Dying Star, Skull Nebulae, and a Blood Moon

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Hello, and welcome to astronomy daily.

I'm Anna.

And I'm Avery.

You're listening to season five, episode 50.

That's right, episode 50.

Half a century of episodes this season alone.

Thank you, honestly, to every single listener who's been on this journey with us.

It's been an incredible ride.

And today, we have six stories that are absolutely worthy of the occasion.

We're talking a star that may be dying in real time.

A skull-shaped nebula revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope.

A dragon capsule splashing down this morning.

A blood moon just days away.

Fresh evidence for life in the Jupiter system.

And a major shakeup at NASA following one of the most damning reports

in the agency's recent history.

Big show. Let's get into it.

We're starting today with one of the most dramatic stories

in stellar astronomy in recent memory.

Avery here.

Picture a star so enormous that if you placed it at the center of our solar system,

its outer edge would reach beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

That's WHOHG64.

And it may be dying right before our eyes.

WHOHG64 has been known to astronomers since the 1970s.

It lives in the large Magellanic cloud, a dwarf galaxy that orbits our Milky Way.

About 160,000 light years away.

And for decades, it was classified as the most extreme red supergiant in that galaxy.

We're talking a radius of roughly 1,540 times that of our Sun.

That is almost incomprehensibly large.

But here's where it gets really interesting.

Back in 2014, astronomers started noticing something was changing.

The star began to look different.

Its color was shifting and its surface temperature was rising.

A team led by Gonzalo Muno Sanchez at the National Observatory of Athens

has now published research in the journal Nature Astronomy,

confirming what they believe is happening.

WHOHG64 has transitioned from a red supergiant into something far rarer,

a yellow hypergiant.

Now, yellow hypergiant are extraordinarily rare.

Why? Because they represent a very brief, unstable transitional phase.

Muno Sanchez described them as a short-lived bridge between the red supergiant stage

and the eventual supernova explosion.

There are only a few tens of confirmed yellow hypergiant known to us in the entire universe.

So to potentially be watching one form in real time is remarkable.

The transformation appears to have happened relatively quickly on a cosmic time scale.

The star essentially shifted from red to yellow in roughly a year.

What drives this? Strong stellar winds.

Powerful enough to strip away the outer layers of material the star has previously shed.

That process heats the star up and reveals a hotter, smaller surface beneath.

It's like peeling back the layers of a cosmic onion.

There is an added twist to this story, though.

The team also found evidence that WHOHG64 isn't alone.

It appears to have a companion star.

And that binary relationship may be complicating the picture considerably.

If a companion is stripping material away from the main star

through gravitational interaction,

that could explain some of what we're seeing independently of the supernova pathway.

In fact, there's some scientific debate here worth noting.

Another team, led by Jocco Van Loon at Keel University,

observed WHOHG64 more recently and found signatures suggesting the star's atmosphere

might still be that of a red supergiant.

There being more cautious about calling this a confirmed transition.

So the jury at least partially is still out.

But what everyone agrees on, including the skeptics,

is that something extraordinary is happening with this star.

As Van Loon himself said,

we are all witnessing an unprecedented spectacle.

Whether WHOHG64 ultimately explodes as a supernova,

collapses directly into a black hole,

or merges with its companion,

we are watching one of the universe's most massive stars

navigate the final chapters of its life.

And that's something we may literally get to see,

a supernova from a well-documented, well-studied star,

if and when it goes.

It would be a scientific gift of the highest order.

Dane closer to home now.

Well, closer than 160,000 light years anyway.

Yesterday, SpaceX's CRS-33 Dragon Cargo capsule

undocked from the International Space Station,

wrapping up what has been a genuinely historic six-months day.

CRS-33, that's the 33rd commercial resupply

services mission SpaceX has performed for NASA,

arrived at the station back on August 25 last year.

It delivered around 5,000 pounds of supplies and scientific equipment.

But what really sets this mission apart

is something that happened during its time docked.

For the very first time,

a Dragon Cargo capsule was used to re-boost the orbit of the space station itself.

The station sits in low-earth orbit,

and atmospheric drag, even at that altitude,

gradually pulls it lower over time.

Historically, Russian progress spacecraft

and the station's own thrusters have handled the job of pushing it back up.

But Dragon introduced a brand new independent re-boost capability

during CRS-33.

