Solar Storms, Grounded Missions, and the Planet That Survived Its Star

WEBVTT

0
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.960
Anna: From the bytes.com podcast network. This is

1
00:00:02.960 --> 00:00:05.200
Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna.

2
00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.044
Avery: And I'm avery. It's Friday, July 3,

3
00:00:08.196 --> 00:00:10.960
2026, and we've got a proper Fourth of July

4
00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:13.640
weekend send off for you. A rescue mission

5
00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:15.959
that's still grounded, a solar storm that's

6
00:00:15.959 --> 00:00:18.600
actually arrived, and a planet that came back

7
00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:20.400
from the dead sort of.

8
00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:23.080
Anna: Today on the show, NASA's Swift Rescue

9
00:00:23.080 --> 00:00:25.720
mission hits another wall, this time mid

10
00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:28.620
flight. The sun is genuinely kicking

11
00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:31.180
off right now with a geomagnetic storm watch

12
00:00:31.180 --> 00:00:34.140
in effect for tonight. Hess accidentally

13
00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:36.420
discovers a planet it was never built to

14
00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:39.300
find. A red dwarf just 25 light years

15
00:00:39.300 --> 00:00:41.740
away might be hiding the most Earth like

16
00:00:41.740 --> 00:00:43.460
world we've found in ages.

17
00:00:43.940 --> 00:00:46.860
Astronomers sound the alarm on satellite

18
00:00:46.860 --> 00:00:49.700
mega constellations. And we close with a

19
00:00:49.700 --> 00:00:52.500
planet that shouldn't exist, orbiting the

20
00:00:52.500 --> 00:00:54.020
corpse of its own star.

21
00:00:54.750 --> 00:00:57.350
Avery: Six stories. One very busy week for the

22
00:00:57.350 --> 00:00:58.910
universe. Let's get into it.

23
00:00:59.070 --> 00:01:01.550
Anna: We start with an update to a story we've been

24
00:01:01.550 --> 00:01:04.070
tracking for weeks. And it's not the Update

25
00:01:04.070 --> 00:01:06.950
anyone wanted. NASA's mission to rescue

26
00:01:06.950 --> 00:01:09.630
the Swift Observatory attempted to launch on

27
00:01:09.630 --> 00:01:12.470
Thursday, July 2. And for the first

28
00:01:12.470 --> 00:01:14.590
time, it actually got off the ground.

29
00:01:15.070 --> 00:01:17.270
Avery: Right, quick recap for anyone just joining

30
00:01:17.270 --> 00:01:20.070
us. The Neil Garrels Swift Observatory is

31
00:01:20.070 --> 00:01:22.870
a 22 year old Gamma ray telescope that's

32
00:01:22.870 --> 00:01:25.710
losing altitude fast because heightened solar

33
00:01:25.710 --> 00:01:27.810
activity has puffed up Earth's upper

34
00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:30.490
atmosphere and increased drag on its orbit.

35
00:01:30.730 --> 00:01:33.690
Anna: Left alone, Swift reenters and burns up by

36
00:01:33.690 --> 00:01:36.410
October. So NASA hired a company

37
00:01:36.410 --> 00:01:38.570
called catalyst space technologies,

38
00:01:38.970 --> 00:01:41.450
$30 million, incredibly tight

39
00:01:41.450 --> 00:01:44.170
timeline to build a robotic spacecraft

40
00:01:44.170 --> 00:01:47.050
called Link 3 articulated arms.

41
00:01:47.290 --> 00:01:49.930
The plan is for Link to grapple Swift,

42
00:01:50.090 --> 00:01:52.250
a satellite that was never designed to be

43
00:01:52.250 --> 00:01:55.050
serviced, and shove it back up to a safer

44
00:01:55.050 --> 00:01:55.490
orbit.

