Space News Today

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 113 New evidence of superflares on the Sun A new study has found that a giant sunspot observed back in 1947 had the potential to trigger a massive solar super flare. How Gondwana changes life on Planet Earth A new study has rewritten the evolution of one of planet Earth’s greatest ancient land masses, the super continent of Gondwana. The incredibly shrinking planet Mercury A new study suggests that the planet Mercury may have shrunk by as much as 30 percent since its creation. The Science Report Studies warn that a third of the world’s population are exposed to second hand smoke. New figures show deradicalization programs have failed. A new study has found that 2025 was one of the driest years in the past three decades. It was in this month in 1936, that the world’s the last known Tasmanian Tiger died at the Hobart Zoo. Skeptics guide to the Nazi’s hollow Earth conspiracy. Our Guest This Week Professor Bill Collins from Curtin University 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/) For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ (https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ) If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…

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Space Nuts: Q&A on BepiColombo, Neutrinos, and Time Dilation

In this Q&A edition of Space Nuts , hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson dive into a series of intriguing listener questions that span topics from the nuances of orbital velocity to the enigmatic world of neutrinos and the complexities of time dilation. Join them as they unravel these cosmic queries with their signature blend of insight and humour.

Key topics

- Larry from Nebraska asks about the BepiColombo mission and the relationship between gravitational assists and orbital velocity, prompting a discussion on how spacecraft navigate the solar system.

- Eduardo explores the nature of neutrinos, questioning whether they are affected by gravity and whether they can be trapped by black holes.

- Shumo presents a thought-provoking idea about using high-energy gamma rays or neutrinos as interstellar beacons, leading to a discussion on the potential for advanced civilisations to communicate through unconventional means.

- Colin from Adelaide raises questions about time dilation effects as depicted in the science fiction movie "Project Hail Mary," specifically the implications of travelling close to the speed of light and the resulting age differences upon return to Earth.

Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction to the Q&A format and listener interactions

01:20 - Larry's question about BepiColombo and gravitational assists

10:30 - Eduardo's inquiry on neutrinos and black holes

18:45 - Shumo's question about interstellar beacons using gamma rays or neutrinos

26:00 - Colin's confusion about time dilation in "Project Hail Mary"

32:15 - Discussion on the implications of time dilation and relativity

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SHOW NOTES Black hole jets follow one universal rule Adelle Goodwin (Curtin University / ICRAR, Forrest Research Foundation Fellow) and Andrew Mummery (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) show that supermassive black holes launch their outflows at the same critical accretion rate as stellar-mass black holes — about 2% of the Eddington limit — making accretion-outflow coupling scale-invariant across seven orders of magnitude in mass. Nature Astronomy, 17 September 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41550-026-02951-1 JWST's Little Red Dots are black hole seeds caught mid-growth Sunmyon Chon, Shingo Hirano, Tomoaki Ishiyama, Seok-Jun Chang and Volker Springel ran fully cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations on Japan's ATERUI III supercomputer and produced heavy black hole seeds of about a million solar masses, whose optically thick discs generate exactly the broad hydrogen emission seen in Little Red Dots. Nature 657, 621-625, 16 September 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10985-8 Earth's centre of mass moves about half as far as we thought Donald Argus, Felix Landerer and colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with the University of Nevada, the University of Montana and the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, revise the annual oscillation between Earth's centre of mass and its centre of figure down from roughly 11 millimetres to about 4 to 5.5. Geophysical Journal International, ggag314. DOI: 10.1093/gji/ggag314 Two numbers explain the weather on a world 20 light-years away Merle Schrader and colleagues at Trinity College Dublin applied principal component analysis to one rotation of JWST spectroscopy of the brown dwarf SIMP 0136 and found two components — temperature and vertical cloud structure — account for all the detectable variability. Astronomy & Astrophysics, open access. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202660109 The Sun goes blank With only active region AR4528 left on the Earth-facing disc and rotating out of view, the Sun was on the verge of its first spotless day since 24 February 2026 — which itself ended a 1,335-day run of continuous sunspot activity stretching back to June 2022. Skywatch: Venus at greatest brilliancy, first quarter Moon, Observe the Moon Night Venus reaches greatest brilliancy on 18 September at magnitude -4.8; the Moon reaches exact first quarter at 20:43 UTC the same day, setting up International Observe the Moon Night on Saturday 19 September. All times and altitudes in this segment were computed for Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London. SKYWATCH — COMPUTED REFERENCE Computed in-session with PyEphem 4.2.1. Local times. Sydney on AEST (UTC+10); Los Angeles PDT; New York EDT; London BST. City Sunset Venus alt Venus sets Mercury Mars pre-dawn Sydney 17:45 39.2 deg 20:58 (3h13m) 16.4 deg (sets 1h20m) 20.4 deg Los Angeles 18:52 14.3 deg 20:10 (1h19m) 8.8 deg (sets 0h43m) 48.4 deg New York 18:56 10.3 deg 19:59 (1h03m) 7.0 deg (sets 0h38m) 46.1 deg London 19:04 3.6 deg 19:32 (0h28m) 3.9 deg (sets 0h26m) 40.6 deg · Venus greatest brilliancy: 18 September 2026, magnitude -4.8. Disc 39.6 arcsec, 26% illuminated. · By 22 September the disc has grown to 42.3 arcsec but the lit fraction has fallen to 22.7% — the two changes nearly cancel, which is why listings disagree on the date. The peak is genuinely flat. · Moon reaches exact first quarter 18 September at 20:43 UTC = 06:43 AEST Sat 19 Sep / 16:43 EDT Fri 18 / 13:43 PDT Fri 18 / 21:43 BST Fri 18. · Moon altitude at sunset: Sydney 81.6 deg (near overhead), Los Angeles 27.1 deg, New York 20.4 deg, London 9.4 deg. · International Observe the Moon Night: Saturday 19 September 2026. NASA event at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, 5:30-8:00pm CST. · Pre-dawn Sat 19 Sep at nautical dawn — Jupiter: Los Angeles 26.4 deg, New York 25.1 deg, London 21.9 deg, Sydney 8.9 deg. · Mars-Jupiter separation: 22.9 deg on 18 Sep, 12.0 deg mid-October, 1.2 deg mid-November 2026. · Saturn is up essentially all night; sets 06:47 Sydney, 07:55 Los Angeles. Opposition 4 October 2026, disc 19.6 arcsec, rings approx 7 deg open. · September equinox: a single instant, 00:05:09 UTC on 23 September 2026 — evening of the 22nd in the Americas, mid-morning of the 23rd in Australia. · All figures computed in-session with PyEphem 4.2.1 for the four reference cities. Sydney is on AEST (UTC+10); daylight saving begins 4 October.

