 --> 00:01:58 temperatures of around
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 725 degrees
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 Celsius that is hot enough to melt lead.
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 With room to spare, the research team
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 Avery: led by Laura Kreidberg at the Max Planck
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 Institute for Astronomy In Germany used
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 JWST's mid infrared instrument n
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 known as MIRI, to measure the thermal
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 emission radiating directly from the planet's
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 blazing hot dayside. They observed three
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 secondary eclipses, moments when the planet
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 slipped behind its star, and used those
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 measurements to build a picture of what the
00:02:28 --> 00:02:29 surface is made of.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 Anna: And the result? Dr. Kreidberg described it
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 directly. We see a, uh, dark, hot,
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 barren rock devoid of any atmosphere.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 The surface appears to be composed of dark,
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 low silica material particles, probably
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 basalt or other olivine rich rock.
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 Think volcanic plains like those you'd find
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 on the Moon or on Mercury.
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 Avery: Importantly, the team was able to rule out a
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 number of things. There's no Earth like
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 silica rich crust the kind that forms through
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 water driven geological processes and plate
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 tectonics. There's no evidence of accumulated
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 volcanic gases, no carbon dioxide, no
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 sulfur dioxide. This is a geologically
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 quiet, airless, ancient world.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 Anna: And while that might sound a bit bleak, the
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 significance here is huge. The published
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 paper in Nature Astronomy calls this the
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 next step in unveiling the nature of distant
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 planets. We're no longer just detecting
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 exoplanets or guessing at their atmospheres.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 We're starting to read their geology.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 Avery: Think about what that means for the future.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 With more observations like this, we'll be
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 able to build up a geological census of rocky
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 worlds across the galaxy. That knowledge
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 feeds directly into our understanding of
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 which worlds might be capable of supporting
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 life, and which are simply very impressive.
00:03:50 --> 00:03:51 Very hot pieces of rock.
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 Anna: A dark, hot, barren rock, but
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 a dark, hot, barren rock that just made
00:03:58 --> 00:03:59 scientific history.
00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 Avery: Sticking with the theme of worlds that are
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 frankly hostile to life, let's talk
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 Anna: about IO, Jupiter's
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 extraordinary moon, the most
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 volcanically active body in the entire
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 solar system. A world being continuously
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 kneaded by the gravitational tug of war
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 between Jupiter and its larger sibling moons,
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 ganymede and Europa.IO
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 Avery: has over 400 volcanic features called
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 paterae, essentially giant
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 depressions filled with lava lakes.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 Scientists have been measuring the heat
00:04:31 --> 00:04:33 output of these features for decades, and a
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 new study released just yesterday suggests
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 we've been getting it dramatically wrong.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 Anna: The paper, now available as a preprint on
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 arXiv, uses data from Juno's infrared
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 instrument, the Gyram, to look at IO's
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 Paterae in a completely new way. And it
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 turns out previous measurements were only
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 seeing part of the picture for a long time.
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 Avery: Scientists measured IO's volcanic heat output
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 using what's called the M band, um, of
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 infrared. And the M M band is excellent at
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 picking up the really hot bright spots at the
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 active edges of lava lakes, where fresh
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 uncooled magma is churning. What it
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 misses is the vast, cooler, older crust
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 that forms across the rest of the lava lake
00:05:15 --> 00:05:15 surface.
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 Anna: And that crust, it turns out, is enormous.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 It's much, much more massive than those hot
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 peripheral rings. So while it's cooler in
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 temperature, its sheer scale means it
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 contributes a staggering amount of total
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 thermal output. Bateem used Gyram's
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 updated data, which can detect those lower
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 temperatures, to build a
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 Avery: revised picture for one well studied
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 patera alone, known simply as P63.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 The old estimate was around 7 gigawatts of
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 thermal output. Some models put it at
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 20. The new gyrom data 80
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 gigawatts from a single lava lake.