45
00:01:55.730 --> 00:01:58.410
Avery: It launches piggyback. A Northrop Grumman

46
00:01:58.410 --> 00:02:00.770
Pegasus rocket tucked under the belly of the

47
00:02:00.770 --> 00:02:03.610
Stargazer aircraft takes off from Kwajalein

48
00:02:03.610 --> 00:02:06.330
Atoll in the Marshall Islands, climbs to

49
00:02:06.330 --> 00:02:09.010
about 39,000ft and then drops the

50
00:02:09.010 --> 00:02:11.250
rocket, which lights up five seconds later.

51
00:02:11.650 --> 00:02:13.970
This week alone, it had already been scrubbed

52
00:02:13.970 --> 00:02:14.930
twice for weather.

53
00:02:15.410 --> 00:02:18.210
Anna: So Thursday morning, Stargazer finally

54
00:02:18.210 --> 00:02:20.700
takes off. It's airborne, heading for the

55
00:02:20.700 --> 00:02:23.620
release point. And then mid flight, the team

56
00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:25.780
spots a, uh, warning in the data stream and

57
00:02:25.780 --> 00:02:28.060
makes the call not to release the rocket at

58
00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:28.340
all.

59
00:02:28.580 --> 00:02:30.700
Avery: Which is a genuinely different failure mode

60
00:02:30.700 --> 00:02:32.780
than what we told you earlier this week. This

61
00:02:32.780 --> 00:02:35.500
wasn't weather. This was an act of abort in

62
00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:38.100
the air on a live vehicle. It's not even

63
00:02:38.100 --> 00:02:39.980
clear yet whether the warning came from the

64
00:02:39.980 --> 00:02:42.260
rocket or from the carrier aircraft itself.

65
00:02:42.660 --> 00:02:45.540
Anna: No new Launch date has been set. NASA's been

66
00:02:45.540 --> 00:02:47.860
very upfront that this is a race against the

67
00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:50.290
clock. They've already suspended most of

68
00:02:50.290 --> 00:02:52.610
Swift's science operations since February

69
00:02:52.690 --> 00:02:55.570
just to buy time flying it in a low drag

70
00:02:55.570 --> 00:02:57.410
orientation to slow the decay.

71
00:02:57.730 --> 00:03:00.530
Avery: The stakes here go beyond one telescope. 2.

72
00:03:00.530 --> 00:03:03.090
If Link pulls this off, it's the first time a

73
00:03:03.090 --> 00:03:05.130
commercial spacecraft has docked with a

74
00:03:05.130 --> 00:03:07.250
government satellite that was never built for

75
00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:09.410
servicing. That's a template for saving

76
00:03:09.410 --> 00:03:11.570
Hubble one day or any number of aging

77
00:03:11.570 --> 00:03:13.610
observatories we'd otherwise just have to

78
00:03:13.610 --> 00:03:14.130
write off.

79
00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:17.720
Anna: So, still grounded, still no date, and the

80
00:03:17.720 --> 00:03:20.520
clock is still ticking towards October. We'll

81
00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:22.480
keep you posted the moment there's movement.

82
00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:25.480
Avery: Story 2 and if you were listening earlier

83
00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:27.760
this week, you'll remember we flagged the big

84
00:03:27.760 --> 00:03:30.040
X class flare and told you to watch the

85
00:03:30.040 --> 00:03:32.640
skies. Well, watch the skies.

86
00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:33.520
It's happening.

87
00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.480
Anna: The sun has been properly busy

88
00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:39.360
after that X1.1 flare from

89
00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:41.361
Sunspot Region

90
00:03:41.572 --> 00:03:44.230
AR4479 on June 30. It

91
00:03:44.230 --> 00:03:47.070
followed up with 10m M class flares

92
00:03:47.070 --> 00:03:49.590
in a single 24 hour stretch.

93
00:03:49.990 --> 00:03:52.910
Multiple coronal mass ejections, several of

94
00:03:52.910 --> 00:03:54.230
them Earth directed.

