Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

Anna and Avery cover Sophie Adenot becoming the first French woman ever to conduct a spacewalk — a historic EVA that ran into some antenna trouble along the way. Plus: a trillion-mile river of gas that explains why some planetary systems end up tilted, an honest update on Starship's Ship 40 as it turns out the recovery saga wasn't quite finished, and SpaceX quietly closing in on 11,000 satellites in orbit.
Full show notes:
Today's episode — S05E171, Wednesday August 19, 2026:
Main story: First Frenchwoman to spacewalk. ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot became the first French woman ever to conduct a spacewalk on August 18, working alongside NASA's Anil Menon (on his second EVA, delayed from August 13 after a carbon dioxide sensor flag on his first spacewalk August 6). The pair set out to replace one of the station's space-to-ground antennas, but the job took longer than planned — after 6 hours and 23 minutes (the station's 282nd spacewalk overall), controllers called it before the swap was fully complete. The old antenna is secured but not stowed; the new one remains on its storage platform. Another spacewalk is scheduled for next Tuesday to finish the job. France's first-ever spacewalk was performed by Jean-Loup Chrétien on Mir in 1988.
A trillion-mile river of gas explains tilted planets. Astronomers led by Maria Galloway-Sprietsma (University of Florida), with advisor Jaehan Bae and international collaborators, used the ALMA telescope in Chile to trace a gas streamer roughly 1.2 trillion miles (0.2 light-years) long feeding into the young triple-star system GW Orionis, 1,300 light-years away in Orion. The streamer's infall angle closely matches the tilt of the system's warped outer disk ring, offering a mechanism for why some planetary systems end up with misaligned or even retrograde orbits. Published August 6 in The Astronomical Journal.
Correction/update: Ship 40's journey continues. Last episode we reported Starship's Ship 40 recovery as complete after its intact splashdown and tow toward Western Australia. Fuller reporting since shows the ship was towed further and arrived, as of August 18, in sheltered waters off Christmas Island after 24 days and 400+ km adrift — with SpaceX now planning to transport it back to Starbase, Texas, for full inspection. Musk has cited the intact recovery as strengthening the case for attempting a tower catch of a returning ship as early as Flight 14.
SpaceX quietly passes 11,000 satellites. Tuesday night's Starlink 17-50 launch from Vandenberg — SpaceX's 100th mission of 2026 overall (97th Falcon 9 flight of the year) — added 24 more satellites, pushing the Starlink constellation to nearly 11,000 operational satellites. Booster B1097 flew for the 12th time, targeting a droneship landing in the Pacific.
Tonight's sky (well, tomorrow's predawn sky): Saturn is showing off a "moon parade" before dawn, its unusually narrow, shallowly tilted rings (7.5°) lining up major moons — Titan, Rhea, Tethys, Dione and, in larger scopes, Iapetus and Enceladus — almost in a straight row. This evening, catch a waxing crescent Moon.
Links & sources:

Space.com — Watch European astronaut make history during spacewalk today
Spaceflight Now — Astronauts remove failed antenna; run out of time to install a spare
France 24 — Sophie Adenot set to become first French female astronaut to venture outside ISS
Space.com — A 'river' of cosmic gas 1 trillion miles long sent planets in the Orion constellation into tilted orbits
University of Florida News — Cosmic river of gas may have tilted a young planetary system in Orion constellation
ALMA Observatory — ALMA Captures a Trillion-Mile Stream Feeding the Triple-Star System GW Orionis
NASASpaceFlight.com — Ship 40 arrives at Christmas Island, plans return to Starbase
Space.com — Starship lives! SpaceX craft arrives at Christmas Island after 24-day ocean ordeal
Space.com — SpaceX launches its 100th mission of the year, sends Starlink satellites to orbit
Spaceflight Now — Live coverage: SpaceX to send Starlink satellites to orbit with Tuesday night launch from California
Space.com — Night sky August 2026: what you can see tonight

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Anna and Avery close out a three-week saga: SpaceX has recovered Starship's Ship 40 from the Indian Ocean after a soft splashdown, a difficult tow, and a moment where recovery odds looked as low as 18%. Plus: a dead star in the Helix Nebula previews our own Sun's five-billion-years-from-now fate, new evidence the Milky Way was built in part by an ancient galactic collision, and China's fast recovery from a rocket failure with back-to-back launches.
