Runaway Black Hole Confirmed, Mercury Still Active & 2032 Moon Impact Risk

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Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your source for the latest space and astronomy news.

I'm Anna.

And I'm Avery.

Thanks for joining us on this Thursday, February 29th, 2026.

We've got a fascinating lineup today,

covering everything from Mercury's surprising geological activity

to a possible asteroid impact on the moon.

That's right.

We're going to explore bright streaks on Mercury

that suggest our smallest planet is still geologically active.

Check in on NASA's test satellite after a command error,

temporarily sideline it,

and discuss the discovery of an intriguing Earth-like exoplanet

that's much colder than you might expect.

Plus, we'll bring you updates on NASA and SpaceX moving up the crew 12 launch

to help out the skeleton crew currently on the International Space Station.

Then we'll dive into the wild world of runaway black holes

tearing through space,

and wrap up with what could be a once-in-a-lifetime scientific opportunity

if an asteroid hits the moon in 2032.

It's quite a ride today.

Let's get started with some surprising news

from the innermost planet in our solar system.

Mercury has long been viewed as a small,

geologically dead world,

but new research is challenging that assumption in a big way.

The team led by researchers at the University of Bern

has uncovered hundreds of bright linear streaks on crater slopes

that point to ongoing volcanic activity

and volatile laws from Mercury's interior.

This is really fascinating work, Avery.

The team applied deep learning techniques

to analyze about 100,000 high-resolution images

taken by NASA's messenger spacecraft

during its orbital mission from 2011 to 2015.

Using this automated approach,

they mapped the global distribution

of roughly 400 bright streaks

that had previously escaped comprehensive cataloging.

And what they found was pretty telling,

these features, known as slope linear,

occur preferentially on sun-facing slopes

inside relatively young impact craters

that cut through thick volcanic deposits.

The concentration of streaks

in these thermally-stressed environments

indicates that solar heating

is an important trigger for volatile escape

from near-surface layers.

Much of these streaks originate

in small, bright depressions called hollows

that dot crater floors and walls.

These hollows have long been interpreted

as products of volatile loss

and their close association with the linear

supports the view that both structures form

when volatile components like sulfur

or other light elements escape from the subsurface.

According to the research team,

fracture networks created by the original impact events

likely provide pathways that allow

volatile-rich material from deeper levels

to reach the surface.

As solar radiation warms these exposed zones,

volatiles can escape into space,

driving the development or modification

of the bright streaks down slope.

What's particularly exciting is the timing.

This research arrives just as the joint ESA

and Jaxa Becky Colombo mission is en route to Mercury.

The mission carries an advanced payload

that includes several key contributions

from the University of Bern.

Absolutely.

The Becky Colombo laser altimeter, or Bella,

was designed and built in part at the University of Bern.

It will use laser pulses from an orbit

roughly 1,000 kilometers above the surface

to measure elevations with about 10 centimeter precision,

enabling a detailed reconstruction of

Mercury's topography.

The Bern team also contributed the ion optical system

for Strophio and NASA mass spectrometer on Becky Colombo

that will measure the composition of Mercury's

extremely thin atmosphere,

connecting present-day volatile escape at the surface

to the surrounding exosphere.

The research team plans to use the current inventory of slope streaks

as a baseline for future comparisons

once a Becky Colombo begins returning data.

By imaging key regions again,

they aim to determine whether new streaks have formed

or existing ones have changed since the messenger era.

Any such changes would provide strong evidence

that volatile driven processes

are still reshaping Mercury's surface on human time scales.

It's a great reminder that even our smallest,

closest planetary neighbor still has secrets to reveal.

Mercury is far more dynamic than we thought.

Gifting from Mercury to our planet hunting efforts,

NASA's transiting exoplanet survey satellite, or Tess,

recently had a bit of a scare

when a command error temporarily knocked it offline.

Right, the spacecraft was forced into safe mode

after an unexpected command error

caused its solar panels to misalign with the sun.

