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This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 briefing from the edge of the cosmos. I'm
00:00:05 --> 00:00:06 Anna.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 Avery: And I'm, um, Avery. It is Tuesday, the 26th
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 of May, 2026, and we have an
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 enormous show for you today.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Anna: NASA is literally, as we record this,
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 preparing to unveil the most ambitious lunar
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 plan in a generation. We're talking about a
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 permanent moon base.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 Avery: Starship V3 made its dramatic debut.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 A Soviet rover that vanished nearly 40 years
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 ago has quietly come back to life. And
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 the James Webb Space Telescope has pulled off
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 something no telescope has ever done before.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 Anna: Plus, a supernova mystery that took 20
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 years to crack. And a finding about rocky
00:00:43 --> 00:00:45 planets across the galaxy that could reshape
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 how we think about worlds like our own.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:49 Avery: Let's get into it.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:51 Anna: Our lead story today is one for the history
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 books. And uniquely, it is unfolding right
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 now as we speak, as we record this
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 episode. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 is preparing to take the podium at NASA
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 headquarters in Washington, Washington, D.C.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 for a 2pm Eastern press conference that could
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 define the next decade of human space
00:01:10 --> 00:01:10 exploration.
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 Avery: The headline is NASA is announcing
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 a permanent moon base. A real one, not a
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 visiting program, not flags and footprints. A
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 sustained human outpost at the lunar South
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 Pole with a target date of 2036.
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 Anna: What we know going in is significant. The
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 program carries a price tag in the region of
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 $30 billion across a seven year
00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 foundational phase. It centers on the lunar
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 south pole, chosen because that region
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 contains water ice in permanently shadowed
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 craters, which NASA plans to convert into
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 rocket fuel, oxygen and life support systems.
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 Avery: Critically, this plan effectively retires the
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 Gateway concept, the proposed orbiting lunar
00:01:51 --> 00:01:52 space station that's been on the drawing
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 board for years. The thinking is that the
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 resources and launch cadence needed for
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 Gateway are better directed toward getting
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 people on the surface and keeping them there.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 Anna: Nuclear power is central to the architecture.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 Both the base itself and potential future
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 Mars missions are expected to rely on
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 nuclear, uh, electric systems, a choice the
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 Planetary Society has flagged as potentially
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 transformative for deep space operations.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 As Casey Dreher put it, nuclear propulsion
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 could open up huge opportunities for energy
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 use in various science missions and crewed
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 missions around the solar system.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 Avery: Phase one alone calls for approximately 22
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 launches to the Moon, including the Artemis
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 IV crewed landing by 2028.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 Those early flights will serve as the proving
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 ground. If they go smoothly, the program
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 earns its next phase. If there are hiccups,
00:02:42 --> 00:02:43 the timeline shifts.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 Anna: Commercial partners will play a major role,
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 supplying rovers, habitat modules and
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 surface logistics. International
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 collaboration is also baked in, though the
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 competitive context is hard to ignore.
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 China has announced its own international
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 lunar research program targeting the 2000 and
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 30s, and multiple nations now have advanced
00:03:03 --> 00:03:04 lunar capabilities.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 Avery: NASA's framing going into today's briefing
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 has been unambiguous. As Isaacman put it in
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 the lead up, this time the goal is not flags
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 and footprints. This time the goal is to
00:03:15 --> 00:03:15 stay.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 Anna: By the time our listeners hear this episode,
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 those full details will be public. We'll have
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 complete coverage in tomorrow's edition. But
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 what a moment to be covering space news. The
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 moon isn't a destination anymore, it's
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 Avery: becoming an address staying with big space
00:03:32 --> 00:03:32 news.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 And this one delivered drama in Spades.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 On Friday 22 May 2026,
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 SpaceX launched Starship V3 for the very
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 first time. Flight 12, the most
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 powerful and most sophisticated rocket ever
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 built, now in its third generation
00:03:49 --> 00:03:50 configuration.
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 Anna: And it did not disappoint, though perhaps not
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 entirely in the way SpaceX had planned.
