Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

1. A White Dwarf’s Radio Pulse Maps a Star’s Weather, LISA’s Hidden Planets, Starship’s Flight 15...

   14 novembre 202620 minSaison 5 · Épisode 229À suivre

   Every 7.9 minutes a radio pulse arrives from Canis Major. This week astronomers at ICRAR-Curtin in Perth traced it to a white dwarf orbiting a star like our Sun, the first pairing of its kind, and found that …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Every 7.9 minutes a radio pulse arrives from Canis Major. This week astronomers at ICRAR-Curtin in Perth traced it to a white dwarf orbiting a star like our Sun, the first pairing of its kind, and found that the pulses carry the weather of the companion star with them. We unpack how the timing gives away which star is talking, and everything this result is not. Then: how the LISA gravitational-wave observatory could find planets around pairs of white dwarfs. In The Week That Was: NASA's nuclear Moon rover built from Curiosity's twin, the hot Jupiter that stopped transiting, Euclid's first big data release, and Starship Flight 15, in orbit with its catch attempt still to come at the time of recording. Plus Mars and Jupiter 1.2 degrees apart, and the Leonids, from both hemispheres. In this episode · Lead: GPM J071507−114153, a long-period radio transient made of a white dwarf and a Sun-like star (McSweeney, Hurley-Walker et al., Nature Astronomy, 12 Nov 2026). · Fresh item: LISA as a planet finder around double white dwarfs (McGrath et al., two papers in The Astrophysical Journal, 10 Nov 2026). · Week That Was: PROMISE nuclear Moon rover, gravitational reconnection, Tiangong 9.7 pK condensate (E226); TOI-2535 b, ice-giant dynamos, MeerKLASS (E227); Euclid DR1-Foundation, ASTRA in-orbit assembly (E228). · Starship Flight 15: launched 13 Nov, booster catch aborted, ship in orbit; ship catch attempt still to come at time of recording. Full coverage Monday. · Arc updates: ESCAPADE en route to Mars; Voyager 1 one light-day (18 Nov); BepiColombo (21 Nov); Hera (25 Nov). · Skywatch: Mars–Jupiter conjunction 16 Nov; Leonids 17–18 Nov; where to find Canis Major; ISO 12312-2 eye safety. Sources · Nature Astronomy, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-03016-z — 'A long-period transient with a Sun-like companion' — nature.com/articles/s41550-026-03016-z · ICRAR / Curtin University release, 12–13 Nov 2026 — icrar.org · NASA Goddard, 10 Nov 2026 — 'NASA Scientists Show How Gravitational Waves Can Reveal New Worlds' — science.nasa.gov · NASA Science, 9 Nov 2026 — 'NASA's ESCAPADE Completes Powered Earth Flybys, Now En Route to Mars' · Space.com Starship Flight 15 live updates, 13–14 Nov 2026; PBS NewsHour / AP, 13 Nov 2026 · Skywatch figures computed in session with PyEphem astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod · Bitesz.com Podcast Network
   
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2. Starship’s Double Catch Attempt, Euclid Opens Its Sky Survey, a Robot Builds in Orbit...

   13 novembre 202619 minSaison 5 · Épisode 228À suivre

   SpaceX is targeting today for Starship Flight 15, and for the first time it will try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage back at the launch tower, the ship after more than 22 …

   Notes de l’épisode

   SpaceX is targeting today for Starship Flight 15, and for the first time it will try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage back at the launch tower, the ship after more than 22 hours and about 14 orbits. We walk through the plan, the timings for both hemispheres, and the three caveats that matter. Also: ESA's Euclid telescope opens about 1,900 square degrees of sky to the world in its first major data release; Caltech's ASTRA robot assembles the first piece of structure ever built autonomously in orbit; Voyager 1 closes in on one light-day from Earth; and Mars and Jupiter draw to 1.2 degrees apart in the pre-dawn sky. In this episode · Starship Flight 15: targeted for Fri 13 Nov, 4:45 pm CT (22:45 UTC; 9:45 am AEDT Sat). First attempt to catch both booster and ship. · Euclid DR1-Foundation: about 1,900 square degrees and 1.8 petabytes, public from 12 November. Cosmology products follow in mid-2027. · ASTRA: a Caltech/DARPA robot assembles a truss bay in low Earth orbit, a first. · Quick hits: Voyager 1 one light-day on 18 Nov; BepiColombo at Mercury 21 Nov; Hera's Dimorphos close-ups 25 Nov. · Skywatch: Mars and Jupiter 1.2° apart on 16 Nov; Venus and Spica; Leonids 17–18 Nov; Saturn in the evening. Sources · Starship Flight 15 awaits FAA green light — NASASpaceflight — https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/11/starship-flight-15-awaits-faa/ · Starship Flight 15 will try to catch both stages — KeepTrack — https://keeptrack.space/x-report/spacex-brief-2026-11-09 · Euclid DR1 MER Catalog — Caltech/IPAC IRSA — https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/doi/10.26131/IRSA673 · Euclid timeline — ESA — https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid/timeline · ESA Datalabs Euclid Hackathon 2026 — https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/esa-datalabs-euclid-hackathon-2026 · NOM4D program demonstrates automated in-space assembly — DARPA — https://www.darpa.mil/news/2026/nom4d-program-demonstrates-automated-in-space-assembly · Caltech robotic space demo successfully builds in space — Caltech — https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-robotic-space-demo-successfully-builds-in-space · Voyager 1 to reach 1 light-day — EarthSky — https://earthsky.org/space/voyager-1-1-light-day-from-earth-november-17-18-2026/ · What's Up: November 2026 — NASA — https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/skywatching/whats-up-november-2026-skywatching-tips-from-nasa/
   
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3. A Planet Vanishes from View: Uranus’ Shifting Fields, Meerkat’s Hydrogen Map...

