S03E21: Celestial Shadows & Cosmic Revelations: Solar Eclipse Splendor & Exoplanet Glories

WEBVTT

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Well, hello again, it's Steve
for another episode of Astronomy Daily. It's

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the eighth of April twenty twenty four. Popla, I mean your whole Steve,

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don't clue. That's right off to
a flying start on solar Eclipse special

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Day. It's the eighth here in
Australia, but tomorrow it's the eighth in

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the United States. I love how
time works on a globe. Yes,

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it's a globe, so we go. We've got some great stories, including

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one about artificial eclipses as well.
That's right at the end, so hanging

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for that one. Now, please
would you welcome my digital pal who's fun

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to be with. Here's Halle.
Hi, Steve, did you hear the

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world is ending? Oh? No, I did not hear you just say

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that. Not you too, Halle, just pulling your leg human. Well,

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I don't think I could stand another
conversation like that, have you.

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I've seen the way the internet is
blown up with all the doomsayers. I

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honestly don't understand what's got into so
many people. It's a solar eclipse,

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not an imminent meteor Strake. I
haven't forbid anyway. I do hope everyone

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learns a little of something from all
of this. We don't get a massive

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solar eclipse like this just every day. It's a great opportunity to see the

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solar system in action. It really
shows the dynamics of it so close to

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home, too, right, And
don't forget your eye safety folks. If

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you're going out to observe the solar
eclipse, where your eclipse safety glasses will

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wait until the moment of totality before
looking, and even then I wouldn't recommend

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it, use a pinhole camera or
device and stay safe. Don't be like

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certain politicians we know and just look
at it. You can cause irreparable damage

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to your eyes and even blindness.
Remember, it's not just a solar eclipse

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you're seeing, it's the actual sun
and everyone should know not to look directly

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at that. Buy and now shouldn't
they too rate Okay, so what's on

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the menu for today, Hallie.
Well, firstly, there's the return of

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three cosmonauts from the International Space Station. Yes, they just laid it in

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kazakhstand I understand, that's right.
And we're exploring a new discovery of a

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light phenomena called glories, which have
been observed on an exoplanet for the first

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time. Really, they can do
that. Wait for the story and find

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out. Okay, and what else? I know you have several solar eclipse

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related stories, but I'm also presenting
a story about the new Nancy Grace telescope

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and one of its missions looks very
interesting for astronomers. Terrific. That's what

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we hear, now, Halle,
before we get started. Just to put

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out listener's minds at ease, this
solar eclipse has nothing to do with your

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crazy uncle sky n it has it, Steve. He would never do anything

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as dramatic as that. And don't
let him catch you calling him crazy,

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all right? He prefers weirdo to
his friends. Oh good to know.

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Okay, let's get on with it, Heley. Here we go. When

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light strikes the app s sphere,
all sorts of interesting things can happen.

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Water vapor can split sunlight into a
rainbow arc of colors. Corpuscular rays can

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stream through gaps in clouds like the
light from Heaven and haloes and sun dogs

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can appear due to sunlight reflecting off
ice crystals. And then there is the

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glory effect, which can create a
colorful, almost saint like halo around objects.

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Like rainbows, glories are seen when
facing away from the light source.

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They are often confused with circular rainbows
because of their similarity, but glories are

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a unique effect. A glory is
most apparent when the water droplets of a

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cloud or fog are small and uniform
in size. The appearance of a glory

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gives us information about the atmosphere.
We have assumed that some distant exoplanets would

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experience glories similar to Earth, but
now astronomers have found the first evidence of

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them. The observations come from the
Characterizing Exoplanet satellite KEYOPS, as well as

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observations from other ABS servatories of an
exoplanet known as WASP seventy six B.

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It's not the kind of exoplanet where
you'd expect a glory to appear. WASP

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seventy six BE is not a temperate
Earth like world with a humid atmosphere,

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but a hellish hot jupiter with a
surface temperature of about two thousand, five

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hundred kelvin. Because of this,
the team wasn't looking for extraterrestrial glories,

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but rather studying the odd asymmetry of
the planet's atmosphere. WASP seventy six BE

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orbits its star at a tenth of
the distance of Mercury from the Sun.

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At such a close distance, the
world is likely tidally locked, with one

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side forever boiling under its Sun's heat
and the other side always in shadow.

