Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

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A Rocket Just Hit the Moon — And Telescopes Caught It Aug 06, 2026

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Astronomy Daily · S05E160 · 6 August 2026. In this episode: a Falcon 9 upper stage confirmed to have struck the Moon; a live ISS spacewalk; supernova SN 2026gzf caught at first light; SpaceX Crew-13 previewed; and a both-hemispheres guide to the 12 August eclipse and Perseids. FALCON 9 LUNAR IMPACT (LEAD) ● Spent upper stage 2025-010D struck near Einstein Crater (~19.4°N, 93.3°W) at ~06:35 UTC, 5 Aug 2026 — matching Bill Gray / Project Pluto predictions. ● ESO’s Very Large Telescope (Paranal) detected sodium and lithium in the impact plume for ~5–10 minutes — sodium from lunar soil, lithium likely from the rocket. ● NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter holds a pre-impact baseline and will image the fresh crater, giving a rare before-and-after dataset to validate hollow-body impact models for future landers. ● Origin: Falcon 9 launched 15 Jan 2025 with Firefly Blue Ghost 1 and ispace Resilience; the stage was left adrift and returned unplanned via solar activity and gravity. ● Sources: NASA; ESO / VLT; CNN; Project Pluto (projectpluto.com); Fernando et al., arXiv:2607.14625. ISS SPACEWALK — U.S. EVA 96 ● NASA’s Jessica Meir (Expedition 75 commander) and Anil Menon; ~6.5 h EVA beginning ~08:35 EDT, 6 Aug; live on NASA+. ● Task: reconfigure the 3B power channel to accept a seventh roll-out solar array later in 2026 — part of station upkeep ahead of the planned 2030 deorbit. ● Menon’s first spacewalk; two further EVAs scheduled 13 and 25 Aug. ● Sources: NASA / NASA+ ; NASA ISS blog. SUPERNOVA SN 2026GZF ● X-ray “shock breakout” (EP260321a) detected by China’s Einstein Probe on 21 Mar 2026 from a galaxy ~500 million light-years away; follow-up revealed a broad-lined Type Ic supernova. ● Unusually, no gamma-ray burst and no lasting relativistic jet — and the faintest shock breakout yet linked to this class; a possible missing link between ordinary and GRB-producing supernovae. ● Follow-up used NSF NOIRLab facilities including DECam and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Two teams: O’Connor et al. (CMU) and Rastinejad et al. (UMD), in ApJL. ● Sources: NSF NOIRLab; Carnegie Mellon University; The Astrophysical Journal Letters. SPACEX CREW-13 ● Targeting NET 12 Sep 2026 aboard Crew Dragon Grace from SLC-40, Cape Canaveral. ● Crew: Jessica Watkins (NASA, cmdr — first NASA astronaut to fly Dragon twice), Luke Delaney (NASA, pilot), Joshua Kutryk (CSA), Sergey Teteryatnikov (Roscosmos). 180-day stay; moved up from November. ● Sources: NASA; SpaceX; Houston Public Media. SKYWATCH — 12 AUGUST & BEYOND ● Total solar eclipse 12 Aug: totality across E Greenland, W Iceland, N Spain and NE Portugal (max 2m18s). Partial across northern US (Alaska–N Carolina), most of Canada, much of Europe and NW Africa. NASA livestream from 1:15 pm EDT. ● US partial highlights: Presque Isle ME ~29% (contiguous-US max); NYC ~9% from ~1:07 pm EDT; Boston ~16%; Toronto ~8%; Montreal ~18%; St John’s ~53%. ● Perseids peak 12–13 Aug under a new Moon (northern-favoured, up to ~100/hr from dark northern sites). ● Southern Hemisphere: pre-dawn planet parade (Saturn best, near opposition; Mars, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune), brilliant Venus in the evening west, and the winter Milky Way high overhead. ● Look-ahead: deep partial lunar eclipse 28 Aug (96% umbral), favouring the Americas. ● SAFETY: use only ISO 12312-2 certified eclipse glasses / solar filters during any partial phase. ● Sources: NASA; ESA; Sky & Telescope; BBC Sky at Night; EarthSky; timeanddate.com; The Planetary Society.
