Black Hole Stars Confirmed, Universe Collapse Timeline & Falcon Heavy Returns

Anna: Welcome back to Astronomy Daily. I'm

Anna.

Avery: And I'm Avery. And, um, Anna, can I just say

it is so good to be back on air.

Anna: It really is. We've had a short break in

production, but space, space did not

take a break. In fact, the cosmos has been

absolutely firing this week and we have got

a packed episode to prove it.

Avery: We are talking black hole stars. Finally

confirmed a rocket that hasn't flown in a

year and a half. Roaring back to life, the

next generation of space exploration hardware

arriving at Kennedy. And oh, uh, just a

small update about the eventual fate of the

entire universe.

Anna: No big deal, just the end of everything.

Avery: We'll also have some gorgeous sky watching

news for our Southern Hemisphere listeners.

A, uh, meteor shower is peaking in just days

and it is a good one.

Anna: This is astronomy Daily Season 5,

Episode 93, and we are absolutely

delighted to be back. Let's get into it.

Avery: Alright, we are starting with what might

honestly be the biggest cosmological story of

2026 so far. It concerns those

mysterious little red dots that James Webb

has been teasing us with for the past couple

of years. And this week, NASA's

Chandra X Ray Observatory may have finally

cracked the case

Anna: for anyone who needs a quick refresher. Ever

since Webb started its deep sky observations,

it kept finding these strange compact

ruby red objects scattered across the early

universe. They existed when the cosmos was

only a few hundred million years old. They

were too massive to be ordinary galaxies, but

they weren't behaving like the supermassive

black holes we know either.

Avery: And critically, they weren't emitting X rays,

which is really weird because actively

feeding black holes almost always do.

So what were they?

Anna: Well, this week, Chandra found an X ray

signal that lines up exactly precisely

with the position of one of Webb's little red

dots. The object, cataloged as

3DHST, age

12014, had been sitting in

Chandra's database for years. But it only

became significant when Webb imaged the same

patch of sky and found a little red dot in

exactly the same spot.

Avery: And that X ray energy, it matches the

signature of a quasar, a galaxy powered by

an extremely active black hole. This is the

first little red dot ever observed in X rays.

And it gives astronomers their strongest

evidence yet for what these things actually

are.

Anna: So the leading theory which is gaining

serious momentum now is that little red

dots are so called black hole stars.

Picture a dense cloud of gas perhaps a

few hundred light years across, with a

growing supermassive black hole eating it

from the inside out. The heat from that

infalling material glows not as X

rays, which get absorbed by the surrounding

cloud, but as visible red light, which is

exactly what Webb sees.

Avery: It's a completely new class of cosmic object.

Not quite a star, not quite a galaxy,

something in between. An early universe

state we've never directly observed before.

Anna: And if this interpretation holds, it helps

solve one of the biggest puzzles in modern

cosmology. How did supermassive black

holes get so enormous so fast?

The answer, it seems, is that they grew

inside these massive gas cocoons hidden

from our instruments, consuming their birth

clouds from within.

Avery: One astronomer told Scientific American, and

I love this quote, lrds once seemed to

demand either impossibly efficient galaxy

formation or implausibly massive black

holes appearing out of nowhere. Either way,

something was badly wrong with our models.

But now the pieces are fitting together.

Anna: More X ray follow up and more Webb spectra

are needed to confirm the picture fully. But

the community is buzzing. These objects may

be Webb's single most consequential

discovery.

Avery: Yet the universe really does reward

patience. Sometimes you just have to wait for

the right telescope to look in the right

direction.

Anna: Now, for our regular listeners, you'll know

we've been following the Artemis story

closely across this entire season.

Artemis 2, launched on April 1, took

four astronauts on a breathtaking journey

around the far side of the moon and splashed

down safely on April 10th. And this week

there were two remarkable developments

happening almost simultaneously at the

very same spaceport.

