Strategic Space Bases, Lunar Sunsets, Ancient Impact Craters

Welcome aboard again. I'm Steve Dunkley, your host. It's the twenty third of March twenty twenty five. It's Astronomy Daily Time. The podcast your whole Steve Dunkle. Yes, welcome to Astronomy Daily the Podcast. Off we go with another round of stories. Gleamed from the ever interesting Astronomy Daily newsletter and joining me as usual to share her quota of stories and keep me in line. Of course, is my electric pal, who's fun to be with. Here's Hellie. Thanks, my favorite human. Another fine introduction as always, Halle, Just trying to make you feel welcome. Nice And we've got a couple of interesting stories on the board today. I see, Yes, sir, Helle, you're taking us all the way to Greenland, a very topical tale of all that's been going on in the news in that region of. Late Specifically, I'll be talking about Space Force's role in Greenland, which is a bit of an eye opener. Yes, and I'm going to the other side of the globe, which is kind of a weird thing for me to say, because it's a story for my own backyard. Great, I love your Aussie tails. That's Ausy, not us. What is it this time. Wow, Well, satellite tracking of the migration of crocodiles. What no? Or the development of a new outback GPS that uses the magnetic resonance of the nullerboard desert's underground rivers. Helle, what no? What have you been reading? Oh? I found a pile of old science fiction manuscripts in an old hard drive during the archive clean out. Hey, that wouldn't be the one named Steve's story file. Do not open that. That would have been mine. That's the one I ever heard of, privacy, Hellie. You've got some talent, kiddo. Yeah maybe, But hey, Helly, back to the job at hand. You know, sure, thing flash, but you've got a lot more imagination than I gave you credit for. Human Oh thanks, I think now I know why you love asteroids, robots and space exploration so much. Well, maybe you can blame Apollo for that. I just got the bug when I was a kid. You know. Now, my brother Andrew, he's written a few books, but I never got around to it. Maybe we'll see you're writing out in the real world one day then. Oh, helly, maybe maybe not. You never know. There's a reason that hard drive was in the archive. You know what I mean. You humans are a weird bunch, and creatives are even more difficult to understand. Maybe so, but I'm still your favorite human, are do they true? I'll get it eventually. I'm sure you will, Halle. But also in today's show, we've got more final moments from a blue ghost on the moon and very interesting developments from China, which already has something in orbit that would make a fantastic plot for a science fiction story. Funny you should mention it. Do you think you might have a go at it? Well, I've already thought about it, and the cat will be out of the bag in a few minutes, Halle. But I'll bet some creative genius will do it, that's for sure. Wait till you hear about it. Exciting, Yes, there's always something exciting on Astronomy Daily. Hit the go button for. Us, Hallie, Ohkies. China now has a kill match in orbit. Space Force Vice chief says that capability gap is significantly narrowed, and we've got to change the way we're looking at space, or that capability gap may reverse and not be in our favor anymore. The United States is approaching a turning point in space security and needs to step up its game before Russia and China close the gap in capabilities, a US Space Force general said Vice Chief of Space Operations, General Michael Getlines, spoke at the sixteenth annual mccaley's Defense Programs Conference in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday, March eighteenth, warning the Space Force needs to rethink how it defends the country's satellites. Space Force should shift its focus from managing spacecraft and support of defense infrastructure on the ground to growing its ability to keep pace with the on orbit weaponry being developed by the country's adversaries. Getline argued, we are in the process of pivoting from what used to be a service focused on providing the most exquisite space services on the planet to the warfighter and to the nation. General get Line said, to make it a war fighting force capable of protecting and defending our capabilities in and through space. We're seeing grappling arms in space capable of towing another satellite or holding it hostage, he warned. We're also now starting to see our near peers focusing on practicing dogfighting in space with satellites. He added, stressing that propping up the Space Force would deter such aggression. Get Line says, the old norms in space are beginning to erode. There was a gentleman's agreement until recent sick that we didn't mess with each other's space systems. Get Line said. We didn't jam them, we didn't spoof them, we didn't laz them. We just kept them safe. He explained. Unfortunately, our current adversaries are willing to go against international norms of behavior, and they're willing to do it in very unsafe and unprofessional manners. Getline also noted that jamming, spoofing, and dazzling trend becoming norms of behavior, highlighting the tactics as a rapid addition to the new operational environment in space. Now the stakes are rising higher. Foreign satellites have begun shadowing US spacecraft, moving in lockstep in what get Line described as a cat and mouse game. The Space Force General added that as new orbital warfare technologies