Full show notes:
Today's episode — S05E170, Tuesday August 18, 2026:
Main story: Starship's Ship 40 makes it home. SpaceX has completed recovery of Ship 40, the Starship Flight 13 upper stage that survived an unprecedented soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24. After drifting over 400km and a difficult multi-week tow through rough seas (prediction markets had given it ~18% odds as of mid-August), recovery vessels including the Normand Ranger brought the ship in to Western Australia this week. SpaceX had already secured the imagery it needed from the heat shield and engines regardless of outcome; Ship 41 and Flight 14 (targeting ~August 20) are already in the pipeline.
A dead star shows us our Sun's future. A Yale-led team studying the Helix Nebula's white dwarf found 22 bow-shock structures in its outer halo — the first direct observation of a dead star's ejected material dispersing back into the galaxy. It's a preview of what our own Sun will undergo in roughly 5 billion years. Published August 12 in Nature.
The collision that built the Milky Way. Hubble and Gaia data revealed a previously unknown ancient dwarf galaxy, "LKH," which merged with the Milky Way 11.8 billion years ago — predating the well-known Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus merger by 1.8 billion years. Published August 17 in Nature Astronomy.
China bounces back from a rocket failure. After an August 10 Long March 7A failure destroyed a communications satellite, China launched twice within 23 hours on August 16 — a Long March 12 from Wenchang and a Long March 2C from Taiyuan — demonstrating operational resilience across two rocket types and launch sites.
Tonight's sky: the waxing crescent Moon pairs with a brilliant Venus (magnitude -4.1) low in the western sky, about 45 minutes after sunset.
Links & sources:

NASASpaceFlight.com — While SpaceX recovers Ship 40, Ship 41 prepares for testing ahead of Flight 14
MarineRadar — SpaceX recovers Starship from Indian Ocean after three-week tow
CNN — Satellite imagery captures race to recover 170-foot SpaceX Starship in the Indian Ocean
Space.com — Scientists find dead star that predicts our Sun's future
Space.com — How an ancient collision with another galaxy transformed the Milky Way
Space.com — China bounces back from Long March rocket explosion with back-to-back launches
Space.com — Night sky August 2026: what you can see tonight

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Anna and Avery cover NASA's newly funded concept for spherical, propeller-free "aerobots" that could one day explore the methane-carved cave systems of Saturn's moon Titan. Plus: SpaceX breaks its own launch-turnaround record with two Falcon 9 missions 38 minutes apart, Rocket Lab lands its biggest-ever defense contract to build "Flatellites" for the U.S. Space Force, and a geomagnetic storm arriving today could bring aurora to high latitudes tonight.
**Full show notes:**
Today's episode — S05E169, Monday August 17, 2026:
**Main story: NASA funds spherical "Aerobots" to explore Titan's caves.** A NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase 1 grant is backing SPARK (Solid-state Propulsion for Autonomous Reconnaissance of Karst) — small, propeller-free spherical robots using electrohydrodynamic (EHD) thrusters, led by Daniel Drew (University of Hawaii) with JPL's Ethan Schaler and Jacob Izraelevitz and Michael Malaska (Blue Marble Space Institute of Science). The concept targets Titan's karst terrain — sinkholes and caves carved by liquid methane and ethane rather than water — as a candidate site for astrobiology research. Phase 1 covers nine months; a Phase 2 award could follow. No confirmed mission link yet, though NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft is headed to Titan around 2028.
**SpaceX sets a new launch-turnaround record.** Two Falcon 9 missions launched 38 minutes apart on August 15 — a Globalstar satellite mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:12 p.m. ET, and the classified USSF-366 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 9:50 p.m. ET — beating SpaceX's previous 65-minute record from August 2024. Both boosters landed successfully (14th and 18th flights respectively). 2026 tally: 96 Falcon 9 launches so far.
**Rocket Lab wins $397 million Space Force contract for "Flatellites."** The flat-panel satellites will support the SB-AMTI (Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator) program and launch stacked aboard Rocket Lab's still-undebuted Neutron rocket. It's Rocket Lab's largest defense contract to date, bringing 2026 government contract funding to $943 million.
