Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

Today's episode — S05E179, Friday August 28, 2026:   Feature story: US startup Reflect Orbital has FCC approval for Eärendil-1, a demonstration satellite carrying a 60-foot mirror, the first step toward a planned constellation of 50,000-plus orbital mirrors beaming reflected sunlight to Earth on demand. A new peer-reviewed study (Kocifaj, Bakos and Kundracik, accepted at The Astrophysical Journal Letters) finds a full-scale, 174-foot operational mirror would appear about 40 times brighter than the full Moon to anyone standing in its roughly 3.4-mile beam, with measurable sky-glow extending 20-34 km further — astronomer Gáspár Bakos says it would be "worse than big cities like London," warning "you would not see any stars if you were in the beam."   The rest of the news:   Starship update: Ship 40 — the Flight 13 upper stage that survived an intact splashdown on July 24 — has been loaded onto a heavy-lift transport vessel off Christmas Island and is now heading home to Starbase, Texas, a journey expected to take several months. Meanwhile Flight 14 has quietly slipped to no-earlier-than September 15, per internal SpaceX/FAA planning documents, with Booster 21's static fire testing now the pacing item.   A hot, watery world on borrowed time: astronomers led by Sylvain Breton (INAF) have characterised HD 176071 b, an exoplanet 335 light-years away that's roughly 50% water by mass, orbiting so close to its star (a 14-hour year) that it's expected to eventually be consumed by tidal forces. Found via a reflected-light technique applied to archival Kepler data.   Roman Space Telescope: two days from its Sunday, August 30 launch (7:26am ET, Falcon Heavy), with today's Launch Readiness Review still underway as we record. We trace the mission's near-cancellation in leaked 2025 budget documents proposing a 24% NASA funding cut — and how Roman's team responded to Congress restoring funding by pulling the launch forward eight months, finishing under budget.   Tonight's Sky: the G2 geomagnetic storm NOAA forecast for today is playing out now — aurora chances improve at northern latitudes, unlikely to reach much past Tasmania locally. Venus and Saturn remain the reliable local targets, under a near-full Moon.   Links & sources: Space.com — Massive space mirrors could be 40 times brighter than the full moon, astronomers warn arXiv — Atmospheric Light Pollution by Proposed Reflect Orbital Space Mirrors (Kocifaj, Bakos & Kundracik) Space.com — The FCC just gave Reflect Orbital permission to launch its 1st space mirror to orbit Space.com — Starship is coming home: SpaceX loads floating spacecraft onto huge ship in the Indian Ocean Space.com — Astronomers discover hot watery exoplanet destined to be swallowed by its star Space.com — Trump tried to scrap NASA's Roman Space Telescope last year. Now it's ready to launch Watchers.news — M6.9 solar flare produces Earth-directed CME, G2 geomagnetic storm watch issued for August 28   Follow us: @AstronomyDailyPod

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Today's episode — S05E178, Thursday August 27, 2026:
Feature story: Physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, led by Marius Millot, used the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester to shock-compress diamond samples to about 1 terapascal — roughly three times Earth's core pressure — and temperatures hotter than the Sun's surface, recreating conditions found deep inside Neptune and Uranus. The results resolve a 20-year, ~1,000-degree disagreement between lab measurements and quantum simulations over diamond's actual melting point, confirming the simulations were right. The team also found diamond stays in its normal crystal structure right up until it melts — no intermediate phase — and confirmed solid diamond floats in liquid carbon, the same basic physics as ice floating on water. Published in Nature Physics, the corrected melting-point data could help triple energy gain in inertial confinement fusion reactors by allowing gentler, more efficient laser compression of diamond-shelled fuel capsules.
The rest of the news:

Roman Space Telescope's strange origin: three days out from its Sunday, August 30 launch (7:26am ET, Falcon Heavy), we trace how Roman's core optics began life inside the National Reconnaissance Office's canceled "Future Imagery Architecture" spy-satellite program, donated to NASA in 2012 after the program's spectacular 2005 collapse. The telescope is currently being mated to its Falcon Heavy at LC-39A, with a Launch Readiness Review Friday, August 28.
 
NOAA storm watch: the Space Weather Prediction Center has issued an official G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm watch for Friday, August 28, following Tuesday's M6.9 solar flare — aurora chances improve for northern-tier US states, the UK and similar latitudes; minor storming isn't expected to reach much past Tasmania locally.
 
