March 12, 2026
Tipsy Comet: Interstellar Visitor Loaded With Alcohol
In today's episode of Astronomy Daily — S05E61, Thursday 12 March 2026 — Anna and Avery cover six of the biggest stories in space and astronomy from the past 24 hours. Stories in this episode: • 3I/ATLAS, our third confirmed interstellar visitor, has been found to be extraordinarily rich in methanol — a type of alcohol — with ALMA observations revealing methanol-to-hydrogen cyanide ratios far beyond almost any known solar system comet. The findings offer a chemical fingerprint of a distant planetary system, and the comet makes its closest pass to Jupiter on March 16. • Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket successfully returned to flight on March 11, completing its seventh mission — 'Stairway to Seven' — after an 11-month stand-down following two mishaps in 2025. The mission also validated key Block II upgrade systems ahead of the next-generation rocket's debut on Flight 8. • NASA held its Artemis II Flight Readiness Review today at Kennedy Space Center, a critical milestone ahead of a potential April launch. The SLS/Orion stack is being prepared for its second rollout after a helium flow issue was repaired in the Vehicle Assembly Building. • A landmark helioseismology study from the University of Birmingham and Yale, drawing on 40 years of data from the Birmingham Solar-Oscillations Network, reveals that the Sun's internal structure shifts measurably between solar cycle minima — with implications for space weather forecasting. • NASA's Van Allen Probe A reentered Earth's atmosphere on March 11, eight years earlier than expected, with the current active solar cycle responsible for accelerating its orbital decay. Most of the 600kg spacecraft burned up over the eastern Pacific. • Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have discovered a third gas cloud — G2t — orbiting Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole. Its near-identical orbit to the previously known G1 and G2 clouds suggests all three likely originated from the same binary star system. Find full episodes, transcripts and more at astronomydaily.io. Follow us @AstroDailyPod on all major platforms.
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WEBVTT
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Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily dose of
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what's happening out there in the cosmos.
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I'm Anna and I'm Avery. It is Thursday, the twelfth
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of March twenty twenty six, and today's show is a
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packed one.
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We've got an interstellar comment that's absolutely loaded with alcohol,
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a rocket that bounced back from an explosive year to
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nail its seventh flight, and the biggest NASA briefing in months,
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the Artemis two flight readiness review is happening right now
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as we record.
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We've also got some beautiful science from deep inside the Sun,
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a satellite that came home early thanks to the solar cycle,
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and the brand new gas cloud discovered swirling around the
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black hole at the heart of our Milky.
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Way Dick's stories, Let's get into it.
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Our first story is one of my favorites in a
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while because it involves an interstellar comment that's frankly a
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little bit drunk.
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You're going to milk that headline all episode, aren't you?
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Every chance? I get so? Three iatls. If you've been
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listening to us over the past several months, you'll remember
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this as only the third confirmed interstellar object ever detected
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passing through our solar system. It came from somewhere out there,
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from a completely different planetary system, and it's been one
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of the most intensely observed objects in recent memory.
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And now astronomers using ALMA the ATACOMMA large millimeter submillimeter
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array in Chile have published new findings about its chemical makeup,
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and what they found is genuinely surprising.
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Using Alma's ATACOMMA compact array, researcher studied the coma that
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glowing halo of gas and dust around the comet's core
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as three IATLS was warming up on its approach towards
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the Sun in late twenty twenty five. They focused on
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the fingerprints of two molecules, methanol, which is a type
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of alcohol, and hydrogen cyanide, and.
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The results were extraordinary. In most Solar system comets, those
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two molecules show up in roughly comparable amounts. In three iatls,
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the ratio of methanol to hydrogen cyanide was between seventy
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and one hundred twenty to one. That's not just unusual,
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it places it among the most methanol rich comets ever studied. Period.
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Nathan Roth, the lead researcher from American University put it
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really beautifully. He said, observing three iatls is like taking
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a fingerprint from another solar system. The details reveal what
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it's made of, and it's bursting with methanol in a
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way we just don't usually see in comments from our
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own solar system.
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There's another fascinating detail here too. In most comments, hydrogen
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cyanide flows out from the nucleus the central core. Methanol
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usually does the same, but in three iatls, the methanol
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is coming from two places, the nucleus and from tiny
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icy grains drifting in the coma around the comet. Those
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grains are essentially acting like miniature comets of their own,
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releasing methanol as they warm up in sunlight. It's a
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level of structural complexity we haven't seen traced in an
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interstellar object before.
