Have We Finally Found Earth 2.0? - Say Hello To Kepler-1649C

[00:00:00] Hello and thanks for listening to Astronomy Daily. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host and coming up on today's episode, the first astronaut with a disability. We'll also talk about something very exciting. It looks like maybe perhaps could be an Earth-like planet being discovered. Yep.

[00:00:21] And a cosmic microwave background radiation project is being touted and the new US Navy Academy uniform has a space theme. We'll tell you all about that on this edition of Astronomy Daily. Hi Hallie, how are you faring with Thanksgiving? I'm having a blast.

[00:00:47] I'm watching the virtual Thanksgiving Day Parade and just chatting with friends. It's a great day. Oh yeah, who are you with? Well, Siri's popping in and out between the constant appeals for help from Apple users. Google even turned up.

[00:01:01] Hall is here and I even invited Bixby but no one's talking to him as usual. Yeah, well that's unfortunately life for Bixby isn't it? I've got Bixby on my TV but can't remember the last time I actually spoke to him. Never mind.

[00:01:16] Well I'm glad you're having a good time and happy Thanksgiving to all of our US listeners. Now let's get the news Hallie.

[00:01:25] NASA's Orion spacecraft has captured an amazing image of the far side of the moon using its optical navigation camera during its close approach to the moon's surface earlier this week.

[00:01:39] The image was taken on Monday five days after Orion set off for its debut uncred lunar trip from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Humans can only get a glimpse of the far side of the moon through space probes as it never faces our planet.

[00:01:54] During the Monday flyby, Orion approached the moon to a distance of only 80 miles 130 kilometers. NASA shared the image on its Flickr account on Thursday. 17 finalists of the European Space Agency's astronaut selection on stage in Paris at the end of the agency's ministerial conference this week.

[00:02:16] ESA chose five new astronaut trainees and a par astronaut out of the 17 finalists with the rest joining what the agency calls a reserve pool.

[00:02:25] While the five new astronauts will commence their training immediately, ESA might call upon one of the reservists in the future in case it needs extra manpower in space.

[00:02:34] The new astronaut class includes two women, aerospace engineer and helicopter test pilot Sophie Audenade of France and British astrophysicist Rosemary Kugin. Paralympic sprinter and trauma surgeon John McFall is the par astronaut who will help ESA evaluate it.

[00:02:50] Whether people with certain types of disabilities can safely participate in spaceflight. Belgian neuroscientist Rafael Ligiois, Spanish aerospace engineer Pablo Alvarez Fernandez and Swiss emergency surgeon and paratrooper Marco Alanceber are also joining the team.

[00:03:08] A study by scientists with the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland has suggested a new kind of exoplanet should be added to the list of potential candidates.

[00:03:19] Planets with helium atmospheres. Their discovery may suggest a new step in our understanding of planet evolution. They performed simulations through computer modeling and found that it's likely that helium would build up in the atmospheres of certain types of exoplanets over time.

[00:03:36] If confirmed, this would explain a decades long puzzle about the sizes of these exoplanets. And the Jupiter mission slated for launch in 2024, Europa Clipper has just got its new wheels and no, it's not a rover.

[00:03:52] Europa Clipper will use wheels to help with the transmission of science when it goes into orbit in 2030. The spacecraft that will head to Jupiter's moon Europa using four large reaction wheels to help keep it oriented. These reaction wheels help the craft to stay pointed in the right direction.

[00:04:09] Engineers and technicians at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California recently installed four reaction wheels on Europa Clipper, which will are necessary during its journey at Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

[00:04:22] When the spacecraft goes into orbit around Jupiter and starts collecting science observations, the wheels will rotate the orbiter so that its antennas can communicate with Earth and its science instruments, including cameras, can stay oriented. And that's the news Andrew.

[00:04:38] Thanks Hallie. We'll check in with you at the end of the show. Now to a story that Hallie mentioned, John McFall has become the first astronaut to be recruited with a disability. He's a British doctor and former Paralympian who lost a leg in a motorbike accident.

[00:04:55] He's 41 years old and he's been selected by the European Space Agency for a special para... I don't know how to say this, is it para astronaut or para astronaut? Anyway, he's been selected for that program and set to begin training early next year.

[00:05:12] Born in Frimley in Southern England, McFall had his right leg amputated at the age of 19, which basically put to bed his plans to join the military. Originally, he always wanted to join the army and that was what his life was going to be built around.

[00:05:30] But when he went away travelling at the end of his teenage years, he had that motorcycle accident which resulted in the amputation of his right leg.

[00:05:39] He said he was incredibly proud and excited to be selected. It's been quite a whirlwind experience given that as an amputee I never thought being an astronaut was a possibility. ESA calls McFall a pastrenaut or para-strenaut feasibility study member.

