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Show notes Astronomy Daily S05E215 — The Star That Was Born Twice (Tuesday 27 October 2026). Hosts Anna and Avery. Lead: the Orion Nebula's age paradox. Its planet-forming discs and its expanding gas shell both look far younger than its million-year-old stars. Wilhelm, Trani and Portegies Zwart (Leiden / Universidad de Concepción) propose that the nebula's most massive star, θ1 Orionis C1, formed a few hundred thousand years ago when two stars merged, driven by their companion's gravity, suddenly switching on harsher radiation. We cover the caveats and the clean test that could falsify it. Also: WD J1328−1450, a white dwarf with two nested rings of gas that point to two hidden planetary bodies; China's AIMS telescope reads a solar flare's magnetic field directly in the mid-infrared; and a Yale study arguing giant impacts can help rocky planets keep hydrogen atmospheres. Quick hits: NASA's new Competition Model 2.0, Swift's mission formally ended ahead of re-entry, Hera's second braking burn, and the DPS meeting in Spokane. Skywatch: finding the Orion Nebula from Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London; Saturn in the evening; Mercury's last call in the south; Mars and Jupiter converging before dawn. Sources ·         Wilhelm, Trani & Portegies Zwart, 'A triple-induced merger in θ1 Ori C solves the proplyd lifetime problem and the curiously young shell of M42', A&A, DOI 10.1051/0004-6361/202662018; arXiv 2609.38550 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.38550 ·         Leiden University release, 23 Oct 2026 — https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2026/10/leiden-astronomers-explain-the-orion-nebulas-age-paradox ·         Gentile Fusillo, Lagos-Vilches, Koester et al., 'A double debris disc around a white dwarf sculpted by two planetary bodies', Nature Astronomy, 26 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-03004-3 — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-03004-3 ·         Deng, Bai, Wei et al., 'Apparent magnetic field decay in a solar flare from Zeeman splitting of the Mg I 12.32-µm line', Nature Astronomy, 23 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-03013-2; arXiv 2610.33502 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.33502 ·         Modirrousta-Galian & Korenaga, 'Retention of primordial atmospheres through giant impacts', Nature Astronomy, 26 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-03006-1 — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-03006-1 ·         NASA Science, 'Faster to Science: A Letter to the Science Community' — https://science.nasa.gov/directorates/smd/faster-to-science-a-letter-to-the-science-community/ ·         NASA Science, 'NASA's Swift Mission Ends Ahead of Re-Entry', 23 Oct 2026 — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/10/23/nasas-swift-mission-ends-ahead-of-re-entry/ ·         ESA Hera mission updates — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes In 2016, NASA's Swift caught a gamma-ray burst that came in two parts: a 1.7-second spike, four minutes of silence, then a 51-second burst from the same spot. A new Nature Astronomy paper finds that nearly every classification test labels the first part a merger and the second a collapsing star. It was published three days after Swift ended science operations. Also today: a black hole disc in MAXI J0637−430 that puffs up and shades itself at just a fifth of the Eddington limit; JWST finds methane in interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS with a deuterium ratio of 3.18%, the highest ever measured in methane anywhere in the solar system; and NASA's Psyche goes to near-continuous thrust and makes the first in-space measurement of Hall-thruster swirl torque. Quick hits: Hera's second braking burn, Dragonfly's first simulated Titan flight, and 20 years of STEREO. Skywatch for Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London: the Hunter's Moon, Mars and Jupiter closing before dawn, Saturn in the evening and Mercury's last call. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes NASA lays out Artemis III day by day: fourteen days in Earth orbit, two rival landers, one Orion. Plus the week that was, Swift's final bow, and Venus changing sides. The Rehearsal NASA's 23 October Artemis update laid out Artemis III day by day: a 14-day low-Earth-orbit mission targeted for summer 2027 in which Orion docks with a Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 2 test lander on day three (crew enter its cabin) and a SpaceX Starship test lander on day eight. For Artemis IV in 2028, Starship would dock with Orion in Earth orbit and push it to the Moon; Blue Moon would reach lunar orbit on Mark 1-derived transfer stages. Isaacman put Artemis III about 90 days behind on paper. Plus: the National Academies' four science-first landing sites, none at the south pole. The Week That Was MMX launched for Phobos and is in good health; the Moon is still shrinking (>10,000 young thrust faults); the Milky Way's disc formed in two stages; balloons measured GLE 77 through the atmosphere; and The Starry Night as a real 1889 sky. Also: the ELT's mirror, a Valles Marineris marsquake and Roman's science commissioning. Farewell, Swift On 20 October Swift reached 275 km, entered safe mode and was commanded to end operations ahead of re-entry, expected within weeks. No date or location has been published. Skywatch Venus at inferior conjunction (24 Oct, 6.5° from the Sun — do not look); Mercury low in the west for the south; the near-full Moon beside Saturn tonight; full Hunter's Moon 26 Oct 04:11 UTC; Mars and Jupiter closing pre-dawn for the north; UK clocks go back Sunday 25 Oct. Always use ISO 12312-2 certified filters for any solar viewing. