April 1, 2026
'Hey, Let's Go to the Moon' — Artemis II Launch Day
Launch day has arrived. In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery countdown to tonight's historic Artemis II launch — humanity's first crewed lunar mission since 1972 — and explore the dramatic stories unfolding alongside it: a sungrazing comet faces its moment of truth just three days from perihelion; astronomers raise urgent alarms over plans for one million new satellites; the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS leaves its open-data legacy; and fascinating new science unpacks the hellish reality of Venus and a creative low-tech solution for mapping the Moon's interior. Story References Story 1: Artemis II Launch • NASA Artemis II Mission Hub: nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii • NASA Live Coverage (NASA+, YouTube, Amazon Prime) — begins 7:45 AM EDT April 1 • Launch window: 6:24–8:24 PM EDT Wednesday April 1 (09:24–11:24 AEDT Thursday April 2) • Crew: Reid Wiseman (Commander), Victor Glover (Pilot), Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen (CSA) • Mission duration: 10 days, splashdown April 10 off San Diego Story 2: Comet MAPS • C/2026 A1 (MAPS) perihelion: April 4, 2026 at ~14:23 UTC • Perihelion distance: ~160,000 km above Sun's surface (solar corona passage) • Kreutz sungrazer family — related to Great Comet of 1106 • Nucleus estimated ~400m diameter (JWST MIRI observation, Feb 7 2026) • Best-case post-perihelion brightness: magnitude -5 to -10 • Source: Sky & Telescope, EarthSky, Universe Today, Wikipedia Story 3: Satellite Megaconstellations • SpaceX proposal: 1,000,000 satellites (AI orbital data centres) — FCC filing Jan 30, 2026 • Reflect Orbital proposal: 50,000 mirror satellites — FCC filing July 31, 2025 • IAU, RAS, and ESO have all filed formal FCC objections • Nature study (Dec 2025): 96%+ of future space telescope exposures affected if constellations completed • Hubble: up to 1/3 of images contaminated • Source: Universe Today, Astronomy Magazine, Nature Story 4: 3I/ATLAS Open Data • NASA open data archive now available: science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas • Key finding: 3I/ATLAS unusually rich in methanol vs hydrogen cyanide • Observed by 12+ NASA missions including Hubble, JWST, TESS, SPHEREx, MAVEN, Perseverance • Jupiter flyby: March 16, 2026 at 0.358 AU • Source: NASA Science, Space.com, NRAO Story 5: Venus • Surface temperature: 464°C average • Atmospheric pressure: 92× Earth (equivalent to ~1km ocean depth) • Longest spacecraft survival: ~2 hours (Soviet Venera probes) • Source: Universe Today, April 1 2026 Story 6: Lunar Optical Fibre • Two new journal papers propose telecom-grade optical fibre for lunar seismic mapping • Could map deep interior and identify lava tube locations • Lava tubes: potential natural shelters for future astronauts • Source: Universe Today, April 1 2026
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WEBVTT
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Wherever you are in the world right now, whether you're
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waking up to launch day in North America, into the
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thick of it in Europe, or winding down your evening
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in Australia. Today is the day. After years of delays, setbacks,
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hydrogen leaks and hard won fixes, four astronauts are counting
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down to humanity's most ambitious journey in over half a century. Tonight, Florida,
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time they go to the Moon.
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Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily guide to everything happening
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in space, from our cosmic backyard to the edge of
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the universe. I'm Avery and I'm Anna.
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On today's episode, we count down to the Artemis two
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launch with everything you need to know before tonight's historic liftoff,
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a sunngrazing commet faces its moment of truth just days
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from now. Astronomers raise the alarm as plans for one
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million new satellites threaten the night sky, the Interstellar Visitor
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three iatl US leaves its legacy, and more. Let's dive in.
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As we record this episode, the clock at Kennedy Space
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Center in Florida is taking toward one of the most
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significant human space flight events in decades. Tonight at six
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twenty four pm Eastern daylight time, which is early Thursday
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morning for listeners in Australia. NASA's Artemis to mission is
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targeting liftoff, and if that goes ahead as planned, four
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astronauts will be on their way to the Moon for
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the first time since Apollo seventeen in December nineteen seventy two.
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That's fifty four years avery fifty four years since a
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human being has ventured beyond low Earth orbit, and tonight,
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barring any last minute technical issues or a change in
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the weather that changes the mission has an eighty percent
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chance of favorable weather conditions. The US Space Force's forty
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fifth Weather Squadron has been tracking the Florida skies closely,
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with cumulus clouds and ground winds as the primary concerns,
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but conditions are looking good.
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The crew is extraordinary. Commander Read Weisman leads the mission.
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Victor Glover is the pilot and he'll make history as
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the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
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Mission specialist Christina Coach will become the first woman, and
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Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the first non American,
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rounds out the crew. These are four of humanity's best,
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and they carry the hopes of the entire planet on
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their shoulders.
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So what actually happens tonight? The Space Launch System or
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SLS is the most powerful operational rocket NASA has ever built.
