Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

Show notes Hera Hits the Brakes ESA's Hera spotted its target asteroid for the first time last week and fires its first braking burn on Thursday — 93 minutes of thrust to start stopping at Didymos and Dimorphos, the asteroid pair NASA's DART hit in 2022. Plus: Solar Orbiter traces a solar-wind switchback back to the Sun, Gemini North finds chains of giant knots in the remnant of the supernova of 1181, Webb reads the dust of Mars-sized worlds colliding, and Perseverance becomes the farthest-driving vehicle on another world. In the skywatch: the Moon meets Antares, Venus bows out, Mars and Jupiter rule the northern dawn, and the Orionids are a week away. Hera Hits the Brakes Two years after launch, Hera caught its first glimpse of Didymos from about 236,500 km away — a sub-pixel dot. On Thursday 15 October three hydrazine thrusters fire for 93 minutes (BRM-1), taking a few hundred metres per second off its approach speed; BRM-2 (~31 min) follows on 22 October, then three small transition burns. The first signal after the burn comes through ESA's New Norcia antennas in Western Australia. Hera will measure the mass of Dimorphos so DART's single orbital-period result can become a repeatable deflection technique; its CubeSats Milani and Juventas will study dust, composition and the interior. Solar Orbiter traces a switchback home Coburn et al. (Nature Astronomy, 8 Oct) used heavy-ion charge states measured inside a large switchback crossed on 2 March 2022 to show it formed by interchange reconnection in hot closed loops at the Sun's surface — with waves and turbulence taking over once it left. Both leading theories are right, at different stages. The supernova of 1181 is strung with pearls Cunningham, Caiazzo et al. (ApJ, 6 Oct) used Gemini North/GMOS to show that Pa 30's radial filaments are chains of knots ~100 billion km across. Pa 30 is the Milky Way's only known Type Iax remnant, with a surviving 'zombie' star. The knots constrain models but don't yet settle what formed them. Webb reads the wreckage of colliding worlds Su et al. (ApJ, 1 Oct) studied 21 extreme debris disks with Webb and Spitzer. About a third are silica-rich, consistent with collisions between Mars-sized planetary embryos; older systems should be silica-poor. Quick hit: Perseverance's driving record On 11 October (sol 2,006) Perseverance reached 45.22 km, passing Opportunity's 45.16 km. More than 90% of the distance was driven on AutoNav. Sources ·        Hera braking campaign (ESA, 7 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Brake!_Time_for_ESA_s_Hera_asteroid_mission_to_go_slow ·        Hera's first glimpse of Didymos (ESA, 7 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/10/Destination_sighted_Hera_s_first_glimpse_of_Didymos ·        Finding Hera's way: Flight Dynamics team in action (ESA, 7 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Finding_Hera_s_way_Flight_Dynamics_team_in_action ·        Solar Orbiter tracks origin of magnetic switchbacks (ESA, 8 Oct 2026) — https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter/Solar_Orbiter_tracks_origin_of_mysterious_magnetic_switchbacks ·        Coburn et al., Nature Astronomy, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-02928-0 — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02928-0 ·        Gemini North reveals pearl-like knots in Pa 30 (NOIRLab, 6 Oct 2026) — https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2624/ ·        NASA's Webb provides crash course on planet-shattering collisions (NASA) — https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-provides-crash-course-on-planet-shattering-collisions/ ·        Su et al., ApJ 1010:1, DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/ae88fe — https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae88fe ·        Perseverance sets off-world record for total distance driven (JPL, 12 Oct 2026) — https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-sets-off-world-record-for-total-distance-driven/

