Feb. 17, 2026

Ring of Fire, Farewell Comet, and the Smell of Rotten Eggs in Space

Ring of Fire, Farewell Comet, and the Smell of Rotten Eggs in Space
Season 5

Astronomy Daily — S05E41 | Tuesday 17 February 2026 Ring of Fire, Farewell Comet, and the Smell of Rotten Eggs in Space Two celestial events happen TODAY — an annular solar eclipse transforms the Antarctic Sun into a ring of fire, and a rare hyperbolic comet makes its closest pass to Earth before leaving the solar system forever. Plus, JWST uses the smell of rotten eggs to solve a major exoplanet mystery, NASA performs a CT scan on the northern lights, a startup plans to fuel rockets with water, and we preview why 2026 is the dawn of a golden age of eclipses. In This Episode: • Ring of Fire solar eclipse over Antarctica — happening today, February 17, with up to 96% of the Sun covered and a 616km-wide path of annularity • Comet Wierzchoś (C/2024 E1) makes its closest approach to Earth today at 151 million km — a one-way trip out of the solar system, never to return • JWST detects hydrogen sulfide in giant exoplanets orbiting HR 8799, proving they formed like planets, not brown dwarfs — published in Nature Astronomy • NASA’s BADASS and GNEISS twin rocket missions launch from Alaska to “CT scan” the electrical circuitry of the aurora • General Galactic, led by ex-SpaceX engineer Halen Mattison, reveals plan to make rocket fuel from water — satellite test in October 2026 • 2026: A golden age of eclipses begins — total lunar eclipse March 3, total solar eclipse over Europe August 12, and much more ahead Hosted by: Anna & Avery Produced by: Huw at Bitesz.com Website: astronomydaily.io Social: @AstroDailyPod across all platforms Network: Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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Good day, stargazers, and welcome to Astronomy Daily, episode forty

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one of season five. I'm Anna and I'm.

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Avery, and what a day will be alive and looking up? Anna,

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It's Tuesday, February seventeenth, twenty twenty six, and we have

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not one, but two celestial events happening today.

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That's right. The Sun is about to be turned into

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a ring of fire over Antarctica, and a comment that

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may never return is making its closest pass to Earth

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as we speak. Plus we've got JWST solving an identity

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crisis for some massive exoplanets, NASA doing CT scans on

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the Northern Lights, and a startup that wants to fuel

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rockets with water. And a preview of why twenty twenty

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six might just be the greatest year of eclipses in

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a generation.

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Let's not waste a single second. Let's dive right.

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In, so Avery, We've been building up to this for weeks,

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and today is finally the day. Right now, as many

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of our listeners are tuning in, an annular solar eclipse

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is tracing its path across Antarctica.

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And I know some of our listeners might be thinking,

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didn't we just cover this, and yes, we've talked about

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it in recent episodes, but today is the day, and

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there's something truly special happening down at the bottom of

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the world.

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Let's recap the essentials. An annular eclipse happens when the

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Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, but

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because the Moon is at a more distant point in

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its orbit, it doesn't completely cover the Sun's disk. Instead,

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you get this breath taking ring of brilliant sunlight surrounding

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the dark silhouette of the Moon.

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The ring of fire, and today's ring will last up

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to two minutes and twenty seconds for anyone lucky enough

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to be standing in the path of annularity. At the

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moment of greatest eclipse, which occurs at twelve twelve UTC,

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the Moon will cover approximately ninety six percent of the

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Sun's surface.

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Now ninety six percent sounds like almost everything, but here's

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the important thing. It's not a total eclipse. The sky

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won't go dark. You absolutely must keep your solar eclipse

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glasses on for the entire event. There's no moment where

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it's safe to look at the Sun with the naked eye.

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The path of annularity itself is actually quite wide, for

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eclipse standards about six hundred and sixteen kilometers across, but

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it's crossing some of the most remote territory on Earth.

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We're talking about the Antarctic mainland and the surrounding Southern Ocean.

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So realistically, the only people seeing the full ring of

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fire today are researchers at a handful of Antarctic stations.

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However, the partial phases of the eclipse are visible from

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a much wider area. Observers in southern Argentina, southern Chile,

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southeastern Africa, Madagascar, and Mauritius will all see the Moon

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take a bite out of the Sun to varying degrees.

