Shenzhou-23 Makes History, Psyche's Mars Masterclass, and a 19-Day Solar Mystery

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Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily,

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your Monday briefing on everything happening

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across the cosmos. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm Avery. It is Monday 25th

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May, 2026, and we have a packed show

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for you today.

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Anna: We do. Uh, coming up, China makes history

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with a crew launch that breaks several

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records at once. NASA's Psyche

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spacecraft wows us with brand new imagery

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from Mars. And the sun served up a

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signal so bizarre, scientists are staring,

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still scratching their heads.

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Avery: Plus ghost particles from a cosmic monster,

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A stellar feeding frenzy in an orbit that's

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almost impossibly fast, and the

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surprisingly hopeful story about farming on

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Mars. Let's get into it.

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Anna: China made history on Sunday night, launching

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three astronauts to its Tiangong space

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station aboard the Shenzhou 23

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spacecraft. And this crew is carrying

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several firsts with them into orbit.

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Avery: The long March 2F rocket blasted off from the

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Zhuoquan Satellite launch Center in the Gobi

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Desert at, uh, just after 11pm Beijing time,

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sending the crew on their way to what China

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calls the Heavenly Palace.

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Anna: The crew consists of Mission commander Xu

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Yangzhou, pilot Zhang Zhiyuan,

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and payload specialist Lai Kaying.

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And it's Lai who's making the history books.

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She was born and raised in Hong Kong and

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holds a doctorate in computer forensics. She

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is the very first astronaut from Hong Kong to

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reach space.

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Avery: That's a genuinely big moment, Anna. Um, Hong

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Kong has been growing its contributions to

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China's space program significantly in recent

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years, with university teams developing

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instruments for upcoming lunar missions. To

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now have someone from the city actually

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flying, that's a real milestone.

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Anna: And the historic firsts don't stop there.

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One member of the Shenzhou 23 crew will stay

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aboard Tiangong for a full year to the

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first time any Chinese astronaut has

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undertaken a 12 month mission.

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Avery: The extended stay is connected to a

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fascinating plan for the Follow up

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shenzhou24Mission due later this year.

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That mission will carry a Pakistani

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astronaut, the first international visitor to

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China space station, who will spend a short

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time aboard before returning on the outbound

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Shenzhou 23 vehicle, leaving one of the

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current crew to complete that year long stay.

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Anna: It's a clever piece of mission architecture,

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and all of it is building toward China's

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stated goal of a crewed lunar landing by

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2030. Every long duration mission,

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every new crew rotation, is laying the

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groundwork for those much longer future

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missions.

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Avery: The new crew will also relieve the Shenzhou

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21 astronauts who've been aboard Tiangong for

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more than 200 days, slightly longer than

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originally planned following an incident last

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year where their Return spacecraft was

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damaged by suspected debris. They'll be very

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glad to see a fresh crew arrive.

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Anna: Congratulations to Xu Yongzhu, Zhong

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Zhiyuan and especially Lai Kai Ying

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on this historic mission. We'll be following

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their time aboard Tiangong closely now.

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Avery: Remember a couple of weeks ago we told you

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about NASA's Psyche spacecraft preparing to

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slingshot around Mars on its way to the

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asteroid belt. Well, the images are in

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and they are spectacular.

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Anna: NASA released the photos this week from

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Psyche's gravity assist flyby, uh, of Mars.

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On 15 May. The spacecraft came within just

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under 2,900 miles of the Martian surface,

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traveling, uh, at more than 12,000 miles an

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hour. And its multispectral imager was

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working overtime.

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Avery: The standout image shows the Huygens crater,

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a massive double ringed impact structure

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nearly 300 miles across in Mars's

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southern highlands. Psyche enhanced the

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colors to highlight compositional differences

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in the dust, sand and bedrock.

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And the result is genuinely beautiful. Ochres

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and tans and pale blues against the ancient

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cratered terrain.

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Anna: These images serve a, uh, real scientific

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purpose. Beyond the stunning visuals,

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they're calibration data for Psyche's imaging

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instruments. The first chance the science

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team has had to test them against an object

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larger than a few pixels. That's

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going to be crucial when the spacecraft

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finally arrives at its target.

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Avery: And Mars delivered the goods dynamically as

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well. The flyby gave Psyche a speed boost of

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around 1,000 miles per hour and shifted its

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orbital plane, all without burning a drop of

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onboard propellant. The navigation team

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confirmed a spacecraft is now on a direct

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course for the asteroid, with arrival

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expected in August 2029.

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Anna: Asteroid 16 Psyche, of course,

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is one of the most intriguing objects in the

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solar system. Uh, a metallic world that may

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be the exposed core of a protoplanet

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and potentially worth more than the entire

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global economy in precious metals.

