The Weekend Wrap, August 29: Roman's Countdown Begins

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Anna: Hey everyone, welcome back to Astronomy

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AstroDailyPod. And it's Saturday, so you know

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what that means.

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Avery: The weekend wrap one brand new storey. Then

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we run back through the week's biggest news.

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In case you missed any of it,

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Anna: it's Saturday, August 29th. Series five

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episode 180. And today's fresh storey

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is a big one. Literally the biggest NASA

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mission of the year is on the pad right now.

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Less than a day from launch.

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Avery: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

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We've been building up to this one all week

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without ever quite telling the whole storey.

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Anna: So today we finally do full launch

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profile, what it's actually going to do out

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there and exactly when to watch wherever you

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are.

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Avery: Okay, then, a moon mission that slipped from

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a month to maybe next year. A star

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with a bubbling face, a couple of scientists

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finally settling an argument about diamonds,

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a fight over how bright space is allowed to

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get, and a very well travelled rocket

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finally heading home.

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Anna: It's a big one today. Let's get into it.

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Avery: Okay, we've mentioned Roman three times this

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week without ever actually sitting down with

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it properly. Fix that for me.

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Anna: Happy to. The Nancy Grace Roman Space

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Telescope launches tomorrow, Sunday, August

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30th. And by the time most of you are hearing

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this, it's inside its final day of

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preparation.

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Avery: Give me the vitals. When, how? From where?

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Anna: Liftoff window opens at

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7:26am M Eastern. That's

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11:26 UTC on a

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SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex

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39A at Kennedy Space Centre. The

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same pad the Apollo missions and more

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recently Artemis One flew from. There's a

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backup window the next morning, Monday the

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31st at 7:22am

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Eastern. If anything pushes it a day, um,

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Avery: and for anyone listening in our part

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Anna: of the world, this is the rare one where

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Southern Hemisphere listeners actually get

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the good time slot. 11:26 UTC

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on Sunday is 9:26pm Sunday

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night here in Sydney. Prime time. Not a

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3am alarm. Our, uh, North American listeners

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get it at breakfast. We get it with our

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Sunday night cup of tea.

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Avery: I'll take it. What actually happens once it

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goes, It's a fast ride.

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Anna: The whole ascent to spacecraft separation is

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about 31 1/2 minutes and Falcon

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Heavy's two side boosters peel away 2

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1/2 minutes in and fly themselves back to

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landing zones at Cape Canaveral. And Roman

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itself separates from the upper stage right

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at the 31 minute 31 second mark.

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Avery: So of Falcon Heavy, that's the same rocket

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family that launched ship 40's return voyage

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on flight 13. Anyone can watch this live.

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Anna: NASA's coverage starts at 6:20am Eastern

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on NASA. Their social channels

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Twitch, Discovery, Apple Prime

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prime and YouTube. SpaceX runs its own stream

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on X starting about an hour before launch. If

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you'd rather watch it from that side of the

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pad.

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Avery: Okay, so who is this telescope actually for?

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Remind people why we've spent all week

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circling it.

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Anna: It's named after Nancy Grace Roman,

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NASA's very first chief astronomer, who's

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often called the mother of Hubble because she

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was the one who pushed a space telescope into

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existence back in the 1960s. And it

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feels right that this one carries her name

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because it's genuinely a spiritual sibling to

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Hubble. Same size primary mirror,

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2.4 metres, but pointed at a completely

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different problem.

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Avery: Different how?

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Anna: Hubble and Webb are both brilliant at staring

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very closely at one small patch of sky.

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Roman's whole design philosophy is the

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opposite. Its wide field instrument carries a

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300 megapixel camera with a field of

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view roughly a hundred times larger than

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Hubble's at basically the same sharp

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where Hubble gives you a postage stamp, Roman

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gives you a poster at the same resolution.

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Avery: What's the point of that much sky at once?

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Anna: Statistics, mostly. Some of the biggest

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open questions in cosmology need you to look

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at billions of things, not dozens.