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Astronomers have confirmed the youngest planet ever found - Elias 2-24 b, less than a million years old, sitting inside a gap it is carving in its own birth disc 450 light-years away. Plus: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter finds a 222-metre crater that was not there in 2024, a 178-year-old space weather record gets corrected by seven years, and Sakurai's Object - a star that came back from the dead - has become six times hotter in thirty years.

SOURCES Newfound 'Baby' Planet Smashes Record for Youngest Known World NASA Science, 16 September 2026 - https://science.nasa.gov/universe/newfound-baby-planet-smashes-record-for-youngest-known-world/ Elias 2-24 b discovery paper Bernardi, Cieza et al., The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 16 September 2026, DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae9bb6 - https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae9bb6 ALMA Observations of Elias 2-24: A Protoplanetary Disk with Multiple Gaps (background) Cieza et al., ApJL 851 L23, 2017, DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/aa9b7b - https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa9b7b NASA's Moon Orbiter Spots New, 'Once-in-Century' Moon Crater NASA Science, 16 September 2026 - https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/nasas-moon-orbiter-spots-new-once-in-century-moon-crater/ New 222-metre lunar crater - mission release W. M. Keck / Intuitive Machines / NASA LROC, 16 September 2026; two papers in Science Advances (Robinson et al., morphology and ejecta; Powell et al., Diviner thermal signature) - https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasas-lunar-reconnaissance-orbiter-discovers-a-new-222-m-diameter-lunar-crater-302880555.html Mystery of one of the earliest recorded space weather impacts solved Lancaster University / RMIT University, 16 September 2026; Wild, Carter, Hapgood et al., Space Weather (AGU), DOI 10.1029/2026SW005239 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2026SW005239 'Born-again' star offers rare chance to watch stellar evolution in real time The University of Manchester, 16 September 2026; Zijlstra, van Hoof et al., 'The emergence of a [WC] star in Sakurai's object', MNRAS, DOI 10.1093/mnras/stag1533 - https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1533 Cargo Mission and Crew-13 Updates; Station Research, Maintenance Continue NASA Space Station Blog, 16 September 2026 - https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2026/09/16/cargo-mission-and-crew-13-updates-station-research-maintenance-continue/ International Observe the Moon Night 2026 NASA, Saturday 19 September 2026 - https://science.nasa.gov/moon/observe-the-moon-night/overview Skywatch ephemerides Computed in-session with PyEphem for Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London, 17-18 September 2026

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SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 112 BepiColumbo on final approach to Mercury The BepiColumbo spacecraft Mercury Transfer Module has successfully separated from the main spacecraft, marking a major milestone in its eight year journey to the nearest plant to the Sun. Mercury’s crust formed by extreme volcanism A new study has shown that the planet Mercury’s crust was formed by extreme volcanism. First orbital launch success from European soil For the first time in history, a space launch from continental Europe has successfully reached orbit. The Science Report People with lung cancer more likely to have larger quantities of microplastics in their lungs. A genetically modified pig kidney keeps a patient with kidney failure dialysis free for nine months. Palaeontologists discover the fossilized remains of a peculiar new species of Jurassic squid. Scientists have discovered the first Denisovan radius bones at a fossil dig site in Southwest China. Skeptics guide to the regrets of the dead. Our Guests This Week Dr Fred Jourdan from Curtin University ESA BepiColombo Project Scientist Johannes Benkhoff DLR Planetary Scientist Jorn Helbert 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/) For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ (https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ) If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…

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