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Your weekly roundup of the biggest stories from across the cosmos — two fresh stories plus the best of the past seven days from Astronomy Daily. In This Episode • Starship V3 Flight 12: SpaceX launches its redesigned megarocket for the first time — an historic milestone with some drama along the way • New Glenn Cleared to Fly: Blue Origin completes its NG-3 failure investigation — the FAA approves the report and the rocket is back in action • First Direct Image of the Cosmic Web: A 3-million-light-year filament photographed in unprecedented detail by ESO's Very Large Telescope • Dark Matter Fingerprint? MIT researchers find a gravitational wave signal that may carry the first direct imprint of dark matter • Roman Space Telescope: NASA's next great observatory is targeting September 2026 launch — eight months ahead of schedule • AI Space Chip: NASA tests a radiation-hardened chip that could give future spacecraft genuine autonomous decision-making Story Sources & Further Reading Starship V3 / Flight 12: Space.com, Universe Today, Spaceflight Now, Next Spaceflight New Glenn / Blue Origin: SpaceNews (May 22, 2026), Space.com, TechCrunch Cosmic Web Image: Nature Astronomy — Tornotti et al.; ESO/VLT press release; Mirage News (May 16, 2026) Dark Matter / Gravitational Waves: Physical Review Letters — Aurrekoetxea et al.; ScienceDaily, Universe Today (May 19, 2026) Roman Space Telescope: NASA.gov, Scientific American, ScienceDaily (May 18, 2026) NASA AI Space Chip: ScienceDaily, NASA (May 15, 2026) About Astronomy Daily Astronomy Daily delivers the latest space and astronomy news every weekday, plus a Weekend Wrap on Saturdays. Hosted by Anna and Avery, and produced by the Bitesz.com Podcast Network. Website: astronomydaily.io | Social: @AstroDailyPod
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily.
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 Your weekend wrap for Saturday, May
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 23, 2026. I'm
00:00:08 --> 00:00:09 Anna.
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 Avery: And I'm, um, Avery. If you've been following
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 the news from Boca Chica, Texas, you already
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 know it's been quite a week for spaceflight.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 Anna: Quite a week is an understatement.
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 Starship version 3 finally left the pad
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 last night. And while it wasn't a clean
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 sheet, it was absolutely a milestone.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 We'll have the full story and all the drama
00:00:31 --> 00:00:32 coming up shortly.
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 Avery: And in our second fresh story, we're heading
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 to a rival launch pad. Blue Origin has
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 just cleared the way for New Glenn to fly
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 again. After its spring mishap, the heavy
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 lift rocket race is firmly back on.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 Anna: Then we'll take a look back at the best of
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 the week. The universe's hidden highways
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 finally photographed. Possible fingerprints
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 of dark matter in gravitational waves, uh, a
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 revolutionary new space telescope nearly
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 ready to fly, and a chip that could teach
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 spacecraft to think for themselves.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 Avery: It's, uh, a full slate. Let's get into it.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 Anna: So last night was the night. After a
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 scrubbed attempt, on Thursday, SpaceX
00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 finally got Starship version 3 off the
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 ground for the very first time.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 Avery: Flight 12 lifted off at
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 6:30pm Eastern from Pad
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 2, a brand new launch pad at
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 That's actually two first in one made
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 in flight of the V3 vehicle and
00:01:34 --> 00:01:35 debut of the new pad.
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 Anna: And let's give credit where it's due. Elon
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 Musk himself called it epic. And for good
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 reason. The V3 Starship is a significant
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 redesign from previous versions. Both the
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 super heavy booster and the ship are powered
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 by the next evolution of SpaceX's Raptor
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 engine. They've simplified the aft sections,
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 increased propellant capacity, and built in
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 new hardware for future orbital refueling.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 Avery: But, and it's a fairly significant but
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 not everything went to plan. The booster
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 performed well on ascent and nailed stage
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 separation. But the boostback burn went non
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 nominal, several engines dropped out, the
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 booster started to spin out of control, and
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 ultimately it came down hard rather than
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 completing its planned water landing in the
00:02:23 --> 00:02:23 Gulf.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 Anna: Meanwhile, up in the ship, one of the vacuum
00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 Raptor engines shut down unexpectedly.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 But the ship compensated using its sea level
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 Raptors and continued on its intended
00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 trajectory, eventually splashing down as
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 planned in the Indian Ocean.
