Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates

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...

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...

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...

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 Andø...

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 s...

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 on...

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...

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...

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...

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 ano...

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 be...

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 high...

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 mi...

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 colli...

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. Deac...

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; a...

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...

Astronomy Daily — S05E55 | 6 March 2026 Six stories today covering planetary defence, a cosmic laser record, a solar superstorm on Mars, space debris pollution, a mystery satellite launch, and the most charming farming experiment you'll hear about all year.   Stories This Episode 1. Asteroid 2024 YR4 — Moon Impact Officially Ruled Out NASA has confirmed, using the James Webb Space Telescope, that infamous asteroid 2024 YR4 will not hit the Moon in 2032. The space rock — once the most dangerous asteroid identified in two decades — will instead pass the Moon at a distance of around 13,200 miles. It previously held a 4% lunar imp...

Welcome back to Astronomy Daily! In S05E55, Anna and Avery explore six fascinating stories from across the cosmos — from auroras on Jupiter’s largest moon to the latest JWST galaxy reveal, a breakthrough solar storm warning system, a beautiful combined nebula image, Japan’s ongoing rocket struggles, and Europe’s ambitious plans for orbital repair robots.   Stories This Episode 1. Ganymede’s Auroras Mirror Earth’s Northern Lights Scientists using data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft have revealed that Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede has fragmented, patch-like auroras remarkably similar to those seen on Earth. The research, led by the University...

The Blood Moon has come and gone — and what a show it was. In today's Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery recap last night's total lunar eclipse, the last visible from North America until New Year's Eve 2028. Plus: NASA confirms Artemis 2 repairs are complete and an April crewed Moon mission is back on track. Astronomers have found the most tightly packed quadruple star system ever discovered — four stars crammed into a space no bigger than Jupiter's orbit. Gravitational waves could be about to solve one of cosmology's biggest mysteries: the Hubble Tension. The world's first private commercial space telescope has captured its...

In today’s episode, Anna and Avery cover six stories from across the space and astronomy world — including a seismic shift in NASA’s Artemis program, a jaw-dropping Webb telescope discovery, fresh imagery of an interstellar comet, and the debut of a powerful new reusable rocket from China.   🚀 IN THIS EPISODE •       NASA officially redesigns Artemis 3 — no Moon landing, and SpaceX’s Starship may not even fly on the mission •       The James Webb Space Telescope discovers PSR J2322-2650b: a lemon-shaped exoplanet orbiting a pulsar every 7.8 hours, with a carbon-rich atmosphere that defies all known planetary science •       A new ‘stochastic siren’ method using gr...

Tonight's sky is putting on a show — and we've got all the science to go with it! In this episode, Anna and Avery cover six incredible stories: a Blood Moon total lunar eclipse happening tonight, a revolutionary new telescope issuing 800,000 cosmic alerts in a single night, the violent origin story of Saturn's rings and its moon Titan, new research revealing Earth's magnetic poles can take 70,000 years to reverse, the James Webb Space Telescope mapping Uranus in 3D, and a wild — and cautionary — tale about the legal status of Apollo moon rocks.   STORIES THIS EPISODE 1. 🌕 Blood Moon Tonight — Total Lunar...