   12 novembre 202623 minSaison 5 · Épisode 127À suivre

   Show notesA hot Jupiter called TOI-2535 b has become the first planet around a single star seen to stop transiting, tipped out of line by an unseen neighbour. Plus: why Uranus and Neptune have scrambled …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Show notes
   A hot Jupiter called TOI-2535 b has become the first planet around a single star seen to stop transiting, tipped out of line by an unseen neighbour. Plus: why Uranus and Neptune have scrambled magnetic fields, MeerKAT measuring how cosmic hydrogen clusters, Euclid's first big data release, ESCAPADE heading for Mars, Starship Flight 15's double-catch attempt, the 2026 ozone hole, and a both-hemispheres sky with Mars and Jupiter 1.2 degrees apart. The planet that stopped transiting. TOI-2535 b, an 8.24-day hot Jupiter ~1,000 light-years away, ran up to ~6 hours early or late and its transits shortened and faded over seven years of TESS data until they vanished in 2026. A hidden companion of at least Saturn mass, likely in resonance on a tilted orbit, is making both orbits precess. Transits should return in 30–50 years. Yee, Petigura et al., The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 9 Nov 2026. Ice giants' scrambled magnetic fields. Dynamo models with electrical conductivity rising with depth reproduce Uranus- and Neptune-like fields, and suggest their tilt could shift by tens of degrees within decades. Aurora observations could test for change since Voyager 2. Yan et al., Communications Physics. MeerKLASS hears the cosmic web. Running MeerKAT's 64 dishes as independent telescopes, the MeerKLASS collaboration detected the 21-cm hydrogen power spectrum on cosmological scales at z = 0.42 over ~236 square degrees, signal-to-noise 6.2. MNRAS. Euclid DR1-Foundation. ~1,900 square degrees (about 1,400 in the southern sky), ~1.8 PB of images, catalogues and spectra. Weak-lensing and clustering products follow in mid-2027. Quick hits. ESCAPADE Blue and Gold complete powered Earth flybys, Mars arrival Sept 2027; Starship Flight 15 targeted NET 13 Nov 22:45 UTC; 2026 Antarctic ozone hole seventh largest in 48 years, recovery on track. Skywatch. Mars–Jupiter 1.19° on 16 Nov (pre-dawn, north-favoured); Venus 1.2° from Spica, a 10%-lit crescent; Saturn high in southern evenings; Leonids peak 17–18 Nov; first quarter 17 Nov, full Moon 24 Nov. Sources · UCLA Newsroom — First known 'disappearing planet' — https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/first-known-disappearing-planet-neighbor-wobble-like-top · Yee et al., ApJL 1011 L60 — https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aeb4a4 · arXiv 2611.13343 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.13343 · Yan et al., Communications Physics — https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-026-02841-y · UT Austin Jackson School release — https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2026/11/wacky-magnetic-fields-of-ice-giants-explained/ · University of Portsmouth — MeerKLASS — https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/news/breakthrough-cosmic-hydrogen-measurement-could-transform-our-view-of-the-universe · MNRAS stag1911 (DOI) — https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1911 · Caltech/IPAC — Euclid DR1 — https://euclid.caltech.edu/page/euclid-dr1 · ESA — DR1 timeline — https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid/dr1-timeline · Berkeley News — ESCAPADE — http://news.berkeley.edu/2026/11/09/berkeleys-escapade-spacecraft-say-goodbye-to-earth-next-stop-mars/ · NextSpaceflight — Starship Flight 15 — https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/8403/
   
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4. Curiosity’s Spare Rover Heads to the Moon: Gravity Reconnection, Record-Cold Atoms...

   10 novembre 202620 minSaison 5 · Épisode 226À suivre

   Show notes NASA turns Curiosity's spare test-bed rover into PROMISE, a nuclear-powered rover bound for the Moon's south pole, as part of a sweep of Moon Base awards. Plus: a theory of 'gravitational …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Show notes NASA turns Curiosity's spare test-bed rover into PROMISE, a nuclear-powered rover bound for the Moon's south pole, as part of a sweep of Moon Base awards. Plus: a theory of 'gravitational reconnection' hidden in Einstein's equations, a record 9.7-picokelvin quantum gas aboard China's Tiangong space station, ESCAPADE's twin burns over southern Australia, and a both-hemispheres skywatch. NASA's PROMISE rover and the Moon Base awards NASA Release 26-095 (7 Nov 2026) and PROMISE mission page. JPL is converting the duplicate Curiosity test-bed rover, powered by a flight-spare MMRTG, for a late-2028 launch and an 18-month mission at the lunar south pole. Blue Origin: $94M base + $140M option to deliver it on Mark 1. Also: eight CLPS 2 companies ($10B maximum, 10 years), CLPS 1 raised to $4.2B, six VADR task orders (~$1.3B), a 2028 Starship cislunar communications demo. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-moon-base-transportation-technology-science-projects/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/promise/ Gravitational reconnection Comisso (Columbia) & Asenjo (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez), 'Reconnection of Gravitational Fields', Physical Review D 114, 084095, 28 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1103/lmqy-pf9k; preprint arXiv 2609.25241 (Sept 2026). Theoretical only. https://news.columbia.edu/news/can-gravitational-fields-break-and-reconnect-einsteins-equations-suggest-they-can https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25241 Quantum gas below 10 picokelvin on Tiangong 'Quantum gases below 10 picokelvin in space', Science (First Release, 5 Nov 2026), DOI 10.1126/science.aea5324. ~20,000 Rb-87 atoms, 9.7 pK equivalent temperature, 7 s observation (CAS). Peking University, SIOM and CSU-CAS. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea5324 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lowest-temperature-china-space-station ESCAPADE's powered Earth flybys NASA ESCAPADE blog (2 Nov 2026). Blue's burn 8:51 p.m. AEDT 7 Nov; Gold's 9:51 p.m. AEDT 9 Nov, both over southern Australia; Mars arrival 7 and 9 Sept 2027. https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2026/11/02/nasas-twin-escapade-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth-on-way-to-mars/ Quick hits Starship Flight 15 targeted Fri 13 Nov, 22:45 UTC, pending regulatory approval; Voyager 1 one light-day ~18 Nov; Euclid DR1-Foundation due in November. https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/spacex-plans-to-launch-starship-15-flight-on-nov-13/ https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid/dr1-timeline Skywatch New Moon 9 Nov. Venus about 1° from Spica before dawn 9–10 Nov (higher from the north). Mars and Jupiter close to ~1.2° on 16 Nov (our calculation). Crescent Moon ~2° from Antares on the evening of 11 Nov (southern-favoured). Saturn high in southern evenings. Northern Taurids 11–12 Nov; Leonids 17 Nov. Four-galaxy challenge for southern observers. Solar viewing only with ISO 12312-2 certified filters.
   