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And here's something that I think really elevates today's event.

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This eclipse kicks off the first eclipse season of twenty

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twenty six. Eclipse seasons are these brief windows, typically about

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thirty four days long, when the geometry of the Sun, Earth,

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and Moon aligns just right for eclipses to occur, and

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they usually come in pairs.

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Exactly so less than two weeks from now, on March

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the third, we get a total lunar eclipse, a blood moon,

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visible from North America. And that's just the beginning for

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twenty twenty six, which we'll come back to later in

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the show.

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For anyone wanting to follow along today, there are several

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live streams available, and we'll have links in our show

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notes even if you can't see it from where you are.

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This is a wonderful moment to appreciate the clockwork precision

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of our solar system.

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Am sticking with things happening literally today, let's talk about

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Comet C twenty twenty four e one, better known as

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Comet weird Chosh, which is making its closest approach to

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Earth right now.

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This is one of those stories where the science and

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the poetry really come together beautifully. This comment was discovered

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back in March twenty twenty four by Polish astronomer Casper

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Weirtoch using the Mount Lemon survey in Arizona, and today

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it passes within about one hundred and fifty one million

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kilometers from Earth, roughly the same distance as Earth is

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from the Sun, so.

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It's not exactly a close shave, but it's still a

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significant astronomical moment. What makes this comment truly special is

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that it's on a hyperbolic orbit. For our listeners who

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aren't familiar with that, term. It means the comet's trajectory

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isn't a closed loop. It's not coming back.

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Ever, or at least not for over two hundred thousand years,

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and even that's optimistic. Scientists believe it originated in the

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Orc cloud, that vast icy shell at the outer edges

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of our solar system, and it's now getting a gravitational

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slingshot that will send it how into interstellar space. This

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is genuinely a once in a civilization event.

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NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day featured Comet Versos today

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with a thirty minute exposure taken from Chile, showing a

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gorgeous five degree long ion tail and three separate dust tails.

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The comet also has a vivid green coma, which scientists

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believe is linked to carbon bearing compounds, likely diatomic carbon,

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fluorescing under ultraviolet sunlight.

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The James Webb Telescope actually observed this comet last year

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when it was still far out at about seven astronomical

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units from the sun. They found that it's activity is

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primarily driven by carbon dioxide rather than carbon monoxide, which

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is interesting because it suggests the comet may have lost

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its near surface COO early in its evolution.

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Now, in terms of actually seeing it at magnitude seven

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point eight to eight point two, you're going to need

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bens at minimum, ideally a small telescope. It's currently in

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the constellation Sculptor, quite low in the southwestern sky after sunset.

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Southern hemisphere observers have the far better view today.

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Northern hemisphere observers don't despair. Over the coming days, the

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comment will climb a bit higher, and by around February

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twenty third it should be a more accessible target as

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it passes near some galaxies in Cetus, but it will

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be fading by then. If you can get out tonight

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with some optics, it's worth the effort. You're quite literally

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saying goodbye to something the human race will never see again.

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All right, let's travel one hundred and thirty three light

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years away to the constellation Pegasus, where the James Webb

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telescope has just settled one of exoplanet's science's most persistent mysteries.

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And the key to solving it. Hydrogen sulfide, the molecule

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that gives rotten eggs their delightful aroma. Published in Nature Astronomy,

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a team from UCLA and U see San Diego use

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JWST to study HR eight seven nine nine system, which

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hosts four enormous gas giant planets, each between five and

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ten times the mass of Jupiter.

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Now, these planets have been known since two thousand and eight,

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and they're actually directly visible through telescopes, which is remarkable

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in itself. Most exoplanets are detected indirectly. But because they're

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so massive, and because they're so far from their star

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between fifteen and seventy times Earth's distance from the Sun,

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scientists have long debated if they're truly planets or something

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else entirely.

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Specifically, are they planets or brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are

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sometimes called failed stars, objects that form through gravitational collapse

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of a gas cloud like a star, but never got

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massive enough to sustain hydrogen fusion. The traditional mass boundary

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is around thirteen Jupiter masses, but that's a bit arbitrary.

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What really matters is how they formed. Did they form

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like planets through core accretion, building up a solid core

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from dust and rock that then attracted gas, or did

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they form like stars through the rapid collapse of a

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dense pocket of gas.

