NASA rewrites the Artemis roadmap, the Space Force grounds Vulcan Centaur, astronomers peer back 11 billion years to the universe's most extraordinary construction site, water bears reveal surprising secrets about Martian soil, NASA passes a key milestone in extracting oxygen from lunar regolith, and ancient stellar lighthouses rewrite the Milky Way's origin story. Plus — six planets in tonight's sky.
📰 STORIES THIS EPISODE
1 — NASA Overhauls the Artemis Programme NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a sweeping restructure of the Artemis Moon programme on Friday 27 February. The headline change: Artemis III will no longer attempt a crewed lunar landing. Instead it has been redesigned as a low Earth orbit test flight in 2027, where astronauts will dock with the SpaceX Starship Human Landing System and potentially Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander, testing suits, life support and rendezvous procedures before anyone attempts a surface landing. The Block 1B SLS upgrade has been scrapped, vehicle configuration standardised, and NASA is targeting annual Moon landings from Artemis IV and V in 2028, with at least one surface landing per year thereafter. Isaacman invoked Apollo's step-by-step approach as his model — pointing out the programme was essentially jumping from Apollo 8 to the Moon landing without the intervening tests. The Lunar Gateway space station was notably absent from the announcement. Artemis II — the crewed flight around the Moon — remains on track for no earlier than 1 April 2026 pending resolution of a helium pressurisation issue. 2 — Space Force Grounds Vulcan Centaur The U.S. Space Force has placed an indefinite hold on all national security launches aboard ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket following a repeat solid rocket booster anomaly during the USSF-87 mission on 12 February — the rocket's fourth flight. A booster nozzle appeared to separate during ascent, mirroring an incident on Vulcan's second certification flight in October 2024. The payloads were successfully delivered, but Space Force Col. Eric Zarybnisky confirmed at the AFA Warfare Symposium that no further Vulcan national security missions will fly until the issue is fully resolved. With over a dozen military launches manifested for 2026, the grounding threatens significant disruption to the Pentagon's launch schedule. 3 — The Universe's Most Extraordinary Construction Site Astronomers using the Very Large Array and ALMA telescope have discovered J0846 — the first strongly gravitationally lensed protocluster core ever found. A foreground galaxy cluster is acting as a cosmic zoom lens, magnifying a cluster of at least 11 furiously star-forming galaxies more than 11 billion light years away — all crammed into a region smaller than the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Completely invisible to optical telescopes due to dense dust shrouding, ALMA's detection of cold dust and gas revealed the extraordinary scene. Lead researcher Nicholas Foo (Arizona State University) describes it as catching a galaxy cluster in the very first chapter of its life. 4 — Could Mars Soil Actually Block Earth Microbes? A Penn State-led international team published findings in the International Journal of Astrobiology showing that simulated Martian regolith significantly suppresses tardigrade (water bear) activity — one of the toughest creatures on Earth. Critically, rinsing the regolith with water largely reversed the harmful effect, suggesting the culprit is a water-soluble compound — possibly salts or perchlorates detected by previous Mars missions. The dual implication: Martian soil may naturally protect the Red Planet from Earth contamination, and could potentially be treated to support plant growth in future habitats. 5 — Extracting Oxygen from Lunar Soil — A Major Milestone NASA's Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) project has passed a key integrated prototype test aboard the ISS, confirming that concentrated solar energy can drive a chemical reaction in simulated lunar regolith to produce carbon monoxide — which can then be converted into breathable oxygen. Lunar regolith is approximately 45% oxygen by mass, locked in silicate minerals. The integrated system combines hardware from Sierra Space, NASA Glenn, Composite Mirror Applications, and Kennedy Space Center. Beyond breathing air, the process could produce rocket propellant in-situ — directly relevant to this week's Artemis restructuring and the goal of a permanent lunar presence. 6 — Ancient Stellar Lighthouses Rewrite the Milky Way's Origin Story Using the largest-ever catalogue of RR Lyrae variable stars — ancient pulsating 'cosmic lighthouses' over 10 billion years old — combined with ESA's Gaia satellite data, a large international team has found that the Milky Way's structural layers (halo, thick disk, thin disk) all formed at roughly the same early epoch, not sequentially as long assumed. The layers differ in chemistry, not age — each enriched by successive...
