NASA's Lunar Base Blueprint, Starship V3's Bold Launch, and the Secrets of Supernovae Revealed

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Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily

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briefing from the edge of the cosmos. I'm

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Anna.

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Avery: And I'm, um, Avery. It is Tuesday, the 26th

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of May, 2026, and we have an

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enormous show for you today.

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Anna: NASA is literally, as we record this,

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preparing to unveil the most ambitious lunar

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plan in a generation. We're talking about a

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permanent moon base.

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Avery: Starship V3 made its dramatic debut.

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A Soviet rover that vanished nearly 40 years

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ago has quietly come back to life. And

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the James Webb Space Telescope has pulled off

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something no telescope has ever done before.

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Anna: Plus, a supernova mystery that took 20

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years to crack. And a finding about rocky

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planets across the galaxy that could reshape

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how we think about worlds like our own.

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Avery: Let's get into it.

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Anna: Our lead story today is one for the history

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books. And uniquely, it is unfolding right

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now as we speak, as we record this

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episode. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman

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is preparing to take the podium at NASA

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headquarters in Washington, Washington, D.C.

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for a 2pm Eastern press conference that could

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define the next decade of human space

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exploration.

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Avery: The headline is NASA is announcing

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a permanent moon base. A real one, not a

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visiting program, not flags and footprints. A

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sustained human outpost at the lunar South

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Pole with a target date of 2036.

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Anna: What we know going in is significant. The

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program carries a price tag in the region of

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$30 billion across a seven year

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foundational phase. It centers on the lunar

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south pole, chosen because that region

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contains water ice in permanently shadowed

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craters, which NASA plans to convert into

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rocket fuel, oxygen and life support systems.

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Avery: Critically, this plan effectively retires the

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Gateway concept, the proposed orbiting lunar

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space station that's been on the drawing

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board for years. The thinking is that the

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resources and launch cadence needed for

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Gateway are better directed toward getting

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people on the surface and keeping them there.

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Anna: Nuclear power is central to the architecture.

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Both the base itself and potential future

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Mars missions are expected to rely on

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nuclear, uh, electric systems, a choice the

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Planetary Society has flagged as potentially

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transformative for deep space operations.

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As Casey Dreher put it, nuclear propulsion

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could open up huge opportunities for energy

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use in various science missions and crewed

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missions around the solar system.

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Avery: Phase one alone calls for approximately 22

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launches to the Moon, including the Artemis

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IV crewed landing by 2028.

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Those early flights will serve as the proving

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ground. If they go smoothly, the program

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earns its next phase. If there are hiccups,

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the timeline shifts.

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Anna: Commercial partners will play a major role,

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supplying rovers, habitat modules and

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surface logistics. International

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collaboration is also baked in, though the

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competitive context is hard to ignore.

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China has announced its own international

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lunar research program targeting the 2000 and

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30s, and multiple nations now have advanced

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lunar capabilities.

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Avery: NASA's framing going into today's briefing

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has been unambiguous. As Isaacman put it in

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the lead up, this time the goal is not flags

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and footprints. This time the goal is to

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stay.

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Anna: By the time our listeners hear this episode,

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those full details will be public. We'll have

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complete coverage in tomorrow's edition. But

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what a moment to be covering space news. The

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moon isn't a destination anymore, it's

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Avery: becoming an address staying with big space

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news.

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And this one delivered drama in Spades.

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On Friday 22 May 2026,

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SpaceX launched Starship V3 for the very

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first time. Flight 12, the most

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powerful and most sophisticated rocket ever

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built, now in its third generation

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configuration.

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Anna: And it did not disappoint, though perhaps not

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entirely in the way SpaceX had planned.

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Let's walk through what happened, because

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this is a story with multiple chapters. The

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launch came from brand new Pad 2 at uh,

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Starbase Texas, itself a uh first.

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After two scrubbed attempts, one foiled by

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a hydraulic pin issue literally in

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the final minutes of the countdown, Starship

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lifted off at 6:33pm

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Eastern on Friday. All 33

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Raptor engines on the super heavy booster

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lit cleanly.

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Avery: The ascent looked textbook right up until

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approximately one minute and 42 seconds into

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the flight, when one of the six vacuum Raptor

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engines on the ship upper stage shut down.

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Now, in most rocket programs, that's a

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mission ending event.

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Anna: Not here. Starship's flight computer

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detected the shutdown, instantly

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redistributed the burn load across the

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remaining five engines, extending their

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burn durations to compensate. The vehicle

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stayed on trajectory Face X

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spokesperson Dan Hewitt on the live

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commentary put it this way, the flight was

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within analyzed bounds even if it wasn't

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fully nominal.