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes Astronomers argue The Starry Night shows a real pre-dawn sky over Saint-Rémy around 22 July 1889; Roman enters science commissioning; Rubin's test camera and the Seagull Nebula; quick hits on Hera, Starship, Swift and Artemis; Skywatch with Venus at inferior conjunction. ·         Lead: The Night Van Gogh Saw ·         Roman Enters Science Commissioning ·         Rubin'S Test Camera And The Seagull ·         Quick Hits ·         Skywatch Sources ·         Kim et al., Scientific Reports — DOI 10.1038/s41598-026-73025-5 — https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-73025-5 ·         EurekAlert — SLLAB release, 22 Oct 2026 — https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1148245 ·         Science News — 'Was van Gogh's The Starry Night a flight of fancy or a real sky?' (Olson comment) — https://www.sciencenews.org/article/van-gogh-starry-night-real-sky-stars ·         Space.com — Starry Night depicts the sky on July 22, 1889 — https://www.space.com/astronomy/van-goghs-the-starry-night-depicts-the-sky-on-july-22-1889-researchers-find ·         Code and data — GitHub sllabinc/StarryNight; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.21175816 — https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21175816 ·         NASA — Roman Space Telescope enters final commissioning phase — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman/2026/10/22/nasas-roman-space-telescope-enters-final-commissioning-phase/ ·         NOIRLab — Seagull Nebula through Rubin's Commissioning Camera (noirlab2625) — https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2625/ ·         Universe Today — Even the Rubin's test camera produces stunning images — https://www.universetoday.com/articles/even-the-rubins-test-camera-produces-stunning-images ·         ESA — Brake! Time for ESA's Hera asteroid mission to go slow — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Brake!_Time_for_ESA_s_Hera_asteroid_mission_to_go_slow ·         ESA Hera on X — https://x.com/ESA_Hera ·         New Space Economy — SpaceX targets November for Flight 15 — https://newspaceeconomy.ca/2026/10/21/spacex-targets-november-2026-for-starship-flight-15-and-its-first-stage-tower-catch/ ·         NASA — Recently published (Faster to Science letter) — https://www.nasa.gov/news/recently-published/ ·         IJR/AP — Swift expected to re-enter in early November — https://ijr.com/discover/science-2026-09-25-nasa-telescope-rescue-spacecraft-reenters-mission-fails-3e6b8d19 ·         EarthSky — Sun news, 22 Oct 2026 — https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/ ·         Skywatch ephemerides computed in-session with PyEphem for Sydney, Los Angeles, New York, London and Saint-Rémy (1889) Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes Last November the Sun produced its strongest radiation storm in almost twenty years, and this time scientists were ready: neutron monitors from Cornwall to Shetland, sensors on transatlantic airliners, and weather balloons launched within the hour. A new Space Weather paper shows just how patchy the storm was, with one Shetland balloon passing aviation warning thresholds while others saw nothing. Also: a marsquake proves Valles Marineris is still tectonically active, a near-synchronised binary powers the Kepler field's most violent superflares, suspected Chinese rocket debris lands in a Borneo plantation, a correction on NASA's Artemis briefing, Hera's second braking burn, and a both-hemispheres skywatch with Venus at inferior conjunction, Mercury for the south, and the Moon with Saturn. Sources ·         Baird et al., Space Weather (DOI) — https://doi.org/10.1029/2026SW005279 ·         University of Surrey release, 20 Oct 2026 — https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/rare-solar-radiation-storm-gives-scientists-clearest-picture-yet-flight-risks ·         NICT — ICAO space weather centres (ACFJ) — https://swc.nict.go.jp/en/knowledge/icao.html ·         Song et al., Nature Communications — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78193-6 ·         Columbia/phys.org — Valles Marineris — https://phys.org/news/2026-10-giant-canyon-mars-tectonically-today.html ·         Kővári et al., arXiv 2610.11799 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.11799 ·         Konkoly Observatory release via phys.org — https://phys.org/news/2026-10-astronomers-uncover-powerful-stellar-flares.html ·         AFP via phys.org — Indonesia debris — https://phys.org/news/2026-10-indonesia-probes-chinese-rocket-fragment.html ·         CGTN — Zhuque-2E launch 14 Oct — https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-10-14/China-s-Zhuque-2E-rocket-launches-10-satellites-into-space-1ReYXyOhz5C/share_amp.html ·         ESA — Hera braking manoeuvres — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Brake!