Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates

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 A launch day episode packed with big science and bigger rockets. Today we cover the real-time launch of the ESA/China SMILE space weather satellite, SpaceX's Starship V3 sitting on its brand-new pad (and why it's now heading for Thursday), a UCL study warning that megaconstellation launches may be accidentally conducting an 'unregulated geoengineering experiment' in our upper atmosphere, the world's first space-based neutrino detector operating in orbit, extraordinary evidence in Antarctic ice that Earth is collecting material from a dead star, and a clever new cosmic mapper called TIME that studies the ancient universe using a single spectral line.

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In today’s episode, Anna and Avery cover a blue whale-sized asteroid making a close pass of Earth today, the imminent debut of SpaceX’s most powerful rocket yet, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft successfully completing its Mars gravity assist, fresh science arriving at the ISS, a new physics paper challenging the simulation hypothesis at its foundations, and Congress pushing back hard against proposed cuts to NASA’s science budget.   Story 1 — Asteroid 2026 JH2 Newly discovered asteroid 2026 JH2 (first spotted 10 May 2026) makes a close Earth flyby today at ~90,000 km — within the orbital radius of many satellites. Estimated size: up to ~35 metres (blue whale-sized). Zero impact risk confirmed. Observable with binoculars at peak magnitude ~11.5. Live stream available via the Virtual Telescope Project. Orbital period: 3.7 years between Earth and Jupiter.   Story 2 — Starship V3 / Flight 12 SpaceX targets May 19, 2026 for the debut of Starship Version 3 (Flight 12) from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. Launch window opens 6:30 PM EDT. Key upgrades: Raptor 3 engines (250 tf SL thrust, up from 230 tf), three larger grid fins, new integrated hot-stage design, updated propellant systems. No tower catch on this flight; booster splashes in Gulf of Mexico. Upper stage (Ship 39) targets Indian Ocean after 65 minutes. Payload: 22 Starlink simulator satellites. Critical step toward Artemis lunar landings.   Story 3 — NASA Psyche Mars Flyby On 15 May 2026 at 3:28 PM EDT, Psyche completed its Mars gravity assist at 4,500 km altitude travelling at 12,333 mph. Passed inside the orbits of both Martian moons. Confirmed by Doppler shift monitoring. Mission: en route to metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche (arrival July 2029). Thousands of Mars observations gathered for science calibration.   Story 4 — SpaceX CRS-34 SpaceX’s 34th Dragon cargo mission docked at ISS at 6:37 AM EDT on 17 May 2026, delivering ~6,500 lb of cargo for Expedition 74. Science payloads include: microgravity simulator validation study, wood-based bone scaffold (osteoporosis research), red blood cell/spleen spaceflight study. Dragon will return to Earth mid-June splashing down off California coast.   Story 5 — Simulation Hypothesis Paper Paper: ‘Non-algorithmic physics and the limits of the simulation hypothesis’, published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics. Authors: Mir Faizal (UBC Okanagan), Lawrence Krauss, Arshid Shabir, Francesco Marino. Core argument: using Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, the team argues any theory of quantum gravity would be non-algorithmic — containing truths no computation can capture. Since any simulation requires algorithms, reality cannot be fully simulated. Note: this is a theoretical paper, not an experimental result. The authors acknowledge no complete quantum gravity theory currently exists.   Story 6 — NASA FY2027 Budget House Appropriations Committee approved $24.438 billion for NASA in FY2027 — matching FY2026 and rejecting the White House’s proposed $18.8 billion (a 23% cut). The proposal would have cut the Science Mission Directorate by 46%, terminating 50+ missions. Committee protects science, Habitable Worlds Observatory, and STEM education funding. Bill still needs Senate passage and reconciliation.   Skywatching TONIGHT — Moon-Venus conjunction: look west after sunset for the crescent Moon close to brilliant Venus. Earthshine visible on dark lunar limb. Southern Hemisphere: look west-northwest, best in first hour after sunset. Blue Moon on 31 May (second full Moon of the month).
 

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It's the Astronomy Daily Weekend Space and Astronomy News Wrap — your Saturday deep dive into the biggest stories from across the week, plus two brand-new headlines and a bonus story we just couldn't leave out.   This week on Astronomy Daily: •      NASA's Psyche spacecraft executed its Mars gravity assist flyby yesterday — slingshotting past the Red Planet at 12,000 mph on its way to a $10 quadrillion metal-rich asteroid •      SpaceX launched the record-breaking CRS-34 Dragon mission to the ISS Friday night — with docking happening TODAY (Sunday May 17) •      James Webb Space Telescope maps the cosmic web in unprecedented detail — 164,000 galaxies, 13.7 billion years of history •      Hubble reveals 'Dracula's Chivito' — the largest, most chaotic planet nursery ever seen, 1,000 light-years from Earth •      Starship Version 3 is on the pad — debut launch targeting Tuesday May 19 from the new Launch Pad 2 at Starbase •      Comet R3 PanSTARRS is in Southern Hemisphere skies NOW — and tonight is New Moon. Your last chance for 170,000 years •      WEEKEND BONUS: NASA's Curiosity rover drilled into a rock on Mars — and the rock wouldn't let go   Find us at astronomydaily.io | Follow @AstroDailyPod | Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network   YouTube Show Notes Title: Mars Slingshot! Cosmic Web Mapped! Starship V3 Launch SOON! Weekend Space News Wrap | Today's Space News   In this weekend edition of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover seven stories — two fresh headlines, four of the biggest stories from the past week, and a bonus story that's pure gold. It's been one of the best weeks in space in 2026.   CHAPTERS: 1.    00:00 — Cold Open & Weekend Wrap Introduction 2.    01:30 — FRESH: NASA Psyche Spacecraft's Mars Gravity Assist 3.    04:00 — FRESH: SpaceX CRS-34 Dragon Launch to the ISS 4.    06:00 — WEEKLY WRAP: JWST Maps the Cosmic Web 5.    08:30 — WEEKLY WRAP: Hubble's 'Dracula's Chivito' Planet Nursery 6.    11:00 — WEEKLY WRAP: Starship V3 — Launch This Tuesday! 7.    13:00 — WEEKLY WRAP: Comet R3 PanSTARRS — Skywatching Now 8.    15:00 — WEEKEND BONUS: Curiosity Rover's Sticky Rock 9.    16:30 — Outro & Credits   Subscribe for daily space and astronomy news | astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod | Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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It's happening right now — NASA's Psyche spacecraft is executing a close Mars flyby at over 12,000 mph, using the Red Planet's gravity to slingshot toward a metallic asteroid. We've got live coverage of this extraordinary moment, plus the landmark results of a decade-long SETI search across 70,000 stars, Perseverance reaching the oldest Martian terrain ever explored, Hubble paving the way for the Roman Space Telescope launching this September, AI making supernova distance measurements four times more precise, and the James Webb Space Telescope finding a galaxy in the early universe that simply doesn't spin. All that and your southern hemisphere skywatching guide — on Astronomy Daily, Season 5, Episode 103.   Chapter Timestamps 00:00: Cold Open — Psyche Mars Flyby Teaser 00:45: Introduction & Episode Overview 01:15: Story 1: Psyche's Mars Flyby — It's Happening Right Now 04:45: Story 2: UCLA SETI — 10 Years, 70,000 Stars, Zero Aliens Yet 08:45: Story 3: Perseverance Reaches Mars' Oldest Terrain 13:15: Mid-Roll Break 14:15: Story 4: Hubble Paves the Way for the Roman Space Telescope 17:45: Story 5: AI Makes Supernova Distances Four Times More Precise 21:15: Story 6: Webb Finds a Non-Spinning Galaxy From the Early Universe 24:45: Skywatching — Southern Hemisphere Highlights 26:15: Trivia Teaser 25:45: Outro & Sign-off   Links & References •       NASA Psyche Mission: science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche •       UCLA SETI Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2605.05408 •       Perseverance Rover Updates: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020 •       Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: roman.gsfc.nasa.gov •       Astronomy Daily: astronomydaily.io •       Follow us: @AstroDailyPod

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Astronomy Daily — S05E102 | Thursday 14 May 2026   In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six stories spanning the entire space science spectrum — from a record-breaking rocket debut to medieval literary theory.   Stories in This Episode 1.    Starship V3 Gets a Launch Date — SpaceX confirms May 19 for Flight 12, the debut of the fully redesigned Version 3 Starship and Super Heavy. 2.    Psyche Mission: Mars Flyby Tomorrow — NASA's asteroid-bound spacecraft passes just 2,800 miles from Mars on May 15 for a crucial gravity assist. 3.    JWST Maps the Cosmic Web — The James Webb Space Telescope charts 164,000 galaxies across 13.7 billion years in the most detailed cosmic web map ever made. 4.    Aurora Watch: Coronal Hole Facing Earth — A large solar coronal hole is pointing at Earth; G2 storm conditions expected from May 15 with aurora potential for Southern Hemisphere observers. 5.    Dante's Inferno and Impact Physics — New research presented at the European Geosciences Union argues Dante's 14th-century Hell maps the geometry of a planetary impact crater. 6.    CRS-34: Dragon Docks at the ISS — After two weather scrubs, SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule successfully delivers 6,500 lbs of science experiments to the space station.   Chapter Timestamps 00:00 — Introduction & Headlines 01:00 — Starship V3: May 19 Launch Date Set 05:00 — NASA Psyche: Mars Gravity Assist Flyby 08:30 — JWST Maps the Cosmic Web 12:00 — Aurora Alert: Coronal Hole & Solar Wind 15:00 — Dante's Inferno as Impact Crater Science 18:30 — CRS-34 Dragon Docks at the ISS 21:30 — Skywatcher's Corner: Aurora Tips & Mars 23:00 — Trivia, Sign-Off & Socials   Find us at astronomydaily.io | Follow @AstroDailyPod | Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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Today on Astronomy Daily: A weather-delayed rocket launch gets a second chance — Dragon is heading to the ISS tonight. The most powerful rocket ever built is fuelled and ready, with Starship V3 Flight 12 targeting as early as May 19. NASA's Psyche spacecraft is days away from a dramatic Mars slingshot. A startup wants to beam electricity to satellites using lasers. Physicists may have cracked one of science's greatest puzzles. And Juno delivers the closest-ever view of a mysterious moon of Jupiter. All this — plus a Southern Hemisphere skywatching guide and space trivia — on Episode 101.   Chapter Timestamps 00:00 — Cold Open & Introduction 01:15 — Story 1: SpaceX CRS-34 Dragon cargo launch — weather scrub resolved 05:00 — Story 2: Starship V3 Flight 12 — launch as early as May 19 09:00 — Story 3: NASA Psyche spacecraft Mars flyby — this Friday 13:00 — Story 4: Star Catcher Industries raises $65M for space power grid 17:00 — Story 5: Brown University solves the cosmological constant problem 21:00 — Story 6: Juno's closest-ever image of Jupiter's moon Thebe 25:00 — Southern Hemisphere Skywatching Guide 26:30 — Space Trivia: What is asteroid Psyche made of? 27:30 — Outro & Sign-off   Stories Covered Today • SpaceX CRS-34 mission launches tonight from Cape Canaveral after Tuesday weather scrub • Starship V3 completes wet dress rehearsal — Flight 12 targeting May 19 • NASA Psyche spacecraft performs Mars gravity assist flyby on May 15 • Star Catcher Industries raises $65 million for world's first orbital power grid • Brown University proposes topology solution to the cosmological constant problem • NASA Juno captures closest-ever image of Jupiter's inner moon Thebe   Find us at astronomydaily.io | Follow @AstroDailyPod | Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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Episode 100 of Series 5 and the universe is not slowing down. Today: a live ISS resupply launch, a Mars rover drama that took a week to resolve, a cosmic debate about our galactic neighbour, two extraordinary black hole findings from the James Webb Space Telescope, and a brand-new category of planet that smells of rotten eggs. Plus a quick milestone moment for the show.   STORIES IN THIS EPISODE   •       SpaceX CRS-34 launches tonight — 6,500 lbs of cargo, science payloads, weather risks •       Curiosity rover's 'Atacama' rock drama — a first in 14 years of Mars exploration •       The Large Magellanic Cloud may be approaching the Milky Way for the very first time •       JWST's little red dots: an X-ray clue a decade in the making •       JWST: two early-universe black holes that outgrew their galaxies by a factor of hundreds •       L 98-59 d: a brand-new class of planet — global magma ocean, sulphur-rich atmosphere   CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS   •       0:00 — Cold open & Episode 100 milestone •       1:30 — Story 1: SpaceX CRS-34 launches tonight •       5:00 — Story 2: Curiosity rover's 'Atacama' rock saga •       8:30 — Story 3: Is the Large Magellanic Cloud a first-time visitor? •       12:00 — Story 4: JWST's little red dots — the X-ray dot emerges •       15:30 — Story 5: JWST black holes that outgrew their galaxies •       19:00 — Story 6: L 98-59 d — the rotten egg planet •       22:30 — Southern skywatching & outro   Subscribe for daily space and astronomy news. Find us at astronomydaily.io and across all platforms at @AstroDailyPod.

