Space News Update: SMILE Satellite's Historic Launch | Starship V3 Delayed | Snappy's Quest to Detect Solar Neutrinos

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Anna: How cool is this? Right now, as you're

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listening to this, a rocket is in space.

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A brand new satellite is on its way to a very

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unusual orbit, one that will take it a, uh,

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third of the way to the moon. And it's going

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to do something no spacecraft has ever done

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before. Take X ray pictures of Earth's

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own magnetic field.

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Avery: And that's just story one.

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Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily, the

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podcast that brings you the universe fresh

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every single day. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm Avery. This is season five, episode

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106. And today, Tuesday,

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May 19, 2026, we have

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a genuinely packed show.

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Anna: We've got a historic launch that happened

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just hours ago. We've got the world's most

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powerful rocket sitting on a brand new pad

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ready to fly. Well, almost ready.

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There's a slight schedule adjustment. We'll

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explain. And we've got a warning from

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scientists that the rocket boom itself might

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be quietly changing our atmosphere.

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Avery: Plus a, uh, shoebox sized detector that could

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let us see the core of the sun. Some

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extraordinary news from Antarctic ice, and a

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clever new telescope that listens to the

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ancient universe in a completely new way.

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Anna: Six stories. Let's get into it.

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Avery: Our first story is happening right now, or

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more precisely, it happened in the early

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hours of this morning. If you're listening

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from Australia or New

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Anna: Zealand, at 5:52 in the morning,

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Central European time, a, uh, European

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Vega C rocket lifted off from the M. Guillot

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Guiana Space center in Kourou, French Guiana.

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And aboard it was a spacecraft called Smile.

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Avery: Smile, which stands for Deep Breath

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Solar Wind, Magnetosphere

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Ionosphere Link Explorer,

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a name

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Anna: that is almost impressively unwieldy for

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something this elegant.

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Avery: But what it's going to do is genuinely

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beautiful. Smile is a joint mission between

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the European Space Agency and the Chinese

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Academy of Sciences. Its entire purpose

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is to study how Earth responds to the sun.

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Not the sun itself, but the interaction,

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that invisible battle between solar wind and

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our planet's magnetic shield.

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Anna: And it's going to do two things that have

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never been done before. First, it will take

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X ray images of Earth's magnetic field,

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specifically the boundary where the solar

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wind rams into the magnetosphere. That

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boundary is called the magnetopause, and no

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spacecraft has ever imaged it in X rays.

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Avery: Second, Smile will watch the aurora, the

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northern lights, continuously for up to

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45 hours at a time in

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ultraviolet. Most aurora observations are

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snapshots. Smile will give us a full

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movie.

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Anna: To do all this, it needs a very

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unusual orbit. After claunch, it'll fire

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its engine 11 times over 25

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days to maneuver into a highly elliptical

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path, swinging out to 121,000

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km above the north Pole, then

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diving back down to just 5,000

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km above the south Pole.

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Avery: That's almost a third of the way to the Moon.

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At its furthest point.

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Anna: It's carrying four science instruments, a

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soft X ray imager, an ultraviolet

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aurora imager, a light ion

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analyzer and a magnetometer. And it

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has a planned mission lifetime of three

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years.

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Avery: Worth mooting too. This is the seventh flight

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of a Vega C rocket and the first time

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Italian manufacturer Avio operated the

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vehicle directly, replacing Ariana Space

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which ran the previous six flights.

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So multiple milestones today, space weather

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is

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Anna: something that affects all of us. It disrupts

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satellites, threatens power grids and poses

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real risks to astronauts. Smile won't just

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do pure science. It'll help us predict

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dangerous storms earlier and protect the

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technology we rely on and the people we're

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sending into space.

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Avery: There's also a geopolitical subplot here.

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Worth a moment of your time. ESA and China

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built this mission together from scratch.

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Jointly designed, jointly built, jointly

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operated. Meanwhile, uh, NASA has been

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legally barred from bilateral cooperation

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with Chinese space entities since 2011

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under the so called Wolf amendment. So

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Smile is quietly saying something about how

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different parts of the western space

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community see that question.

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Anna: And it's now in space. Smile is

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go now. If you woke up today

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expecting to watch a Starship launch,

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SpaceX has a small apology for you.

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Avery: The debut flight of Starship V3 was

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originally targeting today. Tuesday it

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slipped to Wednesday and now it has slipped

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again to Thursday, May 21 with

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a launch window opening at 6:30pm Eastern

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Time, which is 8:30am Friday morning

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in Sydney.