95
00:03:54.470 --> 00:03:57.430
Avery: NOAA Space Weather Prediction center has a G2

96
00:03:57.590 --> 00:04:00.030
that's a moderate geomagnetic stormwatch

97
00:04:00.030 --> 00:04:02.990
active for today July 3rd, with a chance of

98
00:04:02.990 --> 00:04:05.830
reaching G2 levels through the day as the CME

99
00:04:05.910 --> 00:04:08.110
arrives and interacts with Earth's magnetic

100
00:04:08.110 --> 00:04:08.390
field.

101
00:04:08.870 --> 00:04:11.550
Anna: The key thing forecasters are watching is the

102
00:04:11.550 --> 00:04:14.070
BZ component of the magnetic field,

103
00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:16.520
basically whether the storm's magnetic

104
00:04:16.520 --> 00:04:19.320
orientation points south, which is what lets

105
00:04:19.320 --> 00:04:21.520
solar wind energy pour into our

106
00:04:21.520 --> 00:04:24.320
magnetosphere efficiently. Get that right

107
00:04:24.400 --> 00:04:25.640
and the aurora show

108
00:04:25.640 --> 00:04:28.520
Avery: gets a lot more dramatic in the Northern

109
00:04:28.520 --> 00:04:31.040
Hemisphere. That means aurora potentially

110
00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:33.520
visible much farther south than usual.

111
00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:35.920
Forecasters are talking about spots like

112
00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:38.840
Idaho and New York if skies stay dark and

113
00:04:38.840 --> 00:04:40.320
clear over the coming nights.

114
00:04:40.910 --> 00:04:43.070
Anna: And for our Southern Hemisphere listeners,

115
00:04:43.070 --> 00:04:45.830
this is a genuine Aurora Australis

116
00:04:45.830 --> 00:04:48.830
opportunity too. D2 level storms can

117
00:04:48.830 --> 00:04:51.470
push the southern lights up into Tasmania

118
00:04:51.470 --> 00:04:54.430
and sometimes as far as southern Victoria and

119
00:04:54.430 --> 00:04:56.990
the Lower south island of New Zealand. If

120
00:04:56.990 --> 00:04:59.670
you've got clear, dark skies away from the

121
00:04:59.670 --> 00:05:01.430
coast tonight, it's worth a look.

122
00:05:01.430 --> 00:05:03.910
Avery: South conditions are expected to start

123
00:05:03.910 --> 00:05:06.470
easing back toward quieter levels tomorrow,

124
00:05:06.470 --> 00:05:09.390
July 4th as the CME's effects wane.

125
00:05:09.900 --> 00:05:12.220
So if you're chasing the lights tonight into

126
00:05:12.220 --> 00:05:14.780
the small hours is your best shot before the

127
00:05:14.780 --> 00:05:17.220
Northern Hemisphere's holiday fireworks take

128
00:05:17.220 --> 00:05:18.540
over as the main show.

129
00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:21.900
Anna: Our third story is a lovely bit of science

130
00:05:21.900 --> 00:05:24.620
serendipity. NASA's Tess, the

131
00:05:24.620 --> 00:05:27.580
transiting exoplanet Survey satellite has

132
00:05:27.580 --> 00:05:30.300
notched ah, a genuine first. Its first

133
00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:32.300
planet found by gravitational

134
00:05:32.380 --> 00:05:33.580
microlensing,

135
00:05:33.900 --> 00:05:36.500
Avery: which is a big deal because TESS wasn't

136
00:05:36.500 --> 00:05:39.340
designed for that at all. Its entire job is

137
00:05:39.340 --> 00:05:41.900
watching for the tiny dip in starlight when a

138
00:05:41.900 --> 00:05:43.820
planet crosses in front of its star.

139
00:05:44.220 --> 00:05:46.860
Microlensing is a completely different trick.

140
00:05:47.020 --> 00:05:49.540
It happens when a foreground star drifts

141
00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:52.140
almost exactly in front of a background star

142
00:05:52.140 --> 00:05:55.100
and its gravity bends and briefly magnifies

143
00:05:55.100 --> 00:05:57.340
that background star's light, like a natural

144
00:05:57.340 --> 00:05:57.740
lens.

