1 big thing: The looming threat of light pollution

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2. Cosmic ices revealed

3. Space investment takes a hit

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4. Out of this world reading list

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5. Weekly dose of awe: Starship awaits

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Space

mustard

Explore the science and business of space

Axios Space

1 big thing: Moving beyond space

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Machine learning to find learned aliens

2. Machine learning to find learned aliens

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3. Detecting carbon dioxide from orbit

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5. Weekly dose of awe: Distant, dancing worlds

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Please send your tips, questions and machine learning algorithms to miriam.kramer@axios.com, or if you received this as an email, just hit reply.

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Axios Space: The expansive space industry

1 big thing: The center of power in space

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2. Early spiral galaxies spotted

Barred galaxies seen by the James Webb Space Telescope

3. Virgin Orbit's failure

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5. Weekly dose of awe: It's full of stars

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1 big thing: The future of private human spaceflight

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2. The year in space

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3. SpaceX's record-setting year

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5. Weekly dose of awe: InSight's end

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Happy New Year, and thanks for reading Axios Space. At 1,325 words, this newsletter is about a 5-minute read.

Please send your tips, questions and space-rated luggage to miriam.kramer@axios.com, or if you received this as an email, just hit reply.

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1 big thing: The JWST's transformational power

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2. The growing space economy

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3. International Space Station shuffle

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5. Weekly dose of awe: Everything the light touches

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Please send your tips, questions and galaxy candidates to miriam.kramer@axios.com, or if you received this as an email, just hit reply.

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National

The night sky is getting dramatically brighter due to light pollution spreading across the globe — and it poses an existential crisis for our ability to study space.

Why it matters: Information about distant galaxies and star systems gathered through telescopes and other tools is vital for humanity's understanding of our place in the universe.

Driving the news: A new study published in Science last week found through 51,351 citizen scientists' observations from 2011 to 2022 that light pollution increased the brightness of the night sky by 7%–10% per year. 

That increase is far more than estimates made through satellite measurements that previously suggested an increase of about 2% per year. 

Another study published at the end of 2022 found 21 of 28 "major astronomical observatory sites" are under skies that have a level of light pollution that is able to seriously affect their observations. 

The intrigue: Scientists have found light pollution affects animal migration patterns and sleep-wake cycles, and it harms insect populations that birds and other animals depend on for food. 

"We are cutting territory with walls of light," Fabio Falchi, a light pollution researcher who was uninvolved in the new study, tells Axios. 

"A bridge over a river is not a wall for some species, but during the night when it is lighted, this light is cutting the river in half for some species. So we are fragmenting the environment where animals live."

According to Christopher Kyba of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and one of the authors of the new study, a good rule of thumb is to only light what needs to be lit — like a sign — when it needs to be lit and only the amount of light that you need for it to be seen.

Between the lines: The increase in light pollution each year is likely, in part, caused by growing cities and wasteful lighting techniques, Kyba said. 

"When you see that the sky keeps getting brighter, year after year, it means we're just doing a bad job of lighting our cities," Kyba said, adding that taxpayers are paying for much of that lighting. "We're also using a lot of fossil fuels to produce all of that light."

The big picture: Light pollution from the ground isn't the only threat to astronomy. Scientists are still concerned about how constellations of satellites could impede their views of distant cosmic objects from the ground.

Astronomers worry that as the sky fills up with satellites — like SpaceX's Starlink constellation — it will become more difficult to see the stars behind the swarms of moving spacecraft. 

The National Science Foundation and SpaceX, however, are coordinating to mitigate the impacts of the Starlink constellation on observatories on Earth, including adjustments to the satellites themselves to make them look darker.

What's next: Scientists stress that more research is needed in order to figure out exactly why night skies appear to be increasing in brightness each year. 

If participation by citizen scientists in the study increases enough, Kyba said, the research team may be able to get more granular with their data, looking at individual states or cities instead of continents. 

Once researchers have that data, they will be able to say what regions are doing better or worse when combatting light pollution and maybe translate that into broader solutions.

Light pollution's existential threat to astronomy

Scientists have found light pollution affects animal migration patterns and sleep-wake cycles.

