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00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm
00:00:03 --> 00:00:03 Anna.
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 Avery: And I'm, um, avery. It's Friday, July 10,
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 2026, and we've got quite the lineup for you
00:00:09 --> 00:00:09 today.
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 Anna: We're talking about quasars from the dawn of
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 time. A telescope getting hoisted onto its
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 launch platform, an asteroid hunting
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 satellite constellation, a space snowman,
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 and a tiny cubesat that wants to
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 redraw the map of Earth itself. Itself.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 Avery: It's a big one. Let's not waste any time.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 Straight into it. And Anna, uh, how do you
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 feel about looking back nearly 13 billion
00:00:34 --> 00:00:34 years?
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 Anna: Honestly, a little dizzy. But that's
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 exactly what the European Space Agency's
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 Euclid telescope has just done.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 Astronomers have used it to find, uh, 31
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 quasars from the universe's first billion
00:00:48 --> 00:00:49 years of existence.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 Avery: And quasars, for anyone who needs the
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 refresher, are the blazing cores of galaxies.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 Supermassive black holes gorging on gas and
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 dust so violently that they can outshine
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 every star in their host galaxy combined.
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 Anna: Right. And two of these 31 are
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 record breakers. Their light left them when
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 the universe was just 670
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 million years old. That's about 5%
00:01:15 --> 00:01:16 of its current age.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 Avery: 5%. That's like finding a photo
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 from someone's first birthday and using it to
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 figure out how they run a company 40 years
00:01:24 --> 00:01:24 later.
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 Anna: Which is basically the mystery here. These
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 black holes are already around a billion
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 times the mass of our Sun. Nobody has a
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 clean explanation for how they packed on that
00:01:35 --> 00:01:36 much mass so early.
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 Avery: The new record holder is cataloged as
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 Eucl J17, uh,
00:01:42 --> 00:01:48 29241.8.1.
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 And it beats the previous most distant quasar
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 by about 15 million years, which, in
00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 cosmic terms, is basically nothing.
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 Anna: The team, led by Daming Yang at Leiden
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 University, published the find in Astronomy
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 and Astrophysics. And here's a fun detail.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 Finding 31 rare objects buried in a
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 survey of billions of galaxies is a
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 genuine needle in a haystack bobblem.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 Avery: So how'd they do it?
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 Anna: Bayes Theorem. Um, centuries old statistics
00:02:17 --> 00:02:19 repurposed for one of the largest
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 astronomical data sets ever assembled.
00:02:22 --> 00:02:23 Old math, brand new universe.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 Avery: I love that. Euclid's still got a long way
00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 to run, too. This is from just its wide
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 survey, which will eventually cover more than
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 one third of the entire sky.
00:02:34 --> 00:02:36 Anna: So consider this the opening chapter. There's
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 a lot more of the early universe still
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 defined now, from the deep past to the
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 very near future. NASA's Nancy
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 Grace Roman Space Telescope just took another
00:02:47 --> 00:02:48 step toward launch.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 Avery: This is the big dark matter dark energy
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 exoplanet hunting flagship. Right?
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 Anna: That's the one. NASA confirmed this week that
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 inside the payload hazardous servicing
00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 facility at Kennedy Space center, technicians
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 used cranes to lift the 18
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 pound observatory onto a specialized work
00:03:08 --> 00:03:09 platform called the Pantheon.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 Avery: 18 pounds hanging in mid air on
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 a crane. That's not a moment I'd want to be
00:03:15 --> 00:03:16 standing underneath.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 Anna: Nerve wracking to watch, I'd imagine. But
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 it's a routine and carefully choreographed
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 step. It moves Roman from its padded shipping
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 configuration into its proper operational
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 setup, ready for integration and testing.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 Avery: And they've already powered it up for system
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 checkouts to make sure everything survived
00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 the trip from Goddard in one piece.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 Anna: Exactly. Roman is targeting no earlier
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 than Sunday August 30th for launch on a
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch
00:03:45 --> 00:03:46 Complex 39A.
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 Avery: Once it's up, it's heading out to the sun.