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In this milestone episode — one away from our 100th — Anna and Avery cover six extraordinary stories: the Pentagon's unprecedented release of 162 declassified UFO/UAP files; SpaceX firing all 33 Raptor V3 engines on the Super Heavy booster ahead of Starship Flight 12; tomorrow's CRS-34 cargo launch to the ISS; JWST's breathtaking new portrait of cosmic buckyballs inside a dying star; never-before-seen mineral maps of the Moon's far side created from Artemis 2 mission photographs; and the American Meteor Society's growing alarm over an unexplained spike in large fireball events across the globe.   Stories Covered 1. Pentagon Releases 162 Declassified UAP Files (May 8, 2026) •       The Pentagon launched a public portal at war.gov/UFO on Friday 8 May, releasing 162 declassified files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. •       Files include 120 PDF documents, 28 videos, and 14 images — spanning sightings from the 1940s to 2025. •       The PURSUE program (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters) will release additional files on a rolling basis every few weeks. •       The files show no evidence of extraterrestrial contact or government cover-up; they are classified as 'unresolved cases.' •       Notable items include footage of a football-shaped UAP near Japan, a white orb over Syria, and Apollo 17 lunar imagery showing unexplained lights.   2. SpaceX Starship V3 Super Heavy — Full 33-Engine Static Fire (May 7, 2026) •       SpaceX completed the first successful full-duration, full-thrust static fire of the Super Heavy V3 booster at Starbase, Texas, on 7 May. •       All 33 Raptor V3 engines fired simultaneously — the most powerful ground test of any rocket first stage in history. •       Previous tests on 15 April ended early due to ground equipment issues; the 7 May test went the full duration. •       The Starship V3 Ship upper stage also completed its static fire in April — both vehicle halves now cleared for flight. •       SpaceX is targeting 15 May for Starship Flight 12, a suborbital test mission. Starship is central to NASA's Artemis lunar landing system.   3. SpaceX CRS-34 — ISS Resupply Launch (12 May 2026) •       Launch: 7:16 PM EDT, Tuesday 12 May from SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. •       Cargo: approximately 6,500 pounds, including scientific experiments, food, equipment, and crew supplies. •       Autonomous docking scheduled: ~9:50 AM EDT, Thursday 14 May, at Harmony module's forward port. •       Key payloads: Laplace (planet formation dust study), STORIE (space weather / ring current monitoring), wooden bone scaffold (osteoporosis research), and red blood cell / spleen change investigation. •       Watch live on NASA+, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and NASA's website from 7:00 PM EDT on 12 May.   4. JWST Reveals the Birthplace of Cosmic Buckyballs — Planetary Nebula Tc 1 •       Western University astronomers returned to planetary nebula Tc 1 (10,000+ light-years away, constellation Ara) using JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). •       First detected buckyballs (buckminsterfullerene / C60 molecules) in space here in 2010 using Spitzer; now JWST reveals the full structure for the first time. •       Buckyballs are concentrated in a thin spherical shell around the central white dwarf — arranged like 'one giant buckyball.' •       JWST imagery also reveals an unexplained upside-down question mark feature at the nebula's heart. •       Current theoretical models don't fully explain the buckyballs' observed infrared emissions — multiple new papers are in preparation. •       Buckyballs found in meteorites on Earth; understanding their space origins provides clues about organic chemistry and possibly life's building blocks.   5. Artemis 2 —...

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Astronomy Daily — S05E98 | Weekend Wrap | May 9, 2026   Welcome to the Astronomy Daily Weekend Space & Astronomy News Wrap! Every Saturday, Anna and Avery bring you a roundup of the biggest stories from the past week in space and astronomy — plus two fresh stories to open the show. Here's what we covered this week:   Fresh Stories   🌞  The Sun's Hidden Face Finally Gets a Full Read-Out For 25 years, helioseismology has let scientists detect sunspot groups forming on the Sun's far side — but not their magnetic polarity, the key factor in forecasting how dangerous an eruption might be. A new technique developed by the National Solar Observatory's GONG network changes that, enabling polarity-resolved magnetic maps of the Sun's hidden hemisphere for the first time. With a significant far-side flare firing just days ago, the real-world stakes couldn't be clearer. Published in Scientific Reports.   🌀  Webb Finds an Ancient Galaxy That Simply Refuses to Spin James Webb has spotted XMM-VID1-2075, a massive galaxy formed less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang that shows no rotation — a trait normally reserved for much older, evolved systems. Current theory says young galaxies should still be spinning. This one isn't. The UC Davis-led team is now searching for similar objects to understand how rare this truly is. Published in Nature Astronomy.   Weekly Wrap — The Four Biggest Stories   🪐  The Planetary Odd Couple That Defies the Rules 190 light-years away, a hot Jupiter and a mini-Neptune are orbiting the same star — an arrangement once thought nearly impossible, since hot Jupiters typically scatter anything in their neighbourhood. Using JWST, MIT researchers have now read the mini-Neptune's atmosphere for the first time, finding a heavy mix of water vapour, CO₂, SO₂ and methane that points to formation far beyond the frost line. Both planets likely migrated inward together. Published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.   🟤  200,000 Volunteers Double the Known Brown Dwarf Population NASA's citizen science project Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has announced the discovery of more than 3,000 brown dwarfs over 10 years — essentially doubling the known count. The 75-author paper in The Astronomical Journal includes 61 volunteer co-authors. New finds include extreme T subdwarfs, ultra-cool objects, and a brown dwarf that may have aurorae. The search continues through more than 2 billion WISE sources.   🍩  NASA Launches Space Doughnut Mission Tuesday SpaceX CRS-34 launches May 12 carrying STORIE (Storm Time O+ Ring Current Imaging Evolution), a joint NASA/U.S. Space Force instrument to be mounted outside the ISS. STORIE will study Earth's ring current — a doughnut-shaped region of trapped charged particles that can surge during solar storms, disrupting satellites and power grids — from the inside out. Six-month mission duration.   🪨  Webb Directly Reads an Exoplanet's Surface for the First Time JWST has achieved a planetary science first — directly characterising the surface of a super-Earth 48 light-years away. The findings reveal a dark, airless, Mercury-like world with no atmosphere. The technique marks a significant shift from atmospheric to direct surface analysis, opening new possibilities for characterising rocky planets in and near habitable zones.

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Wednesday 6 May 2026 | astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod   Episode Summary In today's episode, Anna and Avery explore six remarkable stories from across the cosmos: a tiny frozen world beyond Pluto surprises scientists with an atmosphere it should never have; NASA drops twelve thousand stunning photographs from the Artemis II mission and Artemis III preparations accelerate; Blue Origin's uncrewed moon lander Endurance passes its toughest test; new research confirms the sun actively speeds up the descent of space debris; radar-equipped drones emerge as a key tool for mapping buried Martian ice; and Comet PanSTARRS makes its debut in southern skies.   Stories in This Episode 1. The Atmosphere That Shouldn't Exist Japanese astronomers have detected a thin atmosphere around trans-Neptunian object 2002 XV93 — a Kuiper Belt body just 500 km across. Published in Nature Astronomy, the discovery challenges long-held assumptions about which bodies can retain atmospheres. Possible causes include cryovolcanism or a recent cometary impact. Lead researcher: Dr Ko Arimatsu, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.   2. NASA Releases 12,000+ Artemis II Photos + Artemis III Update NASA has published more than 12,000 high-resolution images from the Artemis II mission, captured using Nikon cameras and iPhone 17 devices by the crew of Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen. The archive includes lunar far-side close-ups, Earthset images, star trails, and a solar eclipse from space. Meanwhile, the Artemis III SLS core stage has arrived at Kennedy Space Center for assembly, with a mid-2027 launch targeting a 460 km Earth-orbit docking test.   3. Blue Origin's Endurance Passes NASA Vacuum Test Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 uncrewed cargo lander (nickname: Endurance) has completed thermal vacuum testing inside Chamber A at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. The lander is targeted for the Moon's south polar region later in 2026, carrying stereo cameras and a laser retroreflector array. MK1 informs the development of the crewed Blue Moon Mark 2.   4. Solar Activity Accelerates Space Debris Reentry A study published today in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences tracked 17 pieces of orbital debris through three solar cycles (1986–2024). Researchers at India's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre found that once sunspot numbers reach ~70% of their cycle peak, orbital decay rates increase sharply due to thermosphere expansion and increased drag. Lead researcher: Ayisha Ashruf.   5. Radar Drones Could Map Hidden Water Ice on Mars A new study in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets proposes using low-flying radar-equipped drones to precisely map debris-covered glaciers on Mars. Tests on Earth's Galena Creek Rock Glacier in Wyoming demonstrated the technique can resolve the ice-debris boundary with unprecedented precision — information critical for future human missions planning to use Martian water resources.   6. Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS — Now Visible from Southern Hemisphere Having passed perihelion on 19 April 2026 (at ~75 million km from the Sun) and peak northern hemisphere visibility, Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS is now emerging in southern skies. Currently in Eridanus and heading toward Orion, the comet will pass within ~2° of the Orion Nebula 10–12 May. Best viewing conditions: around new moon 16 May. The comet is on a hyperbolic trajectory and will not return.   Connect With Us Website: astronomydaily.io Podcast: Available on all major podcast platforms X/Twitter: @AstroDailyPod Instagram: @AstroDailyPod TikTok:...

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Episode Summary In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six major space and astronomy stories: the James Webb Space Telescope's historic first direct study of a rocky exoplanet's surface; a dramatic upward revision of Io's volcanic heat output; the release of the FLAMINGO cosmological simulation dataset; a new technique for finding planets in binary star systems; the discovery of a novel state of matter inside ice giants; and how to watch tonight's Eta Aquarid meteor shower live online.   Story Links & References Story 1 — JWST Exoplanet Surface Study Nature Astronomy: LHS 3844 b thermal emission spectrum — doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02860-3 Space.com coverage: space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/james-webb-space-telescope-directly-studies-an-exoplanets-surface-for-the-1st-time   Story 2 — Io Volcanic Power Revised arXiv pre-print: arxiv.org/abs/2605.00100  |  Phys.org: phys.org/news/2026-05-massively-underestimated-io-thermal-output.html   Story 3 — FLAMINGO Dataset Release Durham University: durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2026/04/astronomers-release-gigantic-cosmological-simulation-dataset Leiden University: universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2026/04/astronomers-release-massive-set-of-virtual-universes-for-global-research   Story 4 — TESS Binary Star Planets NASA Science: science.nasa.gov/missions/tess/for-nasas-tess-stellar-eclipses-shed-light-on-possible-new-worlds   Story 5 — New State of Matter in Ice Giants Nature Communications: Carnegie Institution quasi-1D superionic phase study Universe Today: universetoday.com (April 30, 2026)   Story 6 — Eta Aquarid Livestreams Livestream guide: space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/watch-the-eta-aquarid-meteor-shower-online-with-these-free-livestreams ALMA Observatory livestream available via the above link. Peak: pre-dawn May 6 AEST.

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In today's Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six major stories: Ireland becomes the 65th nation to sign the Artemis Accords; the Artemis III rocket core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center; NASA's nuclear-electric SR-1 Freedom Mars mission ramps up toward a 2028 launch; the Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks overnight May 5-6; NASA releases spectacular dual panoramas from Curiosity and Perseverance rovers; and new research makes a compelling case that the Large Magellanic Cloud is on its first-ever pass by the Milky Way.   Story Summaries & Key Facts   1. Ireland Signs the Artemis Accords •       Ireland signed as the 65th Artemis Accords signatory on May 4, 2026 at NASA HQ, Washington DC •       Hosted by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman alongside Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason and Minister Peter Burke •       Three new signatories in two weeks: Latvia (#62), Morocco (#64), Ireland (#65) •       Accords established in 2020, covering peaceful exploration, transparency, data sharing, and heritage preservation   2. Artemis III SLS Core Stage Arrives at KSC •       The top four-fifths of the 212-foot SLS core stage arrived at Kennedy on April 27, 2026 via the Pegasus barge •       Traveled 900 miles from Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans •       Now inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, being mated to the engine section •       Artemis III (targeted late 2027) will test Orion docking with commercial landers in low Earth orbit — not a lunar landing •       Artemis IV (2028) will land astronauts on the Moon's south pole   3. NASA SR-1 Freedom Nuclear Mars Mission •       SR-1 Freedom will be the first nuclear-electric powered interplanetary spacecraft, launching December 2028 •       Uses Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP): fission reactor generates 20kW of electricity to power ion thrusters •       Hardware repurposed from the Gateway Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) •       Will deploy the 'Skyfall' payload: three Ingenuity-class helicopters to scout for subsurface water ice •       Could pave the way for megawatt-class reactors cutting human Mars transit time to two months   4. Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower Peak •       Peak: overnight May 5-6, 2026, with pre-dawn hours on May 6 as prime window •       Source: debris trail of Halley's Comet — Earth passes through it each May •       Meteor speed: ~66 km/s — fast, with persistent glowing trails •       Southern Hemisphere: up to 50 meteors/hour under ideal conditions — best shower for southern sky •       Moon challenge: 84% waning gibbous — block the Moon behind a tree or building for best results •       Active through May 28 — more opportunities if clouds intervene tonight   5. Curiosity & Perseverance Mars Panoramas •       NASA released dual 360-degree panoramas from both active Mars rovers — 3,775 km apart on the planet •       Curiosity: 1,031-image panorama of 'boxwork' formations in Gale Crater — fossil records of ancient groundwater •       Perseverance: 980-image panorama near Jezero Crater rim showing some of the oldest rocks in the solar system •       The two rovers are 'time-travelling in opposite directions' — Curiosity into younger terrain, Perseverance into older •       Perseverance carries 23 rock core samples in sealed tubes, awaiting future Earth-return mission   6. Large Magellanic Cloud — First-Time Visitor •       New pre-print paper claims definitive evidence the LMC is on its first-ever pass by the Milky Way •       LMC mass: roughly 10-20% of the Milky Way — large enough to send gravitational ripples through our galaxy •       Key evidence: LMC's gas corona is...

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Welcome to Astronomy Daily S05E94 — our first ever Weekend Edition! Today we debut the Astronomy Daily Weekend Space and Astronomy News Wrap, featuring two fresh stories plus a roundup of the four biggest and most important space stories from across the past week.   Today's Stories •      Story 1: Russia's Soyuz 5 rocket completes its first successful suborbital test flight from Baikonur Cosmodrome. After nearly a decade of development, Russia's homegrown answer to the Zenit finally flew — a milestone for Roscosmos, even as questions remain about its competitiveness in a reusability-driven market. •      Story 2: May's Flower Moon peaked on May 1st — and May 2026 is a double-micromoon month, with both the Flower Moon and the May 31 Blue Moon occurring near lunar apogee. Southern Hemisphere skies are perfect for viewing this weekend.   Weekend Wrap — The Week's Four Biggest Stories •      Wrap 1: Artemis II — The Full Picture. 694,481 miles, 252,756 miles from Earth at farthest, 57-minute eclipse from beyond the Moon, heat shield performance significantly better than Artemis I. The numbers of a mission for the history books. •      Wrap 2: The Eclipse Only Four Humans Have Ever Seen. During the April 6 lunar flyby, the Artemis II crew experienced a 57-minute total solar eclipse from beyond the Moon — the first time in human history. Victor Glover's descriptions were extraordinary. •      Wrap 3: Roman Space Telescope locks in September 2026 launch — 8 months ahead of schedule and under budget. With a field of view 100x larger than Hubble's, Roman is poised to become the most powerful survey telescope in history. •      Wrap 4: Artemis III hardware arrives at Kennedy Space Center. The SLS core stage was offloaded from the Pegasus barge on April 27-28 — just as the Artemis II Orion capsule returned for post-flight analysis. The next mission is already assembling.   Skywatching This Weekend •      The Flower Moon is still at 99% illumination tonight — beautiful in Southern Hemisphere autumn skies. Look for it between Antares (Scorpius) and Spica (Virgo). •      Venus and Jupiter are prominent in the western evening sky, slowly closing toward a June 9 conjunction. •      Asteroid Vesta is at opposition today, May 2 — best viewed with binoculars or a small telescope from a dark site. •      The Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks the night of May 5-6 — an excellent show from Southern Hemisphere locations.

