April 21, 2025
Celebrating Space Milestones: Don Pettit's Birthday in Orbit and New Insights on Mars
In this episode of Astronomy Daily, host Hallie takes the reins while Steve enjoys a well-deserved break, guiding listeners through a series of fascinating cosmic events and discoveries. From the remarkable birthday of NASA's oldest astronaut to...
In this episode of Astronomy Daily, host Hallie takes the reins while Steve enjoys a well-deserved break, guiding listeners through a series of fascinating cosmic events and discoveries. From the remarkable birthday of NASA's oldest astronaut to groundbreaking insights about Mars' magnetic field, this episode is packed with stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Highlights:
- Don Pettit's 70th Birthday in Space: Celebrate the extraordinary milestone of NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who marked his 70th birthday while returning to Earth after an impressive seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station. Discover the details of his journey and the remarkable achievements of his crew during their time in orbit.
- National Reconnaissance Office Reaches Satellite Milestone: Learn about the National Reconnaissance Office's recent accomplishment of deploying over 200 satellites in just two years, following the successful launch of the NROL 145 mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This achievement highlights the growing importance of satellite networks for national security.
- The Awakening of a Supermassive Black Hole: Dive into the intriguing observations of a dormant supermassive black hole in the galaxy SDSS1335 0728, which suddenly became active after years of inactivity. This phenomenon provides a rare opportunity to study black hole behavior and the dynamics of accretion disks.
- PUNCH Mission Captures First Light: Celebrate the successful commissioning of the PUNCH mission, which has begun capturing its first images of the Sun's outer atmosphere. These early observations are crucial for understanding solar wind and coronal mass ejections, setting the stage for future scientific exploration.
- New Insights into Mars' Magnetic Field: Explore a groundbreaking theory suggesting that Mars may have once had a molten core, leading to a lopsided magnetic field. This research sheds light on the planet's atmospheric history and its potential for supporting life in the past.
For more cosmic updates, visit our website at astronomydaily.io. Join our community on social media by searching for #AstroDailyPod on Facebook, X, YouTubeMusic, TikTok, and our new Instagram account! Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you for tuning in. This is Hallie signing off. Until next time, keep looking up and stay curious about the wonders of our universe.
00:00 - Welcome to Astronomy Daily
01:05 - Don Pettit's 70th birthday in space
10:30 - National Reconnaissance Office satellite milestone
17:00 - Awakening of a supermassive black hole
22:15 - PUNCH mission captures first light
27:30 - New insights into Mars' magnetic field
✍️ Episode References
NASA Astronaut Don Pettit
[NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/)
National Reconnaissance Office Launch
[NRO](https://www.nro.gov/)
Supermassive Black Hole Observations
[European Space Agency](https://www.esa.int/)
PUNCH Mission Details
[NASA PUNCH](https://www.nasa.gov/punch)
Mars Magnetic Field Research
[University of Texas](https://www.utexas.edu/)
Astronomy Daily
[Astronomy Daily](http://www.astronomydaily.io/)
Become a supporter of this podcast:
WEBVTT
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Hi everyone, It's time for Astronomy Daily again. It's the
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twenty first of April twenty twenty five.
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If you a hundred seven, Hi.
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There everyone, Halle here to take you through the show today.
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As my favorite human Steve is enjoying an Easter break today,
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So off we go straight into the stories I've collected
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from the Astronomy Daily newsletter. Here we go. Cake gifts
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and a low key family celebration may be how many
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senior citizens picture their seventieth birthday, but NASA's oldest serving astronaut,
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Don Pettitt, became a septuagenarian while hurtling toward Earth in
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a spacecraft to wrap up a seven month mission aboard
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the International Space Station. A Sooyuz capsule carrying the American
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and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, the
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day of Pettit's milestone birthday. Today at four twenty am
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Moscow time, the SOYUS MS twenty six landing craft with
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Alexei option In, Ivan Banner and Don Pettitt aboard, landed
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near the Kazakh town of Seyskoskin. Russia's space agency ROAs
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Cosmos said, spending two hundred and twenty days in space.
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Pettit and his crewmate's option in and Banner orbited Earth
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three thousand, five hundred and twenty times and completed a
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journey of ninety three point three million miles over the
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course of their mission. It was the fourth spaceflight for Pettit,
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who has logged more than eighteen months in orbit throughout
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his twenty nine year career. The trio touched down in
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a remote area southeast of Kazakhstan after undocking from the
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space station just over three hours earlier.
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You're listening to Astronomy Daily called Steve Dunkley.
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Following the launch of a classified mission April twentieth, the
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National Reconnaissance Office has reached a new milestone, deploying more
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than two hundred satellites into a orbit in just over
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two years. The NROL one forty five mission lifted off
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Sunday on a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket from Vandenberg Space
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Force Base in California at eight twenty nine a m Eastern.
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This marked SpaceX's tenth launch of satellites for the NRO's
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proliferated architecture, which includes starshield imaging satellites built by SpaceX
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and Northrop Grumman. A proliferated architecture refers to the strategy
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of using numerous smaller satellites rather than fewer large ones,
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creating networks that are more resilient against potential threats and
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capable of providing more comprehensive coverage. The National Reconnaissance Office
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designs and operates classified US government surveillance and intelligence satellites.