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Anna: SpaceX hasn't explained why publicly.

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Likely some final closeout and pre fight

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check work. Road closures around the Starbase

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site in Texas remain in place through the end

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of Thursday, which at least tells us Thursday

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is still a live target.

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Avery: But let's talk about what is sitting on that

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pad. Because Starship V3 is

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genuinely a step change from what came

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before. When stacked Starship

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V3 stands over 400ft tall,

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about 123 meters, making it the

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largest and most powerful rocket ever built.

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It pairs booster 19 with ship 39

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and both are running the new Raptor 3

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engines.

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Anna: The Raptor 3 is a meaningful upgrade.

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Sea level variants now produce

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250 tons of thrust each,

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up from 230 previously.

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Vacuum engines push to 275

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tons. The engines are lighter down to

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about 1525 kilograms each

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and have an integrated design that eliminates

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individual engine shrouds. There are also

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savings across the whole vehicle, running to

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roughly a ton per engine.

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Avery: The payload capacity is eye watering.

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Starship V3 can carry more than 100

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metric tons to low Earth orbit in full

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reuse configuration, roughly triple what

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the previous version could manage.

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Anna: And this is also the first launch from

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orbital launch pad 2 at Starbase, meaning

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SpaceX can now have two rockets being

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prepared simultaneously rather than one.

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That's a huge step toward the launch cadence

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Elon Musk needs for his Mars ambitions.

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Avery: For Flight 12 itself. Both the booster and

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the ship will target controlled splashdowns

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rather than a tower catch a deliberate step

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back in ambition to validate the new

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architecture first before chasing the

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spectacular. The booster will come down in

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the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America.

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About seven minutes after launch, ship

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39 will splash down in the Indian Ocean off

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Western Australia, about an hour into the

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mission.

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Anna: During that flight, the ship will also deploy

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20 dummy Starlink satellites, relight

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a single Raptor engine in space, and

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deliberately fly with one heat shield tile

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removed to measure what happen happens

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aerodynamically when a tile is missing.

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Avery: The stakes here are enormous. NASA

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needs Starship to serve as the human landing

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system for Artemis 4, a crewed lunar

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landing now targeted for 2028.

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SpaceX still needs to demonstrate in orbit

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refueling at scale, a process requiring more

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than 10 tanker flights to fuel a single

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moon mission. Starship V3 is the

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vehicle designed to make that economically

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possible.

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Anna: Watch this space.

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Quite literally, here's a story that connects

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directly to everything we just talked about.

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All those rocket launches, all those Starlink

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satellites might be doing something to our

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atmosphere that nobody planned and nobody

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is regulating.

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Avery: A major new study published in the journal

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Earth's Future, led by researchers at AH

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University College London, has done the most

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comprehensive analysis yet of air pollution

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from satellite mega constellations. The

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Starlinks, Amazon's Kuiper satellites, the

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Chinese Guang and Tian Fan systems.

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Anna: And what they found is genuinely alarming.

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When a rocket launches, it burns kerosene

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fuel and produces black carbon

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soot that gets injected directly into the

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upper layers of the atmosphere. And unlike

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soot from cars or power plants at ground

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level, this high altitude soot, uh, lingers

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for two and a half to three years

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because of how

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Avery: long it stays up there. The climate effect of

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rocket launched black carbon is about

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540 times greater per unit

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than such from ground level sources. Not a

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typo. 540 times

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by 2029.

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Anna: The UCL team projects that mega

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constellations will account for 42%

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of the total climate impact of the entire

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space sector, up from 35% in

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2020. And they note that their estimate is

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probably conservative because the actual

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number of launches since they gathered their

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data has already exceeded their projections.

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Avery: What makes this particularly thorny is what

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the accumulation starts to resemble.

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Scientists have for years discussed a

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controversial climate intervention called

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stratospheric aerosol injection. The

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idea of deliberately spraying reflective

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particles into the upper atmosphere to block

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a fraction of sunl and cool the planet.

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The space industry is essentially beginning

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to do accidentally a version of this.

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Anna: Professor Eloise Meriz, who led the study,

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used a striking phrase. She called it a

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small scale, unregulated

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geoengineering experiment that could have

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many unintended and serious environmental

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consequences.