145
00:05:57.980 --> 00:06:00.460
Anna: If that foreground star happens to have its

146
00:06:00.460 --> 00:06:03.340
own planet, the planet adds its own little

147
00:06:03.340 --> 00:06:05.910
flicker to that magnification event. And

148
00:06:05.910 --> 00:06:08.350
that's exactly what happened here. The

149
00:06:08.350 --> 00:06:11.230
planet's called Gaia 23 Bra, a

150
00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:13.910
super Jupiter, about 1.63

151
00:06:13.910 --> 00:06:16.590
times Jupiter's mass, orbiting an orange

152
00:06:16.590 --> 00:06:19.590
dwarf star roughly 40,000 light years away

153
00:06:19.910 --> 00:06:21.590
out near the galactic center.

154
00:06:21.830 --> 00:06:24.430
Avery: It was actually the European Space Agency's

155
00:06:24.430 --> 00:06:26.350
Gaia mission that first flagged the

156
00:06:26.350 --> 00:06:29.110
brightening event back in 2023. But

157
00:06:29.110 --> 00:06:31.390
Gaia's observations were too sparse to

158
00:06:31.390 --> 00:06:33.760
confirm a planet was involved. It was only

159
00:06:33.760 --> 00:06:36.080
when researchers went back and combed through

160
00:06:36.080 --> 00:06:38.640
tess's archival data that they realized

161
00:06:38.640 --> 00:06:41.400
TESS had caught the same event with enough

162
00:06:41.400 --> 00:06:42.800
detail to nail it down.

163
00:06:43.280 --> 00:06:45.920
Anna: Lead author Mallory Harris, a UH doctoral

164
00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:48.320
candidate at the University of New Mexico,

165
00:06:48.400 --> 00:06:51.040
published The findings on July 1st in the

166
00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:53.480
Astrophysical Journal Letters. And the

167
00:06:53.480 --> 00:06:56.320
tantalizing bit is what it implies. TESS

168
00:06:56.320 --> 00:06:59.080
has been quietly recording eight years of

169
00:06:59.080 --> 00:07:01.480
data and nobody was looking for this kind of

170
00:07:01.480 --> 00:07:03.810
signal. There could be plenty more of these

171
00:07:03.810 --> 00:07:05.010
hiding in the archive.

172
00:07:05.250 --> 00:07:07.810
Avery: It's also a nice bit of foreshadowing.

173
00:07:08.050 --> 00:07:10.970
NASA's Roman Space Telescope, on track to

174
00:07:10.970 --> 00:07:13.650
launch August 30 this year, is being

175
00:07:13.730 --> 00:07:16.290
purpose built for exactly this kind of

176
00:07:16.290 --> 00:07:18.690
survey. It's expected to find around

177
00:07:18.850 --> 00:07:21.650
1,000 microlensing planets. By staring

178
00:07:21.650 --> 00:07:23.810
into the crowded center of The Galaxy

179
00:07:24.210 --> 00:07:27.010
Gaia, uh, 23B is basically a

180
00:07:27.010 --> 00:07:28.130
preview of what's coming.

181
00:07:28.440 --> 00:07:30.840
Story four takes us a lot closer to home,

182
00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:33.840
just 25 light years away, which in galactic

183
00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:35.640
terms is basically next door.

184
00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:36.680
Anna: This is

185
00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:39.320
GJ3378B,

186
00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:42.400
a rocky world orbiting a faint red dwarf

187
00:07:42.400 --> 00:07:45.200
star in the constellation Camilo partillaris,

188
00:07:45.200 --> 00:07:48.000
the giraffe. It was actually first picked up

189
00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:50.840
back in 2024 by French astronomers,

190
00:07:50.840 --> 00:07:53.560
but the original numbers pegged it as a puffy

191
00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:56.340
mini Neptune, five times Earth's mass,

192
00:07:56.580 --> 00:07:59.460
orbiting on a 25 day period, sitting

193
00:07:59.460 --> 00:08:01.540
right at the edge of the habitable zone.