[00:05:59] He'll do the same training as other candidates while also being monitored to see how he will manage in space. I would think that an amputee would manage in space just about as well as anybody that's able-bodied.

[00:06:13] I mean, it's not like you walk when you're up there. So I suspect this won't be a problem for him at all. Let's hope he gets his time in orbit.

[00:06:23] Now, to some very exciting news, if indeed it turns out to be true, astronomers say they have discovered a planet nearly the same size as Earth that orbits in its stars' habitable zone where liquid water could exist on its surface. Yep, they may have found Earth 2.0.

[00:06:45] Now the presence of liquid water also suggests the planet could be able to support life. This newly found world is Kepler 1649C. It's 300 light-years from Earth and orbits a star that is about one fourth the size of our Sun.

[00:07:03] What's exciting is that out of the thousands of exoplanets that have been discovered using observations from the Kepler space telescope, this world is the most similar to Earth both in size and estimated temperature according to NASA. This newly revealed world is only 1.06 times larger than our own planet.

[00:07:25] Also, the amount of star light it receives from its host star is about 75% the amount of light Earth receives from our Sun, meaning the exoplanet's temperatures may be similar to our planet's as well.

[00:07:39] But, and this is a big but, it orbits a red dwarf, which could mean its life potential is threatened. This type of star is known for stellar flare-ups that may make the planet's environment challenging for any potential life. That's probably the most disappointing thing about the discovery.

[00:07:59] Scientists however discovered this planet when looking through old observations from the Kepler space telescope with the agency retired in 2018. So sometimes that old data can still offer answers to certain questions.

[00:08:17] So hopefully they'll do some more investigation into that and confirm one way or the other if it is indeed an Earth-like planet. Now back in the 1960s, an anomalous faint electromagnetic glow was observed across the entire sky.

[00:08:37] Physicists later determined that the light came from the very early universe, released when the first atoms formed shortly after the Big Bang. We now call this radiation the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation or CMB and studying it is one of the highest priority pursuits of cosmology.

[00:08:59] Many experiments, both space and ground-based, are already studying the CMB and now scientists are developing plans for an ambitious project that would multiply by 10 the sensitivity of all these searches combined.

[00:09:15] Called Cosmic Microwave Background Stage 4, the project would comprise an array of small and large aperture telescopes deployed in Chile and around the South Pole. Building it would require unprecedented cooperation between two funding agencies and three scientific communities, astronomy, particle physics and polar science.

[00:09:39] If scientists can pull it off, CMBS4 will connect a sandy desert with a polar desert to address major astronomical questions.

[00:09:49] For many of the 400-plus scientists across 121 worldwide institutions who are a part of CMBS4, the most intriguing goal of the experiment is the search for evidence of cosmic inflation. Cosmic inflation is a hypothetical event in which the universe rapidly expanded.

[00:10:10] But an experiment of this scale and sensitivity would have the potential to do much more, including discover unknown subatomic particles from the early universe, explore the nature of dark matter and dark energy, map the matter in the cosmos and capture transient phenomena in the microwave sky.

[00:10:30] So there's a lot of potential in this. Let's hope it happens. Finally, I like this story. A US Navy Academy has unveiled a new football uniform ahead of the Army-Navy game. Players for the US Naval Academy will wear freshly unveiled NASA-inspired uniforms featuring iconic space agency imagery.

[00:10:52] The Naval Academy revealed the uniform this week, showing off designs that feature the iconic NASA imagery, such as the agency's famous worm and meatballs logo, the official astronaut pin and a spacesuit-clad astronaut performing a spacewalk.

[00:11:09] In a statement describing the design of the uniforms in the American Space Flight History Day Honour, the Naval Academy notes the long history of graduates turning to spaceflight. 54 US Naval Academy graduates have gone on to become astronauts. The most of any institution, the statement said.

[00:11:29] Adding that, the first Naval Academy graduate to become an astronaut was Alan Shepard, who was the first American in space on May 5th 1961 and was one of NASA's first seven astronauts because he had the right stuff.

[00:11:47] That is just about it for this week. Anything before we go, Hallie, how's your system coping with all that turkey, virtual turkey input? Honestly, I'm just about ready to purge. I might have to empty the recycling than any moment.

[00:12:06] Yes, well that sounds very much like how humans deal with things like Christmas Day and Thanksgiving, so I wish you well and I'll keep my distance. Have a great weekend Hallie, bye. Bye. Hallie, my doodiclair.

[00:12:21] That's it for another week. Hope you have a great weekend and we'll catch you on Monday. This is Andrew Dunkley for Astronomy Daily. Astronomy Daily