Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

Show notes
A hot Jupiter called TOI-2535 b has become the first planet around a single star seen to stop transiting, tipped out of line by an unseen neighbour. Plus: why Uranus and Neptune have scrambled magnetic fields, MeerKAT measuring how cosmic hydrogen clusters, Euclid's first big data release, ESCAPADE heading for Mars, Starship Flight 15's double-catch attempt, the 2026 ozone hole, and a both-hemispheres sky with Mars and Jupiter 1.2 degrees apart. The planet that stopped transiting. TOI-2535 b, an 8.24-day hot Jupiter ~1,000 light-years away, ran up to ~6 hours early or late and its transits shortened and faded over seven years of TESS data until they vanished in 2026. A hidden companion of at least Saturn mass, likely in resonance on a tilted orbit, is making both orbits precess. Transits should return in 30–50 years. Yee, Petigura et al., The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 9 Nov 2026. Ice giants' scrambled magnetic fields. Dynamo models with electrical conductivity rising with depth reproduce Uranus- and Neptune-like fields, and suggest their tilt could shift by tens of degrees within decades. Aurora observations could test for change since Voyager 2. Yan et al., Communications Physics. MeerKLASS hears the cosmic web. Running MeerKAT's 64 dishes as independent telescopes, the MeerKLASS collaboration detected the 21-cm hydrogen power spectrum on cosmological scales at z = 0.42 over ~236 square degrees, signal-to-noise 6.2. MNRAS. Euclid DR1-Foundation. ~1,900 square degrees (about 1,400 in the southern sky), ~1.8 PB of images, catalogues and spectra. Weak-lensing and clustering products follow in mid-2027. Quick hits. ESCAPADE Blue and Gold complete powered Earth flybys, Mars arrival Sept 2027; Starship Flight 15 targeted NET 13 Nov 22:45 UTC; 2026 Antarctic ozone hole seventh largest in 48 years, recovery on track. Skywatch. Mars–Jupiter 1.19° on 16 Nov (pre-dawn, north-favoured); Venus 1.2° from Spica, a 10%-lit crescent; Saturn high in southern evenings; Leonids peak 17–18 Nov; first quarter 17 Nov, full Moon 24 Nov. Sources ·         UCLA Newsroom — First known 'disappearing planet' — https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/first-known-disappearing-planet-neighbor-wobble-like-top ·         Yee et al., ApJL 1011 L60 — https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aeb4a4 ·         arXiv 2611.13343 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.13343 ·         Yan et al., Communications Physics — https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-026-02841-y ·         UT Austin Jackson School release — https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2026/11/wacky-magnetic-fields-of-ice-giants-explained/ ·         University of Portsmouth — MeerKLASS — https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/news/breakthrough-cosmic-hydrogen-measurement-could-transform-our-view-of-the-universe ·         MNRAS stag1911 (DOI) — https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1911 ·         Caltech/IPAC — Euclid DR1 — https://euclid.caltech.edu/page/euclid-dr1 ·         ESA — DR1 timeline — https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid/dr1-timeline ·         Berkeley News — ESCAPADE — http://news.berkeley.edu/2026/11/09/berkeleys-escapade-spacecraft-say-goodbye-to-earth-next-stop-mars/ ·         NextSpaceflight — Starship Flight 15 — https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/8403/