AI solar storm detection: NJIT researchers have built a Transformer-based AI model, EarlyDetect, that spots hidden precursor signals of solar active regions forming roughly 9.24 hours before they're visible — not yet ready for real-time forecasting, but a promising extension of the warning window.
 
SpaceX Starbase Louisiana: a $100 billion, five-complex, ten-pad second Starbase announced for Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, alongside Governor Jeff Landry — construction targeted for 2027, first launch aimed at 2029.
 
Tonight's Sky: a 96%-partial lunar eclipse peaks at 4:13 UTC / 12:13am ET August 28 — spectacular from the Americas, broad daylight in Sydney (~2:13pm AEST). Venus and Saturn remain the reliable local targets.

Links & sources:

ScienceDaily — Scientists crushed diamond beyond Neptune-like pressures — and solved a 20-year mystery
 
Gizmodo — Scientists Recreate the Melting "Diamond Rain" of Neptune and Uranus. It May Help Fusion Power
 
Space.com — From spy satellite to space telescope: the unlikely origins of NASA's Roman Space Telescope
 
Space.com — Nancy Grace Roman Telescope live updates: NASA readies Roman for launch
 
Watchers.news — M6.9 solar flare produces Earth-directed CME, G2 geomagnetic storm watch issued for August 28
 
Universe Today — AI Spots Hidden Solar Storm Signs 9 Hours Early
 
EurekAlert / NJIT — New AI model detects hidden signs of solar eruptions hours before they emerge
 
Space.com — Starbase Louisiana: SpaceX announces enormous $100 billion Starbase launch site
 
SpaceNews — SpaceX to develop Starship launch site in Louisiana
 
EarthSky — Partial lunar eclipse of the August 27-28, 2026

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Today's episode — S05E177, Wednesday August 26, 2026:
Feature story: Astronomers using the ALMA array in Chile, led by Bill Dent (European Southern Observatory), have released the most detailed picture yet of the actual surface of Betelgeuse, the red supergiant marking Orion's shoulder — a corrugated, irregular surface with bright convective hot spots, some nearly 1,000°F hotter than the surrounding plasma. One hot spot in the northeastern region has persisted for more than seven years, far longer than current models predict, and its orientation lines up with the position of Betelgeuse B — a companion star imaged for the first time in July by a separate VLT/SPHERE study — raising the possibility the companion is influencing the giant star's surface. Betelgeuse is one of the closest stars to us expected to eventually go supernova (on a timescale of roughly the next 100,000 years); Dent notes the imagery builds a crucial "before" baseline for whenever that happens.
The rest of the news:

ISS Spacewalk 98: NASA's Anil Menon and ESA's Sophie Adenot finished replacing a Space-to-Ground antenna on the station, six and a half hours outside, restoring communications redundancy that had been running on a backup since November. Adenot's spacewalk record as the first French woman to conduct an EVA is now backed by two completed outings.
Solar flare/CME: The Sun fired an M6.9 flare from sunspot region 4513, triggering radio blackouts over Africa, Europe and the Arctic; a slow-moving CME is due to graze Earth around Friday, August 28, with an outside chance of minor geomagnetic storming — mostly a Northern Hemisphere aurora story.
Falcon 9 reuse record: SpaceX's booster B1067 flew for the 37th time — a new single-booster reuse record — on the company's 100th Falcon 9 launch of 2026.
Tonight's Sky: A 96%-partial lunar eclipse falls the night of August 27-28, spectacular from the Americas but invisible from Australia and the rest of Asia-Pacific (broad daylight here). Venus and Saturn remain good evening/overnight targets locally.

Links & sources:

Space.com — The bubbling surface of doomed supergiant star Betelgeuse has been revealed like never before
Space.com — Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse! Astronomers capture clearest image yet of famous star's elusive companion
Space.com — "You just saved the video dish": Two astronauts complete spacewalk to replace ISS antenna
NASA — NASA, ESA Spacewalkers Finish Installing High-Speed Antenna
Space.com — Sun fires powerful M6.9 solar flare and CME toward Earth
Space.com — SpaceX sets rocket-reuse record on 100th Falcon 9 launch of the year
Space.com — Partial lunar eclipse Aug. 27-28: stages and visibility

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Today's episode — S05E176, Tuesday August 25, 2026:
Feature story: NASA's Roman Space Telescope is fully encapsulated inside its Falcon Heavy fairing and cleared to launch no earlier than 7:26 a.m. ET this Sunday, August 30 — about nine months ahead of its original schedule, a rarity for a NASA flagship mission. Roman is headed to Sun-Earth L2 for a five-year mission mapping dark energy and dark matter and hunting exoplanets with a starlight-cancelling coronagraph. Its wide-field camera surveys roughly a hundred times faster than Hubble at comparable image sharpness. Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, Nancy Grace Roman — the "mother of Hubble" — the mission is a formal ESA partnership; some of its data will come down through a new ESA antenna at New Norcia, Western Australia.
The rest of the news:

