GEOFF BENNETT: 2020 noticed extremely detailed pictures from probably the most superior telescope in house.
It was additionally the twenty fifth yr of a world partnership sending astronauts to orbit the Earth.
Digital video producer Casey Kuhn delves into the most important house information from the final yr together with her personal “NewsHour” house junky.
CASEY KUHN: This yr introduced unbelievable discoveries, as humanity ventured additional into house than ever earlier than.
To speak about what this yr regarded like for house exploration and what’s to come back within the yr forward, I am joined by “PBS NewsHour” science correspondent Miles O’Brien.
Miles, thanks a lot for becoming a member of me.
I am so excited that we get to speak in regards to the house information from 2023 and what’s to come back.
I’ve quite a lot of questions for you, however we additionally requested our viewers to ship in some questions, and I will probably be posing these to you as effectively.
First off, on this yr of wonderful discoveries, what had been a number of the standouts in 2023?
MILES O’BRIEN: Effectively, Casey, possibly if we pay attention very quietly, we would be capable of hear primary, which is, drumroll please, the hum of the universe, the hum of the universe.
The NANOGrav Observatory was in a position to choose up these waves detected by finding out quickly spinning useless stars, big ripples in space-time and possibly, possibly would possibly get us a bit nearer to the elusive hunt for darkish matter, which is a kind of issues that simply we all know is on the market, however we have not been capable of finding it.
The James Webb Area Telescope, wow, there are such a lot of observations, so many superb pictures.
Essentially, James Webb is rewriting the astronomy textbooks proper now, and it is altering quite a lot of theories about how the universe was shaped, the way it expanded, and why we’re sitting right here speaking to one another, for that matter.
OSIRIS-REx, love that mission.
Hope you had an opportunity to observe it.
It went off to the asteroid Bennu, which, by the way in which, is — Bennu’s a possible risk to Earth in a few a long time, if we do not watch it fastidiously.
It can come fairly shut.
OSIRIS-REx, that was a part of its mission to grasp what Bennu is made from, so, if we did should deflect it, we might know precisely what to do.
CASEY KUHN: The James Webb Telescope revealed some gorgeous pictures of the universe.
What had been a few of these highlights that we noticed from the James Webb Telescope?
MILES O’BRIEN: Sure, it simply goes on and on.
It is an incredible instrument, after all of the delays and expense and every part.
And it is seeing these stellar nurseries, which we’ve by no means seen earlier than, the youngest stars, how they type, excessive resolutions of all types of pictures, together with the smallest brown dwarf ever captured on any picture seen by human beings.
It has captured gorgeous pictures of supernova within the near-infrared gentle.
It is checked out our personal photo voltaic system, at Uranus, and it discovered a big polar cap on that planet.
There’s so many discoveries, it is exhausting to maintain up with them.
And each time — it appears that evidently, each time it factors its gaze in any course, it adjustments the way in which we take into consideration the universe.
And they also’re simply getting began.
They solely launched in 2021.
I am actually wanting ahead to the place that is all headed.
CASEY KUHN: As I stated, we did ask our viewers what questions they wish to ask you, and we received dozens of them.
And Mike from Oregon needs to know: “How does SpaceX launch so typically?”
And what does that imply?
MILES O’BRIEN: NASA, in its historical past, has by no means constructed its personal rockets.
It at all times had a contractor concerned.
What’s totally different about SpaceX is the way in which that contract is negotiated.
SpaceX retains quite a lot of autonomy, its personal mental property, and sells its companies again to NASA.
It is not like a prescriptive type of defense-style contract, as NASA did for thus a few years.
And what that did is, that basically unleashed – – effectively, it simply gave SpaceX an incredible quantity of freedom to not solely present companies for NASA, which, after all, stored the lights on as they had been doing enterprise, but in addition allowed them to take those self same rockets, that very same mental property, and promote them to business gamers.
Couple that with that — the Silicon Valley ethos, which, after all, Elon Musk brings to the desk there, that type of go quick and break issues, check and check and retest, and, if it blows up, simply check once more, as we’ve seen repeatedly, has put them at a launch tempo which NASA, frankly, might by no means come close to to.
CASEY KUHN: Anant from Irving, Texas, needs to know whether or not these many house launches are literally a contributor to local weather change and air pollution.
MILES O’BRIEN: They’re.
Proper now, you’ll put it as type of a rounding error quantity.
And we’re speaking about — after all, liquid hydrogen is likely one of the fuels that is in play right here, however that does create water crystals at excessive altitudes, and that has a local weather influence.
Water is a greenhouse-affected chemical, after all.
There’s different fuels concerned.
There’s hydrazine-based fuels.
A few of these create black soot, that type of factor, and do have an effect as effectively, and, after all, CO2.
Proper now, up till not too long ago, the variety of launches has made that type of considerably insignificant piece of the puzzle.
And when you think about the truth that a few of these launches are designed to place satellites up there to assist us perceive local weather change, it is in all probability price it on the backside of the ledger.
However now that we get to 100-plus launches and past, it is time, I believe, for the house neighborhood to begin getting critical and begin eager about extra sustainable methods of doing this.
It is not going to be an electrical journey to house, however there’s received to be some methods for sensible folks to provide you with much less greenhouse gas-, I ought to say, intensive methods to get to house.
CASEY KUHN: Mars in 2024?
(LAUGHTER) MILES O’BRIEN: Not Mars, however that will probably be — that will probably be nice, would not it, if we — I hope to dwell to see it.
You are younger sufficient.
You will note it, for positive.
CASEY KUHN: Miles O’Brien, thanks a lot for becoming a member of me.
MILES O’BRIEN: Such a pleasure, Casey.