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Show notes NASA turns Curiosity's spare test-bed rover into PROMISE, a nuclear-powered rover bound for the Moon's south pole, as part of a sweep of Moon Base awards. Plus: a theory of 'gravitational reconnection' hidden in Einstein's equations, a record 9.7-picokelvin quantum gas aboard China's Tiangong space station, ESCAPADE's twin burns over southern Australia, and a both-hemispheres skywatch. NASA's PROMISE rover and the Moon Base awards NASA Release 26-095 (7 Nov 2026) and PROMISE mission page. JPL is converting the duplicate Curiosity test-bed rover, powered by a flight-spare MMRTG, for a late-2028 launch and an 18-month mission at the lunar south pole. Blue Origin: $94M base + $140M option to deliver it on Mark 1. Also: eight CLPS 2 companies ($10B maximum, 10 years), CLPS 1 raised to $4.2B, six VADR task orders (~$1.3B), a 2028 Starship cislunar communications demo. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-moon-base-transportation-technology-science-projects/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/promise/ Gravitational reconnection Comisso (Columbia) & Asenjo (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez), 'Reconnection of Gravitational Fields', Physical Review D 114, 084095, 28 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1103/lmqy-pf9k; preprint arXiv 2609.25241 (Sept 2026). Theoretical only. https://news.columbia.edu/news/can-gravitational-fields-break-and-reconnect-einsteins-equations-suggest-they-can https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25241 Quantum gas below 10 picokelvin on Tiangong 'Quantum gases below 10 picokelvin in space', Science (First Release, 5 Nov 2026), DOI 10.1126/science.aea5324. ~20,000 Rb-87 atoms, 9.7 pK equivalent temperature, 7 s observation (CAS). Peking University, SIOM and CSU-CAS. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea5324 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lowest-temperature-china-space-station ESCAPADE's powered Earth flybys NASA ESCAPADE blog (2 Nov 2026). Blue's burn 8:51 p.m. AEDT 7 Nov; Gold's 9:51 p.m. AEDT 9 Nov, both over southern Australia; Mars arrival 7 and 9 Sept 2027. https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2026/11/02/nasas-twin-escapade-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth-on-way-to-mars/ Quick hits Starship Flight 15 targeted Fri 13 Nov, 22:45 UTC, pending regulatory approval; Voyager 1 one light-day ~18 Nov; Euclid DR1-Foundation due in November. https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/spacex-plans-to-launch-starship-15-flight-on-nov-13/ https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid/dr1-timeline Skywatch New Moon 9 Nov. Venus about 1° from Spica before dawn 9–10 Nov (higher from the north). Mars and Jupiter close to ~1.2° on 16 Nov (our calculation). Crescent Moon ~2° from Antares on the evening of 11 Nov (southern-favoured). Saturn high in southern evenings. Northern Taurids 11–12 Nov; Leonids 17 Nov. Four-galaxy challenge for southern observers. Solar viewing only with ISO 12312-2 certified filters.

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Is Mars still volcanically alive? Europe's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter keeps catching hydrogen chloride, a gas that comes out of volcanoes on Earth, above fresh cracks on the giant Alba Mons volcano, in the wrong season, in one place and low to the ground. We unpack the evidence, the proposed 'ice lid', and everything this result is not. Then it's The Week That Was: two black holes in one early galaxy, Swift's fiery end over Sumatra, ESCAPADE's powered slingshots over Australia, a planet rescued from Webb's glare, and the cosmic leaf blower. Plus the week's sky from both hemispheres. In this episode • Lead: Hydrogen chloride detections at Alba Mons as a potential sign of igneous activity on Mars (Trokhimovskiy, Mège et al., Science Advances, 4 Nov 2026). Detections first presented at 2025 conferences. • Week That Was: LID-1166 dual black holes (E220); Swift re-entry, 4 Nov (E221); ESCAPADE powered flybys (E222); FLIP digital-twin coronagraph and 51 Eridani b (E223); Lyman-alpha 'leaf blower' (E224). • Arc updates: AR4566 M3.5 flare and storm watch; Starship Flight 15; Voyager 1 one light-day; BepiColombo; Hera. • Skywatch: Venus and Spica; thin crescent Moon; new Moon 9 Nov; spotting ESCAPADE Gold; Mars–Jupiter 16 Nov; aurora watch; ISO 12312-2 eye safety. Sources • Science Advances, DOI 10.1126/sciadv.aeb9422 — 'Enigmatic HCl detections as a potential signature of igneous activity on Mars' • ESA release, 4 Nov 2026 — European orbiter detects hints of volcanic activity on Mars • NASA ESCAPADE blog, 2 Nov 2026 — science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade • NASA Swift blog — science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift • EarthSky Sun news, 6 Nov 2026 astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod · Bitesz.com Podcast Network YouTube description Is Mars still volcanically alive? ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has caught hydrogen chloride above fresh fissures on Alba Mons, out of season, in one place, low to the ground. We look at the evidence, the proposed ice lid, and what this result is NOT. Then The Week That Was: dual black holes in LID-1166, Swift's re-entry, ESCAPADE's slingshot over Australia, FLIP and 51 Eridani b, and the cosmic leaf blower. Plus this week's sky for both hemispheres. astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod · Bitesz.com Podcast Network Chapters (estimate — confirm against final audio) 00:00 Cold open 00:40 Is Mars still breathing? Hydrogen chloride at Alba Mons 09:05 The Week That Was 14:10 Skywatch: Venus, Spica, ESCAPADE, Mars and Jupiter 17:30 Outro

