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Send us a text The launch window for Artemis II opens on 6 February 2026. Humans will fly a test mission, swinging around the far side of the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. There won’t be a landing, but just like Apollo 8 tested systems in the lunar vicinity before Apollo 11, Artemis II will test the modern systems under the same conditions the landing missions. There will be a crew of 4 including the first person of colour, the first woman and the first non American to fly beyond low Earth orbit. It really is a historic flight in so many ways. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text The Moon has a history longer than any of the features on Earth, but it isn’t as old as Earth. The Giant Impact hypothesis says that a Mars sized protoplanet collided with earth Billions of years ago and threw out enough of earth’s mantle to make the Moon. It’s an incredible story, and it might just have been the luckiest thing that ever happened for us. Without the Moon, life as we know it might never have existed. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text As the year winds down, let’s take a look at what the night sky has on offer in December 2025. The highlight has to be the Geminid Meteor Shower. Over a couple of nights this month, Earth crashes through the debris trail of asteroid 3200 Phaethon, producing a spectacular meteor shower. There’s a Supermoon in close proximity to the Pleiades star cluster, and we say goodbye to an interstellar traveller in 3I/ATLAS. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text We’ve detected many exoplanets and exoplanetary stems, they orbit stars in other parts of the galaxy. These planets form the same way our planetary did, they coalesce from a protoplanetary disc of gas and dust. Scientists have recently found a useful kind of substance - heavy water in one of these protoplanetary discs, and it’s told us a lot about how water might end up in planetary systems. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text A billion light years away, a billion years ago, two black holes spiralled toward each other and collided, we detected its gravitational waves in January 2025. We’ve detected many of these before, but this one was different. It was such a strong, clear signal that we could test laws of physics that had been proposed many decades earlier. It even put Einstein to the test. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text In 1975, an incredible and unlikely partnership resulted in the docking of a NASA Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit. The cold war opponents worked together to overcome not only engineering challenges, but the rivalry and suspicion of the cold war.  This cooperation led to the Shuttle-Mir program in the 90s and the present day International space station. They all began with the spirit of cooperation from Apollo-Soyuz. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text Earth’s days had been getting longer since observations began. Every century, the length of the day would increase by about two milliseconds. Like… clockwork. In recent years, something strange has been happening, the days have started getting shorter as the rotation of the Earth has been speeding up. Even more strangely, we don’t really understand why. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text An Australian team of botanists and engineers are working on a project that might make or break the future of long term, long distance space occupation. They're growing plants. Not that unusual, but they're trying to grow them on the Moon. Plants produce oxygen and they are food, essential elements of living away from Earth. Let's check out the plan to experiment with germinating seeds in shoebox sized 'lunariums' on the Moon within the next 12 months. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text Kosmos 482, was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1972 on a mission to Venus, but a technical glitch meant it never made it past Earth orbit. Designed to withstand the hellish surface of Venus, its lander remained in space for over 50 years, but this relic of Cold War space exploration has finally returned, re-entering Earth’s atmosphere decades after its failed journey. Though the mission never reached Venus, Kosmos 482’s dramatic, delayed descent closes a half-century chapter in space history. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text No need to panic. Yet! We’ll be fine for the next 4 or 5 billion years, but Andromeda is heading our way. The Andromeda Galaxy was the first object to be identified as being outside our own galaxy, and it introduced us to extragalactic astronomy. And that’s not all. It can teach us more about dark matter and it could be home to billions of planets. It’s a very cool neighbour, but one day - it’s kinda going to move in! Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text Their planned 8 day visit to the International Space Station was turned on its head when NASA announced their Boeing Starliner capsule was unsafe to use. What did Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore do for those 9 months? And we check out the plan that was put together to get them home safely. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content       X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text After everything learned through Mercury and Gemini culminated in the seventeen Apollo missions. The first ten were all testing and rehearsals, but the whole program, and a whole era was characterised by Apollo 11, the first time humans set foot on the moon. Along with the triumph, there was tragedy and a very near miss, and one of the most underrated aspects of NASA's space program - the lunar roving vehicles that let the astronauts explore more than seven kilometres from the Lunar Module. This really was one of the most remarkable endeavours of science, engineering and teamwork. Let's dive in. Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content       X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text Nasa had accomplished spaceflight with Project Mercury but the gap to Apollo was still huge. How do you dock two spacecraft in flight and how do crews live in a tiny spacecraft for lunar length flights. These are just a couple of the questions that NASA needed to answer. Gemini was just the project to resolve all of these issues. It was a proving ground, for learning, testing and practicing the skills needed for lunar missions. Gemini wasn't the first program to accomplish spaceflight, and it didn't include the most well known achievements, but it was a formidable project in its own right. Let's check it out.  Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content       X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text Back in the late 1950s, NASA was formed. Its first job was to put together a human crewed spaceflight program and put an astronaut into orbit - safely. This was Project Mercury. There were some uncrewed developmental flights and then six crewed flights between 1961 and 1963, this was an enormously significant step toward the Apollo moon landings just six years later. So who were the Mercury astronauts and what was the mission profile of these first six crewed spaceflights? Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content       X.com/CosmicCoffTime Email us! [email protected] You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a text Project Mercury was NASA’s first attempt at human crewed space flight. It sent Alan Shepard into space, and John Glenn into orbit, among four other landmark flights over 5 years. By 1963 it was done, and NASA was ready to launch Gemini, its next project. But being such a groundbreaking project, in 1964 NASA paid tribute to Mercury with a four metre high stainless steel monument with a time capsule that would remain sealed beneath it until the year 2464, five centuries later.  What was so significant about Mercury? And what’s inside this time capsule? We could wait another 440 years, or just listen! Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content       X.com/CosmicCoffTime You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi! We'd love to hear from you. Email us! [email protected]