Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates

Today on Astronomy Daily: NASA's Artemis II moon rocket has arrived at Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, with a launch target of April 1st — the first crewed mission beyond Earth orbit in over 53 years. Plus: astronomers have discovered the first-ever mass-transferring brown dwarf binary; Hubble accidentally caught a comet disintegrating in real time; 15 new moons have been confirmed around Jupiter and Saturn; our Moon is accumulating over 100 metric tons of human-made debris; and a dramatic spacecraft double-header — ESA's Proba-3 has been recovered from a month-long blackout, while NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter remains missing after more than three months of silence.   Story 1: Artemis II Arrives at Launch Pad 39B NASA's Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft completed an 11-hour overnight journey to Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026. Launch is targeted for no earlier than April 1. The crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — will fly a 10-day free-return trajectory around the Moon, making this the first crewed deep-space mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Source: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/20/nasas-artemis-ii-rocket-arrives-at-launch-pad-39b/   Story 2: First Mass-Transferring Brown Dwarf Binary Researchers at Caltech have identified ZTF J1239+8347, a brown dwarf binary system with an orbital period of just 57.41 minutes in which one brown dwarf is actively pulling material from its companion — a first for this class of objects. The system, only ~1,000 light-years away, is a prime candidate for JWST follow-up observations. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Source: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/this-pair-of-brown-dwarfs-cant-get-enough-of-each-other   Story 3: Hubble Catches Comet C/2025 K1 Breaking Apart In a remarkable stroke of luck, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) fragmenting into at least four pieces over three consecutive days in November 2025. The comet was not the original target of the observation. The findings, published in Icarus, reveal the comet is unusually carbon-depleted and raise new questions about the delay between fragmentation and visible brightening. Source: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-unexpectedly-catches-comet-breaking-up/   Story 4: 15 New Moons Confirmed for Jupiter and Saturn The Minor Planet Center announced on March 16, 2026 that four new moons have been confirmed around Jupiter (bringing its total to 101) and 11 new moons around Saturn (bringing its total to 285). All are small irregular moons, discovered by combining archival telescope data with new observations. With the Vera C. Rubin Observatory now operational, further discoveries are expected. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/more-moons-for-jupiter-and-saturn-total-satellite-discoveries/   Story 5: Human Debris on the Moon — Over 100 Metric Tons and Counting More than 100 metric tons of human-made objects now litter the lunar surface — spacecraft hardware, scientific instruments, and even waste from Apollo missions. With a wave of crewed and commercial lunar missions approaching under Artemis and beyond, space policy researchers are urging the development of international agreements to protect scientifically sensitive lunar sites before they are damaged or contaminated by human activity. Source: https://www.universetoday.com — lunar debris policy   Story 6: MAVEN Still Missing / Proba-3 Recovered NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter, lost since December 6, 2025, remains uncontacted despite three months of recovery efforts using the Deep Space Network, Green Bank Observatory, and the Curiosity rover. An anomaly review board is assessing options. Meanwhile, ESA's Proba-3 coronagraph spacecraft — silent since February 14 after a power failure — has been successfully recovered after engineers exploited a brief window when the tumbling spacecraft's solar panels briefly faced the Sun. MAVEN source: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/nasa-wont-give-up-hope-on-silent-maven-mars-probe-were-still-looking-for-it Proba-3 source: https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/03/europe-restores-contact-lost-spacecraft/