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 Let's walk through what happened, because
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 this is a story with multiple chapters. The
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 launch came from brand new Pad 2 at uh,
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 Starbase Texas, itself a uh first.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 After two scrubbed attempts, one foiled by
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 a hydraulic pin issue literally in
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 the final minutes of the countdown, Starship
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 lifted off at 6:33pm
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 Eastern on Friday. All 33
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 Raptor engines on the super heavy booster
00:04:24 --> 00:04:25 lit cleanly.
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 Avery: The ascent looked textbook right up until
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 approximately one minute and 42 seconds into
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 the flight, when one of the six vacuum Raptor
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 engines on the ship upper stage shut down.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 Now, in most rocket programs, that's a
00:04:39 --> 00:04:40 mission ending event.
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 Anna: Not here. Starship's flight computer
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 detected the shutdown, instantly
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 redistributed the burn load across the
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 remaining five engines, extending their
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 burn durations to compensate. The vehicle
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 stayed on trajectory Face X
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 spokesperson Dan Hewitt on the live
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 commentary put it this way, the flight was
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 within analyzed bounds even if it wasn't
00:05:04 --> 00:05:05 fully nominal.
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 Avery: Ship 39 reached space deployed
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 22 dummy Starlink satellites,
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 including two specially equipped with cameras
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 that captured stunning imagery of Starship in
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 orbit, and then executed a controlled
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 atmospheric re entry, splashing down in the
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 Indian Ocean as planned. Elon Musk called
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 it epic and a goal for humanity.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 Anna: NASA Administrator Isaacman, who was watching
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 in person at Starbase, wrote on X
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 One step closer to the moon, one step
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 closer to Mars. Given that Starship
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 is the intended vehicle for the Artemis
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 crewed lunar landing, that's not a casual
00:05:43 --> 00:05:44 observation.
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 Avery: Now, the super heavy booster did not have
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 such a clean ending. Multiple engines failed
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 during the boostback burn, the stage went off
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 normal and it came down hard in the Gulf of
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 Mexico. Rather than completing a soft
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 splashdown. The FAA has opened the review
00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 as a standard after any anomaly over
00:06:03 --> 00:06:04 navigable waters.
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 Anna: SpaceX had planned a splashdown rather than a
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 tower catch on this first V3 flight,
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 so losing the booster was within acceptable
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 test parameters. The company has formally
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 declared most of its pre planned test
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 objectives as completed.
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 Avery: The V3 design brings significant upgrades
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 over previous iterations larger propellant
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 capacity, simplified aft sections, new
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 Raptor 3 engines with higher thrust and
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 reduced complexity and ground infrastructure
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 at uh Pad 2. Designed for a much higher
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 launch cadence, this flight was about proving
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 those systems in the real environment.
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 Anna: It proved quite a lot. Flight 13
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 will be very interesting indeed.
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 Avery: Now to a piece of science that genuinely made
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 us sit back and marvel. The James Webb
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 Telescope has done something no telescope has
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 ever managed before. It has watched a daily
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 weather cycle unfold on a planet in another
00:07:01 --> 00:07:02 star system.
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 Anna: The planet in question is WASP
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 94ab, a hot Jupiter
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 about 690 light years from Earth in
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 the constellation Microscopium. It's a
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 gas giant 1.7 times larger
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 than Jupiter, orbiting its star every four
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 days at a distance of roughly 8 million
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 kilometers. Temperatures on its dayside
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 exceed 1200 degrees Celsius,
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 and it is tidally locked, meaning one face
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 always points toward its star, the other
00:07:33 --> 00:07:34 always faces away.
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 Avery: The research team led by Sagnik Mukherjee,
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 University who began this work as a PhD
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 student at UH UC Santa Cruz, used Webb's
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 Nirri M Instrument and a technique
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 called transit spectroscopy to observe the
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 planet as it crossed in front of its host
00:07:53 --> 00:07:54 star.
