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Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates

Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates

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Episodes
  • Artemis II Gets Its Launch Date: April 1 | Magnetar Born | Planets Collide | S05E62

    Artemis II Gets Its Launch Date: April 1 | Magnetar Born | Planets Collide | S05E62
    Mar 13 2026
    It’s a bumper Friday edition of Astronomy Daily. NASA gives Artemis II the official green light to launch on April 1st, marking the first crewed lunar mission in over 53 years. Astronomers witness the birth of a magnetar for the very first time, confirming a decade-old theory and demonstrating Einstein’s general relativity in a supernova. A star 11,000 light-years away shows evidence of two planets catastrophically colliding in real time. A bus-sized asteroid buzzed past Earth last night closer than the Moon, discovered just five days ago. A fast solar wind stream from a coronal hole could bring auroras to higher latitudes tonight. And scientists may have identified the source of the most energetic neutrino ever recorded. Story 1: Artemis II — Green Light for April 1 Launch NASA completed its Flight Readiness Review on 12 March 2026, with all mission teams voting unanimously ‘go’ for launch. The Space Launch System and Orion capsule will roll out to Launch Complex 39B on 19 March, with the primary launch window opening on 1 April at 6:24pm ET. Backup windows exist on 2–6 April and 30 April. The crew of four — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — will fly a 10-day figure-eight loop around the Moon. It will be the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The previously planned Moon landing on Artemis III has been moved to Artemis IV, though NASA’s 2028 goal for a lunar landing remains unchanged. • NASA Artemis II Mission Page: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/ • CNN coverage of FRR outcome: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/science/nasa-artemis-2-launch-date-risk-assessment Story 2: First-Ever Observed Birth of a Magnetar Astronomers have for the first time directly observed the birth of a magnetar — a highly magnetized, rapidly spinning neutron star — confirming it as the power source behind some of the universe’s brightest stellar explosions. The discovery, published in Nature on 11 March 2026, centres on superluminous supernova SN 2024afav, located approximately one billion light-years from Earth. Graduate student Joseph Farah at UC Santa Barbara, working with Las Cumbres Observatory’s global telescope network, detected a distinctive ‘chirp’ pattern in the supernova’s fading light — four oscillations with shortening intervals. This pattern is explained by a wobbling accretion disc around the newborn magnetar, driven by Lense-Thirring precession — a general relativistic effect. The finding confirms a 2010 theory by UC Berkeley physicist Dan Kasen, and marks the first time general relativity has been required to explain supernova mechanics. • Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/03/11/astronomers-capture-birth-of-a-magnetar-confirming-link-to-some-of-universes-brightest-exploding-stars/ • Space.com: https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/astronomers-witness-colossal-supernova-explosion-create-one-of-the-most-magnetic-stars-in-the-universe-for-the-first-time Story 3: Two Planets Caught Colliding 11,000 Light-Years Away Researchers at the University of Washington have published evidence of a catastrophic planetary collision observed in real time around star Gaia20ehk, located approximately 11,000 light-years from Earth near the constellation Puppis. The star began flickering erratically from 2016, before its light output went ‘completely bonkers’ around 2021 — the signature of a massive debris cloud from two colliding worlds passing in front of the star. The debris orbits at roughly one astronomical unit from the star — the same as Earth’s distance from the Sun — and may eventually coalesce into new planetary bodies resembling an Earth-Moon system. The paper was published 11 March in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. • University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/03/11/uw-astronomers-spot-planet-collision-evidence/ • ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260311213429.htm Story 4: Asteroid 2026 EG1 Flies Past Earth A bus-sized asteroid designated 2026 EG1 made its closest approach to Earth at 11:27pm EDT on 12 March 2026, passing just 197,466 miles away — closer than the Moon. Estimated at 32–72 feet (10–22 metres) across and travelling at over 21,500 mph, it posed no threat. Notably, the asteroid was only discovered on 8 March — five days before its flyby — highlighting the ongoing challenge of detecting small near-Earth objects with short warning times. NASA’s Vera Rubin Observatory has already catalogued over 2,000 previously unknown solar system bodies since beginning operations. • Space.com: https://www.space.com/stargazing/bus-sized-asteroid-will-fly-past-earth-tonight-mere-days-after-being-discovered-heres-what-to-expect-march-12-2026 Story 5: Solar Wind & Aurora Alert A fast-moving stream of solar wind from a large coronal...
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    18 mins
  • Tipsy Comet: Interstellar Visitor Loaded With Alcohol

