• 00:00 — Intro • 02:10 — Story 1: Shenzhou-23 Launches with Historic Crew • 08:45 — Story 2: NASA Psyche's Stunning Mars Flyby Images • 14:20 — Story 3: Record-Breaking 19-Day Solar Radio Burst Explained • 20:30 — Story 4: Source of Most Powerful Neutrino Ever Detected • 26:15 — Story 5: White Dwarf Devouring Its Companion in 8.5-Minute Orbit • 32:00 — Story 6: Mars Fungi Could Fertilise Red Planet Regolith • 37:30 — OutroStory Sources & Links
Story 1: Shenzhou-23 Mission — NPR / Space.com / CGTN (May 24, 2026) Story 2: NASA Psyche Mars Flyby — NASA JPL / Engadget (May 23, 2026) Story 3: 19-Day Solar Radio Burst — Astrophysical Journal Letters / Gizmodo (May 19-22, 2026) Story 4: Neutrino Source — Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics / ScienceDaily (May 24, 2026) Story 5: White Dwarf Binary — The Astrophysical Journal / Phys.org (May 23, 2026) Story 6: Mars Fungi — Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences / Universe Today (May 23, 2026)
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This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily,
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 your Monday briefing on everything happening
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 across the cosmos. I'm Anna.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 Avery: And I'm Avery. It is Monday 25th
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 May, 2026, and we have a packed show
00:00:13 --> 00:00:14 for you today.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 Anna: We do. Uh, coming up, China makes history
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 with a crew launch that breaks several
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 records at once. NASA's Psyche
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 spacecraft wows us with brand new imagery
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 from Mars. And the sun served up a
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 signal so bizarre, scientists are staring,
00:00:30 --> 00:00:31 still scratching their heads.
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 Avery: Plus ghost particles from a cosmic monster,
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 A stellar feeding frenzy in an orbit that's
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 almost impossibly fast, and the
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 surprisingly hopeful story about farming on
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 Mars. Let's get into it.
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 Anna: China made history on Sunday night, launching
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 three astronauts to its Tiangong space
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 station aboard the Shenzhou 23
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 spacecraft. And this crew is carrying
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 several firsts with them into orbit.
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 Avery: The long March 2F rocket blasted off from the
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 Zhuoquan Satellite launch Center in the Gobi
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 Desert at, uh, just after 11pm Beijing time,
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 sending the crew on their way to what China
00:01:08 --> 00:01:09 calls the Heavenly Palace.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 Anna: The crew consists of Mission commander Xu
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 Yangzhou, pilot Zhang Zhiyuan,
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 and payload specialist Lai Kaying.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 And it's Lai who's making the history books.
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 She was born and raised in Hong Kong and
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 holds a doctorate in computer forensics. She
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 is the very first astronaut from Hong Kong to
00:01:29 --> 00:01:29 reach space.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 Avery: That's a genuinely big moment, Anna. Um, Hong
00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 Kong has been growing its contributions to
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 China's space program significantly in recent
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 years, with university teams developing
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 instruments for upcoming lunar missions. To
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 now have someone from the city actually
00:01:44 --> 00:01:46 flying, that's a real milestone.
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 Anna: And the historic firsts don't stop there.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 One member of the Shenzhou 23 crew will stay
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 aboard Tiangong for a full year to the
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 first time any Chinese astronaut has
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 undertaken a 12 month mission.
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 Avery: The extended stay is connected to a
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 fascinating plan for the Follow up
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 shenzhou24Mission due later this year.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 That mission will carry a Pakistani
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 astronaut, the first international visitor to
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 China space station, who will spend a short
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 time aboard before returning on the outbound
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 Shenzhou 23 vehicle, leaving one of the
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 current crew to complete that year long stay.
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 Anna: It's a clever piece of mission architecture,
00:02:22 --> 00:02:25 and all of it is building toward China's
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 stated goal of a crewed lunar landing by
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 2030. Every long duration mission,
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 every new crew rotation, is laying the
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 groundwork for those much longer future
00:02:35 --> 00:02:35 missions.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 Avery: The new crew will also relieve the Shenzhou
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 21 astronauts who've been aboard Tiangong for
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 more than 200 days, slightly longer than
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 originally planned following an incident last
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 year where their Return spacecraft was
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 damaged by suspected debris. They'll be very
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 glad to see a fresh crew arrive.
