Lost Wanderer Podcast: 6/15/25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Time for this nation to take a clearly leading role
in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the
key to our future on Earth. All fair program.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
On biop.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Today is a day from morning and remember.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Nancy and I are gained the core, but the tragedy
of the Shuttle challenge. The following program may contain false language,
adult teens, and bad attempts.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
A human listener discretion is a vibe.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
What is President Trump's goal? What is his vision? He
wants to put an American.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Flag on Mars.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Lady Days here.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Lambert, I am your host, Jay double f also known
as a cosmic bard over on X and this is
the Lost Wonder Of podcast for June fifteenth, twenty twenty five.
Happy Sunday evening, Happy Father's Day, and welcome aboard the
ACS serenade our leading story. Tonight, we're going to talk

(01:50):
a little bit of NASA and President Trump here for
Jared Isaacman's name is already etched into the emerging history
of prior bit spaceflight. Commander of inspiration for the first
all civilian orbital mission and the force behind Polaris Dawn,
Isaacman is honestly part of a rare Breed an entrepreneur

(02:11):
who puts his own boots in the capsule. But this
week the story took a bit of a sharp detour,
one that doesn't end on a launch pad, butt rather
in a quiet, unresolved moment behind the scenes of American
space leadership. And two separate interviews, one with a written

(02:34):
in the ArsTechnica on the other one in space dot com.
I just been confirmed that there had been some whispers
in the aerospace community for over a year and he
had been basically undergoing vetting to become NASA administrator under
a potential second Trump admin. I said it wasn't speculation,
it was actually happening. He was vetted extensively, past every

(02:57):
check and coordinated closely with NASA leader to ensure transparency.
That process took months. He made his positions clear, he
didn't seek the role, but once approached, he engaged in
good faith. Then, without warning, the momentum stopped. The nomination
never materialized, and no statement was made, his name erased

(03:22):
from any further shortlist discussions. Instead, seems Trump's campaign began
favoring retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor, a man known for
his media appearances more than you know. Any aerospace expertise
that said the contrast couldn't be sharper. Isaacman is an
act to participant in spaceflight, actually having been out on

(03:45):
a spacewalk. McGregor has no known background in space or science. Yikes. Now,
Isiacman didn't offer much speculization in his comments, but he
acknowledged that many already suspected in words, I think I
was a good visible target, meaning his close association with

(04:10):
space AX and probably even more so Elon Musk. And
of course the ambitions of Polaris made him a lightning
rod in any political storm. And it's a bit of
a strange place for someone like Osman to find himself.
After all, this is the person who not only funds missions,
he flies them. He trains like a NASA astronaut. The

(04:34):
Polaris program is working toward milestones like commercial space walks,
deep space orbits, and next gen suit testing. These aren't
theoretical missions, they're active training operations involving space AX for
MA NASA astronauts, and live flight simulations. In short, isaich
Men has been doing the kind of word NASA sort

(04:55):
of quasi still does. Maybe and while the agency has
embraced parttnership with private companies, it is still struggling to
define the balance between public leadership and private innovation. A
NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, a former Senator and Space Shuttle
payload specialist, has served the role since twenty twenty one,
and I will still go one record as being that

(05:17):
is the only decent Biden pick. His tenure has been
marked by you some questionable artemis planning. You did have
support for commercial partnerships and a relatively strong international outreach,
But Nelson is in his eighties, and regardless of political outcomes,
a leadership transition has to be inevitable. Now, this could

(05:41):
have been a very pivotal moment, a chance to bring
old and new, aligning some with someone with real commercial
flight experience in the government's top space position. Instead, we
saw a bit of a retreat from that idea. And
what's worse, no real formal explanation, just no policy difference

(06:06):
was even cited. It was just a vanishing act. Now
ISAMAN is going to continue moving forward? Plaire's Dawn remains
on the books, with ambitious goals including a high Earth
orbit profile, ionic spheric experiments and the first use of
SpaceX's EVA suit in the vacuum of space. He does

(06:27):
remain committed, hopeful, and diplomatic at least, but it's hard
not to see the missed opportunity here, not just for Isaacman,
but for NASA as an entirety. I'm still shaking my
head at it. There are valid questions about how a
private sector executive would navigate the complexities of a public
agency and the bullshit up government, but Isaacman was clear
that he wasn't trying to privatize Nasar handover launch control.