_Time_for_ESA_s_Hera_asteroid_mission_to_go_slow ·         NASA — Artemis update advisory — https://nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-discuss-artemis-acceleration-status-of-upcoming-moon-missions Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes The Milky Way's disc settled in two stages; metal-rich gas around Sgr A*; two mirror-image simulated universes; shadows in the Orion Bar; quick hits on Hera, Uzbekistan and Artemis; Orionid-night skywatch. Sources ·         IAC — Milky Way's disc formed in two very distinct stages — https://www.iac.es/en/outreach/news/research-iac-reveals-milky-ways-disc-formed-two-very-distinct-stages ·         Mirabal et al. — ApJL 1010 L38 — https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aeb0a3 ·         McGill — Gas around Milky Way's central black hole is rich in metals — https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/gas-around-milky-ways-central-black-hole-rich-metals-study-finds-375101 ·         Ford et al. — AJ (DOI) — http://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ae994d ·         Ford et al. — arXiv 2605.13995 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.13995 ·         Argonne — Aurora powers two of the largest cosmological simulations — https://www.anl.gov/article/argonnes-aurora-supercomputer-powers-two-of-the-largest-cosmological-simulations-to-date ·         UDE — New 3D model reveals hidden chemistry of stellar nurseries — https://www.uni-due.de/2026-10-16-publication-aa-brandt-gaches-3d-model-en ·         Gaches et al. — A&A 714 A295 — https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202660769 ·         ESA — Finding Hera's way: Flight Dynamics team in action — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Finding_Hera_s_way_Flight_Dynamics_team_in_action ·         Kun.uz — Uzbekistan joins Artemis Accords — https://kun.uz/en/news/2026/10/19/uzbekistan-joins-artemis-accords-on-peaceful-space-exploration ·         NASA — To discuss Artemis acceleration, status of upcoming Moon missions — https://nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-discuss-artemis-acceleration-status-of-upcoming-moon-missions ·         The Planetary Society — Night sky, October 2026 — https://www.planetary.org/night-sky/night-sky-what-to-see-this-month Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes The Moon Is Still Shrinking Watters, Banks, Nypaver and Robinson (Planetary Science Journal, 14 Oct 2026) map more than 10,000 young thrust faults — ~8,900 lobate scarps and 2,000+ small mare ridges — with LRO's camera. Together they record about 42–46 m of radial contraction over the last ~400–800 million years, at most ~11 cm per million years. That's less than thermal models predict, pointing to a thick, porous, insulating megaregolith (or a strong elastic lithosphere) that delayed faulting. The ~4 MPa stress matches Apollo shallow-moonquake stress drops, so faults may still be growing today — relevant to siting lunar bases. A Soil Map for Mars University of Sydney PhD student Daniel Irving and Prof. Alex McBratney (Catena 275) classify almost 800 million Martian locations into 10 realms, 100 assemblages and 2,000 forms of 'areths', mapping 92% of the planet. Top candidate for plant growth, Nohibareth (score 0.93; ~72% clay, pH 6.8), covers 0.14% of the surface around Tharsis, Arabia Terra and Elysium. Candidates for study, not greenhouse sites; perchlorate and nitrogen not yet included. Euclid Finds Its First Comet ESA's Euclid discovered C/2026 S1 (Euclid) in Deep Field North images from 16–24 September, flagged by Mikko Pöntinen's moving-object software and confirmed by the Minor Planet Center on 8 October. ~1.3 billion km away on a steep, thousands-of-years orbit. Uranus and Neptune: Cousins, Not Twins Briand, Hue, Mousis, Cavalié et al. (A&A 714, A364) use upper-tropospheric carbon monoxide, including ALMA data, to infer deep oxygen: Uranus ~47–177× protosolar, Neptune ~182–342×. Contrasting C/O ratios suggest Neptune's building blocks formed closer to the Sun. Accepted version online since late August. Quick hits MMX launched 04:41:03 JST 20 Oct on H3 F10; separation ~71 min 13 s; JAXA confirms the spacecraft is operating normally. Roman's Wide Field Instrument focused to 63 nm RMS against ~90 nm required. Artemis II heat shield: 9 char-loss spots vs 103 on Artemis I. Hera's BRM-2 burn Thursday 22 October. Skywatch Orionids peak 21–22 Oct — watch between moonset and dawn (moonset Thu morning: 03:38 Sydney, 03:22 LA, 03:12 NY, 02:49 London). Mercury 16.5° up at civil dusk from Sydney. Venus at inferior conjunction ~24 Oct. Moon ~6° from Saturn 24 Oct. Full Moon 26 Oct 04:11 UTC. UK clocks go back 25 Oct, US on 1 Nov. Always use ISO 12312-2 certified filters for any solar viewing. Sources ·         Watters et al. — Thrust Faulting and the Late-stage Contraction of the Moon (PSJ, 14 Oct 2026) — https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ae9eae ·         Smithsonian NASM — New Study Reveals How Much the Moon Is Shrinking — https://airandspace.si.edu/newsroom/press-releases/new-study-reveals-how-much-moon-shrinking ·         University of Sydney — Sydney student creates first map of Martian soils — https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2026/10/16/sydney-student-creates-first-map-of-martian-soils.html ·         McBratney, Irving et al. — Areths and PPACS (Catena 275) — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2026.110649 ·         ESA — Euclid discovers new comet — https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/Euclid_discovers_new_comet ·         SwRI — New ideas about origins of Uranus, Neptune — https://www.swri.org/newsroom/press-releases/swri-staff-contribute-new-ideas-about-origins-of-uranus-neptune ·         Briand et al. — Contrasting C/O ratios in Uranus and Neptune (A&A 714, A364) — https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202660770 ·         JAXA — Launch result of MMX aboard H3 F10 — https://global.jaxa.jp/press/2026/10/20261020-1_e.html ·         NASA — Roman team checks out main instrument, sharpens focus — https://science.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/ ·         NASA — Rigorous analysis confirms Artemis II heat shield performance — https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/artemis-2/rigorous-analysis-confirms-nasas-artemis-ii-heat-shield-performance/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

