Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates

Astronomy Daily S05E128 | Tuesday, June 30, 2026 Hosts: Anna & Avery | astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod In today's episode:🚀 NASA's Swift Observatory Rescue Mission Launches After weeks of anticipation, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is set for a historic rescue mission. The robotic spacecraft, Link, designed by Catalyst Space Technologies, will attempt to stabilize Swift's orbit, which has been jeopardized by solar activity. The launch is taking place from Kwajalein Atoll, marking a significant moment in spacecraft servicing history.🌌 Spacewalk on the ISS NASA astronauts Chris Williams and Jessica Meir are conducting a crucial spacewalk today to replace a faulty...

Astronomy Daily S05E127 | Monday, June 29, 2026 Hosts: Anna & Avery | astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod   In today's episode:   RAD-BAARG — The Bow-and-Arrow Galaxy A citizen scientist scanning LOFAR radio telescope data spotted a galaxy like nothing seen in 25 years — RAD-BAARG stretches 1.8 million light-years and shows what may be the clearest radio signature of a giant cosmic bow shock ever observed. Published June 22 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.   Hayabusa2 Flyby — One Week Away Japan's Hayabusa2# spacecraft is set to fly past asteroid Torifune (2001 CC21) on July 5 at a distance of just 1–10 km — one of the closest asteroid enco...

Weekend Space & Astronomy News Wrap | Saturday, June 27, 2026   It's our Saturday wrap — and what a week it's been for space and astronomy! Join Anna and Avery for two brand-new stories plus the four biggest headlines from the past five days.   THIS WEEK'S STORIES   🚀 NASA's Daring Swift Rescue Mission Launches Today NASA's Swift Boost mission launched this morning, sending the LINK robotic servicing spacecraft to rescue the 22-year-old Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from orbital decay. Built in under a year by startup Katalyst Space Technologies, LINK will rendezvous with Swift, grab it with robotic arms, and boost it...

In this episode of Astronomy Daily (S05E125), hosts Anna and Avery cover six major stories from the frontiers of space science and astronomy, including the most detailed image ever taken of the Milky Way's core, a Hubble discovery that solves a decades-old cosmological mystery, the oldest confirmed asteroid impact crater on Earth, a pair of impossibly light exoplanets, an impending lunar impact from a SpaceX rocket stage, and a live solar weather alert for Southern Hemisphere aurora watchers.   Stories Covered Story 1 — Euclid's Record Milky Way Galactic Bulge Image: ESA's Euclid telescope releases the largest, highest-resolution visible-light image eve...

In this episode of Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery explore six remarkable stories from the frontiers of space science. JWST has determined that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS likely formed 10–12 billion years ago — before our Sun existed — making it the oldest object ever chemically characterised. NASA's Perseverance rover has delivered its most robust organic detection yet in Mars's Jezero Crater. ESA's Euclid telescope has released the largest and most detailed visible-light image ever taken of the Milky Way's galactic bulge. NASA's plan to deorbit the ISS into the Pacific Ocean faces new legal and environmental scrutiny. Research from the University of Glasgo...

Story 1 — Roman Space Telescope Arrives at Kennedy NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived at Kennedy Space Center on June 21, 2026, beginning a 70-day prelaunch campaign inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. Launch is targeted no earlier than August 30, 2026, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A — eight months ahead of the previous schedule. The observatory's 300-megapixel camera offers a field of view 100× wider than Hubble's. Sources: •       NASA Science Blog — 'NASA's Next Generation Telescope Arrives in Florida Ahead of Launch' (June 21, 2026): science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman •       Spaceflight Now — 'NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrives in Florida' (June 22, 2026...

Episode Date: Tuesday, 23 June 2026 Runtime: Approximately 18–22 minutes Hosts: Anna and Avery   Story Sources & Further Reading STORY 1 — SpaceX Starfall Demo SpaceX launches Starfall Demo mission (June 23, 2026) — SpaceX.com / Space.com / Gizmodo FAA Environmental Assessment for Starfall reentry vehicle operations   STORY 2 — Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope NASA Science: 'NASA's Next Generation Telescope Arrives in Florida Ahead of Launch' (June 21, 2026) Spaceflight Now / Discover Magazine — Roman arrives at KSC (June 22, 2026)   STORY 3 — JWST & XLSSC 122 IPAC/Caltech: 'New JWST Images of XLSSC 122 Open Up the Cosmic Noon Frontier' (presented AAS 248, June 17, 2026) Finner et al., The Ast...