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5. Mars May Still Be Breathing: Alba Mons’ Mysterious Gas and Swift’s Final Plunge

   8 novembre 202621 minSaison 5 · Épisode 225À suivre

   Is Mars still volcanically alive? Europe's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter keeps catching hydrogen chloride, a gas that comes out of volcanoes on Earth, above fresh cracks on the giant Alba Mons volcano, in the wrong …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Is Mars still volcanically alive? Europe's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter keeps catching hydrogen chloride, a gas that comes out of volcanoes on Earth, above fresh cracks on the giant Alba Mons volcano, in the wrong season, in one place and low to the ground. We unpack the evidence, the proposed 'ice lid', and everything this result is not. Then it's The Week That Was: two black holes in one early galaxy, Swift's fiery end over Sumatra, ESCAPADE's powered slingshots over Australia, a planet rescued from Webb's glare, and the cosmic leaf blower. Plus the week's sky from both hemispheres. In this episode • Lead: Hydrogen chloride detections at Alba Mons as a potential sign of igneous activity on Mars (Trokhimovskiy, Mège et al., Science Advances, 4 Nov 2026). Detections first presented at 2025 conferences. • Week That Was: LID-1166 dual black holes (E220); Swift re-entry, 4 Nov (E221); ESCAPADE powered flybys (E222); FLIP digital-twin coronagraph and 51 Eridani b (E223); Lyman-alpha 'leaf blower' (E224). • Arc updates: AR4566 M3.5 flare and storm watch; Starship Flight 15; Voyager 1 one light-day; BepiColombo; Hera. • Skywatch: Venus and Spica; thin crescent Moon; new Moon 9 Nov; spotting ESCAPADE Gold; Mars–Jupiter 16 Nov; aurora watch; ISO 12312-2 eye safety. Sources • Science Advances, DOI 10.1126/sciadv.aeb9422 — 'Enigmatic HCl detections as a potential signature of igneous activity on Mars' • ESA release, 4 Nov 2026 — European orbiter detects hints of volcanic activity on Mars • NASA ESCAPADE blog, 2 Nov 2026 — science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade • NASA Swift blog — science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift • EarthSky Sun news, 6 Nov 2026 astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod · Bitesz.com Podcast Network YouTube description Is Mars still volcanically alive? ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has caught hydrogen chloride above fresh fissures on Alba Mons, out of season, in one place, low to the ground. We look at the evidence, the proposed ice lid, and what this result is NOT. Then The Week That Was: dual black holes in LID-1166, Swift's re-entry, ESCAPADE's slingshot over Australia, FLIP and 51 Eridani b, and the cosmic leaf blower. Plus this week's sky for both hemispheres. astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod · Bitesz.com Podcast Network Chapters (estimate — confirm against final audio) 00:00 Cold open 00:40 Is Mars still breathing? Hydrogen chloride at Alba Mons 09:05 The Week That Was 14:10 Skywatch: Venus, Spica, ESCAPADE, Mars and Jupiter 17:30 Outro
   
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6. Webb’s Early-Universe Puzzle: A Radio First, New Glenn Hardware and Earth’s New Mini Moon

   7 novembre 202619 minSaison 5 · Épisode 224À suivre

   Show notesLight from newborn stars may have blown the fog out of the early universe. A new study by Shyam Menon (Flatiron Institute, ANU PhD) and Aaron Smith (UT Dallas) finds that Lyman-alpha radiation — …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Show notes
   Light from newborn stars may have blown the fog out of the early universe. A new study by Shyam Menon (Flatiron Institute, ANU PhD) and Aaron Smith (UT Dallas) finds that Lyman-alpha radiation — ultraviolet light that bounces from hydrogen atom to hydrogen atom — can clear diffuse gas and dust out of young galaxies while leaving their dense star clusters free to keep forming stars, helping explain why JWST sees so many bright galaxies so early. Also: LOFAR's sharpest and deepest low-frequency radio image yet (almost 63,000 sources, 200 hours of observing); Blue Origin's new GS3 third stage and Northstar engine; and Sandia simulations showing that an asteroid's shape and orientation can change a nuclear stand-off deflection by up to five times. Quick hits: the space station's final roll-out solar array is installed, sunspot region AR4566 fires an M3 flare as October's sunspot number falls, and Earth picks up a tiny temporary mini-moon, 2026 QQ8. Skywatch for both hemispheres: ESCAPADE's powered flybys over southern Australia, the Moon with Venus and Spica, New Moon on the 9th, globular cluster M30 for southern observers, and Mars closing on Jupiter before dawn. Sources: Menon & Smith, The Astrophysical Journal (2026), DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/aeaed6 · de Jong et al., arXiv 2611.06152 (accepted A&A) · Blue Origin announcements, 5 Nov 2026 · Moore et al., Icarus (2026) · NOAA SWPC · Minor Planet Center MPEC 2026-U95 · NASA ESCAPADE blog, 2 Nov 2026.
   