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Roman's headline project is the High Latitude

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Wide Area survey. Imaging roughly

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2 billion galaxies to map how dark

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matter is distributed and how dark energy is

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pushing the universe apart over cosmic time

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using weak gravitational lensing and the

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large scale clustering of galaxies.

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Avery: That's the why does a universe's expansion

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keep accelerating Question.

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Anna: Exactly that one. Arguably the biggest

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unanswered question in cosmology right now.

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There's a companion time domain survey,

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hunting supernovae for the same dark energy

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work. And then there's the survey I think is

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actually the most fun. The Galactic

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Bulge Time Domain Survey. A

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dedicated exoplanet hunt using

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gravitational microlensing.

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Avery: Different from how Kepler and Tess found

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planets.

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Anna: Completely different technique. Instead of

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watching a planet cross in front of its star,

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microlensing watches for a foreground star's

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gravity, briefly magnifying the light of a

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background star with a planet adding its own

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little blip to that signal. It's sensitive to

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planets transiting missions can't easily see,

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including ones on wide orbits. And even

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rogue free floating planets with no star

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at all. Scientists are expecting on the

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order of 100,000 new

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exoplanet detections out of this one

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survey alone.

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Avery: Hundred thousand from one instrument.

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Anna: From one instrument. And there's a fourth

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piece Riding along. The coronagraph

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instrument. A technology demonstration for

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blocking out a star's glare well enough to

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directly image the planets around it, rather

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than just inferring them. If that works as

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hoped, it's a genuine stepping stone toward

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the kind of direct exoplanet imaging

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NASA wants for future flagship missions.

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Avery: Okay, so where does it actually go after that

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31 minute ride?

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Anna: It heads not into orbit around Earth, it

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heads for the sun. Earth. Lagrange point two.

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About one and a half million kilometres out.

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The same gravitationally stable parking spot

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Webb uses. That's roughly a month's

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cruise, then months more of commissioning

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before real science data, uh, starts flowing.

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Avery: Right, so nothing dramatic happens tomorrow

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night beyond the launch and a very long

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drive.

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Anna: Correct, and worth saying plainly, so

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nobody's disappointed. Tomorrow is liftoff

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deployment and the start of the journey. Not

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first light. But it's still a huge moment

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because of everything that had to go right

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just to get here. If you've been with us this

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week, you know the shape of it. Tuesday we

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covered Roman being cleared for launch nine

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months ahead of its original schedule.

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Thursday we told the strange Cold War storey

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of the surplus spy satellite hardware

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this whole mission was actually built around.

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And yesterday we told you the part nobody

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had. That this telescope was one leaked

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budget draught away from being cancelled

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outright. Last. And the team that saved it

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responded by launching eight months early

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instead of late.

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Avery: Three different storeys, one mission.

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Anna: And tomorrow all three of those threads

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either pay off or they don't in real time

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on a pad in Florida. That's why we wanted

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this to be its own proper segment, rather

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than another line in Friday's recap.

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Avery: No episode tomorrow. So this is genuinely the

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last word before it flies.

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Anna: It is. We're back Monday with our regular

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weekday format. And if all goes to plan,

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that'll be a very satisfying episode to

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record.

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Avery: Rockets on. The pad window opens tomorrow

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night, our time. We'll be watching.

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Anna: All right, on to the recap. And it was a

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genuinely full week. Five storeys

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roughly in the order they broke.

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Avery: Storey one. And it's actually a correction to

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something we told you ourselves. Monday's

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episode reported China's Chang' E7 launch

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scrubbing on the 24th because of Tropical

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Storm Nar, with our best information at the

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time, putting the next window about a month

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out, sometime in mid to late September.

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Anna: That's what the trajectory analysis available

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Monday pointed to. And we stand by reporting

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it that way with the information we had. But

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the picture's gotten murkier since, not

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clearer. Tonga 7 targets the rim of

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Shackleton Crater at the lunar South Pole.

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And that landing site only gets the right

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sunlight geometry for something like a

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hundred days total across an entire year,

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split into short windows. China's own state

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broadcaster, cgtn, ran an

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explainer on exactly this point.