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 Anna: And what they found was extraordinary. The
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 leading edge of the planet, the side rotating
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 from night into day. The planetary morning
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 was blanketed with thick clouds made of
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 magnesium silicate. Sand clouds,
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 essentially the same mineral found in talc
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 and ordinary rocks on Earth, vaporized and
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 condensed high in an alien atmospher.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 Avery: But by the time the trailing edge, the
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 evening side, came into view, those clouds
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 had completely disappeared. A cloudy
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 dawn, a clear dusk. A weather cycle
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 repeating every four days with the planet's
00:08:29 --> 00:08:30 orbit.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 Anna: Co author David Singh of John Hopkins
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 University captured the significance
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 beautifully. He said, I've been looking at
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 exoplanets for 20 years, and general
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 cloudiness has been a thorn in our side.
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 We've known for quite a while that clouds are
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 pervasive on hot Jupiter planets, which is
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 annoying because it's like trying to look at
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 the planet through a foggy window.
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 Avery: Webb's ability to separate the morning and
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 evening limbs of the planet something the
00:09:00 --> 00:09:02 Hubble Space Telescope simply cannot do
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 gave researchers their clearest view yet of
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 the atmosphere itself. And what they found
00:09:08 --> 00:09:09 there was a surprise.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 Wasp94ab is far more Jupiter
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 like in composition than a decade of Hubble
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 data had suggested.
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 Anna: Previous measurements had indicated the
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 planet had hundreds of times more oxygen and
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 carbon than Jupiter. The new cloud
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 corrected analysis brings that down to
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 roughly five times a full order
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 of magnitude correction and a reminder
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 that unresolved clouds can seriously
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 skew our picture of what other worlds are
00:09:39 --> 00:09:39 made of.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 Avery: The team didn't stop at WASP 94ab.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 They found the same cloud cycle pattern on
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 two other hot jupiters, WASP 39b
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 and WASP 17b, suggesting this
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 isn't an anomaly, but a recurring feature of
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 how hot Jupiter atmospheres behave.
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 Anna: Researchers now plan to extend the survey to
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 planets on highly eccentric orbits.
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 Worlds that experience dramatic temperature
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 swings where even more extreme weather
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 patterns may be waiting to be discovered.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 Avery: Weather forecasts for alien worlds we are
00:10:14 --> 00:10:15 living in remackable times.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 Anna: For nearly 20 years, astronomers have
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 been puzzled by a class of stellar explosions
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 so bright they break the rules. Super
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 luminous supernovae. Stellar deaths that
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 produce 10 times or more the visible light of
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 an ordinary supernova up to a hundred
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 times brighter in some cases. The question
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 has always been what is powering them
00:10:39 --> 00:10:40 now?
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 Avery: Data from NASA's Fermi Gamma Race telescope
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 has delivered the first definitive answer and
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 it involves one of the most extreme objects
00:10:48 --> 00:10:49 in the known universe.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 Anna: The story centers on SN2017
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 EGM, first spotted by
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 ESA's Gaia mission back in May 2017.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 An international team led by Fabio Acero uh
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 at the French national center for Scientific
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 Research has now confirmed that Fermi
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 detected gamma rays the most energetic
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 form of light coming from this event.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 Avery: That confirmation matters enormously because
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 gamma rays carry the fingerprint of what's
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 actually happening at the core of the
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23 explosion. And what Fermi's data reveals is
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 a magnetar a neutron star born in the
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 same stellar collapse that triggered the
00:11:28 --> 00:11:29 supernova.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 Anna: To understand why that's significant,
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 consider what a magnetar is. When a
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 star many times the mass of our sun
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 exhausts its fuel and collapses, its
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 core can compress into a neutron star
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 roughly the size of a city. Magnetars
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 are the most extreme version of those
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 objects, spinning hundreds of times per
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 second, generating magnetic fields a
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 thousand times stronger than those of
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 ordinary neutron stars the most
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 powerful magnetic objects in the known
00:12:01 --> 00:12:02 universe.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 Avery: The model works like the newborn
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 magnetar's furious rotation generates an
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 outflow of electrons and positrons,
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 matter and antimatter particles that forms a
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 vast cloud of energetic particles. That
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 cloud pumps energy back into the expanding
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 shell of stellar material, supercharging the
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 explosion and making it shine far brighter
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 than any ordinary supernova.
