Psyche's Mars Flyby Happening RIGHT NOW + SETI's Stunning 10-Year Results

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Anna: Something extraordinary is happening in our

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solar system right now. As you listen to

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this episode, a, uh, NASA spacecraft is

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hurtling past Mars at over 12,000

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miles per hour, using the red Planet's

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gravity like a cosmic slingshot. We have got

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the details and a whole lot more coming right

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up on Astronomy Daily.

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Avery: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily, your

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daily guide to the universe. Hi, I'm Avery.

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Anna: And I'm anaa. It's Friday, the 15th of

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May, 2026, and you are listening to

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season five, episode 103.

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Avery: What a lineup we have for you today. Six

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stories spanning the solar system, the deep

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cosmos, and even the search for

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extraterrestrial intelligence.

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Anna: That's right. Including the results of the

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most rigorous SETI search in history.

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Ten years of listening. 70,000

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stars, 100 million signals.

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And the answer might surprise you.

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Avery: We'll also check in with the Perseverance

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Rover, who has just reached terrain that no

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robot and no human has ever explored before.

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Terrain that may be nearly 4 billion years

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old.

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Anna: Plus, news about a coming revolution in how

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we measure the universe, courtesy of

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artificial intelligence and a, uh, genuinely

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baffling cosmic mystery from the James Webb

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Space Telescope. Let's get into it. Ready

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when you are. We're starting with something

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that is happening as you listen to this.

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Right now, NASA's Psyche spacecraft,

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the one headed for a metallic asteroid out in

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the main belt, is executing a gravity assist

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flyby of Mars.

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Avery: And when we say close, we mean close.

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The spacecraft is passing just

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2,800 miles from the Martian

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surface. That sounds like a lot, but in space

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terms, that is an extremely tight pass.

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Anna: To put it in perspective, that's closer than

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the distance across Australia. And Psyche

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is moving at, uh, more than 12,000 miles per

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hour as it skims past.

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Avery: So why is it doing this? A gravity assist,

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sometimes called a gravitational slingshot,

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uses the gravity of a planet to accelerate a

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spacecraft and adjust its trajectory. In

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Psyche's case, Mars is lending it the speed

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boost and the directional nudge it needs to

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reach its final destination, the asteroid

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Psyche, out in the main belt between Mars and

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Jupiter.

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Anna: The mission team is hoping to get more than

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just a speed boost from this flyby. The

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spacecraft's instruments will be scanning for

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a faint, dusty ring around Mars,

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material thought to have been ejected from

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the surfaces of the planet's two tiny moons,

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Phobos and Deimos, by micrometeorite

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impacts over billions of years.

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Avery: If the alignment is right, sunlight

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scattering off that dust could, uh, make the

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ring visible to Psyche's cameras. The team

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will also be Searching for tiny satellites

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around Mars moonlets as practice for when

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Psyche arrives at the asteroid, where it'll

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perform a similar hunt.

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Anna: The asteroid Psyche itself is one of the most

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intriguing objects in the solar system.

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A world that appears to be made largely of

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metal, which scientists think could be the

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exposed core of a protoplanet that was

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stripped of its rocky outer layers in violent

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ancient collisions.

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Avery: Psyche, the spacecraft is expected to arrive

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at the asteroid in 2029. After this

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Mars flyby sends it on the right path.

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Today's close approach is one of those

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moments that reminds us how precise and

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extraordinary modern space navigation truly

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is. Threading the needle past an entire

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planet to get a free ride across the solar

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system.

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Anna: We'll keep you updated on what the flyby data

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reveals in coming episodes. For now though,

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somewhere out there in space, the slingshot

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is happening. And that is remarkable.

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Avery: For 10 years, astronomers at the University

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of California, Los Angeles have been pointing

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one of the world's most powerful radio

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telescopes at the stars and listening not for

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pulsars, not for gas clouds, but for

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something far extraordinary.

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Anna: A signal from another civilization.

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Avery: The results of that decade long search are

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now in. The team used the Green bank

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telescope in West Virginia, a 100 meter

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dish to scan more than 70,000

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stars and planetary systems. Their data

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processing pipeline analyzed more than 100

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million candidate signals.

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Anna: And every single one of them, every

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last signal, turned out to be us

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human made radio frequency interference,

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not ET.

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Avery: Now, before we get too disappointed, this is

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actually a landmark achievement in science

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because a null result when it's done this

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rigorously is enormously valuable.

