What does space have in store for you in 2025?

Well, good morning. 2024 was, by all accounts, an incredible year for science. Most notably, it was marked by the solar eclipse. Remember that? This year is set to mark some more exploration in space. Some experts are calling this the year of Jupiter, and we might be getting a new sky map. Here to tell us more is Trevor Truline, an urban astronomer and founder of Plateau Astro, and he's on the line. Trevor, good morning. Hey, thanks for having me. Hey, happy new year. Happy new year.

So what are some of the things that we can, uh, that you have on your list on your checklist of, uh, of things to look forward to in 2025. There are all kinds of different missions, I think are in store. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned a few of them. Uh, you mentioned about Jupiter there. Uh, we've had a mission going around Jupiter for a few years now since about 2016. It's called Juno. It's going to be its final year. Uh, the, the, the mission, the, the satellite is going to burn up in Jupiter's atmosphere. But before it does that, it's going to,

loop back around Jupiter and look at the moons of Jupiter for Ganymed, Europa and Io. And these moons are really fast and they're each really, really unique. And so it's going to take some great photographs of it before it finishes off its mission in about nine months or so. Is there a eclipse, a lunar eclipse on the calendar in 2025? Yeah. So this is different than solar eclipse. Solar eclipse we had last year. That's where the moon blocks out the sun. This one, this one happened that night.

during a full moon and the moon will appear red in the sky. And this is basically the earth getting in the way of the sun. And so the light from the sun goes through Earth's atmosphere and that causes the moon to appear red for a couple hours. What can you tell me in terms of a status update on this on this space rifle right between the US and China? Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I, you know, I grew up

watching a lot of documentaries about NASA and so you hear about like the US-Russia rivalry and like basically all of my lifetime, I haven't been around to witness a rivalry before. It's all been sort of, you know, peaceful coexistence between space agencies. It is kind of interesting now, yeah, that China is aiming to go back or to go to the moon for the first time. Obviously the US has been there before. US has their part of us.

program and this is going for a more privatized route, sending humans around the moon and trying to set up an economy around the moon. China, going out of a difference, they are putting a lot of robotic missions on the moon in the last few years. They are also planning to go to the lunar south pole and they're

trying to start up a base there. It'll probably be a while before that base actually starts kind of get going. Some people are saying probably around 2035 is when it would get operational. For the United States and other Artemis partners, they would be hopefully starting to land there probably around 2027, 2028. But yeah, there is a bit of a rivalry going between these countries. This whole trend, I guess, what do they call it, the privatization of space? Are we going to see more and more of this in 2025?

Actually, in the next few weeks, it's actually going to be really interesting. You might have heard about SpaceX's Starship program. It's really, really huge, huge rocket. The booster lens back on Earth and the craft at the top. That is also planning to land back on Earth. So that's, they're going to do another launch in the next few weeks. The other thing that doesn't really get much attention is Blue Origin. Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos is company. And they're going to do their first rocket launch.

in the next few weeks. And this rocket, too, is also going to do with the booster lands back on Earth. That sort of feels like that's been only the domain of SpaceX that they've been doing that. So we're going to have a second company that's actually going to start launching rockets and then landing them back on Earth. And that mission should happen the next few weeks, a week or two. I got to check the exact date, but yeah, exciting time for private space companies.

or the just wrapping up with Trevor Turlin, Urban Astronomer, founder of Plateau-Astro. What are you most excited about in the year 2025 in terms of what we're talking about? I think the SpaceX Starship, that's going to be interesting, especially getting Blue Origin's rocket. I don't want too too much about this mission, but I was reading about the last three days, this Virus E. Rubin telescope. This big, big, big telescope.

based in Chile. And normally telescopes look at just like a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the sky. And so you don't really get an overall look of the sky. This telescope, the mirrors so huge that what they do is rather than look at a tiny portion of the sky, they're going to open it up and look at the entire sky and get a view of it every three days, the entire southern part of the sky. And so with this, you can actually track changes in the sky much, much, much better than you can with a tiny, tiny

point of view of the sky using typical telescope. So I don't want to do much about that mission. I'm trying to learn more about about that and how that's going to work and how that's going to change our perspective of the sky. It's all fascinating, quite staggering, actually, when he's thinking about it. Trevor, thanks for this. And keep up the great work at Planet Astro, sorry, Plateau Astro, and all the best in 2025. Thanks so much.