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Astronomy Daily — S05E98 | Weekend Wrap | May 9, 2026 Welcome to the Astronomy Daily Weekend Space & Astronomy News Wrap! Every Saturday, Anna and Avery bring you a roundup of the biggest stories from the past week in space and astronomy — plus two fresh stories to open the show. Here's what we covered this week: Fresh Stories 🌞 The Sun's Hidden Face Finally Gets a Full Read-Out For 25 years, helioseismology has let scientists detect sunspot groups forming on the Sun's far side — but not their magnetic polarity, the key factor in forecasting how dangerous an eruption might be. A new technique developed by the National Solar Observatory's GONG network changes that, enabling polarity-resolved magnetic maps of the Sun's hidden hemisphere for the first time. With a significant far-side flare firing just days ago, the real-world stakes couldn't be clearer. Published in Scientific Reports. 🌀 Webb Finds an Ancient Galaxy That Simply Refuses to Spin James Webb has spotted XMM-VID1-2075, a massive galaxy formed less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang that shows no rotation — a trait normally reserved for much older, evolved systems. Current theory says young galaxies should still be spinning. This one isn't. The UC Davis-led team is now searching for similar objects to understand how rare this truly is. Published in Nature Astronomy. Weekly Wrap — The Four Biggest Stories 🪐 The Planetary Odd Couple That Defies the Rules 190 light-years away, a hot Jupiter and a mini-Neptune are orbiting the same star — an arrangement once thought nearly impossible, since hot Jupiters typically scatter anything in their neighbourhood. Using JWST, MIT researchers have now read the mini-Neptune's atmosphere for the first time, finding a heavy mix of water vapour, CO₂, SO₂ and methane that points to formation far beyond the frost line. Both planets likely migrated inward together. Published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. 🟤 200,000 Volunteers Double the Known Brown Dwarf Population NASA's citizen science project Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has announced the discovery of more than 3,000 brown dwarfs over 10 years — essentially doubling the known count. The 75-author paper in The Astronomical Journal includes 61 volunteer co-authors. New finds include extreme T subdwarfs, ultra-cool objects, and a brown dwarf that may have aurorae. The search continues through more than 2 billion WISE sources. 🍩 NASA Launches Space Doughnut Mission Tuesday SpaceX CRS-34 launches May 12 carrying STORIE (Storm Time O+ Ring Current Imaging Evolution), a joint NASA/U.S. Space Force instrument to be mounted outside the ISS. STORIE will study Earth's ring current — a doughnut-shaped region of trapped charged particles that can surge during solar storms, disrupting satellites and power grids — from the inside out. Six-month mission duration. 🪨 Webb Directly Reads an Exoplanet's Surface for the First Time JWST has achieved a planetary science first — directly characterising the surface of a super-Earth 48 light-years away. The findings reveal a dark, airless, Mercury-like world with no atmosphere. The technique marks a significant shift from atmospheric to direct surface analysis, opening new possibilities for characterising rocky planets in and near habitable zones.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Hello, space fans. You're tuned in to
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 Astronomy Daily, your weekend home, for the
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 biggest stories from the cosmos. I'm Anna.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 Avery: And, um, I'm Avery. And what a week it has
00:00:10 --> 00:00:11 been.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 Anna: We've got two fresh stories to kick things
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 off, and then, as always on a Saturday, we're
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 bringing you our weekend wrap. The four
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 biggest space and astronomy stories from the
00:00:21 --> 00:00:22 past seven days.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 Avery: So let's not waste a second. Let's get into
00:00:25 --> 00:00:25 it.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 Anna: So this first story is about something that
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 has frustrated solar scientists for decades.
00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 And honestly, it's about time it got sorted.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:35 Avery: Oh, uh, I know what you're gonna say. The far
00:00:35 --> 00:00:36 side.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 Anna: The far side. Every 28 days, the
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 sun rotates all the way around, which means
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 anything happening on the side we can't see
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 from Earth. Sunspots, flares,
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 eruptionshas historically been a mystery
00:00:50 --> 00:00:51 until it swings into view.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:53 Avery: Um, and by that point, you might only have
00:00:53 --> 00:00:55 days of warning before whatever's brewing
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 rotates directly toward Earth.
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 Anna: Exactly. Now, scientists have had a
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 technique called helioseismology for about
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 25 years, basically using sound waves
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 reverberating inside the sun to locate
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 where large active regions are forming on
00:01:11 --> 00:01:12 that hidden side.
