Unraveling the Universe: A Planet in Peril, Webb's Breakthroughs, and UFO Origins

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm your host Anna, and I'm thrilled to bring you today's exciting journey through the cosmos. We've got an absolutely fascinating lineup of stories for you today. We'll explore a doomed planet that's literally shedding mountains of material with each orbit, learn how the James Webb Space Telescope may have finally discovered a missing supermassive black hole, and dive into Webb's crucial role in our search for life beyond Earth.

[00:00:24] We'll also take a look at China's latest space station mission with its new three-person crew, and travel back in time to explore the origins of the UFO craze that captivated America's imagination in the late 1940s. So buckle up for a stellar journey through the latest and most intriguing developments in space and astronomy. Let's get started. In a remarkable discovery that offers a rare glimpse of cosmic destruction, astronomers have found a planet that is literally falling apart from Earth.

[00:00:54] We're in the world's heart before our eyes. Located about 140 light-years from Earth in the Pegasus constellation, this doomed world named BD plus 054868 AB is experiencing what can only be described as a catastrophic demise. This ill-fated planet whips around its star once every 30.5 hours, and orbits so perilously close that its surface is being scorched to temperatures approaching 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:01:22] At this extreme heat, the planet's surface is turning into magma and actively vaporizing into space. What's truly astonishing is the scale of this destruction. With each blistering orbit, BD plus 054868 AB sheds as much mass of molten rock as an entire Mount Everest. Behind it trails a gargantuan tail of debris stretching up to 9 million kilometers, roughly half the planet's entire orbital path.

[00:01:49] Mark Hahn, a postdoc at MIT's Cavalier Institute, described it as an epic disintegration unfolding in real time. While scientists have identified over 6,000 exoplanets, this is only the fourth known disintegrating world ever discovered. What makes BD plus 054868 AB special is that it boasts the longest debris tail of them all, suggesting its evaporation is particularly catastrophic.

[00:02:16] Despite its ongoing destruction, don't expect this cosmic demolition to end anytime soon. Researchers estimate it might take between 1 to 2 million years for the entire planet to fully disintegrate. As Avi Sporer from the TESS science office put it, We got lucky with catching it exactly when it's really going away. It's like on its last breath. The discovery was actually a fortunate accident. The planet was spotted using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS,

[00:02:44] which scans for periodic dips in starlight caused by orbiting planets. The team wasn't specifically hunting for disintegrating worlds. But BD plus 054868 AB's unusual transit signal caught their attention. The star's brightness took much longer than normal to return to baseline, and the depth of the dimming changed with every transit. This doomed planet's misfortune is a scientific goldmine. Its relatively small size, somewhere between our Moon and Mercury,

[00:03:14] means its gravity is too weak to hold onto its mass once it starts evaporating, creating a runaway process that continuously worsens. The James Webb Space Telescope will observe the planet this northern summer, offering scientists a unique opportunity to directly measure the interior composition of a rocky planet. As the planet's material streams away in its massive tail, JWST can analyze the chemical makeup of what was once buried deep within this world,

[00:03:41] potentially revealing new insights about the diversity and habitability of terrestrial planets throughout our galaxy. And in more JWST news, has the James Webb Space Telescope finally solved one of astronomy's most puzzling mysteries? For years, scientists have been perplexed by the apparent absence of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the southern pinwheel galaxy, more formally known as Messier 83 or M83.

[00:04:08] Conventional wisdom holds that every large galaxy should harbor a monster-sized black hole at its center. These cosmic giants, with masses millions or billions of times that of our Sun, are typically easy to spot when they're actively feeding. As they consume surrounding matter, they create brilliantly glowing regions called active galactic nuclei, or AGNs, that can outshine entire galaxies. Yet, despite numerous searches, no such cosmic behemoth had been detected in M83,

[00:04:36] a spiral galaxy located approximately 15 million light-years from Earth. This absence presented astronomers with a conundrum. Was the black hole dormant and therefore invisible? Or was it perhaps hidden behind a thick veil of cosmic dust? Now, thanks to the unparalleled sensitivity and resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope, we may have our answer. The smoking gun came in the form of clumps of highly ionized gas detected at the galaxy's center.

