Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates

Astronomy Daily — S05E141 | Wednesday 15 July 2026 Anna and Avery bring you the biggest space and astronomy news of the day: Starship Flight 13 is cleared for Thursday after the FAA closes its Flight 12 investigation and SpaceX reveals exactly what went wrong; NASA astronaut Anil Menon rides a Soyuz to the ISS on his first flight; astronomers finally find the first of Omega Centauri’s 10,000 "missing" black holes; the first-ever medical X-rays taken in space are published; four white dwarfs are found hiding within 65 light-years of Earth; and a new-moon dark-sky window opens with Comet 10P/Tempel 2 on the rise. In this episode •       Starship Flight 13 — FAA closes the Flight 12 mishap investigation (July 13); root causes revealed: hot-staging ignition sequence caused a 90° booster orientation error, five Raptors failed to relight, alarm settings shut engines down early. Launch window opens Thursday July 16, 6:45pm EDT (Friday 8:45am AEST) with the first 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites and an in-space Raptor relight. •       Soyuz MS-29 — NASA’s Anil Menon with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina launched from Baikonur July 14, docking three hours later for an eight-month stay. Menon and wife Anna Menon (Polaris Dawn) become a two-astronaut household; NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman attended in person. •       Omega Centauri’s first stellar-mass black hole — oMEGACat BH-2, found via astrometry in 20+ years of Hubble data plus Webb observations (ApJL, July 13). Lower-than-expected mass; its companion star’s 94-year orbit makes it the longest-period black hole binary known. The cluster is naked-eye visible in southern winter skies right now. •       First medical X-rays in space — RSNA publishes results from the Fram2 Crew Dragon mission: crew with 4 hours’ training produced diagnostic-quality X-rays in orbit, opening the door to space radiology and non-destructive hardware testing on Moon and Mars missions. •       Four hidden white dwarfs — Warwick/Colorado Boulder team unmasks four white dwarfs within 65 light-years using Hubble near-UV spectroscopy (MNRAS). G 203-47, ~25 light-years away, is now the ninth-closest known white dwarf and closes a 27-year-old wobble mystery. •       Skywatch — New Moon (July 14) dark skies, Milky Way core season for the Southern Hemisphere, Comet 10P/Tempel 2 at magnitude 7–8 brightening toward early-August perihelion, and Mars near Aldebaran pre-dawn. Resources & further reading •       Starship Flight 13: spacenews.com | space.com Starship live blog •       Soyuz MS-29: nasa.gov ISS blog | nasaspaceflight.com •       Omega Centauri black hole: science.nasa.gov | esahubble.org (heic2610) | ApJL •       Space X-rays: rsna.org/news | space.com •       Hidden white dwarfs: warwick.ac.uk | phys.org | MNRAS Visit astronomydaily.io for all episodes and our constantly updating newsfeed. Follow us @AstroDailyPod. Astronomy Daily is part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network.

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Astronomy Daily — S05E140 | Tuesday 14 July 2026 | Hosts: Anna & Avery Space mirrors are officially cleared for launch — and astronomers are sounding the alarm. In today's episode, Anna and Avery unpack the FCC's approval of Reflect Orbital's Eärendil-1, the first of a proposed constellation of sunlight-reflecting satellites, and what tens of thousands of orbital mirrors could mean for the night sky. Then it's off to the geostationary belt, where astronomers using clever image-stacking — with help from Siding Spring Observatory and the ANU — have revealed a minefield of invisible debris, most of it in no public catalogue. Also on the show: physicists in New York recreate black hole energy extraction on a benchtop, validating a 50-year-old Penrose prediction with 'synthetic rotation'; the Extremely Large Telescope in Chile turns on its axis for the very first time — 3,500 tonnes floating on 80 microns of oil; and University of Sydney's Dr Manisha Caleb and colleagues lay out how the Square Kilometre Array will turn fast radio bursts into a survey tool for the invisible universe. Plus a quick Starship Flight 13 update (now NET Thursday 16 July after a full 33-engine static fire), the story of Avi Loeb's appointment to chair the White House UAP Science Advisory Council, and a skywatch built around tonight's super new Moon. Stories & sources •       01. FCC approves Reflect Orbital Eärendil-1 space mirror — SpaceNews / Space.com / Engadget •       02. Faint debris "minefield" in geosynchronous orbit (DebrisWatch II, Journal of the Astronautical Sciences) — University of Warwick / Phys.org / Space.com •       03. Penrose superradiance via synthetic rotation (Nature) — CUNY ASRC / EurekAlert / Phys.org •       04. ELT completes first full rotation of its 3,500-tonne structure — ESO Picture of the Week / Space.com •       05. Fast radio bursts as cosmological probes with the SKA (Caleb et al.) — Universe Today / arXiv •       06. Starship Flight 13 slips to NET 16 July; full 33-engine static fire complete — Space.com •       07. Avi Loeb appointed chair of White House UAP Science Advisory Council — Space.com / AP coverage Skywatch highlights •       Tonight (14 July): super new Moon — darkest skies of the month; Milky Way core overhead for southern observers •       Evenings: Venus blazing in the west in Leo; crescent Moon joins Regulus & Venus on 16–17 July •       Pre-dawn: Saturn high with rings tilted ~9°; Mars passes 5° north of Aldebaran on 14 July Visit astronomydaily.io for all episodes and the free newsletter. Follow @AstroDailyPod. Astronomy Daily is part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network.