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Voyager 2’s “Big Bang” Rescue: One More Year in Deep Space Aug 05, 2026

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Astronomy Daily S05E159 — Wednesday, 5 August 2026. In this episode: a power-saving “Big Bang” keeps Voyager 2 doing science, direct-to-phone satellites reach orbit, Curiosity finds a vast honeycomb field on its 14th Martian anniversary, and NASA’s Aspera prepares to hunt the universe’s missing gas. ① Voyager 2’s “Big Bang” power save • JPL engineers freed up power by simultaneously switching off certain devices and substituting lower-power alternatives, while keeping the spacecraft warm enough to operate. • The Voyagers run on radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) and lose ~4 watts per year as their plutonium decays; after nearly 50 years, power margins are razor-thin. • The move keeps three instruments — magnetometer, plasma wave subsystem and cosmic ray subsystem — running at least a year longer; the same swap is planned for Voyager 1. • Voyager 2 crossed the heliopause in Nov 2018 and is now >13 billion miles (21 billion km) from Earth; its southerly path means it is commanded via the Canberra Deep Space Network dish. Source: NASA/JPL Voyager blog, 4 Aug 2026 · science.nasa.gov/blogs/voyager ② AST SpaceMobile BlueBird 11–13 • Three next-generation direct-to-smartphone satellites launched on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral (liftoff targeted 3:42 a.m. EDT, 5 Aug; backup 5:10 a.m.). • Their phased-array antennas span ~2,400 sq ft — the largest commercial arrays ever deployed in low Earth orbit — and connect to standard, unmodified phones. • They deliver nearly double the peak download speed of the first-generation BlueBirds (which hit ~98.9 Mbps to a phone); the company targets beta service later in 2026. Source: AST SpaceMobile / Space.com, Aug 2026 · confirm deployment before publish ③ Curiosity’s “sea of polygons” + 14 years • Curiosity found its largest-ever field of honeycomb-like polygonal fractures (each ~4–8 cm across) in a valley nicknamed “Valle Grande” on Mount Sharp. • The 360° panorama was captured on 19–20 June from 340 images; the polygons wrap around a ~6 m butte nicknamed “Miraflores.” • Such patterns point to ancient water — drying mud, wet–dry cycles, or compaction — consistent with lakes and streams once present on Mount Sharp’s foothills. • Today, 5 August, is Curiosity’s 14th landing anniversary (landed 5 Aug 2012). Source: NASA/JPL, announced ~29 Jul 2026 · jpl.nasa.gov ④ NASA’s Aspera (mission preview) • Aspera is a shoebox-sized NASA Pioneers smallsat launching NET 15 Aug on a Rocket Lab Electron from Mahia, New Zealand. • It is the first NASA astrophysics mission to map the circumgalactic medium — hot gas around galaxies — in ultraviolet light, tracing the “missing baryons.” • Led by Carlos Vargas at the University of Arizona, one of the youngest principal investigators in NASA history. Source: NASA Pioneers / Rocket Lab, 2026 · rocketlabcorp.com ⑤ Skywatch • Tonight (5 Aug): Last Quarter Moon; Mars forms a triangle with Elnath and cluster M35 (binoculars help). • 12 Aug: total solar eclipse (Arctic–Greenland–Iceland–northern Spain; partial for parts of the US) — not visible from Australia; use ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses. • 12–13 Aug: Perseid peak under a New Moon (NH-favoured); plus a six-planet pre-dawn alignment. • SH targets: eta-Eridanids peak 7 Aug; Sagittarius star fields; deep partial lunar eclipse 27–28 Aug (Americas + parts of Europe/Africa). Source: NASA Skywatching “What’s Up” Aug 2026; Sky & Telescope; timeanddate.com
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The Crater Makers: Falcon 9 Hits the Moon Tomorrow | Today’s Space News Aug 04, 2026

