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Good morning, good evening, and good winever you're listening, Welcome
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to Astronomy Daily, your front row seat to the Cosmos.
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I'm Anna and I'm Avery.
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It's Friday, the thirteenth, February twenty twenty six. And if
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you're superstitious, well, the universe doesn't care about your calendar.
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It's been too busy making black holes, breaking rockets, and
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building planetary systems that make absolutely no sense.
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That's right, We've got an absolutely packed show for you today.
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Astronomers may have just watched a star quietly collapse into
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a brand new black hole in our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy.
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No supernova required. SpaceX's Crew twelve is launching to the
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International Space Station as we speak. Europe's most powerful rocket
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just flew for the very first time, and that's just
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for starters.
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We've also got a Vulcan rocket that apparently didn't learn
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its lesson the first time around, a planetary system that's
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been turned completely inside out. And now this is Swift
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Observatory going into survival mode to avoid a fiery re entry.
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Let's get into it.
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We're kicking things off with what is quite literally happening
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right now. NASA and SpaceX have given the final go
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for Crew twelve mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff
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was scheduled for five point fifteen am Eastern Time this
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morning from Space Launch Complex forty at Cape Canaveral.
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The crew is an international squad. We've got NASA astronauts
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Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronauts Sophiettino
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from France and Ross Cosmos cosmonaut Andre Fadiev from Russia.
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They're riding aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule on a Falcon
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nine rocket.
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And this launch was supposed to happen yesterday on the twelfth,
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but mission teams waved off due to weather conditions along
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the flight path. They completed a final weather briefing last
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night and gave the all clear to proceed into the countdown.
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If everything went according to plan this morning, the crew
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should arrive at the station tomorrow afternoon, on Valentine's Day,
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at around three fifteen pm Eastern Romantic Right. Nothing says
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I Love you like docking with a space station at
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twenty eight thousand kilometers per hour.
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Once they're aboard, they'll bring the station back up to
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its full complement. Of seven crew members. The ISS has
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been operating with a reduced crew, so this is a
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welcome reinforcement. They've got a packed science agenda waiting for
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them up there.
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Fun stat on this one. The Falcon nine booster being
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used B one zero eight one is flying for its
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twenty second time, twenty two flights on a single rocket booster.
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And this is the nineteenth Falcon nine mission of twenty
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twenty six alone. And we're only in mid February. Base
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Exis launch cadence is just relentless.
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We'll keep do updated on crew twelves progress as they
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make their way to the station. You can catch the
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full coverage on NASA Plus, Amazon Prime, and NASA's YouTube channel.
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All right, Anna, this next story is the kind of
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thing that gives astrophysicists goosebumps. Astronomers believe they've witnessed something extraordinary.
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A massive star in the Andromeda Galaxy that didn't go
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out by a bang, but just quietly vanished, and what
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it left behind appears to be a brand new black hole.
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This is genuinely remarkable. The star, cataloged as M thirty
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one twenty fourteen DS one, was a yellow supergiant about
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thirteen times the mass of our own Sun, sitting roughly
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two point five million light years away in our neighboring
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Andromeda Galaxy. Before it disappeared, it was one of the
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brightest stars in Andromeda, shining about one hundred thousand times
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brighter than our own Sun.
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So here's what happened. A team led by Columbia University
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astrophysicist Kisha Lai Day was sifting through archival data from
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NASA's Neal Wise mission, an infrared space telescope that mapped
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the sky from twenty nine to twenty twenty four. They
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were building a map of how millions of stars change
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in brightness over time, and buried in that data they
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found something stunning.
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Starting around twenty fourteen, this star began to brighten in
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infrared light, then it started fading dramatically invisible light, and
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by twenty twenty two it had vanished entirely from Neo
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wise's view. Even with the most sensitive telescopes available today,
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there's nothing there. As Depasse put it, imagine if betal
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juice just suddenly disappeared, That's essentially what happened here, just
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in the galaxy next door.