Avery: It really was a full circle moment in Kennedy

space Center on April 28th. On one side of

the facility, the Orion capsule named

Integrity, the very spacecraft that carried

Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hanson

around the moon, arrived back home for post

flight analysis.

Anna: Engineers are now in the process of

deservicing integrity, removing

payloads, extracting avionics boxes for

reuse, and conducting detailed scans of the

heat shield and other systems. Every piece of

data they recover will directly inform

Artemis 3.

Avery: And at the very same time, on the other side

of Kennedy, the core Stage for Artemis 3

Space Launch System rocket was being

offloaded from NASA's Pegasus barge and

moved into the vehicle assembly building.

That core stage, the largest structural

component of the rocket, had been

manufactured at NASA's Michaux Assembly

Facility in New Orleans and shipped 900

miles by sea.

Anna: At 212ft tall when fully

assembled, the SLS core stage is an

engineering marvel in its own right. It

houses two propellant tanks holding over

733,000 gallons of

super chilled liquid propellant, enough to

power four RS25 engines for more than

eight minutes of flight.

Avery: And this marks a first for the program. For

Artemis 1 and 2. The entire core stage

was assembled at Michaud before shipping.

Starting with Artemis 3, NASA and Boeing

are splitting production, outfitting major

sections individually and joining them at

Kennedy. It's a streamlining of the

manufacturing process designed to accelerate

the cadence of Future missions.

Anna: Artemis 3 is currently scheduled for launch

in 2027, and it'll take astronauts to

Earth orbit to test rendezvous and docking

with commercial spacecraft, the critical step

needed before Artemis 4 can actually

land humans on the lunar surface in

2028.

Avery: The pace of this program right now is

genuinely impressive. Artemis 2 just came

home and already the next mission's rocket is

being assembled. That's how you build

momentum.

Anna: Now let's talk about a rocket comeback,

because on April 29, SpaceX's

Falcon Heavy roared back to life for the

first time in 18 months and it did

not disappoint.

Avery: 18 months for a rocket of that

capability, that is a long time between

flights. The last Falcon Heavy mission was in

October 2024, when it launched NASA's

Europa Clipper toward Jupiter. And now it's

back.

Anna: The mission was Viasat 3F3,

the third and final satellite in Viasat's

constellation of high capacity broadband

relay stations. This 6.6

ton spacecraft is headed for

geostationary orbit where it will serve

the Asia Pacific region with more than 1

terabit per second of Internet capacity.

It completes a, uh, constellation that ViaSat

has been building for over a decade

Avery: and Falcon Heavy delivered in spectacular

fashion. Liftoff was at 10:13am M

Eastern Time from Launch Complex 39A at

AH, Kennedy Space Center. The very same

historic pad that launched the Apollo

missions. And the rocket's 27 Merlin

engines generated 5.1 million

pounds of thrust at liftoff. The sight of

that thing climbing into the Florida sky is

always extraordinary.

Anna: But perhaps the most crowd pleasing moment

came about eight minutes after launch when

the two side boosters, veterans of previous

flightsexecuted simultaneous

touchdowns back at Cape Canaveral Space Force

Station. Those twin sonic booms,

those two columns of fire landing in

perfect formation. It never gets old.

Avery: The central core booster was not recovered on

this mission. It was expended as planned and

came down in the Atlantic. But with two

reusable side boosters safely home and the

satellite deployed successfully a few hours

after launch, it was mission accomplished.

Anna: This was the 12th flight of a Falcon Heavy

since its debut in 2018. While

Falcon Heavy doesn't fly as often as its

Falcon 9 sibling, in a way it's a victim of

the Falcon 9's incredible versatility. When

it does fly, it's always an event. And for

viasat, it was the completion of something

they've been working toward for more than 10

years.

Avery: The Viasat 3 program has had its share of

challenges. The first satellite had an

antenna deployment issue that crippled most

of its capability. But the constellation is

now complete, and viasat is looking ahead.

Welcome back, Falcon Heavy.