Stars

The night sky is getting dramatically brighter due to <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="light pollution" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/local/austin/2021/10/15/stars-night-austin-lights-pollution" data-vars-content-id="75f42f0d-6cfb-43a8-8cb8-6831b2a2ae42" data-vars-headline="Light pollution&#x27;s existential threat to astronomy" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/local/austin/2021/10/15/stars-night-austin-lights-pollution" target="_self">light pollution</a> spreading across the globe — and it poses an existential crisis for our ability to study space.Why it matters: Information about distant galaxies and star systems gathered through telescopes and other tools is vital for humanity&#x27;s understanding of our place in the universe.

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

Traditionally Earth-bound companies, industries and investors are now looking to space as a place to do business, compete and invest.

Why it matters: The space economy's continued growth hinges on space companies proving their worth to non-space entities, and moving beyond established industry partnerships and government contract money.

The space economy is "going to grow by regular companies thinking about regular ways that they can solve regular problems through and with space," McKinsey partner Jesse Klempner tells Axios.

That may now be happening. "I think that folks are starting to wake up to the fact that we are really at the emergence of a massive space economy and a lot of growth," McKinsey senior partner Ryan Brukardt tells Axios.

What's happening: 2021 was a high-water mark for investing in the space industry, with $14.5 billion raised through private investment, according to data from Space Capital.

Last year saw a major downturn in investment, but the space economy still grew and reached $424 billion in 2022, according to a report from Euroconsult.

Investors and companies outside of the space industry are looking to space to add value to their own companies.

They're building and using analytics products that integrate Earth observation data and using space for communications tools like tracking ships at sea.

Harvard Business Review highlighted the need for all companies to develop a "space strategy" late last year.

The intrigue: The ways space companies sell themselves to potential business partners and investors have also changed in the last 10 years and continue to evolve.

Instead of focusing on the number of satellites in orbit, companies are able to talk about how their data — provided by satellites — and unique analytics can transform a business or sector.

Between the lines: The space industry is also being seen as a source of competition with terrestrial companies in some sectors, BryceTech's Carissa Christensen tells Axios.

Starlink with its internet coverage around the world, for example, is a major competitor for communications companies of all kinds.

Manufacturing could also face competition from space companies focused on new ways of building rockets in the future.

The big picture: Entrepreneurial attention from success stories like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson has also brought more interest from outside of the space industry, Christensen says.

"I've had VCs tell me that seeing some of the most successful entrepreneurs ever — like Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson — pursue space deals makes them more open to space deal flow," Christensen adds.

"The participation of those very wealthy, very successful entrepreneurs and their companies kind of legitimizes the field."

What to watch: Venture funding for space companies started to surge in 2015, according to Christensen, so now is about the time when the space efforts funded then will start to prove they are viable — or begin to fail.

"You're going to see some successes and you're going to see some mortality," Christensen said.

Space is attracting new business

The space economy has grown a lot in the last 10 years.

Aerospace

JWST confirms its first alien planet, and it's the size of Earth

The world is located 41 light-years away.

Artist's illustration of a planet rising with its bright, red star in the background

Artist's illustration of the planet LHS 475 b. Source: NASA/ESA/CSA/Leah Hustak (STScI)

NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed its first planet orbiting a distant star, and it&#x27;s a rocky world just about the same size as Earth.Why it matters: Part of the scientific value of the JWST is its ability to characterize alien planets. This finding opens the door to learning more about what the atmosphere of this planet could be.

The James Webb Space Telescope has been fully operational for less than a year, but its data is already hinting the early universe may have more galaxies — and more complicated galaxies — than many models have predicted.

Why it matters: A longstanding question in astronomy and astrophysics has centered on how the first generations of galaxies formed and evolved after the Big Bang. 

The JWST was built, in part, to answer those questions. 

"I think we're really seeing the ultimate origins of humanity," astronomer Steven Finkelstein, of the University of Texas at Austin, tells Axios. "These early galaxies are the sites where the earliest stars formed. They formed the first heavy metals in the universe. Those heavy metals eventually became our Earth and our bodies."

What's happening: One study submitted to the Astrophysical Journal looked at 850 galaxies that formed between 11 billion and 13 billion years ago, grouping them according to type — spiral, elliptical, irregular or a combination. 

The team found the proportion of galaxies by type was nearly the same as what they see in the nearby universe today. This could mean these galaxies were relatively far along in their evolution, despite the universe's young age.

Another study published in the Astrophysical Journal in December found 87 galaxies that may have been around just 200 million to 400 million years after the Big Bang. This would be far more galaxies than scientists expected to see at this point in cosmic time.