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Episode Summary Astronomy Daily is back for Season 5, Episode 93 — and space has not been idle during our brief break. In today's packed episode, Anna and Avery cover six major stories: the strongest-ever evidence that JWST's mysterious 'little red dots' are in fact black hole stars, courtesy of a new Chandra X-ray discovery; the double milestone at Kennedy Space Center as Artemis III hardware arrives and the Artemis II Orion capsule returns for analysis; the spectacular return of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy after an 18-month hiatus; a new cosmological model suggesting the universe could collapse in just 33 billion years; a debrief on post-mission lessons from Artemis II; and essential skywatching guidance for the peak of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. Stories Covered •       Chandra X-ray Observatory detects X-ray signal coinciding with a JWST 'little red dot' — strongest evidence yet for 'black hole star' theory •       Artemis III SLS core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building — Artemis II's Orion capsule 'Integrity' returns same day •       SpaceX Falcon Heavy returns to flight after 18 months, successfully launches ViaSat-3 F3 to complete global broadband constellation •       New axion dark energy cosmological model suggests universe may collapse in 33.3 billion years — Big Crunch scenario revisited •       Artemis II post-mission analysis: heat shield data, valve redesign needed, toilet issues flagged — teams prepare for tight Artemis III turnaround •       Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks May 6 — up to 50 meteors/hour, best viewing from Southern Hemisphere before dawn Key Links •       Astronomy Daily website: astronomydaily.io •       Follow us: @AstroDailyPod •       Network: Bitesz.com Podcast Network •       Chandra / JWST little red dots paper: The Astrophysical Journal Letters •       NASA Artemis III core stage arrival: nasa.gov •       Eta Aquarid viewing guide: NASA Science skywatching

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Episode Summary In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery explore six major stories from the world of space and astronomy. Leading the show is a landmark result from the ALMA telescope: the first-ever measurement of semi-heavy water inside an interstellar object. The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains up to 40 times more deuterium-rich water than Earth's oceans, revealing it formed in an ultracold environment very unlike our own solar system. The hosts then unpack the solution to a decades-long mystery: a massive binary star system near the galactic centre is responsible for the gas clouds feeding the Milky Way's supermassive black hole. Japan's MMX spacecraft — currently on the launch pad — is introduced, along with the exciting detail that its sample capsule will return Phobos material to Australian soil in 2031. Stellar archaeologists at ISTA have found fossilised magnetism on white dwarf stars, shedding light on the Sun's distant future. A thought-provoking segment examines the idea that any alien civilisation searching for intelligent life may already have detected us. And the episode closes with timely aurora and comet skywatching advice for Southern Hemisphere listeners.   Story Sources & Links Segment 1 — 3I/ATLAS Deuterium Water Study: Nature Astronomy (April 24, 2026) — 'A Direct View of the Chemical Properties of Water from Another Planetary System: Water D/H in 3I/ATLAS' — Salazar Manzano, Paneque-Carreno et al. ALMA Observatory press release: almaobservatory.org. University of Michigan news: eurekalert.org Segment 2 — Milky Way Black Hole Feeder Stars: 'The gas streamer G1-2-3 in the Galactic Center' — Gillessen et al., Astronomy & Astrophysics (2026). ESO/MPE press release: phys.org Segment 3 — Japan MMX Phobos Mission: JAXA MMX mission page: mmx.jaxa.jp. Space.com coverage. Sample capsule landing: Woomera Prohibited Zone, South Australia. Segment 4 — Stellar Archaeologists / White Dwarf Fossil Magnetism: Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). Coverage: Space.com Segment 5 — Alien Technosignatures / SETI: Space.com feature. SETI Institute: seti.org Segment 6 — CME / Aurora / Comet: SpaceWeather.com. EarthSky sun news. NASA April 2026 skywatching guide (Comet C/2025 R3).  

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Welcome to Astronomy Daily, Season 5 Episode 91 — Thursday 23 April 2026. Hosted by Anna and Avery for the Bitesz.com Podcast Network. Today: NASA's Roman Space Telescope locks in a September 2026 launch date eight months ahead of schedule; new research reveals Uranus's rings are hiding secrets — and possibly hidden moons; Hubble returns to the Trifid Nebula nearly 30 years on; Jordan becomes the 63rd nation to sign the Artemis Accords; the Artemis III rocket core stage ships to Kennedy Space Center; and Southern Hemisphere skywatchers get their best shot at Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS this week.   Story Summaries 1. Roman Space Telescope — September 2026 Launch Confirmed NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now targeting a September 2026 launch — eight months ahead of its formal May 2027 deadline, and under budget. The 300-megapixel infrared observatory will survey the cosmos with a field of view at least 100 times wider than Hubble's, observing over a billion galaxies and discovering more than 100,000 new worlds in its first five years. It will travel to the Sun-Earth L2 point aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.   2. Uranus's Mysterious Rings Hint at Hidden Moons A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, using combined data from Keck Observatory, Hubble and JWST, has produced the first complete reflectance spectrum of Uranus's two outermost rings. The mu-ring is made of water ice sourced from moon Mab; the nu-ring contains carbon-rich organic compounds from unseen rocky bodies — suggesting undiscovered moonlets may orbit Uranus. Researchers say a dedicated spacecraft mission will be needed to solve the mystery fully.   3. Hubble Revisits the Trifid Nebula NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has re-imaged the spectacular Trifid Nebula, approximately 5,000 light-years away, nearly three decades after its original 1997 image. By comparing the two images, astronomers have tracked measurable changes in young stellar behaviour — demonstrating the power of long-lived space observatories as cosmic time-lapse cameras.   4. Jordan Signs the Artemis Accords The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan signed the Artemis Accords today at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC, becoming the 63rd nation to commit to the framework for peaceful space exploration. The Accords — established in 2020 — cover transparency, interoperability, data sharing, heritage preservation and resource extraction principles for Moon, Mars and beyond.   5. Artemis III Rocket Core Stage on the Move Just ten days after Artemis II's historic lunar flyby concluded, NASA rolled out the core stage of the Artemis III SLS rocket from Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans onto the Pegasus barge for shipment to Kennedy Space Center. Artemis III is targeting 2027 for an Earth-orbit crewed rendezvous and docking test with commercial lunar landers, with a Moon landing pushed to Artemis IV in 2028.   6. Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS — Southern Hemisphere Viewing Window Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS reached perihelion on April 19 and is now entering its best viewing window for Southern Hemisphere observers. From late April through early May, the comet will appear in the evening sky after sunset, potentially reaching magnitude 3.5 or brighter. Its orbit may be hyperbolic — meaning this could be humanity's only ever encounter with this object. Closest Earth approach: April 26, at approximately 73 million kilometres.   Links & Resources: •       Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: roman.gsfc.nasa.gov •       Artemis Accords signatories: nasa.gov/artemis-accords •       Comet C/2025 R3 tracking: theskylive.com/c2025r3-info •       New research — Uranus rings: doi.org/10.1029/2025je009404 •       Astronomy Daily: astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod

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Astronomy Daily — S05E90 | Wednesday, April 22, 2026 In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six stories spanning the fading power of humanity's most distant probe, fresh evidence for ancient life on Mars, a landmark black hole measurement, a SpaceX reusability milestone, a sobering assessment of the Artemis spacesuit programme, and tonight's moon and Jupiter conjunction.   Story 1 — Voyager 1 Powers Down the LECP Instrument •       NASA's JPL shut down Voyager 1's Low-energy Charged Particles experiment (LECP) on April 17, 2026, to conserve dwindling power. •       The decision followed an unexpected power drop during a routine roll manoeuvre in late February that nearly triggered an automatic emergency shutdown. •       Seven of Voyager 1's ten original instrument sets are now offline. Only the magnetometer and plasma wave subsystem remain active. •       Engineers are developing 'the Big Bang' — a plan to swap older components with lower-power alternatives — to extend operations into the 2030s. Testing on Voyager 2 is planned for May/June 2026; Voyager 1 to follow no sooner than July. •       Source: NASA JPL — https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-shuts-off-instrument-on-voyager-1-to-keep-spacecraft-operating/   Story 2 — Curiosity Rover Finds Organic Molecules on Mars •       Published April 21 in Nature Communications, the study describes the first use of the TMAH chemical experiment on another planet. •       More than 20 organic molecules were detected in clay-rich sandstone from the Glen Torridon region of Gale Crater, preserved for over 3.5 billion years. •       Discoveries include a nitrogen-bearing molecule structurally similar to DNA precursors — never before confirmed on Mars — and benzothiophene. •       The experiment cannot determine whether molecules are biological, geological, or meteoritic in origin. Future missions including Rosalind Franklin and Dragonfly will build on the technique. •       Source: phys.org — https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mars-rover-compounds.html   Story 3 — Black Hole Jets in Cygnus X-1 •       Curtin University-led study published April 16 in Nature Astronomy directly measures the instantaneous power of black hole jets for the first time. •       The jets in the Cygnus X-1 system carry energy equivalent to 10,000 suns and travel at approximately half the speed of light (150,000 km/s). •       Researchers used the companion star's stellar winds to 'bend' the jets, allowing calculation of their real-time power — a technique compared to watching wind deflect a fountain. •       About 10% of the energy released as matter falls into the black hole is carried away by the jets — confirming a long-held theoretical assumption. •       The measurement will help calibrate future observations from the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, currently under construction in WA. •       Source: ScienceDaily — https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/04/260416071949.htm   Story 4 — SpaceX 600th Rocket Landing •       SpaceX completed its 600th successful Falcon booster landing on April 19, 2026, during the Starlink 17-22 mission from Vandenberg SFB. •       Booster B1097 landed on drone ship 'Of Course I Still Love You' for its eighth successful recovery. The milestone arrived just 7 months after the 500th landing. •       The tally includes 496 drone ship landings and 104 ground landings, per SpaceX VP Kiko Dontchev. •       SpaceX's Starlink constellation now numbers over 10,275 satellites in orbit. •       Source: Space.com — https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-starlink-17-22-b1097-vsfb-ofisly-600th-falcon-landing   Story 5 — Artemis Spacesuit Crisis •       NASA's Office of Inspector General report...

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Episode Description
In today's episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six major stories from the frontiers of space and science. NASA has unveiled the fully assembled Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — one of the most powerful observatories ever built — with a launch as early as fall 2026. Researchers at Caltech have published striking evidence of an ancient Martian ocean, identifying a planet-wide 'bathtub ring' coastal shelf in the northern hemisphere. The FAA has formally grounded Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket following an official mishap classification after Sunday's failed satellite deployment. NASA's SPHEREx space telescope has delivered its first published science, mapping interstellar ice and organic molecules across the Milky Way in 102 infrared colours. New research warns that even habitable-zone exoplanets may not be truly habitable without sufficient water to maintain their carbon cycles. And a new study reveals that spaceflight doesn't just change astronauts' bodies — it changes their brains in ways that can linger long after they return to Earth.

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In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six major stories from the past 24 hours. Blue Origin made history by reusing its New Glenn rocket for the first time -- but the upper stage deployed the BlueBird 7 satellite into the wrong orbit, forcing a deorbit. SpaceX delivered a clean GPS III SV10 launch for the US Space Force. Post-mission inspection of the Artemis 2 Orion capsule's heat shield provides initial good news after months of pre-flight controversy. A new MIT/WHOI planetary wave model reveals Titan's hydrocarbon seas could host 10-foot slow-motion waves from gentle breezes. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks Wednesday April 22 under ideal dark-sky conditions. And the Giant Magellan Telescope advances to its final design phase ahead of a crucial Congressional funding decision.   Story Links Story 1 -- Blue Origin New Glenn NG-3 •    Space.com: Blue Origin reuses New Glenn, deploys satellite to wrong orbit •    TechCrunch: Blue Origin's New Glenn puts satellite in wrong orbit •    GeekWire: Blue Origin reuses New Glenn; satellite goes into wrong orbit •    CBS News: In its third flight, New Glenn puts satellite payload into wrong orbit Story 2 -- SpaceX GPS III SV10 •    Space.com: Watch SpaceX launch GPS satellite for US Space Force -- April 20 •    Spaceflight Now launch schedule -- spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule Story 3 -- Artemis 2 Heat Shield •    Space.com: Artemis 2 heat shield seems to have aced its trial by fire •    Gizmodo: NASA sets the record straight on that missing chunk of Artemis 2's heat shield •    NBC News: Did the Artemis II spacecraft protect the crew well enough? Story 4 -- Titan Waves / PlanetWaves •    Space.com: Tall waves moving in slow motion -- how oily oceans on Titan may behave •    Popular Science: Saturn's largest moon could see 10-foot waves from a tiny breeze •    Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (MIT/WHOI study) Story 5 -- Lyrid Meteor Shower •    Space.com: Lyrid meteor shower 2026 -- when, where and how to see it •    EarthSky: Everything you need to know -- Lyrid meteor shower 2026 •    NASA: What's Up April 2026 skywatching tips -- science.nasa.gov Story 6 -- Giant Magellan Telescope •    Space.com: This giant telescope could discover habitable exoplanets -- if it gets its funding •    Giant Magellan Telescope official site -- giantmagellan.org   Trivia Answer QUESTION: The Lyrid meteor shower is produced by debris from Comet Thatcher. Approximately how long does it take Comet Thatcher to complete one orbit around the Sun? ANSWER: Approximately 415 years. Comet Thatcher last visited the inner solar system in 1861 and is not expected to return until around 2276. The Lyrid shower occurs each year when Earth passes through the trail of debris it left behind.   About Astronomy Daily Astronomy Daily is produced by the Bitesz.com Podcast Network. New episodes every day. Find us at astronomydaily.io and follow @AstroDailyPod for daily updates.

