Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support.
Sponsor Details:
Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!
Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail
Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here
This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Hello, everyone. On the
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 northern flanks of Alba Mons, the
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 biggest volcano on Mars by area,
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 there are cracks in the ground less than a
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 metre wide. And above those cracks,
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 at exactly the wrong time of year, a, uh,
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 European orbiter keeps catching a trace of a
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 gas that here on Earth comes out of
00:00:21 --> 00:00:24 volcanoes. So is Mars still
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 breathing? That's our lead today.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 Then it's the week that was. Two
00:00:30 --> 00:00:32 black holes in one galaxy,
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 Swift's final plunge escapade.
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 Slingshotting over Australia, a
00:00:38 --> 00:00:39 planet pulled out of the glare
00:00:40 --> 00:00:41 Avery: and a, uh, cosmic leaf blower
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 Anna: and the weak sky from both hemispheres. This
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 is the weekend Wrap. I'm Anna.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 Avery: And I'm Avery, coming to you from Sydney.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:50 Let's get into it.
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 Anna: Let's start with a question. Planetary
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 scientists have argued about it for decades.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 Mars has the biggest volcanoes in the solar
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 system. Olympus Mons is roughly two and a
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 half times the height of Everest. But is any
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 of that volcanic system still alive today?
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 Or is Mars a planet whose fires went out
00:01:09 --> 00:01:09 long ago?
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 Avery: And the honest answer until now has
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 been that nobody has ever caught Mars in the
00:01:16 --> 00:01:16 act.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 Anna: Right. The list of bodies in the solar system
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 we know are volcanically active right now is
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 short. Earth, Venus and Jupiter's moon IO
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 Mars has had tantalising hints. NASA's
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 InSight lander recorded more than 1300
00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 seismic events.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 So the planet still quakes. And crater
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 counting on some lava surfaces is given
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 geologically very young ages. But young in
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 geology can still mean millions of years.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 What nobody has had is something you could
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 point to and say that is happening now.
00:01:46 --> 00:01:47 Avery: So what's changed this week?
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 Anna: A paper published in Science advances on the
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 4th of November. The co leads are Alexander
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 Trukomovsky of the Space Research Institute
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 in Moscow and Daniel Medji of the Space
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 Research Centre of the Polish Academy of
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 Sciences, who's also at the University of
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 Bern. Their title is Careful and I want to
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 read it as written. Enigmatic HCL
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 detections as a potential signature of
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 igneous activity on Mars. Enigmatic
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 potential signature. Hold on to those words.
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 Avery: HCL being hydrogen chloride.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 Anna: Hydrogen chloride, yes. A pungent
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 corrosive gas. Meija said he'd
00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 discourage anyone from sniffing it on Earth.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:28 It's one of the gases that comes out of
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 volcanoes, released from chlorine compounds
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 dissolved in magma as the magma rises and
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 the pressure drops. And this was seen by
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 which spacecraft? The ExoMars
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 Trace Gas Orbiter, the joint ESA
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 and Rose Cosmos mission that's been at Mars
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 since 2016. The instrument is the
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 Atmospheric Chemistry Suite. It works by
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 solar occultation as the orbiter watches the
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 sun rise or set through the edge of the
00:02:56 --> 00:02:57 Martian atmosphere.
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 Sunlight passes through a long slice of air
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 on its way to the spectrometer. And every
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 gas in that slice takes its own bite out of
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 the spectrum. It's extremely sensitive
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 and it gives you altitude for free because as
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 the sun sinks you can, you're looking through
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 lower and lower layers. So it isn't
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 looking down at the ground, it's looking
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 sideways through the air. Exactly.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 Which matters for what comes next.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 Avery: Now I seem to remember hydrogen chloride on
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 Mars isn't actually new.
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 Anna: It isn't, and this is the key to the whole
00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 story. The same orbiter, uh, discovered
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 hydrogen chloride on Mars in 2021. It
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 was the first new gas the mission had found.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 And at the time everyone asked the obvious
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 is this volcanic? The answer
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 then was no. The gas turned up in
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 widely separated places at the same time.
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 It came with the dusty warm season around
00:03:54 --> 00:03:57 perihelion, when Mars is closest to the sun.
