Fireballs, UFO Files & Rocket Fire — Is The Universe Sending Us Messages?

0:00 Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna.

0:03 Avery: And I'm Avery. It is Monday 11th

0:06 May 2026 and this is season

0:08 5 episode 99.

0:11 Anna: One episode away from triple digits, Avery.

0:14 And we are not going quietly.

0:16 Avery: Absolutely not.

0:17 Today we have six stories that run the full

0:20 gamut. Mysterious fireballs raining down

0:23 across continents. A rocket breathing fire

0:26 in Texas. A cargo ship about to head

0:28 to the space station. Carbon molecules shaped

0:31 like soccer balls appearing inside a dying

0:34 star. Ever before seen photographs of

0:36 the moon's far side. And brace

0:39 yourself. The biggest government UFO file

0:42 drop in history.

0:44 Anna: That is quite a lineup. Let's get into it.

0:47 Avery: We're going to start with the story that had

0:49 the Internet absolutely buzzing over the

0:51 weekend. And it is one that sits squarely in

0:54 our wheelhouse. On Friday 8

0:57 May 2026, the Pentagon

0:59 released what it called never before seen

1:01 files relating to unidentified anomalous

1:04 phenomena. UAPs that the government

1:07 has been sitting on for decades.

1:09 Anna: UAPs, for anyone who just joined us, is

1:12 the official modern term for what most people

1:15 still call UFOs. And Friday's release

1:18 was genuinely historic.

1:20 Avery: It really was. The Pentagon launched ah, a

1:23 dedicated public portal, war.gov

1:26 UFO and dropped an initial tranche of

1:29 162 files that includes

1:32 120 PDF documents,

1:35 28 videos and 14 high

1:37 resolution images. Everything from internal

1:40 military memos to Apollo mission

1:43 photography to recent infrared sensor

1:45 footage.

1:46 Anna: The program even has an acronym, Persu,

1:49 which stands for Presidential Unsealing and

1:52 Reporting System for UAP Encounters.

1:54 And the files span nearly eight decades

1:57 going back to the late 1940s.

2:00 Avery: Now, before listeners get too excited or too

2:03 skeptical, let's be clear about what the

2:05 files do. And don't say the

2:07 Pentagon was explicit. These are quote,

2:10 unresolved cases, meaning the government was

2:12 unable to make a definitive determination on

2:15 the nature of the observed phenomena. They do

2:18 not prove extraterrestrial contact.

2:20 Anna: They do.

2:20 Avery: They do not suggest a cover up of alien

2:22 visitors.

2:23 Anna: But what they do provide is transparency

2:26 that researchers, scientists and the public

2:29 have been demanding for years. Former

2:31 Pentagon UAP office head Sean

2:33 Kirkpatrick cautioned that without analysis

2:36 and context, the raw files, uh, risk fueling

2:39 speculation. And that's a fair point.

2:42 Context matters enormously with this

2:44 material.

2:45 Avery: What astronomers and UAP researchers are most

2:48 interested in is the ability to now cross

2:50 reference these files with the existing

2:52 scientific data. Radar, infrasound,

2:55 satellite records to build proper analytical

2:58 frameworks around what was actually observed.

3:01 Anna: Some of the more striking clips include a,

3:04 ah, football shaped object observed by an

3:06 infrared sensor near Japan, a, uh, misshapen

3:09 ball of white light recorded over Syria and

3:12 archival Apollo 17 imagery showing

3:15 three lights above the lunar terrain that the

3:18 astronauts theorized were ice chunks.

3:20 Avery: And this is only the beginning. The Pentagon

3:23 says more files will be released on a rolling

3:25 basis every few weeks as they are discovered

3:28 and declassified. This is an ongoing process

3:31 covering tens of millions of records.

3:33 Anna: For our listeners who want to explore the

3:35 files directly, the portal is

3:38 war.gov UFO

3:40 no clearance required.

