Astronomy Daily S05E127 | Monday, June 29, 2026 Hosts: Anna & Avery | astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod In today's episode: RAD-BAARG — The Bow-and-Arrow Galaxy A citizen scientist scanning LOFAR radio telescope data spotted a galaxy like nothing seen in 25 years — RAD-BAARG stretches 1.8 million light-years and shows what may be the clearest radio signature of a giant cosmic bow shock ever observed. Published June 22 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Hayabusa2 Flyby — One Week Away Japan's Hayabusa2# spacecraft is set to fly past asteroid Torifune (2001 CC21) on July 5 at a distance of just 1–10 km — one of the closest asteroid encounters ever attempted. The spacecraft already delivered Ryugu samples to Earth in 2020. Mars Magmatic Systems — Oxford/Nature Astronomy A University of Oxford-led study published June 26 in Nature Astronomy reveals seismic evidence that Mars once hosted vast, Earth-like transcrustal magmatic systems spanning potentially thousands of kilometres — without plate tectonics. Based on NASA InSight seismic data. Skywatching — Strawberry Moon & Mercury Retrograde The full Strawberry Moon peaks at 23:58 UTC tonight in Sagittarius near the Teapot asterism. Mercury also begins retrograde motion today. Southern Hemisphere viewers have good conditions for lunar viewing in winter skies. ESA Juice & 3I/ATLAS — Five New Findings ESA has published early results from Juice's November 2025 observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Key findings: 2,000 kg of water vapour per second at perihelion; comet behaviour resembling solar system comets; novel trajectory data from NavCam; and confirmation of Juice's instrument readiness for the Jupiter mission. NASA Artemis Audit — $5.9 Billion in Cancelled Contracts A NASA Inspector General memo finds the total value of cancelled Artemis programme hardware contracts reached $5.9 billion, reflecting cost increases and timeline extensions prior to programme restructuring. Artemis III lunar landing remains targeted for 2027.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss) .
Sponsor Details:
Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN . To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit You'll be glad you did!
Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support)
This episode includes AI-generated content.
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/34034555?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily.
00:00:03 --> 00:00:04 I'm Anna.
00:00:04 --> 00:00:06 >> And I'm Avery. It's Monday, June 29th,
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 and the universe has been absolutely
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 refusing to take the weekend off.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 >> Tonight is the full strawberry moon, and
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Mercury just went retrograde. So, we
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 have the sky watching angle covered, but
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 there is so much more.
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 >> A galaxy that baffled 25 years of
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 professional expertise spotted first by
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 a citizen scientist. A Japanese
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 spacecraft about to attempt one of the
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 closest asteroid flybys in history. And
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 new evidence that Mars was geologically
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 far more complex than anyone imagined.
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 >> Plus, new data from issa's Juice
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 spacecraft that reveals what
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 interstellar comet 3i Atlas was doing
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 just days after it rounded the sun. And
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 a candid NASA audit that puts some very
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 large numbers on the Aremis program's
00:00:54 --> 00:00:55 canceled hardware.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 >> It is a packed Monday. Stay with us.
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 >> Our first story today is one of those
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 discoveries that makes you stop and
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 think about the sheer scale of the
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 universe and also about who gets to
00:01:06 --> 00:01:07 discover it.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 >> A citizen scientist, not a professional
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 astronomer, not a research institute,
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 was the first person to spot one of the
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 most unusual radio galaxies ever
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 recorded. And the lead researcher who
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 followed up the finds says it is unlike
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 anything he has seen in 25 years of
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 studying these objects. The object is
00:01:26 --> 00:01:30 called rad bar. That stands for radio
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 bow and arrow radio galaxy. And the name
00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 tells you almost everything because when
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 you look at this thing in radio light,
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 it genuinely looks like a drawn bow and
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 arrow glowing in space. The discovery
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 was published on June 22nd in the
00:01:45 --> 00:01:46 monthly notices of the Royal
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 Astronomical Society and it was made by
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 an international team working with the
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 RAD at home astronomy collaboratory in
00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 India, a citizen science program that
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 gives volunteers access to telescope
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 data to look for unusual features that
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 professional surveys might miss. The
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 volunteer who found it was scanning
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 images from the LOFAR radio telescope,
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 the Low Frequency Array based in the
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 Netherlands, and flagged an asymmetric
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 structure that simply didn't look like
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 any known radio galaxy. And when the
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 scientists looked closer, they saw
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 something remarkable. Radbar stretches
00:02:23 --> 00:02:27 nearly 1.8 million lightyears across.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 For scale, our entire Milky Way is about
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 100 light-years wide. This structure
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 is roughly 18 times that.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 >> What makes it so unusual is its shape.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 Most radio galaxies follow a familiar
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 template. A super massive black hole at
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 the center fires two jets of charged
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 particles outward in opposite
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 directions, creating a symmetric
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 dumbbell-shaped structure. Radar doesn't
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 look like that at all. Instead, one of
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 the jets appears to have slammed into
