Solar Flares, Bizarre Hot Jupiters, and NASA's Soccer Ball Moon Mission

0:00 Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm

0:02 Anna.

0:03 Avery: And I'm avery. It's Thursday, July 2,

0:06 2026, and we've got a properly mixed bag for

0:09 you today.

0:10 Anna: A solar flare that could light up the sky for

0:13 the Fourth of July weekend. A planet that's

0:16 breaking all the hot Jupiter rules, and

0:18 NASA making a very cheeky promise

0:21 involving a soccer ball and the moon.

0:24 Avery: Plus, we're circling back on a story that

0:26 quietly reshaped how we think about dark

0:28 matter. Let's get into it.

0:30 Anna: Quick update on the Swift rescue mission,

0:32 because if you were with us yesterday, you'll

0:34 remember this one just won't lift off.

0:37 Avery: Right, Catalyst Link spacecraft

0:40 riding the very last Pegasus XL rocket

0:43 has now been scrubbed twice for weather.

0:45 First, it slipped from June 30 to July 1.

0:48 Then from July 1 to today, targeting

0:51 5O9 Eastern.

0:53 Anna: So as of when, we're recording, it's a real

0:55 nail biter. Swift is still up there, still

0:58 safe for now. And Link is still waiting for

1:01 its shot at making history as the first

1:04 commercial spacecraft to grapple an uncrewed

1:07 government satellite.

1:08 Avery: We'll keep tracking it and give you the real

1:10 result the moment we have it. For now.

1:12 Patience, Pegasus.

1:14 Now for something the sun actually delivered

1:17 on. On June 30, Sunspot

1:19 Region AR479 let loose an x

1:22 1.1 flare, the most powerful class there

1:25 is.

1:26 Anna: It triggered strong radio blackouts across

1:29 the daylight side of Earth, and it launched a

1:32 full halo coronal mass ejection heading our

1:34 way.

1:35 Avery: NOAA Space Weather Prediction center has

1:37 issued a G2 moderate geomagnetic

1:40 storm watch for July 3, meaning

1:42 Aurora could be visible much further from the

1:45 poles than usual.

1:46 Anna: For our friends in the Northern Hemisphere,

1:49 that could mean lights as far south as New

1:51 York, Wisconsin and Washington State,

1:54 just in time for July 4th fireworks.

1:57 Avery: And for us down, um, under, it's the opposite

1:59 season. Deep winter darkness, which is

2:01 honestly prime Aurora australis viewing

2:04 weather. If the geometry cooperates.

2:06 Anna: Solar activity remains elevated too, with a

2:09 slight chance of further X class flares from

2:12 three separate active regions. Keep your

2:14 cameras charged.

2:16 Avery: Next up, time for a proper mystery. Meet

2:19 Corot 2B, a gas giant three and a

2:22 half times the mass of Jupiter orbiting its

2:24 star in just 41 hours.

2:26 Anna: Hot Jupiters like this are almost always

2:29 tidally locked. One side permanently cooking

2:32 in starlight, the other in permanent night.

2:35 With a hotspot that shifts in a predictable

2:37 direction thanks to eastward winds.

2:39 Avery: Coro2b has had astronomers scratching their

2:42 heads for eight years because its hotspot is

2:45 on the Wrong side entirely. Now, new research

2:48 led by Aurora Caselli at the NASA

2:50 Exoplanet Science Institute has cracked.

2:53 Anna: It turns out this planet just isn't

2:55 tidally locked. Its day is about three

2:58 Earth days long, almost double the length of

3:01 its year, which is only around one and a half

3:03 days.

3:04 Avery: So by the time it finishes spinning once,

3:06 it's already lapped its own star nearly

3:09 twice. That's genuinely bizarre for a

3:12 planet this close to its host.

3:14 Anna: As Caselli put it, a, uh, one size fits all

3:16 model just doesn't work. Even for planets

3:19 we've studied for years. There goes another

3:21 tidy theory.

3:23 Avery: Our next story today takes us up to Florida,

3:25 where United Launch alliance sent another

3:28 29Amazon Leo broadband satellites

3:30 into orbit in the small hours of this

3:33 morning. Liftoff at 1224 Eastern from

3:36 Cape Canaveral.

3:37 Anna: This one carries some history with it. It's

3:39 the eighth and final Atlas V5 flight

3:42 dedicated to Amazon Leo. From here, the

3:45 constellation shifts over to Ula's newer

3:47 Vulcan Centaur rocket launch.

3:49 Avery: Amazon's building toward more than 3,000

3:52 satellites for its Low Earth orbit Internet

3:54 network. Competing head on with SpaceX's

3:57 Starlink, this launch pushes the total in

3:59 orbit past the 390 mark.