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 Anna: Congratulations to Xu Yongzhu, Zhong
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 Zhiyuan and especially Lai Kai Ying
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 on this historic mission. We'll be following
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 their time aboard Tiangong closely now.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 Avery: Remember a couple of weeks ago we told you
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 about NASA's Psyche spacecraft preparing to
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 slingshot around Mars on its way to the
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 asteroid belt. Well, the images are in
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 and they are spectacular.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 Anna: NASA released the photos this week from
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 Psyche's gravity assist flyby, uh, of Mars.
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 On 15 May. The spacecraft came within just
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 under 2 miles of the Martian surface,
00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 traveling, uh, at more than 12 miles an
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 hour. And its multispectral imager was
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 working overtime.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 Avery: The standout image shows the Huygens crater,
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 a massive double ringed impact structure
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 nearly 300 miles across in Mars's
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 southern highlands. Psyche enhanced the
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 colors to highlight compositional differences
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 in the dust, sand and bedrock.
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 And the result is genuinely beautiful. Ochres
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 and tans and pale blues against the ancient
00:03:53 --> 00:03:54 cratered terrain.
00:03:54 --> 00:03:57 Anna: These images serve a, uh, real scientific
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 purpose. Beyond the stunning visuals,
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 they're calibration data for Psyche's imaging
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 instruments. The first chance the science
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 team has had to test them against an object
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 larger than a few pixels. That's
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 going to be crucial when the spacecraft
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 finally arrives at its target.
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 Avery: And Mars delivered the goods dynamically as
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 well. The flyby gave Psyche a speed boost of
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 around 1 miles per hour and shifted its
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 orbital plane, all without burning a drop of
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 onboard propellant. The navigation team
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 confirmed a spacecraft is now on a direct
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 course for the asteroid, with arrival
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 expected in August 2029.
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 Anna: Asteroid 16 Psyche, of course,
00:04:39 --> 00:04:42 is one of the most intriguing objects in the
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 solar system. Uh, a metallic world that may
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 be the exposed core of a protoplanet
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 and potentially worth more than the entire
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 global economy in precious metals.
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 Though we should note that last part is very
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 much a theoretical figure.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 Avery: Still, it's quite a headline. Gorgeous
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 images. Now the asteroid itself in three
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 years time. Well worth the wait.
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 Anna: Here's a solar physics story that genuinely
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 surprised researchers. Back In August of
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 2025, NASA's instruments
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 picked up what initially looked like a
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 perfectly routine radio burst from the sun.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 Avery: Except it didn't stop Exactly.
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 Anna: These type 4 solar radio
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 bursts, produced when energetic electrons
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 get trapped inside the Sun's magnetic fields,
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 normally last anywhere from a few hours to
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 maybe a few days. The previous record
00:05:37 --> 00:05:38 stood at five days.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 Avery: This one lasted 19, nearly
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 four times the previous record. That's not a
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 small anomaly. That's a completely different
00:05:46 --> 00:05:47 Class of event.
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 Anna: The tricky part was actually tracking it,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 because as the sun rotates, different
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 spacecraft had it in view at different times.
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 A fleet of four missions pieced the
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 Kickstarter, NASA's Parker Solar
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 Probe, the STEREO mission, the WIND
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 spacecraft, and the joint ESA
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 NASA Solar Orbiter each observed
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 the burst for several days across three
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 overlapping windows.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 Avery: So it was almost like relay baton passing
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 across a solar system. One spacecraft would
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 watch the signal fade from its perspective,
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 and then another on the other side would pick
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 it up again as the sun rotated.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 Anna: Using data from stereo, the team
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 developed a new tracking technique that
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 pinpointed the source, a structure in the
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 Sun's corona called a helmet streamer.
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 These funnel shaped features form when hot
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 plasma gets trapped along enormous
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 magnetic loops extending outward from the
00:06:44 --> 00:06:45 Sun's surface.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 Avery: And the leading theory for why this one
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 lasted so long was that three successive
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 coronal mass ejections within the same region
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 of the sun essentially kept re energizing the
00:06:56 --> 00:06:58 burst like someone repeatedly topping up a
00:06:58 --> 00:06:59 fire.