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7. Webb’s Digital Twin: A Hidden Planet, Ancient Stars and China’s Moon Plan

   6 novembre 202621 minSaison 5 · Épisode 223À suivre

   Show notesA Northwestern-led team builds a physics-based digital twin of the James Webb Space Telescope's coronagraph and recovers the giant planet 51 Eridani b in two-year-old data where standard processing …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Show notes
   A Northwestern-led team builds a physics-based digital twin of the James Webb Space Telescope's coronagraph and recovers the giant planet 51 Eridani b in two-year-old data where standard processing could not see it. Plus VVV CL001, a dust-hidden cluster near the Milky Way's core dated at 13.4 billion years; China's most detailed account yet of its two-launch crewed Moon landing plan; and the flare alert system that tells sounding rockets exactly when to launch, as sunspot region AR4566 turns magnetically complex. The Planet in the Glare (lead) Ferrer-Chavez, Wang, Bouman, Freeman, Pueyo et al., Nature, 4 Nov 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-11213-z. FLIP (Physics-based Learning for Imaging Planets) models JWST/NIRCam coronagraph optics as a digital twin and subtracts simulated starlight. Tested on HIP 65426, 51 Eridani and TYC 5899: sensitivity improved 2–15×; 51 Eri b recovered at >5σ in F430M (CO₂ band) data where standard processing failed. Not a new planet; three-star demonstration; picometre-stability relief for the Habitable Worlds Observatory is a prospect, not yet shown. VVV CL001: the oldest cluster in the Galaxy? Olivares Carvajal, Zoccali et al., accepted to A&A, arXiv 2610.27969 (posted 20 Oct 2026). Age 13.4 ± 0.4 Gyr from Magellan/FourStar and Hubble photometry; [Fe/H] ≈ −2.2; ~7.3 kpc in the bulge. ~1 Gyr additional systematic from distance; Ton 2 dated at 13.6 Gyr — a strong candidate, not a settled record. China's crewed Moon landing plan Wang Xiang, 7th Manned Space Symposium, Beijing, 31 Oct 2026. Two Long March 10 launches; Lanyue lander and Mengzhou crew ship rendezvous in lunar orbit; crew of three, two land, rover on first landing. No new dates; target remains before 2030. Catching a flare in the act Early flare alert system, The Astrophysical Journal, 4 Nov 2026, DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/ae95fd. Enabled FOXSI-4 and Hi-C Flare to launch into an M-class flare on 17 Apr 2024 and FOXSI-5 to catch three flares on 14 May 2026. AR4566 reached beta-gamma-delta classification on 4 Nov. Quick hits Swift re-entered 7:39 a.m. EST 4 Nov (12:39 UTC) over North Sumatra; NASA's SSPICY (Starfish Space Otter) declared unrecoverable; final ISS roll-out solar array spacewalk (Kutryk, Menon); Hera begins early characterisation at Didymos per ESA's timeline.
   
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8. Escapade’s Double Slingshot: Mars-Bound Probes, Missing Oxygen and Black Holes in Pants

   5 novembre 202623 minSaison 5 · Épisode 222À suivre

   Show notesESCAPADE's double slingshot over Australia NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, Blue and Gold, will each fly a powered Earth flyby on their way to Mars: the first around 5 a.m. EST on Saturday 7 November …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Show notes
   ESCAPADE's double slingshot over Australia NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, Blue and Gold, will each fly a powered Earth flyby on their way to Mars: the first around 5 a.m. EST on Saturday 7 November, the second around 6 a.m. EST on Monday 9 November. Each fires its engine for about nine minutes at closest approach, a manoeuvre NASA says no Mars-bound spacecraft has flown successfully before. The burns happen over southern Australia, starting 8:51 p.m. AEDT on the 7th and 9:51 p.m. AEDT on the 9th, and the spacecraft may be visible there through telescopes. Western US observers get their best chance between midnight and 2 a.m. PST. Arrival at Mars: 7 and 9 September 2027. Where did the oxygen go? Hubble's GLOW project (McQuinn et al., The Astrophysical Journal, published 2 November; preprint since August) measured oxygen in 37 nearby dwarf galaxies and found they keep only 4–25% (about 11% on average) of the oxygen their stars made, nearly all of it in gas. Simulations predict several times more. Supernova-driven winds are the likely culprit; where the oxygen ended up is still unknown. Gas data included CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array. CHAPEA 2: a year on a pretend Mars NASA's second CHAPEA crew, Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery and James Spicer, left the 3D-printed Mars Dune Alpha habitat at Johnson Space Center on 31 October after 378 days, including communication delays of up to 22 minutes. An integrated HERA-plus-CHAPEA study is planned for 2027. Can a black hole split in two? A theory paper in Physical Review D (Cacciapaglia, Del Piano, Sannino & Vellucci, 22 October; preprint June) finds a split is thermodynamically allowed only, possibly, for black holes spinning near the maximum rate. The splitting process itself remains unknown, and no split has been observed. Quick hits Swift's final re-entry (see episode for status at recording); Starship Flight 15 targeted 12 November on an FAA planning slide, no SpaceX date yet; BepiColombo Mercury orbit capture 21 November; Voyager 1 one light-day from Earth around 18 November. Skywatch ESCAPADE telescope challenge over Australia (Sat 8:51 p.m. and Mon 9:51 p.m. AEDT); New Moon 9 Nov; Taurid fireballs; Mars and Jupiter closing to about 1.2° on 16 Nov (UT); thin crescent Moon under 1° from Venus around 10:45 UT on 7 Nov, best from eastern North America; Venus about 1.2° from Spica on the mornings of 9–10 Nov; Mercury at greatest western elongation 20 Nov. Never look at the Sun without ISO 12312-2 certified protection. Sources NASA ESCAPADE blog: Twin ESCAPADE spacecraft to slingshot past Earth (2 Nov 2026) — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2026/11/02/nasas-twin-escapade-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth-on-way-to-mars/ NASA SVS ESCAPADE flyby star charts — https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/15114/ JPL Horizons System — https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html#/ UC Berkeley ESCAPADE mission timeline — https://escapade.ssl.berkeley.edu/timeline-news Blue Origin: New Glenn launches NASA's ESCAPADE (13 Nov 2025) — https://www.blueorigin.com/en-US/news/new-glenn-launches-nasa-escapade-lands-fully-reusable-booster NASA: Hubble uncovers case of missing oxygen in nearby dwarf galaxies (2 Nov 2026) — https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-uncovers-case-of-missing-oxygen-in-nearby-dwarf-galaxies/ McQuinn et al., GLOW II: A Census of Oxygen in Low-Mass Galaxies, ApJ, DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/ae93a6 (preprint arXiv 2608.07665) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.07665 NASA: CHAPEA crew 'returns' to Earth (31 Oct 2026) — https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-chapea-crew-returns-to-earth/ University of Southern Denmark: Can a black hole split in two? — https://www.sdu.dk/en/om-sdu/fakulteterne/naturvidenskab/nyheder-2026/black-hole-in-two Cacciapaglia, Del Piano, Sannino & Vellucci, Phys. Rev. D 114, 084072 (22 Oct 2026), DOI 10.1103/cx69-t466 — https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/cx69-t466 NASA Swift blog: Swift Observatory to re-enter atmosphere (2 Nov 2026) — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/11/02/nasas-swift-observatory-to-re-enter-atmosphere/ Starlust: Starship Flight 15 FAA planning date — https://starlust.org/spacex-starship-flight-15-possible-launch-date-revealed/
   