MMX: A Round Trip to Phobos JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration mission launched on schedule on H3 Flight No. 10 at 04:41:03 JST on 20 October 2026 (19:41 UTC 19 Oct; 06:41 AEDT Tue; 15:41 EDT / 12:41 PDT / 20:41 BST Mon). Mars orbit August 2027, Phobos quasi-satellite orbit from September 2027, Idefix rover (CNES/DLR) release early 2029, landing and sampling 2030, and at least 10 g of Phobos returned in 2031 to South Australia. Eleven science instruments including NASA's MEGANE. The aim: settle whether Phobos and Deimos are captured asteroids or debris from a giant impact on Mars. Half a Giant Mirror ESO reports that nearly 500 of the ELT's primary-mirror segments are now at Paranal — more than half of the 931 being made (798 plus 133 spares for continual recoating). Safran Reosc is finishing a segment a day and the last one is in production. The ELT is more than 75% complete, with first observations with scientific instruments planned for late 2030. The Window That Closes Carr, Cen and colleagues (Nature Astronomy, 15 Oct 2026) used Hubble/COS spectra of six matched local starbursts to show ionising light escapes most in the first few million years, before supernova-driven winds load the outflow with neutral gas and shut it down. Escape fractions fall from ~21% (mean age ~2.7 Myr) to under 0.4% (~5.4 Myr). Preprint first posted October 2025. The Treble Clef Rises Again Botteon et al. (A&A; NASA/Chandra release 14 Oct) show VLSS J0318.9+5755, behind the Milky Way's plane, is a radio phoenix in a merging cluster at z ≈ 0.117: an old black-hole outburst re-lit by a cluster collision a few hundred million years ago. Spectral index above 4 between 400 and 650 MHz; electrons ~190–200 Myr old. Preprint from July. Quick hits Hera's 93-minute BRM-1 confirmed within parameters; BRM-2 on Thursday 22 October. Sentinel-3C's first images and altimetry. Swift: no NASA re-entry date yet. Skywatch Full Moon 26 Oct 04:11 UTC. Orionids peak 21–22 Oct: go after moonset (03:38 Sydney, 03:22 LA, 03:12 NY, 02:49 London on the 22nd). Mercury 17° up at civil dusk from Sydney (21 Oct). Venus inferior conjunction ~24 Oct. Moon ~6° from Saturn ~24 Oct. Mars–Jupiter 10.8° → 8.0° pre-dawn. Always use ISO 12312-2 certified filters for any solar viewing. Sources ·         JAXA — MMX launch on H3 F10 — https://mmx-news.isas.jaxa.jp/?p=2753 ·         ESA — Mars moon lander set to launch on 19 October — https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_moon_lander_set_to_launch_on_19_October ·         Australian Space Agency — MMX sample return — https://www.space.gov.au/node/950 ·         ESO ann26009 — More than half of the ELT's giant mirror is now in Chile — https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann26009/ ·         Carr et al. — arXiv 2510.21197 (Nature Astronomy, 15 Oct 2026) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.21197 ·         NASA — Chandra breaks down Treble Clef's galaxy cluster collision — https://science.nasa.gov/missions/chandra/nasas-chandra-breaks-down-treble-clefs-galaxy-cluster-collision/ ·         Botteon et al. — arXiv 2607.06659 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.06659 ·         ESA — Sentinel-3C returns its first views of Earth — https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-3/Sentinel-3C_returns_its_first_views_of_Earth ·         ESA Hera on X — BRM-1 confirmed — https://x.com/ESA_Hera ·         NASA — Lessons learned from the Swift boost mission — https://science.nasa.gov/missions/swift/nasa-highlights-lessons-learned-from-swift-boost-mission/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes Time Lets Go of the Sky On 15 October 2026 the 28th General Conference on Weights and Measures in Versailles adopted Resolution 5: UTC becomes continuous on 20 May 2027, ending leap seconds, with the UTC–UT1 gap allowed to reach one hour. The driver: a growing chance (about 30% by 2035) of a first-ever negative leap second. Resolution 6 starts work on an international lunar reference time scale traceable to UTC; Resolution 4 prepares an optical-clock redefinition of the second for 2030. Earth's rotation (UT1) is still measured — by VLBI, with Australia's AuScope dishes part of the network. The Week That Was WISE 0855's changing water clouds (JWST); Hera's 93-minute braking burn; Artemis II's five lunar impact flashes; UCL questions the chemical evidence for hypernovae; the Arsia Mons cloud needs ice from nothing; the first green star. Also: ZTF J0440+2325, Meteor 2-7, Juno's crumpled magnetodisk, WASP-17 b, two planetary families, and new Magellanic Cloud pulsars from the Parkes archive. Skywatch