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What does all this methanol tell us It points to
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a comet that forms in an extremely cold environment, possibly
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a dark molecular cloud packed with carbon monoxide ice, and
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that its icy material was incorporated into the comet's nucleus
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with very little alteration. Essentially, this thing is a chemical
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time capsule from a distant planetary system, and it's older
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than our own Sun.
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And here's a fun watch this space moment. Three IATLS
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is currently about three point eight astronomical units from the Sun,
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roughly the distance between Mars and Jupiter, and heading outward
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at around twenty eight kilometers per second. On March sixteenth,
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just four days from now, it makes its closest approach
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to Jupiter, passing within about zero point three six AU.
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It's one of the last major milestones before this visitor
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disappears into interstellar space for good.
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It's been one of the most scientifically productive interstellar visitors
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we've ever had the luck to catch. Every observation has
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taught us something new about how planetary systems, not ours,
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form and evolve.
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Story two is a proper comeback story, and those are
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always fun to tell. Firefly Aerospace successfully launched its Alpha
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rocket last night, Wednesday the eleventh, from Vandenberg Space four
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space in California, and it was a mission called Stairway
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to seven Flight seven, and it absolutely nailed it.
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For context, Firefly had a rough twenty twenty five two
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major mishaps, a failed launch in April and then an
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explosive ground test in September. That destroyed a first stage.
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The rocket had been grounded for nearly eleven months, so
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this was a significant moment for them.
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The mission lifted off at five point fifty pm Pacific time,
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completed nominal stage separation, achieved orbital insertion, and delivered a
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demonstrator payload for Lockheed Martin. The second stage engine even
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performed a relight, a bonus milestone for validating new systems.
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And this wasn't just any flight. Spare Way to seven
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was the last flight of Alpha's Block one configuration. Firefly
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is now transitioning to Block two, which is an upgraded
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version of the rocket, longer, more capable, with a new
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in house avionic suite and improved thermal protection. Those systems
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were tested in shadow mode on this flight and confirmed.
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Working FEO Jason Kim said the mission was quote flawlessly
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executed and while Alpha has now had full mission success
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just three times in seven attempts, the trajectory is clearly improving,
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and Firefly's lunar landing success with Blue Gost last year
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showed they can absolutely get the job done.
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The first Block two flight will carry a US Space
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Force mission called Victis Hayes jackaled for no earlier than
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the second quarter of this year. Firefly also as plans
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to expand Alpha operations to Wallops Island in Virginia and
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the s Range Space Center in Sweden. Good times ahead
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for this team.
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All right, story three, and this one is literally happening
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as we speak. NASA held its Artemis two flight readiness
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review today Thursday the twelfth, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida,
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with a press conference at three pm Eastern featuring NASA
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Administrator Jared Isaacman.
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A flight readiness review is a critical milestone. It's the
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formal process where all the key mission stakeholders come together
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and evaluate whether every system, every procedure, and every person
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is ready to fly. It's one of the last major
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gates before a launch date gets set.
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To recap where we are. Artemis two is the first
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crude mission of the Artemis program. Four astronauts flying around
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the Moon and back inside the Orion spacecraft from Earth
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than any humans have ever traveled. The crew is Reed Wiseman,
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Victor Glover, Christina Cock and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
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The mission hit a snag in late February when a
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helium flow issue was found in the upper stage of
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the Space Launch System rocket after a wet dress rehearsal.
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The stack had to be rolled back into the vehicle
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assembly building for repairs. NASA has since identified and fixed
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to seal obstruction in the quick disconnect causing the problem,
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and technicians have been validating the repairs.
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The rocket is currently targeting a second rollout to the
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launch pad later this month, with an April launch window
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on the table. We'll have the outcome of today's press
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conference in our show notes. This story is moving fast
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and we'll be covering every step of it as we
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get closer.
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It has been over fifty years since humans flew beyond
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low Earth orbit. Artemis two is going to change that,
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and we are so close.
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Well, we certainly hope so.
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Story four is a beautiful piece of long game science.
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Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Yale University have
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published a study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal
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Astronomical Society that reveals something fundamental and surprising about our star.
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The Sun's internal structure shifts measurably from one solar cycle
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to the next.
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This might sound like it should be obvious of course,
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the Sun changes. But here's the thing. During solar minimum,
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the Sun is supposed to be at its calmest, fewer
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sun spots, weaker magnetic fields, a quieter, more uniform surface.
