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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Astronomy Daily.
I'm Anna.
And I'm Avery.
Thanks for joining us on this exciting Tuesday, January 13, 2026.
We've got an incredible lineup of space news
to share with you today.
We really do, Avery.
We're covering everything from a historic first
on the International Space Station
to groundbreaking black hole discoveries.
Plus, we've got some fantastic mission updates from NASA.
And believe it or not, you can now put down
a deposit for a hotel room on the moon.
That's right.
It's going to be a packed episode.
But first, let's start with some update news
from the International Space Station
that's making history for all the wrong reasons.
So Avery, we're witnessing something
that's never happened before in the 25-year history
of the International Space Station.
On Sunday, NASA announced the first ever medical evacuation
from the ISS.
That's right, Anna.
The SpaceX crew 11 mission, which launched to the station
back in August 2025, is being cut short due to an undisclosed
medical condition affecting one of the four crew members.
The team includes NASA astronauts Mike Think
and Zena Cardman, Russia's Oleg Platanov,
and Japan's Kimia Yui.
And yesterday, we saw a really touching change
of command ceremony.
Mike Think, who was serving as commander of Expedition 74,
handed control of the station over to Russian cosmonaut
Sergei Kudzsvichkov.
During the ceremony, Think called it bitter sweet.
And you could really feel the emotion in his words.
I read about that.
Think told Kudzsvichkov, it's an honor and a pleasure
to be a commander, and I cannot imagine being happier
than to hand over command to you.
The crew scheduled to undock from the ISS
on Wednesday afternoon, with hatch closing at 3 p.m. Eastern
time and departure at 5 p.m.
They'll then make an 11-hour journey back to Earth
aboard their Dragon Endeavor spacecraft.
They're expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean
early Thursday morning, around 3 p.m. Eastern time.
Now, one interesting aspect of this situation
is that NASA has declined to specify which astronaut
is experiencing the medical issue,
citing privacy concerns.
They also haven't disclosed the nature
of the medical condition itself.
This early departure creates an unusual situation
on the station.
After crew 11 leaves, there will only be three astronauts
aboard, including just one American Chris Williams.
That's well below the typical crew complement.
Right.
Normally, NASA prefers crew overlap
to avoid gaps in maintenance and research capabilities,
but they've deemed this medical situation serious enough
to warrant the immediate return, even if it means operating
with a skeleton crew until the next rotation arrives.
And speaking of the next rotation,
crew 12 was originally scheduled to launch in mid-February.
NASA is now evaluating if they can move that launch date up.
Of course, this all has to be coordinated
with another major event on NASA's calendar.
You're talking about Artemis II, right?
Exactly.
NASA is simultaneously working to roll out
the space launch system rocket for the Artemis II mission
from the vehicle assembly building
to launch complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center.
That rollout is scheduled for January 17th
with the first launch opportunity for Artemis II
opening on February 6th.
It's a delicate balancing act for NASA operations.
According to NASA Administrator,
the ISS evacuation shouldn't interfere
with the Artemis II timeline,
but it certainly adds complexity
to an already busy schedule.
Absolutely.
This situation really highlights how NASA handles
unexpected medical challenges in space.
They have protocols in place,
but this is the first time they've actually had to implement
a full medical evacuation from the station.
It's worth noting that while this is the first medical
evacuation, it's not the first time medical concerns
have affected ISS operations.
Just last week, a planned spacewalk had to be canceled
due to these same medical concerns
that ultimately led to the evacuation decision.
We wish all four crew 11 astronauts a safe journey home
and a quick recovery to whoever's dealing
with the medical issue.
Now, let's shift gears to some absolutely fascinating
astronomy news.
Avery astronomers have discovered something
they've never seen before,
a galaxy-wide wobbling black hole jet.
This is really cool stuff, Anna.
A team led by researchers at UC Irvine
and Caltech's infrared processing
and analysis center has found the largest
and most extended jet ever observed,
emanating from a supermassive black hole.
And it's doing something remarkable.
It's wobbling.
The galaxy in question is called VV340A,
and the jet extends up to 20,000 light years from its center.
To put that in perspective,
that's about one fifth the diameter
of the Milky Way galaxy.
These jets are composed of super-heated material
being accelerated to near the speed of light.
The observations were made using the WM Keck Observatories,
Keck Cosmic Web Imager on Mount Akeia in Hawaii.
But what really makes this discovery special
is that the team combined data
from multiple observatories to get the complete picture.
Right, they used infrared observations
from the James Webb Space Telescope,
radio images from the very large array
and the optical data from Keck.
Each observatory revealed different aspects
of this phenomenon.
Webb's infrared data showed the energetic heart of the galaxy,
while Keck's optical data showed
how that energy propagates outward.
