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A launch day episode packed with big science and bigger rockets. Today we cover the real-time launch of the ESA/China SMILE space weather satellite, SpaceX's Starship V3 sitting on its brand-new pad (and why it's now heading for Thursday), a UCL study warning that megaconstellation launches may be accidentally conducting an 'unregulated geoengineering experiment' in our upper atmosphere, the world's first space-based neutrino detector operating in orbit, extraordinary evidence in Antarctic ice that Earth is collecting material from a dead star, and a clever new cosmic mapper called TIME that studies the ancient universe using a single spectral line.
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This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: How cool is this? Right now, as you're
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 listening to this, a rocket is in space.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 A brand new satellite is on its way to a very
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 unusual orbit, one that will take it a, uh,
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 third of the way to the moon. And it's going
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 to do something no spacecraft has ever done
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 before. Take X ray pictures of Earth's
00:00:19 --> 00:00:20 own magnetic field.
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 Avery: And that's just story one.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily, the
00:00:26 --> 00:00:28 podcast that brings you the universe fresh
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 every single day. I'm Anna.
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 Avery: And I'm Avery. This is season five, episode
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 106. And today, Tuesday,
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 May 19, 2026, we have
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 a genuinely packed show.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 Anna: We've got a historic launch that happened
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 just hours ago. We've got the world's most
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 powerful rocket sitting on a brand new pad
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 ready to fly. Well, almost ready.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 There's a slight schedule adjustment. We'll
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 explain. And we've got a warning from
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 scientists that the rocket boom itself might
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 be quietly changing our atmosphere.
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 Avery: Plus a, uh, shoebox sized detector that could
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 let us see the core of the sun. Some
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 extraordinary news from Antarctic ice, and a
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 clever new telescope that listens to the
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 ancient universe in a completely new way.
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 Anna: Six stories. Let's get into it.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 Avery: Our first story is happening right now, or
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 more precisely, it happened in the early
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 hours of this morning. If you're listening
00:01:25 --> 00:01:26 from Australia or New
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 Anna: Zealand, at 5:52 in the morning,
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 Central European time, a, uh, European
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 Vega C rocket lifted off from the M. Guillot
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 Guiana Space center in Kourou, French Guiana.
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 And aboard it was a spacecraft called Smile.
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 Avery: Smile, which stands for Deep Breath
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 Solar Wind, Magnetosphere
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 Ionosphere Link Explorer,
00:01:48 --> 00:01:49 a name
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 Anna: that is almost impressively unwieldy for
00:01:52 --> 00:01:53 something this elegant.
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 Avery: But what it's going to do is genuinely
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 beautiful. Smile is a joint mission between
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 the European Space Agency and the Chinese
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 Academy of Sciences. Its entire purpose
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 is to study how Earth responds to the sun.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 Not the sun itself, but the interaction,
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 that invisible battle between solar wind and
00:02:13 --> 00:02:14 our planet's magnetic shield.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 Anna: And it's going to do two things that have
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 never been done before. First, it will take
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 X ray images of Earth's magnetic field,
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 specifically the boundary where the solar
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 wind rams into the magnetosphere. That
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 boundary is called the magnetopause, and no
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 spacecraft has ever imaged it in X rays.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 Avery: Second, Smile will watch the aurora, the
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 northern lights, continuously for up to
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 45 hours at a time in
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 ultraviolet. Most aurora observations are
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 snapshots. Smile will give us a full
00:02:48 --> 00:02:48 movie.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 Anna: To do all this, it needs a very
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 unusual orbit. After claunch, it'll fire
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 its engine 11 times over 25
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 days to maneuver into a highly elliptical
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 path, swinging out to 121
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 km above the north Pole, then
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 diving back down to just 5
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 km above the south Pole.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 Avery: That's almost a third of the way to the Moon.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:14 At its furthest point.
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 Anna: It's carrying four science instruments, a
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 soft X ray imager, an ultraviolet
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 aurora imager, a light ion
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 analyzer and a magnetometer. And it
00:03:25 --> 00:03:27 has a planned mission lifetime of three
00:03:27 --> 00:03:27 years.
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 Avery: Worth mooting too. This is the seventh flight
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 of a Vega C rocket and the first time
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 Italian manufacturer Avio operated the
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 vehicle directly, replacing Ariana Space
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 which ran the previous six flights.