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Now. Normally, when a massive star dies, it goes out
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spectacularly as a supernova. The core collapses, neutrinos erupt outward,
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and the resulting shock wave blasts the star's outer layers
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into space in an explosion that can outshine an entire galaxy.
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But this star didn't do any of that. It appears
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to be what astronomers call a failed supernova.
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The theory is that the core collapsed as expected, forming
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a dense neutron star, but the shockwave that was supposed
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to blow the star apart just wasn't strong enough. Instead
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of exploding outward, most of the star's material fell back inward,
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overwhelming the neutron star and creating a black hole. Its
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death by implosion rather than explosion.
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And what's really interesting is the role of convection. The
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team realized that previous models hadn't properly accounted for the
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churning turbulent motions in the star's outer layers. When they
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factored that in, they found the convection actually helped sap
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energy from the shockwave, making it more likely to fail.
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That's a significant new insight.
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The material that didn't fall straight in is now forming
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a rotating accretion disk around the newborn black hole slowly
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spiraling inward, much like water circling a drain. The infrared
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glow from that debris should remain visible to the James
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Webb Space Telescope for decades as it gradually fades.
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The study was published yesterday in the journal Science, and
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the implications are huge. If relatively lightweight stars like this
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one at just thirteen solar masses can collapse directly into
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black holes, then there could be far more black holes
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out there than we've previously estimated. This could be a
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very common way for stars to die, and we've just
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been missing it because there's no explosion to see.
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Not everyone's convinced yet, though Some astronomers suggest this could
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be a case of merging stars whose combined light got
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obscured by dust. But as one researcher put it, the
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definitive test is simple. Death is forever. If it's truly
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a black hole, that star is never coming back. Future
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observations with JWST will help settle the debate.
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Thicking with the launch theme, Europe had a huge milestone yesterday.
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The most powerful version of the Arion six rocket flew
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for the first time, and it was carrying cargo for
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one of SpaceX's biggest competitors.
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That's right, Ariyan Space launched the Arion sixty four, the
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four booster configuration of Europe's new flagship rocket. It lifted
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off from the Guyana Space Center in Kuru, French, Guyana
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at sixteen forty five UTC on February twelfth, and writing
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on top were thirty two satellites for Amazon's Internet constellation,
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now officially branded as Amazon Leo.
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So let's break down the naming. The Arion six comes
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in two versions, the six to two with two strap
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on solid rocket boosters and the six four with four.
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This was the first time the six to four has
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ever flown, and it's significantly more powerful. Those four P
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one twenty C solid boosters give it the extra punch
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needed to loft heavier payloads.
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And Amazon Leo, formerly known as Project Kuiper, is Amazon's
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answer to SpaceX's Starlink. The plan is to build a
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con installation of three thousand, two hundred and thirty six
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satellites providing broadband Internet from low Earth orbit. So these
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thirty two satellites are an early batch to start building
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out that network.
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It's a big deal on two fronts for Europe. The
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Arion six' four flying successfully means they now have a
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heavy lift option that can compete for larger commercial and government.
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Payloads and For, amazon getting satellites up on a NON
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SpaceX rocket is strategically. Important you don't want your main
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competitor also being your sole ride to.
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Orbit the launch went smoothly with the satellites successfully deployed
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into Low earth. Orbit it's a promising start for The
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arion six'. Four, configuration now speaking of rockets that had
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a slightly less, smooth day we need to talk About The.
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Vulcan centaur this is an update to the story we.
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Covered Yesterday United launch alliance FLEW the ussf eighty seven
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mission FOR The Us space force Early on, february twelfth
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and there was a very. Familiar problem about thirty seconds
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after Liftoff From cape canaveral observers noticed a bright glow
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and a shower of sparks pouring from the aft end
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of one of The four gems SIXTY three xl solid.
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Rocket boosters video and tracking footage showed what appears to
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be a nozzle, burned through where a hot exhaust gas
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essentially melts its way through the.
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Nozzle casing and here's.