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Show notes
Light from newborn stars may have blown the fog out of the early universe. A new study by Shyam Menon (Flatiron Institute, ANU PhD) and Aaron Smith (UT Dallas) finds that Lyman-alpha radiation — ultraviolet light that bounces from hydrogen atom to hydrogen atom — can clear diffuse gas and dust out of young galaxies while leaving their dense star clusters free to keep forming stars, helping explain why JWST sees so many bright galaxies so early. Also: LOFAR's sharpest and deepest low-frequency radio image yet (almost 63,000 sources, 200 hours of observing); Blue Origin's new GS3 third stage and Northstar engine; and Sandia simulations showing that an asteroid's shape and orientation can change a nuclear stand-off deflection by up to five times. Quick hits: the space station's final roll-out solar array is installed, sunspot region AR4566 fires an M3 flare as October's sunspot number falls, and Earth picks up a tiny temporary mini-moon, 2026 QQ8. Skywatch for both hemispheres: ESCAPADE's powered flybys over southern Australia, the Moon with Venus and Spica, New Moon on the 9th, globular cluster M30 for southern observers, and Mars closing on Jupiter before dawn. Sources: Menon & Smith, The Astrophysical Journal (2026), DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/aeaed6 · de Jong et al., arXiv 2611.06152 (accepted A&A) · Blue Origin announcements, 5 Nov 2026 · Moore et al., Icarus (2026) · NOAA SWPC · Minor Planet Center MPEC 2026-U95 · NASA ESCAPADE blog, 2 Nov 2026.

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Show notes
A Northwestern-led team builds a physics-based digital twin of the James Webb Space Telescope's coronagraph and recovers the giant planet 51 Eridani b in two-year-old data where standard processing could not see it. Plus VVV CL001, a dust-hidden cluster near the Milky Way's core dated at 13.4 billion years; China's most detailed account yet of its two-launch crewed Moon landing plan; and the flare alert system that tells sounding rockets exactly when to launch, as sunspot region AR4566 turns magnetically complex. The Planet in the Glare (lead) Ferrer-Chavez, Wang, Bouman, Freeman, Pueyo et al., Nature, 4 Nov 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-11213-z. FLIP (Physics-based Learning for Imaging Planets) models JWST/NIRCam coronagraph optics as a digital twin and subtracts simulated starlight. Tested on HIP 65426, 51 Eridani and TYC 5899: sensitivity improved 2–15×; 51 Eri b recovered at >5σ in F430M (CO₂ band) data where standard processing failed. Not a new planet; three-star demonstration; picometre-stability relief for the Habitable Worlds Observatory is a prospect, not yet shown. VVV CL001: the oldest cluster in the Galaxy? Olivares Carvajal, Zoccali et al., accepted to A&A, arXiv 2610.27969 (posted 20 Oct 2026). Age 13.4 ± 0.4 Gyr from Magellan/FourStar and Hubble photometry; [Fe/H] ≈ −2.2; ~7.3 kpc in the bulge. ~1 Gyr additional systematic from distance; Ton 2 dated at 13.6 Gyr — a strong candidate, not a settled record. China's crewed Moon landing plan Wang Xiang, 7th Manned Space Symposium, Beijing, 31 Oct 2026. Two Long March 10 launches; Lanyue lander and Mengzhou crew ship rendezvous in lunar orbit; crew of three, two land, rover on first landing. No new dates; target remains before 2030. Catching a flare in the act Early flare alert system, The Astrophysical Journal, 4 Nov 2026, DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/ae95fd. Enabled FOXSI-4 and Hi-C Flare to launch into an M-class flare on 17 Apr 2024 and FOXSI-5 to catch three flares on 14 May 2026. AR4566 reached beta-gamma-delta classification on 4 Nov. Quick hits Swift re-entered 7:39 a.m. EST 4 Nov (12:39 UTC) over North Sumatra; NASA's SSPICY (Starfish Space Otter) declared unrecoverable; final ISS roll-out solar array spacewalk (Kutryk, Menon); Hera begins early characterisation at Didymos per ESA's timeline.

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