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 Avery: So a bit like using sonar to look for things
00:01:15 --> 00:01:16 you can't directly see.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 Anna: Great analogy. But here's the thing.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 That technique could tell you that something
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 was there. What it could not tell you was the
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 polarity of those active regions.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 Avery: So polarity matters because.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 Anna: Because the polarity of a sunspot group,
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 which way the magnetic field is pointing, is
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 one of the most important factors in how
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 powerful an eruption might be. Get the
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 polarity wrong, and your forecast is
00:01:41 --> 00:01:42 basically useless.
00:01:42 --> 00:01:43 Avery: So what's changed?
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 Anna: A team led by solar physicist Almer Hamada
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 at the National Solar Observatory have
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 developed a new method using data NOAA's
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 Global Oscillation Network Group Gong A Ah,
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 network of robotic telescopes stationed
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 around the world that continuously records
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 the Sun's surface oscillations. They've found
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 a way to analyze phase shifts in the
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 helioseismic maps and assign actual
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 magnetic polarities to far side sunspot
00:02:09 --> 00:02:10 regions.
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 Avery: So we're not just seeing where the sunspot
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 is. We're now getting information about how
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 dangerous it might be before it's even
00:02:16 --> 00:02:16 visible.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 Anna: And to put a very real world spin on this,
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 just two days ago, on May 7, a significant
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 solar flare erupted from the Sun's far side.
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 The event was partially blocked by the solar
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 horizon, so we don't even know how large it
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 really was. The question already being asked
00:02:33 --> 00:02:34 is, what's
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 Avery: coming back around that's genuinely
00:02:37 --> 00:02:38 exciting and a little unnerving.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 Anna: Uh, the team's results have been published in
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 scientific reports and the findings are being
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 hailed as a breakthrough for full sun
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 magnetic mapping. The more we can see the
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 whole sun at once, the better we can protect
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 the satellites, power grids and astronauts
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 that rely on space weather forecasting.
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 Avery: Massive step forward. Love it.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 Anna: Okay, story two comes from the James Webb
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 Space Telescope. And I have to be honest, I
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 feel like almost every week JWST
00:03:07 --> 00:03:08 is breaking something. We thought we
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 understood this point. It's basically its
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 personality, right?
00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 Avery: So this week, a team led by researchers at
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 the University of California, Davis, has
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 published findings in Nature Astronomy about
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 a galaxy called XMMVidon M
00:03:24 --> 00:03:28 M2075.
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 And before you zone out at the name, here's
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 why it matters. This galaxy formed less
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 than 2 billion years after the Big Bang,
00:03:36 --> 00:03:37 which in
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 Anna: cosmic terms is extremely young.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 Avery: Extremely young. Now, according to everything
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 we understand about how galaxies form, young
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 galaxies should be spinning. Angular
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 momentum from inflowing gas, the influence of
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 gravity during formation. It all sets them
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 rotating over billions of years through
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 mergers and other processes. Some of them
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 eventually slow down and become these large
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 settled non rotating systems.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 Anna: But that takes a very long time.
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 Avery: A, ah, very long time. And yet
00:04:08 --> 00:04:09 XMMVID M M
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 2075 shows essentially
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 zero rotation. None. It has
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 already settled into that mature non
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 spinning state at an age when it should still
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 be churning away like a cosmic washing
00:04:24 --> 00:04:24 machine.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 Anna: So how is that even possible?
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 Avery: That's the big question. Some simulations do
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 allow for a very small number of these
00:04:31 --> 00:04:33 objects in the early universe, but they're
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 predicted to be incredibly rare. Finding one
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 is already significant. The team is now
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 actively searching for more to understand
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 just how common or uncommon they might be.
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 Anna: And I understand this galaxy was already on
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 the radar as one of the most massive in the
00:04:48 --> 00:04:49 early universe.
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 Avery: It was. Previous observations confirmed it
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 already had several times as many stars as
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 our entire Milky Way and had stopped forming
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 new stars. Both traits of a much older
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 evolved system. JWST was then
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 used to measure how material was actually
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 moving inside it. And the result was
00:05:08 --> 00:05:09 it basically wasn't,
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 Anna: shouldn't exist, but it does. That's
00:05:12 --> 00:05:13 JWST in a nutshell.
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 Avery: Every week. Every single week.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 Anna: Alright, time for our weekend wrap. Four
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 stories. The biggest space in astronomy news
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 from the past seven days. Avery, set it up.