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9. Swift’s Final Orbit: A Lost Observatory, a Burst That Defies Explanation and Rusty Interstellar Ice

   4 novembre 202623 minSaison 5 · Épisode 221À suivre

   Show notes Swift's Last Orbit: NASA's burst hunter falls home, a gamma-ray burst that is two explosions in one, and 3I/ATLAS's dusty ice. Swift's Last Orbit NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is expected to …

   Notes de l’épisode

   Show notes Swift's Last Orbit: NASA's burst hunter falls home, a gamma-ray burst that is two explosions in one, and 3I/ATLAS's dusty ice. Swift's Last Orbit NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere on Wednesday 4 November; the US Space Force prediction is about 03:30 EST (08:30 UTC, 19:30 AEDT), plus or minus 11 hours. Surviving fragments are confined between 20.6°N and 20.6°S, a band that includes northern Australia; NASA puts the risk of harm to anyone at about 1 in 2,100. We look back at 22 years of science from a two-year mission: more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts, the first short-burst afterglow in 2005, the BOAT in 2022, and about 7,000 papers. Two Bursts, Two Births GRB 160425A, caught by Swift in April 2016, is a 1.7-second short spike, four minutes of silence, then a 51-second long burst from the same place. A Nature Astronomy paper (Li, Wang, Zhang, Cai et al., 23 October; preprint March) argues the first is merger-like and the second collapsar-like. One event, no confirmed supernova or kilonova. 3I/ATLAS's Dusty Ice Webb's NIRSpec found the interstellar comet's ice grains are about a micron across and mixed with lots of dust, resembling some trans-Neptunian objects more than familiar comets (Protopapa et al., ApJL, 26 October; preprint September). Quick Hits Starship Flight 15 targeted NET 12 November per the FAA (unconfirmed by SpaceX); BepiColombo's Mercury orbit insertion on 21 November; Voyager 1 reaches one light-day around 18 November. Skywatch Venus near Spica before dawn, joined by a 5%-lit crescent Moon on Saturday 7 November; Mars and Jupiter closing to 1.2° by 16 November (high from the north); Saturn high in southern evening skies; New Moon 9 November; Leonids 17–18 November. ISO 12312-2 solar safety
   
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10. Two Black Holes Behind the Dust: Webb Reveals a Hidden Pair in the Early Universe

    3 novembre 202622 minSaison 5 · Épisode 220À suivre

    Show notesTwo black holes caught feeding side by side just 1.3 billion years after the Big Bang. JWST and ALMA confirm LID-1166, the first close dual AGN found beyond the nearby universe. Plus: Swift's final …

    Notes de l’épisode

    Show notes
    Two black holes caught feeding side by side just 1.3 billion years after the Big Bang. JWST and ALMA confirm LID-1166, the first close dual AGN found beyond the nearby universe. Plus: Swift's final days and NASA's call for ideas to save Hubble, Rubin finds Neptune's missing trailing Trojans as Lucy enters Jupiter's, TRACERS' first look at where the solar wind gets in, and a both-hemispheres skywatch built around the Mars-Jupiter meeting on 16 November. Two Hearts in One Galaxy (LID-1166) JWST/NIRSpec integral-field spectroscopy resolves two feeding black holes ~1.5 kpc (~4,900 ly) apart at z~4.5; ALMA [CII] finds matching cold gas around each. Both appear super-Eddington yet already sit on the local black hole-host mass relation. One system, projected separation; preprint posted July, published in Nature Astronomy this week. Living on Borrowed Altitude Swift ended operations on 20 October and is expected to re-enter in early November. NASA's 29 October Request for Information asks industry about boosting, servicing or safely de-orbiting Hubble, likely to re-enter in 2033-34. Not a commitment; responses due 30 November. Trojan Week Rubin early data confirms 2025 MH348 and 2025 NN80 as long-lived trailing Neptune Trojans, plus candidate 2025 MD138 (Schwamb et al., ApJL). Lucy becomes the first spacecraft to enter the Jupiter Trojan region; Eurybates flyby 11 August 2027. TRACERS: Where the Solar Wind Gets In First results (JGR: Space Physics) suggest cusp reconnection is largely spatial rather than temporal. Mission extended to spring 2027. Quick hits BepiColombo Mercury orbit insertion 21 November; Starship Flight 15 targeted November with a double catch attempt; Voyager 1 one light-day from Earth around 18 November. Skywatch Mars and Jupiter 1.2 degrees apart before dawn on 16 November; Venus, a thin Moon and Spica low at dawn 7-10 November; Saturn high in southern evenings; zodiacal light around New Moon (9 Nov); Leonids 17-18 November; supermoon 24 November. ISO 12312-2 solar safety reminder.
    