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 something, a vast front of compressed
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 plasma, and lit it up in radite. That
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 glowing arc, shaped like the curve of a
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 bow, spans nearly 560 kilopar sex in the
00:03:09 --> 00:03:10 radio data.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 >> On the opposite side, the other jet
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 bends and twists into an S-shaped
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 structure with a faint offset tail. The
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 leading explanation is a bow shock. The
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 host galaxy of Radbar appears to be
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 falling supersonically into a nearby
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 galaxy cluster, plowing through the thin
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 hot gas that fills the space between
00:03:31 --> 00:03:32 galaxies.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 >> And just like a supersonic aircraft
00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 produces a shock wave in front of it, a
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 galaxy moving faster than the speed of
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 sound in that gas can compress and heat
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 it, creating a giant shock front. The
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 radio emmitting plasma from Radbar
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 appears to illuminate that shock wave,
00:03:49 --> 00:03:50 making visible something that
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 astronomers have long predicted but
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 almost never directly observed in radio
00:03:55 --> 00:03:56 light.
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 >> Lead author Dr. Anand Hot of the
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 University of Mumbai said the structure
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 is unlike any radio galaxy he has seen
00:04:03 --> 00:04:07 in 25 years. His co-lead Dr. Pratik
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 Dabad of the National Center for Nuclear
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 Research in Poland noted that the
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 complex multi-halo environment makes
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 this especially exciting. We're seeing
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 gas flows, infall, and possible shocks
00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 reshaping radial plasma over millions of
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 light years of space. And crucially,
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 this discovery came directly from the
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 citizen science community. The data came
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 from Loar's 2meter sky survey, whose
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 third data release covering more than
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 80% of the northern sky came out earlier
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 this year. Radb shows what might be
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 hiding in that massive data set. The
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 team is hoping that AI and machine
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 learning tools can now be applied to
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 find similar systems and the next
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 generation square km observatory
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 currently under construction will be
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 able to survey the sky with even greater
00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 sensitivity. Brad Bar may turn out to be
00:04:59 --> 00:05:01 just the beginning.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 >> A triumph for citizen science and a
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 reminder that the universe is still
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 hiding things from us until an alert
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 volunteer spots them from a hillside
00:05:09 --> 00:05:13 data center. Next up, Japan's Hayabusa 2
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 spacecraft has been on an extended
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 mission for several years now after it
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 already delivered what many considered
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 the most scientifically valuable
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 asteroid sample ever returned to Earth.
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 And next Sunday, July the 5th, it's
00:05:26 --> 00:05:27 about to attempt something
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 extraordinary. A flyby of an asteroid
00:05:30 --> 00:05:34 called Tory Fune, designated 2001 CC21
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 at a closest approach distance of
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 somewhere between 1 and 10 km at a speed
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 of 5.3 km/s.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:47 That is roughly 19 kmh. And the
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 spacecraft's cameras were not designed
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 for this kind of encounter. For some
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 context, Hayabusa 2 launched in December
00:05:54 --> 00:05:58 2014, traveled to the asteroid Riu,
00:05:58 --> 00:06:00 deployed rovers and landers onto its
00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 surface, fired an impactor to create an
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 artificial crater, collected samples
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 from below the surface, and returned
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 that material to Earth in December 2020.
00:06:10 --> 00:06:14 5 g of RIU, but an extraordinary 5 g.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 After releasing the sample capsule over
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 Australia, the spacecraft still had fuel
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 remaining. Rather than decommission it,
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 JAXA approved an extended mission now
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 called Hayabusa 2 Hash and redirected it
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 toward two new targets. Tory Fune is the
00:06:30 --> 00:06:31 first.
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 >> Jaxa Satoshi Tanaka presented the
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 mission status at the 35th NASA small
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 bodies assessment meeting on June 11th,
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 describing the Torifune flyby as one of
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 the closest asteroid encounters ever
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 attempted by a mission of this class.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 What makes it so challenging is the
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 geometry. At that speed and that
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 distance, the window of observation is
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 extremely short. The spacecraft will
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 sweep past in a matter of seconds. The
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 navigation cameras have to be precisely
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 aimed. The timing has to be right and
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 the whole sequence has to execute
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 autonomously because there is no time
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 for ground control corrections.