(06:51):
His goal was more of alignment, not upheaval, and at
a time when space exploration is accelerating from lunar landers
and commercial stations to Mars boundheart where, let's face it,
alignment is exactly what the agency needs. Sadly, it's come

(07:15):
down to basically billionaires versus government scientists. It's about a trajectory,
and this one, for now, I'm sorry, is kind of
been left falling short like a Chinese rocket killing cows,
kind of frustrating Isaagan's path. The leadership was ground that
some in Washington are now pushing to give NASA's biggest

(07:36):
programs a bit of a fresh boost if you will.
When it comes to NASA's future beyond Earth orbit, the
numbers are starting to look a little grim. You have Gateway,
Ryan and the Space Launch System, basically what was the
backbone of Artemis. Well, they're still facing funding shortfalls, the

(07:58):
layers are stacking up, contractors are uneasy, and the twenty
twenty six Moon landings look more like a hopeful footnote
than a solid date enter One Senator Ted Cruise, in
a move that's as political as it is planetary. Let's
just call it what it is. Cruises fearheading a new
proposal that would inject ten billion dollars in the NASA's

(08:20):
Moon and Mars programs. The legislation, titled the Moon the
Mars Act of twenty twenty four, aims to stabilize funding
for Gateway and Orion, protect the Artemis mission schedule, and
sure the United States remains at the forefront of deep
space exploration. It is a bold proposal, one one that
comes with well a share of politics and promises. The

(08:42):
bill outlines a multi year funding strategy, something NASA desperately
needs for long term projects like the Gateway, lunar outposting
Crude Orion missions without it key hardware development could be
slow delayed or even scrapped entirely. Cruises proposal specifically, calls
were mandatory minimum funding for the SLS Rocket, continued support

(09:04):
for gateway construction, a formal commitment to the Artemis schedule,
and even language supporting commercial partnerships like Space Access Starship
HLS Lander. It is a bit of a sweeping gesture,
and one that would have been unthinkable a few years
ago from a Congress often hesitant to back NASA's more
expensive ventures. But there is a little bit of a

(09:28):
twist in this. This bill isn't just about science. It is, well,
it's about national pride, economic interest, and global positioning. China's
aggressive lunar goals, coupled with its new chang emissions and
expanding station program, I've kind of reignited Cold War style
urgency in Washington. Bruce, let's face it, for all his

(09:51):
parton partisanship, is actually making a fairly reasonable bipartisan appeal here.
He's already drawing support from fellow sonitors on both sides
of the isle, who see the Moon not just as
a destination but as real estate for influence, scientifical, industrial,
and of course their magical word political. Now, of course,

(10:13):
ten billion dollars doesn't guarantee success. NASA still faces internal hurdles,
contractor delays, and technological challenges, but this kind of legislative
push could buy it a little bit more time and
maybe even more buy in at a moment when enthusiasm
for space is once again rising on Capitol Hill. Now,

(10:34):
whether cruises Bill clears both chambers remain to be seen.
But one thing certain, Artemis needs more than vision. It
needs a good bit of cash, really good coordination, and
the congressional muscle to back it up. And this week, maybe,
just maybe it's on the first little baby footsteps of
finding some. But as we have lawmakers debating how to

(10:58):
fund the future elsewhere, we have space leaders that are
already gathering to imagine what comes after the Moon and
far beyond. Next week, if Los Angeles is still standing,
some of the brightest minds in space science, engineering, and
policy will gather not to argue about launch dates or
funding gaps, but to ask a much larger question, where

(11:21):
are we really going? The twenty twenty five International Space
Development Conference, hosted by National Space Society, will convey in
a global mix of visionaries astronauts, engineers, private executives, and
policy leaders to explore what the next fifty years of
space development could look like. How many space conferences focus

(11:42):
on the near terms, such as payloads, rockets, deadlines. I
asked DC twenty twenty five, leanes further into speculation and strategy.
What is this year's steam you made? Ask a settlement
on Mars and everything that comes next. I know it's
not catchy, but it is deliberate at least, because the

(12:02):
question is no longer can we reach Mars, It's what
do we do when we get there? And how do
we contendue to stay there. Speakers will incclude figures from NASA, SpaceX,
Blue Origin, international agencies and startup companies working on everything
from obital manufacturing to space based solar power, but the

(12:24):
tone is less corporate and more collaborative, tapping into the
roots of long term planning and what some are calling
civilization engineering.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Now.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
There are some topics this year that include the following
how to build self sustaining off Earth habitats, terraforming ethics
and timelines, new propaution systems for deep space travel, and
the legal and moral framework for human settlement beyond Earth. Now,

(12:55):
for those that maybe find that a little too abstract,
there are some practical briefing, commercial station designs, asteroid mining tech,
and even next gen life support systems. For long time
watchers of the space industry, IDC feels, I'm gonna call
it what it is, a bit like the woodstock of
future thinking, a place where ID ideas just aren't floated.