3:42 Avery: From government secrets to rocket fire

3:45 and what a fire it was on Wednesday

3:48 7 May, SpaceX completed

3:51 a milestone that the entire space industry

3:54 had been watching. The first

3:56 successful full duration full

3:59 thrust static fire of the Super

4:01 Heavy version 3 booster.

4:04 Anna: All 33 Raptor V3 engines

4:06 firing simultaneously for the full

4:09 duration. SpaceX described it simply on

4:12 X as full duration and full

4:14 thrust 33 engine static fire with

4:17 super heavy V3 understated, but

4:20 the footage was anything but.

4:22 Avery: And this matters enormously because previous

4:25 attempts hadn't made it to this point. There

4:28 was a 10 engine partial test in March, a

4:31 UH33 engine attempt on April 15th.

4:34 Both ended early due to issues with ground

4:36 equipment. This one went the distance.

4:39 Anna: The Raptor V3 engines themselves

4:42 are a significant upgrade, each capable

4:45 of delivering around 600,000

4:48 pounds of thrust with improved reliability

4:50 over the previous generation.

4:53 33 of them firing together makes the

4:56 super heavy booster the most powerful

4:59 first stage rocket ever built

5:01 and the full Starship stack.

5:03 Avery: That's the booster plus the ship upper stage

5:05 on top is over 400ft tall,

5:08 taller than the Saturn V, designed to carry

5:11 more than 100 tons to low Earth orbit and

5:14 fully reusable.

5:16 Anna: The ship upper stage for Flight 12

5:19 already cleared its own static fire earlier,

5:22 so both halves of the vehicle have now passed

5:25 their pre flight tests. SpaceX is

5:27 targeting 15 May for the 12th

5:30 Starship test flight, a suborbital mission

5:33 designed to further refine the vehicle's

5:35 capabilities.

5:36 Avery: For context, Starship is central to NASA's

5:39 Artemis program. It is the planned human

5:42 landing system that would carry astronauts to

5:44 the lunar surface. It's also SpaceX's

5:47 primary vehicle for their long term Mars

5:49 ambitions.

5:50 Anna: So May 15th is absolutely one to

5:53 watch. We'll have full coverage here on

5:56 Astronomy Daily as that date approaches.

5:58 Avery: While Starship is preparing for its next

6:00 flight, another SpaceX vehicle is heading to

6:03 orbit tomorrow. NASA and SpaceX are uh,

6:06 targeting 7:16pm Eastern Time on

6:09 Tuesday 12 May for the launch of

6:11 CRS 34, the 34th

6:14 SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services mission

6:16 to the International Space Station.

6:19 Anna: A Dragon Cargo Spacecraft will ride a Falcon

6:22 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40

6:25 at Cape Canaveral, carrying approximately

6:27 6,500 pounds of cargo. If all goes

6:30 to plan, Dragon is scheduled to dock

6:32 autonomously to the station's Harmony module

6:35 at around 9:50am Eastern on, um, Thursday

6:38 the 14th.

6:40 Avery: Now, the payload on this one is genuinely

6:42 interesting. Among the scientific

6:44 investigations heading up is something called

6:46 the Laplace Experiment, which studies how

6:48 dust aggregates grow in prototypes

6:50 protoplanetary disks that's directly relevant

6:53 to understanding how planets form.

6:55 Anna: There's also an instrument called Story

6:58 Storm Time O ring Current

7:01 Imaging Evolution, which will monitor charged

7:03 particles in Earth's magnetosphere. These are

7:06 the particles that can affect satellites and

7:08 power grids during solar storm events. So

7:11 better monitoring has real practical value.

7:15 Avery: And then there's one that I find really

7:17 charming and a wooden bone scaffold.

7:20 Researchers are testing whether a wooden

7:22 scaffold structure can support the

7:24 development of new treatments for

7:25 osteoporosis in microgravity. Base

7:28 medicine is endlessly inventive.

