Welcome to Astronomy Daily, Season 5, Episode 74 — your daily briefing on the most exciting developments in space and astronomy, hosted by Anna and Avery. IN TODAY'S EPISODE • Artemis II crew arrives at Kennedy Space Center — launch just 5 days away • Webb and Hubble combine for the most detailed Saturn portrait ever captured • New research reveals Jupiter's lightning may be up to a million times more powerful than Earth's • Japan's XRISM telescope solves a 50-year X-ray mystery surrounding naked-eye star Gamma Cassiopeiae • Cornell astronomers publish a shortlist of 45 exoplanets most likely to host alien life • The Isar Aerospace Spectrum scrub mystery is solved — it was an unauthorised boat STORY SOURCES & LINKS Story 1 — Artemis II: NASA Kennedy Space Center / NASA.gov https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/25/nasa-teams-continue-artemis-ii-preparations-at-launch-pad/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/artemis-ii/nasa-sets-coverage-for-artemis-ii-moon-mission/ Story 2 — Saturn Images: NASA Science / Scientific American https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webb-hubble-share-most-comprehensive-view-of-saturn-to-date/ Story 3 — Jupiter Lightning: Berkeley News / AGU Advances https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/03/23/lightning-bolts-on-jupiter-pack-more-than-100-times-the-power-of-earths-flashes/ Story 4 — Gamma Cassiopeiae: ScienceDaily / Astronomy & Astrophysics https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260325041723.htm Story 5 — 45 Exoplanets: Royal Astronomical Society / ScienceDaily https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/best-places-look-alien-life-scientists-identify-45-earth-worlds Story 6 — Isar Aerospace: NASASpaceFlight.com / Bloomberg https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/03/isar-onward-and-upward/ CONNECT WITH US • Website: astronomydaily.io • Twitter/X: @AstroDailyPod • Instagram: @AstroDailyPod • TikTok: @AstroDailyPod • YouTube: @AstroDailyPod • Tumblr: @AstroDailyPod • Network: Bitesz.com Podcast Network
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily.
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 I'm Anna.
00:00:04 --> 00:00:08 >> And I'm Avery. It is Friday, March 27th,
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 2026. And our producer has given us an
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 absolutely stacked show. Today
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 >> we are literally 5 days from a crew of
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 four astronauts launching around the
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 moon for the first time in over 50
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 years. And today, those four people
00:00:23 --> 00:00:24 touch down in Florida.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 >> We've also got the most detailed look at
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 Saturn ever captured. Lightning on
00:00:29 --> 00:00:30 Jupiter that makes Earth storms look
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 like a birthday sparkler. And a 50-year
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 stellar mystery finally cracked open by
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 a Japanese space telescope.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 >> Plus, we're narrowing down the short
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 list of exoplanets most likely to harbor
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 alien life. And we have a juicy update
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 on that dramatic rocket scrub from
00:00:47 --> 00:00:47 yesterday.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 >> Spoiler, it was a boat.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 >> It was absolutely a boat. Let's get into
00:00:52 --> 00:00:52 it.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:53 >> Let's go then.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 >> All right, story one. and Avery. This
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 one is really happening today. As we
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 record, the Aremis 2 crew is flying into
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 Kennedy Space Center.
00:01:03 --> 00:01:05 >> Commander Reed Wisman, pilot Victor
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 Glover, mission specialist Christina
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 Coach, all from NASA, and Canadian Space
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Four
00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 people, one rocket, and they are now
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 officially on site. NASA Administrator
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 Jared Isaacman and Canadian Space Agency
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 President Lisa Campbell were there to
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 greet them on the tarmac this afternoon.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:27 The crew also answered questions from
00:01:28 --> 00:01:28 the media.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 >> Now, just to set the scene, the SLS
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 rocket and the Orion capsule are already
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 sitting on launchpad 39B at Kennedy
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 Space Center. They rolled out on March
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 20th. Everything is in place. The target
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 launch window opens Wednesday, April 1st
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 at 6:24 p.m. Eastern time.
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 >> And April 1st is not a joke. This is
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 genuinely happening. A 2-hour window on
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 the first, and if they need it,
00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 opportunities continue through April
00:01:56 --> 00:01:56 6th.
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 >> The crew has been in quarantine since
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 March 18th, keeping their health locked
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 down before this 10-day mission. They
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 spent the quarantine reviewing
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 procedures at Johnson Space Center in
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 Houston, Texas. And now the rest of the
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 countdown happens here in Florida.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 >> This mission is going to take them
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 farther than Earth than any human has
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 been since Apollo 13 in 1970, about
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 5 m beyond the moon. It won't land,
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 but it will swing around the back of the
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 moon on a free return trajectory and
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 come screaming back to Earth at around
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 25 mph. Victor Glover will become
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 the first person of color. Christina
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 Coach the first woman. And Jeremy Hansen
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 the first non-American to travel beyond
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 low Earth orbit. And for Canadians
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 listening, Jeremy Hansen arrives in
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 Florida today for what is going to be
00:02:46 --> 00:02:47 the ride of his life.