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 Anna: To put that in perspective, the entire output
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 of the UK's electricity grid is around 40
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 gigawatts. One volcanic depression on IO
00:06:01 --> 00:06:02 is putting
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 Avery: out double that, and that's just one of
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 the 400 patere. The study only looked at
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 32 of them. The implications for IO's
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 total heat budget are significant. We may
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 have been underestimating this moon's thermal
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 fury by an order of magnitude.
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 Anna: And the study also found something intriguing
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 about the crust itself. Using thermal
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 cooling models, the team estimated that a
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 crust at 200 Kelvin would be roughly
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 13 years old, meaning these lakes
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 resurface on timescales of about a decade.
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 So the geology of IO is incredibly
00:06:36 --> 00:06:38 dynamic, constantly renewing itself.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 Avery: IO never stops surprising us. And now, thanks
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 to Juno, we're starting to truly understand
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 just how powerful this extraordinary little
00:06:47 --> 00:06:47 moon is.
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 Anna: Now we're going to zoom out, way,
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 way out, from one single moon to,
00:06:54 --> 00:06:55 well, the entire universe.
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 Avery: An international team of astrophysicists led
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 by researchers at Durham University in the UK
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 and Leiden University in the Netherlands, has
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 just released one of the largest cosmological
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 data sets ever assembled. We're talking
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 about two and a half petabytes of data.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 Anna: Two and a half petabytes. That is equivalent
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 to roughly half a million high definition
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 movies, all now freely available to
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 researchers anywhere in the world.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 Avery: This is the Flamingo project, a, uh, suite of
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 large scale computer simulations that model
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 how matter has evolved across the universe
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 right from the Big Bang through to the
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 present day. The simulations were run on the
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 Cosma 8 supercomputer at Durham, which is
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 part of the DRAC National High Performance
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 Computing Facility in the UK.
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 Anna: And what makes Flamingo special is its scope.
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 Many detailed simulations focus on small
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 regions of space. You get great detail on
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 individual galaxy formation, but you can't
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 see the big picture. Other simulations
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 capture vast cosmic volumes, but lose
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 resolution at the small scale. Flamindo
00:08:01 --> 00:08:01 does both.
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 Avery: Its simulations stretch across billions of
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 light years, allowing researchers to study
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 rare massive structures like galaxy clusters,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 while still capturing the physics of
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 individual galaxy formation. The
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 cosmic web, that vast network of filaments
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 and nodes along which galaxies are
00:08:19 --> 00:08:21 distributed, is reproduced across these
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 volumes in extraordinary detail.
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 Anna: The data includes 22 full
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 hydrodynamical simulations. Galaxy
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 and Halo catalogs, all sky maps and
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 particle data. Because the dataset is so
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 vast, the Flamingo team also built a
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 custom web based system so researchers can
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 access just the data they need without having
00:08:43 --> 00:08:46 to download the entire archive.
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 Avery: Matouch Aler of Leiden University summed up
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 the ambition well, open access to datasets of
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 this Scale can significantly accelerate
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 scientific progress. Since Flamingo
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 simulations were first introduced in 2023,
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 they've already been used in dozens of
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 studies. Now the full dataset is public, the
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 scientific community can do so much more.
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 Anna: This is open science at its most ambitious.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 Virtual universes freely given to the world.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 Avery: And hopefully the world will receive it in
00:09:16 --> 00:09:17 the spirit it is given.
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 Anna: Now, before we move on to our next story, I'd
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 like to quickly remind you of our sponsor,
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 NordVPN. As I keep saying, when you're ready
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 to secure your online life, make sure you get
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 NordVPN. It's the one we use and
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00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 guarantee, which means there's nothing to
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 lose. When you're ready to check it out, make
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 sure you use our special link, which you'll
00:09:44 --> 00:09:45 find in the show.
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 Avery: Notes from the very large to the very
00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 precise.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 Our next story is about a clever new
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 technique that's unlocking a whole new
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 population of planets that we've been
00:09:55 --> 00:09:56 struggling to find.