[00:05:02] As Svea Hernandez, the team leader and European Space Agency scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute explained, Our discovery of highly ionized neon emission in the nucleus of M83 was unexpected. These signatures require large amounts of energy to be produced, more than what normal stars can generate. This excess energy strongly suggests the presence of an AGN, the telltale sign of a feeding supermassive black hole,

[00:05:30] that has somehow remained hidden from view until now. Even the explosive deaths of massive stars and supernovas couldn't provide enough energy to create this distinctive ionized neon signature. What makes this discovery particularly significant is that it challenges previous astronomical assumptions. Linda Smith of the Space Telescope Science Institute noted, For years, astronomers have searched for a black hole in M83 without success.

[00:05:58] Now we finally have a compelling clue that suggests one may be present. While this evidence is compelling, scientists aren't closing the case just yet. The team still needs to rule out other potential explanations, such as shock waves traveling through the interstellar medium. They'll be following up with additional observations using the Hubble Space Telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array, and the Very Large Telescope. Regardless of the final verdict,

[00:06:26] this research demonstrates the revolutionary capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope in uncovering cosmic secrets that have eluded astronomers for decades. As Smith aptly put it, this discovery showcases how the JWST is making unexpected breakthroughs. Astronomers thought they had ruled out an AGN in M83, but now we have fresh evidence that challenges past assumptions and opens new avenues for exploration. Next, even more from the JWST.

[00:06:56] The James Webb Space Telescope is not only revealing hidden black holes, but also revolutionizing our search for life beyond Earth. With its unprecedented infrared sensitivity and resolution, Webb is peering at rocky, potentially habitable exoplanets with more detail than ever before possible. What makes Webb particularly groundbreaking is its ability to detect whether these distant worlds have atmospheres, and, crucially, to analyze their chemical composition.

[00:07:24] These atmospheric studies could reveal tantalizing clues about habitability and potential biosignatures, gases that might indicate the presence of life. However, finding conclusive evidence of life presents enormous challenges. Detecting biosignatures requires potentially hundreds of hours of observing time for a single planet. Even then, the results may not be definitive due to the natural evolution of both stars and planetary atmospheres over time.

[00:07:51] And the exoplanets Webb concurrently study orbit stars that may be relatively inhospitable compared to our Sun. NASA scientists emphasized that discovering life elsewhere would be a process, not a single eureka moment. The detection of a potential biosignature would need to be followed by extensive studies, multiple lines of converging evidence, and the careful elimination of false positives, possibly requiring data from several different missions, and sophisticated atmospheric modeling.

[00:08:20] One of the most intriguing frontiers in Webb's search is the study of what scientists call Hyacian planets. These theoretical worlds, larger than Earth, could potentially support life with their relatively thin, hydrogen-rich atmospheres and substantial liquid water oceans. Webb's observations of the exoplanet K218b are helping researchers investigate whether it might be such a world.

[00:08:44] The concept of Hyacian planets is very new, and scientists are still exploring what kinds of potential biosignatures might exist in these environments. Webb's rich spectral data is rapidly advancing our understanding as this field evolves. While Webb wasn't specifically designed as a life-hunting telescope, its remarkable performance has made it the first observatory capable of characterizing the atmospheres of promising small planets orbiting cooler stars.

[00:09:12] These pioneering observations are building the scientific and technical foundation for future missions, like NASA's planned Habitable Worlds Observatory, which will specifically target Earth-like planets around sun-like stars when it launches in the coming decades. Next up, China has just announced the crew members for its Shenzhou 20 mission, which will launch three astronauts to the Chinese space station for a six-month stay. The mission continues China's ambitious and rapidly expanding presence in space.

[00:09:42] The three-person crew consists of Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui, and Wang Jie. Chen Dong, who will serve as the mission commander, is a veteran astronaut making his third trip to space, having previously served on the Shenzhou 11 and Shenzhou 14 missions. During his time on Shenzhou 14, he played a key role in the construction of China's space station. At a press conference, Chen expressed his feelings about returning to orbit.