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily,
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 your daily briefing from the cosmos. I'm
00:00:05 --> 00:00:06 Anna.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 >> And I'm Avery. It is Saturday, February
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 28th, 2026, and we are back with season
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 5, episode 51.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 >> A slightly later start to our day than
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 usual, Avery, but the universe has been
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 very much keeping normal business hours
00:00:21 --> 00:00:22 on our behalf.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 >> It absolutely has. Six stories today.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 And honestly, what a six. We've got a
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 major shakeup at NASA headquarters, a
00:00:30 --> 00:00:31 serious headache for the Pentagon's
00:00:32 --> 00:00:33 launch calendar, one of the most
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 mind-bending objects ever discovered in
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 the deep universe, a rather unsettling
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 experiment about Martian soil, a genuine
00:00:42 --> 00:00:43 breakthrough in how we might breathe on
00:00:43 --> 00:00:45 the moon, and a piece of galactic
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 archaeology that is rewriting the
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 history of our home galaxy.
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 >> If you are anywhere near a clear western
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 horizon tonight, we've also got a little
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 cosmic bonus for you. Six planets lined
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 up in the evening sky. More on that as
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 we go. But first, let's get into the
00:01:01 --> 00:01:02 news.
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 >> Our lead story today is a big one, and
00:01:04 --> 00:01:05 it has been the talk of the space
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 community since Friday afternoon. NASA
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 administrator Jared Isacman has
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 announced a major restructuring of the
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 Aremis program. And when I say major, I
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 mean this is the most significant
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 overhaul since the program was first
00:01:19 --> 00:01:20 established.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:21 >> So, let's break this down because
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 there's quite a bit to unpack. The
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 headline is this. Artemis 3, which was
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 supposed to be the first crude lunar
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 landing in more than 50 years, is no
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 longer going to the moon. At least not
00:01:34 --> 00:01:34 yet.
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 >> That's right. Instead of landing on the
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 lunar south pole in 2028 as originally
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 planned, Artemis 3 has been redesigned
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 as a low Earth orbit test flight
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 targeting launch in 2027. The crew will
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 rendevous and dock in orbit with one or
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 both of the commercial lunar landers,
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 SpaceX's Starship human landing system
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 and Blue Origins Blue Moon and run a
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 full suite of tests. Space suits and
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 microgravity, life support checks,
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 navigation, propulsion, everything you
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 would want to have verified before you
00:02:09 --> 00:02:10 actually depend on those systems to
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 bring people back from the surface of
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 the moon. Isaacman drew a very
00:02:15 --> 00:02:16 deliberate comparison to the Apollo
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 program. He pointed out that NASA didn't
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 go from Apollo 8, which was the first
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 crude flight around the moon, straight
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 to the landing. Apollo 9 and 10 tested
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 all the critical hardware in Earth and
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 lunar orbit first. His argument is that
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 Artemis, as currently structured, was
00:02:34 --> 00:02:36 essentially skipping those steps. And
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 that concern was echoed just days
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 earlier by the NASA Independent
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, which
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 released its annual report calling the
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 existing plans too risky and
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 recommending a restructure. So this
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 wasn't a shock in some quarters, but the
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 scale of the changes still caught a lot
00:02:54 --> 00:02:55 of people by surprise.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 >> The block 1B upgrade to the space launch
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 system has also been scrapped. NASA is
00:03:00 --> 00:03:02 standardizing the vehicle configuration
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 to reduce complexity and accelerate the
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 launch cadence because that is really
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 the overarching goal here. Moving from a
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 program that has launched the SLS once
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 every few years to one that aims for a
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 flight every 10 months or so,
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 >> which is genuinely ambitious. The SLS
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 has launched exactly once. Isacman
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 himself has been quite candid about
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 that, noting that a flight rate that low
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 is simply not sustainable and not safe.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:31 His view is that the more frequently you
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 fly, the sharper your team stay, the
00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 less your skills atrophy, and the safer
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 each subsequent mission becomes.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 >> The revised plan targets Aremis 4 and 5
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 for lunar landings in 2028, with at
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 least one surface landing per year
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 thereafter. One thing that was
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 conspicuously absent from the
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 announcement though, any mention of the
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 lunar gateway space station, which had
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 been central to earlier Artemis
00:03:56 --> 00:03:57 planning.
00:03:57 --> 00:03:58 >> Isaacman deflected questions about
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 gateway, saying the focus needed to stay
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 on what he called the hardest part,
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 actually getting astronauts to and from
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 the moon with a reliable cadence. Make
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 of that what you will.