**Geomagnetic storm expected today.** A double CME plus a high-speed solar wind stream is forecast to bring G1–G2 level geomagnetic storming, with the main impact expected later today. Aurora is possible at high latitudes — potentially Scotland, northern England, Northern Ireland, Alaska, Canada, and the northern US, plus southern New Zealand and Tasmania in the Southern Hemisphere. Comes amid an active stretch for the Sun, including 14 C-class flares from sunspot region AR4507 over August 15–16.
**Links & sources:**
  - [Space.com — NASA funds spherical 'Aerobots' for Titan's caves](https://www.space.com/technology/nasa-funds-spherical-aerobots-that-could-explore-the-caves-of-saturns-moon-titan)
  - [JPL Robotics — Titan Aerobots](https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/what-we-do/research-tasks/titan-aerobots/)
  - [JPL — Shapeshifter concept for Saturn's moons (background)](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-designing-shapeshifting-robots-for-saturns-moons/)
  - [Space.com — SpaceX breaks launch doubleheader record](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-breaks-record-launch-doubleheader-ussf-366-globalstar-2r)
  - [Spaceflight Now — Globalstar/USSF-366 launch coverage](https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/08/15/live-coverage-spacex-to-launch-satellite-replenishment-mission-for-globalstar-from-cape-canaveral/)
  - [Space.com — Rocket Lab's $397M Flatellites contract](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/us-space-force-gives-rocket-lab-usd397-million-to-build-threat-tracking-flatellites)
  - [Rocket Lab — Flatellites contract announcement](https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/rocket-lab-awarded-397-million-contract-to-build-and-launch-flatellites-for-u-s-space-forces-space-based-airborne-moving-target-indicator-program/)
  - [ummid.com — Geomagnetic storm set to hit Earth Monday Aug 17](https://www.ummid.com/news/2026/8/16/what-is-geomagnetic-storm-set-to-hit-earth-monday-aug-17.html)
  - [EarthSky — Sun news / solar flare, CME, aurora updates](https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/)
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Today's episode — S05E168, Saturday August 15, 2026, our "Weekend Wrap":
**Main story: a magnetar confirms 90-year-old vacuum birefringence prediction.** A team led by Rachael Stewart (George Washington University), using NASA's IXPE spacecraft, found the strongest evidence yet that extreme magnetic fields polarize light passing through empty space — confirming a 1936 prediction by Werner Heisenberg and Hans Euler. The team studied magnetar 1E 1547-5408 and found X-rays nearly 3x more polarized than expected, in a direction matching the star's magnetic field. Published August 5 in *Nature*.
**The week in review:**
- **Starship:** Ship 40 (Flight 13, splashed down July 24) remains adrift in the Indian Ocean after recovery efforts stalled in rough seas; Elon Musk said August 7 that recovery is "not looking good right now." Still unresolved as of this weekend — roughly 18% recovery odds per prediction markets. SpaceX has moved on to Flight 14 prep (Ship 41, targeting ~August 20).
- **Eclipse:** The August 12 total solar eclipse swept a 182-mile shadow from the Arctic through Greenland, Iceland (2m18s max totality at Látrabjarg) and northern Spain. Next Spanish total eclipse: August 2, 2027.
- **Black hole star:** JWST's "Mirage or Miracle" survey identified MoM-BH*-1, a gas-shrouded black hole glowing from just 660 million years after the Big Bang — a candidate explanation for how supermassive black holes grow so fast.
- **Virgin Galactic:** Commercial flights delayed again, from Q4 2026 to February 2027; Q2 earnings (revenue $1.54M, net loss ~$55.9M) sent shares down further, with heavy cash burn guided for Q3/Q4 and a new shelf filing for capital flexibility.