(13:17):
They're probably smoked on a little bit, then schematically outlined
and may the best person win. There is actual enthusiasm,
but it is anchored in engineering, and it really does
arrive at the perfect moment. NASA's Artements program, unfortunately, is
still evolving in spacing delays. China has a almost fully

(13:40):
operational space station and it is expanding. Europe, India, and
Japan all have new Lunar or Mars adjacent goals. Meanwhile,
commercial entities like SpaceX and VAST are pushing timelines that
once belonged more in the books of science fiction. This
convergence of ambition and hardware is what is DC is

(14:01):
built for the mut the conversation from when we go
to how we build once we arrive, Because getting to
Mars may actually be what many call the hard part,
but building something we're staying there that will be harder,
and that's where it really needs to begin with. So

(14:26):
that just leads us to this next issue. While ISDC
explores where we go and how we live, some scientists
are now asking perhaps a bigger question, and that is
can we even remake a planets? Now we've all played

(14:48):
the games, we've all seen Star Trek movies. Terraforming planets
or even in this particular case, terraforming Mars. The bold,
controversial idea of transforming the red planet into a habitable
world has long lived in the realms of science fiction,
but this week scientists and engineers are once again calling
for the concept to be taken seriously. A new push

(15:10):
covered by space dot Com, highlights how momentum is quietly
building to reframe terraforming not just as fantasy but as
an actual long term research priority. With crude missions to
Mars on the horizon and permanent settlements entering policy discussions,
the question of planetary engineering is no longer entirely academic.

(15:32):
At the core of the discussion is a decephately simple
goal raise Mars's atmospheric pressure and temperature enough to allow
for liquid water and eventual plant life. Doing so would
mean generating greenhouse gases on purpose on a massive scale,
and there are a handful of ideas that are already
in play, such as deploying orbital mirrors to reflect sunlight

(15:56):
and warm the surface, releasing two stored in the Martian
soils to targeted detonations or industrial heating, seating the surface
with synthetic greenhouse compounds, and even introducing extra mifile organ
organisms that might start a slow biological transformation. Now, all

(16:18):
of this raises serious logistical and ethical questions. Terraforming would
require not just global scale engineering, but centuries of commitment,
and any attempt to alter Mars would permanently change a
pristine alien environment, one that may hold its own scientific
secrets or microbial life. Still, proponents right now argue that

(16:40):
now is the time to build the roadmap, not to
launch a project tomorrow, but to figure out what steps
would actually be required and what technologies need to be
developed now to make any of it possible later. Interestingly,
this new wave of terraforming talk isn't being led by
some eccentric billionaire or some sci fi writers. It's actually

(17:02):
emerging from researchers in planetary science, atmospheric chemistry, and long
term habitat planning. They see it as part of the
continuum of space exploration and not just a side quest.
That said, there is no unified blueprint yet, no terraform
Marsac waiting in congress. But what's shifting is the tone.

(17:24):
Where's is no longer just a place we might visit.
It's increasingly a place we might settle, and if we're
going to stay, we might one day need to make
it feel just a little bit like home. That said,
not every headline is built on fire and drama. Some

(17:45):
come quietly on the wings of proven hardware, familiar trajectories
and rockets that now feel more like regulars than pioneers
that they once were. That said, let's just take a
moment and appreciate just how it doesn't make it any
less impressive. On the twelfth of June, SpaceX launched Starlang

(18:13):
Group fifteen to six from Vandenburg Space Force based on
the Wrong Coast, deploying twenty more satellites as part of
its ever growing broadband con constellation. At the center of
the mission was Falcon nine Booster B ten eighty one. Now,
this is kind of a milestone that used to warrant
celebration now though it's just part of schedule, and that

(18:37):
shift from rarity of seeing a rocket Reeland to now
being commonplace. E ten eighty one first flew in twenty
twenty three and has sense become a workhoorse. This latest
mission saw it lift off smoothly, separate from the second stage,
and return with textbook precisions to the droneeship. Of course,
I still love you in the Pacific Ocean, and of course,

(19:00):
the payload included thirteen direct to sell Starlink V two
mini satellites, which will eventually allow users to connect to
the network using standard smartphones, no bulky dish, no complex hardware.
The remaining satellites on board rounded out the group, bringing
added bandwidth and redundancy to the system. Now it's crazy
to think, as long as I've been doing this show,

(19:23):
even I have failed to cover Starlink launches as much
as I do, because well now they're coming about every
three to four days. But I thought tonight's story would
be interesting to reiterate that as of this launch, there
are still six thousand or more Starlink satellites that are
still in orbit. Six thousand. That's a number no one

(19:47):
would have predicted just five years ago, and it's increasing
at an amazing rate. But beyond the growing constellation, missions
like this one tell another story. Reuse works, that rockets
can be refueled, reflown, and reliably return and that the
idea of launching a booster only once feels like a

(20:10):
waste of money and highly archaic. And with every successful recovery,
SpaceX ships away at launch cost, response times, and manufacturing demand.
It's not just about lifting payloads. It's about rewriting the
economics of getting to space. And when you're planning a
budget like NASA and President Trump has been working together with,

(20:32):
sometimes you have to find cost saving ways that make sense.
And if B ten eighty one is any indication the
age of single use A rockets is not ending any
time soon or the or it is ending, and it's
way in the rear view.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Now.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
While Space Act refines this whole hole wonderful, amazing, can
you believe it? Launch routine, another launch is raising eyebrows.
Not for what it carries, No, no, not at all.