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And this is where the rotten eggs come in. The

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team detected hydrogen sulfide in the atmospheres of these three

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worlds Hr eight, seven, nine, nine, C, D, and E.

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Now why is sulfur the key? Because at the vast

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distances these planets orbit their star, sulfur can only exist

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in solid form within the protoplanetary disc. It cannot be

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in the gas phase. So if they're sulfur in these

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planet's atmospheres, it had to have been gobbled up as

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solid material during the planet's formation.

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That's the smoking gun for core accretion. These worlds massive

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as they are formed the same way Jupiter did, just

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on a much grander scale. Previous studies looking at carbon

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and oxygen couldn't distinguish between the two formation pathways because

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those elements can come from either gas or solids.

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The researchers also found that these planets are enriched in

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heavy elements compared to their hostar by factors of roughly

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two to nine times. The estimate the four planets together

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contain around six hundred earth masses of heavy material. That's

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an extraordinary amount of solid material.

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And this phrases a really fascinating question. How big can

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a planet get if objects ten times Jupiter's mass can

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form through Cora accretion, where exactly is the line between

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the biggest planets and the smallest brown dwarfs.

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Lead researcher Jerry Swan from UCLA put it beautifully. He said,

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the technique they used to separate the light from these

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incredibly faint planets ten thousand times fainter than their star,

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will eventually be applicable to studying earth like worlds. He said.

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Finding an Earth analog is the holy grail, and we

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might be twenty to thirty years away from getting the

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first spectrum of an earth like planet and searching for biosignatures.

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The future of exoplanet science built on the foundation of

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smelly gas.

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Who would have thought thing closer to home now? Well,

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relatively speaking. NASA launched two groundbreaking sounding rocket missions from

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Alaska earlier this month, and the results are already exciting

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the science community.

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These launched from the Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks,

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and they had two of the best mission acronyms I've

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ever encountered. The first is Badass, the Black and Diffuse

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Auroral Science Surveyor and yes that's the real name.

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Launched February ninth, Badass reads an altitude of about three

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hundred and sixty kilometers and was specifically designed to study

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a phenomenon called black auroras. These are these strange dark

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structures that appear as apps or voids drifting within the

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brighter diffuse aurora like someone has taken an eraser to

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parts of the Northern Lights.

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What's happening physically is that electrons, instead of streaming down

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into Earth's atmosphere the way they do in normal auroras,

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are shooting upward into space. Scientists don't fully understand why

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this reversal happens, and Badass was designed to gather data

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on exactly that.

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Then on February tenth, NASA launched the GNEISS mission. That's

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the Geophysical Non Equilibrium Ionoscire Science System. This one used

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two rockets launched just thirty seconds apart, flying side by

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side through the same aurora along different slices.

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And here's the clever bit. Each rocket ejected four sub payloads,

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giving them multiple measurement points inside the aurora. Simultaneously, the

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rockets also sent radio signals through the surrounding plasma to

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a network of eleven ground receivers. The way the plasma altered,

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those radio wives allowed scientists to map the plasma density,

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revealing where electrical currents can flow.

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Principal investigator Christina Lynch from Dartmouth College described it as

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essentially doing a CT scan of the plasma beneath the

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aurora in the same way a medical CT scan uses

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X rays passing through different body tissues to reconstruct the

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three D image. NIE uses radio waves passing through auroral

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plasma to reconstruct the electrical environment in three dimensions.

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Both missions reported that all instruments performed as expected and

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returned high quality data. This is particularly satisfying for the

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Badass team because the same mission was on the launch

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pad at Poker Flat last year, but the required auroral

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conditions never materialized before the launch window closed.

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Understanding how auroral currents work isn't just pure physics. Those

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currents shape how energy from space spreads through earth upper atmosphere.

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Where the current fans out, the atmosphere heats up, which

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can affect satellite drag, GPS accuracy and radiocommunications. With our

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increasing dependence on space based technology, this research has very

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practical implications.

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Now for something that sounds like science fiction but is

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heading for a real World test later this year. A

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startup called General Galactic, led by former SpaceX engineer Hallan Madison,

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is developing technology to use water as rocket fuel.