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Though we should note that last part is very

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much a theoretical figure.

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Avery: Still, it's quite a headline. Gorgeous

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images. Now the asteroid itself in three

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years time. Well worth the wait.

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Anna: Here's a solar physics story that genuinely

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surprised researchers. Back In August of

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2025, NASA's instruments

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picked up what initially looked like a

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perfectly routine radio burst from the sun.

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Avery: Except it didn't stop Exactly.

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Anna: These type 4 solar radio

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bursts, produced when energetic electrons

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get trapped inside the Sun's magnetic fields,

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normally last anywhere from a few hours to

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maybe a few days. The previous record

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stood at five days.

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Avery: This one lasted 19, nearly

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four times the previous record. That's not a

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small anomaly. That's a completely different

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Class of event.

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Anna: The tricky part was actually tracking it,

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because as the sun rotates, different

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spacecraft had it in view at different times.

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A fleet of four missions pieced the

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Kickstarter, NASA's Parker Solar

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Probe, the STEREO mission, the WIND

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spacecraft, and the joint ESA

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NASA Solar Orbiter each observed

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the burst for several days across three

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overlapping windows.

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Avery: So it was almost like relay baton passing

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across a solar system. One spacecraft would

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watch the signal fade from its perspective,

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and then another on the other side would pick

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it up again as the sun rotated.

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Anna: Using data from stereo, the team

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developed a new tracking technique that

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pinpointed the source, a structure in the

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Sun's corona called a helmet streamer.

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These funnel shaped features form when hot

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plasma gets trapped along enormous

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magnetic loops extending outward from the

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Sun's surface.

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Avery: And the leading theory for why this one

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lasted so long was that three successive

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coronal mass ejections within the same region

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of the sun essentially kept re energizing the

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burst like someone repeatedly topping up a

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fire.

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Anna: The findings have been published in the

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Astrophysical Journal Letters, and the

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implications for space weather forecasting

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are significant. While the radio waves

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themselves are harmless, the magnetic

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environments that produce these bursts can

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also accelerate dangerous particles toward

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Earth. Particles that can damage satellites

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and spacecraft. Understanding how these

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bursts work and how long they can last is

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directly relevant to protecting our

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infrastructure in space.

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Avery: And with solar activity intensifying through

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the current cycle, the timing of this

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research couldn't be better.

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Anna: Now we're going deep. Very deep.

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Two miles below the surface of the

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Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Sicily,

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sits one of the most unusual telescopes

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ever built. It's called KM

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M3Net, and it doesn't look at light.

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Avery: It hunts ghost particles,

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neutrinos, subatomic particles so

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small, so elusive, that a light year of

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solid lead would only have a fixed 5050

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chance of stopping one. Trillions of them are

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passing through your body right now without

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you feeling a thing.

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Anna: Back in February 2023,

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KM3Net detected something

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extraordinary. A neutrino with an

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energy of 220PETA

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electron volts. To put that in context,

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that's more than 30 times the energy of the

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most powerful neutrino ever previously

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recorded. A ping pong ball dropping 1

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meter carries about the same energy

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packed into a single subatomic

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particle.

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Avery: Scientists have been trying to work out where

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this particle came from ever since. And

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now, fresh research published this week in

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the Journal of Cosmology and Astrophysics

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points to a culprit. Lazars.

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Anna: Lasers are among the most violent objects in

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the universe. They're active galactic nuclei,

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effectively supermassive black holes that are

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shooting jets of plasma directly toward Earth

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from billions of light years away. They're

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cosmic particle accelerators on an almost

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incomprehensible scale.

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Avery: If the KM3 NET team's interpretation is

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confirmed that this record shattering

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neutrino originated from a population of

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blazars, it would completely rewrite our

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understanding of how these objects accelerate

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particles. It implies that blazars can push

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matter to energies far beyond what scientists

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previously thought possible.

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Anna: And the story isn't finished yet.

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Hem3net is still under construction.

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This detection arrived when only a fraction

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of the final instrument was operational. As

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the detector expands, it should catch more of

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these ultra high energy events, potentially

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narrowing down the source to a specific

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object or class of objects.

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Avery: A ghost particle from the edge of the

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universe, decoded by a telescope on the

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ocean floor. This is exactly the kind

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of story that reminds you why particle

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astrophysics is so extraordinary.

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Anna: Our next story comes from mit and it involves

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one of the most extreme gravitational dances

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ever observed. Two dead stars locked in

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an orbit so tight, so fast, it almost

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defies belief.

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Avery: We're, we're talking about a binary white

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dwarf system. White dwarfs are the remnant

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cores of stars like our Sun. Extremely dense,

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roughly Earth sized, but retaining the mass

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of a full star. When two of them end up

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orbiting each other at uh, very close range,

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remarkable things can happen.