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Avery: So it's not as simple as wait a month and,

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um, try again.

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Anna: Not necessarily. And here's the part that's

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genuinely unresolved as we're recording this.

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Some regional reporting is still holding the

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line at a matter of weeks. But several other

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outlets, citing the same orbital mechanics

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constraints, are now reporting the next real

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opportunity isn't until February or March

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of next year, 2020.

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Avery: That's a completely different storey than

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about

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Anna: a month it is. And China's Manned

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Space Agency hasn't put out a firm new date

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to settle it. Either way. Officially, it's

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just a comprehensive assessment, finding the

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mission no longer met the conditions required

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for launch, with no specifics beyond the

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weather. We're not going to pretend we have a

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cleaner answer than the primary source does.

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What we can tell you is that the spacecraft

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was already vertical on the pad when this

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happened, which several outlets flagged as an

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unusual, usually late point in the campaign

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for that kind of call.

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Avery: So watch this space more literally than

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usual.

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Anna: Exactly. We'll give you the real number the

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moment China's space agency actually commits

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to one, rather than repeating whichever guess

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sounds most confident.

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Avery: Storey two from Wednesday. The closest look

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anyone's ever gotten to the actual surface of

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a star most people only know as that big

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red one that might explode.

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Anna: Betelgeuse. Using alma, the big radio

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telescope array in Chile. What he captured

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isn't a smooth stellar disc. It's a

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corrugated, genuinely bubbling surface

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dotted with hot spots that come and go.

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Except for one that's been sitting in more or

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less the same place for over seven years.

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Avery: Seven years is a long time for a hotspot to

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just stay put long

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Anna: enough that it's not obviously random

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convective churn. The leading explanation on

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the table now is a previously unconfirmed

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companion star tucked in close enough that

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its gravity or its passage through

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Betelgeuse's extended outer layers keeps

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stirring the same patch.

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Avery: A star with its own tiny stirring spoon.

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Anna: That's more or less the picture. It doesn't

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change the is Betelgeuse about to explode?

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Question either way. Still no, not on

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any human timescale we can predict. But it's

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a genuinely new piece of the puzzle of how

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these enormous instable red

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supergiants actually behave right at the end

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of their lives.

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Avery: Storey3 Thursday and this is the one I've

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been waiting to talk about. Diamond rain.

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Anna: This is genuinely satisfying. Scientists

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at Lawrence Livermore recreated the crushing

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pressure and temperature conditions found

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deep inside ice giants like Neptune and

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Uranus. We're talking millions of

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atmospheres to settle an argument about

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exactly where carbon turns to diamond under

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those conditions. That's been running for 20

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years.

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Avery: 20 years is a long running scientific

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argument.

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Anna: Different experiments over the years kept

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disagreeing on diamond's precise melting

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point at those extreme pressures. Which

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matters more than it sounds. It changes

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models of what's actually happening inside

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those planets all the way down to whether

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it's literally raining diamonds in their deep

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interiors. Which is the popular framing. But

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the real prize is what it means for us here,

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which is the same pressure temperature

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physics that governs diamond formation inside

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Neptune also governs some of the compression

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physics inside fusion reactor targets.

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The new Resolved data points toward roughly

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triple the energy gain achievable in certain

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fusion configurations compared to what

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older less certain diamond behaviour models

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assume.

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Avery: So a ah, 20 year argument about ice

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giants just quietly helped fusion energy

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research.

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Anna: That's genuinely one of the nicer side

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effects of planetary science. The physics

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doesn't know it's supposed to stay in its own

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subfield.

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Avery: Storey4 Friday and um, this is the one people

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are still arguing about. Space mirrors.

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Anna: A US startup Reflect Orbital wants

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to eventually put more than 50,000 large

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mirrors into low Earth orbit, reflecting

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sunlight down to chosen spots on the ground

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on demand, even at night. Back in

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July the FCC approved their first

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demonstration satellite, a 60 foot mirror

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called Earendel 1.