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Avery: Ship 39 reached space deployed

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22 dummy Starlink satellites,

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including two specially equipped with cameras

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that captured stunning imagery of Starship in

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orbit, and then executed a controlled

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atmospheric re entry, splashing down in the

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Indian Ocean as planned. Elon Musk called

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it epic and a goal for humanity.

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Anna: NASA Administrator Isaacman, who was watching

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in person at Starbase, wrote on X

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One step closer to the moon, one step

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closer to Mars. Given that Starship

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is the intended vehicle for the Artemis

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crewed lunar landing, that's not a casual

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observation.

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Avery: Now, the super heavy booster did not have

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such a clean ending. Multiple engines failed

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during the boostback burn, the stage went off

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normal and it came down hard in the Gulf of

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Mexico. Rather than completing a soft

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splashdown. The FAA has opened the review

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as a standard after any anomaly over

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navigable waters.

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Anna: SpaceX had planned a splashdown rather than a

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tower catch on this first V3 flight,

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so losing the booster was within acceptable

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test parameters. The company has formally

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declared most of its pre planned test

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objectives as completed.

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Avery: The V3 design brings significant upgrades

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over previous iterations larger propellant

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capacity, simplified aft sections, new

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Raptor 3 engines with higher thrust and

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reduced complexity and ground infrastructure

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at uh Pad 2. Designed for a much higher

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launch cadence, this flight was about proving

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those systems in the real environment.

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Anna: It proved quite a lot. Flight 13

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will be very interesting indeed.

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Avery: Now to a piece of science that genuinely made

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us sit back and marvel. The James Webb

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Telescope has done something no telescope has

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ever managed before. It has watched a daily

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weather cycle unfold on a planet in another

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star system.

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Anna: The planet in question is WASP

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94ab, a hot Jupiter

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about 690 light years from Earth in

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the constellation Microscopium. It's a

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gas giant 1.7 times larger

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than Jupiter, orbiting its star every four

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days at a distance of roughly 8 million

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kilometers. Temperatures on its dayside

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exceed 1200 degrees Celsius,

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and it is tidally locked, meaning one face

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always points toward its star, the other

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always faces away.

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Avery: The research team led by Sagnik Mukherjee,

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a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State

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University who began this work as a PhD

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student at UH UC Santa Cruz, used Webb's

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Nirri M Instrument and a technique

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called transit spectroscopy to observe the

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planet as it crossed in front of its host

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star.

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Anna: And what they found was extraordinary. The

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leading edge of the planet, the side rotating

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from night into day. The planetary morning

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was blanketed with thick clouds made of

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magnesium silicate. Sand clouds,

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essentially the same mineral found in talc

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and ordinary rocks on Earth, vaporized and

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condensed high in an alien atmospher.

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Avery: But by the time the trailing edge, the

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evening side, came into view, those clouds

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had completely disappeared. A cloudy

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dawn, a clear dusk. A weather cycle

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repeating every four days with the planet's

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orbit.

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Anna: Co author David Singh of John Hopkins

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University captured the significance

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beautifully. He said, I've been looking at

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exoplanets for 20 years, and general

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cloudiness has been a thorn in our side.

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We've known for quite a while that clouds are

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pervasive on hot Jupiter planets, which is

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annoying because it's like trying to look at

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the planet through a foggy window.

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Avery: Webb's ability to separate the morning and

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evening limbs of the planet something the

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Hubble Space Telescope simply cannot do

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gave researchers their clearest view yet of

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the atmosphere itself. And what they found

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there was a surprise.

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Wasp94ab is far more Jupiter

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like in composition than a decade of Hubble

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data had suggested.

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Anna: Previous measurements had indicated the

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planet had hundreds of times more oxygen and

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carbon than Jupiter. The new cloud

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corrected analysis brings that down to

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roughly five times a full order

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of magnitude correction and a reminder

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that unresolved clouds can seriously

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skew our picture of what other worlds are

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made of.

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Avery: The team didn't stop at WASP 94ab.

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They found the same cloud cycle pattern on

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two other hot jupiters, WASP 39b

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and WASP 17b, suggesting this

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isn't an anomaly, but a recurring feature of

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how hot Jupiter atmospheres behave.

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Anna: Researchers now plan to extend the survey to

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planets on highly eccentric orbits.

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Worlds that experience dramatic temperature

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swings where even more extreme weather

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patterns may be waiting to be discovered.