This misalignment had serious consequences

because the panels were unable to charge Tess' batteries,

leading to a low power condition

that triggered the automatic transition to safe mode.

In safe mode, all non-essential systems are turned off

to conserve power,

and the spacecraft awaits further instructions

from ground controllers.

NASA engineers quickly worked to resolve the issue,

and fortunately, Tess' safe mode performed as intended,

protecting the spacecraft from permanent damage.

This incident is actually reminiscent of past missing failures.

Remember Viking I back in 1982?

A faulty command caused the loss of communication,

and there was that catastrophic series of events

that nearly destroyed the Soho probe in 1998.

But unlike those cases,

Tess was fortunate to have safeguards in place.

Exactly, the spacecraft's automatic safe mode

kicked in when the power situation became critical.

The safe mode is designed to preserve

the spacecraft's core functions, such as attitude control,

and ensure it can be reactivated

once engineers identify and address the issue.

According to NASA, the mission team is now reviewing

and updating procedures to prevent this command error

from happening in the future.

It's a good reminder that even with advanced technology,

human error remains a significant challenge

in space operations.

Absolutely.

While Tess' recovery was successful

and demonstrates how far space mission technology has come,

this incident emphasizes the need

for continued vigilance in mission planning.

The risk of human error is always there,

and the consequences can be costly

in terms of both time and resources.

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The good news is that Tess is back online

and continuing its important work

of hunting for exoplanets,

which brings us nicely to our next story

about a newly discovered Earth-like world.

Beaking of exoplanets, astronomers have just discovered

what might be one of the closest things we have to Earth's twin,

though it's considerably colder than our home planet.

The exoplanet is called HD-137010B,

and it's located 146 light years away.

It's slightly larger than Earth,

and orbits a star that resembles our Sun.

However, despite its similarities to Earth

in terms of size and orbital period,

its surface could be far colder than even Mars,

potentially reaching a frigid minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit,

or minus 68 degrees Celsius.

This discovery was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters

and was made by an international team

led by Alexander Venner.

The search for Earth-like exoplanets

has been a central focus of astronomical research

for over three decades now.

Dr. Huang, a key member of the research team, explained it well.

When he said, since the discovery of the first exoplanet

30 years ago, we've always tried to find Earth's twin.

HD-137010B could bring us closer to that goal,

although it's not an exact match.

The planet is positioned in what astronomers call

the habitable zone of its star,

which is the area where water could potentially exist

in liquid form, which is crucial for life as we know it.

However, there's a major obstacle.

Right, the star HD-137010B orbits

is cooler and dimmer than our Sun,

meaning the planet receives only a fraction

of the energy Earth does.

This could result in surface temperatures

as low as minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit,

making it one of the coldest exoplanets discovered

in recent years.

But scientists remain hopeful.

Dr. Venner pointed out that while the planet's surface

might be frozen, it could still fall

within the broader, optimistic habitable zone of its star.

With the right atmosphere conditions,

HD-137010B might not be as inhospitable

as its temperature suggests.

One of the challenges of studying this planet

is its orbital distance from its star,

which is similar to Earth's,

but much farther than the typical exoplanets

that are easier to observe.

Transits, when the planet crosses in front of its star,

happen less frequently, making it harder

to confirm the planet's existence.

The discovery was made from a single transit

captured by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope.

Further confirmation of the planet's existence

and detailed analysis of its mass and atmosphere

will require more data, which might not be possible

until the next generation of telescopes become operational.

It's an exciting discovery that adds to our understanding

of the types of environments where life could potentially

exist beyond our solar system,

even if HD-137010B is too cold for life as we know it,

it teaches us valuable lessons about planetary habitability.

Now let's turn our attention back to Earth orbit

and the International Space Station.

NASA has announced an earlier than expected target day

to launch the next astronauts to the ISS.

That's right, the agency is now targeting February 11th

for liftoff of SpaceX Crew 12 mission,

which will fly four astronauts to join the skeleton crew

presently operating the orbit a lagatory.