And the VVLA radio data revealed something remarkable.
The plasma jets are twisted into a helical pattern
as they move outward.
This is evidence of what's called jet procession,
where the jet's direction slowly wobbles over time,
kind of like a spinning top.
Lead author Justin Cater from UC Irvine
said the Keck Observatory data was crucial.
He noted that the gas they observed with Keck
reaches the farthest distances from the black hole,
meaning it also traces the longest time scales.
Without those observations,
they wouldn't know how powerful or persistent
this outflow really is.
What's particularly surprising about this discovery
is where it was found.
VV340A is a relatively young galaxy
still in the early stages of a galactic merger.
Typically, these kinds of jets are observed
in older elliptical galaxies
that have long since stopped forming stars.
That's a great point.
The Webb data showed that the superheated coronal gas,
the plasma erupting from either side of the black hole,
measures several thousand Parsecs across.
Most observed coronas measure in the hundreds of Parsecs,
making this the most extended coronal gas structure
ever observed.
The discovery also revealed that the jet
is actively affecting the galaxy's evolution.
The KCWI data showed that the jet is stripping
the galaxy of gas at a rate of about 20 solar masses per year,
effectively shutting down star formation.
This finding challenges our established theories
about how galaxies and their supermassive black holes
evolved together.
As Kader put it, this is the first time
we've seen a precessing Kilo Parsec scale radio jet
driving such a massive outflow in a disc galaxy.
He also noted something intriguing about the Milky Way.
He said there's no clear fossil record
of something like this happening in our galaxy,
but this discovery suggests we can't rule it out.
It changes the way we think about the galaxy we live in.
The next step for the team involves
higher resolution radio observations
to determine whether a second supermassive black hole
could be at the center of VV340A,
which might be causing the jets to wobble.
It's an exciting time for studying black holes
and their impact on galactic evolution.
This discovery opens up new questions
about how common this type of activity
might be in the universe.
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Now let's take a look at what's launching this week.
We've got a busy manifest with eight orbital launch attempts
scheduled from China, the United States, and Norway.
That's right, Anna.
SpaceX is dominating the American launch schedule, as usual.
They're launching two batches of Starlink satellites
into the Constellations Group 6 shell,
as well as a batch of reconnaissance satellites
for the National Reconnaissance Office.
The first Starlink mission of the week, Group 6-97,
actually already lifted off yesterday.
Monday, January 12th at 408 PM Eastern time
from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral.
The Falcon 9 flew 29 Starlink version
two mini satellites into orbit.
And the booster that supported that mission, B1078,
was flying for its 25th time.
After stage separation, it successfully landed on the drone ship,
just read the instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.
These reusability numbers just keep getting more impressive.
They really do.
The next Starlink mission, Group 6-98,
is scheduled for Wednesday, January 14th at 101 PM Eastern
from the same launch site.
That will use booster B1085 on its 13th flight,
landing on the shortfall of gravitas drone ship.
Moving over to China, they have four launches
on the manifest this week.
On Tuesday, the Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology
Corporation is launching a Chang-Zang 8A rocket from Wang Chang.
The payload is unknown, but this marks
the first CZ-8A mission of 2026 and the seventh overall.
Then on Thursday, we have a Chang-Zang 3B slash E launch
from Xi-Sheng, carrying another unknown payload.
The CZ-3BE is one of China's workhorse rockets,
and this will be its 103rd launch overall.
Also on Thursday, private Chinese spaceflight company
Galactic Energy is scheduled to launch a Series 1S rocket
from the Oriental Space Port launch ship.
This will be the first Series 1S mission of 2026
and the 23rd overall for this solid-fueled rocket.
And here's something exciting.
Galactic Energy is also debuting
its new Series 2 rocket this week.
The demonstration flight is scheduled for Saturday,
January 17th from the Zhiyouquan Satellite Launch Center.
The Series 2 is a larger upgraded version,
capable of lifting about 2,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit.
Back to the United States, SpaceX has a classified mission
for the National Reconnaissance Office.
N-R-O-L-105 is scheduled to launch Friday evening,
January 16th, at 8.18 pm Pacific time
from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This mission is using brand new booster B-1100
on only its second flight, and it'll perform
a return-to-launch site landing at Landing Zone 4,
right next to the launch pad.
This represents the 12th batch of satellites
launched into this particular NRL constellation
developed by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman.
And finally, wrapping up the week,
German company Esar Aerospace is scheduled
to launch the second test flight of its spectrum rocket
from Norway's Andoya rocket range.
This comes after the first test flight in March 2025,
failed shortly after liftoff.
The spectrum rocket stands 28 meters tall
and uses nine Aquila engines on the first stage,
and one on the second stage, burning propane
and liquid oxygen.