(21:17):
It's about who it carries it.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
With and nah assholes in space.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
China as Chinese as chinae as Yeah, I'll never never,
ever ever get tired on June twelfth, trying to launch
a new satellite from its Tuan Satellite Launch Center, a

(21:55):
SEISMO Electromagnetic Research satellite that on the surface sounds early
niche its mission to Boldigo, where no satellite has gone
now to truly study how electromagnetic changes in the ionosphere
may relate to earthquakes. Okay, interesting science and possibly important data.

(22:16):
But what turned heads wasn't the satellite sensors, but rather
it was a roster of the collaborators. Alongside Chinese scientists,
the project includes research teams from Italy and Switzerland, part
of a broader initiative that's flown a little bit under

(22:36):
the radar, Europe and China working together on earth observations,
climate science, and now electromagnetic monitoring of seismic events. A satellite,
officially known as CSEES two or Chinese Seismo electro Magnetic
Satellite two because China sucks at naming these things, is
a successor to in earlier Chinese Italian collaboration launched in

(22:57):
twenty eighteen. That mission produced a trove of data, but
also spark subtle tensions about international cooperation in space, especially
as China's long term plans drift further and further from
Western alignment. This second iteration carries improved instruments with an
updated design focused on detecting pre seismic ionospheric anomalies and

(23:20):
plane terms. Is trying to figure out if space can
help us predict earthquakes before they happen. On the science side,
it's actually actually kind of a fascinating, fascinating experiment, because
earthquake prediction remains one of the holy grails of geoscience,
and any potential correlations between ground activity and utter upper

(23:40):
atmospheric disturbances are worth investigating. But geopolitically, the timing is curious.
Europe is still a close partner to NASA, well and
the European Space Agency, and they continue to treay to
bid of a fine line balancing its enter in collaborative

(24:00):
research with growing pressure from the US to limit high
tech engagement with Beijing. The launch also comes on the
heels of increased Chinese investments in its space station, lunar ambitions,
and more importantly, military adjacent satellite platforms. None of this
means CSS two is a spy satellite shit. I mean,

(24:21):
it could actually be just legit, but it does highlight
a growing split in global space partnerships and how science
is often the foot into the door. For now, the
mission remains above board joint analysis, open data, and published results.
But as low Earth orbit becomes increasingly crowded with commercial, military,
and scientific cardware, aligns between collaboration competition are only getting thinner.

(24:48):
And if space is the final frontier, then sometimes it's
also just a very awkward conference room in orbit. Oh well,
we have international partnerships expanding and satellites searching now for earthquakes.

(25:11):
Something else may be heading for a collision course. Everyone
get your small, small banners out, because it's happening right
in our celestial backyard.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Now. I know, I know, I know.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
We've heard it all before, asteroids, near missus, extinction leveloy
events that turned to be nothing more than a fart
and win. But this time good news, good news, The
headlines don't worth worn of any earthly doom. They've picked
a new target, the Moon, and that's a recently updated

(25:53):
the impact probability of asteroid twenty twenty three D two
and for the first time the Moon it has been
flagged as a potential target in twenty thirty two. Now,
before you all think, okay, hey, this might finally do it,
this isn't a kind of asteroid that would split the
Moon in half. For showers and space rocks. It's only

(26:14):
about two hundred and ten feet wide, roughly the size
of a decent building, and moving at tens of thousands
of miles per hour. If it were to impact the Moon,
it would carve out a pretty nice new crater and
give scientists a front row seat to the natural experiment
we rarely get to observe in real time. Now, once again,

(26:35):
before you all get excited, he revised odds are now
just one in five thy five hundred. I know, I know,
not apocalyptic, but there's hope. It's enough to warrants a tension, right,
especially since NASA only added the Moon to the list

(26:56):
of potential impact sites after running more refined orbital models,
because we know they get them right all the time. Now,
it should be noted DZ two made headlines last year
when it buzzed Earth at a relatively close distance, about
half the distance to the Moon. Since then, astronomers have
been keeping tabs refining its trajectory and accounting for gravitational

(27:18):
influences from things such as the Earth, the Moon, and
even solar radiation pressure. The key variable is the asteroid's
next close pass in twenty twenty six. If DZ two
gets just the rate gravitational nudge, it could set itself
on a course to impact the Moon February twenty thirty two.