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Anna: The PEAMS pipeline has a demonstrated

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94 to 99% efficiency

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for detecting the kind of narrowband signals

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that a technologically advanced civilization

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might transmit. So if something was out there

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broadcasting in that frequency range, they

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had a very good chance of catching it.

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Avery: What they can now say with confidence is that

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fewer than 600,000 of 1%

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of stars within 20,000 light years of Earth.

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Earth hosts a transmitter powerful enough to

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be detectable by their search. That's an

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extraordinarily precise upper limit.

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Anna: And the search is far from over. The team

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emphasizes that with next generation radio

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telescopes coming online in the coming years,

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the volume of sky they can monitor is set

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to increase by orders of magnitude. The

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universe is vast and they've only just

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started listening properly.

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Avery: Jean Luc Margaux, the lead researcher at

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UCLA, has been running this program since

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2016. This paper marks the

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completion of phase one and the citizen

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science component. The platform called Are We

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Alone on Zooniverse? Has had more than

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40,000 volunteers helping classify

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signals.

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Anna: 10 years. 70,000

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stars. 100 million signals.

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No aliens yet. But the search

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goes on. And now it goes on, with a roadmap

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built on the most rigorous SETI data ever

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collected.

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Avery: If nothing else, it's a reminder of how

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seriously scientists take the question and

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how much patience the search for cosmic

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company requires.

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Anna: Meanwhile, on the surface of Mars, NASA's

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Perseverance rover has just reached what

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scientists are calling one of the most

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scientifically valuable regions ever

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explored on the Red Planet.

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Avery: Perseverance has now traveled nearly 26

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miles across the Martian surface since

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landing in Jezero crater back in 2021,

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almost the distance of a full marathon.

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And in doing so, it has pushed further west

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than any rover has gone before entering a

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rugged landscape the science team calls Lac

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des Charms do mark

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Anna: the occasion, because apparently even rovers

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like a selfie. Perseverance assembled a self

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portrait from 61 individual images

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showing it perched against a dramatic

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backdrop of ancient Martian terrain, with the

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western rim of Jezero Crater stretching

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into the distance behind it.

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Avery: But the selfie is just the beginning.

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Alongside it, the rover captured a sweeping

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panoramic mosaic of a Nearby region called

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Arbat 46 images stitched together

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into one of the richest geological vistas of

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the entire mission.

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Anna: What scientists see in that panorama is

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extraordinary. The landscape is filled with

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what appear to be mega breccia rock

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fragments the size of skyscrapers, believed

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to have been hurled outward by a colossal

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meteorite impact on the Martian plain called

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acetus planitia approximately

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3.9 billion years ago.

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Avery: To put that in perspective, that impact

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happened before complex life even began on

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Earth. These rocks have been sitting there

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largely unchanged for nearly4.4 billion

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years, and now a small robot

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from Earth is studying them. Ken Farley,

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the Perseverance Deputy project scientist at

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Caltech, described what he sees in the

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panorama as, and I'm quoting here,

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excellent exposure of likely the oldest

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rocks we are going to investigate during this

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mission. The geological diversity in this

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region is dramatically different from what

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Perseverance found inside Jezero Crater.

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Instead of water deposited sediments and

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delta formations, many of the rocks here

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appear to be igneous, formed from ancient

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cooling magma or lava flows. These

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are windows into Mars deep crust and its

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earliest volcanic history.

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Anna: Scientists believe this region may predate

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the formation of Jezero Crater itself. And

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that means Perseverance is now exploring

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Martian ground that has never been accessible

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to study, not by previous rovers, not

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from orbit, and not by any instrument we've

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sent before.

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Avery: Every meter, Perseverance travels west

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Is new scientific territory, and right

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now, it's standing on some of the oldest

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ground Our solar system has to offer.

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Anna: Now, new is about the future of space

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astronomy, and it involves two of the

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greatest telescopes ever built. In what

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scientists are calling a, uh, passing of the

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baton, NASA's Hubble Space

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Avery: Telescope has just completed a massive survey

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of the Milky Way's galactic bulge, the dense,

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bulging region surrounding the center of our

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galaxy. And the results are about to hand an

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enormous advantage to Hubble's successor, the

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Nancy Grace Roman space telescope.

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Anna: Roman is scheduled to launch in September of

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this year, Just a few months away. And

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remarkably, it is running six months ahead of

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schedule. When it reaches orbit, one of its

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primary tasks will be surveying the galactic

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bulge to hunt for exoplanets Using a

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technique called gravitational microlensing.