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 Earth L2 point. About a million miles from
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 Earth where it'll have an unobstructed view
00:03:54 --> 00:03:55 of the cosmos.
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 Anna: From there it'll hunt for dark matter, probe
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 dark energy and directly image
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 exoplanets around nearby stars. A
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 proper Swiss army knife of an observatory.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 Avery: Less than two months to go now. We'll be
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 keeping a close eye on this one. Now Anna,
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 another quick question. Where's the one
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 direction in the sky where we're basically
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 blind to incoming asteroids?
00:04:18 --> 00:04:20 Anna: Straight at the Sun. Anything approaching
00:04:20 --> 00:04:23 from that direction gets lost in the glare
00:04:23 --> 00:04:24 for any ground telescope.
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 Avery: Which is exactly how the 2013 Chelyabinsk
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 meteor snuck up on everyone. It came in from
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 near the sun and wasn't spotted until it was
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 already in the atmosphere over Russia.
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 Anna: China's now laying out detailed plans to
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 close that gap. Chief Scientist Li
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 Mingtao has confirmed a ah combined ground
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 and space monitoring network. And new
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 reporting this week reveals just how detailed
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 the space side of the plan already is.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:51 Avery: Give me the details.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 Anna: A paper from June co authored with Wu Wei
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 Ren, chief designer of China's lunar
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 exploration program, lays out four
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 candidate orbits for the space based
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 telescopes. The Sun, Earth L1,
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 Lagrange Point, an Earth leading or
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 trailing orbit, a Venus like
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 heliocentric orbit orbit, and something
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 called an Earth companion distant
00:05:14 --> 00:05:15 retrograde orbit.
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 Avery: That's a lot of orbital real estate to be
00:05:18 --> 00:05:18 considering.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 Anna: It is. And each one's being evaluated for
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 how well it actually watches that sunward
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 blind spot. Right now more than 40
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 near Earth asteroids are cataloged and we've
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 found over 95% of the kilometer
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 plus ones that could cause global damage.
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 But. But only around
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 45% of the smaller
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 140 meter class asteroids have been
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 found and those are still big enough to
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 flatten a small country.
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 Avery: So this network is specifically going after
00:05:51 --> 00:05:53 the ones we're most likely to miss.
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 Anna: Exactly. The idea, round the clock, no
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 blind spots. Coverage. Combining ground
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 telescopes for the night sky with space based
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 eyes watching the direction
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 Avery: the sun blocks, planetary defense,
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 filling in, um, the gaps one orbit at a time.
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 Anna: Time for my favorite kind of space story,
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 the ones that come with genuinely gorgeous
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 pictures. As we reported over the last couple
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 of episodes, JAXA's Hayabusa2
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 spacecraft has just flown past the asteroid
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 Tory Foon. And the images that have been sent
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 back so far are wonderful.
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 Avery: This is the same Hayabusa 2 that brought us
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 those Ryugu samples back in 2020?
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 Anna: The very same. Now out on an extended
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 mission. On July 5, it screamed past
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 Tory Foon at about 5 kilometers a second,
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 coming within roughly 800 meters of the
00:06:44 --> 00:06:45 surface.
00:06:45 --> 00:06:46 Avery: And what did it find?
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 Anna: Tory Foon turns out to be a contact
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 binary. Two separate asteroids that
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 drifted together over time and fused into
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 1 elongated 2 lobed shape.
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 Scientists are calling it a snowman. And once
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 you see the image, you can't unsee it.
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 Avery: Ground based observations had hinted it might
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 be elongated, but this is the first time
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 anyone's actually confirmed the double lobe
00:07:11 --> 00:07:11 structure.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 Anna: Right. Using its optical camera,
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 Thermal infrared Imager, Near Infrared
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 Spectrometer and lidar, all within about
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 an hour of closest approach. That's a lot of
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 instruments working overtime. On a single
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 high speed pass.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 Avery: Corey foons, about 450 meters across,
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 orbits the sun every 383 days and
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 spins once every five hours. It belongs to
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 the Apollo Group, the near Earth asteroids
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 whose paths cross our own.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:42 Anna: Hayabusa2 isn't done yet either.