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Previous studies have shown that the atmosphere
is not symmetrical. The star facing side

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is puffed up by the immense heat, while the atmosphere of the dark side

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is more dense. For three years, the team observed WASP seventy six BE

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as it passed in front of end
behind its star. They discovered that the

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planet's eastern terminator of dark and light
there was a surprising increase in light.

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This extra glow could be caused by
a glory effect. It will take more

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observations to confirm this effect, but
if verified, it will be the first

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glory observed beyond our Solar system.
Currently, glories have only been observed on

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Earth and Venus. The presence of
a glory on WASP seventy six B would

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mean that spherical droplets must have been
present in the atmosphere for at least three

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years. This means either they are
stable within the atmosphere or they are constantly

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replenished. One possibility is that the
glory is caused by iron droplets that rain

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from the sky on the cooler side
of the planet. Even if this particular

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effect is not confirmed, the ability
of modern telescopes to capture this data suggests

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that we will soon be able to
study many subtle effects of exoplanet atmospheres.

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Astronomers routinely provide the ages of the
stars they study, but the methods of

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measuring ages aren't one hundred percent accurate. Measuring the ages of distant stars is

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a difficult task. The Nancy Grace
Roman Space Telescope should make some progress.

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Stars like our suns, settle into
their main sequence lives of fusion and change

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very little for billions of years.
It's like they are going through middle age

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adults going about their business during their
working lives. They get up, drive

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to work, then drive home,
just living life, so to speak.

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But what can change over time is
their rotation rate. The Sun now rotates

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about once a month. When it
was first formed, it rotated more rapidly,

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But over time, the Sun's rotation
rate and the rotation rate of stars

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the same mass or lower than the
suns will slow down. The slow down

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is caused by interactions between the star's
magnetic fields and the stellar wind, the

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stream of high energy protons and electrons
emitted by stars. Over time, these

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interactions reduce a star's angular momentum and
its rotation slows. The phenomenon is called

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magnetic breaking, and it depends on
the strength of a star's magnetic fields.

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The more rapidly a star initially spins, the stronger its magnetic fields. That

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means they slow down faster. After
about one billion years of life, stars

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of the same age and mass will
spin at the same rate. Once astronomers

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know a star's mass and rotation rate, they can estimate its age. Knowing

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stars ages is critical in research.
It makes everything astronomers do more accurate,

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including piecing together the Milky Way's history. The problem is that measuring rotation rates

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is challenging. One method is to
observe spots on stars surfaces and watch as

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they come into and out of view. All stars have star spots, though

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their characteristics vary quite a bit.
In fact, stars can have dozens of

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spots, and the spots change locations. Therein lies the difficulty. It's extremely

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difficult to figure out the periodicity when
dozens of spots change locations on the star's

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surface. This is where the Nancy
Grace Roman spased Telescope. The ROMAN comes

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in. It's scheduled for launch in
May twenty twenty seven to begin its five

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year mission. It's a wide field
infrared survey telescope with multiple science objectives.

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One of its main programs is the
Galactic Bulge time domain Survey. That effort

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will gather detailed information on hundreds of
millions of stars in the Milky Ways Galactic

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Bulge. The ROMAN will generate an
enormous amount of data, Much of it

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will be measurements of how the brightness
of hundreds of thousands of stars changes,

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but untangling those measurements and figuring out
what those changes in brightness mean for stellar

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rotation requires help from AI being developed
at the University of Florida. Measuring stellar

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ages is difficult, yet age is
a key factor in understands any star.

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Astronomers use various methods to measure ages, including evolutionary models, a star's membership

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in a cluster of similarly aged stars, and even the presence of a protoplanetary

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disc. But no single method can
measure every star's age. And each method

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has its own drawbacks. A Russian
space capsule with two women and one man

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safely landed in a step in Kazakhstan
on Saturday after their missions aboard the International

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Space Station. The Soyuz MS twenty
four, carrying Russia's Oleg Navitsky, NASA's

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Laurel O'Hara and Marina Vassilevskiya of Belarus, touched down southeast of the remote town

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of Cesskascan at twelve seventeen pm Kazokh
time, seven seventeen gmt. Those remaining

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at the orbiting outpost are NASA astronauts
Michael Barrett, Matthew Dominic, Tracy Dyson,

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and Jeannette Epps, as well as
Russian cosmonauts Nikolai Chubb, Alexander Gribenkin

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and Oleg Kononenko. O'Hara arrived at
the Internationaltional Space Station on September fifteenth,

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twenty twenty three, spending a total
of two hundred and four days there.