7:31 Anna: You can watch the Launch live on NASA,

7:34 Amazon Prime, YouTubeMusic and NASA's own

7:36 website. Coverage begins at 7pm Eastern

7:39 tomorrow, Tuesday the 12th. And while I'm

7:42 giving a plug to things worth checking out,

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7:53 the show notes NordVPN. It's the one we use

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7:59 Avery: Now for a story that is equal parts beautiful

8:01 and scientifically profound. The James

8:04 Webb Space Telescope has delivered stunning

8:07 new images and data from a planetary nebula

8:09 called TOC 1, located more than

8:12 10,000 light years away in the southern

8:14 constellation era. And what it found there

8:17 will keep astrophysicists busy for years.

8:21 Anna: The story begins 15 years ago in

8:23 2010, when a team led by Professor Yan

8:26 Kami at Western University in Canada made

8:29 a remarkable discovery. Using NASA's

8:31 Spitzer telescope, they found buckyballs

8:34 inside Talk 1, that is molecules of

8:37 Buckminster fullerene, named after the

8:40 architect Buckminster Fuller, who designed

8:42 geodesic domes because the molecules share

8:45 exactly the same structural geometry.

8:47 Geometry.

8:49 Avery: Each buckyball molecule is made of 60

8:52 carbon atoms arranged in a perfect pattern of

8:54 hexagons and pentagons, like a hollow soccer

8:57 ball. At the molecular scale, they were first

9:00 synthesized in a Laboratory in 1985,

9:02 a breakthrough that earned the 1996 Nobel

9:05 Prize in Chemistry. Finding them in space

9:08 was extraordinary, but

9:10 Anna: Spitzer's resolution wasn't sharp enough to

9:13 show where the buckyballs actually were

9:15 within the nebula. Now JWST

9:18 has returned with its mid infrared instrument

9:21 miri, and the result is breathtaking.

9:24 The new image reveals delicate rays,

9:26 wispy filaments, shimmering shells of gas,

9:30 and at the heart of the nebula, a feature

9:32 that looks unmistakably like an upside down

9:35 Avery: question mark, which the researchers found

9:37 rather appropriate given how many questions

9:39 the data raised.

9:41 Anna: The key scientific finding is the

9:43 buckyballs are not scattered randomly

9:46 throughout the nebula. They are concentrated

9:48 in a thin spherical shell immediately

9:50 surrounding this central white dwarf, the

9:53 stellar remnant at the heart of TC1.

9:56 In the words of the PhD student who mapped

9:58 them, buckyballs arranged like one giant

10:01 buckyball.

10:02 Avery: Why they gather in that specific formation is

10:05 now one of the central mysteries the team is

10:07 working to solve. And there's another puzzle.

10:10 The infrared signals the buckyballs produce

10:12 don't match current theoretical models.

10:15 Something about their formation or behavior

10:17 in this extreme environment isn't fully

10:19 understood yet.

10:20 Anna: TC1 is what remains after a, uh, star similar

10:23 to our sun exhausted its fuel and shed its

10:26 outer layers. That process sculpted the

10:29 intricate structures JWST is now

10:31 revealing because buckyballs have also been

10:34 found in meteorites that have landed on

10:36 Earth. Understanding how they form in

10:38 environments like TC1 gives researchers

10:41 clues about how organic chemistry, the

10:44 chemistry relevant to life, spreads across

10:47 galaxies.

10:48 Avery: The image itself was processed by Kaitlyn

10:50 Beecroft, a, uh, secondary school science

10:52 teacher and amateur astronomer who met

10:55 Professor Cammy at outreach events. Her skill

10:58 at drawing detail from raw telescope data is

11:00 remarkable. It's a lovely reminder that

11:03 extraordinary science doesn't always happen

11:05 only inside institutions.

11:07 Anna: This next story is a beautiful combination of

11:10 science and artistry, and it began with a

11:13 direct message on social media. Just weeks

11:15 before the Artemis II launch window,

11:18 astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy had an

11:20 idea. What if he could get the Artemis 2

11:23 astronauts to photograph the Moon the same

11:25 way he photographs the moon?