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 So multiple milestones today, space weather
00:03:44 --> 00:03:44 is
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 Anna: something that affects all of us. It disrupts
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 satellites, threatens power grids and poses
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 real risks to astronauts. Smile won't just
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 do pure science. It'll help us predict
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 dangerous storms earlier and protect the
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 technology we rely on and the people we're
00:04:01 --> 00:04:01 sending into space.
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 Avery: There's also a geopolitical subplot here.
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 Worth a moment of your time. ESA and China
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 built this mission together from scratch.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 Jointly designed, jointly built, jointly
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 operated. Meanwhile, uh, NASA has been
00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 legally barred from bilateral cooperation
00:04:18 --> 00:04:20 with Chinese space entities since 2011
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 under the so called Wolf amendment. So
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 Smile is quietly saying something about how
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 different parts of the western space
00:04:28 --> 00:04:29 community see that question.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 Anna: And it's now in space. Smile is
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 go now. If you woke up today
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 expecting to watch a Starship launch,
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 SpaceX has a small apology for you.
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 Avery: The debut flight of Starship V3 was
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 originally targeting today. Tuesday it
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 slipped to Wednesday and now it has slipped
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 again to Thursday, May 21 with
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 a launch window opening at 6:30pm Eastern
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 Time, which is 8:30am Friday morning
00:04:57 --> 00:04:58 in Sydney.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 Anna: SpaceX hasn't explained why publicly.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 Likely some final closeout and pre fight
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 check work. Road closures around the Starbase
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 site in Texas remain in place through the end
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 of Thursday, which at least tells us Thursday
00:05:12 --> 00:05:13 is still a live target.
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 Avery: But let's talk about what is sitting on that
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 pad. Because Starship V3 is
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 genuinely a step change from what came
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 before. When stacked Starship
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 V3 stands over 400ft tall,
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 about 123 meters, making it the
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 largest and most powerful rocket ever built.
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 It pairs booster 19 with ship 39
00:05:35 --> 00:05:37 and both are running the new Raptor 3
00:05:37 --> 00:05:37 engines.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 Anna: The Raptor 3 is a meaningful upgrade.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:43 Sea level variants now produce
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 250 tons of thrust each,
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 up from 230 previously.
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 Vacuum engines push to 275
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 tons. The engines are lighter down to
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 about 1525 kilograms each
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 and have an integrated design that eliminates
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 individual engine shrouds. There are also
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 savings across the whole vehicle, running to
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 roughly a ton per engine.
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 Avery: The payload capacity is eye watering.
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 Starship V3 can carry more than 100
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 metric tons to low Earth orbit in full
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 reuse configuration, roughly triple what
00:06:18 --> 00:06:19 the previous version could manage.
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 Anna: And this is also the first launch from
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 orbital launch pad 2 at Starbase, meaning
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 SpaceX can now have two rockets being
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 prepared simultaneously rather than one.
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 That's a huge step toward the launch cadence
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 Elon Musk needs for his Mars ambitions.
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 Avery: For Flight 12 itself. Both the booster and
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 the ship will target controlled splashdowns
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 rather than a tower catch a deliberate step
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 back in ambition to validate the new
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 architecture first before chasing the
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 spectacular. The booster will come down in
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America.
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 About seven minutes after launch, ship
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 39 will splash down in the Indian Ocean off
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 Western Australia, about an hour into the
00:07:01 --> 00:07:01 mission.
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 Anna: During that flight, the ship will also deploy
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 20 dummy Starlink satellites, relight
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 a single Raptor engine in space, and
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 deliberately fly with one heat shield tile
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 removed to measure what happen happens
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 aerodynamically when a tile is missing.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 Avery: The stakes here are enormous. NASA
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 needs Starship to serve as the human landing
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 system for Artemis 4, a crewed lunar
00:07:26 --> 00:07:28 landing now targeted for 2028.
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 SpaceX still needs to demonstrate in orbit
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 refueling at scale, a process requiring more
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 than 10 tanker flights to fuel a single
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 moon mission. Starship V3 is the
00:07:40 --> 00:07:42 vehicle designed to make that economically
00:07:42 --> 00:07:42 possible.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:45 Anna: Watch this space.