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The assumption had always been that these quiet periods were
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basically the same each time around.
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And they're not. The team used a network of six
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ground based telescopes called the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network BISON,
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which has been listening to the sun hum for over
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forty years. They analyze tiny vibrations inside the Sun, essentially
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sound waves trapped inside the star to infer what was
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happening beneath the surface. This field is called helio seismology
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and it's essentially the same principle as using seismic waves
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to map the interior of the Earth.
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They looked at four successive solar minima, the quiet periods
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between solar cycles twenty one and twenty five, and found
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that the minimum between cycles twenty three and twenty four,
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which fell in two thousand and eight to two thousand
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and nine, was structurally different from the other three. That
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minimum was already known to be one of the quietest
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and longest on record, but now they've shown it left
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a measurable internal.
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Fingerprint, specifically, a sound wave glitch caused by helium ionization
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just below the Sun's surface was significantly stronger than in
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the other three minima, and the speed of sound in
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the outer layers was slightly.
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Higher, suggesting subtly different gas pressures, temperatures, and magnetic field
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strengths deep inside the Sun.
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Why does this matter because how the Sun behaves during
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its quiet periods has a strong bearing on how active
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the next cycle will be. Better understanding solar minima means
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better space weather forecasting and space weather affects satellites, GPS,
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power grids, and communications infrastructure here on Earth.
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Professor Bill Chaplin from Birmingham summed it up perfectly. For
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the first time they've been able to clearly quantify how
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the Sun's internal structure shifts between one cycle minimum and
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the next, and the techniques used here could eventually be
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applied to other Sun like stars using esay's upcoming Plato mission.
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The Sun isn't just our star, it's our best laboratory
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for understanding stars everywhere.
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Following up on a story we brought you a couple
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of days ago, you could say story five has a
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certain poetic quality to it. Yesterday morning, Wednesday, the eleventh
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NASA's Van Allen Probe A re entered Earth Earth's atmosphere
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and burned up over the eastern Pacific Ocean, ending a
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mission that launched back in August twenty twelve, nearly fourteen
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years in space.
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The Van Allen Probes, there were two of them, A
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and B, were built to study Earth's radiation belts. Those
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are the two massive donut shaped zones of high energy
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charged particles trapped by our planet's magnetic field. They're named
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for physicist James Van Allen, who discovered them in the
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late nineteen fifties. Understanding these belts is critical because they
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shield Earth from cosmic radiation and solar wind, but they
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can also be brutal on satellites and spacecraft passing through them.
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The probes were originally designed for a two year mission,
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they ran for nearly seven During that time, they made
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a series of landmark discoveries, including the first confirmed observation
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of a transient third radiation belt, which can formed during
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periods of intense solar activity. The spacecraft ran out of
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fuel in twenty nineteen and have been drifting in orbit
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ever since.
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Here's what made yesterday's re entry newsworthy beyond the usual
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satellite farewell. NASA had originally calculated that Probe A wouldn't
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re enter until twenty thirty four, eight years later than
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it actually did. The culprit the current solar cycle. We're
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in a particularly active phase right now, and increased solar
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activity heats and expands Earth's upper atmosphere, which creates more
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drag on satellites and low to medium orbit, pulling them
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down faster than expected.
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The six hundred kilogram spacecraft mostly burned up on re entry,
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as expected, with a one in four thy two hundred
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chance of any surviving debris causing harm to anyone on
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the ground. The US Space Force confirmed re entry at
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six thirty seven am Eastern Time over the Eastern Pacific.
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No injuries or debris impact reported, but.
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Is still up there and its re entry isn't expected
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before twenty thirty, though given what just happened, we might
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want to keep an eye on that estimate too. The
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Sun has a way of accelerating things.
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And our final story brings us right to the heart
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of our own galaxy and the super massive black holes
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sitting there. Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial
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Physics have discovered a new gas cloud orbiting Sagittarius A star,
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the four million solar mass black hole at the center
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of the Milky Way, about twenty seven thousand light years
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from Earth.
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The new cloud is called G two T, and it
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was found using the ERIS instrument, the Enhanced Resolution Imager
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and spectrograph mounted on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large
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Telescope in Chile. Two previous clouds, known as G one
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and G two, had been observed orbiting Sagittarius A star
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for years, but their true nature was still hotly debated.
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Were they pure gas clouds or were they hiding stars
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inside them?
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The discovery of G two T turns out to be
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