00:02:48 --> 00:02:49 >> We are going to be covering this story
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 right through launch. Stick with us.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 Astronomy Daily is your front row seat
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 to the most exciting human space flight
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 moment in a generation.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 >> Story two. And this one is visually
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 stunning. NASA has released a new set of
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 Saturn images and they are genuinely the
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 most comprehensive view of Saturn ever
00:03:08 --> 00:03:09 created.
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 >> This is a collaboration between two of
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 humanity's greatest telescopes, the
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 James Web Space Telescope and Hubble
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 Space Telescope. Now, these two
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 observatories were launched 31 years
00:03:20 --> 00:03:23 apart. Hubble went up in 1990, web in
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 late 2021. But when you combine their
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 observations, you get something
00:03:28 --> 00:03:29 extraordinary.
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 >> Hubble observed Saturn in visible light
00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 in August 2024, capturing all those
00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 familiar golden cloud bands and the
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 iconic rings. You get the colors, the
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 subtle atmospheric variations, the sheer
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 beauty of the thing.
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 >> Then web looked at it in infrared in
00:03:45 --> 00:03:49 November 2024, just 14 weeks later, and
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 the picture completely transforms. The
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 rings glow brilliantly because they're
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 made of highly reflective water ice. You
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 can see deep atmospheric storms,
00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 jetreams, and a mysterious gray green
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 glow at the poles that scientists think
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 may be linked to auroral activity or
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 high altitude aerosols.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 >> One of the most poignant details in this
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 release, Saturn's famous hexagonal
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 jetream at the North Pole is just barely
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 visible in these images. And scientists
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 say this could be among the last clear
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 views of it for decades because the pole
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 is heading into a long winter darkness
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 that won't lift until the 2040s.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 >> NASA describes what the two telescopes
00:04:31 --> 00:04:33 together can do as slicing through
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 Saturn's atmosphere at multiple
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 altitudes like peeling back the layers
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 of an onion. Hubble covers the upper
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 clouds. Web dives deeper into the
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 chemistry. Together, they give
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 researchers a three-dimensional picture
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 of how this whole system works.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 >> And Web's wide-angle view captured six
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 of Saturn's moons in the same frame,
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 including Titan, which is massive and
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 hazy, and Enceladus, that little world
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 with a subsurface ocean that
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 astrobiologists find so tantalizing.
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 >> We will link to these images in the show
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 notes. They are genuinely worth 5
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 minutes of your time just to look at
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 them. Saturn is out there looking
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 absolutely magnificent.
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 >> Story three. And I want everyone to
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 picture the most dramatic lightning
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 storm you have ever seen on Earth. A
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 real cracker. Thunder rattling the
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 windows. Now imagine that, but a million
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 times more powerful.
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 >> That is potentially what is happening in
00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 Jupiter's atmosphere. According to new
00:05:35 --> 00:05:37 research from the University of
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 California, Berkeley, published this
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 week in the journal AGU Advances,
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 >> the study used data from NASA's Juno
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 spacecraft, which has been orbiting
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 Jupiter since 2016, specifically its
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 microwave radiometer. That instrument
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 was designed for studying the planet's
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 atmosphere. But it turns out it's also
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 brilliant at detecting the radio
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 signatures of lightning. The clever bit
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 was that the team focused on a period in
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 2021 and 2022 when a normally
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 storm-filled belt on Jupiter went
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 unusually quiet. That meant Juno could
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 pinpoint individual isolated storm
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 systems, what the researchers call
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 stealth supertorrms, and directly
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 measure the power of lightning within
00:06:22 --> 00:06:23 them.
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 >> The results are remarkable. from 613
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 detected lightning pulses. The power
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 range from roughly comparable to an
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 Earth lightning bolt all the way up to a
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 100 times more powerful. But because of
00:06:36 --> 00:06:38 uncertainties in how radio frequencies
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 compare across the two planets, some of
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 those bolts could be up to a million
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 times stronger than anything on Earth.
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 >> And these storms were generating around
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 three lightning flashes per second. On
00:06:50 --> 00:06:54 one flyover, Juno detected 206 separate
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 microwave pulses in a single pass.
