Space News Today

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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SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 103 *Warnings that some Earth microbes could contaminate the Moon NASA says some of Earth's microbes hitching a ride to space with human explorers could survive in the shaded nooks and crannies of the Moon's South Pole contaminating the otherwise pristine environment. *China’s first reusable rocket China has finally landed a reusable rocket in one piece. *Russia develops a nuclear rocket motor Russia has developed a prototype nuclear plasma engine which could cut journey times to Mars from 6 months to just 30 days. *September Skywatch The September equinox, and the constellations Capricorn, Pegasus, and Cygnus are among the highlights of the September night skies on SkyWatch. Our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics And Senior science writer and Sky and Telescope magazine contributor Jonathan Nally

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Space Nuts: Moon impact, Roman Observatory launch, and Neptune’s odd moons

Andrew Dunkley is joined by Professor Jonti Horner, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland, for a wide-ranging astronomy update. They cover SpaceX’s out-of-control rocket body hitting the Moon, the imminent launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Observatory, and a new result that may explain the strange origin of some of Neptune’s moons.

We discuss why lunar impacts matter far beyond the Moon itself, how Roman will study exoplanets and dark energy, and why clay minerals on Neptune’s small moons are such a big clue about a violent early solar system.

Key topics

SpaceX’s rocket body impacted the Moon after being left in a long, uncontrolled orbit

Why lunar impacts are a real concern for future habitats, infrastructure, and Apollo heritage sites

The sheer scale of human-made objects that have already hit or landed on the Moon

Elon Musk’s vision for lunar factories, rail-gun launches, and large-scale off-Earth manufacturing

Why the same company could end up both creating the risk and needing to solve it

The Nancy Grace Roman Observatory launching around 9 months ahead of schedule

Roman’s 2.4 metre mirror, 300 megapixel wide-field camera, and hydrazine-fueled journey to L2

How Roman will study dark energy, gravitational lensing, exoplanets, and free-floating planets

New James Webb observations of Neptune’s moons showing clay-type minerals on Larissa and Galatea

Why those clays suggest a much older, more violent system shaped by Triton’s capture and moon-to-moon collisions

Timestamps:

00:00 - Studio prep, muting phones, and getting ready to record

01:53 - Episode intro: SpaceX lunar impact, Roman Observatory, and Neptune moons

03:00 - Jonti Horner joins the show

04:26 - SpaceX rocket body crashes into the Moon

07:03 - Predicted impact plume and expected crater size

08:54 - Korean spacecraft Danuri captures post-impact images

10:19 - Why Moon impacts matter for future lunar bases

11:47 - Protecting Apollo landing sites and lunar archaeology

12:15 - More than 3,000 human-made objects have hit the Moon

14:32 - Law, responsibility, and the problem of cleanup beyond Earth

16:07 - Musk’s plans for Moon factories and Starlink-style expansion

18:12 - Rail guns, Optimus robots, and scaling lunar industry

19:34 - SpaceX’s own industry could be threatened by its own debris

21:24 - Balancing commercial benefits and environmental costs

23:46 - The Nancy Grace Roman Observatory launch approaches

26:03 - Roman’s orbit, hydrazine fuel, and five-year mission plan

27:57 - From WFIRST to Roman: how the telescope evolved

29:23 - Roman’s mirror, 300 megapixel camera, and survey power

30:14 - Exoplanets, microlensing, and the coronagraph

33:29 - Roman’s launch status and the excitement ahead

34:17 - Neptune’s moons and the role of Triton

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Today's episode — S05E178, Thursday August 27, 2026:

Feature story: Physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, led by Marius Millot, used the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester to shock-compress diamond samples to about 1 terapascal — roughly three times Earth's core pressure — and temperatures hotter than the Sun's surface, recreating conditions found deep inside Neptune and Uranus. The results resolve a 20-year, ~1,000-degree disagreement between lab measurements and quantum simulations over diamond's actual melting point, confirming the simulations were right. The team also found diamond stays in its normal crystal structure right up until it melts — no intermediate phase — and confirmed solid diamond floats in liquid carbon, the same basic physics as ice floating on water. Published in Nature Physics, the corrected melting-point data could help triple energy gain in inertial confinement fusion reactors by allowing gentler, more efficient laser compression of diamond-shelled fuel capsules.

The rest of the news:

Roman Space Telescope's strange origin: three days out from its Sunday, August 30 launch (7:26am ET, Falcon Heavy), we trace how Roman's core optics began life inside the National Reconnaissance Office's canceled "Future Imagery Architecture" spy-satellite program, donated to NASA in 2012 after the program's spectacular 2005 collapse. The telescope is currently being mated to its Falcon Heavy at LC-39A, with a Launch Readiness Review Friday, August 28.