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It's the first day of astronomical spring — and the universe is celebrating in style. On today's Astronomy Daily, Anna and Avery cover a triple CME solar storm with aurora potential reaching as far south as Illinois, explain why the vernal equinox amplifies aurora activity, report on the ongoing meteorite hunt following Tuesday's spectacular Ohio fireball, reveal an extraordinary 14-billion-year-old star that carries the chemical fingerprints of the universe's very first stars, bring a happy update on Europe's Proba-3 solar science satellite which has ended a month of silence, and explain how X-ray CT scans of returned asteroid samples finally cracked one of Bennu's longest-standing mysteries.   Stories in This Episode 1. Triple CME Strike + Equinox Aurora Alert Three coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are currently en route to Earth, with the first arriving today. Forecasters predict G2 (moderate) to G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm conditions, potentially bringing auroras as far south as Illinois. The timing coincides with the vernal equinox — historically one of the best aurora windows of the year due to the Russell-McPherron effect. 2. The Vernal Equinox — Today! The 2026 March equinox arrived today at 14:46 UTC, marking the astronomical start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere (and autumn in the Southern). Tonight, a thin crescent Moon appears alongside Venus in the west-southwest sky. 3. Ohio Fireball — Meteorite Hunt Underway On St. Patrick's Day (March 17), a seven-ton asteroid exploded over northeast Ohio with the force of 250 tons of TNT. NASA confirmed meteorites landed near Medina County, and hunters from across the US have already found fragments in the Sharon Center area. 4. Ancient 'Cosmic Fossil' Star PicII-503 Astronomers have discovered PicII-503, a second-generation star in the Pictor II dwarf galaxy with only 1/40,000th of the Sun's iron — the lowest ever measured outside the Milky Way. Its extraordinary carbon-to-iron ratio links it to mysterious carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars scattered across our galaxy's halo, solving a long-standing stellar mystery. Published in Nature Astronomy by Anirudh Chiti (Stanford) et al. 5. Proba-3 Phones Home — 'A Great Relief!' ESA confirmed on March 19 that its Proba-3 Coronagraph satellite — silent since mid-February after an anomaly caused it to lose attitude control — has reestablished contact via the Villafranca ground station. The spacecraft is in safe mode, solar-powered, and undergoing health checks before science operations can resume. 6. NASA Cracks Bennu's Boulder Mystery X-ray CT scans of returned OSIRIS-REx samples reveal Bennu's boulders are riddled with internal crack networks — the missing piece explaining the asteroid's puzzling low thermal inertia. Published in Nature Communications. The findings will improve asteroid characterisation from Earth-based telescopes globally.   Source Links Triple CME / Aurora Alert — Space.com: https://www.space.com/stargazing/auroras/aurora-alert-powerful-geomagnetic-storm-could-spark-northern-lights-as-far-south-as-illinois-on-march-19 Triple CME / Sun News — EarthSky: https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/ NOAA Space Weather Prediction Centre: https://www.spaceweather.gov Vernal Equinox 2026 — EarthSky: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-vernal-or-spring-equinox/ Ohio Fireball — EarthSky: https://earthsky.org/earth/sonic-boom-from-a-meteor-cleveland-ohio-and-pennsylvania-mar-17-2026/ Ohio Meteorite Hunt — Cleveland19: https://www.cleveland19.com/2026/03/19/meteorite-hunters-states-away-find-fragments-northeast-ohio/ PicII-503 Discovery — NOIRLab: https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2607/ PicII-503 — Nature Astronomy (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02802-z Proba-3 Phones Home — Space.com: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/missions/a-great-relief-europes-proba-3-solar-eclipse-satellite-phones-home-after-a-month-of-silence Proba-3 ESA Statement: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Proba-3_s_Coronagraph_is_alive Bennu Mystery Solved — NASA Science: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/osiris-rex/asteroid-bennus-rugged-surface-baffled-nasa-we-finally-know-why/ Bennu — Nature Communications (SciTechDaily): https://scitechdaily.com/we-were-scratching-our-heads-scientists-finally-solve-asteroid-bennus-surface-mystery/   Find us: astronomydaily.io  |  @AstroDailyPod on Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube & Tumblr Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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A massive day in space as NASA's Artemis II moon rocket heads to the launchpad tonight, NASA and China both conduct spacewalks, CERN announces a brand-new particle, and astronomers reveal a nearby galaxy has been hiding the aftermath of a cosmic collision.   