Episodes

Astronomy Daily S05E154 — “The Reach of a Giant.” Thursday, 30 July 2026. Hosted by Anna and Avery. In this episode • A supermassive black hole caught heating and stirring an entire galaxy cluster — turbulence reaching ~300,000 light-years, about 100× more energetic than expected (XRISM / quasar H1821+643). • Why some “clean” white dwarfs are secretly feasting: magnetic fields funnel shredded planetary debris to the poles, aurora-style, hiding the meal. • NASA’s Psyche used its Mars flyby as a d...

Astronomy Daily · S05E153 · Wednesday 29 July 2026. Four stories from the frontier of space and astronomy, plus a both-hemispheres look at the sky — and news of our brand-new website. In this episode • Betelgeuse is not alone. ESO’s VLT/SPHERE has captured the clearest direct image yet of Betelgeuse B, the long-suspected companion to the famous red supergiant — ending a roughly century-long search. Published 28 July 2026 in Astronomy & Astrophysics (Montargès, Boccaletti et al.). The companion i...

Astronomy Daily S05E152 — “Reading the Heat” · Tuesday 28 July 2026. Hosts Anna & Avery. NASA’s Juno spacecraft has taken the first-ever temperature reading beneath the surface of Io, Jupiter’s volcanic moon — and the technique behind it could reshape how we study icy ocean moons and even volcanoes on Earth. We also look at why JWST’s “Little Red Dots” might be globular clusters being born, the first SETI search built from archived ALMA data (and its six-million-star surprise), and a live burst ...

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 89 A lucky 13th test flight for the world’s biggest rocket The world’s largest and most powerful rocket has successfully launched on its latest test flight bringing it a step closer to NASA’s Artemis program’s aim of returning humans to the lunar surface, and eventually on to Mars and beyond. Scientists identify the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs A new study has determined that the asteroid which slammed into the Earth 66 million years ago wiping out over 75 perce...

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 88 The hellish planets orbiting a nearby star Astronomers have painted the most detailed portrait yet of the planetary system orbiting Barnard’s Star – the Sun’s closest stellar neighbour after Alpha Centauri, just under six light-years away. Australia’s role in India’s manned space program India’s manned space program is moving ahead with the commissioning of a new space tracking station on Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The latest mission to the International ...

Astronomy Daily · S05E150 · “Lucky Thirteen” · Saturday 25 July 2026. Your Weekend Wrap: Starship Flight 13 finally flies and floats, the strongest exomoon candidate yet, a robotic satellite-servicer on its way to GEO, and what the Moon’s far side reveals about Earth — plus a both-hemispheres skywatch. In this episode Chapter Segment 00:00 Cold open & headlines 01:30 LEAD: Starship Flight 13 flies — softest splashdown yet, first real Starlink V3 deploy 09:00 Exo-satellite at CD-35 2722 — stronge...

Astronomers have confirmed the first moon-like object beyond our solar system — and immediately discovered our vocabulary cannot handle it. A Jupiter-mass world orbits a brown dwarf, which orbits a red dwarf, seventy light-years away. Is it a moon? A planet? Something we have not named yet? Also on today’s show: the Milky Way’s most powerful particle accelerator is confirmed in the direction of Altair, out-punching the Large Hadron Collider by a factor of a hundred. Chandra catches a black hole ...

Astronomy Daily S05E148 — "Far Side" Thursday 23 July 2026 Starship gets a second shot at Flight 13 — with a schedule caveat worth knowing about. The first far-side lunar samples reveal that Earth has been quietly shielding the side of the Moon that faces us. Astronomers debate whether the lunar far side should be closed to industry. The Milky Way's only helium nova finally steps out from behind twenty-five years of dust. And the case that our entire galaxy once turned over. Plus a skywatch clos...

Discoveries on Mars, the Hubble Tension, and Dark Photons - Space Nuts Episode Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they explore the latest developments in space science—from evidence of complex organic molecules found by the Perseverance rover on Mars that may hint at past life, to the ongoing mystery of the Hubble tension that challenges our understanding of the universe's expansion. Plus, a deep dive into the elusive concept of dark photons and their potential role in explaining ...

Astronomy Daily — S05E147: "Space Mechanic" Wednesday 22 July 2026 A spacecraft with robotic arms is on its way to geostationary orbit to keep other satellites alive. A discarded rocket stage is two weeks out from hitting the Moon, and twenty-three astronomers have just asked the world to watch. Plus the first binary star system where both stars exploded, the first complete magnetic map of a galaxy cluster, and the asteroid breakup that may have bombarded three worlds while Earth froze. In This ...