That's four days earlier than originally planned.

Just to give everyone context,

currently only three crew members

are covering the maintenance and science investigations

aboard the ISS.

They were left behind on January 14th

by their early departure of Crew 11

on the station's first ever medical evacuation.

The crew 12 astronauts were already in line

to take the crew 11's quartets place,

but they had originally been scheduled to overlap

with them before their return to Earth.

SpaceX and NASA had originally targeted February 15th

for Crew 12's launch,

but managed to get the mission's Crew Dragon spacecraft

and Falcon 9 rocket ready ahead of schedule.

The crew 12 team includes NASA astronauts Jessica Meir,

who's the mission commander, and Jack Hathaway as pilot.

The mission specialists are Sophie Adinot

of the European Space Agency,

and Ross Cosmos Cosmonot, André Fedyev.

Interestingly, Fedyev was a relatively late replacement

for Cosmonot, a leg Artemif,

who was pulled off Crew 12 in early December,

possibly for violating US national security regulations.

This quartet will fly the Crew Dragon capsule name Grace

to the ISS for a longer than normal assignment,

lasting nine months instead of the typical six months.

It'll be the second space flight

for both Meir and Fedyev,

while Hathaway and Adinot are both space flight rookies

headed to orbit for the first time.

The launch window opens on February 11th

at 6 a.m. Eastern time from launch complex 40

at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

If they don't manage to launch that day,

there are backup opportunities on February 12th and 13th.

The Crew 12 astronauts will join NASA Chris Williams

and Cosmonot Sergei Kudz, Fed Skolv,

and Sergei Meir, as part of ISS Expedition 74,

which will eventually transition to Expedition 75

before the end of Crew 12's rotation.

It's great to see the relief crew heading up sooner

to help out the skeleton crew currently managing the station.

Now for something truly mind-bending.

Astronomers have confirmed the first runaway

is super-massive black hole

and it's leaving quite a trail behind it.

This is wild stuff, Anna.

The black hole was identified by a 200,000 light-year tail

and a supersonic bow shock in the cosmic owl galaxy,

which is actually a pair of ring galaxies

about 8.8 billion light years away.

The rings appear as outliers

as they get closer and closer to merging.

The research led by Peter Von Dockham

from Yale's Astronomy Department

was confirmed using observations

from the James Webb Space Telescope.

The central proposal is that this linear feature

is the wake behind a runaway super-massive black hole

and this is strongly supported by their analysis.

But how does something weighing potentially millions

or even billions of times the mass of our sun

get kicked out of a galaxy?

The answer lies in galaxy mergers.

When big galaxies collide and merge,

they force the black holes at their respective sensors

into close proximity.

Right, if two black holes become locked

in a gravitational dance and then a third

crashes in from another merging galaxy,

the resulting instability can hurl one of the trio away

at sufficient speed to exit the host galaxy entirely.

This can happen through two main mechanisms.

The first is gravitational wave recoil.

When black holes merge, they emit gravitational waves

that can give the resulting black hole

a velocity boost of up to several thousand kilometers per second,

propelling it away from the galactic center.

The second mechanism is the classical slingshot scenario.

In this case, a long-lived binary black hole

forms through a merger of two galaxies.

When a third supermassive black hole is introduced

in a second merger, the three-body interaction

can eject one of the black holes, usually the lightest one.

What's particularly striking about this confirmed runaway

black hole is the trail it leaves behind.

As the black hole plows through intergalactic space,

it compresses tenuous gas in front of it,

which precipitates the birth of hot blue stars.

This creates a 200,000 light-year-long

contrail of young stars.

The black hole also generates a bow shock

at the head of this week,

something the researchers predicted based on shock models.

From the ages of the stars in the trail,

they deduce that the black hole escaped

about 40 million years ago and is barreling through space

at roughly 1,600 kilometers per second.

To put that in perspective,

that's fast enough to travel from Earth to the moon

in about 14 minutes.