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Astronomy Daily S05E139 — Monday, 13 July 2026   Starship could fly again as soon as Wednesday — carrying its first-ever real payload. Japan quietly joins the reusable rocket club just a day after China. SpaceX asks regulators for a jaw-dropping 100,000 satellites. Physicists may have heard the accumulated whispers of every star that ever exploded. Isar Aerospace signs a $150 million deal to launch from Canada. And a ravenous black hole just 1.8 billion light-years away is giving astronomers — including teams from CSIRO and the University of Sydney — a window into the dawn of time.   In this episode •         Starship Flight 13: Booster 20's 33-engine static fire complete; launch NET Wednesday (AEST); first deployment of 20 Starlink V3 satellites; in-space Raptor relight and Indian Ocean splashdown planned. •         JAXA's RV-X reusable rocket completes its first hop at Noshiro — about 40 seconds, 10–11 metres up, landing upright — one day after China's Long March 10B sea recovery. •         SpaceX files with the FCC for a 100,000-satellite Gen3 constellation in very low Earth orbit, pitched at multi-gigabit AI-era connectivity — and entirely dependent on Starship. •         Super-Kamiokande reports the first indication of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background from nearly 5,000 days of data — the accumulated neutrinos of every core-collapse supernova in cosmic history. •         Isar Aerospace signs a 10-year deal with Maritime Launch Services for a dedicated complex at Spaceport Nova Scotia — first orbital launches targeted for 2028, up to 40 per year by 2029. •         Galaxy SDSS J110546.07+145202.4: a lightweight, ferociously fast-growing black hole behaving like the early universe's titans, shining 20-fold brighter in radio for eight-plus years — with CSIRO's ATCA among the follow-up telescopes. •         Skywatching: New Moon Tuesday evening (7:44pm AEST / 9:44pm NZST); prime Milky Way core viewing; Venus brilliant in the west; Mars near Aldebaran pre-dawn; Comet 10P/Tempel 2 favours southern observers.   Sources & further reading •         Space.com — Starship Flight 13 static fire & launch outlook; Starlink Gen3 filing; Isar/MLS deal; ravenous black hole; supernova neutrino whispers •         AP / Japan Times / RTÉ — JAXA RV-X first test flight •         Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy press release; Komossa et al., The Astrophysical Journal (2026) •         Tohoku University / phys.org — Super-Kamiokande DSNB indication (Neutrino 2026 conference) •         CBC / The Globe and Mail / SpaceQ — Isar Aerospace & Maritime Launch Services agreement details •         NASA JPL What's Up July 2026; EarthSky; Space.com night sky guide — skywatching

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Astronomy Daily S05E138 — Weekend Space and Astronomy News Wrap — Saturday, 11 July 2026   China nets a rocket booster from the sea for the first time ever, we remember space pioneer Wally Funk, and we recap the week's four biggest stories: Euclid's 31 ancient quasars, mystery metal spheres on a Queensland beach, JWST's unexplained substance on Titan and Pluto, and New Horizons waking from hibernation at the solar system's edge.   In This Episode •          China's Long March 10B rocket achieves the world's first-ever sea-net booster recovery, on its maiden flight •          Remembering Wally Funk (1939–2026), the oldest woman ever to fly to space •          Euclid space telescope uncovers 31 ancient quasars, including two new distance records •          Mystery metal spheres wash up on a Queensland beach — identified as rocket debris •          JWST finds a mysterious, unidentified substance on both Titan and Pluto •          New Horizons wakes from 321-day hibernation, 5.9 billion miles from Earth •          Skywatching: the Moon, Mars and the Pleiades line up before dawn
 

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S05E137: Euclid uncovers 31 ancient quasars including the two most distant ever observed, Roman Space Telescope reaches a major pre-launch milestone at Kennedy Space Center, China details its plans for a sunward asteroid early-warning network, Hayabusa2 reveals asteroid Torifune is a two-lobed “snowman” contact binary, NASA's GRITSS CubeSat launches to sharpen global positioning precision, and we close with tonight's Moon-free skywatching window. Sources •          Euclid Consortium / ESA — “Euclid discovers the most ancient quasars in the Universe,” Astronomy & Astrophysics, July 6, 2026 •          NASA Science — “NASA's Roman Launch Preparations Proceed,” science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman, July 9, 2026 •          Space.com — “China announces plan to build early-warning system for dangerous asteroids,” July 9, 2026 •          JAXA — “Hayabusa2 captures images of asteroid Torifune,” global.jaxa.jp, July 6, 2026 •          NASA / SatNews — “NASA and ISISPACE Deploy GRITSS CubeSat to Advance Orbital Reference Frame Precision,” July 9, 2026 •          Astronomy.com — “The Sky This Week, July 10–17, 2026”

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