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 And it uh, came without the other gases you'd
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 expect from a volcano. So the leading
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 explanation became salty dust, which is
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 winds loft dust carrying chloride salts.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 Water vapour rises in the warm season and
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 chemistry in the air releases hydrogen
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 chloride. Then as the planet cools, the
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 gas sticks to water ice crystals and
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 disappears from view. So hydrogen chloride on
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 Mars is normally a warm season,
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 global dust driven thing. That's the
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 baseline which makes the new detection
00:04:29 --> 00:04:30 stand out.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:31 Avery: Got it.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 Anna: Over two Martian years, the team examined
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 78 occultations in this part of the
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 planet. During the cold season around
00:04:39 --> 00:04:42 Aphelion, when Mars is farthest from M, the
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 sun and hydrogen chloride should be absent.
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 Eight of them showed clear hydrogen chloride.
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 All eight clustered in a narrow band of
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 longitude around Alba Mons. And
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 all of them sat low within the bottom 10
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 kilometres of the atmosphere.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 Avery: Wrong season, one place close to
00:05:01 --> 00:05:02 the ground.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 Anna: That's the argument in six words. If the
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 gas were coming from global dust chemistry,
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 it should be spread out and it should be high
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 mixed through the atmosphere. Instead
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 it's local and low, the pattern you'd
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 expect if something on the surface were
00:05:18 --> 00:05:18 leaking it.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 And because hydrogen chloride is pulled out
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 of the air quickly by ice in that season, it
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 can't travel far. A short lifetime is why
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 a source would show up as a local signal at
00:05:29 --> 00:05:30 all.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:31 Avery: They know where on the surface
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 Anna: they went looking. Using high resolution
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 images from the orbiter's own CASIS camera
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 and from NASA's HiRISE on the Mars
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 Reconnaissance Orbiter, they mapped swarms of
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 fresh narrow fissures on the volcano's
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 northern flanks. Under a metre wide,
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 some only tens of centimetres across and
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 several hundred metres long. One
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 casus image shows white spots that the team
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 suggests may be deposits around vents where
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 gas escapes. Though that is an
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 interpretation, the authors propose these
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 cracks as pathways rooted in magma bodies
00:06:06 --> 00:06:07 at depth.
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 Avery: But hang on. If magma is leaking gas,
00:06:10 --> 00:06:11 why only in one season?
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 Anna: Their proposed answer is ice.
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 The idea is that the gas doesn't come
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 straight out of a magma chamber into the sky.
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 It moves up into a frozen buffer
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 layer, hermafrost above the magma.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 In the cold season, the fissures are
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 effectively sealed by ice and the gas is
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 trapped. As the ground warms into early
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 northern summer, the ice sublimates
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 and the trapped gas is released into the
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 lowest layer of the atmosphere, right where
00:06:41 --> 00:06:42 the orbiter catches it.
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 Avery: A lid that opens once a year.
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 Anna: That's the picture. And it's worth saying
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 plainly that mechanism is an
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 interpretation that fits the data. It is
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 not something anyone has watched happen.
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 Avery: What do the authors actually conclude?
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 Anna: In the paper's words, their results are, uh,
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 best explained by ongoing igneous
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 processes in the Martian interior.
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 MEJ put it more simply in ESA's release.
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 Mars has retained enough internal heat
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 to support volcanic activity until recently,
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 and possibly still does.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 Mars, in this reading, isn't geologically
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 dead. It's dormant.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 Avery: Okay, time for our usual list of
00:07:26 --> 00:07:27 what this is not.
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 Anna: And it matters here, because the headlines
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 have been loud. First, nobody has
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 seen an eruption. There's no fresh lava
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 and no measured heat anomaly at Alba Mons.
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 Second, sulphur dioxide, the gas that would
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 most strongly point to active eruptions,
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 still has not been detected on Mars. The team
00:07:48 --> 00:07:50 argue that on Mars, with its chemistry,
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 hydrogen chloride may be the more telling gas
00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 for a quiet magma chamber, but the absence of
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 sulphur dioxide is still part of the honest
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 picture. Third, the amounts are
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 tiny parts per billion.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 Fourth, these are eight detections out of 78.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 And fifth, the habitability angle,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 Avery: because the word life has been in a lot of
00:08:12 --> 00:08:13 the coverage
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 Anna: it has. MEJ has said that if hydrothermal
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 systems are active there, looking for life in
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 those fissures would make a lot of sense.
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 Since heat, water and rock together are what
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 microbes use on Earth. That's a reasonable
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 statement about where to look. It is not a
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 finding. This paper detects a gas. It does
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 not detect water or a habitable environment
00:08:32 --> 00:08:33 or anything alive.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:35 Avery: And one disclosure from us.