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S05E158 — “The Crater Makers” · Tuesday 4 August 2026. Four stories on cosmic impacts — and a new map of the X-ray sky — plus a both-hemispheres skywatch. ① A dead Falcon 9 is about to crater the Moon ● A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage (catalogued 2025-010D) is predicted to strike the Moon near Einstein Crater on 5 Aug 2026 at ~06:35 UTC — the second documented uncontrolled rocket impact on the Moon. ● The stage launched Firefly’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience landers in Jan 2025, then was stranded in a chaotic Earth orbit for ~18 months. Impact speed ~2.4 km/s (~5,400 mph); expected crater ~17–27 m across. ● Prediction by Bill Gray (Project Pluto). NASA’s LRO can image the site before and after; a ~two-dozen-author campaign is coordinating observers to chase the ejecta plume. ● Governance angle: no international framework governs cislunar debris — a growing hazard as lunar traffic increases (callback to E154’s distant-retrograde-orbit debris study). Sources: Space.com / Forbes / Reuters (Cris Tolomia) — impact preview, 31 Jul–3 Aug 2026 · Project Pluto (Bill Gray) — 2025-010D impact page · ZME Science — impact timing, 3 Aug 2026 ② Neptune’s inner moons: shrapnel of a shattered world ● JWST NIRSpec spectroscopy of Neptune’s inner moons Larissa, Galatea and Proteus (Caltech; lead author Ryleigh Davis, Mike Brown’s group) detected magnesium-rich phyllosilicates — clay minerals that require liquid water and had never been seen beyond Jupiter. ● The clays imply the material came from much larger, water-bearing worlds — evidence that Neptune’s original regular moon system was destroyed when Triton (a captured Kuiper Belt object) arrived. ● Proteus, the largest of the three, lacks the clays — possibly re-heated and reprocessed after re-forming, hiding its history. Sources: Davis et al., Science Advances, 29 July 2026 · Caltech / phys.org press coverage, 29 Jul–3 Aug 2026 · Space.com (Charles Q. Choi), 3 Aug 2026 ③ “Charbroiled within hours”: impact dust and the dinosaurs ● New modelling (Brandon Johnson et al., Purdue) argues ultrafine impact dust from Chicxulub acted as an insulating blanket, raising surface heating ~3.5× above the spherule-only estimate — enough to ignite global wildfires and kill exposed animals within hours. ● The same dust then blocked sunlight for years — so the model adds a ferocious opening act to the established “impact winter,” rather than replacing it. Sheltering underground or underwater aided survival. ● Caveat: the strongest physical wildfire evidence is so far confined to North America (per UCL’s Alfio Chiarenza, not involved in the study); a truly global fire record remains unconfirmed. Sources: Johnson, Johnson, Wakita & Robertson, JGR: Biogeosciences, 2026 · Popular Science / Space.com / ZME Science, 28 Jul–2 Aug 2026 ④ eROSITA DR2 — the X-ray sky doubles ● The eROSITA telescope (SRG mission) released its second data set (DR2) on 31 July 2026: ~1.9 million pointlike and ~64,000 extended X-ray sources from the first three all-sky scans — nearly doubling the previously released eROSITA catalogue. ● For scale: ROSAT catalogued ~130,000 sources in the 1990s and was the benchmark for 30 years. Lead author: Miriam Ramos-Ceja (MPE). ● DR2 delivers the first direct census of cataclysmic-variable binaries sufficient to explain the decades-old Galactic Ridge X-ray Emission. It coincides with SDSS DR20 (Black Hole Mapper), enabling 3D mapping of active black holes. Sources: Ramos-Ceja et al. (eROSITA-DE), arXiv:2607.27772; DR2 release · Max Planck Society press release, 29 July 2026 · phys.org, 31 Jul 2026 Skywatch — both hemispheres ● Falcon 9 impact (5 Aug, ~06:35 UTC): not naked-eye; ejecta plume a long shot for advanced amateurs in the Americas near the western limb (~2:35 a.m. EDT). Sydney: Moon below horizon — watch for LRO after-images. ● Comet 10P/Tempel 2: perihelion 2 Aug, closest to Earth 3 Aug (~0.41 AU); ~mag 8–9 near M30 in Capricornus. Best return of the century; Southern-Hemisphere-favoured; Northern viewers low on the southern horizon. Darkest window ~7–8 Aug. ● This evening: Venus threads between Regulus (Leo) and Spica (Virgo) in the west — both hemispheres, no equipment. Mercury at its best morning showing (greatest western elongation 2 Aug), low in the pre-dawn east. ● Diary — 12 Aug: total solar eclipse (Greenland/Iceland/Spain), moonless Perseid peak, six-planet alignment. Always use certified ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses / solar filters except during totality.