Even if only a relatively small number of those galaxies turn out to be real, astronomer Haojing Yan, one of the authors of the study said during a press conference last week, “then our previously-favored picture of galaxy formation in the early universe must be revised.”

The intrigue: The evidence there may be more galaxies in the early universe doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with the prevailing model of how the universe works that predicts how many early galaxies astronomers should see, Finkelstein says. 

But it does mean there's likely something about these early galaxies that needs to be re-examined.

It could be that galaxies in these early eras of the universe were just brighter than initially expected, making it easier for scientists to see them in the data available now, Finkelstein says.

Or, the stars forming in these galaxies might be hotter and brighter than expected, forming from metal-poor gas, which allows them to grow to massive sizes — and get hotter and brighter.

How it works: The truly revolutionary part of the JWST's technology is the telescope's ability to take a "spectrum" — effectively a chemical fingerprint of a galaxy's makeup — for even the most distant galaxies.

That instrumentation allows scientists to see how much oxygen, hydrogen and other elements there are in any given galaxy, painting a picture of what may have been happening at that point in cosmic history.

Chemical compositions of galaxies can also tell scientists how primitive galaxies might be, and a clutch of chemically primitive galaxies were recently found in data from the JWST. 

"All galaxies start with dark matter, hydrogen and helium, and then stars form," NASA's Sangeeta Malhotra tells Axios. "When stars do their nuclear powered thing, they form oxygen and other elements. ... Having very little — or the littlest — quantity of oxygen tells us that this is a pretty young galaxy."

What to watch: As the JWST gathers more spectra and takes more images of distant galaxies, scientists will likely be able to start to resolve a true picture of what the universe was like billions of years before our Milky Way was born.

"I think that in the next year or two, we're going to see a lot of further clarity on what the early galaxy population looks like," NASA's James Rhoads says. 

The JWST is already upending our understanding of the early universe

The telescope has already found more early galaxies than expected.

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The James Webb Space Telescope has been fully operational for less than a year, but its data is already hinting the early universe may have more galaxies — and more complicated galaxies — than many models have predicted.Why it matters: A longstanding question in astronomy and astrophysics has centered on how the first generations of galaxies formed and evolved after the Big Bang.

Machine learning could aid in the search for signs of intelligent alien life in the universe, according to a study published Monday.

Why it matters: Searching for radio signals emitted by technologically advanced extraterrestrial societies requires scanning large portions of the sky with powerful radio telescopes, producing a lot of data scientists need to parse through.

Machine learning tools could make that job easier.

Driving the news: A new study published in Nature Astronomy this week details the use of an algorithm that helped researchers sift through data previously analyzed in 2017.

The machine learning tool was trained to differentiate radio signals that might originate in distant star systems from human-created sources like cell phones and satellites.

The tool turned up eight new radio signals of interest — possible signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life — within the dataset. Those signals came from five different stars that are 30 to 90 light-years away.

But, but, but: Those signals don't mean they found aliens.

Brief follow-up observations didn't turn up a repeat signal, and it's still possible these eight targets of interest were created by chance, not emitted by alien civilizations.

More observations and analysis are now being conducted, according to a press release from the University of Toronto. 

The big picture:  Scientists may need machine learning for these types of searches in the future.

"With our new technique, combined with the next generation of telescopes, we hope that machine learning can take us from searching hundreds of stars, to searching millions," one of the authors of the study Peter Ma, of the University of Toronto, said in the press release.

Searching the skies for signals from intelligent alien life creates a lot of data.

Astronomy

Machine learning could aid in the search for signs of intelligent alien life in the universe, according to a study published Monday.Why it matters: Searching for radio signals emitted by technologically advanced extraterrestrial societies requires scanning large portions of the sky with powerful radio telescopes, producing a lot of data scientists need to parse through.

Miriam Kramer

Stories

Machine learning to find learned aliens

Space is attracting new business

Light pollution's existential threat to astronomy

The JWST is already upending our understanding of the early universe

JWST confirms its first alien planet, and it's the size of Earth

Newsletter editions

Axios Space: 💸 The expansive space industry

✨ Axios Space: Lights out

Axios Space: Unlocking early galaxies

🌓 Axios Space: Moon power

Axios Space: Regulations looming