Episode Highlights   🚀 Story 1: Artemis II Rollout — The Moon Rocket Heads to the Pad Tonight NASA is rolling the Artemis II Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft to Launch Pad 39B tonight (March 19), targeting an 8 p.m. EDT start for the slow 4-mile crawler journey. The April 1 launch window remains firmly on track. Crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen have entered quarantine — making history as the first crew to venture to the vicinity of the Moon since 1972. Source: NASA Blogs / Space.com   👨‍🚀 Story 2: Dual Spacewalk Day — ISS & Tiangong Both Suit Up NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams completed U.S. Spacewalk 94 on March 18, spending 7 hours and 2 minutes preparing the ISS for a new roll-out solar array. Meanwhile on March 16, Shenzhou 21 commander Zhang Lu tied the Chinese EVA record with his sixth career spacewalk alongside crewmate Wu Fei outside China's Tiangong station. Sources: NASA / Space.com   ⚛️ Story 3: CERN's LHCb Discovers New Doubly Charmed Particle The LHCb experiment at CERN announced the first discovery made by its upgraded detector: the Xi-cc-plus baryon, a proton-like particle containing two charm quarks and one down quark, making it roughly four times heavier than a proton. Detected at 7-sigma significance, it settles a two-decade-old scientific dispute and is the 80th particle discovered by LHCb. Source: CERN / Universe Today   🌌 Story 4: Small Magellanic Cloud Caught Mid-Transformation University of Arizona astronomers have confirmed that the Small Magellanic Cloud — one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbours — collided directly with the Large Magellanic Cloud a few hundred million years ago and is still reeling from the impact. The finding upends decades of assumptions about the SMC's use as a benchmark for early universe galaxy studies. Source: The Astrophysical Journal / Sky & Telescope   🪐 Story 5: Exotrojans — Hunting Asteroid Companions Around Other Stars A new paper in The Astrophysical Journal by Jackson Taylor (West Virginia University) and colleagues pushes the search for exotrojans — asteroid co-orbital companions to exoplanets — into some of the most extreme environments yet studied, as the hunt continues for the first confirmed detection. Source: The Astrophysical Journal / Universe Today   📡 Story 6: SETI Rethink — Time to Broaden the Search A new paper argues that the decades-long focus on narrow radio and microwave bandwidths in the search for alien signals may be too limiting, and proposes broadening the electromagnetic search to a much wider range of the spectrum. Source: Universe Today   Find Us Everywhere •       🌐 Website: astronomydaily.io •       🐦 Twitter/X: @AstroDailyPod •       📸 Instagram: @AstroDailyPod •       🎵 TikTok: @AstroDailyPod •       ▶️ YouTube: @AstroDailyPod •       📝 Tumblr: @AstroDailyPod •       🎙️ Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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A packed episode today: a live spacewalk is underway at the ISS as we record, asteroid Ryugu has yielded all five DNA building blocks, a solar storm is heading for Earth overnight, Artemis II's moon rocket is about to roll out, and Blue Origin has unveiled an asteroid defence mission concept.   Story 1 — ISS Spacewalk 94: Meir & Williams EVA NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams conducted U.S. spacewalk 94 today (March 18), exiting the ISS Quest airlock at approximately 8:00 a.m. EDT for a planned 6.5-hour EVA. The pair installed a modification kit and routed cables to prepare the 2A power channel for a future roll-out solar array (IROSA). It is Meir's fourth spacewalk and Williams' first. A second EVA (spacewalk 95) is planned for approximately April 1 to prep the 3B power channel. •       Source: NASA — nasa.gov •       Watch: NASA+, Amazon Prime, YouTube (search 'NASA spacewalk 94')   Story 2 — Asteroid Ryugu: All Five DNA Building Blocks Found Samples returned from asteroid Ryugu by Japan's Hayabusa-2 mission contain all five canonical nucleobases — adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil — the building blocks of DNA and RNA. The findings, published March 16 in Nature Astronomy, suggest these life-essential compounds are widespread across the solar system and may have been delivered to early Earth by asteroid impacts. •       Source: Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-026-02791-z) •       