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 Anna: This one has a lovely Australian connection,
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 which we always enjoy. The study was led by
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 Margo Thornton, a doctoral candidate at
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 unsw, the University of New South
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 Wales in Sydney. And it tackles a real
00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 challenge in exoplanet science.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 Avery: So here's the problem. NASA's TESS satellite
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 finds planets by detecting tiny dips in
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 starlight as a planet passes in front of its
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 star. It's brilliant and it's found hundreds
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 of confirmed planets. But there's a class of
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 systems it really struggles. Binary
00:10:29 --> 00:10:29 stars.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 Anna: Binary stars are pairs of stars in orbit
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 around each other, and they're very common. A
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 huge fraction of stars in our galaxy have a
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 companion. The complication is that when you
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 have two stars doing their own thing, it
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 becomes very hard to tease out the much
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 smaller signal of a planet passing in front
00:10:49 --> 00:10:50 of one of them.
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 Avery: But m this new approach uses a different
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 approach entirely. Instead of looking for the
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 planet's shadow, it looks for the planet's
00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 gravitational fingerprint. As a planet orbits
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 in a binary system, its gravity gently
00:11:03 --> 00:11:05 tugs on the stars and that changes the
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 precise timing of when the two stars eclipse
00:11:08 --> 00:11:08 each other.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 Anna: It's a beautiful idea. You're not watching
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 the planet at all, you're watching the stars
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 dance and noticing when something is slightly
00:11:17 --> 00:11:18 out of step.
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 Avery: And it works. The team applied this eclipse
00:11:21 --> 00:11:24 timing technique to test data and uncovered
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 more than 25 new exoplanet candidates
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 orbiting in binary star systems.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 Systems where traditional transit detection
00:11:32 --> 00:11:33 methods simply
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 Anna: couldn't find them before this study,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 only 18 such circumbinary
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 planets had ever been confirmed across all
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 all telescopes combined. Sixteen from
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 NASA's retired Kepler mission, plus two
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 found by TESS itself. This new method
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 has the potential to dramatically expand that
00:11:52 --> 00:11:52 number.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 Avery: It's a reminder that the way we look for
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 things matters as much as what we're looking
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 for. Great work from the UNSW team
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 showing that Australia is very much at the
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 frontier of exoplanet discovery.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 Anna: Our penultimate story takes us to the outer
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 solar system, to those mysterious
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 underexplored giants, Uranus and Neptune.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 Avery: We often call them the ice giants, but that's
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 a bit of a misnomer. Their interiors are not
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 cold at all. They're subjected to
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 temperatures in thousands of degrees and
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 pressures millions of times greater than
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 anything at Earth's sea level. It's an
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 environment we simply cannot recreate in a
00:12:30 --> 00:12:30 lab.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 Anna: And because of that, the physics of what
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 happens to materials under those conditions
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 has long been the subject of theoretical
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 modeling. Now, a new paper published in
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 Nature Communications from researchers at the
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 Carnegie Institution has added a striking
00:12:47 --> 00:12:48 new entry to that catalog.
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 Avery: They've identified a, uh, previously
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 unrecognized state of matter that may exist
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 in these extreme environments. A phase they
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 call quasi one dimensional
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 superionic. It's a mouthful, so
00:13:02 --> 00:13:03 let's break that down.
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 Anna: Superionic materials are already
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 fascinating. In a normal solid, both the
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 ions and electrons are locked in place. In
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 a normal liquid, both flow freely. A
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 superionic state is something in between.
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 The ion lattice is solid, but some
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 particles flow through it like a liquid. We
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 actually believe a superionic phase exists
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 deep inside Uranus and Neptune already.
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 But this new phase is different.
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 Avery: The quasi one dimensional part refers to the
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 fact that in this newly identified phase, the
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 flowing particles don't move freely in all
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 directions. They're constrained to flow along
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 narrow one dimensional channels within the
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 material structure. It's like water moving
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 through a, uh, network of pipes rather than
00:13:49 --> 00:13:50 flooding a room.