First quarter Mon 19 Oct 03:12 AEDT (16:12 UTC Sun). Mercury 24° up at sunset from Sydney vs 10° LA, 7° NY, 3° London. Venus gone from northern evening skies; inferior conjunction ~03:00 UTC Sat 24 Oct. Saturn all evening, rings ~7° open. Orionids peak 21–22 Oct; Moon sets ~03:00–03:40 local, radiant 39–70° up at 04:30. Mars–Jupiter 11.5° apart, 1.2° on 16 Nov. AR4551 beta-gamma-delta. Solar safety: ISO 12312-2 filters only. Sources ·        BIPM — Resolutions adopted at the 28th CGPM: https://www.bipm.org/en/-/cgpm-2026-resolutions-adopted ·        BIPM — Resolution 5 (2026): https://www.bipm.org/en/cgpm-2026/resolution-5 ·        BIPM — Statement by the CCTF President, 15 Oct 2026: https://www.bipm.org/documents/d/guest/statement-cctf-president-cgpm-2026 ·        AuScope VLBI array (Lovell et al.): https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3213 ·        ESA — Braking news! Hera: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Braking_news!_Time_for_ESA_s_Hera_asteroid_mission_to_go_slow ·        JAXA — MMX launch schedule: https://global.jaxa.jp/press/2026/08/20260820-1_e.html ·        EarthSky — Sun news, AR4551 (16 Oct): https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/ ·        Week That Was sources: see S05E202–S05E206 show notes. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes Episode 206 opens with the first results from ALMA's COMPASS survey: the first detection anywhere in interstellar space of fully deuterated methanol, and methanol masers turning up around more than half of a sample of young Sun-like stars. Then the first star that would look green, Magellanic Cloud pulsars recovered from decades-old Parkes data, a supernova caught days old when the universe was 1.2 billion years old, quick hits on Hera, CRS-35 and MMX, and a both-hemispheres skywatch built around the Orionids. Heavy methanol around a newborn star ALMA's COMPASS programme (11 protostars, 100+ hours, seven A&A papers) reports the first interstellar CD3OD around IRAS 4A2 in Perseus (Belloche, MPIfR) and methanol masers in more than half of its low-mass protostars (Jeong, SNU). Deuterium fraction as a formation clock; current models can't reproduce the pattern. The first green star Warwick's Hollands et al. (RASTI) compute white dwarf colours from spectra: WD J1330+6435 comes out chartreuse thanks to accreted sodium; WD J1011+2845 may be the reddest star known. Of 151 white dwarfs within 20 pc, about 1 in 30 is oddly coloured, and the median is white. Pulsars hiding in the Parkes archive Reprocessing Murriyang's Magellanic Cloud surveys finds six pulsars, five in the LMC including a 3.8 s spinner (Sengar et al., preprint); a separate search finds PSR J0103−72, the slowest radio pulsar in the SMC (Wang & Sengar, preprint). A supernova caught days old JWST's NEXUS survey caught AT 2026abck at z = 5.017 roughly 4–10 rest-frame days after explosion — the first robust z ≳ 5 transient in an unlensed field (preprint; no spectrum yet). Quick hits Hera's BRM-1 braking burn (result pending at recording), CRS-35 docks with the last iROSAs, and MMX launches Tuesday morning Japan time. Skywatch First quarter 18 Oct, Orionids peak 21–22 Oct with the Moon down before dawn everywhere, evening Mercury for the south, Venus heading into conjunction, Saturn after dark, Mars and Jupiter closing before dawn. Sources ·        ALMA — Cosmic Cocktail: ALMA Reveals Exotic Methanol Around Young Stars (7 Oct 2026) — https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-releases/cosmic-cocktail-alma-reveals-exotic-methanol-around-young-stars/ ·        Belloche et al., COMPASS VII, arXiv 2610.07279 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.07279 ·        University of Warwick — true colours of white dwarf stars — https://warwick.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/astronomers-reveal-true-colours-of-white-dwarf-stars/ ·        Hollands et al., RASTI DOI 10.1093/rasti/rzag069 — https://academic.oup.com/rasti/article/doi/10.1093/rasti/rzag069 ·        Sengar et al., arXiv 2610.12450 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.12450 ·        Wang & Sengar, arXiv 2610.12143 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.12143 ·        Zhuang, Shen et al., arXiv 2609.38373 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.38373 ·        ESA — Brake! Time for ESA's Hera asteroid mission to go slow — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Brake!_Time_for_ESA_s_Hera_asteroid_mission_to_go_slow ·        NASA Space Station blog — CRS-35 docking — https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/ ·        JAXA — MMX launch schedule — https://global.jaxa.jp/press/2026/08/20260820-1_e.html Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes A cloud on Mars that forms only if textbook-theoretical physics really happens; Webb maps a hot Jupiter's edge angle by angle; multi-planet systems turn out to come in two families tied to their stars; and the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy's original disc is rebuilt from its own debris. Plus Hera's first braking burn, the station's final solar arrays, NASA ADS hands over to SciX, and a both-hemispheres skywatch. The Cloud That Shouldn't Exist Every morning in Mars's southern spring and summer, the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud stretches up to 1,800 km from the 20 km volcano and vanishes within the day. A team led by