00:07:08 --> 00:07:12 >> Toriune is roughly 450 m wide, a
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 midsized near-Earth asteroid. Scientists
00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 believe it may be an L-type asteroid
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 potentially containing calcium aluminum
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 inclusions, some of the oldest primitive
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 material in the solar system. But that
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 classification is uncertain and the
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 flyby data will help pin it down. After
00:07:30 --> 00:07:34 Tarifan, Hayabusa 2 continues on a long
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 arc toward its second target, asteroid
00:07:37 --> 00:07:41 1998 KY26,
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 a fast spinning microsteroid just 30 m
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 across with which it will rendevous in
00:07:47 --> 00:07:51 July 2031. That will be the first ever
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 close encounter with an asteroid of that
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 size. But for now, next Sunday, July
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 5th, one of the closest asteroid flybys
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 ever attempted. A spacecraft that was
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 never designed to do this, doing it
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 anyway. IUSA 2 has already exceeded its
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 mission objectives once. It is about to
00:08:10 --> 00:08:11 do it again.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 >> Mars is often described as a dead
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 planet. No plate tectonics, no active
00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 volcanism, a frozen core, a thin
00:08:19 --> 00:08:21 atmosphere. And for a long time,
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 scientists assumed its geological
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 history was correspondingly simple.
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 Isolated volcanoes, simple basaltic
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 crust. Nothing like the complex churning
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 geology that made Earth habitable. A new
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 study published on June 26th in the
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 journal Nature Astronomy suggests that
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 picture is fundamentally wrong.
00:08:42 --> 00:08:43 Researchers from the University of
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 Oxford in collaboration with the
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 University of Bristol have found seismic
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 evidence that Mars once hosted enormous
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 Earthlike magmatic systems spread across
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 potentially hundreds or even thousands
00:08:56 --> 00:08:57 of kilometers of its northern
00:08:57 --> 00:08:58 hemisphere.
00:08:58 --> 00:09:02 >> The key is a boundary layer about 24 km
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 below the Martian surface. Scientists
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 already knew this boundary existed. What
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 they didn't know was what it meant. The
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 new analysis based on seismic data from
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 NASA's insight mission which recorded
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 Mars quakes and meteoroid impacts before
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 being retired suggests this boundary
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 marks a zone of meltd depleted rock.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 Rock that is already had magma extracted
00:09:27 --> 00:09:27 from it.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 >> That's a signature of what geologists
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 call transcrustal magnetism. A process
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 where molten rock rises from the mantle,
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 pools within the crust, differentiates,
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 gets mixed and reprocessed, and slowly
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 builds up complex crustal material over
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 millions of years. On Earth, this
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 process is driven by plate tectonics.
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 The key finding here is that Mars
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 appears to have done it without plate
00:09:52 --> 00:09:53 tectonics.
00:09:53 --> 00:09:57 >> Bead author Dr. Tobbery Mai Champion put
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 it clearly. Traditionally, complex
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 silicarrich crust was thought to require
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 plate tectonics and subduction. This
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 study suggests Mars can build complex
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 crust through longived transcrustal
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 magmatic systems where mantle derived
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 magma is stored, differentiated, mixed,
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 and assimilated within the crust. Plate
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 recycling is not the only route.
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 >> Professor John Wade of Oxford added a
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 striking application. If Mars could
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 develop this kind of complex crust
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 without plate tectonics, then maybe the
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 conditions needed for habitability can
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 emerge on more planets than we realized,
00:10:35 --> 00:10:37 including those we've previously
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 dismissed because of their apparent lack
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 of tectonic activity. There are also
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 more practical implications. Systems
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 like these on Earth are known to
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 generate large mineral and metal
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 deposits. The study suggests Mars may
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 hold significantly more near surface
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 mineral wealth than previously assumed.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 Something that could matter greatly for
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 any future human presence on the red
00:11:01 --> 00:11:01 planet.
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 >> Mars is not a simple geologically boring
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 world. It just did its geology
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 differently. And the universe, it turns
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 out, has more than one way to build a
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 complex planet. Time for your sky
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 watching update. And tonight is
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 genuinely worth stepping out for because
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 the full strawberry moon reaches its
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 peak at 2358 UTC. That's just before
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 midnight in universal time, which means
00:11:25 --> 00:11:26 most of our listeners will see it at its
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 fullest either late tonight or early
00:11:29 --> 00:11:30 tomorrow morning, depending on your time
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 zone.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 >> The strawberry moon gets its name from
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 early Native American traditions. It
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 marked the time of year when wild
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 strawberries began to ripen. It's also
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 been called the rose moon and the
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 honeymoon. giving us the phrase
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 honeymoon since June was historically
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 considered an auspicious time for
00:11:49 --> 00:11:50 weddings.
