April 17, 2026

'We Came Back as Best Friends' — Artemis II Speaks | Blue Origin Sunday | FYST Opens

'We Came Back as Best Friends' — Artemis II Speaks | Blue Origin Sunday | FYST Opens
Season 5

The heroes of Artemis II speak! Less than a week after their historic lunar flyby, Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen held their first full post-mission press conference — and their words were extraordinary. Plus: Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket is on the pad for Sunday's landmark first-ever booster reuse; a 34-year dream becomes reality as the world's highest telescope opens in the Chilean Andes; astronomers discover 33,000 hydrogen halos that were hiding the universe's missing fuel; tonight is your best chance to spot the brightest comet of the year; and a solar storm could paint the weekend skies with aurora.
Links & Sources • NASA Artemis II Postflight News Conference: nasa.gov/artemis-ii-news-and-updates • Blue Origin New Glenn NG-3: spaceflightnow.com • FYST Telescope Inauguration: news.cornell.edu • HETDEX Hydrogen Halos Study: hetdex.org / Astrophysical Journal • Comet C/2025 R3 Skywatching Guide: science.nasa.gov • Solar Activity & Aurora Forecast: earthsky.org

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They came back as best friends, and yesterday they told

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the world exactly what it felt like to fly around

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the Moon. The crew of Artemis two has held their

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first full press conference since splashdown, and what they said

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will give you chills.

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Also on today's show, Blue Origin is on the launch pad,

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ready to make history on Sunday with the world's first

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reuse heavy lift rocket booster. A brand new telescope has

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opened its eyes at nearly four miles above sea level

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in the Chilean Andes and astronomers have just found the

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missing fuel that powered the universe's greatest star making frenzy.

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I'm anna, this is Avery and this is Astronomy Daily

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for Friday, the seventeenth of April twenty twenty six. Let's

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get into it. Let's go, well, where do we even begin.

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Less than a week after splashing down in the Pacific

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Ocean off the coast of San Diego, the four astronauts

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of NASA's Artemis two mission sat down at NASA's Johnson's

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Space Center in Houston yesterday afternoon for their first full

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press conference, and it did not disappoint.

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I have to say watching the clips, these four people

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look like they've been on a journey together that nobody

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else on Earth can fully understand.

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That's exactly what Commander Reid Wiseman said. He told the room,

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we are bonded forever. I mean, that's the closest four

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humans can be and not be a family. We launched

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as friends and we came back as best friends.

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That is genuinely moving, and from someone who just flew

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a quarter million miles from Earth, you believe every word.

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The four crew. Wiseman, Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Cock,

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and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen covered everything their

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experience aboard Orion's Integrity Capsule, the view of the Moon

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from closer than any human eyes have seen it in

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more than fifty years, what it felt like to be

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so far from home.

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Victor Glover said he was grateful in a way that

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was simply too big to hold inside one body. His words,

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and Hansen spoke about looking out the window and seeing

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the depth of the galaxy and a powerful sense of

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what it means to be human.

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Pac had one of the most touching moments of the

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entire press conference. She said her nurse on the Navy

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recovery ship asked her for a hug after they came

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out of the water, and she called it one of

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many great human moments that Booke ended the mission. She said,

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Artemis two taught her the true meaning of being part

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of a crew.

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Now, and this is the bit that really fires up

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the imagination. Wiseman was asked directly is landing on the

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Moon actually achievable soon? His answer was emphatic.

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He said, and I'm paraphrasing here. It is not the

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leap I thought it was. It's going to be extreme

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technically challenging, but this team needs to show up every

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day knowing it is absolutely doable, and it's doable soon.

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He even went further. He said, if they had a

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lunar lander aboard integrity like the Apollo ten crew did

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back in nineteen sixty nine, they would have taken it

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down to the surface. If you had given us the

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keys to the lander, we would have landed on the moon.

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Wow. And Henson back that up, saying the teams need

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to be willing to take a little more risk and

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solve problems in real time.

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Wiseman also had high praise for the Orion spacecraft and

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the Space Launch system. His personal opinion, and he was clear.

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It was just his opinion was that NASA could put

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the Artemis three Orion on the SLS tomorrow, launch it

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and the crew would be in great shape. This vehicle

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really handled very well.

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NASA has confirmed that Artemis three preparations are already underway

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at the Vehicle Asssembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, with

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that mission targeting a low Earth orbit demonstration in mid

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twenty twenty seven, and the lunar landing now penciled in

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for Artemis four in early twenty twenty eight.

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The crew is currently undergoing post flight reconditioning, physical evaluations

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and lunar science debriefs. Back in Houston, scientists say the

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findings from this mission will keep them busy for months,

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possibly years. And as for those four astronauts, they earned

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a good long.

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Rest, best friends. At four miles above sea level in

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the Pacific. What a story.

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Where are we going to now, avery Blue Origin?