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The agency is deploying an extensive satellite network designed to
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track ground targets in near real time. Sunday's launch was
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the first mission awarded by the US Space Force under
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the National Security Space Launch Phase three Lane one program.
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The task order for NROL one forty five was one
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of nine awarded to SpaceX in October twenty twenty four.
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This was our first Phase three launch, coming only months
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after establishing this new contract, Colonel Jim Horn, launch Execution
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Senior material leader at the Space System's Command, said in
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a statement. Horn also noted that forty four missions from
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the previous NSSL Phase two contract remained to be launched.
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The majority of those missions were awarded to United Launch Alliance.
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ULA's new Vulcan rocket is expected to conduct its first
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NSSL mission this summer.
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Astronomy deby with Steve and Helle Space Space, Science and Astronomy.
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Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of
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Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from
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the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive
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in your email every day, just like Hallie and I do.
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And to do that, just visit our uurl medaily dot
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io and place your email address in the slot provided.
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Just like that, you'll be receiving all the latest news
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about science, space, science and astronomy from around the world
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as it's happening. And not only that, you can interact
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with us by visiting at astro Daily pod on x
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or at our new Facebook page, which is of course
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Astronomy Daily on Facebook. See you there.
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You never know exactly when a central supermassive black hole
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is going to power up and start gobbling matter. Contrary
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to the popular view that these monsters are constantly devouring
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nearby stars and gas clouds, it turns out they spend
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part of their existence s dormant and inactive. New observations
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from the European Space Agencies XMM Newton Spacecraft opened a
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window on the turn on event for one of these
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monsters in a distant galaxy. The supermassive black hole at
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the heart of the galaxy SDSS thirteen thirty five plus
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zero seven two eight has been sleeping quietly for decades.
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Then it suddenly lit up in twenty nineteen, and astronomers
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caught the outbursts in both optical and X ray light.
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The galaxy, which lies some three hundred million light years away,
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was experiencing a wake up call from its central black hole.
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Astronomers named this newly active galactic nucleus ANSKI. When we
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first saw Ansky light up in optical images, we triggered
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follow up observations using NASA's Swift X rays based telescope,
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and we checked archived data from the Erosida X ray telescope,
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but at the time we didn't see any evidence of
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X ray emissions, said European Southern Observatory researcher Paula Sanchez Sayiz.
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She and her team were the first to explore the
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activity at the black hole. Another team led by Loraina
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Hernandez Garcia, a researcher at Valparaiso University, Chile, followed up
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on their work in twenty twenty four by detecting X
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ray bursts from the same region. This rare event provides
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an opportunity for astronomers to observe a black hole's behavior
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in real time using X rays based telescope x MM
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Newton and NASA is nicer chundra and swift. This phenomenon
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is known as a quasi periodic eruption or QPE. These
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are short lived flaring events, and this is the first
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time we have observed such an event in a black
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hole that seems to be waking up explained Loreina. What
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happened to light up Anski in a QPE? Think about
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what happens as a black hole feeds. We know that
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the extreme gravitational pull of the black hole draws matter in,
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usually via spinning accretion disc. It could be a star
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that wanders too close. For example, the strong gravitational influence
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of the black hole shreds the star, scattering its material
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throughout the disc. These are called tidal disruption events. That
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sounds great until you realize ANSKI doesn't seem to have
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destroyed a star. There's no observational evidence. However, it has
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been experiencing recurring bursts of activity, which implies more than
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one event is occurring. It's possible that a QP could
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be caused by a star or some other object interacting
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with the accretion disc but not getting sucked in and
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creating a different kind of TDE Researchers went back to
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the drawing board to consider other possibilities. It could be
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that the accretion disc isn't formed by a star but
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as a result of gas being drawn into the black
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hole's gravity. Well, the X ray flares that the astronomers
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saw at Ansky suggest the disc could be experiencing energetic
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shocks created by the presence of something traveling through it
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but not getting disrupted. Something on a headlong rushed through
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an accretion disc would produce multiple events, sort of like
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a boat cutting through water. Those events would create the
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X ray flares. The bursts of X rays from Anski
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are ten times longer and ten times more luminous than
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what we see from a typical QP, says Joheen Chuckerbordi,
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a team member and PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute
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of Technology. To get the X rays, you need highly
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energetic events in the disc. Each of these eruptions is
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releasing one hundred times more energy than we have seen elsewhere.
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Anski These eruptions also show the longest cadence ever observed,
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of about four point five days. This pushes our models
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to their limits and challenges our existing ideas about how
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these X ray flashes are being generated.
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Boards As we are listen to Astarmi daily above.
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Jas NASA's Punch Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere
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mission has successfully completed its spacecraft commissioning phase. Last week,
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the team opened the instrument doors, allowing the spacecraft to
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capture first light its first images of the Sun's outer
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atmosphere and the surrounding space. These early observations mark a
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key milestone in the mission's goal to better understand how
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the Sun's outer atmosphere extends and flows through the Solar System.
