Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

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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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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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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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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Astronomy Daily · S05E150 · “Lucky Thirteen” · Saturday 25 July 2026. Your Weekend Wrap: Starship Flight 13 finally flies and floats, the strongest exomoon candidate yet, a robotic satellite-servicer on its way to GEO, and what the Moon’s far side reveals about Earth — plus a both-hemispheres skywatch. In this episode Chapter Segment 00:00 Cold open & headlines 01:30 LEAD: Starship Flight 13 flies — softest splashdown yet, first real Starlink V3 deploy 09:00 Exo-satellite at CD-35 2722 — strongest exomoon candidate yet (Nature) 11:45 Northrop Grumman MRV-MEP — a mechanic for the geostationary belt 14:30 Chang’e-6 — the Moon’s far side records Earth’s magnetosphere (Nature Geoscience) 17:15 Skywatch — Buck Moon, Delta Aquariids, the 12 Aug Perseids + total solar eclipse 20:45 Sign-off Sources & further reading STARSHIP FLIGHT 13 •     Space.com — Starship’s “softest splashdown” yet after Flight 13 — https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacexs-starship-megarocket-makes-the-softest-splashdown-ever-after-launching-next-gen-starlink-satellites-in-flight-13-test-video •     UPI — Starship successful flight test, splashes down in Indian Ocean — https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/07/24/Starship-has-successful-flight-test-splash-down-in-Indian-Ocean/3791784840519/ •     CNN — Starship hits key milestones in “Lucky 13” test flight — https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/24/science/live-news/spacex-starship-flight-13-launch EXO-SATELLITE CD-35 2722 •     ESO — New “exomoon” detection challenges cosmic labels — https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2610/ •     Nature (paper) — Planetary-mass exosatellite around a substellar companion — https://www.nature.com/ •     Phys.org — Jupiter-mass “exomoon” orbiting a brown dwarf — https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jupiter-mass-exomoon-orbiting-brown.html MRV-MEP SATELLITE SERVICING •     Northrop Grumman — MRV launches, ushering in a new era of in-space servicing — https://news.northropgrumman.com/launch/northrop-grummans-mission-robotic-vehicle-launches-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-in-space-servicing •     Spaceflight Now — Novel geosynchronous robotic servicing satellite launch — https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/07/21/live-coverage-spacex-to-launch-novel-geosynchronous-robotic-servicing-satellite-on-decade-long-mission/ CHANG’E-6 FAR-SIDE SOLAR WIND •     Nature Geoscience — Deeper solar wind penetration on the Moon’s far side — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-026-02042-w •     EurekAlert! / CAS — Chang’e-6 samples reveal how Earth slows the solar wind — https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1136535 SKYWATCH •     EarthSky — Delta Aquariid meteor shower 2026 — https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-delta-aquarid-meteor-shower/ •     EarthSky — Visible planets & night-sky guide / 12 Aug total solar eclipse — https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury/ Astronomy Daily is part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network. Follow @AstroDailyPod and find every episode at astronomydaily.io.

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