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 Anna: The team compared optical and gamma ray data
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 from SN2017 EGM
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 against theoretical mod models of exactly
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 this process, and the match was compelling.
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 As Fabio Acero put it, for nearly
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 20 years, astronomers have searched Fermi
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 data for gamma ray signals from thousands of
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 supernovae. And while a few intriguing
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 hints have been reported, none were
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 definitive until now.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 Avery: This is a genuine first, a direct
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 observational window into the engine driving
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 the most powerful stellar explosions in the
00:13:02 --> 00:13:02 cosmos,
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 Anna: and it opens a new avenue for future
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 research. The team has assessed how the
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 upcoming Tarenkov Telescope Array
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 Observatory, a UH next generation ground
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 based gamma ray facility, will perform at UH
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 detecting similar events. The era of
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 magnetor forensics is just beginning.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 Avery: A mystery that's been open since the early
00:13:24 --> 00:13:27 2000s finally cracked. And the answer
00:13:27 --> 00:13:30 is a star corpse the size of a city
00:13:30 --> 00:13:32 spinning like a cosmic dynamo.
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 Anna: Here's a finding that quietly challenges one
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 of our most fundamental assumptions about
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 what planets are made of. And it matters a
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 great deal for how we think about
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 habitability beyond our solar system.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 Avery: A new paper submitted to the Astrophysical
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 Journal proposes that the structure we take
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 for granted here on Earth a dense metallic
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 core surrounded by a silicate mantle topped
00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 by a thin crust may be the exception rather
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 than the rule for rocky planets across the
00:14:01 --> 00:14:01 galaxy.
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 Anna: For decades, planetary scientists have used
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 our solar system as the template. Earth has
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 a metallic core. Mars has one. Mercury,
00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 though radically oversized relative to the
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 rest of the planet, has one. The assumption,
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 largely unchallenged, was that rocky
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 planets formed this way. Heavy metals sank
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 to the center during the molten phase early
00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 in planetary history, creating the
00:14:26 --> 00:14:28 familiar layered structure.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 Avery: But when you look at the full range of rocky
00:14:30 --> 00:14:33 planets now cataloged and we have confirmed
00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 over 6 exoplanets as of this year,
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 with many hundreds in the rocky category. The
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 diversity of compositions is striking.
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 Rocky planets form in vastly different
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 stellar environments with different ratios of
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 iron, silicate and other materials depending
00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 on the chemistry of their parent nebula.
00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 Anna: The researchers argue that many of the most
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 common rocky planets in the galaxy, so
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 called super Earths and sub Neptunes,
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 may have form in conditions where metallic
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 core formation simply didn't occur in the
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 same way or at all. Without that
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 dense metallic core, you don't get a global
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 magnetic field generated by a dynamo effect.
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 Avery: And that has profound implications for
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 habitability. Earth's magnetic field shields
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 our surface from the solar wind. Without it,
00:15:21 --> 00:15:23 our atmosphere would gradually be stripped
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 away over geological timescales Mars
00:15:26 --> 00:15:28 lost most of its magnetic field billions of
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 years ago. And look at it now.
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 Anna: If the majority of rocky planets across the
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 galaxy lack that protective magnetic
00:15:36 --> 00:15:39 shielding, the calculus for finding life
00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 friendly worlds changes considerably.
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 Avery: It's a sobering and fascinating paper and
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 a reminder that our solar system, for all its
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 familiarity, may be showing us a rather
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 unusual version of what planets typically
00:15:52 --> 00:15:52 look like.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 Anna: We're closing tonight with a story that has
00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 everything Cold War history, a, uh,
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 decades long mystery, a surprising
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 rediscovery, and a laser beam fired
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 from New Mexico to a hillside on the moon.
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 Avery: Pass your minds back to November 1970.
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 The Soviet Union lands Luna 17 on the
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 Moon's sea of rains. Mada imbrium.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 Out rolls Lunohod 1, a bathtub
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 shaped eight wheeled Rover bristling with
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 scientific instruments. The world's first
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 remote controlled vehicle to operate on
00:16:25 --> 00:16:26 another world.