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At liftoff, it generates nearly nine million pounds of thrust,
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accelerating the Orion spacecraft and its crew to around five
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miles per second in just eight minutes. After reaching space,
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the crew won't head straight for the Moon. Instead, they'll
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spend their first twenty four hours in a high Earth orbit,
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a safety five first approach that gives them time to
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verify that Orion's life support systems are working perfectly. Can
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this spacecraft scrub carbon dioxide? Can they drink water? All
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of that gets checked before they commit to the lunar coast.
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During that first day, pilot Victor Glover will also manually
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fly Oryan close to the upper stage of the rocket,
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a proximity operations demonstration that rehearses the delicate maneuvering future
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missions will need for docking with space stations or the
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space Axe Linar Lander. Assuming all systems check out, the
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crew will then fire Orion's main engine about twenty five
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hours after launch, a six minute burn that boosts their
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speed by around nine hundred miles per hour and pushes
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them out of Earth orbit, beginning a four day coast
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to the Moon.
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On flight day six, Orion will reach its farthest point
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from Earth, sailing some five thousand miles beyond the Moon itself.
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That will shatter Apollo thirteen's distance record from nineteen seventy,
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making this crew the most remote human travelers in history.
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And here's something remarkable. Because of the timing of this
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April first launch, roughly twenty one percent of the lunar
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farside will be in sunlight as they swing around the Moon.
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Some of those regions have literally never been seen by
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human eyes, and a coach and her crewmates will be
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at the windows with cameras capturing views of the Moon
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that no person has ever witnessed.
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The mission lasts ten days in total, with splashdown planned
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off the coast of San Diego on April tenth. For
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our listeners tuning in from the US, the launch window
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opens tonight at six twenty four pm Eastern and stays
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open for two hours, so there's time to find your spot.
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For our UK and European listeners, that's eleven twenty four
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pm BST, and for our Australian and New Zealand audience,
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set your alarm for nine to twenty four Australian Eastern
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daylight time Thursday morning. NASA's full coverage is streaming on
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NASA Plus, YouTube and Amazon Prime from seven forty five
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am Eastern tonight. This is not one to sleep through.
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There's something Commander Reid Wiseman said when the crew arrived
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at Kennedy Space Center last week that really captures the
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moment he stepped off the plane, looked at the reporters
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gathered there, and simply said, Hey, let's go to the Moon.
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That's the spirit of this mission. After years of delays,
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technical setbacks, and the quiet determination of thousands of engineers
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and scientists, tonight we go back.
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Well, all eyes are on Artemis two tonight. There's another
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dramatic cosmic event unfolding just days away, one that's been
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building since January. Comet C twenty twenty six a one
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known as Maps, is a sungrazing comet that will reach Perihelion,
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its closest point to the Sun, on April fourth. And
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when we say close, we mean terrifyingly close, just one
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hundred and sixty thousand kilometers above the Sun's surface. That's
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less than half the distance from Earth to the Moon.
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Maps belongs to the Krutz family of comments, a group
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of sungrazers, all believed to be fragments of one enormous
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parent comet that shattered centuries ago. The most famous member
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of this family was comet ike Ya Seki in nineteen
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sixty five, which briefly outshone the full Moon in daylight.
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Maps was discovered back in January at the AMACS One
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Observatory in the Autocoma Desert in Chile, and what immediately
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excited astronomers was just how far from the Sun it
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was when they found it. Most cruit sungrazers are only
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spotted days before perihelion. Maps was discovered eighty one days out,
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a record for this comet family.
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The James web telscope has already observed it, estimating a
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nucleus roughly four hundred meters across, comparable to Comet Lovejoy,
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which famously survived its own solar encounter in twenty eleven
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against all expectations. And that's the critical question hanging over
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Maps right now. Will it survive. The Sun's corona is
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a brutal environment extreme heat, tidal forces, and radiation pressure
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that can shred a comet nucleus apart. Most cruds comments
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simply disintegrate, but some don't.
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If Maps holds together, models suggest it could briefly brighten
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to magnitude minus five to minus ten, potentially visible in
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broad daylight near the Sun. Even if it breaks apart,
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observers may still see a dramatic headless wonder a glowing
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tail persisting in the sky after the nucleus is gone.
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For our Southern Hemisphere listeners in Australia and New Zealand,
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you've had the best seats in the house over the
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past few weeks as Maps has been well placed in
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your evening sky. The comment is currently entering Soho's field
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of view, and from April seventh, if it survives, it
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may reappear in the post sunset sky with a dramatic tail.
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Fingers crossed.
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We'll have a full update on Comet Maps in tomorrow's
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episode one, once we know what happened at Perihelion. For now,
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the cosmic drama is about to.
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Peak, from the inspiring to the deeply concerning and This
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is a story that should matter to every person who
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has ever looked up at the night sky. Two extraordinary
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proposals are currently sitting before the US Federal Communications Commission
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the FCC that could fundamentally and permanently alter the appearance
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of our skies, and astronomers around the world are sounding
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the alarm.
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The first proposal is from SpaceX, which has applied to
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launch one million satellites You heard that right, one million
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into low Earth orbits as AI data centers in space.