(27:40):
And while theoretically it's going to be mostly harmless for
us here on Earth, it could have some interesting consequences
for ongoing future lunar missions because twenty thirty two, by then,
NASA hopes to have a crude Artemis landing on the
Moon's surface, and other agencies may have robotic or even
semi permanent infrastructure is already in place. If DZ too

(28:03):
were to hit it near any of those regions, as
the resulting shock wave an ejecta could damage equipment or
of force trajectory changes for orbiting spacecraft. And that's why
the scientists have a little bit of an erection on this.
It's not just about waiting and watching the rocks hit things,
which admittedly is kind of cool. It's about understanding momentum transfer,

(28:25):
surface mechanics, and the ripple effects of high velocity impact
on a body we're trying to settle, kind of like
me with Santamara every weekend when I dream for now,
it's just a probability. But in the orbital game, even
long shots can become bull's eyes over time, and in
twenty thirty two, Luna might just find herself in the crosshairs. Now,

(28:48):
before we continue with tonight's journey across the stars, it's
time to drift a little bit, just for a moment,
into the quiet between the pulses. Let's take a brief break.
Listen to zero point, let it play, let it echo,
and we'll be back shortly after this.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
I should avoid a Tryna feels that nevertheless, you have
no trace.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I could follow, but your shadow at the test me
fast standing away commas to so I couldn't say you
forget out the love bess upto. There's entity and nothing

(31:22):
not sorge.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
I cannot be called love. The more the r we
never found the more or raised until the silence. But
foreverything the choice would not like this come out as
I sup at the sever.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Wald, you're the ghost in the offers.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
A card cold good bus oll.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Co trow in equations with your name being need to sern.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
Getting in a comic class. What your mass was made? Dry?

Speaker 2 (32:30):
With you? John stand.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
By Dad Si because the needs to call a residents
John jer forever for long, I tried to find the signal.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
But we're joice.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
We're trying to love.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
This Gray Steyns are long.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
The world forces on, band wears a measure flight on band,
loves vacuums, AND's.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
A cold.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
And we're back. Sorry about the slightly extended music break.
Hopefully you enjoyed it. Having a fractured ankle, I wasn't
sure I was going to get back in time to
normal three minute break, so I put a five minute
one there for you. So sorry about that. Up from
the silence of zero point to the spirling magnetic chios

(34:53):
of a planet that's always tilted, always cold, and let's
face it, always good, or a punchline if you ever
wondered what's going on in your rainus so as everyone else,
including the Hubble's Face telescope, which recently caught a glimpse
of something unusual, something twisting, hiding and maybe even flickering

(35:18):
beneath the planet's big icy moons. I don't know how
I'm gonna make it through this story. The culprits a
possible magnetic reconnection event, and it may be one of
the clearest signs yet that Uranus isn't just tilted cold
and forgotten. It's beard in ways. We're only now just

(35:39):
starting to decode. All the guys out here understand how
hard it is to decode whether how to get there right.
So let's break this down a little bit for you. First,
Uranus is tipping over about ninety eight degrees. It's basically
is rolling around the Sun on its side like a

(36:00):
sleepy marble. That alone makes its magnetosphere behave differently than
every other planet in the Solar System. And in the
fact that it's magnetic field is off center, and you've
got a celestial pinball machine now, all thanks to recent
Hubble data, researchers at John Hopkins have spotted signs of

(36:22):
auroral brightening, essentially Uranian northern lights. Things are likely tied
to magnetic reconnection events where twisted fields lines snap and
reil line unleashing bursts of energy. What makes this so fascinating,

(36:45):
besides the jokes I could be making, is where it's
happening near the planet's largest moons. Now, those that do
not know, Urinus has five major moods Miranda, Ario, Umbrio, Titania,

(37:06):
and Oberon. And these aren't just icy rock Some may
have subsurface oceans and their interactions with the uranus chaotic
magnetic field could be generating signals that riff across the
planet's atmosphere. Think of it as taco bell night, a
little bit of magnetic turbulence, a kind of cosmic indigestion

(37:29):
coming from inside the Uranian system. And yet scientists are
taking it all seriously because understanding Uranus's magnetic behavior could
shed light on planetary dynamos, ocean worldwide detection, and even
exoplanet classification. But it's also just a reminder we barely

(37:53):
scratch the surface of this bizarre ice giant now. NASA
currently has no flag missions in routes, but that hopefully
may change. There's a growing pressure to send a dedicated
orbier in the twenty thirties, especially with Jupiter, Saturn, and
Neptune already studied in depth. Undone Till then, we only