194
00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:04.100
Avery: A team at UC Irvine led by Paul

195
00:08:04.100 --> 00:08:07.100
Robertson went back with two instruments. The

196
00:08:07.100 --> 00:08:09.860
Habitable Zone Planet Finder on the Hobby

197
00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:12.780
Eberly Telescope in Texas and the NED

198
00:08:12.780 --> 00:08:15.660
Spectrometer on the YIYN Telescope

199
00:08:15.660 --> 00:08:18.500
at Kitt Peak in Arizona and revised those

200
00:08:18.500 --> 00:08:21.220
numbers substantially. Robertson put it

201
00:08:21.220 --> 00:08:24.180
nicely this super Earth gets about 90%

202
00:08:24.180 --> 00:08:26.500
of the radiation Earth gets from the sun

203
00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:29.240
right in the sweet spot for liquid water, at

204
00:08:29.240 --> 00:08:30.240
least in principle.

205
00:08:30.640 --> 00:08:33.120
Anna: The catch, and there's always a catch with

206
00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:36.000
red dwarfs, is that these stars can be

207
00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:38.560
vicious with stellar wind and radiation,

208
00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:41.440
which tends to strip atmospheres clean

209
00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.760
off nearby planets. And because

210
00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:46.520
GJ3378B doesn't

211
00:08:46.520 --> 00:08:49.200
transit its star from our point of view, we

212
00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:51.960
can't use transit spectroscopy to check

213
00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:54.650
whether it's actually kept in atmosphere, the

214
00:08:54.650 --> 00:08:57.650
trick JWST has been using on planets

215
00:08:57.730 --> 00:08:59.490
like the Trappist 1 system.

216
00:09:00.130 --> 00:09:03.090
Avery: So the honest answer is nobody knows yet.

217
00:09:03.250 --> 00:09:05.210
We'll likely have to wait for NASA's

218
00:09:05.210 --> 00:09:07.610
Habitable Worlds Observatory, which isn't due

219
00:09:07.610 --> 00:09:10.569
to launch until sometime in the 2000-40s, to

220
00:09:10.569 --> 00:09:13.050
get a direct look. But for a planet this

221
00:09:13.050 --> 00:09:15.850
close and this promising, that's a long wait

222
00:09:15.850 --> 00:09:17.330
worth marking on the calendar.

223
00:09:17.810 --> 00:09:20.810
Anna: Dory 5 is one that hits close to home

224
00:09:20.810 --> 00:09:23.730
for us, quite literally given our own dark

225
00:09:23.730 --> 00:09:25.970
skies down here in the Southern Hemisphere.

226
00:09:26.460 --> 00:09:28.700
Avery: The European Southern Observatory has

227
00:09:28.700 --> 00:09:30.620
published the first study to actually

228
00:09:30.780 --> 00:09:32.740
calculate what happens to ground based

229
00:09:32.740 --> 00:09:35.460
astronomy if current satellite mega

230
00:09:35.460 --> 00:09:38.100
constellation proposals go ahead and um, the

231
00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:40.700
word ESO used was devastating.

232
00:09:41.180 --> 00:09:43.820
Anna: There are currently somewhere around 14

233
00:09:43.980 --> 00:09:46.900
to 17,500 satellites in

234
00:09:46.900 --> 00:09:49.700
orbit. But between SpaceX, which wants

235
00:09:49.700 --> 00:09:52.380
roughly a million more for space based data

236
00:09:52.380 --> 00:09:54.340
centers, and companies like

237
00:09:54.340 --> 00:09:56.820
Reflectorbital, which is proposing three

238
00:09:57.050 --> 00:09:59.890
50,000 mirror satellites designed to beam

239
00:09:59.890 --> 00:10:02.610
sunlight down to Earth at night, the combined

240
00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:05.290
proposals on the table add up to over

241
00:10:05.450 --> 00:10:08.410
1.7 million satellites.