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Avery: Weather forecasts for alien worlds we are

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living in remackable times.

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Anna: For nearly 20 years, astronomers have

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been puzzled by a class of stellar explosions

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so bright they break the rules. Super

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luminous supernovae. Stellar deaths that

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produce 10 times or more the visible light of

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an ordinary supernova up to a hundred

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times brighter in some cases. The question

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has always been what is powering them

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now?

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Avery: Data from NASA's Fermi Gamma Race telescope

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has delivered the first definitive answer and

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it involves one of the most extreme objects

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in the known universe.

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Anna: The story centers on SN2017

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EGM, first spotted by

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ESA's Gaia mission back in May 2017.

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An international team led by Fabio Acero uh

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at the French national center for Scientific

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Research has now confirmed that Fermi

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detected gamma rays the most energetic

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form of light coming from this event.

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Avery: That confirmation matters enormously because

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gamma rays carry the fingerprint of what's

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actually happening at the core of the

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explosion. And what Fermi's data reveals is

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a magnetar a neutron star born in the

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same stellar collapse that triggered the

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supernova.

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Anna: To understand why that's significant,

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consider what a magnetar is. When a

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star many times the mass of our sun

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exhausts its fuel and collapses, its

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core can compress into a neutron star

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roughly the size of a city. Magnetars

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are the most extreme version of those

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objects, spinning hundreds of times per

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second, generating magnetic fields a

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thousand times stronger than those of

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ordinary neutron stars the most

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powerful magnetic objects in the known

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universe.

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Avery: The model works like the newborn

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magnetar's furious rotation generates an

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outflow of electrons and positrons,

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matter and antimatter particles that forms a

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vast cloud of energetic particles. That

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cloud pumps energy back into the expanding

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shell of stellar material, supercharging the

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explosion and making it shine far brighter

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than any ordinary supernova.

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Anna: The team compared optical and gamma ray data

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from SN2017 EGM

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against theoretical mod models of exactly

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this process, and the match was compelling.

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As Fabio Acero put it, for nearly

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20 years, astronomers have searched Fermi

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data for gamma ray signals from thousands of

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supernovae. And while a few intriguing

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hints have been reported, none were

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definitive until now.

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Avery: This is a genuine first, a direct

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observational window into the engine driving

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the most powerful stellar explosions in the

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cosmos,

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Anna: and it opens a new avenue for future

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research. The team has assessed how the

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upcoming Tarenkov Telescope Array

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Observatory, a UH next generation ground

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based gamma ray facility, will perform at UH

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detecting similar events. The era of

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magnetor forensics is just beginning.

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Avery: A mystery that's been open since the early

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2000s finally cracked. And the answer

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is a star corpse the size of a city

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spinning like a cosmic dynamo.

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Anna: Here's a finding that quietly challenges one

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of our most fundamental assumptions about

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what planets are made of. And it matters a

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great deal for how we think about

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habitability beyond our solar system.

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Avery: A new paper submitted to the Astrophysical

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Journal proposes that the structure we take

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for granted here on Earth a dense metallic

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core surrounded by a silicate mantle topped

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by a thin crust may be the exception rather

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than the rule for rocky planets across the

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galaxy.

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Anna: For decades, planetary scientists have used

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our solar system as the template. Earth has

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a metallic core. Mars has one. Mercury,

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though radically oversized relative to the

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rest of the planet, has one. The assumption,

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largely unchallenged, was that rocky

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planets formed this way. Heavy metals sank

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to the center during the molten phase early

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in planetary history, creating the

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familiar layered structure.

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Avery: But when you look at the full range of rocky

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planets now cataloged and we have confirmed

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over 6,000 exoplanets as of this year,

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with many hundreds in the rocky category. The

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diversity of compositions is striking.

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Rocky planets form in vastly different

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stellar environments with different ratios of

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iron, silicate and other materials depending

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on the chemistry of their parent nebula.

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Anna: The researchers argue that many of the most

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common rocky planets in the galaxy, so

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called super Earths and sub Neptunes,

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may have form in conditions where metallic

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core formation simply didn't occur in the

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same way or at all. Without that

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dense metallic core, you don't get a global

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magnetic field generated by a dynamo effect.

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Avery: And that has profound implications for

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habitability. Earth's magnetic field shields

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our surface from the solar wind. Without it,

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our atmosphere would gradually be stripped

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away over geological timescales Mars

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lost most of its magnetic field billions of

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years ago. And look at it now.