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 Backstop is 1998
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 KY26 in 2031, an
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 asteroid only about 11 meters across,
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 which would make it the smallest asteroid
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 ever visited by a spacecraft.
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 Avery: From a cosmic snowman to visiting something
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 the size of a house, this mission just keeps
00:08:00 --> 00:08:00 giving.
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 Our next story is proof that not every
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 exciting mission needs to leave Earth orbit.
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 Sometimes it's all about measuring the planet
00:08:08 --> 00:08:09 we're already standing on.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 Anna: This is grits, the Geodetic
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 Reference Instrument transponder for small
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 satellites. It launched July 7th
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 aboard SpaceX's Transporter 17
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 rideshare mission out of Vandenberg.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 Avery: A cubesat, no less. How small are we talking?
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 Anna: A, uh, 12U cubesat, about the size of a
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 large shoebox built by the Dutch company
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 ISAS Space, working with NASA Goddard
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 and the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 Avery: So what's the actual job here?
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 Anna: It's tackling a really specific,
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 unglamorous, but important problem.
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 Right now we measure Earth's precise shape
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 and position using three separate systems.
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 GPS satellites, radio telescopes, doing
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 something called very long baseline
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 interferometry and laser ranging stations
00:08:58 --> 00:08:59 on the ground.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 Avery: And those three systems don't always agree
00:09:02 --> 00:09:02 with each other.
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 Anna: Exactly. Tying them together traditionally
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 relies on physical ground based surveying,
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 which introduces tiny errors.
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 Brits acts as a single satellite that all
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 three systems can see and measure at once,
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 effectively becoming a shared reference point
00:09:20 --> 00:09:20 in the sky.
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 Avery: So instead of three separate rulers that, uh,
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 don't quite line up, you get one ruler
00:09:25 --> 00:09:26 everyone agrees on.
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 Anna: That's the idea. It upconverts incoming
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 GPS signals and rebroadcasts them so
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 ground based radio telescopes can track it
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 too, while a mounted laser reflector lets
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 ground stations range it directly.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 Avery: And the payoff is millimeter accuracy in
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 what's called the international terrestrial
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 reference frame. Basically the master
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 coordinate system the whole world uses for
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 mapping, navigation and tracking sea level
00:09:50 --> 00:09:51 rise.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 Anna: It sounds small, but that kind of precision
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 underpins everything from your phone's GPS
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 to climate science. A, uh, shoebox in orbit,
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 quietly making the whole planet easier to
00:10:03 --> 00:10:03 measure.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 Let's finish today somewhere a little more
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 relaxed. If you're the sort of person who
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 likes to just step outside and look up
00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 tonight, you're in luck.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:12 Avery: Why's that?
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 Anna: There's no moon in the sky at all this
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 evening, which means no wash of moonlight
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 drowning out the fainter stuff. It's
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 genuinely one of the best nights of the month
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 for chasing dimmer objects with a telescope
00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 or a decent pair of binoculars.
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 Avery: And for anyone wanting an easier target with
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 the naked eye, Venus is still keeping close
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 company with Regulus, the brightest star in
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 Leo, low in the evening twilight.
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 Anna: That pairing's been a lovely one this week.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 And Venus is on track to meet up with a
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 slender crescent moon around the 17th,
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 so keep half an eye on the western sky over
00:10:47 --> 00:10:48 the coming days.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 Avery: A dark sky tonight. A, uh, planet and star
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 pairing to enjoy right now. And a moon Venus
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 meetup to look forward to. Not a bad way to
00:10:55 --> 00:10:56 close things out.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 Anna: Not bad at all. Get outside if you can. The
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 sky's putting on a show either way.
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 Avery: That's it for today. Quasars from the dawn of
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 time. Roman's launch getting closer. A
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 sunward asteroid watch. A snowman in the
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 asteroid belt. And a cubesat remeasuring the
00:11:13 --> 00:11:13 Earth.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 Anna: Thanks for spending part of your day with us.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 We'll be back tomorrow with more from across
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 the universe. Until then, Clear skies.
00:11:21 --> 00:11:24 Avery: Astronomy day. Mhm
00:11:24 --> 00:11:25 stories.