ISS Spacewalk 98: NASA's Anil Menon and ESA's Sophie Adenot are outside the station today finishing a Space-to-Ground antenna replacement and, time permitting, installing a new docking retroreflector — their third spacewalk together in under a month.
Milky Way merger scar: A Hubble-based study (the ARMA project, led by Davide Massari) has found evidence of a ~500-million-solar-mass dwarf galaxy, dubbed Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles, absorbed by the Milky Way roughly 12 billion years ago — the earliest documented merger in our galaxy's history.
Perseids 2028 watch: Jupiter's gravity may nudge Perseid debris closer to Earth's path in 2028, potentially producing an outburst of 200-300 meteors/hour under favorable dark-sky conditions — though modelers caution the forecast is an "educated guess."
Tonight's Sky: A 96%-partial lunar eclipse falls the night of August 27-28 — spectacular from the Americas and parts of Europe/Africa, but invisible from Australia and the rest of Asia-Pacific, where it happens in broad daylight. Venus and Saturn remain good evening targets locally in the meantime.

Links & sources:

NASA Science — Roman Launch Countdown
NASA Roman Blog — Roman Telescope Enclosed in Falcon Heavy Fairing
Space.com — The Roman Space Telescope is ready to launch Aug. 30
JPL — NASA Telescope Named for "Mother of Hubble" Nancy Grace Roman
ESA — Roman factsheet
NASA — NASA to Cover Three US Spacewalks
Space.com — The earliest galaxy "swallowed" by the cannibal Milky Way left a scar at its heart
Space.com — Could Jupiter supercharge the Perseids in 2028?
Space.com — Partial lunar eclipse Aug. 27-28: stages and visibility

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Today's episode — S05E175, Monday August 24, 2026:
Main story: China delays Chang'e-7's launch by about a month. The Chang'e-7 lunar south pole mission's launch window opened today, August 24, but a tropical system (reported as Tropical Depression/Storm Narra) over the Gulf of Tonkin, alongside a cited safety and reliability review, forced a scrub with no immediate new date. Because the mission's landing site — the rim of Shackleton Crater — requires specific solar illumination geometry on top of standard orbital mechanics, its launch windows recur only about once a month for roughly a week at a time, unlike China's earlier equatorial lunar missions. Independent trajectory analysis puts the next viable opportunity around mid-to-late September.
The rest of the news:
LandSpace / Zhuque-3 follow-up: Thursday's celebrated first-ever leg-landing of an orbital-class Chinese booster had a coda — residual methane and oxygen ignited near the booster's base after touchdown, damaging a landing leg and toppling the vehicle. The landing itself (four legs, near dead-center, ~390km downrange in Gansu) still stands as the achievement it was reported as; the post-landing fire is a separate, and not unprecedented, engineering challenge — SpaceX's own Falcon 9 booster B1086 suffered a near-identical fire and tip-over in March 2025.
SpaceX's 100th launch of 2026: A Falcon 9 carrying 27 Starlink satellites lifted off from Vandenberg on August 22, SpaceX's 100th orbital mission of the year (99 Falcon 9 flights plus one Falcon Heavy). The booster landed on its ninth flight; Starlink has passed 11,000 operational satellites.
Tonight's Sky: Comet 220P/McNaught is in outburst — roughly 20,000 times brighter than normal — and observable with binoculars rather than requiring a telescope, at least until it fades after an October close pass. Also: a reminder that a 96%-partial lunar eclipse falls the night of August 27–28.

Links & sources:

NASASpaceFlight.com — LandSpace's Zhuque-3 Topples After Landing
Space.com — Bad weather delays launch of China's historic Chang'e 7 mission to moon's south pole
SCMP — China puts Chang'e-7 mission to lunar south pole on hold
SpaceNews — China delays Chang'e-7 lunar south pole landing mission launch
China in Space — Chang'e 7 Moon Mission Delayed by One Month
CNN — China postpones launch of unprecedented water-hunting moon mission amid space race
Space.com — SpaceX sends 27 Starlink satellites to orbit on 100th Falcon rocket launch of the year
APOD — Comet 220P in Outburst (August 24, 2026)

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