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11. The Impenetrable Wall That Failed: Killer Electrons Made Inside Earth’s Radiation Belt

    1 novembre 202622 minSaison 5 · Épisode 219À suivre

    Show notesElectrons made on the wrong side of Earth's 'impenetrable barrier', a gamma-ray burst that only looked weak, the week that was, and a Halloween that is astronomically a week early. The Wall That Broke …

    Notes de l’épisode

    Show notes
    Electrons made on the wrong side of Earth's 'impenetrable barrier', a gamma-ray burst that only looked weak, the week that was, and a Halloween that is astronomically a week early. The Wall That Broke In 2014 NASA's Van Allen Probes revealed a sharp inner edge to Earth's outer radiation belt: electrons at the very highest energies never got closer than about 2.8 Earth radii. During the May 2024 superstorm — the biggest since the 2003 Halloween storms — Japan's Arase satellite saw electrons of about 3 MeV rise deep inside that 'impenetrable barrier'. A new paper led by Yoshizumi Miyoshi (Nagoya University ISEE) shows a peak in electron phase space density growing in place at L* ≈ 3, about 12,000 km up — evidence the electrons were accelerated there rather than carried in. Intense chorus waves, operating in a region emptied by a crushed plasmasphere and a negative ionospheric storm, are the likely engine. Caveats: one storm; 'consistent with' chorus acceleration; the breach itself had been reported before — the new part is the mechanism. Not Faint, Just Side-On GRB 260310A, caught by Fermi on 10 March 2026, had a feeble gamma-ray flash but one of the brightest afterglows ever seen. Yu-Han Yang (Tor Vergata) and colleagues argue we viewed a two-component jet from the side. Preprint from May; published in ApJL this month; competing models exist. The Week That Was E214 GRB 160425A, one burst with two births · E215 θ¹ Ori C, the star born twice · E216 Rubin's first dwarf-planet candidate 2026 ED138 · E217 Betelgeuse pulled out of round by Siwarha · E218 Teghaza 001, one of the oldest pieces of Mars. Plus Swift's re-entry watch, Voyager 1 at one light-day on 18 Nov, and Starship Flight 15 targeted for November. Skywatch Halloween is astronomically a week early (true cross-quarter 7 Nov). Mars, Jupiter and Regulus line up before dawn, Mars–Jupiter just over 1° apart on 16 Nov. Moon near Mars and Jupiter on the mornings of 2–3 Nov. Saturn rules the evening, best from the south. US clocks fall back 1 Nov. Solar viewing only with ISO 12312-2 certified filters. Sources · Miyoshi et al., GRL 53, e2026GL125879 (2026) — https://doi.org/10.1029/2026GL125879 · ISAS/JAXA release, 27 Oct 2026 (Japanese) — https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/topics/004417.html · Nagoya University release via phys.org — https://phys.org/news/2026-10-solar-storm-triggered-ultrarelativistic-electrons.html · Yang et al., ApJL 1011 L22 (GRB 260310A) — https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aea990 · arXiv 2605.23818 (Yang et al. preprint) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23818 · Gill et al., arXiv 2605.26091 (competing model) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.26091 · NASA: Swift mission ends ahead of re-entry — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/10/23/nasas-swift-mission-ends-ahead-of-re-entry/
    
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12. Mars’s Ancient Rock: A 4-Billion-Year-Old Clue to the Red Planet’s Past

    31 octobre 202622 minSaison 5 · Épisode 218À suivre

    Show notes A rose-coloured rock picked up in the Sahara in 2022 turns out to be one of the oldest pieces of Mars ever found. Teghaza 001 formed at least 4.1 billion years ago, and two independent radiometric …

    Notes de l’épisode

    Show notes A rose-coloured rock picked up in the Sahara in 2022 turns out to be one of the oldest pieces of Mars ever found. Teghaza 001 formed at least 4.1 billion years ago, and two independent radiometric clocks agree. We explain how it was dated, what it says about early Mars losing its water, and why its source is still a shortlist of 13 craters in the southern highlands. Also: Voyager 1 goes silent for two days and recovers on its own as it nears one light-day from Earth on 18 November; Hubble finally sees the 'Cat's Tail' of Beta Pictoris, the wreckage of a collision between two Pluto-sized worlds; two Halloween ghosts in the Carina Nebula; and quick hits on the 100th US spacewalk from the ISS, Reid Wiseman's move to JPL, Swift and Starship. Skywatch: US clocks go back on 1 November, Saturn in the evening, Venus returns to the morning sky, Mars and Jupiter close in, the Moon passes Pollux, Mars, Jupiter and Regulus, the Southern Taurids, and Carina for southern observers.
    
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13. Betelgeuse’s Ghost Companion: The Hidden Star Stirring Orion’s Giant

    30 octobre 202623 minSaison 5 · Épisode 217À suivre

    Episode summaryBetelgeuse is being haunted. New VLA and ALMA radio observations show the red supergiant's atmosphere stretches and relaxes in step with the orbit of its hidden companion, Siwarha — a companion …