Jorge Hernández-Bernal (LMD/CNRS/Sorbonne Université) could only reproduce it by adding homogeneous nucleation, in which vapour freezes with no dust seed, at supersaturation more than 100,000 times everyday Earth levels. A model result: sufficient, not yet observed directly. Nature Geoscience, 7 October 2026. A Map Around a Hot Jupiter's Edge Using JWST's NIRISS, NIRSpec and MIRI and the transmission strings method, Lili Alderson, Hannah Wakeford and colleagues mapped WASP-17 b's limb in 20° steps: ~860 K at the morning edge, ~1,520 K at the evening edge, the largest limb contrast yet. Data from March 2023. Nature Astronomy, 14 October 2026. Planetary Systems Come in Two Families Diego Turrini (INAF), Camilla Danielski and colleagues find 298 well-measured multi-planet systems split into a calm, compact low-mass family and a heavyweight family around metal-rich stars with about ten times more dynamical excitation. Nature Astronomy, 13 October 2026. Rewinding a Shredded Galaxy Zixi Guo, Xiang-Xiang Xue (NAOC) and colleagues reproduce a vertical metallicity gradient across the Sagittarius streams only if the dwarf began as a disc with an inverted-V metallicity profile, seen in 3 of 217 MaNGA dwarfs. Nature Astronomy, 13 October 2026. Quick hit Hera's 93-minute braking burn (BRM-1); CRS-35 and the ISS's final roll-out solar arrays; NASA ADS closes in November and becomes SciX. Skywatch Mercury and Venus in the southern evening sky; Venus inferior conjunction 24 Oct; crescent Moon in Ophiuchus; Sagittarius and WASP-17 high from Australia; Saturn all night; Mars and Jupiter closing pre-dawn toward 1.2° on 16 Nov; Orionids peak 21–22 Oct. Links ·        ESA: Mars's oddest cloud may be even odder than we thought (7 Oct 2026): https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Mars_s_oddest_cloud_may_be_even_odder_than_we_thought ·        Hernández-Bernal et al., Nature Geoscience (2026), DOI 10.1038/s41561-026-02089-9: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-026-02089-9 ·        Preprint: arXiv 2609.37259: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37259 ·        Alderson et al., A spatial map of the atmospheric limb of a hot Jupiter, Nature Astronomy (2026): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02986-4 ·        Turrini, Danielski et al., Two families of multi-planet systems, Nature Astronomy (2026): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02990-8 ·        INAF Media: Due famiglie di sistemi planetari (13 Oct 2026): https://www.media.inaf.it/2026/10/13/famiglie-esopianeti-stella-madre/ ·        Guo, Xue et al., A ∧-like metallicity profile in the disk of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, Nature Astronomy (2026): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02996-2 ·        ESA: Brake! Time for ESA's Hera asteroid mission to go slow (7 Oct 2026): https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Brake!_Time_for_ESA_s_Hera_asteroid_mission_to_go_slow ·        Spaceflight Now: CRS-35 launch (13 Oct 2026): https://spaceflightnow.com/?p=74541 ·        Nature Astronomy editorial: Farewell NASA ADS (12 Oct 2026): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-03009-y astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod · Bitesz.com Podcast Network Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes Six months after Artemis II swung around the far side of the Moon, NASA has published what the crew saw, said and sketched — including five faint impact flashes spotted during a 54-minute eclipse. Plus: two UCL papers that take apart the chemical evidence for hypernovae, Juno finds Jupiter's magnetodisk crumpled into ripples, and IISc simulations suggest magnetised white dwarfs could grow well past the Chandrasekhar limit. Skywatch: the crescent Moon meets Antares, Mercury and Venus favour the south, Mars leaves the Beehive, and Vesta at opposition. Artemis II Preliminary Lunar Science Report ·        Crew: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch (NASA) and Jeremy Hansen (CSA); lunar flyby 6 April 2026. ·        Five extremely faint impact flashes seen from ~74,000 km during a 54-minute eclipse behind the Moon; impactors estimated at no more than ~5 cm. ·        Crew-reported colours (blue = titanium-rich volcanic rock, brown = iron, green = glass); terminator observations as a proxy for south-pole lighting. ·        'Hello, World' Earth image lit by moonlight; labelled southern Milky Way image (Crux, Carina, LMC). ·        Source: NASA Science, 'Artemis II: Sights & Sounds of Science', 7 Oct 2026 — science.nasa.gov/feature/artemis-ii-preliminary-lunar-science-report/ Hypernovae: the evidence that wasn't ·        Anmol Aggarwal & Ralph Schoenrich (Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL), two MNRAS papers; UCL release 5 Oct 2026. ·        Uneven ('stochastic') supernova enrichment explains three of four supposed hypernova-enriched stars; the fourth (silver- and uranium-rich halo giant) fits a neutron-star merger plus one ordinary supernova. ·        Source: ucl.ac.uk/news/2026/oct/ultra-powerful-star-explosions-might-not-have-occurred-after-all ; DOI 10.1093/mnras/stag610 Juno: Jupiter's rippling magnetodisk ·        Ruilong Guo (Shandong University) et al., Science China Earth Sciences 69(10), 2026; release 6 Oct 2026. ·        Repeated current-sheet crossings — four in ten minutes in one case — with reconnection signatures; a rotating, rippled