It performed six of these re-boosts during its day,

5 in 2025, and a final one in January.

That might sound like a technical footnote,

but it's actually strategically significant.

As a geopolitical landscape around US-Russia space cooperation

continues to evolve,

having an American spacecraft capable of maintaining the station's orbit

is a real capability milestone.

The capsule undocked at just afternoon,

eastern time, yesterday, February 26.

It was scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast

in the early hours of this morning.

NASA wasn't streaming that splash down,

but updates have been posted to their station blog.

And Dragon wasn't just heading home empty-handed, either.

It's bringing back a packed cargo of scientific results,

including samples from the Euro-Material Aging Study,

which spent a full year exposing 141 different samples

to the harsh environment of space,

to see how insulation, coatings,

and 3D printed materials degrade.

Plus, results from Thailand's liquid crystals experiment,

looking at how materials used in displays behave in microgravity.

What this mission really demonstrates

is how far SpaceX's role has evolved.

They're no longer just a delivery service for the station.

They're now actively helping to maintain and sustain it.

That's a significant evolution

in the commercial spaceflight relationship.

Now for something that's going to stick in your imagination,

I promise.

This week, NASA released stunning new images

from the James Webb Space Telescope,

and they might be the most striking thing

Webb has produced this year.

Ladies and gentlemen,

meet the exposed cranium nebula.

I love that name,

and the images absolutely justify it.

Officially called PMR1,

named after the astronomers Parker, Morgan, and Russell,

who discovered it in a sky survey in the late 1990s,

this nebula surrounds a dying star

and looks almost uncannily,

like a transparent human skull

with a brain visible inside it.

The nebula was first observed in infrared light

by the now-retired Spitzer Telescope

back in 2013,

which is when it got its nickname.

But Spitzer's view was relatively indistinct.

Webb has now looked at PMR1

with two of its most powerful instruments,

near-cam, the near-infrared camera,

and Mary, the mid-infrared instrument.

And the difference is extraordinary.

In the near-infrared image,

you can clearly see an outer shell of gas.

This is the skull,

composed mostly of hydrogen,

blown off by the star in an earlier phase of its death.

Inside that, there are two hemispheres

of complex ionized gas,

forming the brain.

And running vertically through the center

is a dark lane,

a gap that divides the two lobes

and gives the nebula its distinctly cerebral appearance.

The mid-infrared image from Mary tells a different story.

Warmer dust and denser material glow more prominently,

and you can see evidence of gas

being actively pushed outward from the central star

through what may be polar jets.

That dark central lane

appears to be related to outflows

or jets from the star

firing material out in opposite directions,

top and bottom.

What's particularly intriguing

is how much scientists still don't know about this object.

The mass of the dying central star

hasn't been precisely determined yet,

and that matters enormously for predicting its fate.

If it's sufficiently massive,

it could explode as a supernova

when the end comes.

But if it's a lower mass star,

more like our sun,

it will keep shedding its outer layers

until only its dense,

cooling core remains,

a white dwarf.

There's also speculation

that PMR1 central star

could be a wolf riot star,

an especially hot and luminous type of star

known for ferocious stellar winds.

That would explain the dramatic outflows

and layered structure we're seeing.

Either way,

what Webb has delivered here

is a masterclass in the death of a star.

Every one of these images

is a reminder of why we built this telescope,

and what it continues to reveal

about the universe around us.

I highly recommend looking up those images.

They are genuinely breathtaking.

I hit a quick, good looks pin.

Next thing you know,

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All right, Skywatchers,

this one is for you,

and the timing is brilliant

because you've got just four days to prepare.

This Tuesday, March 3rd,

the moon is going to turn blood red

in a total lunar eclipse,

and it's the last one of its kind visible

until the very end of 2028.

Let's explain what's happening.

A total lunar eclipse occurs

when the earth passes directly

between the sun and the moon,

casting our planet's full shadow

called the Umbra across the lunar surface.

The moon doesn't go dark entirely, though.

What happens instead

is that the only light

reaching the moon

is filtered through Earth's atmosphere,

and Earth's atmosphere

scatters away the blue wavelengths of light,

allowing only the reds and oranges through.

The results.

The moon turns that spectacular

deep, coppery red

that gives it the blood moon nickname.