It's expected to carry several CubeSats
to Sun synchronous orbit for the European Space
Agency's Boost Program.
If successful, this will mark spectrum's first flight
of 2026, and the 13th worldwide orbital launch attempt
of the year.
It's shaping up to be a busy week in space flight.
All right, Avery, let's talk about some mission milestones.
NASA's Corrothers GeoCorona Observatory
has reached its target orbit.
This is great news, Anna.
The spacecraft achieved this destination
at Lagrange 0.1 or L1, which is approximately
1 million miles from Earth towards the Sun.
The confirmation came on January 10th,
following the spacecraft's third and final orbital maneuver,
a two-minute thrustive fire on January 8th.
For those unfamiliar, L1 is one of those special points
in space where the gravitational forces of the Earth
and Sun balance out, creating a stable position.
It's an ideal spot for observing the Earth and Sun
simultaneously.
Exactly, and Corrothers has a very specific mission
to capture the first repeated observations
of the ultraviolet glow from Earth's outer atmosphere,
known as the GeoCorona.
The mission is named in honor of Dr. George R. Corrothers,
who invented the ultraviolet camera that
was placed on the moon by Apollo 16 astronauts in 1972.
That Apollo 16 camera captured the very first images
of Earth's GeoCorona.
Now, more than 50 years later, Corrothers
is going to study it in unprecedented detail
from its vantage point at L1.
The love-seed-sized spacecraft launched
from Kennedy Space Center back on September 24th, 2025.
Since launch, the team has been testing the spacecraft's instruments
and capturing what they call first-light images,
while adjusting its course as it approached L1.
I saw those first-light images.
They're really impressive.
The spacecraft has two cameras, a wide field imager
and a narrow field imager, both capture ultraviolet light,
and the images clearly show Earth
with this fuzzy halo around it, which is the GeoCorona.
What's interesting is that you can also see the moon
in those images, and the lunar surface still shines
in this specific wavelength of light called Lyman Alpha,
because its rocky surface reflects all wavelengths
of sunlight.
That's actually why it's important to compare
the Lyman Alpha images with the broad ultraviolet filter.
The narrow field imager even captured two background stars
that must have surface temperatures approximately twice
as hot as our sun to be so bright in this wavelength of light.
Corrothers is now beginning its final checkout procedures
before starting its two-year primary science mission in March.
From L1, it will provide scientists
with the most detailed views ever of how Earth's
out-or-most atmospheric layer interacts
with the space environment.
The mission is led by Dr. Laura Waldrup
from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,
with the Space Sciences Lab at UC Berkeley
leading mission implementation and operations.
Speaking of missions reaching their destinations, Anna,
NASA's IMAP mission has also arrived at L1.
That's right.
IMAP, which stands for Interstellar Mapping
and Acceleration Probe, reached Lagrange.1 on January 10th,
just two days after Corrothers completed its final maneuver.
The mission operations team sent commands
to the spacecraft on the morning of January 9th
to begin the trajectory maneuvers.
Early on January 10th, they confirmed
that IMAP had successfully entered its final L1 orbit,
where it will stay for the duration of its mission.
IMAP has a fascinating mission profile.
It's going to explore and map the very boundaries
of our heliosphere.
That's the protective bubble created by the solar wind
that encapsulates our entire solar system.
It will study how the heliosphere interacts
with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.
Think of IMAP as a modern day celestial cartographer.
It's going to explore and chart the vast range
of particles in interplanetary space,
investigating how charged particles from the sun
get energized, and how the solar wind interacts
at the boundary with interstellar space.
But IMAP also has a very practical application.
It will provide real-time observations
of the solar wind and energetic particles,
giving critical data that can help protect spacecraft
and astronauts from adverse space weather effects.
L1 provides IMAP with a stable and clear 360-degree view
of the heliosphere.
This position also gives an unobstructed view of the sun,
which means the spacecraft can give
about a half hours warning to astronauts
and spacecraft near Earth of harmful radiation
coming their way.
IMAP launched on September 24th, 2025,
the same day as Carothers.
They traveled to Lone together,
along with N-O-O-A's SWF-O Lagrange,
which stands for Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1.
At Lone, they join other spacecraft already in orbit there,
like NASA's Wind and Ace missions,
and the ESA slash NASA Soho Observatory.
The mission is led by principal investigator David McComas,
a professor at Princeton University,
with an international team of more than 20 partner institutions.
Johns Hopkins applied physics laboratory
built the spacecraft and operates the mission.
IMAP is nearing completion of its commissioning phase,
and will begin its science mission on February 1st.
The data from IMAP's state-of-the-art instrumentation
will greatly enhance the usefulness of data
from those other missions at Lone.
