Fast-Tracking to Uranus, Stellar Devastation, and a Cosmic Farewell to Ace Frehley

0:00 Anna: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Astronomy Daily, your go to spot for all things space and starts. I'm Anna. Avery: And I'm Avery. joining you as always. Today is October 18, 2025 and we've got some really cool stories lined up. Like from cutting travel time to distant planets in half to a black hole, basically devouring a star from the inside out. Oh, and don't forget the meteor shower peaking soon. Perfect for stargazers like us. Anna: Totally, Avery. And we'll touch on a massive comet waking up way out there.

0:33 And even a cosmic tribute to a rock legend. So let's dive right in, starting with some exciting news about SpaceX's Starship and potential mission to Uranus. Avery: Okay, so you know how getting to the outer planets takes forever? Like Voyager 2 took over nine years to reach Uranus back in the 80s and, and that was just a flyby. Well, according to this article From Universe Today, SpaceX's Starship could slash that travel time in half for a future orbiter mission. Anna: Whoa, really? Avery: Half?

1:06 Anna: That's huge. so The National Academy's 2022 Decadal Survey prioritized a Uranus orbiter and probe, UOP for short. Because Uranus is this weird ice giant we barely know anything about. It' tilted on its side, has a funky magnetic field, and its moons might have underground oceans. But traditional plans using something like Falcon Heavy would take over 13 years to get there, relying on gravity assists from other planets. Avery: Yeah, and that's a drag, you know, operationally, financially, all that.

1:44 But starship changes the game with in orbit refueling, which they're still testing, but fingers crossed it'll be ready by the end of the decade. Researchers from MIT crunched the numbers and said with refueling and even using starship as an aerobraking shield in Uranus's atmosphere, you could get there in just six and a half years. No slingshots needed. Anna: Aerobraking shield like the starship would tag along the whole way and help slow down the probe. That's clever. And it could cut costs too, since shorter missions mean less time, paying teams and all.

2:20 But NASA's funding for UOP is still up in the air, so we gotta hope they seize those launch windows in the2030s. Otherwise we're waiting till the2040s. That's like 70 years since Voyager's last look. Avery: Exactly. Anna. Uranus deserves more love. It's key for understanding exoplanets too, since ice giants are common out there. Super exciting potential here. Anna: Alright, shifting gears to something straight out of a sci fi horror flickering, astronomers spotted a gamma ray burst that might be a black hole tunneling into a star and exploding it from the inside out.

2:57 This is from sky and Telescope. And it's wild. Avery: Oh, man. Tell me about it. So this burst, GRB 250702B, was picked up by NASA's Fermi telescope on July 2, 2025. But it actually happened 8 billion years ago in a distant galaxy. It lasted a, whopping seven hours with all these flares and fades plus soft X rays a day before from the Einstein probe. Anna: Normally, gamma ray bursts are either short from neutron stars smashing together or longer from massive stars collapsing into black holes. Collapsars, Right, but this one's duration and variability don't fit.

3:39 Follow ups with the Very Large Telescope, Hubble, JWST and more pinpointed it to the edge of a dusty asymmetric galaxy. Avery: Yeah, and the leading theory, a stellar mass black hole merged with a bloated helium star. As the star expanded, the black hole started gobbling. Material slowed down, produced those X rays, then dove into the core and shot out jets that blew the star apart. Eliza Nates from George Washington University and her team think this could be a rare new type of GRB interrupt. Anna: But is this confirmed?

4:15 It challenges all the models, right? Like, incompatible with everything we know. Avery: Totally. But the afterglow data shows fast jets and shock waves that match this black hole star merger. If it's real, it opens up a whole new class of these events. Mind blowing how violent the universe can be. Now for something you can actually see from your backyard. The Orionid meteor shower is peaking next week, and conditions are prime. Space.com has the details. Anna: Yes, it runs until October 26, but maxes out on the morning of October 21.

4:50 The Moon's new that day, so super dark skies, no moonlight messing things up. Expect 15 to 30 meteors per hour. If you're in a rural spot away. Avery: From city lights, they're from Halley's comets. Debris, you know, Earth plows through that stream twice a year. Orionids in fall, Eta Aquarids in spring. These guys are fast. Like 41 miles per second. So quick streaks and bright ones can leave trains or even fireballs a few days after peak. Anna: To catch em, head out before dawn, say 4 to 5am local time.

5:22 Bundle up, lie back, let your eyes adjust. Don't stare right at the radiant near Betelgeuse in orion. Look about 30 degrees away toward the zenith. Visible from both hemispheres, too. Avery: Perfect timing for us stargazers. If you're out there, any predawn meteor has a 75% chance of being in Orionid. Grab a friend, make it a thing. Anna: Speaking of comets, the largest known comet from the Oort Cloud is already active billions of miles out. This is C 2014 UN 271 or Bernardinelli Bernstein from Daily Galaxy.

6:00 Avery: It's huge, about 85 miles across, way bigger than most. Currently 16.6 AU from the sun past Saturn, over 1.5 billion miles away. At that distance, water's still frozen, but volatiles like carbon monoxide are venting out in bursts. Anna: Alma telescope in Chile caught these gas jets at 230 gigahertz, changing between observations. Probably rotating active spots facing the Sun. It's got a compact coma, low formaldehyde, so the gas is coming straight from inside. Avery: This challenges what we thought about when comets wake up, usually closer in.

6:39 As a pristine Oort Cloud object, it's like a time capsule from the solar system's birth. Exciting for understanding ancient chemistry. Anna: Absolutely. And it's rotating, outgassing explosively. Can't wait to see how it evolves as it gets closer. Avery: Finally, a bit of a lighter but sad note. Ace Frehley, the spaceman from KISS, passed away at 74. Space.com did a cosmic tribute. Anna: Oh yeah, he died from a head injury on October 16th. Ace was the original guitarist for Kiss from 73 to 82, then reunited in the 90s.

7:14 His spaceman look was all space themed makeup, costumes of stars and lightning, and. Avery: His solo stuff leaned into it hard. Albums like Frehley's Comet, Space Invader with tracks about Mars, missions and vortices. Spaceman in 2018, even 10,000 volts. This year with Walkin on the Moon, he left a cosmic mark on rock. Anna: Totally tributes from folks like Alex Liveson. Rest in peace Space Ace. Your sci fi legacy lives on. Avery: Whew, that was a packed episode. Anna From black holes to rockstars, space never disappoints for sure.

7:50 Anna: Thanks for tuning in to Astronomy Daily. And remember, if you need more space and astronomy news in your life, just visit our website at astronomydaily IO and check out our continuously updating newsfeed and sign up for our free daily newsletter. Catch us next time for more stellar news. Stay curious. Look up Avery: Bye for now