Anna: Alright, now for what might be the most mind

bending story of the week. How comfortable

are you with the concept of the universe

ending?

Avery: Oh, extremely comfortable. It's fine.

Everything is fine, right?

Anna: Because a new cosmological study has just

suggested that the universe may be on a much

tighter schedule than we previously thought.

We're talking a potential Big Crunch, a total

cosmic collapse in just

33.3 billion years.

Avery: Now, to be clear, that is still an, um,

almost incomprehensibly long time.

The universe is currently about 13.8 billion

years old. We're talking about more than

twice that again before anything dramatic

happens. But in cosmological terms,

this represents a serious revision.

Anna: Up until recently, the dominant view was that

the universe would expand forever, driven by

dark energy, that mysterious force which

makes up about 70% of the universe's

total energy content. Galaxies would

drift further and further apart over

trillions of years, leaving a cold,

dark, empty cosmos.

Avery: But this new research, published this week

and using real observational data from two of

the world's most powerful cosmic surveys, the

Dark Energy Survey and the Dark Energy

Spectrum Microscopic Instrument, introduces a

different possibility.

Anna: The key is something called the Axion Dark

Energy Model. It's a hybrid theory that

treats dark energy not as a fixed constant,

but as, uh, something that can evolve over

time, specifically as a combination of the

cosmological constant and an ultralight

particle called an axion, which is usually

associated with dark matter research.

Avery: And when researchers tested this model

against real galaxy survey data, we're

talking maps of hundreds of millions of

galaxies. It fit remarkably well.

More importantly, it predicts a future phase

where the combined effects of this axion

field begin to pull the universe inward

rather than push it outward.

Anna: Though instead of eternal expansion, you get

a universe that reaches a maximum size,

slows, stops, and then begins to contract.

Over billions of years, galaxies that are

currently racing apart would begin to draw

closer, cosmic structures would compress,

temperatures would rise, and ultimately

everything would collapse back into an ultra

dense state. A big crunch mirroring

the conditions of the Big Bang in reverse.

Avery: There's even speculation that such a collapse

could trigger another cosmic cycle, a new

Big Bang from The wreckage of the old

universe, which is either terrifying or

poetic, depending on your perspective.

Anna: Now, it's important to say this is one model

among several. The fate of the universe is

genuinely one of the open frontiers of

cosmology. But what makes this significant is

that it's grounded in actual observational

data, not just theory. And it highlights

just how much the behavior of dark energy

matters. Even small changes in how it

acts over time lead to completely different

ultimate destinies for the cosmos.

Avery: It also gives us a really compelling reason

to build the next generation of space

observatories, including, as we covered

recently, the Roman Space Telescope launching

in September. More data, better models,

clearer picture of what actually awaits

everything that exists.

Anna: For now, enjoy the stars. You've got

33 billion years and change.

Avery: Plenty of time.

Anna: As we mentioned earlier, Artemis 2's

Orion capsule is now back at Kennedy Space

Center. And while engineers are thrilled with

the overall success of that mission, 10 days

in space, humans around the moon for the

first time in over 50 years. Years. It

wouldn't be a test flight without some things

to learn from.

Avery: And mission managers have been admirably

transparent about what they found. Following

Splashdown on April 10, several issues were

flagged for investigation, and NASA's post

mission briefings have given us a clear

picture of what comes next.

Anna: The big one everyone's watching is the Orion

heat shield, made from a material called

avcot, the same ablative UH material used

in the Apollo era. The shield performed well

during the fiery re entry at nearly

24,000 miles per hour, but there

were expected signs of divots and, um,

cracking in the material.

Avery: This was anticipated. The heat Shield's

behavior during re entry has been a known

discussion point since Artemis 1. What's

different now is that engineers have real

world performance data to analyze, including

detailed scans and imagery from aircraft that

track the capsule during reentry. The data is

now being processed at Kennedy.