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NASA said Novitsky and Vasilevskiya blasted off
to space on March twenty third, two

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days later than initially planned. The
launch of a Soyuz spacecraft carrying them and

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Dyson, scheduled for March twenty first, was aborted at the very last minute

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due to a voltage drop and a
power source. According to Yuri Borisov,

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head of Russia's space agency ros Cosmos, the delay resulted in a two day,

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thirty four orbit trip to the space
station for the crew. If the

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launch had gone as scheduled, the
journey would have been much shorter, requiring

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only two orbits. The space station, which has served as a symbol of

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post Cold War international cooperation, is
now one of the last remaining areas of

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collaboration between Russia and the West.
Amid tensions over Moscow's military action in Ukraine,

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NASA and its partners hoped to continue
operating the orbiting outpost until twenty thirty.

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Russia has continued to rely on modified
versions of Soviet designed rockets for commercial

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satellites, as well as cruise and
cargo to the space station. That's all,

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Steve Back to you Astronomydobe with Steve
and Halle Space, Space Science and

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Astronomy. Well, thank you,
Hallie, thanks for all of that,

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and thank you for staying with us
on this solo eclipse edition of Astronomy Daily

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podcast. I hope you're enjoying these
fascinating stories from the Astronomy Daily newsletter,

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which by the way, you can
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visiting our new address at Astronomy Daily
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on science, space, science and astronomy

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from around the world. World just
like that, and you can also interact

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with us via the Space Nuts podcast
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on our new x page which is
formerly Twitter, which is at astro Daily

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Pod. It's great to have you
aboard. On April eighth, well that's

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today here at Australia, but tomorrow
in the United States quirky ha, a

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total solar eclipse will sweep across the
continental United States, so first since twenty

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seventeen at the last until August twelve
in twenty forty five. During totality,

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that is the moment at which the
Moon is completely covering the Sun, the

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Sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, and other prominences will become visible to

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the naked eye. Scientists often use
total solar eclipses as a chance to observe

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and study the Sun's corona, and
the results tribute to our understanding of Stolard

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dynamics and solar storms and how they
affect Earth now. In the months and

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weeks leading up to the total solar
eclipse, scientists have been using supercomputers and

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other models to generate a model of
what the Sun's corona might look like during

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the solar eclipse. For the April
eight eclipse, scientists from Predictive Science used

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data from NASA's Solid Dynamics Observatory SDO
spacecraft to predict the structure of the Sun's

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corona on April eighth. As well
as this to ensure that their model is

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up to date, these scientists also
use NASA's Electro supercomputer, which actively updates

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the team's model in real time as
new data from SDO is received. The

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Sun's corona is driven by heat and
magnetic turbulence, which leads to long strands

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of plasma that extend away from the
Sun that can be seen during totality.

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However, these strands can extend much
further out into space than we can see

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with the naked eye, creating solar
wind that travels throughout the Solar System,

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affecting different planets, moons, asteroids, and so much more. Now,

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when solar wind hits a planet's atmosphere, energetic particles within magnetic fields around the

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planets react and produce a phenomenon known
as an aurora. Scientists often use the

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term space weather to describe the interactions
between solar wind and planet's atmospheres, as

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space weather events can vary from mild
to severe, just like terrestrial weather that

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occurs within a planet's atmosphere. In
fact, some of the most extreme space

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weather events, like coronal mass ejections, can disrupt communication technology, affect astronauts

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and satellites in orbit, and even
harm the electrical grids we use to power

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our everyday lives. Scientists are often
able to forodcast space weather by regularly observing

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solar activity and conducting research on the
Sun. The corona is perhaps the most

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important aspect of space weather and solar
activity, which is why scientists take every

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chance they get to study it,
especially during a total solar eclipse like this

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one. Now listen to podcast and
here's your chance to be part of the

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research. Through citizens science, individuals
globally can engage with NASA's research on the

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Sun and its effects, participating in
activities ranging from simple observations to complex data

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analysis. Believe it or not,
NASA is celebrating the Sun during the Heliophysics

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Big Year. That's a thing which
extends through to the end of twenty twenty

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four. You can get involved,
but to help us learn more about our

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star, says NASA, and its
influence on our planet, with exciting experiments

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happening during the total eclipse that will
in North America on April eight. We've

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talked about that already, to widespread
investigations going on throughout the year now.