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The coldest brown dwarf we know has weather. JWST watched water clouds thicken and thin on WISE 0855, a sunless world seven and a half light-years away — plus a star slowly eating a brown dwarf, ten minutes of X-rays after a half-second burst, a Soviet satellite breaking up over Western Australia, NASA's lunar cave hunt, and Mercury's best evening show of the year for the south. Stories Weather on a World Without a Sun Miles et al. used JWST NIRSpec to take a spectrum of WISE 0855 every 15 minutes for 11 hours. Carbon monoxide and phosphine rise and fall together as convection dredges deep gas upward, while patchy water clouds thicken and thin higher up — the first variable water clouds seen outside the Solar System. Source: University of Arizona release, 9 Oct 2026; arXiv:2609.20664 The Star That Eats Slowly ZTF J0440+2325: a red dwarf drawing gas from a 25-Jupiter-mass brown dwarf on an 87-minute orbit — the first confirmed stable mass transfer from a substellar object onto a star. Householder, Burdge et al., Nature Astronomy, 5 Oct 2026. Source: Nature Astronomy (2026); arXiv:2603.17039 Ten Minutes After Half a Second Einstein Probe caught ~560 s of soft X-rays after the 0.37 s GRB 250704B, at redshift 0.661 with no supernova — pointing to a compact-object merger and possibly a newborn magnetar. Science Bulletin, 2026. Source: DOI 10.1016/j.scib.2026.08.021; arXiv:2601.14137 A Dead Satellite Comes Apart Soviet weather satellite Meteor 2-7 (launched 1981) fragmented on 5 Oct at ~850 km, detected by LeoLabs' Western Australian radar. Cause unknown. Source: EarthSky, 9 Oct 2026; Space.com Quick hit: NASA Goes Caving on the Moon NASA's PRISM picks for the Moon Base program include GIMLI, which will probe the Marius Hills Pit for a lava tube, plus LEMS-SP and DISCO. Source: NASA RELEASE26-080, 30 Sept 2026 Skywatch Mercury at greatest eastern elongation — 24° up at sunset from Sydney vs 10° LA, 7.5° NY, 3° London. Crescent Moon near Venus and Mercury, Venus heading to inferior conjunction on the 24th, pre-dawn Mars and Jupiter for the north (Mars through the Beehive), Orionids 21–22 Oct. Source: Computed with PyEphem Sources ·        https://astrobiology.com/2026/10/09/first-detection-of-variable-water-clouds-outside-of-our-solar-system/ ·        https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20664 ·        https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/175765 ·        https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17039 ·        https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2601.14137 ·        https://earthsky.org/?p=560313 ·        https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/a-dead-soviet-satellite-just-broke-apart-in-orbit-again-experts-say-its-part-of-a-worrying-trend ·        https://nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-adds-new-science-investigations-for-moon-base

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Show notes We're back after a short break! Today: the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory — a cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice turned into a telescope. Then a Sydney-led team publishes the most distant fast radio burst yet, from a dwarf galaxy just 3 billion years after the big bang; Hubble's archive yields a possible second-generation planet around a white dwarf; and we catch up on Starship's first orbit, Crew-13, Juice's Earth flyby and the end of the LINK/Swift story. Skywatch: zodiacal light at both ends of the day, Mercury above Venus in southern twilight, and Mars in the Beehive for the north. Segment 1 — LEAD: The Telescope Made of Ice ·        Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 — nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026 (6 Oct 2026) ·        Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences press release, 6 Oct 2026 ·        AIP congratulations release, Newswise, 6 Oct 2026 ·        University of Wisconsin–Madison / IceCube background (via Interesting Engineering, 6 Oct 2026) Segment 2 — The Most Distant Fast Radio Burst ·        NASA: 'Webb Measures Distance to Farthest Fast Radio Burst, Suggesting Origin', 8 Oct 2026 ·        Caleb et al., Science, 8 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1126/science.adz2675 ·        Preprint: arXiv 2508.01648, 3 Aug 2025 (14-month gap disclosed) Segment 3 — A Planet Built From a Dead Star ·        NASA: 'Suspected Second-generation Planet Solves NASA Hubble Cold Case', 5 Oct 2026 ·        Williams et al., Nature Astronomy, 5 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41550-026-02983-7 ·        ESA/Hubble heic2613; poster, UK White Dwarf meeting, Durham, July 2025 (disclosed) Segment 4 — While We Were Away ·        SpaceX Starship Flight 14 overview (via leonarddavid.com, 29 Sept 2026) ·        NASA: 'NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 Launches', 1 Oct 2026 ·        ESA: 'Successful Earth flyby improves Juice's course to Jupiter', 28–30 Sept 2026 ·        AP (Marcia Dunn): 'Private spacecraft falls back to Earth...', 25 Sept 2026 ·        JAXA: MMX launch schedule aboard H3 F10, 20 Aug 2026 Segment 5 — Skywatch: Both Hemispheres ·        PyEphem 4.2.1 computations, Sydney / Los Angeles / New York / London ·        BBC Sky at Night: Vesta and Pallas at opposition, Oct 2026 ·        NASA: What's Up, October 2026