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Avery: The effect right now is small. We're talking

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about 100th of the concentration needed for a

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meaningful geoengineering intervention. And

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there's even a slight net cooling effect from

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the soot, which sounds positive, but comes

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with the same caveats as all

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unpredictable impacts on rainfall, weather

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patterns and the ozone layer.

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Anna: The ozone layer, by the way, is also

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affected. Launches and re entries produce

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chemicals and particles that speed up ozone

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depleting reactions. The team found that by

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2029 the global ozone impact

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is still small, about

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0.02% deplet. But

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the trajectory is heading in the wrong

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direction.

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Avery: SpaceX has recently applied for permission to

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launch 1 million Starlink satellites

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on top of the roughly 12,000 already in

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orbit. 1 million. If even a

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fraction of those are launched, the picture

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changes significantly.

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Anna: The researchers are calling for proper

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regulation of launch related pollution,

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something that currently barely exists, and

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significantly more research funding to even

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keep pace with the industry's growth.

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Avery: It's one of those stories where the

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technology and the environmental impact are

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running at completely different speeds.

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Anna: Before we move on to our next piece of news,

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a quick reminder to check out the great deal

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win win to me. For full details, just

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click on the link in the show. Notes.

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Avery: You forgot to mention, NORDVPN is the one we

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trust to look after us online. We love them.

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Anna: Alright, back to today's space and astronomy

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news and let's go small for a moment.

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Very small, like shoebox small.

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Avery: On May 3, a SpaceX rideshare

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mission carried a tiny satellite into low

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Earth orbit. A uh, 3U cubesat,

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meaning it's about 30cm long and

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10cm wide. It goes by the name

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Snappy, which stands for Solar

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Neutrino Astroparticle physics.

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Anna: And Snappy is quietly a, uh, historic

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first. It is the world's first neutrino

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detector to ever operate in space.

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Avery: Neutrinos are extraordinary particles.

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They're produced in enormous quantities by

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nuclear reactions, including the fusion

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happening in the core of the sun right now.

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Every second, hundreds of billions of

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solar neutrinos pass through your thumbnail.

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They barely interact with anything. They go

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straight through the Earth as though it isn't

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there.

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Anna: Which makes detecting them extraordinarily

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difficult. All our existing neutrino

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detectors are massive underground facilities,

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hanks containing thousands of tons of water

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or ice, buried deep in mountains or

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frozen in Antarctic glaciers. You need

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enormous amounts of material to have any

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chance of catching a neutrino.

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Avery: Snappy is the opposite of that. It's a tiny

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detector made of crystals of gallium and

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tungsten sitting in a satellite orbiting at

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500 km altitude. The whole thing

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was designed by physicist Nicholas Salome at

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uh, Wichita State University with electronics

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from NASA Marshall.

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Anna: It won't detect many neutrinos. The detector

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mass is far too small for that. This is

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explicitly a proof of concept. The goal

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is to answer one question. Can space

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based neutrino detection work at all?

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Because if it can, the next step is

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extraordinary.

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Avery: Salome has described the end goal as, and I

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love this phrase, putting a microscope into

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the core of the Sun. A larger detector on

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a future mission could fly close enough to

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the sun to directly image the fusion shells

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around the solar core. We would be able to

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see in real time what is happening inside the

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most powerful nuclear furnace in our solar

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system.

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Anna: Snappy is currently undergoing on orbit

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testing. Its two year mission is just

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beginning. And if it works, it opens a

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completely new chapter in both solar

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science and neutrino astronomy.

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Avery: Big things, shoebox sized

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packages next.

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Anna: This is the story that if you stop and think

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about it properly, will make you feel things

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M Our solar

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Avery: system is not sitting still in empty space.

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It's moving constantly through the Milky Way.

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And right now we are passing through a region

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known as the local interstellar cloud.

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A vast thin region of gas and dust between

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the stars.

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Anna: As we move through it. Earth is sweeping up

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material from this cloud, including something

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called iron 60. Iron 60

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is a radioactive isotope of iron that

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isn't produced naturally on Earth. It can

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only be made in one place inside

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a dying star in the moments of a

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supernova explosion.

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Avery: A new study led by researchers at Germany's

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Helmholtz Centrum Dresden. Rostorf has

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confirmed something remarkable. They analyzed

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Antarctic ice cores, ice that has been

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accumulating for tens of thousands of years,

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layer by layer, trapping whatever drifted

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down from the atmosphere at the time. And in

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that ancient ice, they found Iron 60

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steadily arriving, varying over time,

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but persistently there.