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 Anna: The findings have been published in the
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 Astrophysical Journal Letters, and the
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 implications for space weather forecasting
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 are significant. While the radio waves
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 themselves are harmless, the magnetic
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 environments that produce these bursts can
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 also accelerate dangerous particles toward
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 Earth. Particles that can damage satellites
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 and spacecraft. Understanding how these
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 bursts work and how long they can last is
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 directly relevant to protecting our
00:07:27 --> 00:07:28 infrastructure in space.
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 Avery: And with solar activity intensifying through
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 the current cycle, the timing of this
00:07:34 --> 00:07:35 research couldn't be better.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 Anna: Now we're going deep. Very deep.
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 Two miles below the surface of the
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Sicily,
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 sits one of the most unusual telescopes
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 ever built. It's called KM
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 M3Net, and it doesn't look at light.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 Avery: It hunts ghost particles,
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 neutrinos, subatomic particles so
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 small, so elusive, that a light year of
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 solid lead would only have a fixed 5050
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 chance of stopping one. Trillions of them are
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 passing through your body right now without
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 you feeling a thing.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 Anna: Back in February 2023,
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 KM3Net detected something
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 extraordinary. A neutrino with an
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 energy of 220PETA
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 electron volts. To put that in context,
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 that's more than 30 times the energy of the
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 most powerful neutrino ever previously
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 recorded. A ping pong ball dropping 1
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 meter carries about the same energy
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 packed into a single subatomic
00:08:36 --> 00:08:37 particle.
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 Avery: Scientists have been trying to work out where
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 this particle came from ever since. And
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 now, fresh research published this week in
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 the Journal of Cosmology and Astrophysics
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 points to a culprit. Lazars.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 Anna: Lasers are among the most violent objects in
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 the universe. They're active galactic nuclei,
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 effectively supermassive black holes that are
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 shooting jets of plasma directly toward Earth
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 from billions of light years away. They're
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 cosmic particle accelerators on an almost
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 incomprehensible scale.
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 Avery: If the KM3 NET team's interpretation is
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 confirmed that this record shattering
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 neutrino originated from a population of
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 blazars, it would completely rewrite our
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 understanding of how these objects accelerate
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 particles. It implies that blazars can push
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 matter to energies far beyond what scientists
00:09:28 --> 00:09:29 previously thought possible.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 Anna: And the story isn't finished yet.
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 Hem3net is still under construction.
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 This detection arrived when only a fraction
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 of the final instrument was operational. As
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 the detector expands, it should catch more of
00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 these ultra high energy events, potentially
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 narrowing down the source to a specific
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 object or class of objects.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 Avery: A ghost particle from the edge of the
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 universe, decoded by a telescope on the
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 ocean floor. This is exactly the kind
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 of story that reminds you why particle
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 astrophysics is so extraordinary.
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 Anna: Our next story comes from mit and it involves
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 one of the most extreme gravitational dances
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 ever observed. Two dead stars locked in
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 an orbit so tight, so fast, it almost
00:10:13 --> 00:10:14 defies belief.
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 Avery: We're, we're talking about a binary white
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 dwarf system. White dwarfs are the remnant
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 cores of stars like our Sun. Extremely dense,
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 roughly Earth sized, but retaining the mass
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 of a full star. When two of them end up
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 orbiting each other at uh, very close range,
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 remarkable things can happen.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 Anna: In this case, the two white dwarfs are
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 orbiting each other with a period of just
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 8.56 minutes. To put that in
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 perspective, the Earth takes
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 365 days to orbit the Sun.
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 These two stellar corpses are completing a
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 full orbit in less than nine minutes.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 Avery: At uh, that proximity, gravity becomes
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 overwhelming. One of the white dwarfs is
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 actively stripping material from the other,
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 pulling it apart and devouring it in what
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 astronomers call a, uh, mass transfer. It's
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 essentially a slow motion cosmic cannibalism.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 Anna: Led by emma Chikls at MIT's Kavli Institute,
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 the research team says this gives us one of
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 the clearest news yet of how ultra compact
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 white dwarf binaries exchange mass at such
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 extreme orbital periods. Previous
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 observations of these systems have been
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23 limited, and many fundamental questions about
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 how violent mass transfer can get in such
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 tight orbits have remained unanswered.
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 Avery: There's another dimension to this discovery
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 that's particularly exciting for the future
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 of astronomy. Systems like this one are
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 prime targets for next generation
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 gravitational wave detectors, space based
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 observatories that will be able to detect the
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 ripples in space time produced by these
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 ultra compact binaries.