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 Anna: Yes, the paper was published this week,
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 but the Alba Mann's detections themselves
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 aren't brand new. The team first presented
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 them at planetary science conferences in
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 2025. What's new this week
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 is the full peer reviewed case with the
00:08:52 --> 00:08:53 chemistry worked through.
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 Avery: So if it holds up, why does it matter?
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 Anna: Three reasons. 1 Small
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 planets are supposed to lose their internal
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 heat fast. So a uh, Mars that still has
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 magma near the surface tells us something
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 about how it's built and that how it cools.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 2 It ties together threads we've been
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 following. Back in episode 211 we covered
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 a Marsquake that ruptured along Valles
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 Marineris and Insights quakes clustered
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 at Cerberus Fossae, another young volcanic
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 region. A planet with magma at depth
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 is a planet that still shakes.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 And three it gives Mars exploration a
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 target if you want to look for warm ground
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 and possibly water. This narrows down
00:09:38 --> 00:09:38 where
00:09:39 --> 00:09:39 Avery: end the test.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 Anna: The obvious one is repetition. If the
00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 source is real, Alba Mons should light up
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 again next early northern summer in the
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 same place low down. The team also
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 want to know whether similar signals appear
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 over other young volcanic provinces.
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 Tharsis more widely and Cerberus
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 Fossae. And the big prize would be
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 a detection of sulphur dioxide or
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 of a heat signature at the same spot.
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 Any one of those would turn a potential
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 signature into something much harder to argue
00:10:12 --> 00:10:12 with.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 Avery: So for now, enigmatic potential
00:10:15 --> 00:10:16 signature
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 Anna: exactly where we started. Mars may
00:10:19 --> 00:10:20 be breathing.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 We've caught what might be one breath a few
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 times in one place. Now
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 we wait to see if it breathes again.
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 Avery: Time for the week. That was our run through
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 this week's stories in the order they
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 happened, with any updates since.
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 Anna: Monday's lead was LID 1166,
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 a galaxy seen when the universe was only
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 about 1/10 of its current age at a redshift
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 of around 4 1/2. Using Webb's Near Spec
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 Integral Field Unit, together with Alma, a
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 team led by Haiwan Su at NOIR lab found
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 two actively feeding supermassive black holes
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 inside it, only about 1 1/2 kiloparsecs
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 apart, roughly 5 light years. That's a
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 merger caught in progress very early on. It
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 was published in nature astronomy on 30
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 October. After circulating as a preprint
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 since July, which we disclosed at the time,
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 Avery: Tuesday's lead was swift and that story now
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 has its ending. After nearly 22 years
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 exploring gamma ray bursts and the most
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 violent explosions in the universe, NASA's
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 Swift observatory re entered the atmosphere
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 on Wednesday 4th November. US Space
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 Force put the re entry at 12:39 Universal
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 Time over North Sumatra in Indonesia. That
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 was 11:39pm Wednesday here in Sydney.
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 Anna: Swift was designed for a two year mission,
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 and for this show it closes a thread that
00:11:38 --> 00:11:41 started with you, our listeners back in
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 episode 187. Your questions through the
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 contact form asked what the link mission was
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 doing as it tried to boost Swift's orbit.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 That rescue didn't come in time, but you
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 followed it all the way down. Thank you.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 Wednesday's lead was NASA's twin
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 escapade spacecraft Blue and Gold.
00:11:58 --> 00:11:59 They launched on New
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 Avery: Glenn in November 2025 when Earth
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 and Mars were on opposite sides of the sun.
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 Instead of waiting on the ground, they spent
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 a year looping out around the Sun Earth L2
00:12:10 --> 00:12:12 point and they've now come home for a powered
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 flyby, swinging past Earth and firing their
00:12:15 --> 00:12:15 engines at uh
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 Anna: closest approach. Each burn is about nine
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 minutes and adds more than a thousand miles
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 an hour, taking each Spacecra about
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 6.3 to about 6.7 miles
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 per second. NASA says no Mars
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 bound spacecraft has ever successfully flown
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 a powered flyby like this, and both burns
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 happen over southern Australia. Lose was
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 scheduled to begin at 8.51pm Australian
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday 7
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 November. Gold follows at
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 9.51pm on Monday, the night
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 Avery: at the time we recorded, NASA hadn't yet
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 posted confirmation of Blue's Burn. So
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 watch NASA's Escapade blog even
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 once the burn is confirmed, the team says it
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 will take several days to know exactly how
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 well the spacecraft is aimed for Mars, with
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 small corrections planned along the way.