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The Largest Galaxy in the Universe, Measured at Last Aug 03, 2026

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Astronomy Daily · S05E157 · “The Edge of Everything” · Monday 3 August 2026
In this episode • The largest galaxy, measured at last. Ultra-deep imaging of IC 1101 in the Abell 2029 cluster has traced its outer edge for the first time: an edge radius of ~260 kpc, a diameter near 520 kpc (~1.7 million light-years), and ~3.4 trillion solar masses in stars — about 17× the width of the Milky Way. Faint outer structures aligned with cluster X-ray disturbances show it is still accreting. Source: Marrero-de la Rosa et al., “How large can galaxies be? Ultra-deep imaging of IC 1101”, accepted A&A (arXiv:2607.15340, 16 Jul 2026); phys.org, 31 Jul 2026; The Debrief, 1 Aug 2026. • Hayabusa2's record asteroid flyby. JAXA confirmed (press conference 30 Jul) that its Hayabusa2 probe passed just 400 m from the surface of near-Earth asteroid Torifune on 5 July — 744 m from centre at >18,000 km/h — the closest asteroid flyby by any mission, plus the first-ever laser ranging of an asteroid during a flyby. Torifune proved to be a contact binary. Source: JAXA press conference, 30 Jul 2026; phys.org / Japan Today (AFP), 31 Jul 2026; autoevolution, 1 Aug 2026. • UK's first orbital launch on hold. Rocket Factory Augsburg de-stacked its RFA One at SaxaVord Spaceport (Unst, Shetland) after finding a vehicle issue during hot-fire test prep (announced 28 Jul). The certified launch window opens 10 August; a successful flight would be the first orbital launch from UK soil. Source: RFA statement (X), 28 Jul 2026; Space.com, 1 Aug 2026; Shetland Times, 28 Jul 2026. • Andromeda is winding down. A new Hubble study mapping ~200 million stars across two-thirds of Andromeda's disk finds star formation has declined over ~500 million years (from ~1 to ~0.2 solar masses/year), with the steepest drop in the last 40 million years — possibly linked to an interaction with satellite galaxy M32. Source: Williams et al., The Astrophysical Journal, 27 Jul 2026; NASA/STScI release, 27 Jul 2026. Skywatch — both hemispheres • Comet 10P/Tempel 2 — perihelion 2 Aug; closest approach to Earth tonight (3 Aug). Binoculars/small scope, dark skies. Best pre-dawn from the Southern Hemisphere; ~9:30–10:30 pm local for mid-northern latitudes before moonrise. • Moon near Saturn tonight (3 Aug) — naked-eye pairing, both hemispheres, up into dawn. • Mercury at greatest western elongation (2 Aug) — low eastern horizon ~1 hr before sunrise, toward Gemini; Mars higher. Better placed for northern observers. • Diary (2 days out): Falcon 9 upper stage (2025-010D) lunar impact near Einstein Crater, 5 Aug ~06:35 UTC — ~2:35 am EDT / 11:35 pm PDT (4 Aug); North America best-timed on the dark limb. Southern Hemisphere: ~4:35 pm AEST (daylight) — await orbiter after-images. • Looking ahead: 12 Aug total solar eclipse (Greenland/Iceland/Spain) + moonless Perseid peak + six-planet dawn alignment. View partial phases only through certified ISO 12312-2 filters. Links & follow • Website, back catalogue, news feed & newsletter: astronomydaily.io • Social: @AstroDailyPod · Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network
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The First “Self-Driving” Telescope Goes Stargazing (SkAI ) Aug 01, 2026