The tality, the period

when the moon is fully within Earth's shadow

will last 58 minutes

from just after 11am UTC

to just after 12pm UTC on March 3rd.

Maximum eclipse

when the moon sits deepest in the shadow,

occurs at 1133 UTC.

Now visibility depends heavily

on where you are in the world.

The best seats in the house

are in the western half of North America,

Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand

and across the Pacific.

Eastern Asia will also get

a great view of the eclipse

in their evening hours.

Observers in much of South America

and Central Asia will see a partial eclipse.

And unfortunately,

if you're in Europe or Africa,

this one is going to pass you

entirely.

The moon will be below the horizon

for most of the event.

There's a lovely bonus

for North American observers in particular.

During the eclipse,

as the full moon dims significantly,

fainter objects in the sky

become much more visible

than they normally would

during a full moon.

And there's actually a rare event

happening during totality.

The moon will occult

or pass in front of the Galaxy

NGC 3423,

which should be a treat

for telescope users.

No special equipment needed

for the eclipse itself.

This is one of those events

you can simply step outside

and enjoy with the naked eye.

Unlike a solar eclipse,

you don't need any filters

or protective glasses.

Just find a dark spot,

look up,

and watch our cosmic companion transform.

We'll have a reminder

and more observing tips

in our episode on Monday.

But mark Tuesday March 3rd

in your diary now.

Set your alarm,

get outside,

and enjoy the show.

Next chance for another total

lunar eclipse after this.

New Year's Eve 2028

going into 2029.

So this really is one

not to miss.

Now for a story that could

reshape how we think

about the origin of life

in our solar system

and perhaps beyond it.

Astronomers and astrobiologists

have long been fascinated

by Jupiter's icy moons.

Europa,

Ganymede and Callisto in particular

because they harbor vast

liquid water oceans

beneath their frozen surfaces.

And where there's liquid water,

there's potential for life.

But new research published this week

suggests those moons

may have been even better prepared

for life than we previously thought.

An international team

including scientists

from the Southwest Research Institute

and ex-Marcell University

have published two complementary studies.

One in the Planetary Science Journal

and one in the monthly notices

of the Royal Astronomical Society

that model how complex organic molecules

formed and were delivered

to Jupiter's moons

at the very moment they were born.

Complex organic molecules

or COMs

are carbon-rich compounds

that also contain elements

like oxygen and nitrogen.

On Earth,

they're essential precursors to life.

Think amino acids, proteins,

the building blocks of DNA.

And the question the team was asking

was could these molecules

have formed in the early solar system

around Jupiter specifically

and ended up embedded

in the Galilean moons

during their formation

billions of years ago?

The answer, according to their models,

appears to be yes.

When icy dust grains

containing simple compounds

like methanol or ammonia

were subjected to ultraviolet radiation

and moderate heating,

conditions that existed

in both the wider disk around the young sun

and in Jupiter's own circumplanatory disk,

complex organic chemistry could occur.

The resulting organic molecules

were then transported

by those icy grains

into the growing moons as they formed.

Perhaps most strikingly,

their models show that in some scenarios,

nearly half of the simulated icy particles

carried newly formed organic molecules

from the solar disk

into Jupiter's local environment

without being destroyed.

Lead author Dr. Olivier Musis

put it clearly.

Jupiter's moons did not form

as chemically pristine worlds.

They may have accumulated

a significant inventory

of these complex organic molecules

right from birth.

For Europa in particular,

this is exciting.

Europa is already considered

one of the best candidates for life

in the solar system

with its subsurface ocean

in direct contact with a rocky seafloor.

Conditions not unlike Earth's

deep-sea hydrothermal vents

where life thrives in total darkness.

If that ocean also began

with this supply of organic building blocks,

the case for habitability

gets considerably stronger.

The researchers also note

that this finding has implications

for NASA's Europa Clipper mission

and ESA's juice mission,

both currently on route to Jupiter system.

These missions carry

instruments capable of detecting

organic molecules.

And this new research

gives scientists a framework

for interpreting whatever they find

when they get there.

It's worth stepping back

and appreciating what this research

is telling us more broadly.

The ingredients for life

may not be rare or special.

They may be woven

into the very process

of planetary formation,

delivered as standard

across our solar system

and by extension,

potentially across the universe.

Every time we think life

requires a lucky break.

