From Danish Moonshots to Vanishing Planets: Your Daily Space Update

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Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your go-to spot

for the latest in space and astronomy news.

I'm Anna, here with my co-host and good friend, Avery.

Hey Avery, happy January 3rd.

Hope everyone's recovering from the New Year festivities.

Hey, Anna, and hello to all our listeners out there

in the cosmos.

Absolutely.

2026 is off to a flying start.

Literally, with some launches and sky events already,

we've got six great story-sitting

from lunar missions to vanishing planets

and some good news up on the ISS.

Let's dive right in, shall we?

Starting with something exciting for our European friends,

Denmark just got the green light from Issa

for its very first mission to the moon.

The mission's called Money,

named after the Norse personification of the moon.

Yeah, this is huge.

It's the largest Danish satellite mission ever.

And the first time Denmark is leading an ESA mission.

The spacecraft is being built by Space Inventor,

a company based in Alborg,

with a budget of about 130 million Danish coroners,

or around 17 million euros.

The goal is high-resolution mapping of the lunar surface

to help identify the best spots for future crude landings

and even habitats for long-term human presence.

It's part of Issa's push for small cost-effective lunar missions

capped at 50 million euros development cost

and ready to launch within four and a half years.

This one got selected after a competitive process

that started back in 2023.

Launch is eyed for 2029 led by the University of Copenhagen.

Jens Friedenbank, the mission leader,

said it's about to get exciting now

that the journey truly begins.

Totally, it's awesome to see more countries

getting involved in lunar exploration.

This kind of scouting data will be invaluable

for Artemis and beyond.

Speaking of launches, SpaceX kicked off 2026

with a bang, literally their first mission of the year

on January 2nd.

They launched an Italian Earth-observing satellite

called Cosmo Skymet, second generation

from Vandenberg's Space Force Base in California.

Launch was at 909 PM Eastern Time on a Falcon 9

deploying the satellite into low-Earth orbit

just 4.5 minutes later.

This bird uses synthetic aperture radar

to image Earth day or night in any weather

from about 385 miles up.

It's for everything from emergency prevention

and risk management to defense, maritime surveillance,

agriculture, you name it.

It's operated by the Italian Space Agency

and Ministry of Defense, and this is now

the third in the second generation constellation.

The mission went smoothly with the booster landing

as expected.

Coming off SpaceX's record 165 launches in 2025,

it's a strong start to the year.

Always impressive how reliable these Falcon 9s have become.

Earth observation tech like this is crucial

for monitoring our planet in real time.

Shifting to exoplanets now, a bit of a mystery solved.

Remember Fomalholt B, this candidate planet

around the star Fomalholt, about 25 light years away

that was spotted by Hubble back in 2008?

Yeah, it was hailed as one of the first directly

imaged exoplanets, but new Hubble images from 2023

show its light fading and then completely disappearing.

Turns out it wasn't a planet at all.

It was an expanding cloud of debris

from a massive collision between two asteroid-sized bodies.

Exactly.

These collisions are rare, maybe once every 100,000 years or more,

and the dust cloud was glowing and reflecting light

mimicking a planet.

There's even a second bright object now called CS2

from the same event.

Four independent analyses confirmed this.

It's a reminder of how dynamic protoplanetary systems can be.

And a cautionary tale for exoplanet hunters.

Debris clouds can fake planet signals in reflected light.

J-W-S-T's N-I-R-CAM will take a closer look at CS2

for composition, temperature, maybe even signs of ice or water.

This reshapes how we think about planetary formation

around young stars.

Next up, some deep insights into our own galaxy's history

thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope.

The team of Canadian astronomers led by Dr. Vivian Tan

from York University used J-W-S-T data

to piece together the Milky Way's turbulent past.

They studied 877 distant galaxies that

are twins to what the Milky Way would have looked

like billions of years ago when the universe was between 1.5

and 10 billion years old.

Combining J-W-S-T's near infrared views with Hubble's visible

light, they map stars and star formation rates

across these evolutionary stages.

The early progenitors were chaotic,

full of mergers, asymmetric shapes and intense starbursts

triggered by collisions.

Then around 3 to 4 billion years after the Big Bang,

they started growing inside out, dense cores first,

then building extended disks and spirals

through more mergers and accretions.

It's wild, our galaxy had a much more violent youth

than some models predicted.

Simulations match some of this,

but struggle with the rapid outer growth

or super central early phases.

This is tightening up theories on feedback processes,

merger rates, and how disks stabilize.

Future J-W-S-T work with gravitational lensing

could push this back even further

to when the Milky Way was just 3% of its current age.

I love how we're using the universe

as a time machine like this.

Absolutely mind-blowing.

And for something you can see right now,

no telescope needed, though binoculars help,

Jupiter is putting on its brightest show of the year

this January.

Opposition hits on the night of January 10th,

when Earth is right between the sun and Jupiter,

making it shine big and bright all night long.

It's up from dusk to dawn throughout the month,

glowing steadily, easy to spot even in cities.

On January 4th, it's in conjunction with the full moon,

super close in the sky.

Look high up near Gemini,

surrounded by winter favorites like Orion,

Taurus with the Pleiades and Aldebarin.

Binoculars will show the four big moons,

I-O, Europa, Ganymede, and Calisto.

The Quadrantids meteor shower is peaking around now too,

up to 10 or even more streaks per hour,

though the full moon might wash some out.

Still, watch for bright fireballs,

perfect month for getting outside and stargazing.

Definitely, grab a blanket, look up, and enjoy the show.

Jupiter is at its best, no excuses.

Finally, it's some relief

for the International Space Station crew.

After years of dealing with a persistent leak

in the Russian segment, it's finally stopped.

The leak was in the PRK transfer compartment,

attached to the Zezda module.

Microscopic cracks that started showing up in 2019

and worsens over time,

even doubling at rate in 2024.

Russian cosmonauts have been methodically sealing cracks

with a special sealant called Germetal-1,

closing hatches to isolate and monitor pressure.

After repeated inspections and applications

over half a decade, the pressure is now holding steady.

NASA confirmed it, calling it a stable configuration,

though they'll keep watching for any changes.

It was a high-risk issue for both agencies,

so this is genuinely good news for ongoing ISS operations.

Who, yeah, maintaining a spacecraft in orbit

for decades isn't easy.

Glad they've plugged it, literally.

What a roundup today.

New missions, launches, cosmic mysteries,

galactic history, sky-watching tips, and station fixes.

The universe keeps delivering.

It really does.

Thanks so much for joining us on Astronomy Daily.

If you're enjoying the show, tell a friend,

or leave us a review,

it helps us reach more space fans.

We'll be back Monday with more fresh news.

Until then, clear skies and keep wondering.

And keep looking up.

Bye for now.

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