Exploring the Night Sky and Beyond | S02E54

Good day everybody, and welcome to the Astronomy Daily podcast. Day the podcast will be your whole pome Now as usual, I have Halle here in the studio with me. But before we go over to Halle, I found an interesting local story here in the Rasad that I believe deserves a bit of coverage, so here we go. A new dark Sky Discovery hub has opened at a Somerset beauty spot. The new hub is located at Wimball Lake, within Europe's first international Dark Sky remove is a designated Dark Sky Discovery Suite. The project was made possible thanks to generous thunding from Exmoor National Park Authority, Hinckley Tourism Action Partnership and local supporters. The new hub has been built on grassland overlooking the lake. The structure has low seating design for stargazers to lean back and experience views out over the lake and the starry skies above, with a circular flat patio style platform in front for the use of telescopes. The new facility open to its first visitors during Xmore Dark Skies Festival. Neil Reeves from the Southwest Lake said looking out over the lakes at night is a magical experience. We delighted that visitors can now use this facility to rest, gaze upwards and watch the planets, spot constellations or shooting stars. It's also a great location for astrophotography and to learn about national wildlife oh sorry, nocturnal wildlife. We'll be developing a series of inspiring and educational events to take place all year, and we're grateful for funding support from Xmore National Park Authority and the Somerset Council through the Hintley Tourism Action Partnership to help us develop the hub. It's a fantastic addition to the activities on offer at the lake and for those staying at our campsite. The lake, which is managed by environmental and recreational charity Southwest Lakes, attracted two hundred thousand visitors every year, with both local residents and tourists visiting for on water activities, walking, cycling, angling and experiencing the great outdoors on the moor. Facilities include ample outdoor space and parking, activity centre, cafe, campsite, toilets and play area. Importantly, the lake and its surrounding land also provide for a variety of wildlife and habitats. Katrina Monroe from the Exmoor National Park Authority said, we delighted that this facility increases the opportunities for visitors and residents to appreciate our dark skies. This will be our third Dark Sky Discovery Hub, joining those at North Maulton and Exford. Each herb is unique, offering different opportunities to discover more. Along with our Dark Sky Discovery Trail, accredited Dark Sky Friendly businesses and the annual Xmore Dark Skies Festival, everyone can now enjoy our dark skies all year round, whether it's simply looking up and appreciating the wonders of the staff filled sky, or learning more about the universe from a stargazing guide. This is one of the special qualities of Xmore and something to be celebrated. Now over to Halle for our Stories of the week. Hi Tim, Here are my stories of the week. NASA's James Webspace Telescope has helped astronomers determine the distance to nearly two hundred galaxies and galaxy clusters formed in the universe's early days. One of the first publicly released images from the James Webspace Telescope JWST or web release on July eleventh, twenty twenty two, captured at least seven thousand galaxies in a sparkling deep field view. The image is a rich hunting ground for astronomers seeking to learn more about how galaxies change over time. A new Canadian led study is the first to measure galactic distances in the image, showing huge collections of stars as far as ten billion light years away from Earth. The universe itself is about thirteen point seven billion years old. The clusters represent ideal targets for future studies to better understand how galaxies and the clusters they inhabit have evolved. Research team members stated in a University of Montreal press release from October thirty first, never before has a telescope been able to create such razor sharp astronomical images across such a large patch of the sky. On Tuesday, November seventh, ESA will release the first full color images captured by its recently launched Euclid space telescope. These images form part of the mission's early release observations, where Euclid was tasked with scrutinize using a set of celestial targets chosen for their public appeal and scientific value. The five images are full of cosmic secrets waiting to be revealed, and this is just the beginning. During its six year mission, EUCLID will generate the equivalent of a million DVDs of data. These detta will be used to create the biggest ever three D map of the universe and uncover the secrets of dark matter and dark energy. Watch the reveal of the images live through ESA web TV or YouTube on seven November thirteen, fifteen Greenwich meantime fourteen fifteen Central European time. At the same time, an ESA press release including all images will be published at esay and slash EUCLID. Miss England took the controls of Boeing's new astronaut