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And before anyone thinks we're talking about some kind of

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perpetual motion scam, the science here is sound. The core

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concept uses electrolysis, splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen,

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and then using those gases in two different propulsion systems.

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Right For chemical propulsion, you burn the hydrogen and oxygen together,

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which produces high pressure thrust, much like a conventional rocket engine.

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For electrical propulsion, you ionize the oxygen and accelerate it

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using a magnetic field, creating plasma thrust. Madison describes that

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second type as very very low thrust. People jokingly like

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to call it a burp in space, but.

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Even a burp in space can be useful for precise

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maneuvers and station keeping. The real game changer here isn't

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the propulsion technology itself, but the fuel source. Water is

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one of the most abundant resources we found on other worlds.

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There's water ice on the Moon, on Mars, on asteroids.

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If you can turn that water into fuel, you've essentially

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created the infrastructure for cosmic refueling stations.

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That's exactly Madison's long term vision. He's talking about building

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a refueling network that connects Earth, the Moon, and Mars.

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As he puts it, everybody wants to go build a

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Moon base or a Mars base. Who's going to pay

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for it? How does it actually work? His answer is

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to make the economic viable by using in situ resources.

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Now, there are real challenges to overcome. Water has to

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be purified, electoralized, and stored efficiently, and the whole system

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has to be lightweight enough for space applications. There's also

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concerns about ionized oxygen potentially affecting satellite electronics, but the

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team is pushing ahead with a proof of concept.

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And that proof of concept is coming soon. General Galactic

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is planning to launch an eleven hundred pound satellite on

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a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket in October twenty twenty six.

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That satellite will test both the chemical and electrical propulsion

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systems using water as fuel in actual space conditions.

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If it works, it could fundamentally change the economics of spaceflight.

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Mathison plans. They're talking about billions of dollars in savings

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even with current operations and trillions in new economic growth

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as the infrastructure scales up. Those are bold claims, but

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the underlying phis is solid. We'll be watching that October

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launch very closely.

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So we open the show with today's annular eclipse, and

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we mentioned that it kicks off an eclipse season, but

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I think it's worth zooming out and looking at the

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bigger picture because twenty twenty six is shaping up to

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be an absolutely extraordinary year for eclipses.

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It really is. So let's run through what's coming first. Up,

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as we mentioned on March the third, we get a

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total lunary eclipse that's a blood moon, and it will

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be visible across North America, which is fantastic news for

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our listeners in that part of the world.

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Then we get to August twelfth, and this is the

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big one, a total solar eclipse, not annular, but total,

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with its path of totality crossing the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland

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and Spain, and observers across much of Western Europe and

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North America will see a partial eclipse.

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For anyone in the UK, this is particularly exciting. The

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BBC Sky at Night magazine and the Royal Observatory Greenwich

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are both flagging this as the best solar eclipse visible

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from the UK since nineteen ninety nine. Viewers in London

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will see the Moon touch the edge of the Sun's

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disc at six seventeen pm BST, and.

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It doesn't stop there. The astronomical community is talking about

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a genuine Golden age of eclipses beginning right now. Between

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twenty twenty six and twenty twenty eight. We're looking at

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three total solar eclipses and three Ring of Fire eclipses

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in just three years. That's an extraordinary run.

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So if today's Antarctic Ring of Fire has you feeling

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a bit left out because you couldn't see it, don't worry.

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There is so much more to come. Start planning now

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for August twelfth, and make sure you're subscribed to Astronomy

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Daily because we'll be covering every single one of these events.

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This is going to be an epic year for eclipse chasers.

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And that brings us to the end of another packed

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edition of Astronomy Daily. What a day, anne an eclipse,

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a comment, farewell, rotten eggs, solving planetary mysteries, seet scans

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of auroras, water powered rockets, and a Golden Age of

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eclipses beginning right now.

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If you enjoyed today's episode, please do subscribe wherever you

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get your podcasts, leave us a rating and a review,

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and share us with anyone you know who loves looking up.

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You can find us at Astronomydaily dot io, on YouTube,

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and across all social media platforms at astro Daily Pod and.

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Don't forget we're part of the Bytes dot com podcast network,

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where you'll find plenty of other great shows to keep

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you entertained.

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And informed until next time, Keep your eyes on the skies.

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Clear skies. Everyone, Sunday Stars Start. The story is control

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over