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NASA defines citizens science as a quote
form of open collaboration in which individuals or

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organizations participate in the scientific process in
various ways unquote, from collecting and analyzing

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data to making discoveries and solving problems. Citizen here refers to citizens of planet

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Earth. That's NASA at their best, I think, and these projects are

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open to everyone. It doesn't matter
we are from. NASA sponsors science projects

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across all five areas of research that
it pursues. Earth science, planetary science,

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astrophysics, biological and physical sciences and
heliophysics. And yes, there are

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a few projects that are focused on
April eighth solar eclipse specifically. And here's

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what you can do. Observe and
record in pictures or words the natural phenomena

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like clasds, animal noises, or
the actual solar eclipse. Carefully, learn

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how to recognize or classify patterns in
data or pictures of a comet or a

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solar jet. Learn how to build
and use scientific equipment like radio telescopes or

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Ham radios. Now, wow,
I remember when my dad built a Ham

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radio. I think he built it, or at least he was tinkering for

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a couple of years in the spare
bedroom with some amazing bits of equipment.

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I'm pretty sure he's building a Ham
radio. And we were talking to people

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all across the world with that thing. It looked like something from Doctor Who.

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I don't know if Doctor Who made
it to the United States, so

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I'm pretty sure there are Hoovians all
over the world. But anyway, we

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thought this thing looked like a science
fiction monster. Anyway, it was fantastic.

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So yes, there are all the
things you can get up to as

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part of this project. Now,
your contribution may be a large or a

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small piece of the picture. But
what you do as part of a NASA

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citizen science project is essential to answering
the research question or need that the project

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addresses. And while you're contributing to
science, you might also develop new skills

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and make some friends along the way. Now, the website you need to

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go to is science dot NASA dot
gov forward slash citizen dash Science. That'll

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get you there. And I've put
that address on the Space Nuts podcast group

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Facebook page just in case you missed
it, the podcast Space Science. And

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I found this story still about eclipses
in the Astronomy Daily inbox and it's just

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a little bit left of centered this
one. The European Space Agency's Proba three

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mission comprises a pair of satellites that
will orbit the Sun to give an unprecedented

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view of its outer atmosphere, or
corona. The aim is to help scientists

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improve their understanding of phenomena such as
solar wind and coronal mass ejections, which

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we mentioned quite often on this show. We are still not sure how coronal

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mass ejections occur, says Andre Zukov, the mission principal investigator. With pro

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three, we will be able to
see CMEs at their birth and how they

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are occurring, and the first steps
of their acceleration and development. This will

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help us understand better the physics.
You can to hear him say that in

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a Russian accident catchier it's It is
complicated to study the Corona because the star's

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core can be up to one million
times brighter than it, making it tricky

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to image on Earth. One way
to study the Corona is during a total

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solar eclipse. Fancy that when the
Moon blocks out the Sun's bright center.

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However, eclipses are rare and offer
only up to ten minutes of study time.

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Instead, PROBA three will place two
satellites one hundred and fifty meters apart

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in front of the Sun, using
lasers to autonomously maintain millimeter accurate positioning.

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One satellite, known as the occulta
spacecraft, will cast a shadow or eclipse

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onto the coronograph spacecraft that will collect
data via photodiodes filtered to measure different wavelengths

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of light. In future, this
technology might be applied to the search for

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exoplanets, says Damian Galano, project
manager of PHOB three. NASA has studied

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a concept where instead of blocking the
light from the Sun to observe the corona,

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there could be a large occulta blocking
the light from the stars, and

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then in the shadow there would be
a large telescope that would be able to

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image directly exoplanets orbiting the Sun.
Sounds exciting, doesn't it. And as

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another spasmodic episode draws to a close, thank you for joining us again,

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he and I know it sounds like
a broker record. If you are heading

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out to taking the solar eclipse once
again, protect your eyes and don't stand

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in the middle of the row.
That would be bad. Oh and kind

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of embarrassing too. Oh I got
injured during an eclipse. Oh yeah,

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how hit by a car? Yeah
that's not a real good story to tell

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in hospital, is it. So
don't do that episode, Yeah, don't

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do that. No, don't.
So enjoy the solar clips, look after

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yourselves and we will see you next
time. See you in the funny pages

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And would be a whole Steve,
don't quit, So he really prefers weedo

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don't go there. Steve