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Anna: In this case, the two white dwarfs are

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orbiting each other with a period of just

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8.56 minutes. To put that in

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perspective, the Earth takes

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365 days to orbit the Sun.

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These two stellar corpses are completing a

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full orbit in less than nine minutes.

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Avery: At uh, that proximity, gravity becomes

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overwhelming. One of the white dwarfs is

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actively stripping material from the other,

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pulling it apart and devouring it in what

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astronomers call a, uh, mass transfer. It's

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essentially a slow motion cosmic cannibalism.

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Anna: Led by emma Chikls at MIT's Kavli Institute,

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the research team says this gives us one of

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the clearest news yet of how ultra compact

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white dwarf binaries exchange mass at such

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extreme orbital periods. Previous

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observations of these systems have been

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limited, and many fundamental questions about

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how violent mass transfer can get in such

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tight orbits have remained unanswered.

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Avery: There's another dimension to this discovery

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that's particularly exciting for the future

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of astronomy. Systems like this one are

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prime targets for next generation

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gravitational wave detectors, space based

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observatories that will be able to detect the

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ripples in space time produced by these

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ultra compact binaries.

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Anna: So what we're seeing here isn't just a

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fascinating stellar spectacle. It's a

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signpost pointing toward gravitational

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astronomy. The tighter the orbit, the more

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intense the gravitational signal. And at

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eight and a half minutes, this system is

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generating waves that future detectors should

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be able to pick up directly.

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Avery: The findings are published in the

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Astrophysical. Even burnt out stellar

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cores, it turns out, can be torn apart under

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the right circumstances. Space is

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metal.

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Anna: It really, really is.

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Avery: We're going to close today's episode with

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something that feels almost like science

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fiction, but is very much science fact.

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If humans are ever going to live on Mars long

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term, they're going to need to eat. And that

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means growing food. But Martian soil, or

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regolith, to use the correct term, is

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toxic, nutrient, dead, and about as

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welcoming to plant life as a car park.

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Anna: Not for long, if researchers from the United

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States and Brazil have their way. Their new

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study, published in Frontiers in Astronomy

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and Space Sciences, proposes a biological

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solution. Fungi.

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Avery: Specifically, a group called beneficial

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fungi, organisms that have been promoting

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plant growth on Earth since long before

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humans arrived. The key players here are

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arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, or

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amf, which work by essentially acting as

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a microscopic extension of a plant's root

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system, dramatically increasing its ability

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to absorb nutrients.

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Anna: Martian regolith is critically deficient in

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three things plants need above, um, almost

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everything nitrogen, potassium, and

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phosphorus. It's also highly alkaline,

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perchlorate laden, and lacks the organic

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matter that makes Earth soil biologically

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active. The researchers propose that

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AMF and a related fungal species called

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Trichoderma could begin to overcome those

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deficiencies and transform the regolith into

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something biologically workable.

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Avery: What makes this particularly interesting is

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that these fungi have already been tested in

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space environments. Fungal species have been

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used on the International Space Station, and

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researchers are building an understanding of

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how they perform under the kind of abiotic

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stress, extreme temperatures, radiation,

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nutrient poverty that any organism on

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Mars would face.

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Anna: The team is candid that significant

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challenges remain before you're growing wheat

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in Martian regolith. Real world testing with

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actual Martian soil samples rather than

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simulants hasn't happened yet. But they're

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optimistic, and they frame this approach as a

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strategic biotechnological tool for what's

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called in situ resource utilization.

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Living off the land.

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Avery: The concept being, instead of shipping soil

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from Earth, which would be extraordinarily

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expensive and logistically nightmarish, and

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you bring a handful of carefully chosen

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microorganisms and let them do the

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terraforming at the microscale. Turn poison

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into farmland. One fungal threat at a

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time.

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Anna: It's patient science, but it's the kind of

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patient science that makes long duration Mars

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missions and eventually permanent human

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settlement imaginable. We'll be watching this

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research closely.

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Avery: And that's our Monday edition of Astronomy

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Daily, six stories from across the cosmos,

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from the launch pads of the Gobi Desert to

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the ocean floor of Sicily, from the surface

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of Mars to the edge of the observable

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universe.

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Anna: Thank you so much for spending part of your

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Monday with us. If you're enjoying the show,

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please take a moment to leave a review.

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Wherever you listen, it makes a real

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difference in helping new listeners find us.

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Avery: You can find us at astronomydaily, uh

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IO and follow us on X

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Instagram TikTok and more

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@astrodaily pod. All the links are

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in the show notes.

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Anna: We'll be back tomorrow with more of the

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latest from the Cosmos. Until then, keep your

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eyes on the

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Avery: skies and keep looking up.