In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six stories from the cutting edge of space exploration and astronomy:
• 🚀 ARTEMIS II UPDATE (0:00) — NASA's moon rocket begins its 4-mile rollback to the VAB this morning due to a helium flow issue in the upper stage. March is off the table; April 1st is the new earliest target. Plus: the Artemis II crew attended Trump's State of the Union last night — and weren't mentioned once.
• 🌟 WEBB'S HISTORIC FIRST (3:00) — For the first time ever, JWST has identified the progenitor star of a supernova — a dusty red supergiant so obscured by carbon-rich dust it was invisible to Hubble. Published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
• 🌍 K2-18b UPDATE (7:00) — New analysis of Webb data continues to strengthen the Hycean world hypothesis for this 124 light-year-distant exoplanet. Its atmosphere shows CO2 and methane — and scientists are asking whether biology could be responsible.
• ☀️ SPOTLESS SUN (10:00) — February 22nd marked the first fully spotless day on the sun since June 2022 — ending a 1,355-day streak. Solar Cycle 25 peaked in October 2024 and may be slowly winding down.
• 🛸 SHENZHOU-20 CRISIS REVEALED (12:30) — China's Shenzhou-20 crew give stunning new details about last year's space debris emergency: a commander who mistook a crack for a fallen leaf, an emergency spacecraft launch, and a 270-day unplanned extended mission.
• 📮 WEBB STAMPS (15:30) — The U.S. Postal Service issues Priority Mail stamps featuring the Crab Nebula and a Galaxy Pair from JWST — the fourth consecutive year Webb imagery has graced American postage.
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🌐 Website: https://astronomydaily.io
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