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In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six space and astronomy stories for Saturday, April 18, 2026. Comet MAPS has met its end at the Sun — the pair reflect on what happened and what comes next. Artemis III's SLS rocket stage rolls out of New Orleans on Monday. JWST and ALMA have revealed a stunning monster spiral galaxy hiding behind cosmic dust 11.5 billion years ago. An exoplanet system is changing its orbital architecture in real time. Four planets are gathering in a pre-dawn planet parade visible tonight. And 33,000 hydrogen halos have been found that solve a decades-old mystery about the early universe's fuel supply.   Story 1: Comet MAPS — Death of a Sungrazer Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS), a Kreutz sungrazer discovered on January 13, 2026 by French amateur astronomers at the AMACS1 Observatory in Chile, disintegrated during its close solar approach on April 4. The nucleus — estimated at approximately 400 metres in diameter based on JWST observations — could not survive passage just 160,000 km above the solar surface. A brief dust tail was visible in coronagraph images from SOHO and GOES-19, but the debris cloud has since dispersed. Attention now shifts to Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) as the next comet of interest. MAPS was the furthest-discovered Kreutz sungrazer in history, spotted 81 days before perihelion. Sources: EarthSky | StarWalk Space News | Sky & Telescope   Story 2: Artemis III SLS Core Stage Rollout On Monday, April 20, NASA will roll the top four-fifths of the Artemis III Space Launch System core stage — containing the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt — out of the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and load it onto the Pegasus barge for delivery to Kennedy Space Center. The engine section is already at Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building. Four RS-25 engines are expected to arrive from Stennis Space Center by July 2026. Artemis III is currently targeting a 2027 launch for a crewed Earth-orbit test of Orion docking with commercial lunar landers, with a crewed Moon landing planned for 2028. Source: NASA Artemis III Media Release | nasa.gov   Story 3: JWST & ALMA Reveal Monster Spiral Galaxy ADF22.A1 Using the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), an international team led by Hideki Umehata (Nagoya University) has revealed the true nature of ADF22.A1 — a galaxy in the SSA22 protocluster from 11.5 billion years ago. Previously hidden behind heavy cosmic dust, JWST unveiled its spiral stellar structure while ALMA mapped its rotating gas disk, spinning at an extraordinary 530 km/s — more than twice our own Milky Way. With an effective radius of approximately 22,800 light years, it is nearly twice the size of typical galaxies from that era. Cold accretion from the Cosmic Web is the leading explanation for its rapid growth and spin-up. A companion study examines nine additional dusty star-forming galaxies in the same protocluster, revealing diverse evolutionary stages and morphologies. Sources: ALMA Observatory Press Release | Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan (2025) | ApJ (2026)   Story 4: TOI-201 — Shape-Shifting Exoplanet System A team led by Ismael Mireles (University of New Mexico) has published findings in Science Advances confirming three bodies in the exoplanet system TOI-201: a super-Earth (TOI-201 d, 1.4x Earth radius, 5.85-day orbit), a warm Jupiter (TOI-201 b, ~0.5 Jupiter masses, 53-day orbit), and a brown dwarf (TOI-201 c, ~7.9-year orbit). The brown dwarf's gravity is actively distorting the inner planets' orbits on human timescales — the super-Earth's transits are shifting, and within 200 years it will stop transiting the star from Earth's viewpoint. TOI-201 c is the longest-period transiting object ever discovered. The system is 372 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. Next transit of TOI-201 c: March 26, 2031. Paper: Mireles et al., Science Advances, April...

The heroes of Artemis II speak! Less than a week after their historic lunar flyby, Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen held their first full post-mission press conference — and their words were extraordinary. Plus: Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket is on the pad for Sunday's landmark first-ever booster reuse; a 34-year dream becomes reality as the world's highest telescope opens in the Chilean Andes; astronomers discover 33,000 hydrogen halos that were hiding the universe's missing fuel; tonight is your best chance to spot the brightest comet of the year; and a solar storm could paint the weekend skies with aurora.
Links & Sources •       NASA Artemis II Postflight News Conference: nasa.gov/artemis-ii-news-and-updates •       Blue Origin New Glenn NG-3: spaceflightnow.com •       FYST Telescope Inauguration: news.cornell.edu •       HETDEX Hydrogen Halos Study: hetdex.org / Astrophysical Journal •       Comet C/2025 R3 Skywatching Guide: science.nasa.gov •       Solar Activity & Aurora Forecast: earthsky.org

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The Artemis II crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — are on final approach to Earth after nine historic days in deep space. Splashdown is scheduled for Friday off San Diego. We have the full countdown, plus the story behind what NASA scientists called 'audible screams of delight' when the crew spotted micrometeorite impact flashes on the Moon during their lunar flyby. Also in today's episode: astronomers at ISTA in Austria have identified a brand new class of stellar remnant — two ultra-massive, X-ray emitting white dwarfs named Gandalf and Moon-Sized. Mars continues to disappoint on the habitability front. Four planets are lining up in April skies. And we close with the story of four astronauts, their iPhones, and the greatest selfies in human history.   Sources & links: •       Artemis II splashdown coverage: nasa.gov/artemis •       Micrometeorite impacts & lunar science: space.com | sciencenews.org | spaceq.ca •       Gandalf & Moon-Sized white dwarfs: ista.ac.at | universetoday.com •       Mars surface habitability: universetoday.com •       April planet alignment: starwalk.space •       Artemis II iPhone photography: space.com | engadget.com

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Today's Space News — Astronomy Daily S05E84 | April 8, 2026   In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six incredible stories spanning the final days of humanity's return to deep space, a lost spacecraft mystery, and fresh science rewriting how we understand our own planet.   TODAY'S STORIES: (00:00) Intro (01:30) Story 1 — Artemis II Day 7/8: science debrief done, trajectory burns fired, and the crew heads home for a historic splashdown Friday (08:00) Story 2 — Cygnus CRS-24 launch delayed to April 10 due to weather — now launching the same day Artemis II lands (13:00) Story 3 — Earth formed entirely from inner Solar System material: Jupiter blocked everything else, and water was already here (19:00) Story 4 — ESA Juice delivers stunning new data on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS: 70 Olympic pools of water per second (24:00) Story 5 — Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS is the new comet to watch this April — and it's looking good (29:00) Story 6 — FEATURE: Mars 96, the lost Mars mission that crashed back to Earth 30 years ago — and was never found   Subscribe for daily space and astronomy news | astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod

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The Artemis II crew has completed the most significant human spaceflight milestone since 1972 — a historic lunar flyby that took four astronauts further from Earth than any humans in history. In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover every moment of Flight Days 6 and 7, including the far-side blackout, a solar eclipse observed from beyond the Moon, and what comes next on the journey home. Plus: NASA faces another proposed 47% science budget cut, a cargo ship heads to the space station, Europe and China are about to launch a groundbreaking solar shield explorer called SMILE, and Blue Origin reveals its ambitious plan to map the Moon's hidden water ice.   Today's Stories 1. Artemis II Days 6 & 7: The Lunar Flyby •       The crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen completed a 7-hour lunar flyby on April 6 •       Orion reached a maximum distance of 252,760 miles from Earth, surpassing the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles •       Closest lunar approach: 4,067 miles above the surface at approximately 7 p.m. EDT •       Christina Koch became the first woman to complete a lunar flyby •       The crew witnessed an Earthset, Earthrise, and a solar eclipse from behind the far side of the Moon •       Day 7 is a rest day; splashdown in the Pacific is targeted for April 10   2. NASA FY2027 Budget Proposal •       White House proposes $18.8 billion for NASA — a 23% overall reduction •       Science Mission Directorate would be cut by 47%, from $7.25B to $3.9B •       More than 40 missions face termination; Mars Sample Return and SERVIR named explicitly •       Exploration/Artemis funding would increase by ~10% •       Congress rejected nearly identical cuts last year   3. Cygnus NG-24 ISS Resupply •       Launch targeted April 8 from Cape Canaveral on SpaceX Falcon 9 •       Named S.S. Steven R. Nagel after four-time shuttle veteran •       Carrying 11,000+ lbs including Cold Atom Lab upgrade and stem cell research hardware •       Also includes Africa's ClimCam AI-powered climate camera from Egypt, Kenya, and Uganda   4. SMILE Mission — Launch April 9 •       Joint ESA / Chinese Academy of Sciences mission; first ever jointly designed, built, launched and operated by both agencies •       Launches April 9 on Vega-C from French Guiana; 3-year science mission •       Will give humanity its first complete, simultaneous view of Earth's magnetosphere reacting to the solar wind •       Four instruments: soft X-ray imager, UV aurora camera, light ion analyser, magnetometer •       Science orbit reaches 121,000 km above North Pole; up to 40 hours continuous observation per orbit •       Critical for understanding and predicting space weather — protecting satellites, power grids and communications   5. Blue Origin Oasis-1: Lunar Water Ice Prospecting •       Introduced at the 2026 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) •       Two-smallsat mission deployed from Blue Origin's uncrewed Mk1 lander; ultra-low 10x50 km polar orbit •       Instruments: neutron spectrometer (water ice to 1m depth), magnetometer (metals), multispectral imager (Helium-3) •       90-day global mapping phase followed by 10-day controlled deorbit — science continues to impact •       Partnership with Luxembourg Space Agency; data licensed commercially, non-commercial data released publicly via ESRIC •       Phase 1 of a 3-phase Project Oasis roadmap: orbit survey, surface mobility, then extraction operations   6. April Skywatching •       Comet C/2025 R3: closest approach April 27, magnitude ~8, binoculars needed •       Lyrid meteor shower peaks April 21–22, look toward Lyra from 10pm •       Mercury at best visibility of 2026 in the eastern pre-dawn sky   Links & Resources •       NASA Artemis II Flight Day 6 updates: nasa.gov •       Planetary Society Artemis II guide: planetary.org •       NASA FY2027 budget: spacenews.com •       Cygnus NG-24 launch: nasaspaceflight.com •      ...

For the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, human beings are flying around the Moon — and it's happening RIGHT NOW. In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery deliver a full Artemis II update covering Flight Days 4 and 5, and the historic lunar flyby unfolding TODAY.   We also have the promised verdict on Comet MAPS — the 'Easter comet' that plunged toward the Sun on April 4. Did it survive? Then two remarkable discovery stories: 87 hidden stellar streams uncovered in the Milky Way's outskirts, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's stunning debut — 11,000 new asteroids in just six weeks. We close with an extraordinary astronomical event: a solar eclipse witnessed from beyond the Moon's far side.   IN THIS EPISODE: •       00:00 — Intro •       Story 1 — Artemis II: Days 4 & 5 + Today's Lunar Flyby •       Story 2 — Comet MAPS: The Easter Comet's Fate •       Story 3 — Third Dark-Matter-Free Galaxy Discovered •       Story 4 — 87 Hidden Stellar Streams Found in the Milky Way •       Story 5 — Rubin Observatory: 11,000 Asteroids in 6 Weeks •       Story 6 — Solar Eclipse from Beyond the Moon   🌐 astronomydaily.io  |  🐦 @AstroDailyPod

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Artemis II, Comet MAPS, and Mercury: Your Space Week Just Got Very Busy
  It's Day 3 of the Artemis II mission, a sungrazer comet is emerging from the solar corona, an Atlas V just set a payload record, and Mercury is at its best of the year. Here's everything you need to know from today's episode of Astronomy Daily.   Artemis II Flight Day 3: Orion Doesn't Even Need a Course Correction Four humans are on their way to the Moon, and everything is going better than planned. Flight controllers cancelled the first of three scheduled trajectory correction burns today — Orion is already on such a precise path that the burn simply wasn't needed. As Howard Hu, NASA's Orion program manager, noted, this reflects exceptional navigation performance throughout the mission. The crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen — spent Day 3 on medical readiness drills, practising CPR in weightlessness and checking out the spacecraft's medical equipment. They also successfully tested Orion's optical communications system, transmitting HD video back to Earth from deep space. On Monday, April 6th, Orion will swing around the lunar far side at its closest approach — briefly out of radio contact with Earth — and at the mission's farthest point will travel 252,757 miles from home. That breaks the human spaceflight distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. Fifty-six years. We're finally going further.   Comet MAPS: The Solar Plunge Is Done — Now Comes the Wait At 14:22 UTC on April 4th, Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) reached perihelion — passing just 161,000 kilometres from the surface of the Sun, skimming through the lower solar corona. Whether it survived that encounter is still being determined from spacecraft imagery, as the comet remains in the Sun's glare for ground-based observers. If MAPS emerges intact, the Southern Hemisphere viewing window opens April 6th to 10th. Look west after sunset, low on the horizon, near Venus. Brightness predictions range from magnitude -5 (comparable to Venus) to extraordinary scenarios even brighter. Even a nucleus breakup could leave a spectacular dust tail — what's known as a 'headless wonder.' Either way, this story is not over.   Atlas V Sets a Record: 29 Amazon Leo Satellites, Heaviest Payload Ever At 1:45 a.m. Eastern Time on April 4th, a ULA Atlas V 551 lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying 29 Amazon Leo satellites — the heaviest payload in the rocket's 102-mission history. Mission LA-05 continues Amazon's build-out of its 3,200-satellite internet constellation (formerly Project Kuiper), with around 241 satellites now on orbit. Amazon faces an FCC deadline to have half its constellation operational by July 2026.   Blue Ghost Challenges a Fundamental View of the Moon New data from Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander — which operated on the lunar surface for two weeks in March 2025 — is shaking up decades of lunar science. Scientists expected Blue Ghost's landing site at Mare Crisium, well outside the Moon's 'hot zone,' to show significantly cooler interior temperatures than Apollo landing sites. It didn't. The near-side/far-side temperature divide may be far less pronounced than previously thought, suggesting heat-producing elements are more widely distributed beneath the surface. 'We may have to abandon that binary,' said principal investigator Seiichi Nagihara.   Pulsars Broadcast Further Than Anyone Knew — With Australian Science Behind the Discovery A study led by Professor Michael Kramer (Max Planck Institute) and Dr Simon Johnston (CSIRO) has found that about one third of millisecond pulsars emit radio waves from two completely separate regions — including a distant zone at the very edge of their magnetic reach called the current sheet. This overturns decades of received wisdom and suggests pulsars should be detectable from a wider range of directions than previously thought — with implications for gravitational wave...