(38:16):
can subscribe to Uranus's only fans. We can get a
couple snapshots, couple hints, a flicker of aurora, a magnetic pulse,
and of course the eternal jokes, because no matter how
advanced we get as a species, mine or yours, when

(38:37):
you say something weird it's happening on Uranus, there's always
someone who will come up with a joke along the
lines of, well, have you tried seeing a doctor? And
you know what, I think I did pretty well getting
through that story without too many a new window and jokes. Oh,

(39:00):
they were ripping through my head anyway. So from one
misunderstand ice giant to a far more mistreated one, Pluto
once again reminding us that it's more than a rocket
number or a committee's opinion. It is indeed a in fact,
a planet with the James webs Face telescope. Having been

(39:26):
peering into the deep dark corners of the Solar System,
how you've done, and it's finding us rather some surprising
things at the edge of our planetary family. Pluto, the
celestial outcast, the perennial underdog, is hiding a secret beneath
its spin nitrogen rich atmosphere, a radiate of haze so

(39:50):
effective it's chilling the dwarf planet even more than previously understood.
So let's unpack that shall We JWS detected a thickening
layer of hydrocarbon haze tidy particles forming high in Pluto's atmosphere.
As sunlight hits it causes complex chemical reactions, forming the

(40:10):
lens reddish organic compounds that drift downward like alien smog.
And let me all the stories I can tell you
about that, honey. But here's the twist. This haze doesn't
trap heat. It reflects it, and not just a little,
but enough to drop Pluto's atmospheric temperature below what simple
models have predicted. In fact, the haze appears to act

(40:31):
like a radioactive heat sink, causing a thermal shadow that
extends from the upper atmosphere all the way down to
the surface. The effect Pluto is colder than it should be,
even accounting for its distance from the Sun. I don't know,
but rename it a planet again, maybe it won't give
me the cold shoulder. I'm just saying anyway, this makes

(40:54):
Pluto the only known object in the Solar systems whose
atmospheres cools its surface more than a warms it a
feet of thermodynamic weirdness that only makes it love us more.
That said, this isn't just trivia It has implications for exoplanets,
comet behavior even and the broader study of ice bodies

(41:15):
and shadowed or eccentric orbits. If Pluto can develop this
kind of haze, other cold world atmospheres might be far
more complex than we previously assumed. Of course, it also
adds yet another layer too. Is Pluto a planet debate?
There's not a debate. Pluto is a planet because, let's

(41:36):
be honest. Haze, weather, surface chemistry, moons, geological activity, seasonal cycles.
Pluto checks a lot of planetary boxes. The only thing
it lacks right now is political consensus. Thank you, Neil
Dumbas Tyson, because as James Web reminds us, you don't

(41:57):
have to be on the official guest list to throw
a good party. And the Kuiper Belt sure is nice
if they would put your invitation back in the book. Though.
Now that said, we have another distant world that's fighting
for balance, dipping in and out of the habitable zone

(42:20):
like a cosmic fugitive on the edge of life. In
silence and the constellation Cancer one hundred and thirty seven
late years from Earth, astronomers have spotted something both familiar
and strange, a super Earth larger than our world but
smaller than Neptune, slipping in and out of its star's
habitable zone. Its name is HD eight five five to

(42:43):
one two B, and it was previously thought to be
a misidentified signal or perhaps perhaps just noise, But thanks
to new data modeling and refined analysis techniques, it's back
in the catalog, and it's got one of the most
intriguing orbital that anyone has seen yet. Unlike most extraplanets

(43:04):
that hug their stars with clockwork precision, this one follows
an eccentric elongated orbit that means for part of the
year it's within the so called Gaudilock zone, the region
where the temperature could, in theory allow for liquid water,
but only briefly. For much of its orbit it is
either too close or in scorch, or too far and frozen.

(43:28):
I know, guys, I know, we need to rename this
one's ex wife. It's a cosmic drifter crossing through that
thin rivenum possibility, then vanishing back into inespottable. Damn it
got me on that one. Inhospitable extremes. It's been a while, Okay,
it's been a while since an abl e and word

(43:48):
has gripped me up that badly, let me regain my
composure here. It raises a fascinating question. Could life evolve
on a world that's only sometimes habitable and scientists don't
have a definitive answer, but theories are emerging. Once suggests

(44:11):
that a planet has a dense enough atmosphere, or maybe
a massive ocean, it could buffer the temperature swings, maintaining
a semi stable biosphere even as the light fades and
then returns. Another theory posits that life may emerge only
during the brief window of habitability, adapting to extreme cycles

(44:31):
in ways we cannot yet imagine, like maybe a microbial
hibernation or chemical pathways that flicker on with solar input
then vanish into a metabolic stasis. Either way, it is
now more than a dot on a spreadsheet. It's a candidate,
a question mark among the stars, challenging what we mean

(44:53):
by we can live there, and the telescopes that improve
along the way and start catalog grow. More of these
twilight zone worlds are being found, not fully in, not
fully out, just passing through, and maybe, just maybe that
might be where some of the more interesting stories they reside.