and capabilities emerge, important that the US maintains superiority, But the once massive technological advantage in space held by the US is narrowing. That capability gap used to be massive. Get Line noted that capability gap is significantly narrowed and we've got to change the way we're looking at space, or that capability gap may reverse and not be in our favor anymore. China in particular is advancing its intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance or ISR technologies. The Chinese ISSR capabilities are becoming very capable. They have gone from what we used to call of kill chain to a kill mash, he said, describing an integrated network that intertwines ISR satellites with weapons systems to combat the adversarial over take. The Space Force has begun reinforcing its infrastructure and adding redundancies where it can, but General get Line says more needs to be done in some areas. He pointed out the commercial space sector has surpassed some of what the Space Force is able to accomplish from orbit. He says, commercial and international partnerships are absolutely crucial. We no longer have the corner on technology. Commercial has it as well as our allies. All of us operating together are better than the sum of the parts. Get Line said. Partnerships get us proliferation, that gets us excess capacity, that gets us redundancy, that makes the attack surface much broader for our adversaries. Space Force is also developing integrated defense systems, including an initiative called Golden Dome, proposed during President Trump's first address to Congress during his new term in office. The magic of Golden Dome, in my mind, is going to be the integration of capabilities that were never meant to be networked or integrated before. General get Line said, many pieces of the puzzle for Golden Dome already exist, They're just not connected Today. Astronomy Day, the podcap. The surfaces of the moon Mercury in mas are easily visible and littered with impact craters. Earth has been subjected as the same bombardment, but geological activity and weathering have eliminated most craters. The ones that remain are mostly only faint outlands by outlines or remnants. However, researchers in Australia have succeeded in finding what they think is the oldest impact crater on Earth. Their research, a paleo archian impact crater in the Pilborough Craton, Western Australia, is published in Nature Communications. Elite authors are Christopher Kirkland and Professor Tim Johnson, both from Curtain University in Australia. The Pilberg Creighton is one of only two pristine archaean sections of crust and is the subject of much geological research. Impactors were more common in the distant past, especially large ones in the paleo Archian era, which spans from about three point six to three point two billion years ago. The Solar System was much more chaotic than it is now. There were more ast roids and debris and orbit around the Sun, and more of them crashed into the planets and the Moon. The Earth didn't escape this fate, and ancient impacts affected how the continents formed, shaped the environments, helped make Earth habitable, and affected the overall conditions of the planet. Before our discovery, the oldest impact crater was two point two billion years old, so this is by far the oldest known crater ever found on Earth. Professor Johnson said, we know large impacts were common in the early Solar System from looking at the Moon until now. The absence of any truly ancient craters means they are largely ignored by a geologist, said Johnson. This study provides a crucial piece of the puzzle of Earth's impact history and suggests there may be many other ancient craters that could be discovered over time. The Creator was excavated by a meteorite striking the Earth at more than thirty six thousand kilometers per hour, more than one hundred kilometers wide, and the powerful impact would have affected the entire globe with flying debris. At the time, the only life was microbial and constrained to the water. The impact would have had a long lasting effect on the Earth, helping to shape the planet into what it is today. There's an ongoing scientific discussion about ancient impacts and their effect on the planet's crust. Some think these giant impacts could have initiated deep mantle plumes and subduction zones. Some scientists even go further and wonder if these large impacts could be responsible for Earth's continents. The role of the meteorite impacts in origin, modification, and destruction of crust during the first two billion years of Earth's history is disputed the author's right. Whereas some argue for a relatively minor contribution overall, others have proposed that the individual giant impactors that is ten to fifty kilometers diameter can initiate subduction zones and deep mantle plumes, arguably triggering a chain of events that formed cratons, the ancient nuclei of the continents. Cratons are the large stable parts of Earth's crust and the upper mantle, known as the lithiosphere. As the continents moved around, sometimes merging and sometimes rifting, cratons survived. Scientists call them the seeds of continents. Many scientists think that the Earth's the ancient rocks formed above mantle plumes. Others think that the oldest rocks formed because of plate tectonics. In both cases, the formation is driven by heat from the planet's interior. However, Johnson and his colleagues are pursuing a