242
00:10:08.810 --> 00:10:11.410
Avery: The study, led by ESO astronomer

243
00:10:11.410 --> 00:10:14.210
Olivier Hainau and accepted for publication

244
00:10:14.210 --> 00:10:17.050
in Astronomy and Astrophysics, modeled the

245
00:10:17.050 --> 00:10:19.730
actual imaging impact for a SpaceX

246
00:10:19.730 --> 00:10:22.730
scale constellation. Even if every satellite

247
00:10:22.730 --> 00:10:25.710
stayed just below naked eye brightness, the

248
00:10:25.710 --> 00:10:28.150
study found it would produce dozens of trails

249
00:10:28.150 --> 00:10:31.070
per image on ESO's Very Large Telescope,

250
00:10:31.230 --> 00:10:33.390
cutting usable field of view by up to

251
00:10:33.390 --> 00:10:34.350
28%.

252
00:10:34.990 --> 00:10:37.110
Anna: It gets worse for the Vera Rubin

253
00:10:37.110 --> 00:10:39.990
Observatory's new legacy survey of Space and

254
00:10:39.990 --> 00:10:42.630
Time, which just began full science

255
00:10:42.630 --> 00:10:45.550
operations. If those satellites were even a

256
00:10:45.550 --> 00:10:48.390
little brighter than assumed, most of Rubin's

257
00:10:48.390 --> 00:10:50.630
images each night could be rendered

258
00:10:50.630 --> 00:10:52.190
essentially unusable.

259
00:10:52.820 --> 00:10:55.380
Avery: And reflect orbital's mirrors are their own

260
00:10:55.380 --> 00:10:57.460
special problem. Even when they're not

261
00:10:57.460 --> 00:10:59.540
pointed directly at an observer, the

262
00:10:59.540 --> 00:11:01.660
scattered light alone could brighten the

263
00:11:01.660 --> 00:11:04.260
entire night sky three to four times over.

264
00:11:04.580 --> 00:11:06.740
I now describe the single one of those

265
00:11:06.740 --> 00:11:09.340
mirrors as being as Bright as, uh, Venus, the

266
00:11:09.340 --> 00:11:10.660
so called Morning Star.

267
00:11:11.060 --> 00:11:13.300
Anna: ESO's recommendation is a hard

268
00:11:13.540 --> 00:11:16.340
ceiling, no more than 100,000

269
00:11:16.420 --> 00:11:19.310
satellites total, all kept fainter than

270
00:11:19.310 --> 00:11:21.950
naked eye visibility. Worth noting, this

271
00:11:21.950 --> 00:11:24.230
study also directly informs the

272
00:11:24.230 --> 00:11:26.470
observatories closest to us here in the

273
00:11:26.470 --> 00:11:29.190
southern hemisphere, since ESO's Very

274
00:11:29.190 --> 00:11:32.030
Large Telescope and the Extremely Large

275
00:11:32.030 --> 00:11:34.790
Telescope currently under construction. Both

276
00:11:34.790 --> 00:11:36.990
sit in the Chilean Atacama Desert.

277
00:11:37.390 --> 00:11:40.030
Avery: SpaceX and reflect orbital are both still

278
00:11:40.030 --> 00:11:42.190
waiting for a decision from the U.S. federal

279
00:11:42.190 --> 00:11:44.350
Communications Commission about whether their

280
00:11:44.350 --> 00:11:46.440
proposed constellations get approved. And

281
00:11:46.910 --> 00:11:48.990
this study is now very much part of that

282
00:11:48.990 --> 00:11:49.630
conversation.

283
00:11:49.950 --> 00:11:52.110
And for our, uh, final story today, one

284
00:11:52.110 --> 00:11:54.830
that's been bugging astronomers since 2020,

285
00:11:54.830 --> 00:11:57.470
and JWST just cracked it.