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 Avery: Let's do it. This week we have a cosmic odd
00:05:26 --> 00:05:28 couple that shouldn't be together. A quarter
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 million citizen scientists who've quietly
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 doubled the book of brown dwarfs. A NASA
00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 mission that's about to launch inside a space
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 donut. And the Webb first that nobody has
00:05:38 --> 00:05:39 done before. Big week.
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 Anna: A space donut. We'll get to that.
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 Let's start with rap story number one. A
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 planetary pairing that MIT scientists are
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 calling one of the rarest architectures
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 astronomers have ever found. It involves a
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 hot Jupiter and a mini Neptune,
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 190 light years from Earth, orbiting the same
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 star. And according to everything we know,
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 one of them should not still be there.
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 Avery: Hot Jupiters are legendary bullies.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 Anna: They really are. They're massive gas giants
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 that orbit very close to their star. And
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 their gravity is so intense that any planet
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 daring to share the neighborhood normally
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 gets flung away into deep space. Hot
00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 Jupiters are almost always found alone,
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 Avery: except in this system toi 1130,
00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 where a, uh, mini Neptune is not only
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 surviving, but orb even closer to the star
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 than the hot Jupiter, which has
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 Anna: been puzzling scientists since the system was
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 first discovered in 2020. Now a team at
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 MIT has used James Webb to actually read the
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 atmosphere of the mini Neptune for the first
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 time. And what they've found is a heavy
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 water vapor, carbon dioxide, sulfur
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 dioxide, and hints of methane.
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 Avery: And that heavy atmospheric chemistry is the
00:06:49 --> 00:06:50 clue.
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 Anna: Exactly. If this planet had formed where it
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 currently sits close to its star, it would
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 have a light atmosphere dominated by hydrogen
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 and helium. Instead, it's dense with
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 molecules that point to formation in the
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 cold, icy outer reaches of the protoplanetary
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 disk, what astronomers call beyond the frost
00:07:08 --> 00:07:09 line, which suggests
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 Avery: both planets formed far out and then migrated
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 inward together, maintaining their
00:07:14 --> 00:07:15 atmospheres as they went.
00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 Anna: This is actually the first measurement ever
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 made of the atmosphere of a mini Neptune
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 sitting inside a hot Jupiter's orbit.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 Genuinely unprecedented. Published this week
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 Avery: Two planets that shouldn't coexist. And yet
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 they do, in perfect, if bewildering,
00:07:33 --> 00:07:33 harmony.
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 Anna: Rap Story 2, and I love this one because it's
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 a reminder that some of the most significant
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 contributions to astronomy right now are
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 being made by ordinary people sitting at home
00:07:43 --> 00:07:44 with a laptop.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 Avery: NASA's Backyard World's Planet Nine project?
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 Anna: The very same. So for those who haven't heard
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 of it, this is a citizen science program
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 where volunteers sift through infrared data
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 from NASA's retired WISE satellite, looking
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 for objects that move. Stars move slightly
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 against the background. Over time. Brown
00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 dwarfs move. Planet nine, if it exists, would
00:08:05 --> 00:08:05 too.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 Avery: And along the way, the volunteers have been
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 finding brown dwarfs in remarkable numbers.
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 Anna: Remarkable doesn't cover it. A new
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 paper published this week in the astronomical
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 journal with 75 authors,
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 61 of whom are volunte announces
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 that the project has discovered more than
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 3 brown dwarfs over its first 10
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 years, essentially doubling the known
00:08:28 --> 00:08:29 population.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 Avery: For listeners unfamiliar with brown dwarfs,
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 they're often called failed stars. Too
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 massive to be a planet, not massive enough to
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 ignite nuclear fusion like a true star.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 They're about the size of Jupiter, they glow
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 faintly in infrared, and they're surprisingly
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 common. About one for every three or four
00:08:48 --> 00:08:49 stars near our Sun.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 Anna: But because they're so dim, they've always
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 been hard to find. Until now.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 Avery: The discoveries include objects never seen
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 before, extreme T subdwarfs,
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 ultra cool objects, and apparently one brown
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 dwarf that may even have aurorae
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 orrore on a brown dwarf
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 Anna: a million times brighter than the northern
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 lights on Earth, if you could see them. The
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 project is still working through more than 2
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 billion sources in the WISE data, so there
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 are almost certainly more finds to come.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 Avery: Science powered by people. I'll never stop
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 finding that inspiring before
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 Anna: we head into our next story, the donut I
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 mentioned earlier, I'd like to take a moment
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 to remind you about our sponsor, NordVPN.