11:28 Avery: So McCarthy slid into the DMs of Commander

11:30 Reid Wiseman, and remarkably, Wiseman

11:33 was immediately on board. The two developed a

11:36 detailed photographic plan with NASA's lunar

11:38 photography team, who were already training

11:40 the crew on camera techniques for the

11:42 mission.

11:43 Anna: McCarthy's signature technique is image

11:46 stacking, combining multiple exposures to

11:48 dramatically reduce noise and reveal subtle

11:51 color variations that a single image simply

11:54 cannot capture. Those color differences

11:56 across the Moon's surface indicate different

11:59 mineral compositions. Run enough stacked

12:01 images through processing, and you get rich

12:04 maps of the lunar geology in browns,

12:07 blues and reds, Colors that are really there,

12:09 but too subtle for the human eye to detect

12:12 unaided.

12:13 Avery: The key advantage Wiseman had over any ground

12:16 based astrophotographer, including McCarthy

12:18 himself, was the absence of Earth's

12:21 atmosphere. No distortion, no light

12:23 pollution, no interference. The raw data

12:26 quality from lunar orbit was in a completely

12:28 different league.

12:30 Anna: The result is a set of images showing the far

12:32 side of the moon in greater detail and color

12:35 fidelity than has ever been achieved before.

12:38 NASA has now released the full archive from

12:40 the Artemis 2 mission. Over 12,000

12:43 photographs taken by the crew during their 10

12:46 day journey. McCarthy's processed versions of

12:48 Wiseman's lunar far side shots stand out

12:51 as some of the most stunning in the entire

12:54 collection.

12:55 Avery: McCarthy described his approach beautifully.

12:57 He said, I don't want to show you something

12:59 the way your eyes see it. I want to show you

13:01 something as if you had superhuman vision.

13:04 The camera becomes cyborg eyes for our

13:06 vision. And looking at these images, that's

13:09 exactly what it feels like.

13:11 Anna: For, uh, our listeners interested in

13:12 exploring the full Artemis 2 archive, NASA

13:15 has made all 12,217

13:18 photographs publicly available. The link is

13:21 in today's show notes.

13:22 Avery: And we close today with something that has

13:24 been building across the news landscape for

13:26 the past few weeks. A story about rocks

13:29 falling from the sky and the growing

13:31 scientific alarm about why there seem to be

13:33 so many more of them than usual.

13:35 Anna: The American Meteor Society, the ams,

13:37 has published a detailed analysis of fireball

13:40 activity in the first quarter of 2026.

13:43 And their conclusion is direct. The data

13:46 warrants serious investigation.

13:48 Avery: Now let's be precise about what's being

13:50 observed because the statistics here are sub

13:52 subtle but striking. The total number of

13:54 fireball events in Q1 2026 around

13:57 2046 is only marginally

14:00 above comparable periods in previous years.

14:03 The anomaly is not in the raw count, it's in

14:06 the size and intensity of the events.

14:08 Anna: Bike Henke, operations manager at the

14:10 ams, put it this after years of

14:13 stable baseline activity, something appears

14:16 to have shifted. The signal is consistent

14:18 across multiple metrics. The events getting

14:21 flagged are the largest, loudest and most

14:24 widely witnessed fireballs. Not the small

14:26 routine ones, those look normal. The big

14:29 ones are happening far more frequently than

14:31 expected.

14:32 Avery: March 2026 was particularly dramatic.

14:35 Over 40 major fireball events were recorded

14:37 that month alone. The biggest single event

14:40 was on March 8th. A slow long duration

14:43 fireball over France, Germany, Switzerland,

14:46 Belgium and the Netherlands that generated

14:48 3,229 witness reports.

14:52 3,229 people

14:54 reporting the same fireball.

14:56 Anna: Then there was the March 9th fireball seen by

14:59 282 people along the eastern US

15:02 seaboard. A seven ton asteroid fragment that

15:05 exploded over Ohio with the Force of a

15:07 sonic boom heard across multiple states.

