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SpaceX came agonisingly close to launching the most powerful rocket ever built in its newest configuration — but a technical halt at T-minus 40 seconds sent Starship V3's debut back to the drawing board, with another attempt window opening this evening (6:30–8:00 p.m. EDT). Anna and Avery dig into what went wrong, what makes V3 different, and the stunning announcement buried in the webcast: a named commander for humanity's first crewed Mars flyby mission. Plus: JWST rewrites exoplanet atmospheric science with unexpected ice clouds on a distant super-Jupiter, researchers map a mysterious magnetic 'flip' inside the Milky Way, and Rocket Lab launches from New Zealand.





Links & Further Reading • Starship Flight 12 live updates: space.com • SpaceX launch webcast (tonight): spacex.com • Chun Wang Mars announcement: universetoday.com • JWST Epsilon Indi Ab paper (ApJL): doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae5823 • Milky Way magnetic field study (ApJ): doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae28d1 • Rocket Lab Viva La Strix mission: rocketlabusa.com • Astronomy Daily website: astronomydaily.io





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SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 61 *The latest observations of interstellar comet 3i-Atlas using two spacecraft instead of just one Astronomers have used two separate spacecraft to obtain new ultra-violet spectrographic images of the interstellar comet 3i-Atlas as it continues its journey out of our solar system. *The shocking data in new AI models of our Milky Way Galaxy’s super massive black hole A new study has discovered that our Milky Way Galaxy’s super massive black hole is rotating almost as fast as the laws of physics allow, and its axis is pointing directly towards the Earth. *The Isle of Rum listed as Britain’s second dark sky sanctuary The Isle of Rum is the first place in Scotland to achieve Dark Sky Sanctuary status – one of just 23 places around the world so designated by Dark Sky International. *The Science Report Warnings of a link between Omega-3 supplements and your risk of dementia. Myanmar, state media is reporting the discovery of a giant 2.2 kilogram ruby. The Australian military will go ahead with the development of its new Speartooth underwater drone. *Skeptics guide to Dubai’s cancer curing cult. Our Guests This Week: Siding Spring Observatory director Dr. Christian Wolf Alex Mumford local Isle of Rum resident who organized the Dark Skies application And our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics 🌏 Get Our Exclusive Money Saving NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn (http://www.bitesz.com/nordvpn) . The discounts and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌





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





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Astronomy Daily • S05E107 • Wednesday 21 May 2026 Starship V3 is on the pad and counting down for Thursday's debut launch — we bring you the full update including technical objectives, the Artemis stakes, and a sober note about a worker fatality at Starbase. Plus: a NIST proposal to build GPS for the Moon using lasers inside permanently frozen polar craters; space station startup Vast enters the satellite market; JWST finally has an explanation for the universe's impossibly large early black holes; the Roman Space Telescope locks in a September 2026 launch; and interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS gives up two remarkable new secrets — alien water thirty times richer in heavy hydrogen than anything in our solar system, and pre-discovery images that show it was spotted before anyone knew it was there. Stories This Episode • STORY 1 — Starship V3 Flight 12: Launch window opens Thursday 21 May at 6:30 PM EDT (8:30 AM AEST Friday 22 May). Splashdown of upper stage in Indian Ocean off Western Australia ~65 min after liftoff. First flight of Starship V3, first use of Starbase Pad 2. Key objectives: Raptor 3 engines, heat shield imaging by modified Starlink sats, 22 dummy Starlink deployments, Raptor relight in space. Worker fatality at Starbase 15 May under OSHA investigation. • STORY 2 — Lunar GPS via NIST: Proposal to place ultrastable silicon optical cavity lasers in permanently shadowed craters near lunar south pole (~16K, near-perfect vacuum). Could enable lunar GPS network, atomic timekeeping on Moon, precise satellite ranging, gravitational wave detection. • STORY 3 — Vast Corporation: Space station builder announces new line of high-power satellites, expanding beyond Haven-1 into commercial satellite manufacturing. Announced 19 May 2026. • STORY 4 — JWST Black Holes: New arXiv paper proposes 'episodic super-Eddington accretion' in gas-rich dark matter-dominated early galaxies explains overmassive black holes found by JWST. Identifies them as 'missing link' between heavy seeds and luminous quasars. • STORY 5 — Roman Space Telescope: Launch now confirmed as early as September 2026 — 8 months ahead of schedule, under budget. 100x Hubble's field of view, 1,000x survey speed. Targets dark energy, dark matter, exoplanets. Coronagraph for direct exoplanet imaging. • STORY 6 — 3I/ATLAS: Pre-discovery images found in Rubin Observatory data from 21 June–2 July 2025, over a week before official ATLAS discovery. Water deuterium ratio at least 30x higher than any solar system comet (ALMA/U of Michigan/Nature Astronomy). Comet estimated ~12 billion years old. Key Links • SpaceX Starship Flight 12 livestream: spacex.com • Flight 12 timeline (Space.com): space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/what-time-is-spacex-starship-v3-launch-starship-flight-12-timeline • Starbase worker death (Space.com): space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/worker-dies-at-spacexs-starbase-in-leadup-to-starship-v3-megarocket-launch • Lunar laser GPS (NIST): nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/05/shooting-moon-ultrastable-lasers-dark-craters-could-enable-lunar-navigation • Vast satellite announcement: space.com (19 May 2026) • Roman Space Telescope launch update: nasa.gov • 3I/ATLAS pre-discovery images: space.com/astronomy/comets • 3I/ATLAS water chemistry (ALMA): almaobservatory.org





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SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 60 *Our solar system’s journey through an interstellar cloud A new study of cosmic dust found in Antarctic ice samples has revealed our solar system’s passage through the Local Interstellar Cloud – the remnants of an exploding star. *The Ramses mission to study the once considered doomsday asteroid Apophis The European Space Agency have confirmed their RAMSES mission to study once considered doomsday asteroid Apophis will launch in April 2028 to meet the half kilometre wide space rock prior to its close flyby of the Earth on Friday the 13th of April 2029. *Is volcanic ash reshaping the Martian surface Astronomers have witnessed a noticeable change on surface of the red planet Mars with a dark blanket of volcanic ash deposits creeping across the Martian surface over the past fifty years. *The Science Report Adding more soy and legumes in your diet may lower your risk of high blood pressure. Ocean temperatures are edging toward record highs suggesting a super powerful El Niño is coming. 80 years after the Trinity nuclear test, scientists have identified a new crystal formed in the blast. *Alex on Tech : the new Googlebook Laptop. Our Guests This Week: Siding Spring Observatory director Dr. Christian Wolf Alex Mumford local Isle of Rum resident who organized the Dark Skies application And our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn (http://www.bitesz.com/nordvpn) . The discounts and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌





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