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 >> And Artemis 2 itself, that's the crude
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 flight around the moon. No landing.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 That's been in preparation at Kennedy
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 Space Center. It's currently targeting
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 no earlier than April 1st after rolling
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 back to the vehicle assembly building on
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 February 25th to address a helium
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 pressurization issue in the upper stage.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 Engineers are working through it. The
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 goal is a successful wet dress rehearsal
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 before a launch date is confirmed.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 >> So, a lot of moving parts, but the
00:04:39 --> 00:04:42 direction of travel seems clear. Apollo
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 style step-by-step buildup, faster
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 cadence, leaner vehicle configuration.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 We will be keeping a very close eye on
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 how this unfolds over the coming months.
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 >> Now, staying in launch industry news,
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 and this one is going to cause some
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 significant headaches for the United
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 States military's space launch program
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 this year, the US Space Force has placed
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 an indefinite hold on all national
00:05:05 --> 00:05:09 security launches aboard ULA's Vulcan
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 Centaur rocket. This follows an anomaly
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 observed during the USSF87 mission which
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 launched on February 12th. That was
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 Vulcan's fourth flight overall and it
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 was carrying a pair of geocynchronous
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 space situational awareness satellites,
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 essentially neighborhood watch
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 satellites for the military, keeping
00:05:27 --> 00:05:28 tabs on what's happening in
00:05:28 --> 00:05:29 geocynchronous orbit.
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 >> The mission itself was technically
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 successful. The payloads were delivered
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 to their correct orbits, but observers
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 watching the launch footage noticed
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 something very unwelcome. An unusual
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 plume of debris from one of the solid
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 rocket boosters. And specifically, it
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 appeared that a booster nozzle may have
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 separated during ascent, which will
00:05:51 --> 00:05:52 sound familiar to anyone following
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 Vulcan closely because essentially the
00:05:55 --> 00:05:56 same thing happened on the rocket's
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 second certification flight back in
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 October 2024. ULA investigated said the
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 root cause was a manufacturing defect
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 and said it had been corrected and now
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 it appears to have happened again.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 >> Colonel Eric Zarabniski, the Space
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 Force's portfolio acquisition executive
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 for Assured Access to Space, was very
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 direct at the Air and Space Forces
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 Association warfare symposium this week.
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 until the anomaly is fully understood
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 and corrective actions are developed and
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 implemented, there will be no more
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 Vulcan national security missions.
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 >> The scale of the problem is hard to
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 overstate. Vulcan is manifested for more
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 than a dozen national security launches
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 this year. Nearly its entire 2026
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 manifest is military. With an
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 investigation that could run for months,
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 this could seriously disrupt the
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 Pentagon's launch schedule. And it comes
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 at a particularly challenging time for
00:06:54 --> 00:06:56 ULA, which recently saw the departure of
00:06:56 --> 00:07:00 longtime CEO Tory Bruno. ULA and
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 Northrep Grumman, who make the solid
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 rocket boosters, have confirmed they are
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 standing up a joint investigation team.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 No timeline has been given for
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 resolution. We'll be watching this one
00:07:11 --> 00:07:12 closely.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 >> Right time to zoom out. Way, way out. 11
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 billion lighty years out in fact because
00:07:18 --> 00:07:19 astronomers have just announced a
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 discovery of what might be the most
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 extraordinary object in the early
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 universe and it has a story attached to
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 it that is quite wonderful.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 >> So this discovery involves something
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 called a protocluster which is
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 essentially a galaxy cluster in the
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 process of being assembled. These are
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 the primordial cities of the universe
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 where gravity is busy pulling together
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 what will eventually become some of the
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 most massive structures in existence.
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 And the object in question is called
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 J0846.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 Now the reason they were able to see
00:07:53 --> 00:07:57 J846 in such extraordinary detail is
00:07:57 --> 00:07:58 because of a cosmic accident of
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 alignment. Sitting almost perfectly
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 between us and J0846 is a closer galaxy
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 cluster. And the immense mass of that
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 foreground galaxy cluster is acting as a
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 gravitational lens, bending and
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 amplifying the light from the distant
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 protocluster behind it, making it appear
00:08:16 --> 00:08:17 far brighter and larger than it
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 otherwise would. It's the universe
00:08:19 --> 00:08:21 providing us with a zoom lens that no
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 human engineer could ever build. And
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 when astronomers pointed the very large
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 array radio telescope in New Mexico and
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 the Alma telescope in the Chilean
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 Otakama Desert at this magnified view,
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 what they found was stunning. What had
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 previously looked like a single smudge
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 of light in older survey data, turned
00:08:43 --> 00:08:46 out to be at least 11 separate galaxies,
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 all crammed into a region of space,
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 smaller than the distance between our
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 own Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy
00:08:54 --> 00:08:55 next door.