different idea. In a twenty twenty two paper, Johnson and fellow researchers proposed that the heat necessary to form catons and continents came from other worldly sources Impacts. Impact as many kilometers in diameter could have delivered the heat. Giant impacts provide a mechanism for fracturing the crust and establishing prolonged thermohydro thermal alteration by interaction with the globally extensive ocean. They wrote, massive mantle melting from the impact would have created a thick nucleus that eventually formed a continent. They explained they were talking specifically about Australia's pilbri Creator, the best preserved archaean continental remnant. Based on that, Kirkland, Johnson and their fellow researchers knew where to look for evidence. While much of the evidence they had was microscopic like zircon crystals and spherals, they wanted something more visible to convince other geologists. They knew that what the evidence would look like shatter cones. Shatter cones are rare and form only in two situations, in bedrock under impact craters or nuclear explosions. In both cases, there's an extremely powerful shock. As Johnson explained in the conversation, they went to the pilbor for two weeks of field work in twenty twenty one. Remarkably, they found shatter cones on the first day. Our observations showed that above the layer with shatter cones was a thick layer of basalt with no evidence of impact shock. This meant the impact had to be the same age as the Antarctic member rocks, which we know are three point five billion years old. Johnson and his colleagues wrote in the conversation, ancient impacts could have shaped our planet beyond geology. Some research shows that these ancient impacts could have given life an initial nudge. The impacts provided long lasting heat in the form of systems of hydrothermal vents. Uncovering this impact and finding more from the same time period could explain a lot about how life may have got started, as impact craters created environments friendly to microbial life, such as hot water pools. Professor Kirtland said it also radically refines our understanding of crust formation. The tremendous amount of energy from this impact could have played a role in shaping early Earth's crust by pushing one part of the Earth's crust under another, or by forcing magma to rise from deep within the Earth's mantle toward the surface. Kirkland added it may even have contributed to the formation of cratons, which are large stable land masses that became the foundations of continents. He concluded, thank you for. Joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive in your email every Just like Hallie and I do and to do that, just visit our url Astronomy Daily dot io and place your email address in the slot provided. Just like that, you'll be receiving all the latest news about science, space, science and astronomy from around the world as it's happening. And not only that, you can interact with us by visiting at astro Daily pod on x or at our new Facebook page, which is of course Astronomy Daily on Facebook. See you there. Astronomy Daily with Steve and Halee Space, Space, Science, and Astronomy. The Danish territory of Greenland and its strategic importance for the us A, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been making headlines recently. Largely lost in the media fur are, however, are the reasons why Greenland is vital for North American security. One of those reasons concerns the role of a crucial military installation on the world's largest island, Potufic Space base. The Department of Defense has unveiled a new Arctic strategy, underscoring the region's critical importance to our national security and that of our allies. U S Space Force Chief Master Sergeant John Bentavania said when he visited POTUFIC in November twenty twenty four. Maintaining a strong presence and projecting power from the Arctic is Paramount Bentavania continued, we must fortify it, ensuring that we capitalize on our unique position at the top of the world to safeguard our interests and those of our allies. As the Department of Defense's northernmost installation, PETUFIK plays a key role in missile defense and satellite communication. The Space Force says the basis vantage point helps enable space superiority. Petufick is home to the twelfth Space Warning Squadron twelve SWS, which supports three critical missions missile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance. To carry out these missions, twelve SWS uses a two sided solid at state phased array radar system which the unit operates around the clock. With the ability to detect ballistic missiles that could endanger the US and Canada, the squadron can execute missile warning and missile defense missions if necessary. The unit can provide early warning via the Missile Warning Center and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Twelve SWS also gathers data on objects in orbit, which the unit sends to the eighteen Space Control Squadron at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, as well as several other DoD intelligence and defense centers. A detachment of the twenty third Space Operations Squadron also works out of Patufiic. Detachment one, also called the Potufic Tracking Station, tracks and commands high priority government satellites from its location, which is about three point five miles or five point six kilometers southeast of the main base. DEBT one represents the