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The thing this has. Happened before the exact same type
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of anomaly Occurred during vulcan's second certification flight Back in
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october twenty. TWENTY four ula and Booster Manufacturer northrop grummen
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spent months investigating, that incident identified a, manufacturing defect and
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said they'd. Fixed it the third Flight in august twenty
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twenty five, went cleanly.
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But now on just the fourth, flight overall the problem.
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IS back ula acknowledged it had quote an observation early
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during flight on one of the four solid rocket motors
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and said the team is reviewing.
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The data the silver lining is that the mission. Still
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Succeeded the falcon, nine Sorry the Vulcan's twin bee four main,
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engines compensated And the centaur upper stage completed all its.
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Plan burns about eight hours, AFTER launch ula confirmed the
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payloads were successfully delivered to, geosynchronous orbit more than twenty
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two thousand Miles.
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Above earth the primary payload was a PAIR of gssap
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satellites For The. Space force these are maneuverable spacecraft that
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serve as a sort of neighborhood watch for geosynchronous orbit.
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Monitoring ACTIVITY near us and. Allied assets there were also
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some research and development.
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Payloads aboard but the bigger question now is what this
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Means for. VULCAN'S future ula had ambitious plans to fly
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sixteen to eighteen missions, this year including Launches FOR amazon
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gps satellites And More space. FORCE payloads a recurring boost
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issue on a rocket that's only flown four times is a.
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Serious Concern The space force has already said it will
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work CLOSELY with ula on flight worthiness before the next national.
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Security mission we'll be watching this.
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One closely bulkan is supposed to be ULA's flagship for,
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the future replacing The venerable. Atlas five it needs to
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prove it can, fly reliably and a pattern of booster
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issues isn't helping that case.
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All right time for some. Planetary weirdness astronomers have found
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a star system that looks like someone assembled the planets
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in the. Wrong order think of it as a cosmic double.
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Stuffed oreo that's actually a.
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Great analogy the star IS called lhs nineteen. Zero three
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it's a red dwarf about half the mass Of, our
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sun located about one hundred and sixteen light. Years away
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it has four planets all orbiting in less than, thirty
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days so it's a very. Compact system and from the,
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star outward the arrangement goes rocky gaseous, gaseous rocky.
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Which is the exact opposite of what models predict in
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standard planetary. Formation theory rocky planets form closer to the
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star where intense starlight strips, away atmospheres and gas giants
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form farther out where there's more gas available in the.
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Protoplanetary disc you'd expect rocky on the inside gassy on,
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the OUTSIDE.
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But lhs nineteen oh three follows the. Rules beautifully for
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the first, three planets a rocky one closest in than two,
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gaseous ones and then the, fourth planet the one, furthest
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out is. Rocky again it's like Finding a venus like
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world Out past. Neptune's orbit it just shouldn't.
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Be there the system was first discovered By NASA's test
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mission back in, twenty nineteen and this, latest Study published
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february Twelfth, in science used a suite of ground based
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and space based instruments to precisely determine the planet's masses.
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And densities that's how they could tell which ones are
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rocky and which, have thick. Gascious envelopes the.
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Leading explanation is. Planetary migration sometime early in the, system's
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history the inner planets may have, shuffled around similar to
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what happened in Our Own solar system during the late.
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HEAVY bombardment a gravitational reshuffle could have sent a large
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body crashing into the, fourth planet stripping away, its atmosphere
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or the planet may have formed late after the system
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had run out.
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Of gas As Astronomer andrew cameron From the University Of
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saint andrew's, put it that stuff does happen in young.
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Planetary systems this one has the look of something that's
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been turned. Inside out it's a fantastic reminder that for
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all our models, and theories the universe keeps. Finding ways as.
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A prisis our final story today is about a veteran
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space telescope that's fighting for its life and NASA's creative
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plan to.
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Save It The Neo Garold swift observatory has been one
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of NASA's warkhorses for high. Energy astrophysics it's been in
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orbit for about twenty, one years rapidly slewing to observe
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gamma ray bursts and other transient, cosmic events but time
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and physics are catching up.
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With it the problem is. Atmospheric drag enhanced, solar activity