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Perseverance drove to the edge of an ancient Martian lake expecting a beach and found the inside of a volcano — rock that water has been through at least three separate times. Europe's Jupiter probe comes home on Monday night and crosses Australia in a fully dark sky. Two teams, using two completely different techniques, both find something hiding inside the most famous planetary system we have ever photographed — and an Australian instrument is in the middle of one of them. Plus: heavy water in an interstellar comet, and what it says about the star that made it. In this episode ·         LEAD — Three floods at the crater's edge. Candice Bedford (Purdue) and colleagues publish in Communications Earth & Environment: the Margin Unit at Jezero is igneous, not sedimentary, and records at least three distinct episodes of water — CO₂-rich groundwater making carbonate ridges, then silica associated with the lake, then a later hot-water event leaving fluorite veins. Habitability context, not a biosignature. ·         Juice returns. ESA confirms the third Earth gravity assist for 28 September — closest approach 11:45 UTC over the Indian Ocean, bending the trajectory ~20° and adding ~3.5 km/s. The spacecraft crosses Australia north-east to north-west 15–30 minutes earlier, in full darkness. ·         HR 8799. Two preprints in two weeks point at a fifth, inner planet — one from archival JWST aperture-masking data (~7 au, a few Jupiter masses), one from Gaia astrometry (2–3 au, 10–14 Jupiter masses). They do not obviously describe the same object. Neither is peer-reviewed. ·         3I/ATLAS. A modelling paper explains the high deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio measured in March as consistent with formation around a low-metallicity — meaning old — star. ·         Quick hit: Starship Flight 14 still targeting 28 September; Crew-13 still 'no earlier than early October' on NASA's own page; Albania signs the Artemis Accords as the 73rd country. ·         Skywatch: the equinox as an instant rather than a date, the Juice pass over Australia, Venus and Mercury for the south, Mars and Jupiter before dawn for the north, and Saturn heading into opposition. Sources and further reading ·         Bedford, C. C. et al., 'Lake- and groundwater-associated alteration of the olivine-rich Margin unit in Jezero crater, Mars', Communications Earth & Environment (2026). DOI 10.1038/s43247-026-03997-9 ·         NASA/JPL, 'NASA Discovery Reveals Complex Water Systems on Early Mars', 21 September 2026. ·         ESA, 'Juice to fly past Earth for third gravity assist', 21 September 2026. ·         Nguyen, J. S. et al., 'A Candidate Innermost Fifth Planet In the HR 8799 System Revealed By JWST NIRISS Aperture Masking Interferometry', arXiv:2609.10507. ·         Lagrange, A.-M. et al., 'A fifth companion in the HR 8799 system revealed by Gaia', arXiv:2609.20996 (submitted to Nature Astronomy). ·         Furuya, K., Cordiner, M., Bockelée-Morvan, D. et al., arXiv:2609.12370. ·         NASA OIIR, 'NASA Welcomes Albania as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory', 21 September 2026. Skywatch figures computed in-session with PyEphem 4.2.1 for Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London. Times are local unless marked UTC.

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Supernovae keep galaxies churning A new study led by Fan Yi Meng from Tsinghua University provides the first comprehensive census of superbubbles in the Andromeda Galaxy, revealing that clustered supernova feedback is sufficient to sustain galactic-scale turbulence. This finding helps to explain why galaxies remain active over billions of years, with turbulence playing a crucial role in regulating star formation rates. The research, published in Nature Astronomy, highlights the energy balance between supernovae and the turbulence they create.Neutrinos may dictate stellar explosions A paper from Mariam Gogilashvili and Irene Tambora at the Niels Bohr Institute explores the role of neutrinos in determining which massive stars explode as supernovae. Their findings suggest that neutrino oscillations could lead to a significant number of stars collapsing into black holes, particularly those in the 16 to 30 solar mass range, addressing the long-standing red supergiant problem.TOI 1355b: A planet with an expiry date Researchers from the University of Tokyo have discovered TOI 1355b, a hot Jupiter with a unique eccentric orbit around an A-type star. This planet will stop transiting its host star by 2033 due to nodal precession, providing a rare opportunity to study its characteristics before it disappears from view.SpaceX Crew Missions Update NASA has contracted SpaceX for three additional crew rotation missions to the International Space Station, extending their partnership and ensuring continued access to the station. Crew 13 is currently in quarantine, with a launch targeted for early October.The Sun goes blank For the first time since February, the Sun has gone completely spotless, marking a significant moment in the solar cycle. As solar activity declines, a coronal hole is set to rotate into position, potentially leading to minor geomagnetic storms and auroras.1. Supernovae keep galaxies churning2. Neutrinos may dictate stellar explosions3. TOI 1355b: A planet with an expiry date4. SpaceX Crew Missions Update5. The Sun goes blankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support.

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