(45:16):
If you thought nothing could top a planetary ghost or
a moody super Earth. Brace yourselves, because somewhere out there,
the universe sneezed, and it was loud. Astronomers have now
confirmed what might what might be the most powerful cosmic

(45:39):
explosion since the Big Bang. It blasts so I meant,
so luminous and so enduring that even Marvin the paranoid
andrew It might admit it was mildly interesting. It was
officially labeled at T A T two O two one
l w X. This explosion wasn't a super nova. It
wasn't a gamma ray burst. It wasn't a vogone constructor

(46:01):
fleet flattening hyperspace lanes either. It was something stranger. This
event released more energy in three years than our Sun
will admit in its entire ten billion year lifetime. Located
about eight billion light years away at two two one LWX,

(46:22):
was first detected in twenty twenty by survey telescope scanning
the sky for transient events, those brief comic flashes that
can be supernova, black hole flares, or oh whatever the
hell this was. For a while, scientists weren't sure what
to make of it. It didn't believe behave like any
known explosion. It lingered, it pulsed, it carried on like

(46:43):
a dramatic actor, refusing to leave the stage. What recent
analysis points to a more likely culprit a super massive
black hole consuming a gas giant cloud, possibly even an
entire star cluster. As the matter fell inward, it ignited
a jet of energy that outshided everything else in the

(47:04):
known universe at the time. We are talking something one
hundred times bright than a typical supernova, with an energy
profile so intense it defies simple classification.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
And yet.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
It wasn't visible to the naked eye, not even close.
The light was stretched by billions of years of cosmic
expansion reaching us in the form of X rays, radio waves,
and infrared signatures. You could be staring at the same
patch of sky from Earth and never know that eons ago,
the universe through a tantrum of mythic proportions. It's events

(47:44):
like these that remind us the universe is not quiet.
Oh hell no, it ain't. It's just very, very far away.
And now, while the guide advises you to always carry
a towel, it might also to just suggest maybe keeping
a pair of lead line sunglasses and to back up
existential crisis in your side pocket, just in case your

(48:05):
planet gets caught in the light cone of one of
these things. To move over, Ecentrica and gallumbits, you may
have been moved down to the second best bang since
the Big One. A space we've told, We've been told.

(48:27):
It's a vacuum, empty, cold, silent, much like my exis heart.
But in the strange math of quantum mechanics, that emptiness
isn't nothing, and I know it's kind of a double negative.
It's everything, and according to physicists, it may hold more
energy than every star in the cosmos combined. Welcome to

(48:51):
the wild world of vacuum energy, a theoretical infinite reservoir,
a power that exists in a fabric of space time.
This week's Base dot com revisited the question the taunt
of physicists and sci fi authors for decades. Could we
ever tap into it? Giggoity? The short answer.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Not yet.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
The long answer maybe, but we would have to, you know,
re rate the rules of physics and possibly avoiding several
warranties on the standard model. But here's the concept. Even
in a perfect vacuum, no particles, no radiation, quantum fields
still fluctuate. These fluctuations pop particles into and out of

(49:39):
the existence for fractions of a second, creating what's called
zero point energy. It's the lowest possible energy state, but
it never actually reaches zero. Now multiply that across the universe.
Calculation suggests that the total vacuum energy of even a

(50:01):
single cubic centimeter of space could be astronomically high in theory.
In practice, it appears stable, balanced, locked in a Casimir effect.
One real world demonstration of vacuum energy shows that two
uncharged metal plates placed extremely close together can be gently

(50:21):
pushed together by these quantum fluctuations. It's not much, but
it is something. The tantalizing idea is that if we
could harness even a sliver of this invisible engine, we
might be able to power ships, cities, or civilizations without
ever burning fuel. Again, no sun would be required, just

(50:44):
the hum of the void. But so far the energy
remains inaccessible. Any attempt to extract it might disrupt the
very geometry of space time. Some physicists even warn that
fiddling with vacuum energy could destabilize the uni versus underlying
Structureuckily pulling a thread on a sweater made of black holes. Still,

(51:06):
the dream persists, not because it's practical today, but because
even great leaps and science started as a question that
made people very uncomfortable, because deep down we suspect the
universes hiding something enormous in that quietest place imaginable. But

(51:29):
we're not done, not done yet. If you thought we
were done bending the laws of physics, think again, because
black holes might just be the universe's own large hadron
collider hashtags surn is innocent, but they're not really asking permission.
For over a decade, scientists have used particle accelerators like