    Tipsy Comet: Interstellar Visitor Loaded With Alcohol
    Mar 12 2026
    In today's episode of Astronomy Daily — S05E61, Thursday 12 March 2026 — Anna and Avery cover six of the biggest stories in space and astronomy from the past 24 hours. Stories in this episode: • 3I/ATLAS, our third confirmed interstellar visitor, has been found to be extraordinarily rich in methanol — a type of alcohol — with ALMA observations revealing methanol-to-hydrogen cyanide ratios far beyond almost any known solar system comet. The findings offer a chemical fingerprint of a distant planetary system, and the comet makes its closest pass to Jupiter on March 16. • Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket successfully returned to flight on March 11, completing its seventh mission — 'Stairway to Seven' — after an 11-month stand-down following two mishaps in 2025. The mission also validated key Block II upgrade systems ahead of the next-generation rocket's debut on Flight 8. • NASA held its Artemis II Flight Readiness Review today at Kennedy Space Center, a critical milestone ahead of a potential April launch. The SLS/Orion stack is being prepared for its second rollout after a helium flow issue was repaired in the Vehicle Assembly Building. • A landmark helioseismology study from the University of Birmingham and Yale, drawing on 40 years of data from the Birmingham Solar-Oscillations Network, reveals that the Sun's internal structure shifts measurably between solar cycle minima — with implications for space weather forecasting. • NASA's Van Allen Probe A reentered Earth's atmosphere on March 11, eight years earlier than expected, with the current active solar cycle responsible for accelerating its orbital decay. Most of the 600kg spacecraft burned up over the eastern Pacific. • Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have discovered a third gas cloud — G2t — orbiting Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole. Its near-identical orbit to the previously known G1 and G2 clouds suggests all three likely originated from the same binary star system. Find full episodes, transcripts and more at astronomydaily.io. Follow us @AstroDailyPod on all major platforms.

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    17 mins
  • Gold From a Galactic Collision — Neutron Star Crash Stuns Astronomers | Astronomy Daily S05E60

    Gold From a Galactic Collision — Neutron Star Crash Stuns Astronomers | Astronomy Daily S05E60
    Mar 11 2026
    Welcome to Episode 60 of Astronomy Daily Season Five! In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six major stories from the world of space and astronomy — including a neutron star collision in an unprecedented location, the latest Artemis II news, and a cosmic mystery solved after decades. Stories covered in this episode: 1. NASA Discovers Neutron Star Crash in Unexpected Location A fleet of NASA telescopes — including Chandra, Fermi, Swift, and Hubble — has detected a neutron star merger inside a tiny galaxy buried in a vast stream of gas, 4.7 billion light-years away. It's the first time this type of collision has been spotted in such an environment, and it may explain why gamma-ray bursts sometimes appear outside any galaxy — and how precious metals like gold and platinum ended up in distant stellar regions. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 2. Artemis II Flight Readiness Review NASA will host a Flight Readiness Review press conference on Thursday 12 March at Kennedy Space Center, covering progress toward the first crewed Artemis mission. The rocket is currently back in the Vehicle Assembly Building following a helium issue, with rollout to the launchpad expected around 19 March and a launch target of no earlier than 1 April 2026. 3. Firefly Alpha 'Stairway to Seven' Scrubbed Again Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket — attempting its return to flight after a 10-month grounding — has been scrubbed three times in 10 days. The latest scrub occurred on 10 March during fluid loading after off-nominal readings. A new launch date will be confirmed following engineering review. This mission is the final Block I Alpha flight, with the upgraded Block II debuting on Flight 8. 4. DART Mission Reveals 'Cosmic Snowball Fight' Between Asteroids Researchers at the University of Maryland have found the first direct visual proof of material transfer between two asteroids — fan-shaped streaks on the surface of asteroid moon Dimorphos, left by debris thrown off its parent asteroid Didymos at just 30.7 cm/s. The discovery provides visual confirmation of the YORP effect and has implications for planetary defence modelling. ESA's Hera mission arrives at Didymos in December 2026. Published in The Planetary Science Journal. 5. Starship Flight 12 — About Four Weeks Away SpaceX is approximately four weeks from the launch of Starship Flight 12, which will be the first flight of the upgraded V3 configuration — the most powerful version of the already record-breaking vehicle. Engineers have completed propellant system tests on Ship 39 at Starbase, Texas, and preflight preparations are continuing. 6. Giant Cosmic Sheet Discovered Around the Milky Way Astronomers from the University of Groningen, publishing in Nature Astronomy, have used advanced computer simulations to discover that the matter surrounding our Local Group is arranged in a vast, flat sheet — dominated by dark matter — stretching tens of millions of light-years across. This structure, flanked by enormous empty voids, explains why nearby galaxies are moving away from us rather than being pulled inward. It's the first detailed map of dark matter distribution in our cosmic neighbourhood.
    Astronomy Daily is part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network. Website: astronomydaily.io | Social: @AstroDailyPod on all major platforms

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    This episode includes AI-generated content.
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    17 mins
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