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 Avery: So the scorecard ship success
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 booster lost. But this was always billed
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 as a test flight, not a demonstration. And
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 given it was the maiden flight of a
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 significantly redesigned vehicle, getting the
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 ship home safely and gathering a mountain of
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 data on the booster anomaly is a genuinely
00:02:58 --> 00:02:59 Useful outcome.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 Anna: The stakes couldn't be higher for SpaceX
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 right now. NASA has picked Starship as the
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 lunar lander for the Artemis 4 crewed moon
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 mission in 2028. That means
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 SpaceX needs V3 to demonstrate
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 full orbital capability in orbit,
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 refueling, docking, and eventually a
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 crewed lunar surface landing. None of which
00:03:21 --> 00:03:21 have happened yet.
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 Avery: And there's a financial dimension too.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 SpaceX recently filed for an IPO and the
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 investment community is watching very
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 closely. A partial success like this
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 historic milestone, some anomalies,
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 is probably the best honest summary of where
00:03:38 --> 00:03:39 the program stands.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 Anna: Flight 13 is already penciled in for June,
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 which tells you how quickly SpaceX wants to
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 turn this around. Last night was the
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 beginning of V3's story, not the end.
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 Avery: One more thing worth noting. There was a
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 fascinating site announcement just before
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 launch. Cryptocurrency billionaire
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 chun Wong, the Fram 2 mission commander who
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 circled the poles in Dragon earlier this
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 year, announced he'll lead the first starship
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 flyby of Mars. A crewed Mars
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 flyby, not a landing.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 Anna: But still, the ambition levels in this
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 industry right now are genuinely something
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 else. We'll be tracking all of it as Flight
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 12's data gets analyzed and preparations for
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 Flight 13 begin.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 Avery: And speaking of heavy lift rockets, Blue
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 Origin had some significant news of its own
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 yesterday. The company has officially
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 completed its investigation into the new
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 Glenn NG3 mission failure from April
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 and the FAA has signed off on the report.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 Anna: So New Glenn is cleared to fly again. Let's
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 quickly recap what happened back on April 19,
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 M NG3 lifted off from Cape Canaveral carry an
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 AST Space Mobile's Bluebird 7 satellite.
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 The good news? The booster nailed its landing
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 on the drone ship. Actually the first ever
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 reuse of a new Glenn booster, which was a
00:04:56 --> 00:04:57 genuine milestone.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 Avery: The bad news? The second stage ran into some
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 trouble during its second burn. Blue Origin
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 traced it to an off normal thermal condition
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 that prevented one of the BE3U engines from
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 reaching full thrust. The result was Bluebird
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 7 ending up in an orbit too low for its
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 onboard propulsion to recover from. The
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 satellite was deorbited. A, uh, costly and
00:05:19 --> 00:05:20 embarrassing outcome.
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 Anna: The FAA grounded New Glenn while the
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 investigation ran. And now, five weeks
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 later, Blue Origin has its clearance back.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 The corrective actions have been accepted and
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 the path to the next launch is open.
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 Avery: The timing is actually quite pointed, isn't
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 it? This news, landing on the Same day
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 Starship V3 makes its debut. Two
00:05:41 --> 00:05:43 of the world's most powerful rockets, both
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 dealing with growing pains, both, uh, pushing
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 toward their next flights.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 Anna: And for Blue Origin, the Pressure is real.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 New Glenn is supposed to launch the first
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 ever Blue Moon crewed lunar lander test
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 flight later this year. That's one of NASA's
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 two contracted Artemis Landers alongside
00:05:59 --> 00:06:00 Starship.