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 Anna: It was designed for a relatively short
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 mission. Instead, it kept going,
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 surviving 11 lunar day night cycles,
00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 traversing roughly 10.5 kilometers of
00:16:38 --> 00:16:41 the lunar surface, sending back thousands of
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 photographs and mountains of scientific data.
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 Then, in the autumn of 1971,
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 contact ceased. Mission over.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 Avery: But here's the thing. Mounted on Lunohod 1
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 was a French built laser retroreflector,
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 a passive optical device that requires no
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 power whatsoever. Its only job is to bounce
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 laser light back toward wherever it came
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 from. And that device was still there,
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 perfectly intact, waiting.
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 Anna: The problem was that no one knew precisely
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 where Lunokhod 1 had ended its journey.
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 The rover had moved across the surface during
00:17:16 --> 00:17:18 its mission, and without high resolution
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 orbital imagery, pinpointing its final
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 resting place to the precision needed for
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 laser ranging was impossible. For
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 nearly 38 years, it sat there,
00:17:29 --> 00:17:30 silent, invisible,
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 scientifically tantalizingly out of reach.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 Avery: Then, in 2010, um, everything changed.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter sent back
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 high resolution imagery of Mare Imbrium, and
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 researchers spotted it, the rover and its
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 landing platform still sitting exactly where
00:17:48 --> 00:17:49 they'd been left.
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 Anna: With updated coordinates in hand, a team from
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 the Apache Point Observatory lunar laser
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 ranging operation in New Mexico. The
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 Apollo project fired laser pulses at
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 the site in April 2010. And Lunokhod
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 1 fired back, not metaphorically.
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 Avery: The retroreflector returned approximately
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 2 photons per shot,
00:18:12 --> 00:18:15 roughly four times stronger than the returns
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 from Lunokhod 2, and stronger than expected
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 from a reflector that had spent nearly four
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 decades exposed to the lunar environment.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 Anna: The location turns out to be scientifically
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 valuable in ways researchers hadn't
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 anticipated. Lunokhod 1 sits closer
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 to the lunar limb than any of the Apollo
00:18:32 --> 00:18:35 reflectors, a position that improves
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 measurements of the lunar librations, the
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 subtle wobbles in its rotation, which in
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 turn help refine models of the lunar
00:18:43 --> 00:18:43 interior.
00:18:44 --> 00:18:45 Avery: And there's a puzzle that the recovered
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 reflector is helping solve. Near Full
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 Moon, the strength of laser returns from all
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 reflectors drops by a factor of 10. No
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 one fully understands why Lunokhod
00:18:56 --> 00:18:59 1's strong returns from a different geometry
00:18:59 --> 00:19:00 are providing new clues.
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 Anna: Long term laser ranging, now including this
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 recovered Cold War relic, has given us some
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 of our most precise measurements of how the
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth,
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 uh, at about 3.8 centimeters per year,
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 and has contributed evidence for the
00:19:17 --> 00:19:19 existence of a fluid lunar core.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 Avery: A rover that fell silent in
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 1971, rediscovered from
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 orbit, resurrected by a laser pulse,
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 and still contributing to science today.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 Sometimes the best stories don't end, they
00:19:33 --> 00:19:34 just go quiet for a while.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 Anna: And that wraps up Astronomy daily for
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 Tuesday, 26 May 2026
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 from a moon base that could redefine human
00:19:43 --> 00:19:45 civilization to a Soviet rover
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 whispering back from the lunar surface.
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 What a day to be paying attention to the
00:19:50 --> 00:19:51 cosmos.
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 Avery: If today's episode sparked something for you,
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 please subscribe, leave a review and share us
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 with someone who needs more space in their
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 life. You'll find full show notes, links to
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00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 Anna: We're astrodaily Pod across x,
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 Instagram, TikTok and Tumblr.
00:20:12 --> 00:20:13 Avery: For Anna, I'm Avery.
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00:20:38 --> 00:20:39 Avery: We're told
00:20:42 --> 00:20:42 m.