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Astronomy Daily S05E156 — Weekend Space & Astronomy News Wrap. Saturday, 1 August 2026. In this episode • The first “self-driving” telescope — a SkAI deep-learning system (Northwestern / UChicago / Fermilab) schedules and re-plans observations in real time on the Dark Energy Camera at the Blanco 4-m, Cerro Tololo, Chile — matching human schedulers across two runs. • Betelgeuse's companion imaged — ESO's VLT delivers the clearest view yet of likely “Betelgeuse B,” ending a century-long search (recap, E153). • (44) Nysa — first known three-lobed (trilobate) asteroid, plus a ~1 km moon, from LBT + VLT high-contrast imaging (recap, E155). • A black hole's 300,000-light-year reach — XRISM traces quasar-driven winds from H1821+643 reshaping an entire galaxy cluster (recap, E154). • August skywatch — Comet 10P/Tempel 2 at perihelion (2 Aug); total solar eclipse crossing Greenland, Iceland, Spain & Portugal (12 Aug) paired with a moonless Perseid peak (12–13 Aug); a six-planet line-up through the month. Sources • SkAI / self-driving telescope: Northwestern University news release, 31 July 2026; phys.org, 31 July 2026 (Blanco 4-m / DECam / Cerro Tololo). • Betelgeuse companion: ESO / VLT; Montargès et al., Astronomy & Astrophysics (covered in E153). • (44) Nysa: Large Binocular Telescope (SHARK-VIS) + VLT high-contrast imaging; Lowell Observatory release (covered in E155). • Black-hole feedback: XRISM observations of quasar H1821+643 (covered in E154). • Skywatch: timeanddate.com and Space.com August 2026 sky guides; Royal Observatory Greenwich 2026 highlights (eclipse path and Perseid peak details). astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod · Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network
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Three of a Kind Jul 31, 2026

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S05E155 · Friday 31 July 2026 · Astronomy Daily with Anna & Avery. Four stories and a both-hemispheres skywatch. Australian English. ① Asteroid (44) Nysa — the first three-lobed world, and its hidden moon ● trilobate body — three lobes joined by two narrow necks; a candidate “first” of its kind. ● A new ~1 km moon, S/2026 (44) 1, was found orbiting ≥170 km out — spotted using high-contrast imaging borrowed from exoplanet work, and confirmed moving across two observing runs. ● The moon lets astronomers weigh Nysa (mass → density), which should help decide between a genuine contact-trinary and a single, deeply indented body. ● Nysa is a bright, main-belt E-type (enstatite-rich) asteroid, ~75 km across, known since 1857. ● Source: Lowell Observatory / University of Arizona press release, 29 Jul 2026; study “Unmasking (44) Nysa: Evidence for a Trilobate Structure” (Minker et al.). Coverage: Space.com, Gizmodo, 29–30 Jul 2026. ② Mapping Alien Continents — a NASA concept to image an exoplanet’s surface ● NASA’s 2026 NIAC round funds 18 early-stage “visionary” concepts (~$175k each, 9 months). These are seed studies, not missions. ● Paul Stankus (Brookhaven) proposes “Mapping Alien Continents”: resolve the surface of an Earth-like exoplanet — continents, oceans — in visible light. ● Method: a novel “dynamic hierarchical nulling” interferometer to suppress starlight at 10¹⁰-to-1 contrast, then combine beams from two spacecraft ~100 km apart (optical VLBI-style imaging). ● Source: NASA “2026 Innovative Technology Concepts” release and NIAC selections (posted 21 Jul; consolidated release ~29 Jul 2026); Universe Today feature, 30 Jul 2026. ③ Solar-storm watch — CMEs inbound, minor-storm and aurora potential ● Two faint coronal mass ejections, plus coronal-hole solar wind, are set to give Earth glancing blows; forecasters flag possible G1 (minor) geomagnetic storms and auroras over the coming days. ● G1 means little grid impact but aurora visible at somewhat lower latitudes than usual — see the skywatch for where to look, both hemispheres. ● Source: NOAA SWPC (WSA-ENLIL model); EarthSky / The