00:08:55 --> 00:08:59 >> 11 galaxies in a space that tight. And
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 every single one of them is undergoing a
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 starburst, pumping out new stars at a
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 rate that would make our own galaxy look
00:09:06 --> 00:09:08 thoroughly lazy by comparison. They are
00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 building stars at a ferocious, almost
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 frenzied pace. The reason we couldn't
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 see them in ordinary optical telescopes
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 is that they are absolutely shrouded in
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 dust. Dust that absorbs visible light
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 completely. ALMA's ability to detect the
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 faint thermal glow of cold, dust, and
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 gas is what cuts through that cosmic fog
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 and reveals what's actually happening in
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 there. Lead researcher Nicholas Fu, a
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 graduate student at Arizona State
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 University, described the whole scenario
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 beautifully. The foreground cluster is
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 the mature modern city. The protocluster
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 behind it is the ancient settlement it
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 grew from. And by looking back more than
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 11 billion years, we are essentially
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 catching a galaxy cluster in the very
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 first chapter of its life. It's also the
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 first strongly lensed protocluster core
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 ever discovered, which makes it
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 scientifically invaluable. Gravitational
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 lensing is giving us a level of detail
00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 we simply could not access any other
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 way. Nature, it turns out, is a pretty
00:10:15 --> 00:10:18 outstanding telescope builder. Now, if
00:10:18 --> 00:10:19 you've been thinking about how future
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 Mars explorers will feed themselves,
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 grow plants, or avoid contaminating the
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 red planet, this next story is directly
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 relevant. And it involves one of our
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 favorite microscopic creatures, the
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 tardigrade, otherwise known as the water
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 bear. And if you've heard of them
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 before, you'll know they are essentially
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 the toughest animals on Earth, surviving
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 freezing, radiation, the vacuum of
00:10:43 --> 00:10:47 space, extreme dehydration. They are
00:10:47 --> 00:10:48 extraordinary.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 >> A research team led by microbiologist
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 Coran Bakerman's at Penn State Eltona
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 has been using tardigrades as biological
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 proxies. Essentially asking the
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 question, what the simulated Martian
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 soil actually do to Earth microbes?
00:11:03 --> 00:11:05 Because this matters enormously both for
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 planetary protection, making sure we
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 don't contaminate Mars with Earth life,
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 and for understanding whether astronauts
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 could safely use Martian soil for
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 growing food. And the results published
00:11:17 --> 00:11:18 in the International Journal of
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 Astrobiology were surprising when
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 tardigrades were placed into simulated
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 Martian regalith and they used a
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 simulant designed to closely match what
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 NASA's Curiosity rover has sampled in
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 Gale Crater. Their activity dropped
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 significantly. These creatures, which
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 can survive almost anything, were being
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 suppressed by the Martian soil itself,
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 >> which is a remarkable finding on its
00:11:44 --> 00:11:45 own. But then they tried something
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 clever. They rinsed the regalith with
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 water before introducing the tardigrades
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 and that almost entirely removed the
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 harmful effect. The tardigrades were
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 back to nearly normal activity levels.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 >> So whatever is doing the damage in
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 Martian soil is water soluble. The team
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 suspects salts or some other water
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 soluble compound possibly related to
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 perchlorates that have been detected in
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 Martian regalith by previous missions.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:14 They're still investigating this
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 specific culprit.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 >> Now, there are two very interesting
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 things to take from this. First, Martian
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 soil might naturally act as a kind of
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 chemical defense against Earth microbes,
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 which could be genuinely helpful from a
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 planetary protection standpoint.
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 Microbes hitching a ride on spacecraft
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 or equipment might struggle to establish
00:12:34 --> 00:12:35 themselves in an environment that is
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 actively hostile to them. Second, and
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 this is the hopeful angle, if the
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 harmful compounds can simply be washed
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 away with water, that opens a potential
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 pathway for treating the soil to make it
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 usable for plant growth in future Mars
00:12:51 --> 00:12:55 habitats. Water is incredibly scarce on
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 Mars, of course, so it's not a simple
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 solution, but it is a lead worth
00:13:00 --> 00:13:01 pursuing.