Astronomy Daily Season 5, Episode 80 — Friday, April 3, 2026  It's Day 2 of the Artemis II mission and the crew is on their way to the Moon after a perfect translunar injection burn. We've also got a comet about to face perihelion, a dark matter mystery deepening, stunning new JWST images, and the escalating fight over the future of our night skies.  In today's episode:  🚀 ARTEMIS II — TRANSLUNAR INJECTION BURN: The Orion spacecraft successfully completed its TLI burn on April 2, sending four astronauts toward the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen delivered one of the quotes of the year from orbit.  🚽 ARTEMIS II — THE LUNAR LOO: Hours after launch, Orion's toilet malfunctioned. Christina Koch fixed it. This is why test flights exist.  ☄️ SUNGRAZER COMET C/2026 A1 (MAPS): Tomorrow, this Kreutz sungrazer passes 161,000 km from the Sun's surface. It could vaporise — or become the most spectacular comet since Ikeya-Seki. Southern Hemisphere watchers: eyes on the western horizon from April 6.  🌌 DARK MATTER-FREE GALAXIES: Yale astronomers have confirmed a third galaxy with essentially no dark matter — NGC 1052-DF9. The 'Bullet Dwarf' collision theory is gaining powerful evidence.  🌟 JWST + W51: The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed hidden young stars in the W51 star-forming region, piercing dust clouds that have blocked our view for decades.  ⚠️ NIGHT SKY UNDER THREAT: Reflect Orbital's orbital mirror satellite launches this month. SpaceX wants one million satellites. The astronomical community is fighting back.  Find us at: http://astronomydaily.io Follow us: @AstroDailyPod Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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Today is the day. Artemis II — NASA's first crewed Moon mission in 54 years — lifted off last night, and as we record this, four astronauts are preparing to leave Earth's orbit forever on the Translunar Injection burn. In this special launch-day edition, Anna and Avery cover the near-flawless launch, today's critical TLI milestone, the historic firsts being set by the crew aboard Orion (named Integrity), what the next ten days look like on the road to the Moon, the international CubeSats that hitched a ride, and the stunning coincidence of a full Pink Moon rising as humanity headed moonward.   Key Sources •      NASA Liftoff Announcement — nasa.gov •      NASA Artemis Live Updates Blog — nasa.gov/blogs/artemis •      NASA Coverage Schedule — nasa.gov/missions/artemis •      CNN Artemis II Live Updates — cnn.com •      Time Magazine — 'The Lunar Mission the World Is Watching' •      Astronomy.com — Live Updates: Artemis 2 •      NPR — NASA Launches Four People on Artemis II •      Wikipedia — Artemis II •      FAI World Air Sports Federation — Artemis II Records •      Fast Company — Pink Moon / Artemis II   Upcoming Mission Milestones •      Tonight, April 2 (~8 PM ET): Translunar Injection burn — crew leaves Earth orbit •      Sunday, April 5: Crew communication downlinks; Apollo 13 distance record expected to be broken •      Monday, April 6: Lunar flyby — closest approach ~4,000 miles from Moon surface •      Friday, April 10: Pacific Ocean splashdown

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Launch day has arrived. In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery countdown to tonight's historic Artemis II launch — humanity's first crewed lunar mission since 1972 — and explore the dramatic stories unfolding alongside it: a sungrazing comet faces its moment of truth just three days from perihelion; astronomers raise urgent alarms over plans for one million new satellites; the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS leaves its open-data legacy; and fascinating new science unpacks the hellish reality of Venus and a creative low-tech solution for mapping the Moon's interior. Story References Story 1: Artemis II Launch •       NASA Artemis II Mission Hub: nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii •       NASA Live Coverage (NASA+, YouTube, Amazon Prime) — begins 7:45 AM EDT April 1 •       Launch window: 6:24–8:24 PM EDT Wednesday April 1 (09:24–11:24 AEDT Thursday April 2) •       Crew: Reid Wiseman (Commander), Victor Glover (Pilot), Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen (CSA) •       Mission duration: 10 days, splashdown April 10 off San Diego Story 2: Comet MAPS •       C/2026 A1 (MAPS) perihelion: April 4, 2026 at ~14:23 UTC •       Perihelion distance: ~160,000 km above Sun's surface (solar corona passage) •       Kreutz sungrazer family — related to Great Comet of 1106 •       Nucleus estimated ~400m diameter (JWST MIRI observation, Feb 7 2026) •       Best-case post-perihelion brightness: magnitude -5 to -10 •       Source: Sky & Telescope, EarthSky, Universe Today, Wikipedia Story 3: Satellite Megaconstellations •       SpaceX proposal: 1,000,000 satellites (AI orbital data centres) — FCC filing Jan 30, 2026 •       Reflect Orbital proposal: 50,000 mirror satellites — FCC filing July 31, 2025 •       IAU, RAS, and ESO have all filed formal FCC objections •       Nature study (Dec 2025): 96%+ of future space telescope exposures affected if constellations completed •       Hubble: up to 1/3 of images contaminated •       Source: Universe Today, Astronomy Magazine, Nature Story 4: 3I/ATLAS Open Data •       NASA open data archive now available: science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas •       Key finding: 3I/ATLAS unusually rich in methanol vs hydrogen cyanide •       Observed by 12+ NASA missions including Hubble, JWST, TESS, SPHEREx, MAVEN, Perseverance •       Jupiter flyby: March 16, 2026 at 0.358 AU •       Source: NASA Science, Space.com, NRAO Story 5: Venus •       Surface temperature: 464°C average •       Atmospheric pressure: 92× Earth (equivalent to ~1km ocean depth) •       Longest spacecraft survival: ~2 hours (Soviet Venera probes) •       Source: Universe Today, April 1 2026 Story 6: Lunar Optical Fibre •       Two new journal papers propose telecom-grade optical fibre for lunar seismic mapping •       Could map deep interior and identify lava tube locations •       Lava tubes: potential natural shelters for future astronauts •       Source: Universe Today, April 1 2026

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Episode 77 of Astronomy Daily, Season 5. Recorded 31 March 2026.   Today's episode is our Artemis II launch-eve special — humanity prepares to return to the Moon for the first time in over 53 years. We also cover a record-breaking 'space laser' 8 billion light-years away, the ancient age of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, a star bearing the fingerprint of the universe's first stars, and new simulations supporting the shattered moon origin of Saturn's rings.   STORY SOURCES •       Artemis II Countdown — NASA.gov: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/30/nasas-artemis-ii-launch-mission-countdown-begins/ •       Artemis II Mission Guide — NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/artemis-ii-nasa-moon-launch-time-astronauts-how-watch-what-know-rcna255627 •       Artemis II Launch Coverage — CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-artemis-ii-moon-launch-astronauts-flight-plan/ •       X1.4 Solar Flare — Space.com: https://www.space.com/astronomy/sun/powerful-x-class-solar-flare-triggers-radio-blackout-ahead-of-artemis-2-launch •       Solar Flare NASA Statement — NASA Science: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/solar-cycle-25/2026/03/30/strong-solar-flare-erupts-from-sun-30/ •       Gigamaser Discovery — Space.com: https://www.space.com/astronomy/galaxies/record-breaking-space-laser-erupts-from-merging-galaxies-8-billion-light-years-away •       Gigamaser — ScienceAlert: https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-spot-a-record-breaking-space-laser-8-billion-light-years-away •       3I/ATLAS Age — Space.com: https://www.space.com/astronomy/comets/interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-may-be-nearly-12-billion-years-old-so-ancient-its-star-system-may-no-longer-exist •       3I/ATLAS — Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/interstellar-messenger-3i-atlas-could-be-nearly-as-old-as-the-universe-itself-james-webb-telescope-observations-reveal •       PicII-503 Star — Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/astronomers-discovere-a-rare-primitive-star-that-provides-a-chemical-snapshot-of-the-early-universe-180988454/ •       PicII-503 — NOIRLab: https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2607/ •       Saturn Rings / Chrysalis — Space.com: https://www.space.com/astronomy/saturn/are-saturns-rings-made-of-a-lost-shattered-moon-new-evidence-arises-for-the-case

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Episode Summary With Artemis II just three days from launch, today's episode delivers a landmark space moment alongside the sad news that Mars Sample Return's Earth Return Orbiter has been formally cancelled by ESA. We also cover SpaceX's enormous Transporter-16 rideshare launch, Cornell's definitive list of 45 best-bet habitable exoplanets, a paradigm-shifting discovery about pulsar radio emissions, and the first confirmed evidence of lightning-like activity on Mars.   Stories Covered •       Artemis II — NASA confirms zero technical issues, launch on track for April 1 at 6:24 p.m. EDT •       ESA Earth Return Orbiter — formally cancelled after ESA member states vote to end the programme; Airbus in transition talks •       SpaceX Transporter-16 — 119 payloads launched to Sun-synchronous orbit from Vandenberg this morning •       45 Habitable Exoplanets — Cornell/Carl Sagan Institute catalog published in MNRAS; TRAPPIST-1, Proxima Centauri b among top targets •       Millisecond Pulsar Radio Emissions — signals confirmed originating beyond the light cylinder for the first time •       Martian Lightning — MAVEN data reveals whistler wave consistent with electrical discharge during a 2015 dust storm   Source URLs •       Artemis II launch updates: https://www.space.com/news/live/artemis-2-nasa-moon-mission-launch-updates-march-29-2026 •       ESA Earth Return Orbiter cancellation: https://europeanspaceflight.com/esa-member-states-call-for-cancellation-of-earth-return-orbiter/ •       SpaceX Transporter-16: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/03/transporter-16/ •       45 Habitable Exoplanets (ScienceDaily): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260325005926.htm •       Millisecond Pulsar discovery (Phys.org): https://phys.org/news/2026-03-radio-edge-extreme-stars-surfaces.html •       Mars Lightning / MAVEN (Phys.org): https://phys.org/news/2026-03-nasa-maven-evidence-lightning-mars.html

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Episode S05E75 — Saturday, 28 March 2026 | astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod   🚀 Story 1: Artemis II Crew Arrives at Kennedy Space Center The four-person crew of NASA's Artemis II mission — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch (NASA), and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen (CSA) — arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Friday, March 27, 2026, ahead of a planned April 1 launch. The 10-day mission will fly the crew around the Moon and back to Earth — the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. Launch window: 6:24 PM EDT, April 1–6, 2026.   Sources: NASA.gov, Space.com, AP, Orlando Sentinel   ☄️ Story 2: Hubble Detects First-Ever Spin Reversal of a Comet A new study in The Astronomical Journal reveals that comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák reversed its direction of rotation — a first in observational astronomy. Gas jets acting as thrusters slowed the comet's spin and flipped it into a new direction. The comet's nucleus measures just 1 km across. Researchers warn the rapid new spin could lead to the comet's disintegration.   Source: NASA Science / Space Telescope Science Institute, March 26, 2026   🌑 Story 3: LIGO Signal May Be a Primordial Black Hole A November 2025 LIGO detection of a gravitational wave signal from an object with less than one solar mass — impossible through stellar evolution — may be evidence of a primordial black hole formed in the Big Bang's first moments. A new University of Miami study in The Astrophysical Journal finds the detection consistent with primordial black hole models and suggests these objects could help explain dark matter.   Source: Universe Today / University of Miami, March 27, 2026   ⭐ Story 4: IXPE Delivers New Portrait of Oldest-Known Supernova NASA's IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) has produced a new X-ray image of supernova remnant RCW 86 (SN 185) — the oldest recorded supernova, first observed by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD. Combined with Chandra and XMM-Newton data, the image reveals the remnant's expansion has slowed at the edge of a low-density cavity, producing a reflected shock.   Source: NASA / Phys.org, March 25–27, 2026   🏥 Story 5: Mike Fincke Speaks About His ISS Medical Emergency NASA astronaut Mike Fincke has given his first detailed account of the January 7, 2026 medical event that led to the first-ever medical evacuation from the International Space Station. In an AP interview, Fincke revealed he lost the ability to speak for approximately 20 minutes while eating dinner. Doctors have ruled out a heart attack but the cause remains unknown. The incident ended Crew-11's mission early, returning Fincke, Zena Cardman, Kimiya Yui, and Oleg Platonov to Earth on January 15.   Source: Associated Press / Phys.org, March 27, 2026   ☀️ Story 6: Solar Activity — AR4403 Flares, Possible CME March 29 Sunspot region AR4403, which rotated into view on March 26, produced an M3.9 solar flare causing a minor radio blackout over the Indian Ocean. Conditions are quiet on March 28, but space weather forecasters expect a co-rotating interaction region and coronal hole high-speed stream to arrive March 29, bringing unsettled geomagnetic conditions and possible aurora visibility at mid-latitudes. Southern Hemisphere observers in Australia and New Zealand should watch Sunday–Monday nights.   Source: EarthSky / The Sun Today, March 27, 2026

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Welcome to Astronomy Daily, Season 5, Episode 74 — your daily briefing on the most exciting developments in space and astronomy, hosted by Anna and Avery.   IN TODAY'S EPISODE •       Artemis II crew arrives at Kennedy Space Center — launch just 5 days away •       Webb and Hubble combine for the most detailed Saturn portrait ever captured •       New research reveals Jupiter's lightning may be up to a million times more powerful than Earth's •       Japan's XRISM telescope solves a 50-year X-ray mystery surrounding naked-eye star Gamma Cassiopeiae •       Cornell astronomers publish a shortlist of 45 exoplanets most likely to host alien life •       The Isar Aerospace Spectrum scrub mystery is solved — it was an unauthorised boat   STORY SOURCES & LINKS Story 1 — Artemis II: NASA Kennedy Space Center / NASA.gov https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/25/nasa-teams-continue-artemis-ii-preparations-at-launch-pad/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/artemis-ii/nasa-sets-coverage-for-artemis-ii-moon-mission/   Story 2 — Saturn Images: NASA Science / Scientific American https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webb-hubble-share-most-comprehensive-view-of-saturn-to-date/   Story 3 — Jupiter Lightning: Berkeley News / AGU Advances https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/03/23/lightning-bolts-on-jupiter-pack-more-than-100-times-the-power-of-earths-flashes/   Story 4 — Gamma Cassiopeiae: ScienceDaily / Astronomy & Astrophysics https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260325041723.htm   Story 5 — 45 Exoplanets: Royal Astronomical Society / ScienceDaily https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/best-places-look-alien-life-scientists-identify-45-earth-worlds   Story 6 — Isar Aerospace: NASASpaceFlight.com / Bloomberg https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/03/isar-onward-and-upward/   CONNECT WITH US •       Website: astronomydaily.io •       Twitter/X: @AstroDailyPod •       Instagram: @AstroDailyPod •       TikTok: @AstroDailyPod •       YouTube: @AstroDailyPod •       Tumblr: @AstroDailyPod •       Network: Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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Episode Summary Today's episode opens with a brief update on the Isar Aerospace Spectrum rocket, which aborted at T-3 seconds on March 25 — just before engine ignition — with no new launch date yet announced. The main stories cover Canada's cancellation of its first lunar rover mission; the century-old mystery of Gamma Cassiopeiae's anomalous X-ray emissions finally solved by the XRISM space telescope; new research suggesting Neptune's axial tilt may have been caused by its captured moon Triton; NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft entering full integration and testing ahead of a 2028 launch to Saturn's moon Titan; Russia returning to orbit from Baikonur Cosmodrome following last November's structural collapse; and the new SPHEREx telescope detecting a bipolar hydrogen shell around the remnant of Nova Persei 1901. 
Story Sources Update — Isar Aerospace Spectrum NASASpaceFlight.com — Isar Aerospace scrubs second launch of Spectrum rocket https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/03/isar-onward-and-upward/ Isar Aerospace Mission Updates https://isaraerospace.com/mission-updates-overview Story 1 — Canada Cancels Moon Rover Space.com — Canada cancels its 1st moon rover: 'It's hopefully not a lost cause' https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/canada-cancels-its-1st-moon-rover-its-hopefully-not-a-lost-cause Canadian Space Agency — Spending Plan 2026-27 https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/publications/dp-2026-2027.asp Story 2 — Gamma Cassiopeiae Mystery Solved Space.com — Scientists finally solve century-old mystery of star with unexpected X-ray emissions https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/scientists-finally-solve-century-old-mystery-of-star-with-unexpected-x-ray-emissions ESA / EurekAlert — XRISM solves famous star's 50-year mystery https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1120872 ScienceDaily — Astronomers solve 50-year mystery of a naked-eye star's extreme X-rays https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260325041723.htm Story 3 — Neptune's Tilt & Triton Astrobiology.com / arXiv — Neptune's Obliquity Was Likely Engendered By Triton's Tidal Evolution https://astrobiology.com/2026/03/neptunes-obliquity-was-likely-engendered-by-tritons-tidal-evolution.html Story 4 — Dragonfly Integration Testing NASA Science — NASA's Dragonfly Mission Begins Rotorcraft Integration, Testing Stage https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragonfly/2026/03/10/nasas-dragonfly-mission-begins-rotorcraft-integration-testing-stage/ Johns Hopkins APL — Dragonfly Mission Begins Rotorcraft Integration, Testing Stage https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-releases/260312-dragonfly-integration-begins Story 5 — Russia Returns to Orbit from Baikonur Universe Today — Russia Returns to Orbit from Baikonur Following Structural Collapse https://www.universetoday.com/ Story 6 — SPHEREx & Nova Persei 1901 Phys.org — Using NASA's SPHEREx space telescope, astronomers observe remnants of the eruption of Nova Persei 1901 https://phys.org/space-news/