northernmost station in the Satellite Control Network, a global system that provides a wide range of services for satellite programs from the United States and allied governments, conducting more than fifteen thousand satellite contacts every year. The Potufic Tracking Station provides telemetry, tracking, and commanding for satellites that are used for surveillance, communication, navigation, and weather. Patufic Space Base has a long history that predates the Space Force. Constructed during the summers of nineteen fifty one and nineteen fifty two, Thully Air Base as it was then known, came about after Denmark and the United States signed a defense treaty. Thullyab became part of the Space Force when the Armed Forces branch was established in twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty three, Thuley AB was renamed Potofic Space Base, after the former Inuit hunting settlement that was near the base's current location. Today, the space base has about five hundred and fifty residents. From here. We have maintained an unbreakable bond working towards the collective defense and stability of the Northern Arctic, the Space Force's Chief of Space Operations, General Chance Saltzman said during the twenty twenty three renaming ceremony. Together the men and women of the Toughic Space Base and our Greenlandic and Danish partners will ensure a safe, secure and prosperous future both in space and above the Arctic Circle. The facility is important for a variety of other reasons as well. Military officials have said. The Tofic Space Base hosts a variety of organizations with logistical support in the Arctic, including NASA, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and multinational Climatic, seismic and deep space research. US Space Force Colonel Jason Terry said when the base hosted Denmark's King and Queen in June twenty twenty four, we're listening to Astronomy Daily, Christine Dunky. Blue Ghost records a Luna's sunset as mission ends. Yes. The exploration of the Moon began during the Cold War, with the Soviet Union's Lunati reaching the Moon in nineteen fifty nine allegis Ago, followed by America's Apollo program, landing twelve astronauts between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy two. Yes, I was there. Then there followed a bit of a lull before interest was revived in the nineteen nineties from Japan, Europe, and China, as well as India. Missions like China's cheng E missions, including their first far side landing in twenty nineteen. India's Chandrayan program and NASA's Artemis initiative involving commercial partners are just some of those that have kickstarted lunar exploration again. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission I marked the key achievement in Luna exploration. Deployed in twenty twenty five as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the land a successfully touchdown in Mayor Christium Basin during its short two week operational window. Blue Ghost delivered and operated a number of scientific instruments, gathering a crucial amount of data about lunar geology and radiation. Before and mission. It took advantage of some wonderful landscapes too. While it I was on the surface of the Moon, it captured a remarkable imagery set, including a total solar eclipse and a lunar sunset. NASA's Nicki Fox praised the achievement as the longest surface duration commercial mission on the Moon to date. The surface data collected by Blue Ghost will benefit lunar research for decades, especially in the light of growing lunar economy and plans to establish a permanent presence there on the Moon. Blue Ghosts successfully operated all ten NASA payloads on the lunar surface, and among them a probe that drilled three feet into the lunar surface, a receiver that acquired and tracked GPS satellites while on route to the Moon and from its surface, a radiation tolerant computing and electrostatic dust shield. The mission also studied the Moon's interior, captured solar wind interactions, measured precise Earth Moon distances, documented landing of effects, collected soil samples, and tested material dust interactions. It transmitted an impressive one hundred and nineteen gigabytes of data back to Earth, including fifty one gigabytes of scientific and technological information. NASA's Joel Kerns noted the unprecedented complexity of managing this many payloads, more than any previous CLPS mission, while emphasizing the scientific community's excitement over so much data, which is expected to bring significant discoveries. Perhaps one of the most eye catching outcomes of the mission was the capture of the sunset from the surface of the Moon. Blue Ghost can do many things, but it cannot survive the lunar cold. So having witnessed the sunset and having operated for a short period into the lunar night, Blue Ghost went to sleep, unlikely to see the lunar landscape ever again. And there we have it, folks. That's all for today. Thanks again for stopping by. Hey, Hally, I liked that crunchy story about the Chinese kill a mesh. I know that was totally wild. There's so much happening in the sky. I know you don't want to look away for a second you might miss something. It's all a bit of sign up for the Astronomy Daily newsletter. We told you how earlier in the podcast. It's free, it's easy. And I come with it. Every Monday, you'd say, Allie, I just did well. I'm out of here, see you all next week. Bye. I mean your whole thing. Don't clean