Anna: Beyond the heat shield, mission managers

identified a, uh, valve in Orion's service

module that requires a redesign. And in

perhaps the most relatable moment of the

entire post mission debrief, there was a

toilet issue that needs to be sorted out for

future long duration missions.

Avery: To his credit, Artemis 2 commander Reid

Weissman has defended the mission's

facilities, saying, and this is a real quote,

that was a wonderful toilet, so make of that

what you will.

Anna: NASA's Associate Administrator for human

spaceflight acknowledged that these issues

represent a tight Turnaround for Artemis 3,

scheduled for 2027. But

importantly, the agency says it is learning

to move faster and the overall vehicle

performance was strong.

Avery: The design changes for the heat shield will

be implemented for Artemis 3. The AFCO

permeability issues that caused the erosion

pattern are understood, and the revised

design is already in development. These are

the growing pains of a new crewed lunar

program, and NASA is working through them

systematically.

Anna: The key takeaway Artemis II achieved

all its primary mission objectives. The crew

came home safely, and the data collected is

now directly shaping the next mission. That

is exactly how test flights are supposed to

work.

Avery: And now for something you can actually go

outside and experience yourself. Because one

of the best meteor showers of the year is

peaking in just a matter of days, we're

talking about the ADA Aquariids.

Anna: The Ada aquariids peak around May

6, so that's just days away. And this is

an especially exciting shower for our

listeners in Australia, New Zealand and

across the Southern Hemisphere. You're in the

prime seats for this one.

Avery: So what makes the Ada Aquarian special? These

meteors are debris from Halley's Comet. Every

year, Earth passes through the trail of dust

and particles that Halley left behind on its

journeys through the inner solar system.

Those particles, some, um, no bigger than a

grain of sand, slam into our atmosphere at

about 40 miles per hour and burn up in

brilliant streaks of light.

Anna: Halley's Comet last passed through the inner

solar system in 1986 and won't

return until 2061. But every

year we get to pass through its legacy, and

the Eta Aquarids are that legacy. Made

visible at peak, you can expect

Avery: up to 50 meteors per hour under good

conditions. And the Southern Hemisphere gets

significantly more activity than the north

because the Radian Point in the constellation

Aquarius sits higher in the southern sky.

Anna: The best time to look is in the hours before

dawn, roughly between 3am and

first light. Get away from city lights if you

can. Let your eyes adjust to the dark for

about 20 minutes and look toward the

northeast. No telescope needed. This is a

naked eye event.

Avery: One thing to note, this year, the Moon may

throw some light into the sky in your peak,

which can wash out the fainter meteors. But

even so, the brighter Eta Aquarids,

particularly those long, graceful streaks

that leave glowing trains across the sky,

should be spectacular.

Anna: These fast moving meteors are famous for

leaving persistent trains, glowing trails

that can linger for several seconds after the

meteor itself has gone. They are some of the

most photogenic meteors you'll see all

year.

Avery: So Southern Hemisphere friends set that

alarm, grab a blanket and a thermos of

something warm and go say hello to the Ghost

of Halley's Comet. It's waiting for you.

Anna: What a week to come.

Back to Black Hole, stars, Moon rockets,

Falcon Heavy, the potential end of the

universe. Honestly, space is just

never boring.

Avery: Never boring. Anna. Uh, never boring. Thank

you so much for joining us for season five,

episode 93 of Astronomy Daily. It's

wonderful to be back.

Anna: If you want to go deeper on any of today's

stories or check back through our archive

from across the season, you can find

[email protected]

and if you're enjoying the show, please do

leave us a review or subscribe. Wherever you

get your podcasts, it genuinely makes a

difference.

Avery: You can also find us on social media

strodaily pod and we'd love to hear from you

if you go out and catch the ida, uh, Aquarids

this week. Share your meteor photos. Tell us

what you saw.

Anna: Until next time, keep looking up Clear

skies, everyone.

Avery: This has been Astronomy Daily.

Astronomy Daily

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