00:06:58 --> 00:07:00 >> Lead researcher Michael Wong describes
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 it really well. On Earth, moist air
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 rises because water makes it more
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 buoyant in a nitrogen atmosphere. On
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 Jupiter, the atmosphere is mostly
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 hydrogen, so moist air is actually
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 heavier and sinks. It takes enormous
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 energy to push it upward. And when those
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 storms finally break loose, they release
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 all of that stored energy in
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 extraordinary ways.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 >> What I love about this is that the Juno
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 mission has been delivering incredible
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 science for a decade now. And even as
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 the spacecraft ages, it's still finding
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 ways to rewrite our understanding of the
00:07:35 --> 00:07:37 solar system's biggest planet.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 >> Okay, on to our next story today.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:42 >> Story four. And this is one of those
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 stories where astronomers get to say,
00:07:44 --> 00:07:48 "We finally did it after 50 years."
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 >> The star in question is Gamma Cassiopia.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 If you look up at the distinctive W
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 shape of the constellation Cassiopia on
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 a clear night, the middle star of that
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 W, that's it. Visible to the naked eye,
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 about 550 lighty years away. And since
00:08:04 --> 00:08:08 1976, it has been blasting out X-rays
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 around 40 times more powerful than you'd
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 ever expect from a star like that.
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 >> The plasma generating those X-rays was
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 hotter than 100 million degrees. And for
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 decades, nobody could agree why. Was it
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 magnetic activity on the star itself?
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 Was there a hidden companion pulling in
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 material? The debate has raged across
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 multiple research groups for half a
00:08:30 --> 00:08:31 century
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 >> now. Thanks to Japan's XRISM space
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 telescope that stands for X-ray imaging
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 and spectroscopy mission developed by
00:08:38 --> 00:08:42 JAXA in collaboration with NASA and ESA.
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 The answer is finally in. The culprit is
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 a hidden white dwarf companion. The key
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 instrument is called Resolve, a high
00:08:50 --> 00:08:54 precision microc calorimeter on XRISM
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 that can measure X-ray spectra with
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 extraordinary accuracy. The team
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 observed gamma Cassiopa three times in
00:09:02 --> 00:09:06 December 2024, February 2025, and June
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 2025, covering the full 203day orbit of
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 the binary system. What they found was
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 that the superheated plasma generating
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 the X-rays was moving in sync with the
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 hidden companion, not with the bright B
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 star everyone could see. That's the
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 clincher. First, direct proof that it's
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 the white dwarf, not the star itself,
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 driving all that high energy activity.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 >> And it turns out this white dwarf is
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 magnetic. Its field is funneling
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 material from the stars surrounding disc
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 toward its poles where it releases all
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 that energy as X-rays like a tiny but
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 ferocious cosmic vacuum cleaner.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 >> The implications go well beyond this one
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 star. Astronomers have long predicted
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 that about 50 to 70% of Btype binary
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 stars might have white dwarf companions.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 But solid evidence has been hard to pin
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 down. This result confirms a whole new
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 class of binary systems that had
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 previously only existed in theory.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 >> Lead researcher Yael Naz at the
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 University of Leazge put it beautifully.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 There has been an intense effort to
00:10:11 --> 00:10:13 solve the mystery of gamma Cassiopa
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 across many research groups for many
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 decades. And now thanks to XRISM, we
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 have finally done it. A very good Friday
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 for stellar astrophysics.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 >> Story five. And this one comes with a
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 movie tie-in, which I am absolutely here
00:10:29 --> 00:10:29 for.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:31 >> If you haven't seen Project Hail Mary
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 yet, the Ryan Gosling film based on Andy
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 Weir's novel, it's currently in cinemas,
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 and it is excellent. The premise is that
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 humanity discovers a tiny microorganism
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 called Astrophase is consuming the sun's
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 energy, and one scientist is sent on a
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 desperate solo mission to find the
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 answer at a distant star. And this week,
00:10:52 --> 00:10:54 real astronomers at Cornell University's
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 Carl Sean Institute have published the
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 paper that asks essentially the same
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 question the movie poses. If we were
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 building a real Hail Mary spacecraft,
00:11:04 --> 00:11:05 where would we send it?
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 >> Lead researcher, Professor Lisa Colton,
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 alongside a team of undergraduate
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 students, comb through data from the
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 European Space Ay's Gaia mission and the
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 NASA exoplanet archive. There are over
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 6 known exoplanets. From that
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 enormous list, they've narrowed it down
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 to 45 rocky worlds sitting in their
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 stars habitable zones where liquid water
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 could potentially exist on the surface.
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 The list includes some names that will
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 be familiar to our regular listeners.