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 As I keep saying, when you're ready to secure
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 your online life, get the best and help
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 support the show while saving a heap of
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 money. We use NORDVPN and reckon you
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 should too. To get our special no Risk deal,
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 just click on the link in the show notes.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:50 Thank you.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:51 Avery: Amen to uh, that.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 Anna: Okay, wrap story three and this one
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 is timely because it's happening in three
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 days. On Tuesday, May 12,
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 SpaceX launches the 34th cargo
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 resupply mission to the International Space
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 Station. And among the 6
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 pounds of cargo heading to orbit is something
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 rather unusual.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:13 Avery: Tell em about the donut.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 Anna: The donut so surrounding
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 our planet within Earth's magnetic field is
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 a structure called the ring current. It's an
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 invisible donut shaped region where charged
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 particles from space get trapped and flow in
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 opposite directions. Positive particles one
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 way, negative the other, creating actual
00:10:33 --> 00:10:34 electrical currents.
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 Avery: And this ring current matters because during
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 solar storms it can intensify dramatically.
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 Anna: When that happens, those electrical currents
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 can induce magnetic fluctuations that
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 ripple down to the ground, disrupting power
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 lines, pipelines, satellite signals and
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 GPS systems. We've always known the ring
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 current matters for space weather. What we've
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 never had is a proper inside out view of it
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 until storey storey
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 storm time O Ring Current
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 Imaging Evolution, a joint NASA and
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 U.S. space Force mission that will be
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 robotically mounted on the outside of the ISS
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 after Tuesday's launch. Rather than looking
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 at the ring current from a distance, story
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 sits within it and images outward,
00:11:20 --> 00:11:21 capturing One slice at
00:11:21 --> 00:11:24 Avery: a time, every 90 minutes as a station
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 orbits, building up a complete picture of the
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 full ring current over its
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 Anna: six month mission, it will track how the ring
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 current grows and shrinks during solar storms
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 versus quiet periods. And try to answer a,
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 uh, question scientists have long
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 where exactly do these trapped particles come
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 from? The solar wind or from Earth itself?
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 Avery: The answer has real world implications for
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 how we predict and prepare for space weather
00:11:51 --> 00:11:52 events.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 Anna: Keep an eye on the skies and the news on
00:11:54 --> 00:11:55 Tuesday night.
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 Avery: And our final wrap story for the week,
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 another JWST milestone and
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 genuinely a, uh, planetary science first.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:04 Anna: Go on.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 Avery: So up until now, when we studied exoplanets
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 with James Webb, we've been studying their
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 atmospheres the way starlight filters through
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 a planet's air as it passes in front of its
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 star. That's transmission spectroscopy,
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 and it's transformed what we know about
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 worlds beyond our solar system.
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 Anna: But this week, the telescope went a step
00:12:24 --> 00:12:24 further.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 Avery: For the first time, JWST has
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 directly analyzed the surface of an
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 exoplanet. The target is a super
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 Earth, just 48 light years away,
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 relatively close by by cosmic standards. And
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 what the telescope found is a dark, airless
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 world, no atmosphere, geologically
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 ancient. The researchers are describing it as
00:12:47 --> 00:12:47 a
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 Anna: Mercury like rock, which is actually
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 fascinating in its own right. A scorching,
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 barren super Earth with a surface you could
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 in theory, characterize directly.
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 Avery: The significance here is the technique. We've
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 gone from studying what surrounds a planet to
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 studying the planet itself directly reading
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 the surface chemistry from light alone.
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 Anna: That opens a completely new chapter in how we
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 investigate rocky worlds. The next step,
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 presumably, is applying this to planets in
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 habitable zones, worlds where you might
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 expect the surface to be far more
00:13:20 --> 00:13:20 interesting.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 Avery: One more extraordinary week for the most
00:13:23 --> 00:13:25 extraordinary telescope ever built.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 Anna: And that is your Astronomy Daily weekend wrap
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 for Saturday. May 9th. The Sun's Hidden
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 face finally mapped a galaxy from the dawn
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 of time that forgot how to spin a planetary
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 odd couple. Defying the rules,
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 200 volunteers who doubled the
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 cosmic catalog, a mission launching Tuesday
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 to study our planet's space weather. Donut
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 and Webb, once again doing something
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 nobody has ever done before.
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 Avery: Not a bad week for a universe that's just
00:13:55 --> 00:13:56 sitting there doing its thing.
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 Anna: On behalf of Avery and the whole Astronomy
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 Daily team, thanks so much for spending part
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 of your weekend with us. We'll be back Monday
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 with the Daily Edition. Until then, keep
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 looking up and stay curious. Everyone.