Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News

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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Anna and Avery break down yesterday's total solar eclipse — a 182-mile-wide shadow that swept from the Arctic through Greenland and Iceland to northern Spain, giving millions of people up to 2 minutes 18 seconds of totality. Plus: astronomers find three supermassive black holes sharing one distant galaxy (two are about to merge), Virgin Galactic pushes commercial spaceflight back to February 2027, and Rocket Lab signs a new launch customer for Neutron even as the rocket's debut slips further.
**Full show notes:**
Today's episode — S05E166, Thursday August 13, 2026:
**Main story: The August 12 total solar eclipse.** The Moon's shadow crossed the Arctic Ocean, eastern Greenland, western Iceland, northern Spain, the Balearic Islands and out into the Mediterranean. Longest totality on land: 2 minutes 18 seconds at Látrabjarg, Iceland. Millions gathered across northern Spain, with the path also crossing A Coruña, Bilbao, Zaragoza, Valencia and Palma (Madrid and Barcelona were just outside the path). Observers reported seeing the solar corona, a prominence, and Jupiter, Mercury and Venus during totality. Spain gets another total eclipse on August 2, 2027.
**Three supermassive black holes, one galaxy.** Astronomers led by Hannah Übler (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics) used JWST to confirm three actively feeding supermassive black holes in galaxy J0148-4214, 12.5 billion light-years away — the first such triple system ever confirmed. Two of the three are on course to merge.
**Virgin Galactic delays commercial flights to 2027.** The company's upgraded Delta-class spaceplane will now begin commercial service in February 2027, pushed back from Q4 2026, to complete avionics and systems installation. Shares fell 12% after-hours. $750,000 seat packages were oversubscribed.
**Rocket Lab's Neutron: delay and deal.** Rocket Lab is hedging on a 2026 debut for its Neutron rocket, with the window potentially slipping into 2027 — even as the company signs a new five-launch deal with Kepler Communications.
**Links & sources:**
- [Space.com — Total solar eclipse live updates](https://www.space.com/news/live/total-solar-eclipse-today-aug-12-2026-live-updates)
- [Space.com — Total solar eclipse 2026 thrills millions (photos, video)](https://www.space.com/stargazing/solar-eclipses/total-solar-eclipse-2026-thrills-millions-with-a-stunning-cosmic-spectacle-photos-video)
- [CNN — Photos: Total solar eclipse 2026](https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/12/science/gallery/photos-total-solar-eclipse)
- [Wikipedia — Solar eclipse of August 12, 2026](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_12,_2026)
- [Max Planck Institute — Three supermassive black holes discovered in a single galaxy](https://www.mpg.de/26904239/three-black-holes-discovered-in-a-young-galaxy)
- [SpaceNews — Virgin Galactic delays resumption of commercial flights to 2027](https://spacenews.com/virgin-galactic-delays-resumption-of-commercial-flights-to-2027/)
- [Spaceflight Now — Window for 2026 Neutron debut is narrowing](https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/08/10/window-for-2026-launch-debut-of-rocket-labs-neutron-rocket-is-narrowing-as-development-continues/)
- [Rocket Lab — Neutron launch deal with Kepler Communications](https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/rocket-lab-inks-neutron-launch-deal-with-kepler-communications/)
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In this episode •      Shadow Day: the only total solar eclipse of 2026 crosses Arctic Russia, Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain today — the first total eclipse over western mainland Europe since 1999 (Spain’s first since 1905, Iceland’s since 1954). Max totality ~2 min 18 s. Reykjavík ~17:48 UT; northern Spain ~18:27–18:33 UT (Sun very low, ~4–10° up). Live via NASA, timeanddate and the Exploratorium. •      Where you are: North America gets an afternoon partial (Nova Scotia ~33%, N. Maine ~28%, Montreal ~18%, Boston ~16%, NYC ~9–10%, Toronto ~8%, DC ~10%; Fairbanks ~37% in the morning) — no totality anywhere on the continent, glasses on throughout. Europe outside the path sees a deep evening partial (London ~91%). Australia/SH: not visible directly — watch the streams (~1:30–6:00 am AEST Thu). •      Chasing the shadow: NASA’s WB-57 jet flies the path at ~50,000 ft (~740 km/h), extending totality to nearly 3 minutes with four visible/IR cameras (SCIFI) to probe coronal heating, prominences and the solar wind (PI Amir Caspi, SwRI). The Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (A. Des Jardins, Montana State) launches ~86 balloons from Iceland and Spain to measure atmospheric changes. •      A star-building magnetic field: ALMA captures the first direct high-resolution image of a twisted, toroidal magnetic field wrapped around a protostellar jet in NGC 1333 IRAS 4A (~960 ly, Perseus cloud), confirming a decades-old prediction of how young stars launch jets and shed spin — the same physics that scales up to black-hole jets (Ching et al., Nature Communications 2026; NSF NRAO/ALMA). •      Why worlds turn hellish: UC Riverside’s Stephen Kane argues planetary rotation is an overlooked driver of climate and habitability — slow spin may help tip a world into a Venus-style runaway greenhouse. Measuring true spin is hard because winds can masquerade as rotation; ESA’s PLATO (launch March 2027) could test the idea across hundreds of Venus-like planets (Astronomical Journal, accepted). •      Skywatch — both hemispheres: the Perseids peak overnight 12–13 Aug under a genuinely moonless sky (best midnight–dawn; NH-favoured). Southern Hemisphere: evening Venus (mag −4.4, just past dichotomy), the pre-dawn planet line-up, and Comet 10P/Tempel 2. ISO 12312-2 eye-safety line included.   Sources •      NASA Science — Total Solar Eclipse on August 12, 2026; “NASA Science Soars During August Total Solar Eclipse” •      timeanddate; Eclipsophile; NationalEclipse.com; azmth.space — path, contact times, magnitudes •      Astronomy.com; Forbes; CBS News — North American partial times & percentages •      Space.com; Smithsonian — WB-57 SCIFI campaign & Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project •      NSF NRAO / phys.org — Ching et al., “Unveiling dominant toroidal magnetic fields in a protostellar outflow,” Nature Communications (2026) •      UC Riverside (news.ucr.edu) / phys.org — S. Kane, planetary rotation & runaway greenhouse (Astronomical Journal, accepted) •      EarthSky; Astronomy.com — Perseid peak (moonless), Venus dichotomy