15:10 And on March 21, a fragment crashed through

15:13 the roof of a home in north Houston,

15:15 ricocheted around a bedroom and landed

15:18 intact. Three confirmed meteorite recoveries

15:21 in under two weeks, when the global average

15:23 is roughly 10 per year.

15:25 Avery: The sonic boom data's particularly telling.

15:27 In the first quarter of 2026, 30 out

15:30 of 38 fireball events with 50 or more witness

15:33 reports produced confirmed sonic booms.

15:36 That's 79%. Sonic booms

15:39 mean large, fast, dense objects penetrating

15:42 deep into the atmosphere. That's not camera

15:45 bias or reporting enthusiasm. That's physics.

15:47 Anna: Researchers have identified two suspicious

15:50 clust in the trajectory data. The most

15:52 prominent is from the anthelion sporadic

15:55 source, a region of space directly opposite

15:57 the sun where objects approaching Earth from

16:00 behind are penetrating the inner solar

16:02 system. Activity from this specific slice of

16:05 sky has roughly doubled in 2026.

16:08 Nearly 10 major events traced back to a

16:11 single 1,000 square degree patch.

16:13 Avery: There's also an unusual cluster of meteors

16:16 arriving on steeply inclined, almost vertical

16:18 orbits, which is characteristic of objects

16:21 traveling on trajector. Quite different from

16:23 the flat plane of the solar system. Both

16:25 clusters are being studied closely.

16:27 Anna: What doesn't explain this? The ams, um, has

16:30 been thorough in ruling out the easy answers.

16:33 It's not a new meteor shower. Anthelion

16:35 objects don't form those. It's not seasonal

16:38 variation. There is a known fireball season

16:41 around the March equinox, but the spike in

16:43 2026 is roughly double what that seasonal

16:46 effect would predict. It's not reporting bias

16:49 from smartphones and doorbell cameras. Those

16:52 would boost numbers across the board. Not

16:54 specifically at the large fireball end.

16:56 Avery: And it's not extraterrestrial. The recovered

16:59 fragments from Ohio and Germany have been

17:01 identified as achondritic HED

17:03 meteorites, one of the most common categories

17:06 of space rock. Ordinary meteors, Just

17:08 more of them than there should be.

17:10 Anna: The AMS is calling for expanded automated all

17:13 sky camera networks that can independently

17:15 calculate a, uh, rock's mass, velocity and

17:18 orbit the moment it strikes the atmosphere.

17:21 Better cross referencing with radar and

17:23 infrasound data and systematic analysis

17:26 of recovered fragments to build a more

17:28 complete picture of where these objects are

17:30 coming from.

17:31 Avery: One thing worth mentioning for our Southern

17:33 Hemisphere listeners, including many of you

17:35 in Australia and New Zealand. The antelion

17:37 source sits opposite the sun, which means

17:40 it's observable from both hemispheres

17:42 depending on time of year. The phenomenon is

17:44 global, not just the Northern Hemisphere

17:47 event. Keep your eyes on the sky.

17:49 Anna: That is a remarkable episode to land so close

17:52 to our hundredth unexplained fireballs, the

17:55 biggest rocket fire in history, a cargo

17:57 mission to the space station, molecular

18:00 soccer balls inside a dying star, the moon as

18:03 you've never seen it, and the government

18:04 finally opening its UFO filing cabinet.

18:07 Avery: Episode 100 is gonna have a lot to live up

18:10 to. Thank you for joining us today on

18:12 Astronomy Daily. If you enjoyed today's show,

18:14 please subscribe, leave a review, and share

18:16 it with a fellow space enthusiast. You can

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18:23 astronomy Daily. Wherever you get your

18:25 podcasts.

18:26 Anna: Until next time, keep your eyes on the sky.

18:29 Avery: And importantly, your mind's open to what's

18:31 out there.

18:32 Anna: Weir Skies, everyone.

18:44 The stories.

18:53 Were told.