Space News Today

🚀 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is safely away — Anna and Avery recap Sunday's clean Falcon Heavy launch, what happens next on the road to L2, and a surprise Australian link in the mission. Then: Elon Musk signals the eventual retirement of Falcon 9, two Nobel laureates defend an accelerating universe against a slowing-expansion claim, a single ancient asteroid strike solves two mysteries on Mars's moon Deimos, and everything worth looking up at tonight, wherever you are. Chapters / topics: Roman Space Telescope's clean launch • What happens next (L2 cruise & commissioning) • Roman's science mission explained • SpaceX signals Falcon 9's eventual retirement • The universe is still speeding up (dark energy rebuttal) • One asteroid strike solves two Deimos mysteries • Tonight's sky (both hemispheres) 🔔 Subscribe for daily space and astronomy news. Full show notes and links at astronomydaily.io. #AstronomyDaily

Links & sources: Space.com — Liftoff! NASA's Roman Space Telescope soars to the stars on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in spectacular launch (video) NASA Science (Roman blog) — NASA's Roman Space Telescope Launches NASA Science (Roman blog) — NASA Concludes Roman Space Telescope Launch Coverage Space.com — What time will SpaceX launch NASA's Roman Space Telescope? (Full mission timeline) Space.com — Goodbye, Falcon 9: SpaceX planning to retire workhorse launcher when Starship is up and running Teslarati — Elon Musk just set a condition that could end Falcon 9 as we know it ScienceDaily — The universe is still speeding up, but nobody knows why University of Bern (media relations) — Asteroid impact shaped the appearance of Mars' moon Deimos Nature Astronomy — Raducan, Agrusa, Asphaug et al. (2026), DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-02956-w When The Curves Line Up — 2026, August 31: Venus Nears Spica TelescopeAdvisor — Night Sky in September 2026: Saturn Approaching Opposition Follow us: @AstroDailyPod

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SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 104 Strange anomaly discovered below the Martian south pole Astronomers have discovered a strange thermal asymmetry deep beneath the surface of the Martian southern hemisphere. Starship bound for home Starship 40 has finally left Australian waters bound for home. The orbiter used for SpaceX test flight 13 has been loaded aboard the 48,000-tonne semi-submersible vessel Forte for the long journey back to Starbase Texas. Roman Space Telescope final countdown The final countdown is now underway for the launch of NASA’s new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The Science Report A new record for keeping brain organoids made in a laboratory alive and developing. A new study shows smoking rates have continued to drop while vaping rates climb. Warnings that Australia’s native reptiles are disappearing at twice the rate previously thought. A new dog study says man’s best friend may be communicating with you through blinking. Skeptics guide to covering up the South Australian algal bloom. 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! ✌ If you’d like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member, you can do just that through The Big Bang editions on Patreon, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on the Support page on our website https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/ (https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/)

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In this intriguing Q&A episode of Space Nuts , hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner tackle a variety of cosmic queries from listeners. Join them as they explore the fascinating world of radio telescopes and how they produce images from radio waves, delve into the complexities of gravitational waves, and ponder the sounds and smells of space.

Key topics include:

- How photographic images are generated from radio telescopes, despite only receiving radio waves, and the fundamental principles behind this technology.

- A deep dive into gravitational waves, their impact on space, and how LIGO detects these minute disturbances in the fabric of spacetime.

- An imaginative discussion on what sounds might exist in space and the potential smells one could encounter beyond Earth’s atmosphere, including the curious idea of cosmic fragrances.

Join Andrew and Jonty as they demystify these concepts, providing clarity and insights into the wonders of astronomy and space science.

00:00 - Space Nuts aims to answer questions from the audience about astronomy and space science

01:37 - Were the pyramids built by aliens or were they built by humans

04:26 - How is a photographic image produced from a radio telescope and not an optical telescope

12:36 - Dean: I often hear about gravity waves and I have a hard time visualising

20:15 - Andrew Dunkley: I think ideas become easier to explain over time

22:45 - Our next question comes from David from Port Washington, New York

30:37 - Several volcanoes have blown up since we've been to them

32:08 - The metropolitan area of Auckland contains 53 volcanoes

35:02 - If you could take a big inhale, what would space smell like

36:22 - If you would like to send us some questions, please do through our website