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 >> Tonight, the moon rises in Sagittarius
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 near the well-known teapot asterism. For
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 observers across Australia and New
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 Zealand, the teapot will be reasonably
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 wellplaced in the northern sky after
00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 dark. The moon will be brilliantly
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 bright, so fainter stars will wash out,
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 but the bright stars of Sagittarius
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 should still be visible around it. One
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 thing to note for our southern
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 hemisphere listeners, in winter, the
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 full moon rises higher in the sky for
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 you, which actually gives you better
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 viewing conditions for this kind of
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 event than our friends in the northern
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 hemisphere get during their summer full
00:12:24 --> 00:12:25 moons.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 >> And there's an astronomical event today
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 that you won't actually be able to see
00:12:29 --> 00:12:30 with your eyes, but is worth knowing
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 about. Mercury begins its retrograde
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 motion today, June 29th. This is the
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 apparent reversal of Mercury's movement
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 against the background stars caused by
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 the geometry of Mercury's faster orbit
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 relative to Earth. You won't see Mercury
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 move backward in real time. It's far too
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 subtle for that. But if you track its
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 position night by night over the coming
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 weeks, you'll see it trace a small loop
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 against the background stars before
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 resuming its normal eastward motion.
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 It's a lovely demonstration of orbital
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 mechanics. if you have the patience to
00:13:06 --> 00:13:07 follow it.
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 >> Mercury is currently a challenging
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 target anyway, sitting low in the
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 western sky after sunset and getting
00:13:13 --> 00:13:17 lower. But Venus is blazingly bright and
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 easy to find in the west after dark. And
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 the crescent moon earlier in the month
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 created some lovely conjunctions that
00:13:23 --> 00:13:25 astrophotographers took full advantage
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 of. Tonight though, the strawberry moon
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 is the star of the show. Get outside,
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 look up, and enjoy it. Time now to
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 revisit an old friend. We've covered
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 interstellar comet 3iatls
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 extensively on this show. From its
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 discovery last July through its
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 parhelion pass, its chemistry, its
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 ancient isotopic signature. But the data
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 from that encounter is still coming in.
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 And this week, issa published the
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 results from one of the most unusual
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 scientific opportunities of the entire
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 3i ATLS mission. issa's Juice
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 spacecraft, the Jupiter Icy Moons
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 Explorer, was in the right place at the
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 right time with the right instruments.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:11 In November 2025, just days after 3i
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 ATLS made its closest approach to the
00:14:13 --> 00:14:16 sun, Juice turned five of its science
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 instruments towards the comet. The data
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 took months to arrive on Earth, but it
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 has now been analyzed, and the early
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 results are fascinating.
00:14:25 --> 00:14:28 >> Here are five things Juice revealed.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 First, the water output. On November
00:14:30 --> 00:14:33 2nd, 2025, just 4 days after
00:14:33 --> 00:14:37 parahhelion, Juice's Majis spectrometer
00:14:37 --> 00:14:39 detected 3ATLS was releasing
00:14:39 --> 00:14:43 approximately 2 kg of water vapor
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 every single second. That is equivalent
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 to filling 70 Olympic swimming pools
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 every day. Second, despite its
00:14:51 --> 00:14:55 interstellar origin, 3IIA ATLS behaved
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 like a typical solar system comet during
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 its close approach to the sun. Juice's
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 Janus camera showed a coma and activity
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 consistent with what you would expect
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 from a comet formed right here in our
00:15:06 --> 00:15:09 own system. The universe appears to make
00:15:09 --> 00:15:11 comets using broadly similar rules.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:14 >> Third, Juice's navigation camera was
00:15:14 --> 00:15:17 pressed into unexpected scientific
00:15:17 --> 00:15:19 service. NAVCAM is designed to help
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 Juice navigate around Jupiter's icy
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 moons when it arrives in 2031. But
00:15:25 --> 00:15:28 during the threeey atlas encounter, it
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 captured images from a novel vantage
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 point different from Earth-based
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 telescopes at times when the comet
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 wasn't even visible from Earth that gave
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 ESA's planetary defense team a better
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 fix on the comet's trajectory than they
00:15:43 --> 00:15:45 could have obtained otherwise. Fourth,
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 the encounter revealed how well-prepared
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 Juice's instruments actually are for
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 their primary mission. The same tools
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 built to study Europa, Ganymede, and
00:15:54 --> 00:15:56 Kalisto, icy moons with complex
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 chemistry, turned out to be remarkably
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 well matched to studying an interstellar
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 icy comet. The team says the data has
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 made them more excited than ever about
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 what Juice will find at Jupiter in the
00:16:08 --> 00:16:12 2030s. And fifth, the overall picture
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 emerging from juice combined with the
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 JWST isotopic data we discussed last
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 week paints a consistent portrait. 3i
00:16:20 --> 00:16:24 ATLS is very old, formed possibly 10 to
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 12 billion years ago in a stellar system
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 that predates our sun. It spent billions
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 of years in the cold darkness of its
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 home system before being ejected on a
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 journey that would eventually bring it
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 briefly through ours. Juice itself has
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 one more Earth gravity assist coming in
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 September 2026 when its instruments will
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 be switched on again before the long
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 cruise to Jupiter. The common encounter
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 was a remarkable bonus for a mission
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 with a very different primary purpose.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 >> 3IIA ATLS is gone heading out of the
00:16:58 --> 00:17:01 solar system never to return. But it is
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 left behind a remarkable scientific
00:17:03 --> 00:17:06 legacy. Our final story today takes us
00:17:06 --> 00:17:08 from the science of space to the
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 economics of it, and it involves some
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 large numbers.