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Avery: And the pushback is about brightness.

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Anna: Specifically a new peer reviewed study

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Kossify, Bacchus and Kundrassic

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accepted at the Astrophysical Journal Letters

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modelled what the planned full scale

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174 foot operational

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mirrors would actually look like from the

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ground. Their number roughly 40

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times brighter than the full moon to anyone

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standing inside the beam with measurable

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sky glow extending another 20 to

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34 kilometres beyond its edge.

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Avery: Princeton's Gaspar Bacchus had a pretty

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blunt line about that.

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Anna: Worse than big cities like London was his

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framing. You would not see any stars if you

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were in the beam. And if several mirrors ever

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end up overlapping their beams at once, which

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is a real possibility at full constellation

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scale. The the combined brightness in those

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overlap zones could reach something like

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10,000 times the full moon.

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Avery: That's a genuinely different complaint to the

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starlink streaking satellite arguments we've

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covered before.

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Anna: It is this is hardware built specifically

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to be as bright as physically possible,

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aimed deliberately at the ground, rather than

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an incidental side effect of a communications

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constellation. Reflect Orbital's position is

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that beams stay contained to defined target

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areas, can be shut off instant, and

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will steer clear of observatories and

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sensitive habitats. Whether that promise

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holds at a constellation of tens of thousands

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of mirrors is exactly the fight regulators

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and astronomers are now gearing up to have.

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Avery: And um, Storey five An um update to an update

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to an update at this point ship 40's

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journey genuinely this

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Anna: saga just keeps getting new chapters

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Quick recap for Anyone just joining ship

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40 survived Starship's first ever

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intact splashdown after Flight 13

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back on July 24, then spent over

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three weeks adrift before finally getting

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towed to sheltered waters off Christmas

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island in mid August, where it sat with no

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announced plan home.

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Avery: That's where Friday's episode left it.

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Anna: Uh, right. But just hours after

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Friday's episode went out, it actually got

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moving. Jip 40 was loaded onto a heavy

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lift transport vessel called the Forte, which

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departed Christmas island on Friday afternoon

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and is now genuinely underway on the roughly

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20,000 thousand kilometre voyage back to

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Starbase Texas. Expected to take several

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weeks, not the year plus a slow tow

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would have needed.

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Avery: And Flight 14? The next launch still on

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track for that mid September target from

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Friday's episode?

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Anna: Still tracking that way as of our recording.

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Booster 21 completed its static fire

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testing this week, which was the pacing item

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holding things up so no earlier than

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September 15 still stands for now,

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when Flight 14 does go, it's slated to

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attempt Starship's first ever full orbital

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flight.

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Avery: So the old ship is finally actually

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definitely coming home. And the next one

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Static fire tested and waiting its turn.

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Anna: That's about as clean a status as this

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particular saga has offered us in weeks.

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We'll take it.

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Avery: Okay, that's the weekend wrap for this week.

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The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on the

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pad and set to launch tomorrow night. Our

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time plus a full week catching up on Chang'

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E7's delay turning out to be a lot

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murkier than about a month

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Beetlejuice's bubbling long lived hotspot,

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a 20 year diamond rain argument finally

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settled, the fight brewing over reflect

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orbital space mirrors and Starship ship

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40 genuinely on its way home at last

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a

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Anna: big one to wrap up and hopefully a useful way

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to catch up if you missed any of it live

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through the week.

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Avery: If you enjoyed today's episode, the best

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00:17:07.499 --> 00:17:09.739
thing you can do for us is leave a rating or

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review wherever you're listening and share it

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00:17:11.939 --> 00:17:14.579
with a fellow space nerd. Full show notes,

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sources and links for every storey we cover

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today are @astronomydaily IO

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and you can find us on social media. We're

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AstroDaily Pod pretty much everywhere.

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Anna: We'll be back Monday with our regular weekday

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format and hopefully some very good news

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about a certain telescope. Fingers crossed.

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Until then, keep looking up.

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Avery: See you then. Clear skies, everyone.