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 >> Professor Bakerman summed it up well.
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 When we send people to non-earth
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 environments, we need to understand two
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 things. How the environment will impact
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 the people and how the people will
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 impact the environment. This research is
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 pushing both of those questions forward.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 And now, a story that connects
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 beautifully with our lead story today,
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 because NASA this week also confirmed a
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 significant milestone in one of the
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 technologies that will be absolutely
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 essential if the revamped Aremis program
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 is ever going to achieve that dream of a
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 permanent human presence on the moon.
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 We're talking about insitu resource
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 utilization, ISRU, which is the umbrella
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 term for the idea of using what's
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 already available at your destination
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 rather than shipping everything from
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 Earth. And specifically, we're talking
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 about oxygen. Because here's a fact that
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 should stop you in your tracks. Lunar
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 regalith, the loose rock and dust
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 covering the moon's surface, is
00:14:01 --> 00:14:05 approximately 45% oxygen by mass. The
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 vast majority of it locked up in silicut
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 minerals deposited over billions of
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 years as the moon passes through Earth's
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 magnetic tail, capturing oxygen ions
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 from our upper atmosphere. 45% oxygen
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 just sitting there waiting to be
00:14:21 --> 00:14:22 unlocked.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 >> NASA's carbo reduction demonstration
00:14:25 --> 00:14:28 project, CARD, has been working on doing
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 exactly that aboard the International
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 Space Station. The technique uses
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 concentrated solar energy to heat the
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 regalith to extreme temperatures,
00:14:37 --> 00:14:39 triggering a chemical reaction that
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 releases that bound oxygen as carbon
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 monoxide gas. That CO can then be
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 converted downstream into breathable
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 oxygen. And this week, the card team
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 confirmed that their integrated
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 prototype combining a carbothermal
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 oxygen production reactor from Sierra
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 Space, a solar concentrator from NASA's
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 Glenn Research Center, precision mirrors
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 from composite mirror applications, and
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 avionics and gas analysis systems from
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 Kennedy Space Center have successfully
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 passed a full integrated test,
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 confirming production of carbon monoxide
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 through a solardriven chemical. chemical
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 reaction on simulated lunar regulith.
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 >> That is a meaningful step, not a demo,
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 not a simulation, an actual integrated
00:15:26 --> 00:15:28 system test confirming the chemistry
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 works. The next steps are
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 miniaturaturization, durability testing,
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 and ultimately deploying something like
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 this on the lunar surface.
00:15:36 --> 00:15:39 >> And the applications go beyond just
00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 breathing air. The same process could be
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 adapted to convert carbon dioxide into
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 oxygen and methane, giving future moon
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 bases a way to produce rocket propellant
00:15:50 --> 00:15:53 in situ, which dramatically changes the
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 economics of the whole enterprise. You
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 no longer need to ship fuel from Earth
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 for the journey home.
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 >> The technology also has direct
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 applicability to Mars. A solar-driven
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 oxygen extraction system working on
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 Martian regalith would be a cornerstone
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 of any long-term surface presence there,
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 too. So, it's worth connecting the dots.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 This week, NASA announced it wants
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 annual moon landings from 2028. And this
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 week, NASA confirmed a key piece of
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 technology that would make staying there
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 actually viable. These stories belong
00:16:24 --> 00:16:25 together.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 >> Well spotted, Avery. Nicely joined up.
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 >> And for our final story today, we're
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 heading home. or rather we're heading
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 back to the very beginning of home
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 because a new study has just rewritten
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 what we thought we knew about how our
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 own galaxy formed.
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 >> This research centers on a type of star
00:16:43 --> 00:16:47 called an RR Lyra variable. These are
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 ancient pulsating stars. They swell and
00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 shrink over the course of just a few
00:16:53 --> 00:16:55 hours, brightening and dimming like a
00:16:55 --> 00:16:59 slow cosmic heartbeat. What makes them
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 extraordinary as scientific tools is
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 that they are almost eerily predictable.
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 Astronomers know precisely how
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 intrinsically bright they are, which
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 means that by measuring how bright they
00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 appear in the sky, you can calculate
00:17:13 --> 00:17:16 their distance with great precision.
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 >> They are in the truest sense cosmic
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 lighouses, standard candles for
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 measuring the universe. And crucially,
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 they are old. Not millions of years old,
00:17:26 --> 00:17:30 billions, more than 10 billion years.