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 87 Ancient impacts display the red planet’s past history A new study has shown how ancient Martian rocks exposed on the rim of Jezero Crater are preserving a 3.9-billion-year-old “weather report” from the solar system’s most dynamic era. Understanding of the Moon’s regolith for human habitation Scientists have mapped out the thickness of the Moon’s regolith, the layer of loose dust and rock that covers the entire lunar surface finding it averages about six meters in t...

Astronomy Daily · S05E146 · “Postcards from Mars” · Tuesday 21 July 2026 NASA’s Psyche probe phones home from its Mars flyby — data and a spellbinding month-long time-lapse — as Europe’s Plato planet-hunter clears its final test. From the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting: a CubeSat that could give us hours of solar-storm warning, and a new way to forecast the Sun’s next active spell. Plus the first pieces of the giant ngVLA radio array, and a Southern Hemisphere meteor sho...

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 86 The asteroid collision that changed life on Earth forever Astronomers have linked a massive collision in the main asteroid belt to a huge meteor bombardment in the inner solar system that may have changed life on Earth. Alien chemistry discovered in meteorite that hit New Jersey home Scientists have discovered high concentrations of salt in briny fluids that could potentially create molecules crucial to life in a meteorite that slammed into a New Jersey home in 202...

Astronomy Daily S05E145 — “Arrival” — Monday, 20 July 2026. On the 57th anniversary of Apollo 11, we cover a first-of-its-kind launch, a Mars flyby science haul, a four-billion-year-old Martian record, a habitable-zone world with a likely atmosphere, shrimp feeding in simulated microgravity, and the new science of listening to black holes ring. In This Episode (01:30) India goes private in orbit — Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 aces its debut “Mission Aagaman,” making India the third nation with a...

Sponsor Link: NordVPN - Secure your online presence with our exclusive offer for Space Nuts listeners. Check out www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts (https://www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts) for details. In this engaging Q&A episode of Space Nuts, Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson dive into listener inquiries that span the cosmos. From the intriguing concept of black hole evaporation to the mysteries of Jupiter's atmosphere and the latest on the Artemis 2 mission, this episode is packed with fascinatin...

Astronomy Daily — The Weekend Space and Astronomy News Wrap | Saturday 18 July 2026 | S05E144 Anna and Avery wrap the biggest week in space news this year: brand-new research warning that extreme solar storms may hit harder than our models assume, and the delightful news that South African rooibos tea seeds are headed for the International Space Station — plus the four stories that defined the week, from the first atmosphere ever found on a rocky habitable-zone world to Starship's dramatic T-0 a...

Astronomy Daily — S05E143 | Friday 17 July 2026 | "A World With Air" Anna and Avery bring you a genuine milestone: the first atmosphere ever detected on a rocky planet in the habitable zone of another star. Plus Starship's last-second launch abort, the New Jersey bedroom meteorite carrying life's ingredients, the earliest galaxy-building ever seen, metallic dunes on Mars, and a Moon–Venus meeting in tonight's sky. In this episode 01:45 — A world with air. Astronomers detect helium escaping from ...

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 85 Detecting nuclear weapons in space New modelling says small cube-sat sized spacecraft not much bigger than a fridge could be used to detect the presence of nuclear weapons on satellites in space. NASA’s rescue mission to save the Swift space telescope reaches orbit NASA’s Swift re-boost rescue mission is finally on its way to intercept the gamma ray space telescope and try to save it from its fiery fate. Stopping astronauts from wanting to kill each other on long s...

Anna and Avery kick off with a decade-long game of cosmic hide-and-seek that has finally ended: Beta Pictoris d, the faintest exoplanet ever directly imaged from Earth, found lurking in more than ten years of archival images — and orbiting a star in the southern constellation Pictor. Then it's the completion of VLASS, the sharpest radio map of the whole sky ever made, arriving just as the Rubin Observatory's optical survey switches on. The James Webb Space Telescope has caught a supermassive bla...

Sponsor Link: NordVPN ...protect yourself and save with our specoial deal Visit www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts (https://www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts) for details. Revealing the Secrets of Space and the Cosmos: Insights from Space Nuts Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they explore the fascinating universe—from a historic telescope in Melbourne to the latest discoveries in black hole physics and our own solar system. This episode offers a blend of awe-inspiring science, historical stori...

Astronomy Daily — S05E141 | Wednesday 15 July 2026 Anna and Avery bring you the biggest space and astronomy news of the day: Starship Flight 13 is cleared for Thursday after the FAA closes its Flight 12 investigation and SpaceX reveals exactly what went wrong; NASA astronaut Anil Menon rides a Soyuz to the ISS on his first flight; astronomers finally find the first of Omega Centauri’s 10,000 "missing" black holes; the first-ever medical X-rays taken in space are published; four white dwarfs are ...