Lead researcher: Dr. Toshiki Koga, JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) •       Further reading: phys.org, space.com, gizmodo.com   Story 3 — Aurora Alert: CME Arriving March 19 A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by an M2.7 solar flare from active region AR4392 on March 16 is forecast to reach Earth on March 19. NOAA has issued a G2 (Moderate) geomagnetic storm watch, with potential for isolated G3 (Strong) conditions. Aurora could be visible across northern US states, Canada, and northern Europe overnight March 19–20. The timing coincides with the vernal equinox, enhancing the geomagnetic effect via the Russell-McPherron effect. •       Source: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center — swpc.noaa.gov •       Aurora tracking: SpaceWeatherLive, My Aurora Forecast (apps) •       Further reading: space.com, earthsky.org, watchers.news   Story 4 — Artemis II: Rollout Decision Happening Today NASA's Artemis II SLS rocket is preparing to roll out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, with the final timing decision being made today (March 18). Engineers completed repairs faster than expected after fixing an electrical harness in the flight termination system. Rollout is expected March 19 or 20, preserving the April 1 launch window. The crew: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch (NASA), and Jeremy Hansen (CSA) — the first crewed mission to lunar space since Apollo 17 in 1972. •       Source: NASA — nasa.gov/artemis, space.com •       Launch window: April 1–6, 2026 (with additional dates available) •       Watch the rollout livestream: NASA YouTube channel   Story 5 — Blue Origin NEO Hunter: Asteroid Defence Blue Origin has partnered with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech to develop the NEO Hunter mission concept — a planetary defence system built on the Blue Ring spacecraft platform. NEO Hunter combines ion beam deflection (firing charged particles to nudge an asteroid off course) and 'Robust Kinetic Disruption' (crashing into the asteroid at up to 22,600 mph), with a dedicated 'Slamcam' satellite documenting any impact. No launch date has been announced. •       Source: Blue Origin (via X / space.com, March 17, 2026) •       Blue Ring platform: modular satellite bus supporting up to 4,000 kg payload •       Partners: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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Astronomy Daily S05E65 — 17 March 2026 Six stories from the frontiers of space and astronomy, hosted by Anna and Avery.   IN THIS EPISODE: •     🪐 JWST identifies a brand new class of exoplanet — a permanent magma ocean world with a hydrogen sulfide atmosphere 35 light-years from Earth •     📡 RBFLOAT — the brightest fast radio burst ever detected — is pinpointed to a galaxy 130 million light-years away, with a mysterious JWST infrared discovery at the same location •     🧑‍🚀 The first ISS spacewalk of 2026 is happening TOMORROW — NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams step outside at 8am EDT, March 18. Watch live on NASA+ •     🌊 Hidden water beneath Mars — new research suggests the Red Planet was habitable far longer than we thought, and Curiosity is investigating strange 'spiderweb' formations that reveal its watery history •     🚀 100 years ago yesterday, Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fuelled rocket. But where is 'Nell' — the original rocket — today? The mystery of space history's greatest missing artefact •     🛸 MIT, MITRE and Sandia publish a Nature paper on a photonic chip that could replace bulky mechanical mirrors on spacecraft — a potential revolution in space communications and LiDAR   SOURCE LINKS: •     JWST / L 98-59 d magma planet (Nature Astronomy, 16 March 2026): phys.org/news/2026-03-class-molten-planet-abundant-sulfur.html •     RBFLOAT fast radio burst papers (Astrophysical Journal Letters): sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260315004348.htm •     ISS Spacewalk 94 — live coverage: NASA+ / NASA YouTube (6:30am EDT, 18 March 2026) •     Mars water research and Curiosity boxwork ridges: sciencedaily.com •     Goddard centennial — collectSPACE: collectspace.com/news/news-031626a-robert-goddard-liquid-fuel-rocket-centennial-where-nell.html •     MIT photonic chip paper (Nature): universetoday.com — March 16, 2026   Find us: astronomydaily.io  |  @AstroDailyPod on Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Tumblr Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network

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