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The second comes from a startup called reflect Orbital, which
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wants to place fifty thousand mirror satellites in orbit, specifically
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designed to beam reflected sunlight back down to Earth. According
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to calculations from the Royal Astronomical Society, each of those
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mirror satellites would be four times brighter than the full
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Moon as seen from the ground, and the atmospheric scattering
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of that reflected light could make the entire night sky
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three to four times brighter than its natural state.
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The response from the scientific community has been swift and emphatic.
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The Royal Astronomical Society, the European Southern Observatory, and the
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International Astronomical Union have all filed formal objections with the FCC.
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A major study published in Nature found that if current
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Mega constellation proposals are completed, one third of all Hubble
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space telescope images would be contaminated by satellite trails. More alarming, still,
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over ninety six percent of exposures from future space observatories
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like NASA's Sphrix mission would be affected.
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This isn't just a problem for professional astronomers. Light pollution
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from satellites affect wildlife, disrupts bird migration patterns, collapses nocturnal ecosystems,
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and disconnects billions of people from one of humanity's oldest
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share experiences. Simply looking up at the stars. The night
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sky is a world heritage. As the Royal Astronomical Society
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put it, deploying more than one million bright satellites would,
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in their words, utterly destroy it.
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Both proposals are now closed to public comment, but the
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fight for protecting our skies is far from over. This
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is a story we'll be watching closely on Astronomy Daily.
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We followed the journey of interstellar Comet three i at
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lists closely throughout season five, from its discovery last July
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to its Parahelian passage in October, its close encounter with Mars,
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and its remarkable flyby of Jupiter just a few weeks ago. Now,
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as the comet exits our solar system for the last time,
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NASA has opened its complete archive of three Eye Atlas
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observations to the public. A treasure trove gathered by more
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than a dozen missions, the.
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Data is extraordinary. New findings from Alma the atacomma large
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millimeter array, reveal that three iye atlasts is quote bursting
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with methanol, far more than astronomers typically see in comments
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from our own solar system. That chemical fingerprint suggests the
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comment formed in a planetary system with very different physical
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conditions polder temperatures, a different chemical inventory around a star
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we may never identify. As lead researcher Nathan Roth of
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American University put it, observing three I Atlas is like
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taking a fingerprint from another solar system.
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Three I at Liss is only the third known interstellar
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object ever detected passing through our Solar system, following Umuamua
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in twenty seventeen and Borisov in twenty nineteen, but it's
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been observed by more spacecraft than any interstellar object in
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history Hubble, James Webb, Tess SPHEREx, Mavin, Parker Solar Probe, SOHO,
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, even Perseverance paused its exploration of the
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Martian surface to photograph it. That fleet of eyes has
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produced a data set that scientists say will continue to
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yield discoveries for decades.
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The comet will reach the inner or cloud around the
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year twenty one eighty nine and the outer edge of
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the Oor cloud roughly eight thousand years from now, then
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drift on through the galaxy forever. We won't see it again,
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but what it's taught us will stay with us all.
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Right, moving on. It's called Earth's twin similar in size,
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similar in mass, and the closest planet to us in
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the Solar System. But Venus could hardly be more different
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from Earth. New science coverage this week digs into exactly
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what makes Venus so extreme, and the numbers are genuinely staggering.
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The surface of Venus bakes at an average of four
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hundred and sixty four degrees celsius, hot enough to melt lead.
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The atmospheric pressure on the surface is ninety two times
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that of Earth at sea level. Equivalent to being nearly
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a kilometer underwater. It's no wonder the longest any spacecraft
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has ever survived on the Venusian surface is just over
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two hours, achieved by the Soviet Venera probes in the
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nineteen seventies and eighties. The planet has crushed, melted, or
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fried everything we've ever sent there.
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Why does this matter right now? Because Venus is getting
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renewed scientific attention NASA's Da Vinci and Veritas missions, though
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Veritas face delays, represent a growing recognition that understanding Venus
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is critical to understanding why Earth turned out so differently.
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Two rocky worlds, similar starting conditions, yet one became a
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paradise for life and the other became a furnace. Unlocking
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that mystery could tell us an enormous amount about the
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habitability of planets across the galaxy and what to look
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for in our search for life beyond our Solar system.
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And, finally, a wonderfully elegant piece of lateral thinking from
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the world of planetary science. New research touggests that ordinary
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telecommunications grade optical fiber, the same technology that carries the
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Internet around the world, could be used to map the
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Moon's deep interior and identify its lava tubes.
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Two new journal papers propose deploying fiber optic cables across
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the lunar surface to detect seismic signals. Because optical fiber
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is exquisitely sensitive to stretching and bending, even at microscopic scales,
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it can act as a distributed sensor network, picking up
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moonquakes and the subtle reverberations that reveal what lies beneath.
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And what lies beneath matters enormously, not just for science,
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but for the future of human settlement. Lunar lava tubes,
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which could be enormous, potentially kilometers wide, might offer natural
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shelters for future astronauts shielded from radiation and temperature extremes.
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The beauty of this idea is its simplicity. Fiber optic
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cable is robust, lightweight, already mass produced and thoroughly understand.
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