It's an incredible speed for something so massive.

Recent papers have shown images

of surprisingly straight streaks of stars within galaxies

that seem to be convincing evidence for runaway black holes.

One paper describes a very distant galaxy

imaged by James Webb with a bright contrail,

suggesting a black hole with a mass 10 million times

the mass of the sun.

It's a reminder that the universe is even more dynamic

and violent than we often imagine.

These behemoths aren't just sitting quietly

at the centers of galaxies.

Some of them are literally tearing through space,

creating new stars in their wake.

And finally, let's talk about an upcoming event

that has both exciting scientific potential

and some concerning risks.

On December 22nd, 2032,

asteroid 2024-YR-4 has a 4% chance

of actually striking the moon.

A 4% chance might not sound like much,

but it's definitely non-negligible.

If this collision does happen,

it will release enough energy to be the equivalent

of smacking our nearest neighbor

with a medium-sized thermal nuclear weapon.

It would be six orders of magnitude more powerful

than the last major impact on the moon,

which happened back in 2013.

A new paper from Yifan He of Qinghua University

looks at the potential scientific opportunities

if this collision occurs.

And while they can simulate models

of how the impact will go,

monitoring it as it happens

will provide never before collected actual data

that's infeasible to get any other way.

The impact would vaporize rock and plasma

and would be clearly visible from the Pacific region,

where it will be nighttime during the impact.

Even days after the impact,

the melt pool of the impacted material

will still be cooling,

allowing infrared observers

like the James Webb Space Telescope

to capture plenty of data.

The impact should form a crater roughly 1 kilometer wide

and 150 to 260 meters deep,

with a 100 meter pool of molten rock at the center.

Comparing it in size to other craters scattered around the moon

will help us understand its bombardment history.

The impact will also set off a global moonquake

of magnitude 5.0.

That would be the strongest moonquake yet detected

by any size thermometer on the moon.

Watching the propagation of the moonquake

will shine a light on the moon's interior

and help researchers understand its composition.

And here's where it gets really spectacular.

A final piece of the scientific puzzle

will be the debris field created by the blast.

Up to 400 kilograms of lunar material

is expected to survive reentry to Earth,

creating essentially a free large-scale lunar sample

return mission.

At its peak right around Christmas of 2032,

simulations expect up to 20 million meteors per hour

to hit our atmosphere,

at least on the leading edge of the planet.

Most of them would have naked eye visibility,

including some 100 to 400 fireballs per hour.

But there is a downside to all of this.

That 400 kilograms of meteors has to land somewhere

and it looks like the crosshairs fall squarely

on South America, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula.

A few kilograms of space rock falling on Dubai

could certainly cause some damage.

Perhaps more dangerous is the risk

of satellite mega constellations

that play such an important role

in our modern day navigation and internet systems.

Such an event could trigger Kessler syndrome

and bring the entire network down

over the span of a few short years,

while also locking us out from being able

to get anything else safely into orbit for much longer.

Due to the risks,

some space agencies are already considering

a deflection mission that would bump asteroid 2024-YR-4

out of the way of a potential lunar collision.

But that hasn't been set in stone yet.

Neither has the actual impact itself

with only a 4% chance of happening.

If the odds increase over the coming years,

we as a species will have to decide

whether it's worth it to deflect it or not.

If we do, we might miss out on a whole bunch of cool science.

But we also might save our entire orbital infrastructure

and the few lives directly to boot.

And that wraps up today's episode of Astronomy Daily.

From Mercury's surprising activity

to a possible lunar impact in our future,

space continues to surprise and amaze us.

Thanks for joining us today.

For more space news and to explore our archive of episodes,

visit our website at astronomydaily.io.

You can also find us on social media

at AstroDailyPod on X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

If you enjoyed today's show,

please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform

and leave us a review.

It really helps other space enthusiasts find us.

Until next time, keep looking up.

We're Skies, everyone.

Astronomy day.

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