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 Quite literally, here's a story that connects
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 directly to everything we just talked about.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 All those rocket launches, all those Starlink
00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 satellites might be doing something to our
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 atmosphere that nobody planned and nobody
00:07:59 --> 00:08:00 is regulating.
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 Avery: A major new study published in the journal
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 Earth's Future, led by researchers at AH
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 University College London, has done the most
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 comprehensive analysis yet of air pollution
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 from satellite mega constellations. The
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 Starlinks, Amazon's Kuiper satellites, the
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 Chinese Guang and Tian Fan systems.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 Anna: And what they found is genuinely alarming.
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 When a rocket launches, it burns kerosene
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 fuel and produces black carbon
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 soot that gets injected directly into the
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 upper layers of the atmosphere. And unlike
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 soot from cars or power plants at ground
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 level, this high altitude soot, uh, lingers
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 for two and a half to three years
00:08:40 --> 00:08:41 because of how
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 Avery: long it stays up there. The climate effect of
00:08:43 --> 00:08:46 rocket launched black carbon is about
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 540 times greater per unit
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 than such from ground level sources. Not a
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 typo. 540 times
00:08:55 --> 00:08:56 by 2029.
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 Anna: The UCL team projects that mega
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 constellations will account for 42%
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 of the total climate impact of the entire
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 space sector, up from 35% in
00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 2020. And they note that their estimate is
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 probably conservative because the actual
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 number of launches since they gathered their
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 data has already exceeded their projections.
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 Avery: What makes this particularly thorny is what
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 the accumulation starts to resemble.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 Scientists have for years discussed a
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 controversial climate intervention called
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 stratospheric aerosol injection. The
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 idea of deliberately spraying reflective
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 particles into the upper atmosphere to block
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 a fraction of sunl and cool the planet.
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 The space industry is essentially beginning
00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 to do accidentally a version of this.
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 Anna: Professor Eloise Meriz, who led the study,
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 used a striking phrase. She called it a
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 small scale, unregulated
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 geoengineering experiment that could have
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 many unintended and serious environmental
00:09:59 --> 00:10:00 consequences.
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 Avery: The effect right now is small. We're talking
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 about 100th of the concentration needed for a
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 meaningful geoengineering intervention. And
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 there's even a slight net cooling effect from
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 the soot, which sounds positive, but comes
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 with the same caveats as all
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 unpredictable impacts on rainfall, weather
00:10:19 --> 00:10:20 patterns and the ozone layer.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 Anna: The ozone layer, by the way, is also
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 affected. Launches and re entries produce
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 chemicals and particles that speed up ozone
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 depleting reactions. The team found that by
00:10:32 --> 00:10:35 2029 the global ozone impact
00:10:35 --> 00:10:36 is still small, about
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 0.02% deplet. But
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 the trajectory is heading in the wrong
00:10:42 --> 00:10:42 direction.
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 Avery: SpaceX has recently applied for permission to
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 launch 1 million Starlink satellites
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 on top of the roughly 12 already in
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 orbit. 1 million. If even a
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 fraction of those are launched, the picture
00:10:56 --> 00:10:57 changes significantly.
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 Anna: The researchers are calling for proper
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 regulation of launch related pollution,
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 something that currently barely exists, and
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 significantly more research funding to even
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 keep pace with the industry's growth.
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 Avery: It's one of those stories where the
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 technology and the environmental impact are
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 running at completely different speeds.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 Anna: Before we move on to our next piece of news,
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 a quick reminder to check out the great deal
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 our uh, sponsor NORDVPN has in place for
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 you at the moment. So the best protection you
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 can get online for less money. Sounds like a
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 win win to me. For full details, just
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 click on the link in the show. Notes.
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 Avery: You forgot to mention, NORDVPN is the one we
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 trust to look after us online. We love them.
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 Anna: Alright, back to today's space and astronomy
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 news and let's go small for a moment.
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 Very small, like shoebox small.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 Avery: On May 3, a SpaceX rideshare
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 mission carried a tiny satellite into low
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 Earth orbit. A uh, 3U cubesat,
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 meaning it's about 30cm long and
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 10cm wide. It goes by the name
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 Snappy, which stands for Solar
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 Neutrino Astroparticle physics.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 Anna: And Snappy is quietly a, uh, historic
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 first. It is the world's first neutrino
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 detector to ever operate in space.