sheet rather than a smooth flapping one. ·        Source: doi.org/10.1007/s11430-025-1870-9 White dwarfs beyond the Chandrasekhar limit ·        Zenia Zuraiq, Banibrata Mukhopadhyay (IISc) and collaborators incl. Christopher Tout, ApJL 2026; IISc release 9 Oct 2026. ·        Modified STARS code: a magnetised accreting white dwarf reaches ~2.4 solar masses vs ~1.4 without the field. ·        Source: iisc.ac.in/events/strong-magnetic-fields-could-allow-white-dwarfs-to-grow-beyond-the-chandrasekhar-limit/ Quick hit: Hera and MMX ·        ESA: Hera BRM-1, 93-minute braking burn early Thu 15 Oct; BRM-2 on 22 Oct. esa.int (Hera) ·        JAXA: MMX launch on H3 F10, 20 Oct 2026 04:41:03 JST from Tanegashima; samples to South Australia in 2031. Skywatch (computed for Sydney, LA, New York, London) ·        Tonight: crescent Moon near Antares — 1.3° from New York, 2.3° from LA and London (very low), 7° from Sydney. ·        Evening Mercury (24° up at sunset from Sydney) and Venus (heading to inferior conjunction ~24 Oct) favour the south. ·        Pre-dawn: Mars ~2° from the Beehive, Mars–Jupiter closing to ~1.2° on 16 Nov; Saturn in the evening; Southern Taurids; Vesta at opposition (mag 6.5, Cetus). ·        Solar safety: never view the Sun except through certified ISO 12312-2 filters. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes Hera Hits the Brakes ESA's Hera spotted its target asteroid for the first time last week and fires its first braking burn on Thursday — 93 minutes of thrust to start stopping at Didymos and Dimorphos, the asteroid pair NASA's DART hit in 2022. Plus: Solar Orbiter traces a solar-wind switchback back to the Sun, Gemini North finds chains of giant knots in the remnant of the supernova of 1181, Webb reads the dust of Mars-sized worlds colliding, and Perseverance becomes the farthest-driving vehicle on another world. In the skywatch: the Moon meets Antares, Venus bows out, Mars and Jupiter rule the northern dawn, and the Orionids are a week away. Hera Hits the Brakes Two years after launch, Hera caught its first glimpse of Didymos from about 236,500 km away — a sub-pixel dot. On Thursday 15 October three hydrazine thrusters fire for 93 minutes (BRM-1), taking a few hundred metres per second off its approach speed; BRM-2 (~31 min) follows on 22 October, then three small transition burns. The first signal after the burn comes through ESA's New Norcia antennas in Western Australia. Hera will measure the mass of Dimorphos so DART's single orbital-period result can become a repeatable deflection technique; its CubeSats Milani and Juventas will study dust, composition and the interior. Solar Orbiter traces a switchback home Coburn et al. (Nature Astronomy, 8 Oct) used heavy-ion charge states measured inside a large switchback crossed on 2 March 2022 to show it formed by interchange reconnection in hot closed loops at the Sun's surface — with waves and turbulence taking over once it left. Both leading theories are right, at different stages. The supernova of 1181 is strung with pearls Cunningham, Caiazzo et al. (ApJ, 6 Oct) used Gemini North/GMOS to show that Pa 30's radial filaments are chains of knots ~100 billion km across. Pa 30 is the Milky Way's only known Type Iax remnant, with a surviving 'zombie' star. The knots constrain models but don't yet settle what formed them. Webb reads the wreckage of colliding worlds Su et al. (ApJ, 1 Oct) studied 21 extreme debris disks with Webb and Spitzer. About a third are silica-rich, consistent with collisions between Mars-sized planetary embryos; older systems should be silica-poor. Quick hit: Perseverance's driving record On 11 October (sol 2,006) Perseverance reached 45.22 km, passing Opportunity's 45.16 km. More than 90% of the distance was driven on AutoNav. Sources ·        Hera braking campaign (ESA, 7 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Brake!_Time_for_ESA_s_Hera_asteroid_mission_to_go_slow ·        Hera's first glimpse of Didymos (ESA, 7 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/10/Destination_sighted_Hera_s_first_glimpse_of_Didymos ·        Finding Hera's way: Flight Dynamics team in action (ESA, 7 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Finding_Hera_s_way_Flight_Dynamics_team_in_action ·        Solar Orbiter tracks origin of magnetic switchbacks (ESA, 8 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter/Solar_Orbiter_tracks_origin_of_mysterious_magnetic_switchbacks ·        Coburn et al., Nature Astronomy, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-02928-0 — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02928-0 ·        Gemini North reveals pearl-like knots in Pa 30 (NOIRLab, 6 Oct 2026) — https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2624/ ·        NASA's Webb provides crash course on planet-shattering collisions (NASA) — https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-provides-crash-course-on-planet-shattering-collisions/ ·        Su et al., ApJ 1010:1, DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/ae88fe — https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae88fe ·        Perseverance sets off-world record for total distance driven (JPL, 12 Oct 2026) — https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-sets-off-world-record-for-total-distance-driven/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