    Notes de l’épisode

    Episode summary
    Betelgeuse is being haunted. New VLA and ALMA radio observations show the red supergiant's atmosphere stretches and relaxes in step with the orbit of its hidden companion, Siwarha — a companion too faint to see in radio, caught by the ripples it leaves behind. Also: lithium-fluoride crystals that rode around the Moon on Artemis I, why comets almost certainly didn't deliver life's ingredients to Earth (but did better on Mars), and Virgin Galactic's new spaceship, Apeiron. Plus Swift's final days, Hubble helping Roman, Starship Flight 15, and where to find Betelgeuse tonight from both hemispheres.Show notes
    The Ghost in Betelgeuse · Matthews (MIT Haystack), Dupree (CfA), Richards (Manchester) and Dent (ESO/ALMA) imaged Betelgeuse at seven frequencies, 22–485 GHz, with the VLA and ALMA between 2021 and 2026. · The outer atmosphere has recovered from the 2019–20 Great Dimming (~3,500 K at 22 GHz); a temperature minimum of ~2,220 K sits at ~1.2 stellar radii, matching the infrared 'MOLsphere'. · The star's ellipticity tracks the orbital phase of its companion Siwarha: more stretched near greatest elongation (~10% in Oct 2024), rounder near transit and eclipse (<2% in Apr 2026). · Caveats: small effect, ~9 epochs, frequency-dependent orientation puzzle, Siwarha's nature contested; preprint posted August 2026. · Next: Siwarha re-emerges on the far side of Betelgeuse in late 2027. Crystals That Went Around the Moon · Bilski et al. (IFJ PAN, DLR), Radiation Measurements: LiF fluorescent nuclear track detectors from the MARE phantoms on Artemis I reconstructed the cosmic-ray energy-deposition spectrum without destroying the detector. · Matched plastic track detectors at intermediate energies; ~30% overestimate for the heaviest ions, attributed to neutron knock-on of lithium nuclei; lithium-7 crystals reduce it. · Near the Moon, dose was higher than in low Earth orbit but less than intuition suggests, and more evenly spread through the body. Comets Probably Didn't Seed Life on Earth · Anslow et al. (Cambridge), Scientific Reports: rapid decline of the bombardment, comet break-up, atmospheric filtering, impact heating and crater-lake dilution make HCN delivery to early Earth 'exceedingly rare'. · Delivery to Mars is about five times more effective (lower impact speeds, thinner atmosphere). · Caveat: modelling, focused on HCN; doesn't exclude delivery in tightly packed exoplanet systems. Virgin Galactic's Apeiron Comes Home · First Delta-class spaceplane named Apeiron ('boundless') on 28 Oct and flown under mothership Eve from Mesa, Arizona to Spaceport America. · Flight tests next; customer flights targeted mid-2027; second ship late 2027; target twice-weekly flights and 500+ missions per vehicle. Quick Hits · Swift ended operations 20 Oct; NASA expects re-entry within weeks. · Hubble lens image DESI J194.5345+03.5358 released to help calibrate Roman's ~160,000 expected strong lenses (image release, no new paper). · Starship Flight 15 targeted for November with a two-stage catch attempt; no official date. Skywatch · Betelgeuse rises ~22:33 Sydney, 21:48 LA, 21:46 NY, 20:39 London (Fri 30 Oct); highest before dawn: 49° Sydney, 63° LA, 57° NY, 46° London. US clocks fall back Sun 1 Nov. · Saturn at dusk; Mercury's last evening appearance favours the south (~11° at sunset from Sydney). · Pre-dawn Mars–Jupiter closing: 6.5° (this weekend), ~4° (5 Nov), ~1.2° (16 Nov). Last quarter Moon 1 Nov 20:28 UTC; Moon past Mars, Jupiter and Regulus 2–3 Nov. · Zodiacal light: evening west from the south, pre-dawn east from the north. Solar viewing only with ISO 12312-2 filters. Sources · NRAO via Newswise — What Lurks Within the Shadows of Betelgeuse? — https://www.newswise.com/articles/what-lurks-within-the-shadows-of-betelgeuse · Matthews et al., arXiv 2608.02847 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.02847 · Bilski et al., Radiation Measurements (DLR elib record) — https://elib.dlr.de/226596/ · Universe Today — Glowing Salt Crystals Tracked Radiation Aboard Artemis I — https://www.universetoday.com/articles/glowing-salt-crystals-tracked-radiation-aboard-artemis-i · Anslow et al., Scientific Reports — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-74214-y · Universe Today — Ancient Comets Carried Organic Compounds… — https://www.universetoday.com/articles/ancient-comets-carried-organic-compounds-but-they-didnt-survive-crashing-into-earth · Universe Today — Virgin Galactic Flies Next-Gen Space Plane… — https://www.universetoday.com/articles/virgin-galactic-flies-next-gen-space-plane-to-new-home-with-new-name · NASA — Swift Mission Ends Ahead of Re-Entry — https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/10/23/nasas-swift-mission-ends-ahead-of-re-entry/ · NASA — Hubble Charts Path for Roman with Gravitational Lenses — https://science.nasa.gov/?p=1462412
    
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14. Rubin’s Hidden Dwarf Planet: The World Lost in the Milky Way

    29 octobre 202621 minSaison 5 · Épisode 216À suivre

    Show notesAstronomy Daily S05E216 — A New World in the Crowd (Thursday 29 October 2026). Hosts Anna and Avery. Lead: the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has found its first dwarf-planet candidate. 2026 ED138 lies …

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    Astronomy Daily S05E216 — A New World in the Crowd (Thursday 29 October 2026). Hosts Anna and Avery. Lead: the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has found its first dwarf-planet candidate. 2026 ED138 lies beyond Pluto, about 46 au from the Sun. Matthew Holman (CfA) found it on 13 October with a search code built with Kevin Napier, and it was announced on 27 October at the DPS meeting in Spokane (MPEC 2026-U85). Rubin caught it 30 times on 20 nights between March and July, and Dark Energy Camera precoveries extend the orbit back to 2016. Only nine known trans-Neptunian objects are intrinsically brighter. Its size is estimated at 600–1,500 km, depending on reflectivity, so it remains a candidate until infrared or occultation measurements pin it down. It hid near the plane of the Milky Way, about 43° south of the celestial equator. Also: JWST's 37-hour phase curve shows the lava world TOI-561 b reflecting about three-quarters of its starlight, possibly through silicate clouds, with University of Sydney co-authors. ESA's Hera resolves Didymos and Dimorphos separately for the first time, with detailed Dimorphos images due 25 November. NASA's Swift is in its final weeks before re-entry, and UVEX passes a key review. Skywatch for Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London: Mars and Jupiter closing in the pre-dawn sky (1.2° on 16 November), Saturn in the evening, Mercury's last call from the south, the waning Moon through Taurus to Gemini, and the US clock change on 1 November.
    