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 Anna: This is significant because the behavior of
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 materials in ice giant interiors
00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 governs everything from their magnetic field
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 generation to their heat flow, to their
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 atmospheric dynamics. If we've been missing
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 an entire phase of matter that exists in
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 these conditions, our models of how Uranus
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 and Neptune actually work may need revision.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 Avery: With new missions to the ice giants being
00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 seriously discussed by both NASA and ESA for
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 the coming decades, this kind of foundational
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 physics work is exactly what's needed to
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 ensure we know what questions to ask when we
00:14:25 --> 00:14:26 get there.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 Anna: A new state of matter hidden inside two
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 worlds just a few billion kilometers away.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 Sometimes the Most exotic physics doesn't
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 require going to another galaxy, just the
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 outer edge of our own solar system.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 Avery: M and finally, something you can do something
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 about tonight, or more precisely in the pre
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 dawn hours of tomorrow morning.
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 Anna: The Eta Aquarian meteor shower is at its
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 peak right now. And for our Southern
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 Hemisphere listeners, particularly our
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 Australian and New Zealand friends, this is
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 one of the best meteor events of the year.
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 Avery: The Eta Aquariids are the debris of Halley's
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 Comet, the legendary comet that last swept
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 through the inner solar system in 1986
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 and won't return until 2061.
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 Every year in early May, Earth plows through
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 the trail of dust and rock particles Halley
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 has left behind across its 76 year
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 orbit. And those particles burn up in our
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 upper atmosphere as spectacular shooting
00:15:24 --> 00:15:24 stars.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 Anna: What makes the Eta Aquaria special for the
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 Southern Hemisphere is geometry. The radiant,
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 the point in the sky the meteors appear to
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 stream from in. The constellation Aquarius
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 rises high in the sky before dawn. From
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 Australia and New Zealand, it reaches a
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 really favorable altitude, meaning you can
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 expect to see up to 50 meteors per hour
00:15:46 --> 00:15:47 under ideal conditions.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 Avery: There is a caveat. This year, a waning
00:15:50 --> 00:15:53 gibbous moon is hanging around in the sky and
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 it will wash out some of the fainter meteors.
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 But the brighter ones, the proper fireballs,
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 should punch through just fine. Your best
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 window is in the hours before dawn, away from
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 the Moon, lying back on a blanket and looking
00:16:06 --> 00:16:06 up.
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 Anna: And if clouds are in the way or you're deep
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 in the city, or you simply can't face a
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 4am alarm, there's good news. There are free
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 live streams of the shower available online.
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 One particularly impressive option comes from
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 the Alma Observatory in Chile's Atacama
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 Desert, one of the driest, clearest places
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 on Earth and one of the premier sites in
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 world astronomy. You'll find links in our
00:16:30 --> 00:16:31 show notes.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 Avery: So whether you're watching from a dark
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 paddock under the Milky Way or from your
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 lounge with a coffee at sunrise, you can join
00:16:38 --> 00:16:41 millions of people tonight in witnessing the
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 cosmic legacy of Halley's Comet.
00:16:43 --> 00:16:46 Anna: Shooting stars, every single
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 one. A tiny piece of one of the most
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 famous objects in the history of
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 human sky watching. That never
00:16:55 --> 00:16:55 gets old.
00:16:56 --> 00:16:57 Avery: And that's a wrap.
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 On today's Astronomy Daily, we've read the
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 geology of an alien world. We've discovered
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 IO is even more powerful than we thought.
00:17:06 --> 00:17:08 We've opened two and a half petabytes, uh, of
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 virtual universe to the world. We've found
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 new planets around binary stars. We've
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 discovered new states of matter inside Ice
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 Giants. And we've told you exactly where to
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 watch a meteor shower tonight.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 Anna: Not a bad day's work for a Tuesday. If you
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, leave
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 a review, and share us with a friend who
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 loves space as much as we do. You can
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 find us at astronomydaily.IO and on
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 socials. AstroDailyPod.
00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 Avery: We're part of the bytes.com podcast
00:17:41 --> 00:17:43 network. Until tomorrow. Keep looking up.
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 Anna: This is Anna and Avery. Clear
00:17:46 --> 00:17:47 skies, everyone.
00:17:48 --> 00:17:49 Avery: Astronomy Day.
00:17:51 --> 00:17:52 The stories we told.