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Avery: Microlensing works like this. When a

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massive object, A star, a planet, even

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a black hole, Passes in front of a more

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distant background star, Its gravity bends

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and amplifies the background star's light. By

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measuring those brief brightenings, Roman

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will be able to detect planets that would

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otherwise be invisible to us.

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Anna: Roman's galactic bulge time domain survey

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is expected to locate more than 1,000

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exoplanets orbiting far from their stars,

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beyond the orbital distance of Earth from the

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sun. But to do that, well, scientists

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need to know exactly what the galactic bulge

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looks like before any lensing events occur,

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so they can tell the difference between a

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lensing signal and just a variable star.

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Avery: That's where Hubble comes in. The survey it's

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just completed has built a baseline catalog

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of 20 to 30 million stars in the galactic

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bulge. When Roman gets going, it will

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expand that catalog tenfold to

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200 to 300 million sources and

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produce some of the deepest images ever taken

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of any part of the sky.

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Anna: Jay Anderson of the space telescope

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institute summed it up beautifully. He said,

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the great thing about microlensing is that

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we'll be able to do a complete census of

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objects as small as Mars that are moving

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between us and these fields in the bulge. No

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matter what it is. Black holes, rogue

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planets, neutron stars Roman will

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find them all.

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Avery: Hubble, now more than 30 decades into its

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mission, Is gradually losing its ability to

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precisely point itself as its gyroscopes

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age. One day, its extraordinary journey

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will come to an end. But it is going out with

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Grace, Making one final massive

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contribution to science and lighting the way

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for the telescope that will carry on its

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legacy.

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Anna: Roman launches in September. The age of

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wide field space astronomy is almost here.

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Alright. Before moving on to our next story,

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let's get in a quick mention about our

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sponsor, NordVPN, the people who not only

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by clicking on the link in the show notes.

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Avery: Alright, let's get back into today's space

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and astronomy news. One of the great

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challenges in modern cosmology is measuring

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how fast the universe is expanding. And right

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now there's a crisis. Different methods of

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measuring that expansion rate give different

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answers and nobody is quite sure why.

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It's called the Hubble Tension and it has

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been keeping cosmologists up at night for

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years now.

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Anna: A team of researchers has used artificial

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intelligence to make one of the key tools in

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that measurement. Type 1a

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supernovae, significantly more precise.

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Four times more precise in fact.

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Avery: Let's unpack that. Type 1a

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supernovae are stellar explosions that happen

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when a white dwarf star accumulates enough

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material from a companion star to trigger a

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catastrophic nuclear runaway. They

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are so bright, billions of times the output

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of our sun, that they can be seen across the

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universe. And because they explode in a

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relatively consistent way, astronomers can

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use them as cosmic m mile markers to estimate

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distances.

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Anna: The trouble is, they are not perfectly

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consistent. Their brightness varies depending

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on the age of the host galaxy, the chemical

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composition of the original star, and a host

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of other factors. Astronomers have long

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used correction factors to standardize these

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measurements, but those corrections have

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always been somewhat blunt.

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Avery: One well known example is the so called mass

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step. Supernovae in heavier galaxies

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tend to appear slightly differently from

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those in lighter galaxies. So researchers

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apply a brightness correction based on the

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host galaxy's mass. It works as a

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practical fix, but it doesn't really explain

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what's driving the difference at a physical

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level.

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Anna: The new AI approach cuts through all of that

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noise in a single step. Instead of applying

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a series of separate corrections, the machine

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learning model analyzes the full complexity

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of the supernova's light curve,

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simultaneously accounting for multiple

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sources of variation at once and producing

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a far cleaner distance estimate.

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Avery: The result is distance measurements that are

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four times more precise than conventional

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methods, which is a staggering improvement

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applied across thousands of supernova

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observations. That precision could sharpen

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our measurement of the universe's expansion

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history dramatically.

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Anna: This matters enormously for the Hubble

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tension. If the tension survives with cleaner

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data, it really does suggest something new

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and fundamental is going on. Some unknown

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physics that our current Models don't account

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for. If better data resolves it, that's

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equally important. It means the tension was

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a, uh, measurement artifact all along.

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Avery: Either way, we learned something profound

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about the nature of the universe, and AI Just

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became one of cosmology's most important

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instruments.

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Anna: And we finish today with a genuine cosmic

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mystery, courtesy of the James Webb Space

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Telescope. One that has astronomers

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scratching their heads in the very best way.

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Avery: Deep in the early universe, about 2

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billion years after the Big Bang, the

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astronomers have found a massive galaxy that

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simply doesn't spin.