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Anna: If the majority of rocky planets across the

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galaxy lack that protective magnetic

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shielding, the calculus for finding life

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friendly worlds changes considerably.

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Avery: It's a sobering and fascinating paper and

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a reminder that our solar system, for all its

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familiarity, may be showing us a rather

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unusual version of what planets typically

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look like.

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Anna: We're closing tonight with a story that has

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everything Cold War history, a, uh,

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decades long mystery, a surprising

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rediscovery, and a laser beam fired

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from New Mexico to a hillside on the moon.

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Avery: Pass your minds back to November 1970.

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The Soviet Union lands Luna 17 on the

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Moon's sea of rains. Mada imbrium.

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Out rolls Lunohod 1, a bathtub

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shaped eight wheeled Rover bristling with

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scientific instruments. The world's first

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remote controlled vehicle to operate on

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another world.

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Anna: It was designed for a relatively short

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mission. Instead, it kept going,

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surviving 11 lunar day night cycles,

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traversing roughly 10.5 kilometers of

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the lunar surface, sending back thousands of

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photographs and mountains of scientific data.

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Then, in the autumn of 1971,

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contact ceased. Mission over.

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Avery: But here's the thing. Mounted on Lunohod 1

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was a French built laser retroreflector,

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a passive optical device that requires no

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power whatsoever. Its only job is to bounce

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laser light back toward wherever it came

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from. And that device was still there,

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perfectly intact, waiting.

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Anna: The problem was that no one knew precisely

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where Lunokhod 1 had ended its journey.

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The rover had moved across the surface during

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its mission, and without high resolution

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orbital imagery, pinpointing its final

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resting place to the precision needed for

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laser ranging was impossible. For

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nearly 38 years, it sat there,

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silent, invisible,

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scientifically tantalizingly out of reach.

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Avery: Then, in 2010, um, everything changed.

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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter sent back

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high resolution imagery of Mare Imbrium, and

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researchers spotted it, the rover and its

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landing platform still sitting exactly where

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they'd been left.

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Anna: With updated coordinates in hand, a team from

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the Apache Point Observatory lunar laser

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ranging operation in New Mexico. The

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Apollo project fired laser pulses at

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the site in April 2010. And Lunokhod

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1 fired back, not metaphorically.

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Avery: The retroreflector returned approximately

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2,000 photons per shot,

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roughly four times stronger than the returns

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from Lunokhod 2, and stronger than expected

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from a reflector that had spent nearly four

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decades exposed to the lunar environment.

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Anna: The location turns out to be scientifically

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valuable in ways researchers hadn't

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anticipated. Lunokhod 1 sits closer

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to the lunar limb than any of the Apollo

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reflectors, a position that improves

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measurements of the lunar librations, the

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subtle wobbles in its rotation, which in

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turn help refine models of the lunar

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interior.

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Avery: And there's a puzzle that the recovered

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reflector is helping solve. Near Full

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Moon, the strength of laser returns from all

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reflectors drops by a factor of 10. No

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one fully understands why Lunokhod

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1's strong returns from a different geometry

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are providing new clues.

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Anna: Long term laser ranging, now including this

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recovered Cold War relic, has given us some

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of our most precise measurements of how the

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Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth,

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uh, at about 3.8 centimeters per year,

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and has contributed evidence for the

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existence of a fluid lunar core.

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Avery: A rover that fell silent in

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1971, rediscovered from

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orbit, resurrected by a laser pulse,

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and still contributing to science today.

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Sometimes the best stories don't end, they

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just go quiet for a while.

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Anna: And that wraps up Astronomy daily for

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Tuesday, 26 May 2026

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from a moon base that could redefine human

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civilization to a Soviet rover

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whispering back from the lunar surface.

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What a day to be paying attention to the

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cosmos.

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Avery: If today's episode sparked something for you,

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00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:56.560
please subscribe, leave a review and share us

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00:19:56.560 --> 00:19:58.520
with someone who needs more space in their

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00:19:58.520 --> 00:20:01.200
life. You'll find full show notes, links to

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00:20:01.200 --> 00:20:03.480
all our sources, and our blog post at

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00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:06.280
astronomydaily IO Find us on

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00:20:06.280 --> 00:20:06.920
social media.

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Anna: We're astrodaily Pod across x,

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Instagram, TikTok and Tumblr.

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Avery: For Anna, I'm Avery.

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Anna: Keep looking up Astronomy Daily Every

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00:20:16.440 --> 00:20:18.720
day from every corner of the universe,

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Avery: We're told

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m.