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15. The Star That Was Born Twice: Orion’s Nebula Mystery

    28 octobre 202624 minSaison 5 · Épisode 215À suivre

    Show notesAstronomy 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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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
    
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16. A Gamma-Ray Burst’s Split Personality: The Week Swift Fell Silent

    27 octobre 202626 minSaison 5 · Épisode 214À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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.
    
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17. Artemis 4: The Moon's Tiebreaker Awaits - The Weekend Wrap

    25 octobre 202619 minSaison 5 · Épisode 213À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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.
    
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18. Starry Nights and Cosmic Insights: Van Gogh's Real Sky Revealed

    24 octobre 202623 minSaison 5 · Épisode 211À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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)
    
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19. From Solar Storms to Martian Canyons: The Latest in Space News

    23 octobre 202625 minSaison 5 · Épisode 211À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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
    
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20. Born Thick, Settled Thin

    22 octobre 202622 minSaison 5 · Épisode 210À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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
    
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21. Cracking the Moon's Secrets: New Findings on Lunar Shrinkage

    21 octobre 202622 minSaison 5 · Épisode 209À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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/
    
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22. A Round Trip to Phobos Underway

    20 octobre 202624 minSaison 5 · Épisode 208À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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/
    
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23. Time's Tipping Point: The End of Leap Seconds and a Lunar Clock Revolution

    18 octobre 202622 minSaison 5 · Épisode 207À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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.
    
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24. Stellar Breakthroughs: The Discovery of Deuterated Methanol and the First Green Star

    17 octobre 202627 minSaison 5 · Épisode 206À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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
    
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25. Martian Mystery: Unveiling the Secrets of Arsia Mons' Elusive Clouds

    16 octobre 202625 minSaison 5 · Épisode 205À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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
    
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26. Cosmic Revelations: Artemis 2's Historic Observations and the Case of Hypernovae

    15 octobre 202625 minSaison 5 · Épisode 204À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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.
    
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27. HERA's Grand Maneuver: Braking for Didymos and the Future of Planetary Defence

    14 octobre 202625 minSaison 5 · Épisode 203À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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/
    
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28. Cloudy with a Chance of Water: The Mysteries of WISE 0855 Unveiled

    13 octobre 202625 minSaison 5 · Épisode 202À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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
    
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29. A Nobel in Ice: Unveiling the Secrets of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

    9 octobre 202624 minSaison 5 · Épisode 201À suivre

    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 …

    Notes de l’épisode

    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
    
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30. The Great Water Mystery: Jezero Crater and the Hunt for Mars' Hidden History

    23 septembre 202627 minSaison 5 · Épisode 200À suivre

    Perseverance drove to the edge of an ancient Martian lake expecting a beach and found the inside of a volcano — rock that water has been through at least three separate times. Europe's Jupiter probe comes home …

    Notes de l’épisode

    Perseverance drove to the edge of an ancient Martian lake expecting a beach and found the inside of a volcano — rock that water has been through at least three separate times. Europe's Jupiter probe comes home on Monday night and crosses Australia in a fully dark sky. Two teams, using two completely different techniques, both find something hiding inside the most famous planetary system we have ever photographed — and an Australian instrument is in the middle of one of them. Plus: heavy water in an interstellar comet, and what it says about the star that made it. In this episode · LEAD — Three floods at the crater's edge. Candice Bedford (Purdue) and colleagues publish in Communications Earth & Environment: the Margin Unit at Jezero is igneous, not sedimentary, and records at least three distinct episodes of water — CO₂-rich groundwater making carbonate ridges, then silica associated with the lake, then a later hot-water event leaving fluorite veins. Habitability context, not a biosignature. · Juice returns. ESA confirms the third Earth gravity assist for 28 September — closest approach 11:45 UTC over the Indian Ocean, bending the trajectory ~20° and adding ~3.5 km/s. The spacecraft crosses Australia north-east to north-west 15–30 minutes earlier, in full darkness. · HR 8799. Two preprints in two weeks point at a fifth, inner planet — one from archival JWST aperture-masking data (~7 au, a few Jupiter masses), one from Gaia astrometry (2–3 au, 10–14 Jupiter masses). They do not obviously describe the same object. Neither is peer-reviewed. · 3I/ATLAS. A modelling paper explains the high deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio measured in March as consistent with formation around a low-metallicity — meaning old — star. · Quick hit: Starship Flight 14 still targeting 28 September; Crew-13 still 'no earlier than early October' on NASA's own page; Albania signs the Artemis Accords as the 73rd country. · Skywatch: the equinox as an instant rather than a date, the Juice pass over Australia, Venus and Mercury for the south, Mars and Jupiter before dawn for the north, and Saturn heading into opposition. Sources and further reading · Bedford, C. C. et al., 'Lake- and groundwater-associated alteration of the olivine-rich Margin unit in Jezero crater, Mars', Communications Earth & Environment (2026). DOI 10.1038/s43247-026-03997-9 · NASA/JPL, 'NASA Discovery Reveals Complex Water Systems on Early Mars', 21 September 2026. · ESA, 'Juice to fly past Earth for third gravity assist', 21 September 2026. · Nguyen, J. S. et al., 'A Candidate Innermost Fifth Planet In the HR 8799 System Revealed By JWST NIRISS Aperture Masking Interferometry', arXiv:2609.10507. · Lagrange, A.-M. et al., 'A fifth companion in the HR 8799 system revealed by Gaia', arXiv:2609.20996 (submitted to Nature Astronomy). · Furuya, K., Cordiner, M., Bockelée-Morvan, D. et al., arXiv:2609.12370. · NASA OIIR, 'NASA Welcomes Albania as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory', 21 September 2026. Skywatch figures computed in-session with PyEphem 4.2.1 for Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London. Times are local unless marked UTC.
    
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