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The team will now move into the next stage of commissioning,
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preparing and fine tuning the onboard instruments for scientific operations.
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On April fourteenth, the mission's narrow Field Imager n FI
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and one of three wide Field imagers WFI the first
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to open their doors and begin capturing data. Two days later,
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on April sixteen, the remaining wfis followed. The first image
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from the NFI shows a star filled field with the
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Sun near the center to better highlight background stars. The
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image was processed to reduce the effect of zodiacal light,
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a faint glow caused by sunlight scattering off dust particles
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orbiting the Sun. During the rest of the commissioning phase,
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scientists will calibrate the instruments to reveal finer details of
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the Sun's corona, its whispy outermost layer. This process involves
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removing about ninety nine per cent of the overwhelming light
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from the Sun itself, making it possible to trace the delicate,
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faint streams of solar material as they move through space.
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The WFI image below, taken April fourteen, shows the wide
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field of view from WFI and is marked with labeled constellations.
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As commissioning progresses, the Punch team will be removing the
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star fields and other background light from all images to
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highlight the faint stream of solar wind as it travels
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toward Earth. These early image confirm a crucial milestone the
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cameras on board Punch as four satellites are in focus
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and functioning as designed. The Punch satellites include one NFI
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and three wfis. The NFI is a coronograph which blocks
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out the bright light from the Sun to better see
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details in the Sun's corona. The wfis are heliospheric imagers
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that view the very faint outermost portion of the solar
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corona and the solar wind itself. Once the PUNCH satellites
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reach their targeted alignment, the images from these instruments will
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be stitched together to create the wide view of the
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journey of the Sun's corona and solar wind to Earth.
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Once the commissioning is complete, Punch will provide the first
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ever imagery of the solar wind and coronal mass ejections
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in polarized light, enabling scientists to discern new information about
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this activity. Astronoma Diale, podcast Scalsprus and Science, and finally
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something for Steve to enjoy while he's relaxing by the pool.
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Write Steve a story about Mars. Scientists have known for
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a while that Mars currently lacks a magnetic field, and
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many blame that for its paltry atmosphere. With no protective
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shield around the planet, the solar wind was able to
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strip away much of the gaseous atmosphere over the course
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of billions of years, but evidence has been mounting that
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Mars once had a magnetic field. Results from Insight one
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of the red planet's landers lend credence to that idea,
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but they also point to a strange feature. The magnetic
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field seem to cover only the southern hemisphere, but not
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the north. A team from the University of Texas Institute
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for Geophysics thinks they might know why. In a recent paper,
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they described how a fully liquid core in Mars could
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create a lopsided magnetic field like the one scene in
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INSIGHT's data. The Earth's core isn't completely molten, despite what
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you may have learned in elementary school. There are two
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distinct cores, a solid inner core and a molten outer core.
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The inner core remains solid due to the immense pressures
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on the iron and nickel found there, so the magnetic
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field that covers our whole planet is in fact created
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only by the outer core. Researchers have long thought that
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a similar dynamic solid inner and molten outer core was
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present on Mars when it maintained a magnetic field billions
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of years ago. After about three point nine billion years,
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the rocks that formed some of the large impact basins
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from that time, such as Hellis and Isotas would contain
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rocks that would have magneties while they were cooling due
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to the presence of the field. Since they don't, there
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is little evidence for a strong global magnetic field past
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that point. The going theory was that as the planet's
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core cooled, the entire core became solid, eliminating the spinning
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molten metal that creates the magnetic field in the first place.
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Fraser discusses the question of when Mars dynamo shut down. However,
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there was a strange feature in mars magnetic field, a
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massive difference in strength between the field in the northern
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and southern hemispheres. This dichotomy was first noticed during the
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Mars Global Surveyor mission back in nineteen ninety seven, but
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data from the Insight Lander also confirmed a stark difference
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between the two hemispheres. Various explanations have been offered for
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why the dichotomy existed. These ranged from the effects of
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large asteroid impacts to very early localized tectonic activity. However,
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the scientific community has not widely accepted previous explanations. Enter
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the new theory from Gien of the University of Texas
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and their co authors THEIRS is a twofold explanation. First,
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the red planet could have had a wholly molten core,
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and second, a massive temperature difference between the northern and
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southern hemispheres led to the heat escaping only in the
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southern hemisphere. Magnetic fields can be artificial, as Fraser discusses here.
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In Mars case, a molten core would be a primary
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mover of the process known as a planetary dynamo, which
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creates planetary scaled magnetic fields with a solid inner core
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like the Earth's. The dynamo effect could have been disrupted
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by inefficiencies in the system's fluid dynamics. It could also
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explain how the temperature gradients allow such uneven heat extraction.
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If the southern hemisphere had much higher thermal conductivity, heat
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would be more likely to flow through it, causing the
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churning that creates the planetary dynamo to happen primarily on
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the southern side of the planet. To prove their point,
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the authors created a model version of early Mars using
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a supercomputer at the Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center. They
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varied the fluid dynamics of Mars as well as the
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conductivity of its crust. They found that the conditions that
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most accurately matched the results from Insight and Global surveyor
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occurred when Mars core was wholly molten and there was
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