(51:52):
the one encern at LHC to smash protons together at
near light speeds, all in the hope of catching glimpses
of exotic matter, or, with any luck, unlocking the mystery
of dark matter itself. But what if we didn't need
to build one. What if nature already made them and

(52:14):
made them terrifyingly bigger. All new research suggests that black holes,
particularly once interacting with companion stars are accretion desk, could
function as natural particle colliders, firing subatomic particles into each
other with more energy than anything we could ever dream
of producing here on Earth. Here's how it works. When

(52:38):
matter falls towards the black hole, it accelerates spiraling inward,
and a high energy dance along the way. Intense gravitational
and electromagnetic forces can push these particles to incredible speeds.
These particles then can collide in the high radiation high
curvature regions near the event horizon, generating conditions right for rare,

(53:00):
hard to detect particles to appear, and among these particles
possibly dark matter candidates, because many dark matter theories like
supersymmetry or extra dimensional models suggest that the particles that
we're looking for don't show up under normal conditions. But crank,

(53:23):
just cranks that energy high enough till eleven distort to
space time just right, and you might just get lucky.
Of course, observing this from Earth not gonna be easy,
but scientists are working on models to detect unique radiation
signature from these high energy events. First of gamma rays
or nitritives that hint at exotic physics in play. For now,

(53:46):
it's speculative. It is early, but let's face it, it
is kind of tantalizing because if it does hold up,
black holes wouldn't just be the cosmic vacuum cleaners. They'd
become laboratories running experiments across the galaxy twenty four to
seven with energies our best machines can't even touch. And

(54:07):
if dark matter is out there, hiding in the seams
of reality, this may be where it finally shows its
face is somewhere at the edge of an event horizon,
two particles making sweet sweet love, and the universe blinks.

(54:31):
So while we have black holes playing mad scientists with
the building blocks of reality, let's shift our gaze a
little closer home, up and out to the skies above.
The light still whispers quietly, and the next two weeks
bring their own cosmic stories. So here we are the

(54:53):
second half of June incoming, a stretch of darker skies,
early risers, and celestial setups. For what comes next, Let's
start with the moon, or rather lack of it. On
June nineteenth, we reached the last quarter, a perfect time
for early morning skywatching with half the moon illuminate it
and hang high in the dawn. By June twenty sixth,

(55:16):
we slide into the new moon, giving us the darkest
s guies on the month, prime real estate for stargazing,
meteor spotting, or just letting the Milky Way whisper overhead.
Don't don't worry. The next full moon will arrive July eleven,
just in time for the next airing of Lost Wonder podcast,
where we will encounter the Strawberry moon, which of course

(55:39):
has many names across North America that my executive producer
insists on me trying to pronounce every time there is
a full moon, but I get a reprieve that'll be
next episode. But let me warn you, each one is
a mouthful and each one carries a season in its syllables,
so they tuned for that. Let's move on to the planets.

(56:02):
Jupiter owns the pre dawn sky, rising just above four
thirty am in the east. Look for at four freight
moons lined up like a landing strip. Saturn follows suit
around twelve thirty am, climbing slowly through Aquarius with that
soft yellow glow that never twinkles. Mercury might make a
brief showing around the twenty fifth of June, low in

(56:22):
the west, just after sunset, but you will need a
sharp eye, clear horizon, and maybe just a little bit
of luck. Venus found Benus, she's missing in action, tucked
behind the sun for now, prepping for a late summer return. Overhead,
the summer triangle was rising early each night. Vega Altier
and the knee following a giant's cholesterol compass pointing toward July.

(56:48):
That said, we have no major meteor showers of a cycle,
but with the new moon on the twenty six, you've
got one of the best windows of the season. So
pack a chair, bring a snack, lose your phone for
an hour or two, and seriously, the stretch between Soul
System flu the moon, the sky gets quiet, but it

(57:08):
never is still. That's it for tonight's show. Thank you
for tuning in, how and whenever you do special thanks
in NASA spacexpace dot Com, our Technica, NASA Space Flight,
Popular Mechanics, and more for the stories and inspiration tonight,
and hopefully by the next show I'll figure out what
failed on the shr media side to air this show,

(57:28):
I apologize for everyone over there. It's still there, but
it's not in the right place. So come back with
me at the helm, the EP setting course and the
ship's computer sitting in the back whispering star maps through static.
This is the Lost wonder of podcast until next Orbit.
I hope you enjoyed the show, learned a little bit,

(57:53):
maybe just maybe had a laugh or two along the way.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
It's a pretty big place.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before.
So if it's just us, it seems like an awful
waste of space.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
Right when I was young, it seemed that life was
so wonderful, a miracle, Oh it was beautiful, magical. Dat
the birds in the trees, what they'd be singing so happily, oh,
joyfully