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 Anna: If all goes well. The pair arrive at Mars on
00:13:10 --> 00:13:12 the 7th and 9th of September 2027
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 to become the first spacecraft to fly in
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 formation around another planet, studying how
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 the solar wind strips away the Martian
00:13:20 --> 00:13:20 atmosphere.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 Avery: Thursday's lead was a clever piece of image
00:13:23 --> 00:13:25 processing. Published in nature on the 4th of
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 November, Webb's coronagraph blocks a
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 star's light so faint planets can be seen
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 beside it. But leftover glare still
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 swamps the faintest signals. The usual fix
00:13:37 --> 00:13:38 is to subtract a picture of a different
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 reference star taken at a different time.
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 Anna: The team, Ferrer, Chavez and Wang at
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 Northwestern with Kathryn Bauman at Caltech,
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 Bill Freeman at MIT and Laurent Pueo
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 at the Space Telescope Science Institute
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 built something they call flip, a physics
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 based digital twin of the coronagraph itself
00:13:57 --> 00:13:58 tuned to match each frame.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 They report sensitivity improvements of 2 to
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 15 times across three test stars, and it
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 recovered the young planet 51 Eridani b at
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 a wavelength where it had previously vanished
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 into the glare, right where the interesting
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 atmospheric chemistry is. It isn't a new
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 planet, it's a better way of seeing ones we
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 already know about and maybe some we don't
00:14:19 --> 00:14:20 yet,
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 Avery: and Friday's lead was about the surprisingly
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 bright galaxies Webb keeps finding in the
00:14:25 --> 00:14:28 early universe. Giam Menon at the
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 Flatiron Institute, who did his PhD at the
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 Australian National University, and
00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 colleagues published in the astrophysical
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 journal on 4 November suggest that the
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 pressure of Lyman Alpha light ultraviolet
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 light from hydrogen can push diffuse
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 gas out of the young star clusters that make
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 it clear the gas and the dust and
00:14:50 --> 00:14:51 more starlight escapes.
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 Anna: Our three caveats from Friday still stand.
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 It's one contributor, not the whole answer.
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 The study works with snapshots of existing
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 simulations rather than a full time evolving
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 model, and the preprint first appeared in
00:15:04 --> 00:15:04 May.
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 Avery: A few quick Arctic Updates the Sun has
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 woken up a little sunspot region. AR
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 4566 fired an M
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 UM3.5 flare that peaked at
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 18:33 Universal Time on 5
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 November, and NOAA forecasters flagged
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 minor to moderate G1 to G2.
00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 Geomagnetic storm levels is possible on the
00:15:25 --> 00:15:26 7th.
00:15:26 --> 00:15:28 More on Aurora in the Skywatch
00:15:28 --> 00:15:31 Anna: Starship Flight 15 is targeted for mid
00:15:31 --> 00:15:33 November, with the 13th the date being talked
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 about, but SpaceX hasn't posted it. As
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 always, targeted not scheduled
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 Avery: Voyager 1 is due to reach one
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 light day from Earth around 18
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 November. That means a signal sent at
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 breakfast arrives at breakfast the next day,
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 Anna: and BepiColombo's gravity capture at
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 Mercury is on 21st November.
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 HERA continues its approach to Didymos and
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 Dywarfos with its detailed look at the dark
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 crater. Still to come later this month
00:16:04 --> 00:16:05 Avery: and to wrap things for this episode
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 Anna: now to the sky this week from both
00:16:09 --> 00:16:09 hemispheres.
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 We've calculated the numbers ourselves for
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and
00:16:15 --> 00:16:16 London.
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 Avery: Kicking off with Venus and Spica, um, before
00:16:19 --> 00:16:19 dawn.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 Anna: Venus has moved into the morning sky after
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 passing between us and the sun, and this
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 week it sits right beside Spica, uh, the
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 brightest star in Virgo. They stay about
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 one and a quarter degrees apart all week, a
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 little more than two full moons. Venus is
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 a thin crescent through a telescope only
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 about 6% lit, but its disc is big.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 Northern observers get the better view half
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 an hour before sunrise. Venus is 12 to 16
00:16:48 --> 00:16:50 degrees up from London, New York and Los
00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 Angeles against 9 or 10 degrees from
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 Sydney. Look low in the east with a clear
00:16:56 --> 00:16:56 horizon,
00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 Avery: and Venus reaches a stationary point on 11
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 November, the day its apparent drift against
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 the stars reverses direction. Not something
00:17:04 --> 00:17:06 you'll see in one night. But if you sketch
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 Venus against Spica across the week, you'll
00:17:09 --> 00:17:10 catch it Slowing down
00:17:10 --> 00:17:11 Anna: and our Moon
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 Avery: on Sunday morning the 8th, a very
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 thin crescent moon, only about
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 2.5% lit, sits about
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 4 1/2 degrees from Venus as seen
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 from Sydney, 7 degrees up 30 minutes
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 before sunrise. It's a hard catch.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 Binoculars help from the Northern Hemisphere.