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Today's episode — S05E180, Saturday August 29, 2026, The Weekend Wrap: Main story: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches tomorrow, Sunday August 30, with a primary window opening 7:26am EDT (11:26 UTC / 9:26pm AEST Sunday night in Sydney) on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center; backup window Monday August 31 at 7:22am EDT. Total ascent to spacecraft deployment is about 31 minutes 31 seconds, with Falcon Heavy's side boosters landing back at Cape Canaveral roughly 7 minutes 40 seconds after liftoff. Named for NASA's first chief astronomer Nancy Grace Roman (the "mother of Hubble"), the telescope shares Hubble's 2.4-metre primary mirror but pairs it with a Wide Field Instrument boasting a field of view roughly 100 times larger at similar resolution. Its major science campaigns: the High Latitude Wide Area Survey, mapping ~2 billion galaxies to probe dark matter and dark energy; a companion supernova time-domain survey; and the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey, a gravitational-microlensing exoplanet hunt expected to find on the order of 100,000 new worlds, including free-floating rogue planets. A Coronagraph Instrument will demonstrate direct exoplanet imaging technology. After deployment, Roman heads for the Sun-Earth L2 point (~1.5 million km out), a month-long cruise followed by months of commissioning. The mission closes out three threads covered this week: its clearance for launch nine months early (S05E176), its Cold War spy-satellite origin story (S05E178), and its narrow escape from budget cancellation (S05E179). The week in review: ● Chang'e-7's delay, revisited: Monday's episode (S05E175) reported China's Chang'e-7 lunar south pole mission scrubbing on August 24 due to Tropical Storm Narra, with the next window estimated at about a month out. Since then, reporting has split — some outlets still cite a mid-September window, while others report a slip to February or March 2027, citing the mission's roughly 100-days-per-year favorable lighting geometry at Shackleton Crater. China's Manned Space Agency has not issued a firm new date as of this recording; we're flagging the uncertainty rather than picking a side. ● Betelgeuse's bubbling surface: ALMA's most detailed image yet of the red supergiant's actual surface shows a corrugated, hot-spotted texture, with one hot spot persisting for over seven years — possibly stirred by a newly confirmed companion star (S05E177). ● Diamond rain, decoded: A Lawrence Livermore experiment recreated Neptune- and Uranus-like interior pressures, settling a 20-year dispute over diamond's melting point and pointing toward roughly triple the energy gain in certain fusion reactor configurations (S05E178). ● The space-mirror fight: US startup Reflect Orbital has FCC approval for its first demonstration mirror satellite; a new peer-reviewed study (Kocifaj, Bakos & Kundracik) finds the planned full-scale mirrors would appear roughly 40 times brighter than the full Moon to anyone in their beam — "worse than big cities like London," per Princeton's Gáspár Bakos (S05E179). ● Starship's Ship 40 is actually heading home: hours after Friday's episode aired, Ship 40 was loaded onto the heavy-lift vessel Forte and departed Christmas Island on the ~20,000km voyage back to Starbase, Texas, expected to take several weeks. Flight 14 remains targeted no-earlier-than September 15, with Booster 21's static-fire testing now complete. Links & sources: ● Space.com — What time will SpaceX launch NASA's Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30? (Full mission timeline) ● NASA Science — Roman Launch Countdown ● Engadget — How to watch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's launch ● Scientific American — China delays ambitious Chang'e 7 moon mission until 2027 ● SpaceNews — China delays Chang'e-7 lunar south pole landing mission launch ● CGTN — Explainer: Why Chang'e-7 can't simply launch a few days later ● Space.com — The bubbling surface of doomed supergiant star Betelgeuse has been revealed like never before ● ScienceDaily — Scientists crushed diamond beyond Neptune-like pressures — and solved a 20-year mystery ● Gizmodo — Scientists recreate the melting "diamond rain" of Neptune and Uranus. It may help fusion power ● Space.com — Massive space mirrors could be 40 times brighter than the full moon, astronomers warn ● ABC News (Australia) — SpaceX rocket begins journey back to Texas from Christmas Island ● NASASpaceFlight.com — Ship 40 arrives at Christmas Island, plans return to Starbase Follow us: @AstroDailyPod

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Today's episode — S05E179 , Friday August 28, 2026: Feature story: US startup Reflect Orbital has FCC approval for Eärendil-1, a demonstration satellite carrying a 60-foot mirror, the first step toward a planned constellation of 50,000-plus orbital mirrors beaming reflected sunlight to Earth on demand. A new peer-reviewed study (Kocifaj, Bakos and Kundracik, accepted at The Astrophysical Journal Letters) finds a full-scale, 174-foot operational mirror would appear about 40 times brighter than the full Moon to anyone standing in its roughly 3.4-mile beam, with measurable sky-glow extending 20-34 km further — astronomer Gáspár Bakos says it would be "worse than big cities like London," warning "you would not see any stars if you were in the beam." The rest of the news: Starship update: Ship 40 — the Flight 13 upper stage that survived an intact splashdown on July 24 — has been loaded onto a heavy-lift transport vessel off Christmas Island and is now heading home to Starbase, Texas, a journey expected to take several months. Meanwhile Flight 14 has quietly slipped to no-earlier-than September 15, per internal SpaceX/FAA planning documents, with Booster 21's static fire testing now the pacing item. A hot, watery world on borrowed time: astronomers led by Sylvain Breton (INAF) have characterised HD 176071 b, an exoplanet 335 light-years away that's roughly 50% water by mass, orbiting so close to its star (a 14-hour year) that it's expected to eventually be consumed by tidal forces. Found via a reflected-light technique applied to archival Kepler data. Roman Space Telescope: two days from its Sunday, August 30 launch (7:26am ET, Falcon Heavy), with today's Launch Readiness Review still underway as we record. We trace the mission's near-cancellation in leaked 2025 budget documents proposing a 24% NASA funding cut — and how Roman's team responded to Congress restoring funding by pulling the launch forward eight months, finishing under budget. Tonight's Sky: the G2 geomagnetic storm NOAA forecast for today is playing out now — aurora chances improve at northern latitudes, unlikely to reach much past Tasmania locally. Venus and Saturn remain the reliable local targets, under a near-full Moon. Links & sources: Space.com — Massive space mirrors could be 40 times brighter than the full moon, astronomers warn arXiv — Atmospheric Light Pollution by Proposed Reflect Orbital Space Mirrors (Kocifaj, Bakos & Kundracik) Space.com — The FCC just gave Reflect Orbital permission to launch its 1st space mirror to orbit Space.com — Starship is coming home: SpaceX loads floating spacecraft onto huge ship in the Indian Ocean Space.com — Astronomers discover hot watery exoplanet destined to be swallowed by its star Space.com — Trump tried to scrap NASA's Roman Space Telescope last year. Now it's ready to launch Watchers.news — M6.9 solar flare produces Earth-directed CME, G2 geomagnetic storm watch issued for August 28 Follow us: @AstronomyDailyPod

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