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That's right, moving from the Moon to the launch pad,

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because Blue Origin is about to do something genuinely historic.

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Yesterday at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex thirty six, Blue Origin

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successfully completed a static fire test of its new Glen

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rocket Ahead of the NG three mission, which is currently

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targeting a sun morning liftoff at six forty five am

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Eastern Time. And what makes this mission truly special isn't

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just where it's going, it's what's powering it.

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This will be the first time New Glen's first stage

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has ever been reused. The booster, affectionately named never Tell

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Me the Odds, previously flew on the NG two mission

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back in November twenty twenty five, delivering NASA's twin Escapade

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March Probes two orbit and then successfully landing on the

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drone ship Jackline.

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Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp confirmed that while it is

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indeed the same boostershell, the company chose to replace all

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seven BEE four engines and test some upgrades, including a

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new thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles.

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The static fire test yesterday ran for thirty eight seconds,

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with all seven engines performing nominally and hitting one hundred

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percent thrust for twenty two of those seconds.

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NG three's payload is a Block two Bluebird satellite for

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Texas company ASTC Space Mobile, part of their direct to

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cell phone internet constellation. The Block two Bluebird is one

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of the largest commercial satellites in orbit, boarding a staggering

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twenty four hundred square foot antenna.

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Blue Origin also announced this week that it's building a

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second launch facility for New Glen at Vandenberg Space for

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Space in California, which will give the rocket polar orbit capabilities.

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Each New Glen first stage is designed to fly at

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least twenty five times, So Sunday goes well, Never tell

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me the Odds has a long career ahead of it.

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We will absolutely be watching that one Sunday morning. Fingers crossed.

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Now here's a story that feels like science fiction, except

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it's very very real.

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I love this one. How high do you have to

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build a telescope before you're basically in space?

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Well, the new Fredjung's Submillimeter Telescope or FYST pronounced FEAST

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sits at eighteen thousand, four hundred feet above sea level.

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That's higher than the Mount Everest base camp. It's so

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high that every single person who attended the inauguration ceremony

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on April to ninth had to pass a medical exam

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and carries supplemental oxygen the entire time they were up there.

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That's an extraordinary commitment to cutting edge science. Also oxygen

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at a telescope opening. That's a first.

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Beast sits on the summit of Saro Chahanantor in Chile's

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at Akama Desert, already one of the driest clearest places

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on Earth for astronomy. The telescope's six meter primary mirror

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was built in Germany from a special steel alloy called

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invar tozen because it barely expands or contracts with temperature changes.

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It was then disassembled, shipped across the Atlantic by cargo vessel,

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trucked three hundred miles across the Andes, and reassembled at

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the summit. The heaviest single piece weighed sixty tons.

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The logistics alone are mind boggling, and this project has

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been third thirty four years in the making. Cornell University

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scientists first imagined it back in nineteen ninety two.

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It's a project of the Cornell led CCAT Observatory collaboration

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involving institutions from Germany, Canada and Chile, and what it

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will actually do is fascinating. FEAST operates in submillimeter wavelengths,

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a part of the spectrum that passes straight through dust

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that blocks visible light. That means it can see star

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formation happening inside dense molecular clouds. It will map galaxy

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clusters across cosmic history. It will probe the epic of reionization,

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the period after the Big Bang, when the first stars

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lit up the universe.

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And its instrument, PRIMECAM, can hold up to seven interchangeable

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detector modules with over one hundred thousand superconducting detectors. They

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say its mapping speed is more than ten times faster

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than any previous submillimeter observatory.

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Martha Haynes, president of the CCAT board, said, and I

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love this quote. When we first went there and realized

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what an exceptional site, Sero Chehantur might be, submillimeter astronomy

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as a field wasn't advanced enough for us to be

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able to build the telescope and its instruments. But now

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it is, and we have fyst to show for our

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patients and determination.

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Thirty four years of patience. That's dedication.

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First Light is expected in the coming months when it

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opens its eyes, a whole new window on the universe

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opens with.

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It now for discovery that rewrites what we thought we

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knew about the early universe, and that involves some seriously

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epic cosmic structures.

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Astronomers have long theorized that early galaxies must have been

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surrounded by vast reservoirs of hydrogen gas, the raw fuel

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for making stars. During a period astronomers call cosmic Noon

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roughly ten to twelve billion years ago, galaxies were forming

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stars faster than it any other time in cosmic history.

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To do that, they needed enormous supplies of hydrogen.

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But here's the problem. Until very recently, astronomers had only

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found about three thousand of these hydrogen halos, called Lieman

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alpha nebulae. The theory said they should be everywhere, The

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data said we can only find the handful.

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Well, consider that mystery solved. A team using data from

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the Hobby Eberley Telescope Dark Energy Experiment HETDX has just

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published a landmark study in the Astrophysical Journal reporting the

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discovery of over thirty three thousand of these hydrogen halos.