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Anna: Now, that might not sound immediately

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startling, but it really should. Our current

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models of galaxy formation tell us that young

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galaxies spin as gas flows

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inward and gravity pulls matter together.

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Angular momentum builds up and sets the whole

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system rotating. It's like water draining

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down a plug hole. The rotation is almost

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inevitable, except for this one.

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Avery: The galaxy, cataloged as XMMVid M M

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2075, shows no evidence

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of rotation whatsoever. Instead of the

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ordered rotating structure you'd expect from

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a young galaxy, its stars are moving in

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essentially random directions. Chaotic

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swirl with no net spin.

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Anna: That kind of behavior, what astronomers call

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a slow rotator, is normally

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associated with the very largest, most

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evolved galaxies in the local universe.

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Galaxies that have been through billions of

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years of collisions and mergers and have had

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all that angular momentum scrambled away.

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Avery: Finding it in a galaxy that formed when the

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universe was less than 2 billion years old

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is, to put it mildly,

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not what anyone expected.

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Anna: Ben Forrest, the lead author from the

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University of California, Davis, described it

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simply. This one did not show any evidence of

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rotation, which was surprising and very

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interesting. The team examined three

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galaxies from the same era using Webb.

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One was rotating normally. One showed

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irregular structure. And this one, nothing.

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Just random stellar motion.

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Avery: How does the galaxy in the young, turbulent

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early universe end up looking like an

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ancient, exhausted elliptical? Did it

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somehow form through a different process

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entirely? Was there a massive early merger

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event that scrambled its angular momentum

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before it could properly form? Or does this

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represent something we simply don't yet

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understand about the physics of galaxy

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formation?

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Anna: The James Webb Space Telescope is pushing the

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frontier of exactly these kinds of studies,

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examining the internal kinematics. The

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motion of material within galaxies at high

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redshift was essentially impossible before

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Webb. Now it's revealing that the early

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universe contained structures far more

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diverse and surprising than we imagined.

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Avery: A, uh, galaxy that forgot to spin.

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Another reminder that the cosmos has a gift

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for defying our expectations.

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Anna: Before we go, your Southern Hemisphere sky

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watching update for tonight and the weekend.

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Avery: Jupiter continues to be a spectacular evening

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object in the northwest after sunset. And

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Tonight is particularly special for anyone

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with a small telescope. A rare double

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shadow transit is occurring as the shadows of

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both Europa and Ganymede

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simultaneously cross Jupiter's cloud tops.

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Anna: For Australian observers, this event is

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happening in the late evening hours. Check

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local astronomy apps for your precise timing

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as the event unfolds across different time

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windows depending on your location. The two

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shadows are clearly different sizes and

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speeds. Ganymede's shadow is larger and

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slower, while Europa's is smaller and

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faster.

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Avery: Mars is also visible before sunrise, though

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it is fading now as Earth moves away from us

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in our respective orbits. Saturn is rising in

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the pre dawn hours and making a fine target

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for patient early risers.

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Anna: The Moon is at New Moon phase today, which

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means dark skies all weekend. If you've been

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waiting for the right conditions to try some

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deep sky observing, this is your window.

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Avery: Get outside, look up and enjoy the dark.

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Anna: And that is Astronomy daily for Friday

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15th May 2026. Six

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stories, one live cosmic event, one

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00:19:20.470 --> 00:19:23.150
landmark SETI result Ancient Martian

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00:19:23.150 --> 00:19:26.070
ground, a revolutionary telescope, Baton

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00:19:26.070 --> 00:19:28.910
Pass, AI powered cosmology, and a

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galaxy that forgot the rules.

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Avery: Not a bad Friday.

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Anna: Not bad at all. If you enjoyed today's

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00:19:34.790 --> 00:19:36.910
episode, please subscribe wherever you get

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00:19:36.910 --> 00:19:38.750
your podcasts, subscrib and leave us a

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00:19:38.750 --> 00:19:40.950
review. Um, it genuinely helps more space

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00:19:40.950 --> 00:19:42.390
enthusiasts find the show.

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Avery: Find us at astronomydaily IO for full

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show notes, episode transcripts and our blog,

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00:19:48.550 --> 00:19:50.750
and follow us on social media. We're

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00:19:50.750 --> 00:19:53.510
Astrodaily, Pod on X, Instagram,

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00:19:53.510 --> 00:19:54.870
TikTok and Tumblr.

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Anna: Until tomorrow, we'll be back with more of

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the universe's biggest stories and the

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weekend wrap. Until then, keep looking up

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from Avery and Anna. Clear skies

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00:20:05.860 --> 00:20:06.220
everyone.