NOAA storm watch: the Space Weather Prediction Center has issued an official G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm watch for Friday, August 28, following Tuesday's M6.9 solar flare — aurora chances improve for northern-tier US states, the UK and similar latitudes; minor storming isn't expected to reach much past Tasmania locally.

AI solar storm detection: NJIT researchers have built a Transformer-based AI model, EarlyDetect, that spots hidden precursor signals of solar active regions forming roughly 9.24 hours before they're visible — not yet ready for real-time forecasting, but a promising extension of the warning window.

SpaceX Starbase Louisiana: a $100 billion, five-complex, ten-pad second Starbase announced for Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, alongside Governor Jeff Landry — construction targeted for 2027, first launch aimed at 2029.

Tonight's Sky: a 96%-partial lunar eclipse peaks at 4:13 UTC / 12:13am ET August 28 — spectacular from the Americas, broad daylight in Sydney (~2:13pm AEST). Venus and Saturn remain the reliable local targets.

Links & sources:

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 — From spy satellite to space telescope: the unlikely origins of NASA's Roman Space Telescope

Space.com — Nancy Grace Roman Telescope live updates: NASA readies Roman for launch

Watchers.news — M6.9 solar flare produces Earth-directed CME, G2 geomagnetic storm watch issued for August 28

Universe Today — AI Spots Hidden Solar Storm Signs 9 Hours Early

EurekAlert / NJIT — New AI model detects hidden signs of solar eruptions hours before they emerge

Space.com — Starbase Louisiana: SpaceX announces enormous $100 billion Starbase launch site

SpaceNews — SpaceX to develop Starship launch site in Louisiana

EarthSky — Partial lunar eclipse of the August 27-28, 2026

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Today's episode — S05E177, Wednesday August 26, 2026:

Feature story: Astronomers using the ALMA array in Chile, led by Bill Dent (European Southern Observatory), have released the most detailed picture yet of the actual surface of Betelgeuse, the red supergiant marking Orion's shoulder — a corrugated, irregular surface with bright convective hot spots, some nearly 1,000°F hotter than the surrounding plasma. One hot spot in the northeastern region has persisted for more than seven years, far longer than current models predict, and its orientation lines up with the position of Betelgeuse B — a companion star imaged for the first time in July by a separate VLT/SPHERE study — raising the possibility the companion is influencing the giant star's surface. Betelgeuse is one of the closest stars to us expected to eventually go supernova (on a timescale of roughly the next 100,000 years); Dent notes the imagery builds a crucial "before" baseline for whenever that happens.

The rest of the news:

ISS Spacewalk 98: NASA's Anil Menon and ESA's Sophie Adenot finished replacing a Space-to-Ground antenna on the station, six and a half hours outside, restoring communications redundancy that had been running on a backup since November. Adenot's spacewalk record as the first French woman to conduct an EVA is now backed by two completed outings.

Solar flare/CME: The Sun fired an M6.9 flare from sunspot region 4513, triggering radio blackouts over Africa, Europe and the Arctic; a slow-moving CME is due to graze Earth around Friday, August 28, with an outside chance of minor geomagnetic storming — mostly a Northern Hemisphere aurora story.

Falcon 9 reuse record: SpaceX's booster B1067 flew for the 37th time — a new single-booster reuse record — on the company's 100th Falcon 9 launch of 2026.

Tonight's Sky: A 96%-partial lunar eclipse falls the night of August 27-28, spectacular from the Americas but invisible from Australia and the rest of Asia-Pacific (broad daylight here). Venus and Saturn remain good evening/overnight targets locally.

Links & sources:

Space.com — The bubbling surface of doomed supergiant star Betelgeuse has been revealed like never before

Space.com — Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse! Astronomers capture clearest image yet of famous star's elusive companion

Space.com — "You just saved the video dish": Two astronauts complete spacewalk to replace ISS antenna