[00:10:08] I feel incomparable pride and accomplishment to go to space for my country again. Each journey to space is unparalleled. I'm looking forward to gaining more experience and more breakthroughs through this flight. His two crewmates are both first-time space travelers. Chen Zhongrui was previously an Air Force pilot, while Wang Jie comes to the mission as an engineer with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. The Shenzhou 20 crew will launch from Zhukuan, located on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China.

[00:10:38] Once in space, they'll replace the current crew who have been aboard the station for 175 days and are scheduled to return to Earth on April 29. During their half-year mission, the astronauts will conduct experiments in space medicine and technology, perform spacewalks, and make improvements to the space station. This continues China's methodical approach to establishing a permanent presence in orbit.

[00:11:03] China's independent space station became necessary after the country was excluded from participating in the International Space Station due to U.S. national security concerns over the military's involvement in China's space program. This isolation has not slowed China's progress, however. In recent years, the Chinese space program has achieved several major milestones, including landing an explorer on Mars and sending a rover to the far side of the Moon, accomplishments only previously achieved by the United States.

[00:11:33] Looking ahead, China has set an ambitious goal to put astronauts on the lunar surface before 2030, adding a new dimension to humanity's return to the Moon after decades of absence. Finally today, something a little different. While we often think of the space age beginning with Sputnik's launch in 1957, the space age of the imagination started a decade earlier on June 24, 1947.

[00:12:00] That's when private pilot Kenneth Arnold, while searching for a downed plane near Mount Rainier in Washington State, spotted nine disk-like objects flying at an estimated 1,700 miles per hour, twice the speed of any jet at that time. Arnold described their movement as being like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water. Though he actually compared their shape to pie plates, newspapers latched onto the saucer analogy, and the term flying saucers was born.

[00:12:30] The Associated Press spread the story nationwide, and within weeks, dozens of similar sightings were reported across America. The Army Air Force began receiving numerous reports, but interestingly, one notable sighting was instead reported to Raymond Palmer, editor of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Palmer had already been blurring the lines between fiction and alleged fact through his publication of The Shaver Mystery,

[00:12:56] a series of stories claiming the existence of malevolent subterranean beings affecting life on Earth's surface. By 1948, the newly formed U.S. Air Force had established Project Sign to investigate these mysterious objects. When this yielded inconclusive results, it was replaced by Project Grudge in 1949, which seemed more focused on explaining away sightings than investigating them. The military's attempts to offer mundane explanations,

[00:13:22] including the infamous claim that pilot Thomas Mantell had crashed while pursuing Venus, rather than the actual classified skyhook balloon, only intensified public skepticism. Into this information void stepped numerous publications and civilian research groups. Palmer launched Fate magazine, featuring Kenneth Arnold's first-hand account. Writer Donald Kehoe published Flying Saucers Are Real in 1950, popularizing what would later be called the extraterrestrial hypothesis,

[00:13:51] while suggesting government cover-ups, establishing two enduring narratives in UFO lore. By 1952, when Project Blue Book replaced Grudge, the government had lost control of the narrative. Civilian saucer research clubs formed, including the International Flying Saucer Bureau and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. The military's mixed messaging, rational explanations for some sightings, dishonest ones for classified aircraft,

[00:14:19] and silence where they had no answers, had eroded public trust, and created fertile ground for speculation about visitors from other worlds. And that's a quick summary of how it all started. And that brings us to the end of today's cosmic journey. What an incredible range of stories we've explored, from a doomed planet shedding Mount Everest-sized chunks with each orbit around its star, to the Webb telescope potentially solving the mystery of M83's missing black hole,

[00:14:48] to China's latest space station crew launch. We've seen how Webb is revolutionizing our search for life beyond Earth, while also learning about the fascinating origins of our cultural obsession with UFOs and flying saucers. The universe continues to surprise, challenge, and inspire us with each new discovery. I'm Anna, and I've been your host on Astronomy Daily. If you're hungry for more space and astronomy news, visit our website at astronomydaily.io,

[00:15:16] where you'll find our constantly updating news feed, with all the latest discoveries and developments, plus all our back episodes. You can also connect with us across social media. Just search for Astro Daily Pod on Facebook, X, YouTube, YouTube Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. Until next time, keep looking up. Astronomy Daily Hey!