286
00:11:57.870 --> 00:11:59.978
Anna: Meet WD 1856

287
00:12:00.162 --> 00:12:02.510
b. It's a gas giant,

288
00:12:02.670 --> 00:12:05.390
somewhere between 4 and 11 times

289
00:12:05.390 --> 00:12:07.950
Jupiter's mass. And it orbits its star

290
00:12:08.030 --> 00:12:10.990
every 34 hours, less than 3

291
00:12:10.990 --> 00:12:13.630
million kilometers out, 50 times

292
00:12:13.630 --> 00:12:16.350
closer than Earth is to the Sun. When it

293
00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:19.350
transits, it blocks 56% of

294
00:12:19.350 --> 00:12:22.270
the star's light, one of the deepest transits

295
00:12:22.270 --> 00:12:23.230
ever recorded.

296
00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:26.710
Avery: Here's the problem. The star it's orbiting is

297
00:12:26.710 --> 00:12:29.390
a white dwarf, the collapsed Earth

298
00:12:29.390 --> 00:12:32.110
sized corpse of a star that has already gone

299
00:12:32.110 --> 00:12:34.750
through its red giant phase, where it swells

300
00:12:34.750 --> 00:12:37.670
up hundreds of times its original size and

301
00:12:37.670 --> 00:12:40.460
incinerates anything nearby. A, uh,

302
00:12:40.550 --> 00:12:42.870
planet orbiting this close should have been

303
00:12:42.870 --> 00:12:45.550
vaporized billions of years ago when the star

304
00:12:45.550 --> 00:12:47.110
was still ballooning outward.

305
00:12:47.670 --> 00:12:50.150
Anna: So how is it still there? Using

306
00:12:50.150 --> 00:12:52.910
JWST, an international team

307
00:12:52.910 --> 00:12:55.110
including Northwestern's Christopher O'

308
00:12:55.110 --> 00:12:57.990
Connor and lead author Ryan McDonald measured

309
00:12:57.990 --> 00:13:00.270
the planet's atmosphere directly for the

310
00:13:00.270 --> 00:13:03.070
first time. Gas temperature and chemical

311
00:13:03.070 --> 00:13:05.190
composition, including methane and

312
00:13:05.190 --> 00:13:07.910
hydrocarbon haze, which would give it a color

313
00:13:07.910 --> 00:13:09.270
similar to Saturn's moon.

314
00:13:09.270 --> 00:13:11.410
Avery: Titanium and the temperature was the

315
00:13:11.410 --> 00:13:13.770
giveaway. The planet's running at around

316
00:13:13.850 --> 00:13:15.770
400 kelvin, roughly

317
00:13:15.770 --> 00:13:18.610
240 degrees hotter than

318
00:13:18.610 --> 00:13:21.010
it should be if it were only being warmed by

319
00:13:21.010 --> 00:13:24.010
the faint light of its dead star. That extra

320
00:13:24.010 --> 00:13:25.770
heat had to come from somewhere.

321
00:13:26.090 --> 00:13:28.970
Anna: By modeling how giant planets cool over time,

322
00:13:29.130 --> 00:13:31.250
the team worked backward and found the planet

323
00:13:31.250 --> 00:13:34.090
was heated somewhere between 3 and 5.5

324
00:13:34.090 --> 00:13:36.650
billion years after the white dwarf formed.

325
00:13:37.090 --> 00:13:39.250
In other words, it wasn't sitting in this

326
00:13:39.250 --> 00:13:41.650
tight, dangerous orbit during the red giant

327
00:13:41.650 --> 00:13:44.050
phase at all. It was out at a safe distance

328
00:13:44.050 --> 00:13:46.770
the whole time and only migrated inward

329
00:13:46.850 --> 00:13:49.250
billions of years later through gravitational

330
00:13:49.330 --> 00:13:51.410
interactions with other bodies in the system,

331
00:13:51.730 --> 00:13:52.850
eating up as it went.

332
00:13:53.410 --> 00:13:56.330
Avery: It didn't survive the apocalypse. It arrived

333
00:13:56.330 --> 00:13:57.330
after the funeral.