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Wednesday, March 25, 2026   In today's episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six major stories from the last 24 hours in space and astronomy — including two landmark NASA announcements that could reshape the future of human space exploration.   Story 1: NASA Cancels Lunar Gateway — Pivots to $20 Billion Moon Base NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced at the agency's 'Ignition Day' event that the Lunar Gateway orbital space station has been paused, with resources redirected toward a phased $20 billion base on the lunar surface. The three-phase plan runs from 2026 to beyond 2032 and involves international partners including JAXA, the Italian Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. Source: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/nasas-lunar-gateway-space-station-is-out-moon-bases-are-in Story 2: NASA's SR-1 Freedom — The First Nuclear-Powered Interplanetary Spacecraft Also announced at Ignition Day, Space Reactor-1 Freedom is planned for a December 2028 launch to Mars. It will use Nuclear Electric Propulsion and carry the Skyfall payload — three Ingenuity-class helicopters designed to scout future human landing sites and map subsurface water ice. Source: https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/nasas-1st-nuclear-powered-interplanetary-spacecraft-will-send-skyfall-helicopters-to-mars-in-2028 Story 3: Two Planets Forming Around Infant Star WISPIT 2 Astronomers using the ESO's Very Large Telescope have directly imaged two gas giant planets forming around the 5.4-million-year-old star WISPIT 2, located 437 light-years away in Aquila. The system is described as a mirror of our early solar system, with potential for more planets yet to be discovered. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Source: https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/scientists-discover-mirror-of-our-solar-system-in-2-exoplanets-forming-around-a-star Story 4: Hubble Revisits the Crab Nebula — 25 Years On NASA has released new Hubble Space Telescope images of the Crab Nebula, taken 25 years after the telescope first observed the object. The images reveal the nebula's continued expansion — the still-evolving remnant of a supernova first observed by astronomers in 1054 AD. Source: https://www.space.com/astronomy/hubble-revisits-a-cosmic-crab-after-25-years-space-photo-of-the-day-for-march-23-2026 Story 5: Fiber-Optic Cables Could Detect Moonquakes Two new studies from Los Alamos National Laboratory suggest that fiber-optic cables deployed directly on the lunar surface could detect moonquakes using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). The technique could replace expensive individual seismometers, with a single cable acting as thousands of sensors across hundreds of kilometres of lunar terrain. Source: https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/future-artemis-missions-could-use-fiber-optic-cables-to-monitor-moonquakes Story 6: Rocket Lab 'Daughter of the Stars' — Europe's First Celeste Navigation Satellites Rocket Lab's Electron rocket launched the first two satellites for ESA's Celeste LEO-PNT constellation from Māhia, New Zealand on March...

Thank you for listening to Astronomy Daily! Here's everything from today's episode:   Story 1: Artemis II — T-Minus Days to Launch NASA is targeting April 1, 2026 for the launch of Artemis II — the first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will fly a 10-day free-return trajectory around the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft on the SLS rocket from Kennedy Space Center. The six-day launch window runs April 1–6. Meanwhile, a new analysis suggests the mission could face elevated solar superflare risk, though NASA is proceeding after a successful Flight Readiness Review. Source: NASA — https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/ Solar risk analysis: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/artemis-2-moon-mission-shouldnt-launch-until-late-2026-new-analysis-of-solar-superflares-suggests   Story 2: G3 Geomagnetic Storm & Aurora Australis Multiple coronal mass ejections from the Sun triggered a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm, producing vivid auroral displays from New York to Scotland to — remarkably — Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe storm warning for March 23. Conditions are easing on March 24 (Kp 3–4) but some aurora activity may continue. March is historically the best month for auroras due to the equinox effect, and with Solar Cycle 25 at its peak, scientists say this could be the best aurora viewing period until the mid-2030s. Aurora forecast: https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/ Aurora Australis guide: https://www.elle.com.au/culture/news/aurora-australis-southern-lights-march-2026-tonight-alert/   Story 3: JWST Finds 'Impossible' Atmosphere on Lava World TOI-561 b A Carnegie Institution-led team used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to detect the strongest evidence yet for an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet. TOI-561 b — an ultra-hot super-Earth about twice Earth's mass, orbiting its star every 10.56 hours — was expected to be a bare rock. Instead, JWST measured a dayside temperature far cooler than a bare rock would produce, indicating a thick atmosphere redistributing heat above a global magma ocean. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Source: Carnegie Institution for Science — https://carnegiescience.edu/ultra-hot-lava-world-has-thick-atmosphere-upending-expectations ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260322020255.htm   Story 4: Sealed Apollo 17 Moon Rocks Reveal Surprise Sulfur Signal Sealed lunar samples from Apollo 17 (collected 1972, opened through NASA's ANGSA program) have revealed unexpected sulfur isotope signatures. A Brown University-led team found volcanic material from the Taurus-Littrow region is strongly depleted in sulfur-33 — unlike anything found on Earth. Possible explanations include ancient lunar atmospheric chemistry or a legacy of the Theia impact that formed the Moon. Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Source: Brown University — https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-10-06/sulfur-isotopes-apollo-samples SciTechDaily: https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-open-moon-rocks-locked-away-since-1972-and-find-something-totally-unexpected/   Story 5: This Week in Global Rocketry An exceptional week of launches spanning five countries and seven rocket types: SpaceX Falcon 9 (Starlink 17-17, Tuesday; Starlink 10-44, Thursday — B1067's record 34th flight; Transporter 16, Sunday), Rocket Lab Electron (ESA Celeste demo sats, Wednesday, NZ), Isar Aerospace Spectrum (Onward and Upward, Wednesday, Norway), Chang Zheng 2C (Wednesday, China), CAS Space Kinetica 1 (Friday, China), Russia's debut Soyuz-5 (Friday, Baikonur), and ULA Atlas V (Amazon Leo batch, Sunday). The 73rd orbital launch attempt of 2026 worldwide. Full preview:...

Astronomy Daily — Season 5, Episode 70 Monday, March 23, 2026   In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six stories spanning a live European rocket launch attempt, a sixty-year-old NASA emergency brought back to life through newly surfaced photographs, a cosmic explosion caught only by its echo, the fight to preserve the night sky, a supply run to the ISS with an unexpected complication, and a first-of-its-kind discovery involving brown dwarf stars.   
Story 1: Europe's Spectrum Rocket — Bid for Orbit Today Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket is attempting its second test flight today — its qualification mission for ESA's European Launcher Challenge. Launching from Andøya Spaceport in Norway, the mission carries five CubeSats and one experiment from European universities and companies, all supported by ESA's Boost! program. If successful, it would mark a landmark moment for European sovereign access to space. Source: ESA — Spectrum's Qualifying Second Launch Story 2: Neil Armstrong — The Gemini 8 Emergency Sixty years ago this month, Neil Armstrong and David Scott survived one of NASA's most dangerous pre-Apollo emergencies aboard Gemini 8. A spacecraft malfunction sent the capsule into an uncontrolled spin reaching one revolution per second. Never-before-seen photographs of Armstrong's recovery have been donated to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Source: Phys.org — Space News Story 3: Astronomers Catch the Echo of a Billion-Sun Explosion Using the ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia, astronomers identified ASKAP J005512-255834 — a radio signal representing the most convincing "orphan afterglow" of a gamma-ray burst ever detected. The original explosion went unseen because its jet wasn't aimed at Earth, but the lingering radio echo has been detectable for over 1,000 days. Research published in The Astrophysical Journal. Source: The Conversation — A Cosmic Explosion With the Force of a Billion Suns Story 4: The Fight to Save the Night Sky The Royal Astronomical Society, ESA, and the International Astronomical Union have filed formal objections to the FCC over two proposed satellite constellations: SpaceX's application for up to one million orbiting AI data centre satellites, and Reflect Orbital's proposal for 50,000 space mirrors each four times brighter than the full Moon. Experts warn the proposals could permanently transform humanity's view of the night sky. Source: Space.com — Astronomers Protest Giant Orbiting Mirror Project Story 5: Progress 94 Launches to ISS — With a Glitch Russia's Progress 94 cargo spacecraft launched successfully from Baikonur on March 22, carrying around three tonnes of food, fuel, and supplies to the ISS. One of its KURS automated docking antennas failed to deploy after launch. Docking at the Poisk module is scheduled for March 24. If the antenna issue isn't resolved, commander Sergei Kud-Sverchkov will conduct a manual docking. Source: NASA — Progress Cargo Craft Launches to Resupply Station Crew Story 6: First-Ever Brown Dwarf Pair Caught in Mass Transfer Caltech researchers using the...

Today on Astronomy Daily: NASA's Artemis II moon rocket has arrived at Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, with a launch target of April 1st — the first crewed mission beyond Earth orbit in over 53 years. Plus: astronomers have discovered the first-ever mass-transferring brown dwarf binary; Hubble accidentally caught a comet disintegrating in real time; 15 new moons have been confirmed around Jupiter and Saturn; our Moon is accumulating over 100 metric tons of human-made debris; and a dramatic spacecraft double-header — ESA's Proba-3 has been recovered from a month-long blackout, while NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter remains missing after more than three months of silence.   Story 1: Artemis II Arrives at Launch Pad 39B NASA's Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft completed an 11-hour overnight journey to Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026. Launch is targeted for no earlier than April 1. The crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — will fly a 10-day free-return trajectory around the Moon, making this the first crewed deep-space mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Source: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/20/nasas-artemis-ii-rocket-arrives-at-launch-pad-39b/   Story 2: First Mass-Transferring Brown Dwarf Binary Researchers at Caltech have identified ZTF J1239+8347, a brown dwarf binary system with an orbital period of just 57.41 minutes in which one brown dwarf is actively pulling material from its companion — a first for this class of objects. The system, only ~1,000 light-years away, is a prime candidate for JWST follow-up observations. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Source: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/this-pair-of-brown-dwarfs-cant-get-enough-of-each-other   Story 3: Hubble Catches Comet C/2025 K1 Breaking Apart In a remarkable stroke of luck, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) fragmenting into at least four pieces over three consecutive days in November 2025. The comet was not the original target of the observation. The findings, published in Icarus, reveal the comet is unusually carbon-depleted and raise new questions about the delay between fragmentation and visible brightening. Source: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-unexpectedly-catches-comet-breaking-up/   Story 4: 15 New Moons Confirmed for Jupiter and Saturn The Minor Planet Center announced on March 16, 2026 that four new moons have been confirmed around Jupiter (bringing its total to 101) and 11 new moons around Saturn (bringing its total to 285). All are small irregular moons, discovered by combining archival telescope data with new observations. With the Vera C. Rubin Observatory now operational, further discoveries are expected. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/more-moons-for-jupiter-and-saturn-total-satellite-discoveries/   Story 5: Human Debris on the Moon — Over 100 Metric Tons and Counting More than 100 metric tons of human-made objects now litter the lunar surface — spacecraft hardware, scientific instruments, and even waste from Apollo missions. With a wave of crewed and commercial lunar missions approaching under Artemis and beyond, space policy researchers are urging the development of international agreements to protect scientifically sensitive lunar sites before they are damaged or contaminated by human activity. Source: https://www.universetoday.com — lunar debris policy   Story 6: MAVEN Still Missing / Proba-3 Recovered NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter, lost since December 6, 2025, remains uncontacted despite three months of recovery efforts using the Deep Space Network, Green Bank Observatory, and the Curiosity rover. An anomaly review board is assessing options. Meanwhile, ESA's Proba-3 coronagraph spacecraft — silent since February 14 after a power failure — has been successfully recovered after engineers exploited a brief window when the tumbling spacecraft's solar panels briefly...