**Links & sources:**
- [Space.com — Is empty space really empty? This magnetic star may finally solve a 90-year-old mystery](https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/is-empty-space-really-empty-this-magnetic-star-may-finally-solve-a-90-year-old-mystery)
- [Space.com — 'Not looking good right now': Starship likely to be lost at sea](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/not-looking-good-right-now-starship-likely-to-be-lost-at-sea-2-weeks-after-epic-13th-test-flight-elon-musk-says)
- [NASASpaceFlight.com — While SpaceX recovers Ship 40, Ship 41 prepares for testing ahead of Flight 14](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/08/spacex-recovers-ship-40-ship-41-flight-14/)
- [Manifold Markets — Will Starship Ship 40 be recovered to shore?](https://manifold.markets/Mqrius/will-starship-ship-40-be-recovered)
- [Space.com — Total solar eclipse 2026 thrills millions](https://www.space.com/stargazing/solar-eclipses/total-solar-eclipse-2026-thrills-millions-with-a-stunning-cosmic-spectacle-photos-video)
- [Wikipedia — Solar eclipse of August 12, 2026](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_12,_2026)
- [EurekAlert — Mirage or miracle? JWST finds earliest known 'black hole star' at cosmic dawn](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139484)
- [SpaceNews — Virgin Galactic delays resumption of commercial flights to 2027](https://spacenews.com/virgin-galactic-delays-resumption-of-commercial-flights-to-2027/)
- [Virgin Galactic — Q2 2026 financial results and business update](https://www.virgingalactic.com/news/virgin-galactic-announces-second-quarter-2026-financial-results-and-provides-business-update)
- [StocksToTrade — Virgin Galactic (SPCE) news, Aug 13 2026](https://stockstotrade.com/news/virgin-galactic-holdings-inc-spce-news-2026_08_13/)
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Anna and Avery break down JWST's discovery of MoM-BH*-1, the earliest known "black hole star" — a black hole shrouded in dense gas, glowing from just 660 million years after the Big Bang, that might explain how supermassive black holes grow so fast. Plus: the Perseid meteor shower's spectacular overnight peak, a new satellite built to watch other satellites in geostationary orbit, and veteran NASA astronaut Mike Fincke's retirement after 30 years and four spacecraft.
**Full show notes:**
Today's episode — S05E167, Friday August 14, 2026:
**Main story: JWST finds the earliest known "black hole star."** Astronomers led by Rohan Naidu (University of Hawai'i) and Jorryt Matthee (ISTA) identified MoM-BH*-1 — a young black hole wrapped in a dense gas envelope so thick it radiates almost like a star, appearing over 100,000 times the Sun's radius. Light from the object left it roughly 13 billion years ago, just 660 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery, from the "Mirage or Miracle" JWST survey, may explain how supermassive black holes grow fast enough to match observations of the early universe, and may be linked to the population of mysterious "little red dots" Webb has found since 2024.
**The Perseid meteor shower's spectacular peak.** The Perseids peaked overnight on August 12–13, just hours after this week's total solar eclipse, with dark, moonless skies delivering hundreds of visible meteors per hour at the best sites. Debris from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle remains active through roughly August 24.
**Astranis unveils Perceptor.** A new satellite line built to monitor activity in geostationary orbit, using electric propulsion for repeated multi-angle flybys of other spacecraft. Astranis CEO John Gedmark cited past close approaches by Russian and Chinese spacecraft near U.S. satellites as motivation. No launch date announced yet.
**Astronaut Mike Fincke retires after 30 years.** Fincke flew four missions across four spacecraft types — Soyuz (twice), Space Shuttle Endeavour, and SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour — commanded the ISS twice, and capped his career with Crew-11, a mission cut short in January after a frightening in-orbit medical incident.
**Links & sources:**
  - [EurekAlert — Mirage or miracle? JWST finds earliest known 'black hole star' at cosmic dawn](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139484)
  - [phys.org — Mirage or miracle? JWST finds earliest known black hole star](https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mirage-miracle-jwst-earliest-black.html)
  - [Scientific American — JWST images illuminate 'black hole stars' at cosmic dawn](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jwst-images-illuminate-black-hole-stars-at-cosmic-dawn/)
  - [ERC — Earliest known black hole star found at cosmic dawn](https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/earliest-known-black-hole-star-found-cosmic-dawn)
  - [Space.com — Perseid meteor shower peak photos](https://www.space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/the-perseid-meteor-shower-peak-was-spectacular-here-are-our-favorite-photos-aug-2026)
  - [Space.com — Astranis Perceptor satellites for geostationary orbit awareness](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/astranis-perceptor-satellites-geostationary-orbit-space-situational-awareness)
  - [Spaceflight Now — Mike Fincke, a 30-year astronaut, retires from NASA](https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/08/12/mike-fincke-a-30-year-astronaut-with-experience-across-four-human-rated-spacecraft-retires-from-nasa/)
Follow us: @AstroDailyPod
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