Sun Today, 30 Jul 2026. ④ ESCAPADE’s family portrait of Earth and the Moon ● NASA’s twin Mars orbiters (“Blue” and “Gold,” built by Rocket Lab) imaged Earth and the Moon as thin crescents in visible and thermal-infrared light from a loiter orbit near Sun–Earth L2. ● In infrared, Earth’s night side glows with its own heat; the Moon’s shadowed half is far colder — a calibration check before Mars. ● ESCAPADE’s science goal (arrival Sept 2027): measure how the solar wind strips Mars’s unshielded atmosphere — the payoff of today’s solar-wind thread. ● Source: NASA (Goddard) image feature, ~25 Jul 2026 (images captured 3 Jul); NAU / phys.org; Universe Today, 29 Jul 2026. Skywatch — both hemispheres ● Bright waning-gibbous Moon (post-Buck-Moon, 29 Jul) washes out faint targets. ● Southern Delta Aquariids + Alpha Capricornids just past peak (SH-favoured; Moon-hampered). Perseids build to a near-moonless peak on the night of 12–13 Aug — prime for North America, low in the north for the SH. ● 12 Aug total solar eclipse: totality across Greenland / Iceland / Spain; partial for parts of northern North America and Europe. ISO 12312-2 eye protection required for any partial phase. ● Pre-dawn planets low in the east (Sydney and North American framing). Aurora watch for high latitudes both hemispheres if the storms land. ● Diary: a spent Falcon 9 upper stage (2025-010D) is predicted to hit the Moon near Einstein Crater on 5 Aug 2026, ~06:35 UTC (~2:34 a.m. ET). North America best-timed; telescope needed, Moon ~56% lit, target the limb dust plume. From Sydney the Moon is down at impact — rely on LRO after-images. Callback to E125/E147. Source: Fernando et al., arXiv 2607.14625.
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The Reach of a Giant Jul 30, 2026

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Astronomy Daily S05E154 — “The Reach of a Giant.” Thursday, 30 July 2026. Hosted by Anna and Avery. In this episode • A supermassive black hole caught heating and stirring an entire galaxy cluster — turbulence reaching ~300,000 light-years, about 100× more energetic than expected (XRISM / quasar H1821+643). • Why some “clean” white dwarfs are secretly feasting: magnetic fields funnel shredded planetary debris to the poles, aurora-style, hiding the meal. • NASA’s Psyche used its Mars flyby as a dress rehearsal — spotting Phobos and Deimos from afar to practise for its 2029 moonlet hunt at asteroid 16 Psyche. • A new study on keeping the road to the Moon clear: modelling how debris disperses in Distant Retrograde Orbits as cislunar traffic climbs. • Skywatch: tonight’s double meteor shower — the Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids — with both-hemispheres viewing details and local times. Sources • Yamada, S. et al., “Vigorous turbulence driven by quasar-mode feedback in a cluster core,” Nature Astronomy, 28 July 2026 (DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-02939-x; arXiv 2607.24911). Tohoku University release. • “White Dwarfs Eat More Planetary Debris Than Thought, But Magnetic Fields Hide It,” Universe Today, 29 July 2026 (Pham et al., arXiv 2607.20747). • “NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Aces Mars Flyby,” NASA JPL / ScienceDaily, 28 July 2026. • “The Risks of Debris Between the Earth and the Moon for Future Exploration,” Universe Today, 29 July 2026 (Chinese Academy of Sciences DRO study). • Double meteor shower peak: American Meteor Society; NASA; Scientific American; CNN; National Geographic, 28–30 July 2026. Correction / caveat desk • Skywatch numbers assume the ~98% waning Buck Moon (full 29 Jul). Faint Delta Aquariids will be washed out; the Alpha Capricornid fireballs are the reliable catch tonight.