S05E121 | Monday, 22 June 2026 Hosts: Anna & Avery  |  astronomydaily.io  |  @AstroDailyPod 
Story 1 — Dark Matter Is Hugging Our Galaxy's Black Hole •       Virginia Tech researchers used 'echo mapping' — light reverberations around active black holes — to detect dark matter signatures •       Supermassive black holes including Sgr A* (Milky Way) appear surrounded by dense dark matter clusters •       Lead researcher Mayank Sharma: 'The observational evidence for dark matter is simply undeniable' •       Published in Physical Review D, June 11, 2026 •       Provides a new tool for probing dark matter in the most extreme gravitational environments Story 2 — Swift Rescue Mission: Launch Date Confirmed •       NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory launched 2004; has been losing altitude due to atmospheric drag — no thruste...

This weekend's Astronomy Daily wraps up the biggest stories from across the cosmos, starting with two completely fresh discoveries — a 1976 ocean rock that's turned out to hold atomic-scale proof of an ancient neutron star collision, and a record-breaking rocket launch from Europe's Ariane 6. Then we wind back through the week for our four biggest headlines: a new crew for Artemis III, JWST's salty 'Pink Planet' discovery, an update on the daring Swift Observatory rescue mission, and China's Tianwen-2 closing in on its target asteroid.   Story 1: A Kilonova's Fingerprint, Found in a 1976 Ocean Rock •       A rock sample dredged from the Pacific seafloor in...

Welcome back to Astronomy Daily! In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six of the biggest stories in space and astronomy for Friday June nineteenth, twenty twenty-six — from a salty surprise on a mysterious pink world to a little rover completing a marathon on Mars.   Story 1: JWST Reveals Salty Clouds on the 'Pink Planet' GJ504b Northwestern University astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to finally crack open the spectrum of GJ504b — the so-called 'Pink Planet' 57 light-years away. The discovery, published in The Astronomical Journal on June 18, reveals an atmosphere filled with exotic chemistry and salt...

A landmark episode packed with discoveries at the cutting edge of space and astronomy. Webb and Hubble redefine a category of stellar object, JWST delivers unprecedented chemistry data from an extreme exoplanet, a 21-year-old NASA observatory faces a daring robotic rescue, a multi-telescope image reveals an ancient galactic supernova, China's Tianwen-2 zeroes in on a possible fragment of our own Moon, and astronomers detect the chemical fingerprint of a planet swallowed by its star.   Story 1: Webb & Hubble Rewrite History: Terzan 5 Is a 'Bulge Fossil Fragment' Using the James Webb Space Telescope and archival data from Hubble spanning 12 years, r...

A launch-packed Wednesday kicks off with two rocket milestones — SpaceX's BlueBird 8-10 direct-to-cell satellite launch and Ariane 6's record-breaking Amazon Leo flight — followed by a splashdown update for the science-laden Dragon CRS-34. Then a Chandra double-header delivers the most detailed X-ray view ever of M87's famous black hole jet, plus the discovery of possible supernova wreckage at the very heart of the Milky Way. We close with JWST's extraordinary weather portrait of WASP-121b — a planet where the rain is made of rubies and sapphires.   Story Summaries & Key Facts   Story 1 — SpaceX BlueBird 8-10 Launch •       Launched: 2:39 a.m. EDT, 17 June...

Today's episode covers six stories spanning cosmic mysteries, lunar exploration, robotic rescue missions, cutting-edge space medicine, and what's happening in your own night sky tonight.   1. JWST Solves the "Little Red Dots" Mystery Four years after the James Webb Space Telescope began spotting strange, compact red objects in the ancient universe, scientists have a definitive answer. A team led by Vasily Kokorev at the University of Texas at Austin published the most detailed spectrum ever obtained of one of these objects — GLIMPSE-17775 — in The Astrophysical Journal on June 10. The data confirms these objects are supermassive black holes in their furio...

In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six major stories: NASA's historic Artemis III crew announcement, the official August 30 launch date for the Roman Space Telescope, a G3 geomagnetic storm delivering northern lights to mid-latitudes, a worrying air leak aboard the International Space Station, the fallout from Blue Origin's New Glenn explosion and its impact on NASA's Moon programme, and JAXA's H3 rocket attempting a redemption launch tonight.   Stories Covered •        BREAKING: NASA announces the four-person crew for Artemis III at Johnson Space Center -- a mission redesignated as a low-Earth-orbit docking rehearsal, paving the way for the Artemis IV Moon landing in...