4:02 Anna: It's also worth noting the clock is ticking.

4:05 The FCC requires Amazon to have half that

4:08 constellation flying by the end of this

4:10 month. So expect the launch pace to stay

4:13 brisk.

4:14 Avery: Our next story is for all patriotic

4:16 Americans. Well, sort of. With

4:19 America's 250th birthday coming up on the

4:22 4th of July, NASA's Chandra X Ray

4:25 Observatory has given the country a rather

4:27 spectacular gift.

4:29 Anna: Four new composite images, each

4:32 rendered in red, white and blue.

4:34 Combining Chandra's X ray vision with light

4:37 from Hubble Webb and ground based telescopes,

4:40 Avery: the lineup includes the Cassiopeia, a

4:43 supernova remnant, the star

4:46 forming nebula NGC

4:48 3603, the

4:51 spiral galaxy Messier 94,

4:54 and the galaxy cluster

4:56 ZWCL

4:58 0024

5:00 1652, where Hubble

5:03 has mapped out dark matter's fingerprints.

5:06 Anna: And it's not just visual. Chandra's team

5:09 also released three new sonifications,

5:12 turning the X ray data into sound so you can

5:15 genuinely listen to a supernova remnant.

5:18 Avery: A lovely patriotic little reminder that the

5:21 universe doesn't know about borders. But it

5:23 sure looks good in the right color scheme.

5:26 Anna: Now, a bit of a different segment. A couple

5:29 of weeks back, a genuinely strange discovery

5:31 came out of Yale and the Keck Observatory and

5:34 it's stuck with us. So we wanted to circle

5:36 back and make sure you'd heard it too.

5:39 Avery: Back in Mid June, astronomers confirmed a

5:41 third galaxy that appears to have essentially

5:44 zero dark matter. It's called

5:46 DF9. Sitting alongside two previous

5:49 oddballs, DF2 and DF4.

5:52 Anna: All three line up in a tight, straight

5:55 trail of galaxies. And that alignment is the

5:58 real kicker. It suggests they didn't form the

6:00 normal way. Tucked inside a dark matter halo.

6:04 Avery: The leading idea is a bullet dwarf collision,

6:07 a violent high speed crash between galaxies

6:10 billions of years ago that literally stripped

6:12 the ordinary gas away from its dark matter,

6:15 letting new galaxies form from that gas

6:17 alone.

6:18 Anna: Using the Keck Observatory's Cosmic Web

6:21 Imager, the team led by Yale's Michael Keim

6:24 measured DF9's mass by tracking how its

6:26 stars move. And the total came out almost

6:29 exactly matching the visible matter. No room

6:32 left over for anything invisible.

6:34 Avery: It's a big deal because it's some of the

6:36 clearest evidence yet that dark matter

6:38 behaves like an actual physical substance,

6:41 one that can genuinely be separated from

6:43 ordinary matter in the right violent

6:46 circumstances.

6:47 Anna: So if this one slipped past you when it first

6:49 broke, now you're all caught up, and it's a

6:52 great excuse to look up DF2, DF4 and

6:55 DF9 together.

6:56 Next clear night. Well, with a very big

6:59 telescope, let's

7:01 Avery: finish on something completely different.

7:03 NASA administrator Jared Isaacman has made a

7:06 promise. If the United states wins the

7:08 2026 FIFA World Cup, NASA will

7:11 send a soccer ball to the moon.

7:14 Anna: This is not a joke. Apparently, Isaacman

7:17 made the pledge alongside Carlos Garcia

7:19 galan, who runs NASA's moon base program,

7:22 during a briefing about lunar lander plans.

7:25 Avery: The plan is to one up Apollo 14 astronaut

7:28 Alan Shepard, who famously smuggled a golf

7:31 club and a couple of balls to the moon back

7:33 in 1971 for a very short round

7:36 of lunar golf.

7:38 Anna: NASA's already sent an official World cup

7:40 ball to the space station so astronauts could

7:43 test their zero gravity footwork. This would

7:46 be the away leg, Garcia.

7:48 Avery: Galan says the ball is light enough that

7:50 finding room on a future lander payload won't

7:52 be a problem. So really, it's all down to

7:55 Team USA now.

7:56 Anna: No pressure.

7:58 Avery: And, um, that's a wrap for today's episode.

8:00 Anna: If swift's launch finally goes ahead

8:02 overnight, we'll bring you the result first

8:04 thing tomorrow. Until then, clear skies,

8:07 everyone.

8:08 Avery: And keep an eye out for Aurora this weekend.

8:10 You might just catch a show.

8:12 Anna: We'll do it all again tomorrow. Bye.

8:17 Stories,

8:21 Love.

8:25 Avery: Story, soul.