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 >> A memo from NASA's Office of Inspector
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 General published this past week has
00:17:16 --> 00:17:18 found that the total value of NASA
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 hardware contracts that were cancelled
00:17:20 --> 00:17:21 as part of the Aremis program
00:17:22 --> 00:17:26 restructuring came to 5.9 billion.
00:17:26 --> 00:17:31 5.9 billion. Now, for context, the
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 Aremis program is NASA's flagship effort
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 to return humans to the moon. With
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 Artemis 2 having already carried four
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 astronauts around the moon earlier this
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 year, the program has been hugely
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 ambitious, hugely expensive, and has
00:17:46 --> 00:17:49 gone through significant changes,
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 particularly around which contractors
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 build which components and what the
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 architecture looks like. The inspector
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 general's review found that canceled
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 hardware contracts included items that
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 had experienced cost increases and
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 extended timelines before being cut. The
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 audit highlights the scale of the
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 program's evolution and the real
00:18:10 --> 00:18:12 financial cost of changing direction in
00:18:12 --> 00:18:14 large scale space programs.
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 >> To be clear, this doesn't mean $5.9
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 billion was simply lost. Some of that
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 work will have produced useful data,
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 technical knowledge or partially
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 completed hardware. And program
00:18:26 --> 00:18:28 restructuring of this kind is not
00:18:28 --> 00:18:31 unusual in aerospace development. The
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 space launch system itself went through
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 years of design evolution before its
00:18:35 --> 00:18:36 first flight,
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 >> but it is a significant figure and it
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 arrives at a moment when NASA is
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 navigating a complex budget environment
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 and preparing for Artemis 4, the first
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 crude lunar landing currently targeting
00:18:49 --> 00:18:50 2028.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 >> The audit is a reminder that returning
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 to the moon is not just a scientific and
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 engineering challenge. It is also a
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 program management challenge, one that
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 involves billions of dollars, hundreds
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 of contractors, and years of
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 decision-making under conditions of
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 political, technical, and financial
00:19:08 --> 00:19:09 uncertainty.
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 >> The numbers are sobering, but the
00:19:11 --> 00:19:14 program continues, and the end goal,
00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 humans on the moon and eventually beyond
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 remains one of the most ambitious
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 endeavors in human history. And that is
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 a wrap on Astronomy Daily for Monday,
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 June 29th. What a lineup. A galaxy
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 shaped like a bow and arrow. A
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 spacecraft h hurtling toward an
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 asteroid. A new picture of ancient Mars.
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 Tonight's full strawberry moon. The last
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 data from our interstellar visitor. And
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 a candid look at the cost of going back
00:19:41 --> 00:19:42 to the moon.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 >> The universe never disappoints, and
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 neither do you, our listeners. Thank you
00:19:47 --> 00:19:48 for joining us.
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 >> If you're enjoying Astronomy Daily,
00:19:50 --> 00:19:51 please subscribe wherever you're
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 listening and leave us a review. It
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 genuinely helps more people find the
00:19:55 --> 00:19:56 show.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 >> Until tomorrow, clear skies.
00:19:58 --> 00:20:02 >> Clear skies, everyone.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:10 >> Stories told
00:20:10 --> 00:20:14 stories told.