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 Avery: Neutrinos are extraordinary particles.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 They're produced in enormous quantities by
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 nuclear reactions, including the fusion
00:12:24 --> 00:12:26 happening in the core of the sun right now.
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 Every second, hundreds of billions of
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 solar neutrinos pass through your thumbnail.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 They barely interact with anything. They go
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 straight through the Earth as though it isn't
00:12:37 --> 00:12:37 there.
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 Anna: Which makes detecting them extraordinarily
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 difficult. All our existing neutrino
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 detectors are massive underground facilities,
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 hanks containing thousands of tons of water
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 or ice, buried deep in mountains or
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 frozen in Antarctic glaciers. You need
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 enormous amounts of material to have any
00:12:57 --> 00:12:58 chance of catching a neutrino.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 Avery: Snappy is the opposite of that. It's a tiny
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 detector made of crystals of gallium and
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 tungsten sitting in a satellite orbiting at
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 500 km altitude. The whole thing
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 was designed by physicist Nicholas Salome at
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 uh, Wichita State University with electronics
00:13:15 --> 00:13:16 from NASA Marshall.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 Anna: It won't detect many neutrinos. The detector
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 mass is far too small for that. This is
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 explicitly a proof of concept. The goal
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 is to answer one question. Can space
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 based neutrino detection work at all?
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 Because if it can, the next step is
00:13:33 --> 00:13:34 extraordinary.
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 Avery: Salome has described the end goal as, and I
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 love this phrase, putting a microscope into
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 the core of the Sun. A larger detector on
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 a future mission could fly close enough to
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 the sun to directly image the fusion shells
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 around the solar core. We would be able to
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 see in real time what is happening inside the
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 most powerful nuclear furnace in our solar
00:13:56 --> 00:13:56 system.
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 Anna: Snappy is currently undergoing on orbit
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 testing. Its two year mission is just
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 beginning. And if it works, it opens a
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 completely new chapter in both solar
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 science and neutrino astronomy.
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 Avery: Big things, shoebox sized
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 packages next.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 Anna: This is the story that if you stop and think
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 about it properly, will make you feel things
00:14:20 --> 00:14:21 M Our solar
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 Avery: system is not sitting still in empty space.
00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 It's moving constantly through the Milky Way.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 And right now we are passing through a region
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 known as the local interstellar cloud.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 A vast thin region of gas and dust between
00:14:35 --> 00:14:35 the stars.
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 Anna: As we move through it. Earth is sweeping up
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 material from this cloud, including something
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 called iron 60. Iron 60
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 is a radioactive isotope of iron that
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 isn't produced naturally on Earth. It can
00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 only be made in one place inside
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 a dying star in the moments of a
00:14:55 --> 00:14:56 supernova explosion.
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 Avery: A new study led by researchers at Germany's
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 Helmholtz Centrum Dresden. Rostorf has
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 confirmed something remarkable. They analyzed
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 Antarctic ice cores, ice that has been
00:15:08 --> 00:15:10 accumulating for tens of thousands of years,
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 layer by layer, trapping whatever drifted
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 down from the atmosphere at the time. And in
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 that ancient ice, they found Iron 60
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 steadily arriving, varying over time,
00:15:22 --> 00:15:23 but persistently there.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 Anna: The pattern of how the iron 60 arrives and
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 the way it varies tells the researchers that
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 this material has been stored inside the
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 local interstellar cloud since a stellar
00:15:35 --> 00:15:37 explosion that happened long, long ago.
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 And as Earth moves through the cloud, it
00:15:40 --> 00:15:41 picks some up.
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 Avery: Think about what that means. The ice in
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 Antarctica is preserving a record of our
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 solar system's journey through the galaxy.
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 The atoms that blew off a dying star are now
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 sitting in the ice at the South Pole, and
00:15:54 --> 00:15:56 scientists can read that record.