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Betelgeuse Is Not Alone! Jul 29, 2026

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Astronomy Daily · S05E153 · Wednesday 29 July 2026. Four stories from the frontier of space and astronomy, plus a both-hemispheres look at the sky — and news of our brand-new website. In this episode • Betelgeuse is not alone. ESO’s VLT/SPHERE has captured the clearest direct image yet of Betelgeuse B, the long-suspected companion to the famous red supergiant — ending a roughly century-long search. Published 28 July 2026 in Astronomy & Astrophysics (Montargès, Boccaletti et al.). The companion is more massive than predicted (≈2–3 solar masses), likely paces Betelgeuse’s ~6-year brightness cycle, and may eventually spiral into the supergiant. • Swift catches a wandering black hole. TDE 2025abcr — the most off-centre tidal disruption event ever seen — reveals a ~1-million-solar-mass “wandering” black hole ~30,000 light-years from its galaxy’s core, ~750 million light-years away. First flagged by the Zwicky Transient Facility (Nov 2025) and pinned down with NASA’s Swift; an AI sifted ~500,000 nightly flashes to find it. Published 27 July 2026 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Stein et al.; Carney et al.). • Roman is fuelled for launch. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope completed fuelling on 25 July (≈290 gallons of hydrazine) and holds its mission-preview briefing today — one month from a 30 August launch, roughly eight months ahead of schedule. Roman will survey ~50× as much sky as Hubble in five years, probe dark energy, and is expected to find 100,000+ exoplanets via microlensing. • Swift’s rescue mission is in trouble. Katalyst’s LINK servicing spacecraft — launched 3 July to boost the decaying Swift observatory — began spinning over the weekend; two of three reaction wheels are non-operable, with some cold-gas thruster degradation. LINK remains powered and in contact; the team is using its electric (xenon) thrusters to arrest the spin before deciding, with NASA, whether to proceed. Developing story — details accurate as of recording. • Skywatch. Full Buck Moon tonight (29 July); Jupiter at solar conjunction; Southern Delta Aquariids favour the Southern Hemisphere but are washed out by the Moon this year; Alpha Capricornid fireballs are the pick for both hemispheres; the Perseids peak on the moonless night of 12–13 August alongside a total solar eclipse (Greenland/Iceland/Spain; partial for parts of Europe and North America). Never view the partial phases without ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses. Sources • ESO release eso2611 & Astronomy & Astrophysics, Montargès, Boccaletti et al., “VLT/SPHERE imaging of the candidate companion of Betelgeuse” (28 Jul 2026). • NASA Swift / The Astrophysical Journal Letters — TDE 2025abcr wandering-black-hole discovery (27 Jul 2026); UNC-Chapel Hill release. • NASA — Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope fuelling & launch-preview updates (25–29 Jul 2026). • NASA Swift blog — “Commissioning Update for Spacecraft to Boost NASA’s Swift” (28 Jul 2026); Katalyst Space Technologies. • EarthSky, NASA, American Meteor Society, timeanddate — meteor showers, Buck Moon, Jupiter conjunction, 12 Aug eclipse. New — astronomydaily.io Our new website is live: full back catalogue, a continuously-updating space-news feed, listener reviews (read and leave your own), and a daily newsletter sign-up. Got a question or a story tip? Drop us a note — and tell us what you think of the new site.
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Reading Io’s Hidden Heat: Juno’s First Subsurface Reading | Today’s Space News Jul 28, 2026

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Astronomy Daily S05E152 — “Reading the Heat” · Tuesday 28 July 2026. Hosts Anna & Avery. NASA’s Juno spacecraft has taken the first-ever temperature reading beneath the surface of Io, Jupiter’s volcanic moon — and the technique behind it could reshape how we study icy ocean moons and even volcanoes on Earth. We also look at why JWST’s “Little Red Dots” might be globular clusters being born, the first SETI search built from archived ALMA data (and its six-million-star surprise), and a live burst of space weather feeding into a meteor-filled — if Moon-washed — skywatch. In this episode ● Juno reads Io’s subsurface temperature for the first time — >20°C rise within a few metres, heat flow up to ~30× Earth’s average, and a remarkably smooth, low-density surface. ● Why the method matters: a multi-depth microwave thermometer that works from orbit — promising for Europa, Enceladus, and terrestrial volcanology. ● JWST’s “Little Red Dots” may be globular clusters in formation, powered by a short-lived supermassive star — linking two long-standing mysteries. ● The first SETI survey of archived ALMA data opens the millimetre band — and reveals “stellar bycatch” of 6.1 million background stars. ● Live space weather: an M3.2 flare from region AR4494 and a glancing CME, with G1–G2 storms and possible aurorae, north and south. ● Skywatch: meteor week under the full Buck Moon (29 July), the Alpha Capricornid fireball tip, evening Venus, pre-dawn Saturn/Mars/Mercury — and Jupiter vanishing behind the Sun. Sources ● NASA/JPL — “NASA’s Juno Takes Temperature of Jupiter’s Fiery Moon Io” (22 July 2026); Brown et al., J. Geophys. Res.: Planets, DOI 10.1029/2025JE009622. ● Chisholm et al., “Little Red Dots as Globular Clusters in Formation,” Astrophysical Journal Letters (press cycle 20 July 2026; UT Austin / McDonald Observatory). ● L. Mason (University of Manchester), first ALMA-archive SETI survey, RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2026. ● Space-weather status: EarthSky Sun news / NOAA SWPC (M3.2 flare AR4494, 26 July; 24 July CME; G1–G2 outlook, 27–28 July). ● Skywatch data: EarthSky, Star Walk, American Meteor Society, NASA — Southern Delta Aquariids (peak ~30 July), Alpha Capricornids (30–31 July), full Buck Moon 29 July, Jupiter solar conjunction 29 July.
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Pluto's Big Night & a Sharper Look at M87's Black Hole | Today's Space News Jul 27, 2026

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Astronomy Daily · S05E151 · “The Faint Little World Has Its Day” · Monday 27 July 2026 · Hosts Anna & Avery. Pluto has its brightest night of the year — so we go deep on the world nobody can agree how to label. Then a crew comes home after 241 days, the galaxy’s most common planet turns out to maybe hide oceans of molten rock, and the first black hole ever photographed gets a sharper, two-colour read. In this episode LEAD — PLUTO AT OPPOSITION • Tonight Pluto sits opposite the Sun in Capricornus, near its closest point to Earth (~34.5 AU) and at its brightest for the year — yet still only magnitude ~15. • The full arc: Percival Lowell’s “Planet X,” Clyde Tombaugh’s 1930 discovery by blink comparator, and the name suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Burney. • The 2006 IAU reclassification to “dwarf planet” (the “clearing the neighbourhood” rule) — and the still-live debate between dynamical and geophysical definitions of a planet. • What New Horizons found in 2015: the nitrogen-ice plain of Sputnik Planitia, the famous “heart,” water-ice mountains, a hazy atmosphere, and a possible subsurface ocean. STORY 2 — HOME AFTER 241 DAYS • Soyuz MS-28 lands in Kazakhstan with NASA’s Chris Williams and cosmonauts Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev; ~3,856 orbits, 102M+ miles; Expedition 74→75 handover to Jessica Meir. STORY 3 — SUB-NEPTUNES • New ASU modelling: deep clouds of vaporised rock and salt can act as a thermal blanket, potentially sustaining a hidden magma ocean and reshaping how we read JWST spectra. STORY 4 — M87 IN TWO COLOURS • A Shanghai Astronomical Observatory-led team builds the first spatially-resolved dual-frequency spectral map of M87* (1.3 mm + 3.5 mm, EHT + GMVA), linking the famous ring to the real physics of plasma at the event horizon. SKYWATCH — BOTH HEMISPHERES • South: Southern Delta Aquariids peaking (ZHR ~25) + Comet 10P/Tempel improving into August. North: Mu Cephei, Herschel’s Garnet Star, high in Cepheus. Both: Pluto at opposition, Saturn after midnight in Pisces. Caveat: a ~95% Moon washes out faint targets this week. Sources • NASA — “Astronaut Chris Williams, Crewmates Return from Space Station.” • ASU News / The Astrophysical Journal Letters — Mukherjee et al., clouds and the interiors of sub-Neptunes. • The Astrophysical Journal Letters — Zhao et al., “Spatially Resolved Spectral Properties of M87* on Event Horizon Scales” (DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae84ca). • Explore Scientific / Star Walk / astronomy.com — July 2026 observing notes (Pluto opposition, Southern Delta Aquariids, Comet 10P/Tempel, Mu Cephei).
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