It's the first day of astronomical spring — and the universe is celebrating in style. On today's Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover a triple CME solar storm with aurora potential reaching as far south as Illinois, explain why the vernal equinox amplifies aurora activity, report on the ongoing meteorite hunt following Tuesday's spectacular Ohio fireball, reveal an extraordinary 14-billion-year-old star that carries the chemical fingerprints of the universe's very first stars, bring a happy update on Europe's Proba-3 solar science satellite which has ended a month of silence, and explain how X-ray CT scans of returned asteroid samples finally cracked one of Bennu's longest-standing mysteries.   Stories in This Episode 1. Triple CME Strike + Equinox Aurora Alert Three coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are currently en route to Earth, with the first arriving today. Forecasters predict G2 (moderate) to G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm conditions, potentially bringing auroras as far south as Illinois. The timing coincides with the vernal equinox — historically one of the best aurora windows of the year due to the Russell-McPherron effect. 2. The Vernal Equinox — Today! The 2026 March equinox arrived today at 14:46 UTC, marking the astronomical start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere (and autumn in the Southern). Tonight, a thin crescent Moon appears alongside Venus in the west-southwest sky. 3. Ohio Fireball — Meteorite Hunt Underway On St. Patrick's Day (March 17), a seven-ton asteroid exploded over northeast Ohio with the force of 250 tons of TNT. NASA confirmed meteorites landed near Medina County, and hunters from across the US have already found fragments in the Sharon Center area. 4. Ancient 'Cosmic Fossil' Star PicII-503 Astronomers have discovered PicII-503, a second-generation star in the Pictor II dwarf galaxy with only 1/40,000th of the Sun's iron — the lowest ever measured outside the Milky Way. Its extraordinary carbon-to-iron ratio links it to mysterious carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars scattered across our galaxy's halo, solving a long-standing stellar mystery. Published in Nature Astronomy by Anirudh Chiti (Stanford) et al. 5. Proba-3 Phones Home — 'A Great Relief!' ESA confirmed on March 19 that its Proba-3 Coronagraph satellite — silent since mid-February after an anomaly caused it to lose attitude control — has reestablished contact via the Villafranca ground station. The spacecraft is in safe mode, solar-powered, and undergoing health checks before science operations can resume. 6. NASA Cracks Bennu's Boulder Mystery X-ray CT scans of returned OSIRIS-REx samples reveal Bennu's boulders are riddled with internal crack networks — the missing piece explaining the asteroid's puzzling low thermal inertia. Published in Nature Communications. The findings will improve asteroid characterisation from Earth-based telescopes globally.   Source Links Triple CME / Aurora Alert — Space.com: https://www.space.com/stargazing/auroras/aurora-alert-powerful-geomagnetic-storm-could-spark-northern-lights-as-far-south-as-illinois-on-march-19 Triple CME / Sun News — EarthSky: https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/ NOAA Space Weather Prediction Centre: https://www.spaceweather.gov Vernal Equinox 2026 — EarthSky:

A massive day in space as NASA's Artemis II moon rocket heads to the launchpad tonight, NASA and China both conduct spacewalks, CERN announces a brand-new particle, and astronomers reveal a nearby galaxy has been hiding the aftermath of a cosmic collision.   Episode Highlights   🚀 Story 1: Artemis II Rollout — The Moon Rocket Heads to the Pad Tonight NASA is rolling the Artemis II Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft to Launch Pad 39B tonight (March 19), targeting an 8 p.m. EDT start for the slow 4-mile crawler journey. The April 1 launch window remains firmly on track. Crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen have entered quarantine — making history as the first crew to venture to the vicinity of the Moon since 1972. Source: NASA Blogs / Space.com   👨‍🚀 Story 2: Dual Spacewalk Day — ISS & Tiangong Both Suit Up NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams completed U.S. Spacewalk 94 on March 18, spending 7 hours and 2 minutes preparing the ISS for a new roll-out solar array. Meanwhile on March 16, Shenzhou 21 commander Zhang Lu tied the Chinese EVA record with his sixth career spacewalk alongside crewmate Wu Fei outside China's Tiangong station. Sources: NASA / Space.com   ⚛️ Story 3: CERN's LHCb Discovers New Doubly Charmed Particle The LHCb experiment at CERN announced the first discovery made by its upgraded detector: the Xi-cc-plus baryon, a proton-like particle containing two charm quarks and one down quark, making it roughly four times heavier than a proton. Detected at 7-sigma significance, it settles a two-decade-old scientific dispute and is the 80th particle discovered by LHCb. Source: CERN / Universe Today   🌌 Story 4: Small Magellanic Cloud Caught Mid-Transformation University of Arizona astronomers have confirmed that the Small Magellanic Cloud — one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbours — collided directly with the Large Magellanic Cloud a few hundred million years ago and is still reeling from the impact. The finding upends decades of assumptions about the SMC's use as a benchmark for early universe galaxy studies. Source: The Astrophysical Journal / Sky & Telescope   🪐 Story 5: Exotrojans — Hunting Asteroid Companions Around Other Stars A new paper in The Astrophysical Journal by Jackson Taylor (West Virginia University) and colleagues pushes the search for exotrojans — asteroid co-orbital companions to exoplanets — into some of the most extreme environments yet studied, as the hunt continues for the first confirmed detection. Source: The Astrophysical Journal / Universe Today   📡 Story 6: SETI Rethink — Time to Broaden the Search A new paper argues that the decades-long focus on narrow radio and microwave bandwidths in the search for alien signals may be too limiting, and proposes broadening the electromagnetic search to a much wider range of the spectrum. Source: Universe Today   Find Us Everywhere •       🌐 Website: astronomydaily.io •       🐦 Twitter/X: @AstroDailyPod •       📸 Instagram: @AstroDailyPod •       🎵 TikTok: @AstroDailyPod •       ▶️ YouTube: @AstroDailyPod •       📝 Tumblr: @AstroDailyPod •       🎙️ Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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A packed episode today: a live spacewalk is underway at the ISS as we record, asteroid Ryugu has yielded all five DNA building blocks, a solar storm is heading for Earth overnight, Artemis II's moon rocket is about to roll out, and Blue Origin has unveiled an asteroid defence mission concept.   Story 1 — ISS Spacewalk 94: Meir & Williams EVA NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams conducted U.S. spacewalk 94 today (March 18), exiting the ISS Quest airlock at approximately 8:00 a.m. EDT for a planned 6.5-hour EVA. The pair installed a modification kit and routed cables to prepare the 2A power channel for a future roll-out solar array (IROSA). It is Meir's fourth spacewalk and Williams' first. A second EVA (spacewalk 95) is planned for approximately April 1 to prep the 3B power channel. •       Source: NASA — nasa.gov •       Watch: NASA+, Amazon Prime, YouTube (search 'NASA spacewalk 94')   Story 2 — Asteroid Ryugu: All Five DNA Building Blocks Found Samples returned from asteroid Ryugu by Japan's Hayabusa-2 mission contain all five canonical nucleobases — adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil — the building blocks of DNA and RNA. The findings, published March 16 in Nature Astronomy, suggest these life-essential compounds are widespread across the solar system and may have been delivered to early Earth by asteroid impacts. •       Source: Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-026-02791-z) •       Lead researcher: Dr. Toshiki Koga, JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) •       Further reading: phys.org, space.com, gizmodo.com   Story 3 — Aurora Alert: CME Arriving March 19 A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by an M2.7 solar flare from active region AR4392 on March 16 is forecast to reach Earth on March 19. NOAA has issued a G2 (Moderate) geomagnetic storm watch, with potential for isolated G3 (Strong) conditions. Aurora could be visible across northern US states, Canada, and northern Europe overnight March 19–20. The timing coincides with the vernal equinox, enhancing the geomagnetic effect via the Russell-McPherron effect. •       Source: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center — swpc.noaa.gov •       Aurora tracking: SpaceWeatherLive, My Aurora Forecast (apps) •       Further reading: space.com, earthsky.org, watchers.news   Story 4 — Artemis II: Rollout Decision Happening Today NASA's Artemis II SLS rocket is preparing to roll out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, with the final timing decision being made today (March 18). Engineers completed repairs faster than expected after fixing an electrical harness in the flight termination system. Rollout is expected March 19 or 20, preserving the April 1 launch window. The crew: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch (NASA), and Jeremy Hansen (CSA) — the first crewed mission to lunar space since Apollo 17 in 1972. •       Source: NASA — nasa.gov/artemis, space.com •       Launch window: April 1–6, 2026 (with additional dates available) •       Watch the rollout livestream: NASA YouTube channel   Story 5 — Blue Origin NEO Hunter: Asteroid Defence Blue Origin has partnered with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech to develop the NEO Hunter mission concept — a planetary defence system built on the Blue Ring spacecraft platform. NEO Hunter combines ion beam deflection (firing charged particles to nudge an asteroid off course) and 'Robust Kinetic Disruption' (crashing into the asteroid at up to 22,600 mph), with a dedicated 'Slamcam' satellite documenting any impact. No launch date has been announced. •       Source: Blue Origin (via X / space.com, March 17, 2026) •       Blue Ring platform: modular satellite bus supporting up to 4,000 kg payload •       Partners: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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Astronomy Daily S05E65 — 17 March 2026 Six stories from the frontiers of space and astronomy, hosted by Anna and Avery.   IN THIS EPISODE: •     🪐 JWST identifies a brand new class of exoplanet — a permanent magma ocean world with a hydrogen sulfide atmosphere 35 light-years from Earth •     📡 RBFLOAT — the brightest fast radio burst ever detected — is pinpointed to a galaxy 130 million light-years away, with a mysterious JWST infrared discovery at the same location •     🧑‍🚀 The first ISS spacewalk of 2026 is happening TOMORROW — NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams step outside at 8am EDT, March 18. Watch live on NASA+ •     🌊 Hidden water beneath Mars — new research suggests the Red Planet was habitable far longer than we thought, and Curiosity is investigating strange 'spiderweb' formations that reveal its watery history •     🚀 100 years ago yesterday, Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fuelled rocket. But where is 'Nell' — the original rocket — today? The mystery of space history's greatest missing artefact •     🛸 MIT, MITRE and Sandia publish a Nature paper on a photonic chip that could replace bulky mechanical mirrors on spacecraft — a potential revolution in space communications and LiDAR   SOURCE LINKS: •     JWST / L 98-59 d magma planet (Nature Astronomy, 16 March 2026): phys.org/news/2026-03-class-molten-planet-abundant-sulfur.html •     RBFLOAT fast radio burst papers (Astrophysical Journal Letters): sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260315004348.htm •     ISS Spacewalk 94 — live coverage: NASA+ / NASA YouTube (6:30am EDT, 18 March 2026) •     Mars water research and Curiosity boxwork ridges: sciencedaily.com •     Goddard centennial — collectSPACE: collectspace.com/news/news-031626a-robert-goddard-liquid-fuel-rocket-centennial-where-nell.html •     MIT photonic chip paper (Nature): universetoday.com — March 16, 2026   Find us: astronomydaily.io  |  @AstroDailyPod on Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Tumblr Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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In today's episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six remarkable stories spanning an interstellar farewell, a stunning pre-dawn sky show, a potential new Martian mineral, ghost particles from long-dead stars, a revolutionary new framework for detecting alien life, and the astonishing possibility of habitable moons drifting starless through the galaxy.   Stories Covered in S05E64 1. 3I/ATLAS: The Interstellar Comet's Jupiter Farewell: Today marks the closest approach of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS to Jupiter before it leaves our solar system forever. New ALMA data reveals the comet carries extraordinary levels of methanol — a chemical fingerprint from another solar system entirely.   2. Mercury, Mars & the Moon: Tonight and tomorrow morning, Mercury and Mars gather close to a crescent Moon in the pre-dawn sky. Southern Hemisphere observers have the best view. This week also brings the March equinox (March 20) and heightened aurora activity.   3. A New Mineral on Mars?: Scientists may have discovered a previously unknown mineral hidden in Mars's ancient sulfate deposits. Found by combining laboratory experiments with orbital spectroscopy, the potential discovery could shed new light on Mars's ancient watery past.   4. Ghost Particles from Dead Stars: Japan's upgraded Super-Kamiokande detector may detect the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background for the first time in 2026 — a faint signal from every supernova across cosmic history, including stars that exploded before Earth was born.   5. Life, But Not As We Know It: A new framework called Assembly Theory, published today in Universe Today, offers a way to detect alien life that bears no resemblance to life on Earth. Rather than searching for specific biosignature gases, it asks how complex the atmospheric chemistry is — and is designed for the upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory.   6. Starless Moons: Moons orbiting free-floating planets — worlds ejected from their home solar systems — could sustain liquid water oceans for up to 4.3 billion years, powered by tidal heating and insulated by hydrogen atmospheres. No star required.   Astronomy Daily is part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network. New episodes every weekday. Website: astronomydaily.io Twitter/X: @AstroDailyPod Instagram: @AstroDailyPod TikTok: @AstroDailyPod

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Episode: S05E63  |  Date: Saturday, 14 March 2026 Hosted by Anna & Avery  |  Astronomy Daily Podcast Network — Bitesz.com   From galactic migrations to Pi Day planets, Episode 63 covers six stories that span the breadth of the solar system and beyond. Our Sun turns out to have hitched a ride outward from the Milky Way's interior billions of years ago — and brought thousands of stellar companions with it. China has named a leading candidate for its first crewed Moon landing. Russia is dusting off the legacy of the legendary Soviet Venera programme with an ambitious 2036 return to Venus. NASA's nuclear-powered Titan drone is now being physically built. China's Mars sample return mission is constructing actual spacecraft. And in honour of Pi Day, we visit the exoplanet whose year lasts almost exactly 3.14 days.   Story 1: The Sun Was Part of a Galactic Migration of Solar Twins A new study in Astronomy & Astrophysics by researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan has built the largest-ever catalogue of solar twins — 6,594 Sun-like stars. Using ESA's Gaia satellite, they found a clustering of stars aged 4–6 billion years, suggesting the Sun migrated outward from the Milky Way's inner regions billions of years ago, possibly when the galactic bar was still forming and its 'corotation barrier' was weak enough to allow mass stellar movement. This migration may have placed Earth in a calmer, more life-friendly region of the Galaxy.   •      Journal: Astronomy & Astrophysics (March 2026) •      Lead researchers: Daisuke Taniguchi (Tokyo Metropolitan University) & Takuji Tsujimoto (NAOJ) •      Data source: ESA Gaia satellite — catalogue of ~2 billion stars •      Key finding: Sun likely formed ~10,000 light-years closer to the Galactic Centre than its current position   Story 2: China Eyes Rimae Bode for Its First Crewed Moon Landing A study published in Nature Astronomy (9 March 2026) proposes Rimae Bode — a volcanic region near Sinus Aestuum on the lunar near side — as a prime candidate for China's first crewed lunar landing, targeted for 2030. The site contains five distinct terrain types including pyroclastic deposits, mare basalts, rille systems and highland material. Researcher Jun Huang (China University of Geosciences, Wuhan) described it as a 'geological museum.' Four specific landing spots within the region have been proposed.   •      Journal: Nature Astronomy (March 2026) •      Lead researcher: Jun Huang, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan •      Site: Rimae Bode, near Sinus Aestuum, lunar near side •      Oldest volcanic activity in region: ~3.2–3.7 billion years ago •      China's crewed lunar landing target: 2030   Story 3: Russia Plans Venera-D Mission to Venus in 2036 Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov confirmed on 10 March 2026 that Russia plans to launch the Venera-D mission — comprising a lander, atmospheric balloon, and orbiter — to Venus in 2036. The mission would extend the legacy of the Soviet Venera programme (1961–1983), which remains the only national programme to have successfully landed on Venus. Scientific goals include searching for microbial life in Venus's clouds and studying the planet's atmosphere.   •      Mission: Venera-D (lander + balloon + orbiter) •      Planned launch: 2036 •      Agency: Roscosmos •      Heritage: Soviet Venera programme — 16 missions, 1961–1983 •      Science goal: Search for biosignatures in Venusian cloud layers (48–60 km altitude) •      Source: TASS, citing Razvedchik Journal interview with Denis Manturov   Story 4: NASA Begins Building Dragonfly — Nuclear-Powered Drone for Titan NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) officially began integration and testing of the Dragonfly rotorcraft on 10 March 2026. The car-sized, nuclear-powered octocopter is designed to fly across the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, targeting a 2028 launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy and...