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 Anna: The study also helps scientists understand
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 the structure and boundaries of the local
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 interstellar cloud, a region whose edges and
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 properties are still being mapped. Our
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 solar system has been inside it for tens of
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 thousands of years and will eventually exit
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 it, moving into whatever lies beyond.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 Avery: We are quite literally moving through space,
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 and the universe is leaving fingerprints on
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 our planet as we go. I find that
00:16:23 --> 00:16:24 extraordinary.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 Anna: Our final story today is about a problem that
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 has frustrated astronomers for decades, and a
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 clever new instrument that might solve it.
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 Avery: The early universe is full of ancient
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 galaxies, galaxies that formed when the
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 universe was young, when star formation was
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 happening at an extraordinary rate. But
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 they're so far away and so faint that even
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 our most powerful telescopes struggle to
00:16:48 --> 00:16:48 study them.
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 Anna: Individually, though, astronomers have done
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 something ingenious. Instead of trying to
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 resolve individual galaxies, they've built an
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 instrument that looks at a whole crowd of
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 them at once and tracks one spectral
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 line across the entire population.
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 Watching how that line changes over time and
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 across cosmic distances gives you a
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 statistical picture of what all those
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 galaxies are doing collectively.
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 Avery: The instrument is called time, the
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 Tomographic Ionized Carbon Mapping
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 Instrument. And, um, the spectral line it
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 focuses on comes from ionized carbon, a
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 tracer for star formation. Carbon emission
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 tells you where gas is being turned into
00:17:29 --> 00:17:30 stars.
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 Anna: Time essentially makes a three dimensional
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 map of carbon emission across huge
00:17:35 --> 00:17:38 stretches of cosmic history. You're not
00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 seeing individual galaxies, you're. You're
00:17:41 --> 00:17:43 seeing the aggregate glow of star formation
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 across the ancient universe, shifted and
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 stretched by cosmic expansion.
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 Avery: The tomographic part of the name is key.
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 Tomography means imaging by slices, like a
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 CT scan. But for the cosmos, time
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 slices through cosmic time by measuring how
00:18:00 --> 00:18:01 the carbon line appears at different
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 frequencies, each corresponding to a
00:18:04 --> 00:18:05 different distance and era.
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 Anna: It's a bit like trying to study a
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 conversation in a crowded room. You can't
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 hear every individual voice, but you
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 can measure the overall hum, how it changes
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 over time, when it gets louder, when it
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 fades. And from that you learn an
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 enormous amount about the crowd.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 Avery: Time represents a new class of cosmological
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 instruments, one designed not for precision
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 individual observation, but for the
00:18:31 --> 00:18:34 statistics of the universe at scale. And the
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 first results are already showing promise.
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 Anna: It's a reminder that sometimes the most
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 powerful approach isn't to look harder at
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 one thing, it's to look differently at
00:18:44 --> 00:18:45 everything.
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 Avery: Before we wrap up, a quick look at the sky
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 for our Southern Hemisphere and Australian
00:18:50 --> 00:18:50 listeners.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 Anna: And there's something genuinely lovely
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 happening right now in the western sky after
00:18:56 --> 00:18:56 sunset.
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 Avery: Venus is blazing in the evening sky. It's one
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 of the brightest things you can see after the
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 sun goes down. And over the next few nights,
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 the crescent moon will be moving past it,
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 creating a beautiful close pairing in the
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 west. Look low on the western horizon about
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 45 minutes to an hour after sunset. You won't
00:19:15 --> 00:19:16 need binoculars.
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 Anna: And looking ahead to the end of the month,
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 mark May 31st in your calendar, we
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 get a full moon and it's a blue moon, the
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 second full moon in a single calendar month.
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 It won't actually look blue, but it is a
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 rarer event and it'll be a beautiful full
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 moon to observe clear skies, everyone.
00:19:36 --> 00:19:38 That is Astronomy daily for Tuesday, May
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 19th. Six stories, one launch day,
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 one rocket sitting on a brand new pad and a,
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 uh, shoebox changing the future of physics.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 Avery: If you enjoyed today's episode, please
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 leave us a review. It really does help new
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 listeners find the show. You can find us at
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 astronomydaily IO and we're
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 @astrodaily pod on all the major platforms.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 Anna: Astronomy Daily is part of the bites.com
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 podcast network. We'll be back tomorrow with
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 more of the universe freshly delivered.
00:20:09 --> 00:20:10 Avery: See you then.