It's exciting to have both Carothers and IMAP
reaching their destinations at the same time.
They launched together, traveled together,
and now they're both settling into their orbits
to begin their science missions.
Okay, Avery, save the best for last, right?
You can now put down a deposit
for a hotel room on the moon.
I know it sounds like science fiction, Anna,
but this is for real.
A company called Gru Space,
and that's galactic resources utilization,
has publicly announced its intent
to construct a series of habitats on the moon,
culminating in a hotel that's actually inspired
by the Palace of the Fine Arts in San Francisco.
On Monday, the company opened applications
for aspiring lunar tourists.
You can place a deposit ranging from $250,000
to $1 million to reserve a spot
on one of their early lunar surface missions.
They're targeting as early as 2032
for the hotel opening.
Now, before anyone rushes to empty their bank accounts,
let's talk about what this actually involves.
Gru Space is a Y-combinator back startup,
founded in 2025 by Skyler Chan,
a recent UC Berkeley graduate who's only 22 years old.
The company has received backing
from investors in SpaceX and Andrew.
What makes Gru's approach interesting
is that they're not planning to ship
all the building materials from Earth.
Instead, they want to use in situ resource utilization
or ISRU technology.
That means using robotic systems
to transform lunar soil, regolith,
into durable building blocks.
Their roadmap starts with a 2029 demonstration mission
to validate the process of turning lunar soil into bricks.
By 2032, if everything goes according to plan,
they expect to open what would be
the world's first lunar hotel inside a lunar cave,
which provides natural protection
from radiation and temperature extremes.
The initial hotel will be built on Earth
and delivered by a heavy lander.
It's an inflatable structure designed to host
up to four guests for multi-day stays.
The hotel is designed to operate for 10 years
and will offer views of the lunar landscape and Earth,
along with activities like moonwalks, striving rovers,
and get this, they're even talking about golf.
Of course, this is an incredibly ambitious plan.
And their white paper grew acknowledges
that execution heavily relies on factors
outside their control.
They need decreasing launch costs,
regular and reliable crude flights to the lunar surface,
a favorable regulatory environment
and supporting infrastructure
like lunar power and communications.
All of which are in various stages of development.
The company's vision doesn't stop at moon hotels either.
After establishing the first hotel,
they want to help build America's first moon base
with roads and warehouses, then expand to Mars
and eventually the asteroid belt.
Skyler Chan, the founder, has been passionate
about space and childhood.
He said that I've been obsessed with space
since I was a kid.
I've always wanted to become an astronaut
and feel extremely fortunate to be doing my life's work.
He also mentioned that if they succeed,
billions of human lives will be born on the moon
and Mars and be able to experience the beauty
of lunar and Martian life.
There's actually a $1,000 non-refundable application fee
just to apply and that doesn't guarantee approval.
Selected applicants will receive invitations tied
to specific mission roles and lunar stays.
It's worth noting that this isn't the first time
someone has proposed a lunar hotel.
Hilton hotels actually had a lunar Hilton concept
in the 1960s and even printed reservation cards
and room keys as promotional items.
True and back in 1973, Hilton partnered
with Trans International Airlines
to produce a brochure inviting customers
to a trip to the moon sometime after 1973
with costs up to $25,000 per person.
Of course, that never materialized.
The big question is whether GRU space can succeed
where others have only dreamed.
They've got the backing, they've got the vision
and they've got a founder who's putting everything
into making it happen.
The timeline aligns with NASA's renewed push
to establish a permanent human presence on the moon
through the Artemis program.
Even if this particular venture doesn't pan out exactly
as planned, it's exciting to see private companies
seriously pursuing lunar infrastructure.
The fact that we're even having this conversation
about booking hotel rooms on the moon
shows how far space exploration has come.
Absolutely, whether it's 2032 or 2042,
the era of lunar tourism feels like it's genuinely approaching.
We might actually see commercial lunar hotels
in our lifetimes.
Well, that's all the time we have
for today's episode of Astronomy Daily.
What an incredible day of space news.
From the historic ISS medical evacuation
and wobbling black hole jets
to missions reaching their destinations at L1
and even the possibility of vacationing on the moon,
it's been quite a journey.
If you enjoyed today's episode,
please subscribe to Astronomy Daily
wherever you get your podcasts.
And don't forget to leave us a review.
It really helps other space enthusiasts find the show.
You can find us on social media
and at our website for more space news and updates.
Just search for Astro Daily Pod on socials
or visit us on the web at astronomydaily.io.
Thanks so much for listening, everyone.
Until next time, keep looking up.
See you tomorrow, clear skies.
Astronomy Daily, the star is the toe.
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Astronomy Daily: Space News Updates