NASA — NASA, ESA Spacewalkers Finish Installing High-Speed Antenna

Space.com — Sun fires powerful M6.9 solar flare and CME toward Earth

Space.com — SpaceX sets rocket-reuse record on 100th Falcon 9 launch of the year

Space.com — Partial lunar eclipse Aug. 27-28: stages and visibility

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SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 102 *SpaceX’s Starship arrives at Christmas Island After some 24 days at sea, a SpaceX recovery team has successfully towed its test flight 13 Starship into the remote Australian Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island. The unplanned operation was hastily put together after the spacecraft unexpectedly held together following its splashdown off the Western Australian coast. *How old really is the universe? Astronomers have come up with a new way to work out the age of the universe finding it to be 13.6 billion years old – some 200 million years younger than previously thought. *Einstein’s general relativity theory still stands More than 100 years after Albert Einstein published his iconic general theory of relativity, it remains science’s best understanding of gravity and the universe on the cosmic scale. *The Science Report A new study shows that carrying a little extra weight could be beneficial as you get older. People lacking human connections more likely to turn to AI chatbots for companionship. The Southern Ocean and parts of the Pacific may be the best places to fertilise to remove CO2. How dogs have learnt to understand human facial expressions. Alex on Tech: The Galaxy passport sized Z Fold 8 tops the sales figures.

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Today's episode — S05E176, Tuesday August 25, 2026:

Feature story: NASA's Roman Space Telescope is fully encapsulated inside its Falcon Heavy fairing and cleared to launch no earlier than 7:26 a.m. ET this Sunday, August 30 — about nine months ahead of its original schedule, a rarity for a NASA flagship mission. Roman is headed to Sun-Earth L2 for a five-year mission mapping dark energy and dark matter and hunting exoplanets with a starlight-cancelling coronagraph. Its wide-field camera surveys roughly a hundred times faster than Hubble at comparable image sharpness. Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, Nancy Grace Roman — the "mother of Hubble" — the mission is a formal ESA partnership; some of its data will come down through a new ESA antenna at New Norcia, Western Australia.

The rest of the news:

ISS Spacewalk 98: NASA's Anil Menon and ESA's Sophie Adenot are outside the station today finishing a Space-to-Ground antenna replacement and, time permitting, installing a new docking retroreflector — their third spacewalk together in under a month.

Milky Way merger scar: A Hubble-based study (the ARMA project, led by Davide Massari) has found evidence of a ~500-million-solar-mass dwarf galaxy, dubbed Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles, absorbed by the Milky Way roughly 12 billion years ago — the earliest documented merger in our galaxy's history.

Perseids 2028 watch: Jupiter's gravity may nudge Perseid debris closer to Earth's path in 2028, potentially producing an outburst of 200-300 meteors/hour under favorable dark-sky conditions — though modelers caution the forecast is an "educated guess."

Tonight's Sky: A 96%-partial lunar eclipse falls the night of August 27-28 — spectacular from the Americas and parts of Europe/Africa, but invisible from Australia and the rest of Asia-Pacific, where it happens in broad daylight. Venus and Saturn remain good evening targets locally in the meantime.

Links & sources:

NASA Science — Roman Launch Countdown

NASA Roman Blog — Roman Telescope Enclosed in Falcon Heavy Fairing

Space.com — The Roman Space Telescope is ready to launch Aug. 30

JPL — NASA Telescope Named for "Mother of Hubble" Nancy Grace Roman

ESA — Roman factsheet

NASA — NASA to Cover Three US Spacewalks

Space.com — The earliest galaxy "swallowed" by the cannibal Milky Way left a scar at its heart

Space.com — Could Jupiter supercharge the Perseids in 2028?

Space.com — Partial lunar eclipse Aug. 27-28: stages and visibility

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SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 101 *NASA scraps its Swift rescue mission NASA has been forced to abandon its planned rescue mission to save the Swift Gamma Ray Space Telescope. *The Milky Way’s first big galactic collision Astronomers have discovered what was probably the first major galactic collision involving our home galaxy the Milky Way cannibalising a dwarf galaxy less than two billion years after the big bang. *Understanding the stuff atoms are made of New observations by the world’s largest atom smasher have revealed some of the basic fundamental physics of the universe, challenging long-standing theories of how gluons behave inside atomic nuclei. *The Science Report Australia records its first confirmed case of H5 N1 bird flu in a mammal on the nation’s main land. How bushfires are polluting water supplies with arsenic. Successful Phase 3 trials of a new Australian developed personalized mRNA cancer vaccine. The growing impact of plastic pollution on Lord Howe Island’s Sable Shearwaters rookery. Over 90% of Blue Mountains rainforests wrongly catalogued as eucalypt forests. The Skeptics guide to the ghost of the Crying Tree pub.