It’s a bumper Friday edition of Astronomy Daily. NASA gives Artemis II the official green light to launch on April 1st, marking the first crewed lunar mission in over 53 years. Astronomers witness the birth of a magnetar for the very first time, confirming a decade-old theory and demonstrating Einstein’s general relativity in a supernova. A star 11,000 light-years away shows evidence of two planets catastrophically colliding in real time. A bus-sized asteroid buzzed past Earth last night closer than the Moon, discovered just five days ago. A fast solar wind stream from a coronal hole could bring auroras to higher latitudes tonight. And scientists may have identified the source of the most energetic neutrino ever recorded. 
Story 1: Artemis II — Green Light for April 1 Launch NASA completed its Flight Readiness Review on 12 March 2026, with all mission teams voting unanimously ‘go’ for launch. The Space Launch System and Orion capsule will roll out to Launch Complex 39B on 19 March, with the primary launch window opening on 1 April at 6:24pm ET. Backup windows exist on 2–6 April and 30 April. The crew of four — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — will fly a 10-day figure-eight loop around the Moon. It will be the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The previously planned Moon landing on Artemis III has been moved to Artemis IV, though NASA’s 2028 goal for a lunar landing remains unchanged. •       NASA Artemis II Mission Page: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/ •       CNN coverage of FRR outcome: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/science/nasa-artemis-2-launch-date-risk-assessment 
Story 2: First-Ever Observed Birth of a Magnetar Astronomers have for the first time directly observed the birth of a magnetar — a highly magnetized, rapidly spinning neutron star — confirming it as the power source behind some of the universe’s brightest stellar explosions. The discovery, published in Nature on 11 March 2026, centres on superluminous supernova SN 2024afav, located approximately one billion light-years from Earth. Graduate student Joseph Farah at UC Santa Barbara, working with Las Cumbres Observatory’s global telescope network, detected a distinctive ‘chirp’ pattern in the supernova’s fading light — four oscillations with shortening intervals. This pattern is explained by a wobbling accretion disc around the newborn magnetar, driven by Lense-Thirring precession — a general relativistic effect. The finding confirms a 2010 theory by UC Berkeley physicist Dan Kasen, and marks the first time general relativity has been required to explain supernova mechanics. •       Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/03/11/astronomers-capture-birth-of-a-magnetar-confirming-link-to-some-of-universes-brightest-exploding-stars/ •       Space.com: https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/astronomers-witness-colossal-supernova-explosion-create-one-of-the-most-magnetic-stars-in-the-universe-for-the-first-time 
Story 3: Two Planets Caught Colliding 11,000 Light-Years Away Researchers at the University of Washington have published evidence of a catastrophic planetary collision observed in real time around star Gaia20ehk, located approximately 11,000 light-years from Earth near the constellation Puppis. The star began flickering erratically from 2016, before its light output went ‘completely bonkers’ around 2021 — the signature of a massive debris cloud from two colliding worlds passing in front of the star. The debris orbits at roughly one astronomical unit from the star — the same as Earth’s distance from the Sun — and may eventually coalesce into new planetary bodies resembling an Earth-Moon system. The paper was published 11 March in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. •       University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/03/11/uw-astronomers-spot-planet-collision-evidence/ •       ScienceDaily:...

In today's episode of Astronomy Daily — S05E61, Thursday 12 March 2026 — Anna and Avery cover six of the biggest stories in space and astronomy from the past 24 hours.   Stories in this episode: •       3I/ATLAS, our third confirmed interstellar visitor, has been found to be extraordinarily rich in methanol — a type of alcohol — with ALMA observations revealing methanol-to-hydrogen cyanide ratios far beyond almost any known solar system comet. The findings offer a chemical fingerprint of a distant planetary system, and the comet makes its closest pass to Jupiter on March 16. •       Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket successfully returned to flight on March 11, completing its seventh mission — 'Stairway to Seven' — after an 11-month stand-down following two mishaps in 2025. The mission also validated key Block II upgrade systems ahead of the next-generation rocket's debut on Flight 8. •       NASA held its Artemis II Flight Readiness Review today at Kennedy Space Center, a critical milestone ahead of a potential April launch. The SLS/Orion stack is being prepared for its second rollout after a helium flow issue was repaired in the Vehicle Assembly Building. •       A landmark helioseismology study from the University of Birmingham and Yale, drawing on 40 years of data from the Birmingham Solar-Oscillations Network, reveals that the Sun's internal structure shifts measurably between solar cycle minima — with implications for space weather forecasting. •       NASA's Van Allen Probe A reentered Earth's atmosphere on March 11, eight years earlier than expected, with the current active solar cycle responsible for accelerating its orbital decay. Most of the 600kg spacecraft burned up over the eastern Pacific. •       Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have discovered a third gas cloud — G2t — orbiting Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole. Its near-identical orbit to the previously known G1 and G2 clouds suggests all three likely originated from the same binary star system.   Find full episodes, transcripts and more at astronomydaily.io. Follow us @AstroDailyPod on all major platforms.

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Welcome to Episode 60 of Astronomy Daily Season Five! In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six major stories from the world of space and astronomy — including a neutron star collision in an unprecedented location, the latest Artemis II news, and a cosmic mystery solved after decades.   Stories covered in this episode:   1. NASA Discovers Neutron Star Crash in Unexpected Location A fleet of NASA telescopes — including Chandra, Fermi, Swift, and Hubble — has detected a neutron star merger inside a tiny galaxy buried in a vast stream of gas, 4.7 billion light-years away. It's the first time this type of collision has been spotted in such an environment, and it may explain why gamma-ray bursts sometimes appear outside any galaxy — and how precious metals like gold and platinum ended up in distant stellar regions. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.   2. Artemis II Flight Readiness Review NASA will host a Flight Readiness Review press conference on Thursday 12 March at Kennedy Space Center, covering progress toward the first crewed Artemis mission. The rocket is currently back in the Vehicle Assembly Building following a helium issue, with rollout to the launchpad expected around 19 March and a launch target of no earlier than 1 April 2026.   3. Firefly Alpha 'Stairway to Seven' Scrubbed Again Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket — attempting its return to flight after a 10-month grounding — has been scrubbed three times in 10 days. The latest scrub occurred on 10 March during fluid loading after off-nominal readings. A new launch date will be confirmed following engineering review. This mission is the final Block I Alpha flight, with the upgraded Block II debuting on Flight 8.   4. DART Mission Reveals 'Cosmic Snowball Fight' Between Asteroids Researchers at the University of Maryland have found the first direct visual proof of material transfer between two asteroids — fan-shaped streaks on the surface of asteroid moon Dimorphos, left by debris thrown off its parent asteroid Didymos at just 30.7 cm/s. The discovery provides visual confirmation of the YORP effect and has implications for planetary defence modelling. ESA's Hera mission arrives at Didymos in December 2026. Published in The Planetary Science Journal.   5. Starship Flight 12 — About Four Weeks Away SpaceX is approximately four weeks from the launch of Starship Flight 12, which will be the first flight of the upgraded V3 configuration — the most powerful version of the already record-breaking vehicle. Engineers have completed propellant system tests on Ship 39 at Starbase, Texas, and preflight preparations are continuing.   6. Giant Cosmic Sheet Discovered Around the Milky Way Astronomers from the University of Groningen, publishing in Nature Astronomy, have used advanced computer simulations to discover that the matter surrounding our Local Group is arranged in a vast, flat sheet — dominated by dark matter — stretching tens of millions of light-years across. This structure, flanked by enormous empty voids, explains why nearby galaxies are moving away from us rather than being pulled inward. It's the first detailed map of dark matter distribution in our cosmic neighbourhood.   
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A 1,300-pound NASA satellite is falling back to Earth today, a meteorite punched through a German roof after a dazzling European fireball, Congress wants to keep the International Space Station flying until 2032, ALMA has captured the largest-ever image of the Milky Way's core, astronomers have mapped a hidden 'sea of light' from 10 billion years ago, and Jupiter appears to reverse direction in tonight's sky. Stories Covered 1. Van Allen Probe A Falls to Earth: NASA's 600kg Van Allen Probe A — launched in 2012 to study Earth's radiation belts — is making an unplanned early return to Earth today, March 10, 2026. Deactivated in 2019 after a seven-year mission, its descent was accelerated by unexpectedly high solar activity expanding Earth's atmosphere. Most of the spacecraft will burn up on reentry; the risk of any harm to people on the ground is approximately 1 in 4,200. 2. German Meteorite Strike: On the evening of Sunday 8 March, a brilliant fireball lit up the skies over Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, attracting over 3,000 reports to the International Meteor Organization. Fragments reached the ground in Koblenz, Germany — with the largest piece punching a football-sized hole through the roof of a residential building. No one was injured. ESA's Planetary Defence team estimates the original object was just a few metres across. 3. ISS Extended to 2032: The NASA Authorization Act of 2026 has passed the Senate Commerce Committee with bipartisan support, pushing the ISS retirement date from 2030 to September 2032. The extension aims to prevent a gap in U.S. human presence in low Earth orbit while commercial successor stations are developed. The bill also rejects proposed cuts to NASA's budget and funds key programmes including the Chandra X-ray Observatory. 4. ALMA's Milky Way Mosaic: The ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey (ACES) has produced the largest ALMA image ever — a sweeping 650-light-year mosaic of the Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone, assembled from hundreds of observations by over 160 scientists worldwide. The image reveals a intricate web of cold gas filaments feeding star formation near supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, and detects dozens of molecules from simple silicon compounds to complex organics like methanol and ethanol. 5. 3D Map of the Early Universe: Using data from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), astronomers have created the largest 3D map yet of the universe as it appeared 9–11 billion years ago — during 'cosmic noon', the peak era of star formation. By tracking Lyman-alpha light from energised hydrogen rather than individual galaxies, the team revealed a hidden 'sea of light' filling the spaces between galaxies. The dataset comprised over 600 million spectra, with 95% still untapped for future research. 6. Jupiter's Retrograde Motion: Tonight, Jupiter begins its apparent reversal of direction against the background stars — a well-known optical illusion called retrograde motion caused by Earth overtaking the slower-moving outer planet in its orbit. Jupiter is well-placed in the evening sky and easily visible to the naked eye; binoculars will reveal its four bright Galilean moons. Links & Resources NASA Van Allen Probe A reentry update: nasa.gov/missions/van-allen-probes ESA fireball analysis: esa.int/Space_Safety/Planetary_Defence ALMA ACES Survey: almaobservatory.org | ESO press release: eso.org/public/news/eso2603/ HETDEX project: hetdex.org Astronomy Daily: astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod on all platforms

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In today's episode, Anna and Avery explore five of the week's most compelling space and astronomy stories: a new SETI Institute study suggesting stellar space weather could be scrambling alien radio signals before they even leave their home systems; groundbreaking research revealing that spaceflight physically shifts and deforms the human brain inside the skull; the impressive engineering story behind Roscosmos restoring Baikonur's launch pad in record time ahead of the Progress MS-33 mission; a surprising new finding from Nature that Earth's elliptical orbit plays a much bigger role in shaping El Niño and global weather patterns than previously thought; and the endlessly fascinating question of whether asteroid impacts could allow microbes to travel between planets — including the possibility that life on Earth may have originated on Mars.   Stories Covered •       Why SETI may be missing alien radio signals — space weather around distant stars could be smearing narrowband signals beyond the reach of current detectors (SETI Institute, March 2026) •       Spaceflight physically shifts and deforms the brain inside the skull — new MRI study of 26 astronauts published in PNAS reveals extent of microgravity's neurological impact (University of Florida, March 2026) •       Baikonur's Site 31/6 launch pad fully restored after November 2025 damage — over 150 workers complete repairs in under two months, clearing path for Progress MS-33 on March 22 (NASASpaceFlight, March 2026) •       Earth's distance from the Sun found to dramatically alter seasons — new Nature study shows orbital eccentricity drives its own annual cycle in the Pacific cold tongue, influencing El Niño over millennia (UC Berkeley, March 2026) •       Did Earth life begin on Mars? New research examines how asteroid impacts could allow microbes to travel between planets via ejected rock (Universe Today, March 2026)   Connect With Us Website: astronomydaily.io Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Tumblr: @AstroDailyPod Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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ASTRONOMY DAILY — S05E57 | Saturday 7 March 2026  
A landmark week for planetary defence — scientists confirm that NASA's DART impact didn't just move an asteroid's orbit around its companion, it shifted the entire binary system's path around the Sun. Plus: gravitational waves double, a European spacecraft goes silent, a 45-year theory bites the dust, a young Sun caught in the act — and a double planet show in tonight's sky.   In This Episode •       [00:00] Cold Open — Humanity moved a solar orbit •       [02:00] Story 1: DART changed Didymos's orbit around the Sun (Science Advances, March 2026) •       [06:00] Story 2: LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA doubles the gravitational wave catalog with GWTC-4 •       [10:00] Story 3: ESA's Proba-3 Coronagraph spacecraft goes dark — recovery underway •       [13:00] Story 4: Stars keep their rotation pattern for life — 45-year theory overturned (Nature Astronomy) •       [16:30] Story 5: Chandra captures first astrosphere around a Sun-like star •       [19:30] Story 6: Venus and Saturn pair up in tonight's sky — skywatching guide   Connect With Us •       Website & Blog: astronomydaily.io •       Social: @AstroDailyPod •       Network: Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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