In today's Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover six major stories: Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp pledges New Glenn will fly again before year's end despite last week's launchpad explosion; astronomers announce the first direct evidence of magnetic fields on exoplanets using Hot Jupiter wind data; NASA's Roman Space Telescope clears its final mirror inspection ahead of a September 2026 launch; SpaceX wins a $4.16 billion Space Force contract for an airborne threat-tracking satellite constellation; a reflection on the lasting scientific legacy of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS; and Hungarian researchers publish the definitive mass boundary between neutron stars and black holes at 2.2–2.3 so...

Episode Summary In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six major space and astronomy stories: the growing implications of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explosion for NASA's lunar plans; China's surprise maiden flight of the Long March 12B reusable rocket plus the return of the Shenzhou-21 crew; Starship V3 being grounded by the FAA following Flight 12 — with SpaceX's IPO in the balance; the upcoming launch of NASA's Roman Space Telescope and its mission to find 100,000 new exoplanets; new research suggesting Earth remained a global magma ocean for up to half a billion years; and a stunning new Hubble im...

Episode: S05E112 — Tuesday, 26 May 2026 Hosts: Anna & Avery Network: Bitesz.com Podcast Network Website: astronomydaily.io  |  Social: @AstroDailyPod   Story Summaries 1. NASA Unveils Ambitious Moon Base Plan As this episode was recorded, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was preparing to announce a landmark plan for a permanent human outpost at the lunar south pole by 2036. The programme carries a price tag of approximately $30 billion across a seven-year foundational phase, relies on nuclear power systems, leverages lunar water ice for fuel and life support, and effectively retires the Gateway orbital station conce...

China launches three astronauts to Tiangong — including Hong Kong's first-ever taikonaut — on a mission that breaks multiple records. NASA's Psyche probe delivers breathtaking imagery from its Mars flyby. A bizarre 19-day solar radio burst finally gets an explanation. Scientists zero in on the source of the most powerful neutrino ever detected. Two dead stars orbit each other in less than nine minutes. And researchers propose using fungi to turn Martian soil into farmland. It's a big Monday on Astronomy Daily.Story Timestamps
•       00:00 — Intro •       02:10 — Story 1: Shenzhou-23 Launches with Historic Crew •       08:45 — Story 2: NASA Psyche's Stunning Mars Flyby Images •       14:20 — Story 3: Record-Breaking 19-Day Solar Radio Burst Exp...

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Your weekly roundup of the biggest stories from across the cosmos — two fresh stories plus the best of the past seven days from Astronomy Daily.   In This Episode •          Starship V3 Flight 12: SpaceX launches its redesigned megarocket for the first time — an historic milestone with some drama along the way •          New Glenn Cleared to Fly: Blue Origin completes its NG-3 failure investigation — the FAA approves the report and t...

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SpaceX came agonisingly close to launching the most powerful rocket ever built in its newest configuration — but a technical halt at T-minus 40 seconds sent Starship V3's debut back to the drawing board, with another attempt window opening this evening (6:30–8:00 p.m. EDT). Anna and Avery dig into what went wrong, what makes V3 different, and the stunning announcement buried in the webcast: a name...

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Starship V3 is on the pad and tonight's the night — Flight 12 launches the most powerful rocket ever built. Plus: Webb solves a decades-old Neptune mystery, why space debris is quietly corrupting climate science, new doubts cast on DESI's dark energy results, a smarter route to the Moon, and why the galaxy may be full of hellish Venus-twins rather than Earths. All that on Astronomy Daily for Thursday, May 21, 2026.

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Astronomy Daily • S05E107 • Wednesday 21 May 2026 Starship V3 is on the pad and counting down for Thursday's debut launch — we bring you the full update including technical objectives, the Artemis stakes, and a sober note about a worker fatality at Starbase. Plus: a NIST proposal to build GPS for the Moon using lasers inside permanently frozen polar craters; space station startup Vast enters the satellite market; JWST finally has an explanation for the univer...

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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 m...

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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 20...

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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 t...

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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 pr...

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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 full...

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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 cl...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 st...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 Ce...

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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...

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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 Cent...

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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 Parti...

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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 la...