A study like this suggests

that dice may be loaded in life's favor.

And we closed today's episode

with a story that's been building

for over a year

and finally came to a head yesterday.

NASA has replaced two

of its most senior human spaceflight leaders,

just one week after releasing

what can only be described

as a devastating internal report

on the Boeing Starliner crew flight test.

For listeners who may have missed

our earlier coverage

of the Boeing Starliner saga,

here's the quick version.

In June 2024,

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore

and SUNY Williams launched

on Boeing Starliner spacecraft

for what was supposed

to be an eight-day test mission.

But once docked at the space station,

multiple thruster failures

and helium leaks

in the propulsion system emerged.

After weeks of analysis,

NASA made the call

that Starliner was not safe enough

to bring the crew home.

They came back in March 2025

on a SpaceX crew dragon

after spending 286 days

in orbit instead of eight.

Last week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman

held a press conference

to announce the findings

of an independent investigation

into what went wrong.

The conclusions were stark.

The crew flight test

has been retroactively reclassified

as a type A mishap.

NASA's highest severity classification

previously reserved for events

like the Space Shuttle Challenger

and Columbia Disasters.

That classification

simply means damage exceeded

a $2 million threshold.

But the symbolism is significant.

Or damning still,

where Isaacman's words

about what the investigation actually found.

And I want to quote this

because it really cuts

to the heart of the matter.

He said,

the most troubling failure

revealed by this investigation

is not hardware.

It is decision-making

and leadership

that if left unchecked,

could create a culture

incompatible with human spaceflight.

Strong words.

And yesterday, action followed.

NASA announced that

Ken Bauersox,

the Associate Administrator

for the Space Operations

Mission Directorate

is retiring with his last day

on March 6th.

Steve Steech,

the Program Manager

of the Commercial Crew Program

has also been moved from that role.

Their deputies,

Joel Montelbano

and Dana Hutcherson

have stepped in

as acting leaders

of those programs

with immediate effect.

Now, it's worth being precise here.

Bauersox's retirement

was announced the day before

and appears to be a genuine

retirement rather than being pushed out.

Though the timing is impossible

to ignore,

and Isaacman notably

did not publicly connect

the leadership changes

to the Starliner report,

though he had explicitly promised

accountability would follow.

Reading the room,

most observers see the connection as clear.

Where does this leave Boeing Starliner?

It won't fly with crew again

until technical causes

are fully understood.

The propulsion system

is qualified

and investigation recommendations

are implemented.

An uncrewed cargo mission

is still on the calendar

for no earlier than April.

And NASA says it remains

committed to having two

commercial crew providers.

The redundancy principle

that drove the Starliner program

in the first place.

But there are real questions

about the program's future beyond that.

The ISS is due to be decommissioned

in the next few years.

Starliner's contracted rotational

missions have already been reduced.

And with SpaceX's crew dragon

operating reliably,

the urgency of getting Starliner

certified for crewed flight

feels somewhat diminished

from NASA's perspective.

What this episode ultimately speaks to,

I think, is the culture

of human spaceflight.

The challenger and Columbia disasters

both had technical causes.

But both also had cultural

and organizational failures

that allowed problems

to be minimized or ignored.

The fact that the Starliner report

uses that same language,

decision making,

leadership culture,

is a warning that the lessons

of those tragedies

need to be continuously relearned.

We'll continue to follow the story

closely.

And we'll have more on Starliner's

path forward as details emerge

in the coming weeks.

And that is our episode 50

of season five of Astronomy Daily.

What a show it's been,

a dying hypergiant,

a dragon splash down,

a cosmic skull,

a blood moon,

life's building blocks around Jupiter

and NASA reckoning with its own culture.

The universe, as always, delivers.

If you enjoyed today's episode,

please take a moment to leave us a review

wherever you listen.

It makes a huge difference

in helping new listeners find us.

And follow us on social media

at AstroDailyPod

for daily space shorts and news updates.

And if you haven't already,

head over to astronomydaily.io

for full show notes,

our blog posts,

and all our back episodes.

We've got 50 of them this season alone

for you to explore.

We'll be back on the weekend

with more space and astronomy news.

Until then, keep looking up.

Blair Skies, everyone.

The star on the day.

The star is the toe.

The star is the toe.

The star is the toe.

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