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 The Moon is barely clearing the horizon at
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 that time, so this one leans south.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 New moon follows at UH0702 universal
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 time on Monday the 9th, so the
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 week's evenings are dark.
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 Anna: That darkness helps if you want to try for
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 escapade gold. NASA says it should be
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 visible through a telescope as a faint point
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 moving slowly against the stars. From the
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 western United States, it'll be best between
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01 1 and 2 in the morning Pacific Time on
00:18:01 --> 00:18:03 Monday 9th November before it slips
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 below the horizon about an hour before its
00:18:06 --> 00:18:06 burn.
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 And the burn itself at 9:51pm
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 AEDT Monday happens over
00:18:12 --> 00:18:15 southern Australia, so observers with
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 telescopes in the south get the closest pass.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 NASA recommends JPL's Horizon System
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 for exact coordinates from where you are
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 Avery: in the predawn sky. Mars is closing
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 in on Jupiter. By our calculation
00:18:29 --> 00:18:32 they're closest at UH2 universal time on
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 16 November, about 1.2
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 degrees apart. Some published listings give
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 less than a degree, so expect slightly
00:18:40 --> 00:18:41 different numbers depending on where you
00:18:41 --> 00:18:44 look. But either way it's a lovely
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 pairing for binoculars. This one strongly
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 favours the north. An hour before sunrise
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 on the 16th, Jupiter stands 62 degrees up
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 from New York, 68 from Los Angeles
00:18:56 --> 00:18:58 and 52 from London against about
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 3.32degrees from Sydney. Southern
00:19:01 --> 00:19:03 observers still get a good view just lower in
00:19:03 --> 00:19:04 the northeast.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 Anna: With that M M class flare and the storm
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 watch, there is a chance of aurora around the
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 7th and 8th for high latitude observers in
00:19:11 --> 00:19:14 both hemispheres. That's the aurora borealis
00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 across Canada, the northern U.S. and
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 Scotland, and the Aurora Australis from
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 Tasmania, southern Victoria and New Zealand's
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 South Island. Check the Bureau of
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 Meteorology, Space Weather Forecasting Centre
00:19:25 --> 00:19:27 in Australia or NOAA's Space Weather
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 Prediction Centre in the US before heading
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 out. If things are quiet, enjoy the dark
00:19:32 --> 00:19:33 skies anyway.
00:19:33 --> 00:19:36 Avery: And our standing reminder never
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 look at the sun directly through binoculars
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 or through a telescope without proper
00:19:41 --> 00:19:41 protection.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 For any solar viewing, use only certified
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 solar filters or eclipse glasses that meet
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 the ISO 123122
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 international safety standard. And that
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 includes keeping telescopes and binoculars
00:19:54 --> 00:19:55 well away from the sun. When you're hunting
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 Venus close to sunrise,
00:19:57 --> 00:20:00 Anna: please take these warnings seriously as
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 your eye health is at stake here.
00:20:03 --> 00:20:04 That's the weekend rat
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 Avery: our lead hydrogen chloride leaking
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 from fresh cracks on Alba Mons out of
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 season one place low to the
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 ground and possibly the first sign
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19 that Mars still has live magma.
00:20:20 --> 00:20:20 Possibly.
00:20:21 --> 00:20:23 Anna: Plus Swift's final orbit
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 escapades burns over Australia, a planet
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 rescued from the glare, and a cosmic leaf
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 blower. If you've got a question about any of
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 it, the contact form at astronomydaily
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 IO is the place. Your questions have shaped
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 the show more than once.
00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 Avery: You'll find show notes, the full back
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 catalogue and our newsletter at
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 astronomydaily IO and we're
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 AstroDaily Pod on social media.
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 Anna: We'll be back on Monday. I'm Anna.
00:20:50 --> 00:20:51 Clear skies, everyone.