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That's a tenfold increase overnight.

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From three thousand to thirty three thousand. That is not

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a small revision to the textbook. That's a whole new chapter.

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Lead author Aaron Menta Cooper, hetdex's data manager put it beautifully.

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We've been analyzing the same handful of objects. For the

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past twenty or so years, het Decks is letting us

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find many more of these halos and measure their shapes

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and sizes. It's allowed us to create an amazing statistical catalog.

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And the halos themselves are extraordinary. Some are simple football

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shaped clouds wrapped around the single galaxy, but others, the

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ones the team loves most, are sprawling, irregular blobs containing

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multiple galaxies with tendrils of hydrogen gas extending hundreds of

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thousands of light years into space. Menta Cooper described them

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as looking like giant amibas.

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The heat Deck survey has captured nearly a half petabyte

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of data, covering a region of sky equivalent to more

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than two thousand full moons, and the instrument produces one

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hundred thousand spectra in a single observation. The scale is unprecedented.

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What this means going forward is that astronomers now have

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the statistical sample they've always needed to really understand how

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galaxies grew. These halos aren't rare curiosity cities. They're the

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normal environment of young galaxies. They were always there, We

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just head into tools to find.

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Them until now.

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All right, this next one requires you to put down

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the podcast and go outside. Ideally tonight.

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NASA has flagged that today, Friday, the seventeenth of April

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is potentially your best opportunity to spot comet c SLASH

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twenty twenty five R three, which some skywatchers think could

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be the brightest comet of the year.

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The commt will make its closest approach to Earth on

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April twenty seventh, coming in within about forty four million

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miles of our planet, but tonight's timing is being highlighted

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specifically because of where the comet sits in the sky

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and the quality of the viewing geometry.

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A quick heads up on brightness. The comet is expected

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to reach around magnitude eight, which means you will need

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a binoculars or a small telescope to spot it. It

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won't be a naked eye spectacle, but through optics it

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should show a nice coma and possibly a tail.

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For viewers in the Northern Hemisphere, you're looking in the

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eastern Predon sky through the constellations Pegasus and Pisces. This

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window runs through the end of April. For us in

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the Southern Hemisphere, stay tuned. The comet shifts to evening

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visibility in early May, which is actually when it will

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be most accessible for southern.

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Skies, and tonight is particularly special because it's also the

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new Moon, which means no lunar glare washing out the

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sky if you're in a dark location. Tonight is genuinely

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one of the best nights this month for any kind

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of deep sky observation, commet or otherwise.

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So charge up those binoculars and maybe set an alarm

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for a couple of hours before sunrise.

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And finally, a word for our Aurora watching listeners, because

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the sun has had a busy few days.

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Over the past week, the solar phar site has been

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popping off with a series of large coronal mass ejections,

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three significant blasts in quick succession. While these events originated

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on the side of the Sun facing away from Earth,

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so they pose no direct threat, there's a separate source

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of solar activity that is heading our way.

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A co rotating interaction region essentially a region of compressed

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solar wind where fast moving solar wind catches up with

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slower material ahead of it, combined with a high speed

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stream from a coronal hole, is expected to reach Earth

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later today or tomorrow. Base weather forecasters are predicting unsettled

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to active geomagnetic conditions with a chance of reaching G

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one minor geomagnetic storm levels tonight.

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And tomorrow Saturday. Conditions may escalate further with the possibility

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of G one to G two moderate storm levels as

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that fast solar wind continues to arrive.

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What does that mean for Aurora watchers? If you're at

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latitudes above about fifty degrees so Canada, Northern Europe, New Zealand,

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South Island, keep your eyes on the southern or northern horizon,

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depending on your hemisphere, and are you ready to act?

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D one to G two storms can produce displays visible

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well away from the polar regions.

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And for those of US further north or south. Even

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in Australia, a G two storm has occasionally produced Aurora

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at mid latitudes. Not a guarantee, but worth a check

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on your Aurora alert apps tonight and Saturday night.

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The Sun never sleeps, and apparently neither do we.

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And that is a wrap on Astronomy Daily for Friday,

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the seventeenth of April twenty twenty six. What an episode

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Moon Travelers reflecting on the journey of a lifetime. A

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rocket ready to make history on Sunday, a telescope, the

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height of the Cosmos, hydrogen halos, the size of small galaxies,

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a comet to chase tonight, and an Aurora alert for

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the weekend. Is there anything the universe doesn't have on

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offer right now?

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Honestly, never a dull moment. If you enjoyed today's show,

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please take a moment to leave us a rating or

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review wherever you listen. It really does make a difference,

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and find us on Instagram, TikTok x, and Tumblr. We're

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at astro Daily Pod. We love hearing from you.

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Until next time, keep looking up. There's a lot going

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on out there.

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This has been Astronomy Daily, Goodbye for now. Sunny Day.

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Stars to

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Start