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 Anna: So what we're seeing here isn't just a
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 fascinating stellar spectacle. It's a
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 signpost pointing toward gravitational
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 astronomy. The tighter the orbit, the more
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 intense the gravitational signal. And at
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 eight and a half minutes, this system is
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 generating waves that future detectors should
00:12:04 --> 00:12:05 be able to pick up directly.
00:12:06 --> 00:12:07 Avery: The findings are published in the
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 Astrophysical. Even burnt out stellar
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 cores, it turns out, can be torn apart under
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 the right circumstances. Space is
00:12:15 --> 00:12:16 metal.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 Anna: It really, really is.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 Avery: We're going to close today's episode with
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 something that feels almost like science
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 fiction, but is very much science fact.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 If humans are ever going to live on Mars long
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 term, they're going to need to eat. And that
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 means growing food. But Martian soil, or
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 regolith, to use the correct term, is
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 toxic, nutrient, dead, and about as
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 welcoming to plant life as a car park.
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 Anna: Not for long, if researchers from the United
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 States and Brazil have their way. Their new
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 study, published in Frontiers in Astronomy
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 and Space Sciences, proposes a biological
00:12:52 --> 00:12:53 solution. Fungi.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 Avery: Specifically, a group called beneficial
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 fungi, organisms that have been promoting
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 plant growth on Earth since long before
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 humans arrived. The key players here are
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, or
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 amf, which work by essentially acting as
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 a microscopic extension of a plant's root
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 system, dramatically increasing its ability
00:13:14 --> 00:13:15 to absorb nutrients.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 Anna: Martian regolith is critically deficient in
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 three things plants need above, um, almost
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 everything nitrogen, potassium, and
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 phosphorus. It's also highly alkaline,
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 perchlorate laden, and lacks the organic
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 matter that makes Earth soil biologically
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 active. The researchers propose that
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 AMF and a related fungal species called
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 Trichoderma could begin to overcome those
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 deficiencies and transform the regolith into
00:13:42 --> 00:13:43 something biologically workable.
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 Avery: What makes this particularly interesting is
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 that these fungi have already been tested in
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 space environments. Fungal species have been
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 used on the International Space Station, and
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 researchers are building an understanding of
00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 how they perform under the kind of abiotic
00:13:58 --> 00:14:00 stress, extreme temperatures, radiation,
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 nutrient poverty that any organism on
00:14:04 --> 00:14:04 Mars would face.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:06 Anna: The team is candid that significant
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 challenges remain before you're growing wheat
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 in Martian regolith. Real world testing with
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 actual Martian soil samples rather than
00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 simulants hasn't happened yet. But they're
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 optimistic, and they frame this approach as a
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 strategic biotechnological tool for what's
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 called in situ resource utilization.
00:14:25 --> 00:14:26 Living off the land.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 Avery: The concept being, instead of shipping soil
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 from Earth, which would be extraordinarily
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 expensive and logistically nightmarish, and
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 you bring a handful of carefully chosen
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 microorganisms and let them do the
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 terraforming at the microscale. Turn poison
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 into farmland. One fungal threat at a
00:14:44 --> 00:14:44 time.
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 Anna: It's patient science, but it's the kind of
00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 patient science that makes long duration Mars
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 missions and eventually permanent human
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 settlement imaginable. We'll be watching this
00:14:55 --> 00:14:56 research closely.
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 Avery: And that's our Monday edition of Astronomy
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 Daily, six stories from across the cosmos,
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03 from the launch pads of the Gobi Desert to
00:15:03 --> 00:15:06 the ocean floor of Sicily, from the surface
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 of Mars to the edge of the observable
00:15:08 --> 00:15:08 universe.
00:15:09 --> 00:15:11 Anna: Thank you so much for spending part of your
00:15:11 --> 00:15:13 Monday with us. If you're enjoying the show,
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 please take a moment to leave a review.
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 Wherever you listen, it makes a real
00:15:17 --> 00:15:19 difference in helping new listeners find us.
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 Avery: You can find us at astronomydaily, uh
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 IO and follow us on X
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 Instagram TikTok and more
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 @astrodaily pod. All the links are
00:15:30 --> 00:15:30 in the show notes.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:32 Anna: We'll be back tomorrow with more of the
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 latest from the Cosmos. Until then, keep your
00:15:35 --> 00:15:36 eyes on the
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 Avery: skies and keep looking up.