The coldest brown dwarf we know has weather. JWST watched water clouds thicken and thin on WISE 0855, a sunless world seven and a half light-years away — plus a star slowly eating a brown dwarf, ten minutes of X-rays after a half-second burst, a Soviet satellite breaking up over Western Australia, NASA's lunar cave hunt, and Mercury's best evening show of the year for the south. Stories Weather on a World Without a Sun Miles et al. used JWST NIRSpec to take a spectrum of WISE 0855 every 15 minutes for 11 hours. Carbon monoxide and phosphine rise and fall together as convection dredges deep gas upward, while patchy water clouds thicken and thin higher up — the first variable water clouds seen outside the Solar System. Source: University of Arizona release, 9 Oct 2026; arXiv:2609.20664 The Star That Eats Slowly ZTF J0440+2325: a red dwarf drawing gas from a 25-Jupiter-mass brown dwarf on an 87-minute orbit — the first confirmed stable mass transfer from a substellar object onto a star. Householder, Burdge et al., Nature Astronomy, 5 Oct 2026. Source: Nature Astronomy (2026); arXiv:2603.17039 Ten Minutes After Half a Second Einstein Probe caught ~560 s of soft X-rays after the 0.37 s GRB 250704B, at redshift 0.661 with no supernova — pointing to a compact-object merger and possibly a newborn magnetar. Science Bulletin, 2026. Source: DOI 10.1016/j.scib.2026.08.021; arXiv:2601.14137 A Dead Satellite Comes Apart Soviet weather satellite Meteor 2-7 (launched 1981) fragmented on 5 Oct at ~850 km, detected by LeoLabs' Western Australian radar. Cause unknown. Source: EarthSky, 9 Oct 2026; Space.com Quick hit: NASA Goes Caving on the Moon NASA's PRISM picks for the Moon Base program include GIMLI, which will probe the Marius Hills Pit for a lava tube, plus LEMS-SP and DISCO. Source: NASA RELEASE26-080, 30 Sept 2026 Skywatch Mercury at greatest eastern elongation — 24° up at sunset from Sydney vs 10° LA, 7.5° NY, 3° London. Crescent Moon near Venus and Mercury, Venus heading to inferior conjunction on the 24th, pre-dawn Mars and Jupiter for the north (Mars through the Beehive), Orionids 21–22 Oct. Source: Computed with PyEphem Sources ·        https://astrobiology.com/2026/10/09/first-detection-of-variable-water-clouds-outside-of-our-solar-system/ ·        https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20664 ·        https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/175765 ·        https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17039 ·        https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2601.14137 ·        https://earthsky.org/?p=560313 ·        https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/a-dead-soviet-satellite-just-broke-apart-in-orbit-again-experts-say-its-part-of-a-worrying-trend ·        https://nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-adds-new-science-investigations-for-moon-base Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.

Show notes We're back after a short break! Today: the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory — a cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice turned into a telescope. Then a Sydney-led team publishes the most distant fast radio burst yet, from a dwarf galaxy just 3 billion years after the big bang; Hubble's archive yields a possible second-generation planet around a white dwarf; and we catch up on Starship's first orbit, Crew-13, Juice's Earth flyby and the end of the LINK/Swift story. Skywatch: zodiacal light at both ends of the day, Mercury above Venus in southern twilight, and Mars in the Beehive for the north. Segment 1 — LEAD: The Telescope Made of Ice ·        Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 — nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026 (6 Oct 2026) ·        Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences press release, 6 Oct 2026 ·        AIP congratulations release, Newswise, 6 Oct 2026 ·        University of Wisconsin–Madison / IceCube background (via Interesting Engineering, 6 Oct 2026) Segment 2 — The Most Distant Fast Radio Burst ·        NASA: 'Webb Measures Distance to Farthest Fast Radio Burst, Suggesting Origin', 8 Oct 2026 ·        Caleb et al., Science, 8 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1126/science.adz2675 ·        Preprint: arXiv 2508.01648, 3 Aug 2025 (14-month gap disclosed) Segment 3 — A Planet Built From a Dead Star ·        NASA: 'Suspected Second-generation Planet Solves NASA Hubble Cold Case', 5 Oct 2026 ·        Williams et al., Nature Astronomy, 5 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-02983-7 ·        ESA/Hubble heic2613; poster, UK White Dwarf meeting, Durham, July 2025 (disclosed) Segment 4 — While We Were Away ·        SpaceX Starship Flight 14 overview (via leonarddavid.com, 29 Sept 2026) ·        NASA: 'NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 Launches', 1 Oct 2026 ·        ESA: 'Successful Earth flyby improves Juice's course to Jupiter', 28–30 Sept 2026 ·        AP (Marcia Dunn): 'Private spacecraft falls back to Earth...', 25 Sept 2026 ·        JAXA: MMX launch schedule aboard H3 F10, 20 Aug 2026 Segment 5 — Skywatch: Both Hemispheres ·        PyEphem 4.2.1 computations, Sydney / Los Angeles / New York / London ·        BBC Sky at Night: Vesta and Pallas at opposition, Oct 2026 ·        NASA: What's Up, October 2026 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support. Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here This episode includes AI-generated content.