334
00:13:57.810 --> 00:14:00.370
Anna: Which makes this more than just a curiosity,

335
00:14:00.450 --> 00:14:03.010
because our own sun is going to do exactly

336
00:14:03.010 --> 00:14:05.990
this in about 5 billion years swell

337
00:14:05.990 --> 00:14:08.950
into a red giant, almost certainly consume

338
00:14:08.950 --> 00:14:11.470
Mercury and Venus, with Earth sitting right

339
00:14:11.470 --> 00:14:13.870
on the edge of that danger zone. Jupiter and

340
00:14:13.870 --> 00:14:16.310
Saturn will very likely survive that phase

341
00:14:16.310 --> 00:14:18.510
out at a safe distance, just like

342
00:14:18.510 --> 00:14:21.510
WD1856B's planet originally

343
00:14:21.510 --> 00:14:21.830
did.

344
00:14:22.150 --> 00:14:24.790
Avery: And what this research suggests is that the

345
00:14:24.790 --> 00:14:27.430
story doesn't necessarily end there. Over

346
00:14:27.510 --> 00:14:30.310
billions more years afterward, gravitational

347
00:14:30.390 --> 00:14:32.830
nudges could send one of our own surviving

348
00:14:32.830 --> 00:14:35.760
gas giants migrating inward, closer

349
00:14:35.760 --> 00:14:38.320
to whatever's left of the sun, just like this

350
00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:40.040
planet did around its white dwarf.

351
00:14:40.520 --> 00:14:42.920
Anna: As the researchers put it, stellar death

352
00:14:42.920 --> 00:14:45.800
isn't necessarily the end. Some planets

353
00:14:45.800 --> 00:14:48.560
get a whole second act afterwards. A

354
00:14:48.560 --> 00:14:50.239
nice thought to leave you with heading into

355
00:14:50.239 --> 00:14:50.840
the weekend.

356
00:14:51.400 --> 00:14:53.800
Avery: And that's a wrap on Astronomy daily for

357
00:14:53.800 --> 00:14:56.680
Friday, July 3. A grounded rescue

358
00:14:56.680 --> 00:14:59.480
mission, A solar storm right over our heads.

359
00:14:59.930 --> 00:15:02.730
A planet Tess wasn't even looking for. A

360
00:15:02.730 --> 00:15:05.290
promising new neighbor 25 light years out,

361
00:15:05.530 --> 00:15:08.530
a warning about our crowding skies, and a

362
00:15:08.530 --> 00:15:10.890
planet that outlived its own star's death.

363
00:15:11.290 --> 00:15:14.010
Anna: If you're in the US have a safe and happy 4th

364
00:15:14.010 --> 00:15:16.570
of July weekend. And if the skies stay dark

365
00:15:16.570 --> 00:15:19.290
and clear, maybe let the aurora provide a few

366
00:15:19.290 --> 00:15:20.730
fireworks of its own tonight.

367
00:15:21.210 --> 00:15:23.450
Avery: If you enjoyed today's episode, please hit

368
00:15:23.450 --> 00:15:25.450
subscribe wherever you're listening and, uh,

369
00:15:25.490 --> 00:15:27.130
leave us a review. If you can spare 30

370
00:15:27.130 --> 00:15:29.570
seconds, it really does help new listeners

371
00:15:29.570 --> 00:15:30.210
find the show.

372
00:15:30.690 --> 00:15:33.050
Anna: You can find full show notes, sources and

373
00:15:33.050 --> 00:15:35.970
links at astronomydaily IO and

374
00:15:35.970 --> 00:15:38.690
follow us on socials@astrodaily pod.

375
00:15:38.770 --> 00:15:41.130
We're back tomorrow with more from across the

376
00:15:41.130 --> 00:15:43.490
universe and of course, the weekend wrap.

377
00:15:43.810 --> 00:15:44.690
Avery: I'm Avery.

378
00:15:44.850 --> 00:15:46.850
Anna: I'm Anna. Clear skies, everyone.

379
00:15:47.250 --> 00:15:48.610
Astronomy Day

380
00:15:50.370 --> 00:15:51.490
stories. Mhm. Be told.