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Astronomy Daily · S05E164 “Eclipse Eve” · Tuesday 11 August 2026. Sources are primary/agency where possible; aggregator dates were checked against originals. In this episode •    LEAD — The 12 August total solar eclipse: the only total eclipse of 2026 and the first over mainland Europe since 1999. Totality arcs from Siberia over the North Pole to eastern Greenland, western Iceland, northern Spain and a sliver of Portugal; maximum totality ~2 min 18 s. Partial for much of North America near sunset; not visible from Australia. ESA livestreams from the Javalambre Observatory, Spain. •    MIDDLE 1 — A state CASC Long March 7A exploded ~85 seconds after lifting off from Wenchang on 10 August, a total loss (payload reported as the Zhongxing-4B communications satellite). Separately, Landspace’s private Zhuque-3 was on the same-night manifest from Jiuquan for its second propulsive landing-legs recovery attempt — outcome unconfirmed at recording. China’s first orbital-booster landing (net-capture, Long March 10B) already succeeded on 10 July. •    MIDDLE 2 — The Perseids peak overnight 12–13 August under a New Moon — the darkest conditions in roughly two decades. Parent comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Realistic ~30–50 meteors/hr from dark sites (nominal ~100), with a slim chance of a dust-trail boost; the next confidently forecast outburst is 2028. •    MIDDLE 3 — Japan’s H3 launched Michibiki No. 7 (QZS-7) from Tanegashima, bringing the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System up to the strength Japan needs to run it as a standalone service — a regional navigation layer that keeps a satellite near the zenith over Japan/Asia-Pacific, reinforcing GPS and building navigation resilience. The satellite also hosts a US Space Force space-surveillance sensor (SACHI). •    CLOSER — Both-hemispheres skywatch: eclipse viewing times (totality window ~16:58–18:34 UT, greatest ~17:46 UT) and the ISO 12312-2 eye-safety rule; Perseid how-to for the North (best 2 a.m.–dawn); and Southern-Hemisphere content — pre-dawn planets, evening Venus, Comet 10P/Tempel 2. Eye safety •    A partial eclipse is never safe to view with the naked eye. Use ISO 12312-2 certified eclipse glasses/viewers, or indirect projection (pinhole). Direct viewing is only safe during true totality, and only inside the path (Greenland, Iceland, Spain). Links •    astronomydaily.io — full back-catalogue, daily news feed, listener reviews, newsletter sign-up, contact form •    @AstroDailyPod on your platform of choice

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