00:17:30 --> 00:17:32 These stars were forming when the Milky
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 Way itself was still taking shape in the
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 chaotic early universe shortly after the
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 Big Bang. They are essentially living
00:17:39 --> 00:17:43 fossils. A large international team of
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 astronomers assembled the biggest
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 catalog of these ancient stellar fossils
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 ever compiled. thousands of them.
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 Combining precise distance measurements
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 with data from the European Space Ay's
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 Gaia satellite, which has mapped the
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 positions and movements of over a
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 billion stars across the galaxy.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 Together, this gave them a
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 threedimensional map of the early Milky
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 Way that they could essentially rewind
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 like a film, tracing these ancient stars
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 back to where they came from and how
00:18:16 --> 00:18:17 they were moving in the galaxy's
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 formative years. And what they found
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 challenged the longheld assumption. The
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 conventional picture was that the Milky
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 Way's different structural layers, the
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 outer halo, the thick disc, the thin
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 disc, formed at different times,
00:18:31 --> 00:18:34 sequentially, one building on the last.
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 The halo first, then the thick disc,
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 then the thin disc.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 >> But the new results suggest that all of
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 these layers formed at roughly the same
00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 early epoch. not sequentially,
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 simultaneously, or close to it. The main
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 difference between the layers isn't age,
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 it's chemistry. Stars in the halo
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 contain less iron than those in the
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 thick disc, which in turn contain less
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 than the thin disc. Each successive
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 layer was enriched by the deaths of
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 previous stellar generations, a kind of
00:19:07 --> 00:19:10 celestial inheritance passed down
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 through supernova. The iron content
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 tells the story of the order, not the
00:19:15 --> 00:19:16 ages themselves.
00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 >> And perhaps the most striking finding
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 involves our nearest galactic neighbor,
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 the Andromeda galaxy. When the team
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 compared the chemical fingerprints of
00:19:25 --> 00:19:27 these ancient stars across the Milky Way
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 with those in Andromeda, they found
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 strikingly similar patterns despite the
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 two galaxies being very different in
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 size and structure, which suggests this
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 isn't just a local story. It may be a
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 universal mechanism by which large
00:19:42 --> 00:19:43 galaxies form.
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 >> The idea that galaxies as different as
00:19:46 --> 00:19:49 the Milky Way and Andromeda went through
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 the same fundamental process of
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 formation written in the chemistry of
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 their oldest stars. That is a genuinely
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 profound result. The lactic archaeology
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 at its finest.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 >> And with 10 billiony old stars doing the
00:20:03 --> 00:20:05 storytelling, you really can't argue
00:20:05 --> 00:20:06 with the witnesses.
00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 >> Right. Before we close out today, a
00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 quick reminder for anyone listening this
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 evening. Tonight is the peak of
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 February's six planet parade. If you
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 step outside about 30 minutes after
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 sunset and look west, you should be able
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 to spot Venus blindingly bright. You
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 really can't miss it. Along with Jupiter
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 high in the sky and Saturn low on the
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 western horizon, Mercury is also out
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 there if you have a flat, clear horizon
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 and you're quick. Uranus and Neptune
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 round out the six, though you'll need
00:20:39 --> 00:20:41 binoculars or a telescope for those.
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 >> It's a genuinely lovely evening
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 spectacle. They'll miss it.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 >> And that is everything for episode 51.
00:20:48 --> 00:20:52 What a day in space. A program reshaped,
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 a rocket grounded, a cosmic construction
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 site 11 billion years in the past, water
00:20:58 --> 00:21:01 bears on Mars, solar powered oxygen on
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 the moon, and our galaxy's formation
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 story turned upside down.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:08 >> Not a bad Saturday.
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11 >> Not a bad Saturday at all. If you
00:21:11 --> 00:21:13 enjoyed today's episode, please do share
00:21:13 --> 00:21:16 it with a fellow space enthusiast. Leave
00:21:16 --> 00:21:18 us a review wherever you listen and
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 follow us on social media at astrodaily
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 pod for updates throughout the day.
00:21:24 --> 00:21:26 >> You can also find our show notes, blog
00:21:26 --> 00:21:29 posts, and full episode archive over at
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 astronomyaily.io.
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 Everything you need is right there.
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 >> From all of us here at Astronomy Daily,
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 clear skies and we'll see you Monday.
00:21:39 --> 00:21:43 >> See you then, everyone.
00:21:43 --> 00:21:51 Stories told
00:21:51 --> 00:21:59 stories told
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 stories