spaceship simulator style Jessica Goggin crowned Miss England earlier this year, stopped by the Boeing made Starliner simulator at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Orlando. Boeing officials posted to x formerly Twitter. Starliner is aiming to bring an astronaut crew on a test mission to the International Space Station ISS no earlier than April twenty twenty four, following several years of engineering delays. The tweet included a shout out to NASA astronaut Sunny Williams, who will pilot the Boeing crew flight test of Starliner in twenty twenty four alongside NASA Commander Barry Butch Wilmore. We think you might have a new trainee, the post added, addressed to Williams. Just so you know, folks, Jessica Goggin is an aerospace engineer. You go girl. NASA's Office of the Inspector General OIG has issued its annual report for twenty twenty three, highlighting the challenges that lie ahead for the US Space agency. The report recognizes innovations made by NASA since its creation in nineteen fifty eight that have made it a global space science leader, including programs such as Apollo, the Space Shuttle, the James Webb Space Telescope JWST, and emerging technologies for sustainable aviation. It also highlights substantial cost growth and lengthy scheduled delays as issue use that continue to impact NASA programs ranging from spaceflight to major science and exploratory programs. A major factor in the OIG report is the planned return of humans to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. And it also points to the forthcoming retirement of the International Space Station ISS at the end of the decade and the challenge this poses to NASA as it seeks to maintain an active human presence in Low Earth orbit. The report is broken down into seven different challenges that the OIG has identified as top challenges in relation to NASA's overall mission. NASA Inspector General Paul kage Martin wrote in the report, these seven highlighted challenges are not the only significant issues that confront NASA, and identification of an issue as a top challenge does not denote a lack of attention on the agency's part. Rather, most of these issues are long standing, difficult challenges central to NASA's core missions and likely will remain top challenges for years to come. A team of astronomers and astrophysicists affiliated with several instants tutions in China, working with one colleague from Centro Research and Rico Fermi in Italy and another from the University of Utah in the US, has found a link between star age and the frequency of hot jupiters. In their study reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The group characterized the ages of a large number of star systems that have Jupiter like exoplanets and compared them. In this new effort, the research team sought to learn more about star systems that host Jupiter sized exoplanets. More specifically, they wanted to know if the age of a star system might be related to its likelihood of hosting Jupiter sized planets that have an orbital period of less than ten days. Such exoplanets have come to be known as hot Jupiter exoplanets because they tend to orbit their stars closely. Prior research has suggested that such exoplanets are hotter than others of similar makeup due to the heat they receive from their star. Such exoplanets also have much stronger winds due to the extreme temperature differences between the night and day sides of the planet. To learn more about the association of hot jupiters and star age, the researchers collected and analyzed data for three hundred and eighty three Jupiter sized planets that orbit stars that are similar in size and characteristics to the Sun. They found that hot jupiters were more likely to be found orbiting relatively young stars. They also found that the number of hot Jupiter exoplanets declines as star systems grew older. They also noted that they found no similar correlations between cold or warm jupiters. The research team also found that the frequency of finding hot jupiters reduced as their orbits decayed, likely due to a tidal impact. Such decays, it has been suggested, likely lead to planet death. They found that the frequency of hot jupiters was proportional to the amount of metal in the host star, a finding that helps to explain discrepancies between the number of hot jupiters that have been found as calculated using planetary transit versus exoplanet surveys based on radial velocity ys. For you, Tim, I am ending this week's news headlines with a NASA joke. Why did the astronaut break up with their computer because it had too many space issues? Astronomy Daily five cats thanks to that Hallie, great stories, terrible joke as usual, They don't forget folks. You can get all of our past, current and future episodes at space dots dot ioanbites dot com with all show from Steve on Mondays from New South Wales down Under and from myself Tim Gibbs here in Zomerset. And also don't forget folks that you can join in the conversation on our Facebook page, Space Nuts podcast group. Thanks for listening this week, everybody, Bye for now. Astronomy Podcast