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Anna: The pattern of how the iron 60 arrives and

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the way it varies tells the researchers that

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this material has been stored inside the

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local interstellar cloud since a stellar

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explosion that happened long, long ago.

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And as Earth moves through the cloud, it

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picks some up.

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Avery: Think about what that means. The ice in

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Antarctica is preserving a record of our

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solar system's journey through the galaxy.

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The atoms that blew off a dying star are now

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sitting in the ice at the South Pole, and

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scientists can read that record.

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Anna: The study also helps scientists understand

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the structure and boundaries of the local

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interstellar cloud, a region whose edges and

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properties are still being mapped. Our

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solar system has been inside it for tens of

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thousands of years and will eventually exit

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it, moving into whatever lies beyond.

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Avery: We are quite literally moving through space,

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and the universe is leaving fingerprints on

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our planet as we go. I find that

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extraordinary.

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Anna: Our final story today is about a problem that

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has frustrated astronomers for decades, and a

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clever new instrument that might solve it.

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Avery: The early universe is full of ancient

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galaxies, galaxies that formed when the

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universe was young, when star formation was

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happening at an extraordinary rate. But

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they're so far away and so faint that even

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our most powerful telescopes struggle to

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study them.

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Anna: Individually, though, astronomers have done

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something ingenious. Instead of trying to

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resolve individual galaxies, they've built an

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instrument that looks at a whole crowd of

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them at once and tracks one spectral

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line across the entire population.

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Watching how that line changes over time and

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across cosmic distances gives you a

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statistical picture of what all those

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galaxies are doing collectively.

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Avery: The instrument is called time, the

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Tomographic Ionized Carbon Mapping

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Instrument. And, um, the spectral line it

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focuses on comes from ionized carbon, a

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tracer for star formation. Carbon emission

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tells you where gas is being turned into

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stars.

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Anna: Time essentially makes a three dimensional

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map of carbon emission across huge

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stretches of cosmic history. You're not

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seeing individual galaxies, you're. You're

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seeing the aggregate glow of star formation

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across the ancient universe, shifted and

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stretched by cosmic expansion.

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Avery: The tomographic part of the name is key.

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Tomography means imaging by slices, like a

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CT scan. But for the cosmos, time

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slices through cosmic time by measuring how

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the carbon line appears at different

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frequencies, each corresponding to a

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different distance and era.

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Anna: It's a bit like trying to study a

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conversation in a crowded room. You can't

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hear every individual voice, but you

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can measure the overall hum, how it changes

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over time, when it gets louder, when it

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fades. And from that you learn an

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enormous amount about the crowd.

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Avery: Time represents a new class of cosmological

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instruments, one designed not for precision

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individual observation, but for the

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statistics of the universe at scale. And the

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first results are already showing promise.

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Anna: It's a reminder that sometimes the most

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powerful approach isn't to look harder at

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one thing, it's to look differently at

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everything.

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Avery: Before we wrap up, a quick look at the sky

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for our Southern Hemisphere and Australian

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listeners.

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Anna: And there's something genuinely lovely

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happening right now in the western sky after

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sunset.

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Avery: Venus is blazing in the evening sky. It's one

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of the brightest things you can see after the

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sun goes down. And over the next few nights,

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the crescent moon will be moving past it,

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creating a beautiful close pairing in the

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west. Look low on the western horizon about

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45 minutes to an hour after sunset. You won't

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need binoculars.

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Anna: And looking ahead to the end of the month,

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mark May 31st in your calendar, we

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get a full moon and it's a blue moon, the

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second full moon in a single calendar month.

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It won't actually look blue, but it is a

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rarer event and it'll be a beautiful full

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moon to observe clear skies, everyone.

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That is Astronomy daily for Tuesday, May

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19th. Six stories, one launch day,

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one rocket sitting on a brand new pad and a,

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uh, shoebox changing the future of physics.

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Avery: If you enjoyed today's episode, please

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00:19:49.760 --> 00:19:51.960
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and

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00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:54.000
leave us a review. It really does help new

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00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:56.320
listeners find the show. You can find us at

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astronomydaily IO and we're

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@astrodaily pod on all the major platforms.

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Anna: Astronomy Daily is part of the bites.com

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00:20:04.390 --> 00:20:07.070
podcast network. We'll be back tomorrow with

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more of the universe freshly delivered.

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Avery: See you then.