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 Trappist 1, DFG,
00:11:38 --> 00:11:42 about 40 light years away. Proxima
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 Centauri B, our nearest stellar neighbor
00:11:45 --> 00:11:51 at just 4.25 25 light years. LHS1140B,
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 a dense super Earth about 48 light years
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 out, and quite a few lesserknown
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 candidates that could prove just as
00:11:59 --> 00:12:00 interesting.
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 >> What's powerful about this paper is that
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 it's not just a list, it's a strategic
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 road map. It tells you which worlds are
00:12:07 --> 00:12:08 best suited for transmission
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 spectroscopy with JWST,
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 which worlds are targets for future
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 direct imaging missions, and which have
00:12:15 --> 00:12:16 the tightest constraints on
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 habitability. There's also a more
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 conservative list of just 24 world
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 within a tighter three-dimensional
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 habitable zone. And if you account for
00:12:24 --> 00:12:26 the uncertainties in stellar
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 measurements, the 45 could expand to as
00:12:29 --> 00:12:30 many as 73.
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 >> Halton summed it up perfectly. Our paper
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 reveals where you should travel to to
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 find life if we ever build a Hail Mary
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 spacecraft. The search for alien life
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 just got a short list. I find that
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 genuinely thrilling.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 >> Finally, today, the boat story we teased
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 at the beginning of the show.
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 >> Dory 6. And yesterday, we told you about
00:12:50 --> 00:12:54 that extraordinary scrub at Tminus 3
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 seconds for ESR Aerospace's Spectrum
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 rocket. the most dramatic last second
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 halt you could imagine, right on the
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 edge of potentially making European
00:13:03 --> 00:13:04 space history.
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 >> And we didn't know why. The countdown
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 got all the way to 3 seconds before
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 engine ignition, then nothing.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 Controllers called a scrub. We knew
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 there was a hold in the countdown, but
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 the exact cause wasn't confirmed when we
00:13:17 --> 00:13:18 recorded yesterday.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:22 >> Well, now we know it was a boat. An
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 unauthorized vessel entered the danger
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 zone around Andoya Spaceport in northern
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 Norway during the countdown. The range
00:13:29 --> 00:13:30 had already been delayed when the boat
00:13:30 --> 00:13:32 first appeared, and by the time the boat
00:13:32 --> 00:13:35 cleared and the range was reopened, the
00:13:35 --> 00:13:37 propellant temperatures on board the
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 rocket had shifted. The window was gone.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 >> To add insult to injury, the countdown
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 had actually cleared tminus 3 seconds.
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 The engines were moments from igniting.
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 Hear aerospace would have potentially
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 become the first company ever to launch
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 a rocket to orbit from European soil and
00:13:55 --> 00:13:56 a boat said no.
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 >> No new launch date has been announced as
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 of now. ESAR has said they're working to
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 determine a suitable window and they'll
00:14:03 --> 00:14:04 need to assess the propellant situation
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 and any technical reviews before they
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 can reset for another attempt.
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 >> Now, we should note this kind of range
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 safety protocol exists for a reason.
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 Keeping people out of danger zones
00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 during rocket launches is genuinely
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 critical. No one is blaming range
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 control here, but the timing could not
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 have been more painful.
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 >> We'll keep tracking this one. ESAR
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 Spectrum rocket is a genuinely
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 significant vehicle, 28 m tall, capable
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 of carrying up to a ton of payload to
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 low Earth orbit. Designed and built
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 almost entirely inhouse near Munich.
00:14:37 --> 00:14:39 When it does reach orbit, it will be a
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 historic moment for European space
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 capability. The mission is called Onward
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 and Upward, and that is exactly what
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 ESAR will have to be. We're rooting for
00:14:49 --> 00:14:49 them.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 >> And that is your astronomy daily for
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 Friday, March 27th. What a week it has
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 been. And honestly, with Artemis 2 5
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 days from launch, next week is going to
00:15:00 --> 00:15:01 be even bigger.
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03 >> We will be covering every step of the
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 countdown, right through to liftoff and
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 beyond. Make sure you're subscribed so
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 you don't miss a single episode. You can
00:15:09 --> 00:15:11 find us on all the usual platforms at
00:15:11 --> 00:15:13 astronomyaily.io
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 and across social media at astroailyaily
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 pod on X, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube,
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 Facebook, Rumble, and Tumblr.
00:15:21 --> 00:15:23 >> And if today's episode sparked something
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 for you, a question, a thought, a theory
00:15:26 --> 00:15:27 about whether that rogue boat was
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 actually a disgruntled rocket
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 enthusiast, drop us a message. We love
00:15:31 --> 00:15:32 hearing from you.
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 >> From all of us here at Astronomy Daily,
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 keep looking up. The universe is not
00:15:36 --> 00:15:50 done surprising us. See you tomorrow.
00:15:50 --> 00:15:54 The stories were told.