Our guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics And Senior science writer and Sky and Telescope magazine contributor Jonathan Nally 🌏 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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Today's episode — S05E175, Monday August 24, 2026:

Main story: China delays Chang'e-7's launch by about a month. The Chang'e-7 lunar south pole mission's launch window opened today, August 24, but a tropical system (reported as Tropical Depression/Storm Narra) over the Gulf of Tonkin, alongside a cited safety and reliability review, forced a scrub with no immediate new date. Because the mission's landing site — the rim of Shackleton Crater — requires specific solar illumination geometry on top of standard orbital mechanics, its launch windows recur only about once a month for roughly a week at a time, unlike China's earlier equatorial lunar missions. Independent trajectory analysis puts the next viable opportunity around mid-to-late September.

The rest of the news:

LandSpace / Zhuque-3 follow-up: Thursday's celebrated first-ever leg-landing of an orbital-class Chinese booster had a coda — residual methane and oxygen ignited near the booster's base after touchdown, damaging a landing leg and toppling the vehicle. The landing itself (four legs, near dead-center, ~390km downrange in Gansu) still stands as the achievement it was reported as; the post-landing fire is a separate, and not unprecedented, engineering challenge — SpaceX's own Falcon 9 booster B1086 suffered a near-identical fire and tip-over in March 2025.

SpaceX's 100th launch of 2026: A Falcon 9 carrying 27 Starlink satellites lifted off from Vandenberg on August 22, SpaceX's 100th orbital mission of the year (99 Falcon 9 flights plus one Falcon Heavy). The booster landed on its ninth flight; Starlink has passed 11,000 operational satellites.

Tonight's Sky: Comet 220P/McNaught is in outburst — roughly 20,000 times brighter than normal — and observable with binoculars rather than requiring a telescope, at least until it fades after an October close pass. Also: a reminder that a 96%-partial lunar eclipse falls the night of August 27–28.

Links & sources:

NASASpaceFlight.com — LandSpace's Zhuque-3 Topples After Landing (https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/08/landspaces-zhuque-3-topples/)

Space.com — Bad weather delays launch of China's historic Chang'e 7 mission to moon's south pole (https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/bad-weather-delays-launch-of-chinas-historic-change-7-mission-to-moons-south-pole)

SCMP — China puts Chang'e-7 mission to lunar south pole on hold (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3364982/china-puts-change-7-mission-lunar-south-pole)

SpaceNews — China delays Chang'e-7 lunar south pole landing mission launch (https://spacenews.com/china-delays-change-7-lunar-south-pole-landing-mission-launch/)

China in Space — Chang'e 7 Moon Mission Delayed by One Month (https://www.china-in-space.com/p/change-7-moon-mission-delayed-by)

CNN — China postpones launch of unprecedented water-hunting moon mission amid space race (https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/23/science/change-7-china-moon-mission-launch-postponed)

Space.com — SpaceX sends 27 Starlink satellites to orbit on 100th Falcon rocket launch of the year (https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-starlink-satellite-launch-group-15-20)

APOD — Comet 220P in Outburst (August 24, 2026) (https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260824.html)

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In this Q&A episode of Space Nuts , hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner tackle a variety of fascinating questions from listeners. From the intriguing phenomenon of planetary atmospheres that may rain diamonds and sapphires, to the complexities of satellite approvals and the possibility of planets forming without a star, this episode is packed with cosmic insights.

Key topics include:

- Nick from Perth asks about the science behind the claims of diamond and sapphire rain on distant planets, prompting a discussion on spectral analysis and the nature of scientific reporting.

- Sandy from Melbourne raises concerns about the recent FCC approval for Reflect Orbital's satellite, leading to an exploration of the regulatory landscape surrounding space launches and the implications for global cooperation.

- Rennie from California queries whether planets can form without a sun, which sparks a deep dive into the theories surrounding rogue planets and the role of dark matter in planetary formation.

Join Andrew and Jonty as they navigate these thought-provoking questions, shedding light on the mysteries of the universe and the ever-evolving field of astronomy.

00:00 - This is a Q and A episode and in this particular show we're answering audience questions

01:00 - Professor Jonty Horner joins us to discuss astrophysics

01:29 - The heat stays a bit longer than summer and the cold stays too much past winter

02:55 - Nick in Perth has a question regarding planetary atmospheres

11:29 - Scientists are extrapolating from what they know about planets' interior

12:49 - Andrew Dunkley: Question comes from Sandy in Melbourne, Australia

14:51 - FAA proposing to circumvent environmental laws for commercial launches and spacecraft reentries

21:54 - Fast developing industry with no regulation developed around it

25:20 - Space Nuts Q and A edition with Andrew Dunkley and Jonty Horner

25:38 - Can planets form without a sun because dark matter would be the gravity

33:41 - You can send in your Space Nuts questions via our website

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