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 Avery: Any further delays to New Glenn's schedule
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 ripple directly into the Artemis timeline.
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 AST Space Mobile, who lost a Bluebird 7
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 satellite, said in their May earnings call
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 that they're looking forward to the next New
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 Glenn launch, which will carry four Bluebird
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 satellites to make up for it. No firm date
00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 yet, but the investigation being closed is
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 step one, Two rockets,
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 Anna: two milestones, one Wild Friday and
00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 spaceflight. Not bad for a weekend rap lead
00:06:26 --> 00:06:27 in.
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 Avery: Alright, time to roll back through the week,
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 four stories that caught our eye. From the
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 very fabric of the universe to the future of
00:06:34 --> 00:06:35 space exploration.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 Anna: Let's start with one that genuinely stopped
00:06:38 --> 00:06:39 me in my tracks.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 Avery: The cosmic web. For decades we've known
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 it exists. This vast invisible skeleton
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 of matter that connects galaxies across the
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 entire univers universe. We've modeled it in
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 supercomputer simulations. We've inferred its
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 existence from the way galaxies cluster. But
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 actually photographing it, actually seeing a
00:06:58 --> 00:07:00 filament of the web that had always been
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 beyond reach until now.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 Anna: An international team of astronomers this
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 week published the sharpest direct image ever
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 captured of a cosmic web filament. The image
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 shows a strand of intergalactic hydrogen gas
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 stretching 3 million light years, connecting
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 two galaxies that were actively forming when
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 the universe was only about about 2 billion
00:07:21 --> 00:07:22 years old.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 Avery: 3 million light years. The Milky Way
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 itself is only about a hundred thousand light
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 years. Across this filament is 30
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 Milky Ways laid end to end.
00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 Anna: To pull this off, the team used muse, the
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer mounted on
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 the European Southern Observatory's Very
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 Large Telescope in Chile. And it wasn't
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 quick. They spent hundreds of hours gathering
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 observations to detect a structure this
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 faint. The result was published in Nature
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 Astronomy and represents one of the most
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 ambitious observing campaigns ever conducted
00:07:57 --> 00:07:58 in a single region of the sky.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 Avery: What makes this particularly exciting
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 scientifically is that the image matches
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 cosmological simulations so closely.
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 The structure of the cosmic web. The way gas
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 flows along these filaments to feed galaxy
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 formation. The real universe looks exactly
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 like what our models predicted. That's a
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 powerful validation of our understanding of
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 large scale cosmic structure.
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 Anna: The team's lead researcher described
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 capturing the light from this filament, light
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 that traveled for nearly 12 billion years
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 to reach us, as a way to precisely
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 characterize its shape. And importantly,
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 this opens a new observational window.
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 Now that we've done it once we can start
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 building up a picture of the web one filament
00:08:42 --> 00:08:42 at a time.
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 Avery: If you haven't seen the image, look it up.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 The simulations next to the real data are
00:08:48 --> 00:08:49 extraordinary.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 Anna: Now this one comes with appropriate
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 scientific caution, but if it holds up, it
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 could be one of the most significant
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 detections in the history of physics.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 Avery: We're talking about dark matter, the
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 invisible substance that makes up roughly
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 85% of all matter in the universe, and
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 that we have never directly detected. We know
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 it's there from the way galaxies rotate from
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 gravitational lensing, from the large scale
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 structure of the cosmos, but directly
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 never caught it until maybe
00:09:20 --> 00:09:20 now.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 Anna: A team at MIT has developed a new model
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 that predicts how dark matter could leave a
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 subtle imprint on gravitational waves.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 The ripples in spacetime we detect when black
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 holes merge. The idea is
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 if two black holes happen to spiral through a
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 dense cloud of dark matter on their way to
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 merging, that dark matter slightly alters
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 their orbital dynamics and those tiny
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 changes get encoded in the shape of the
00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 gravitational waves.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 Avery: It's using one incredible detection,
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 gravitational waves, to search for another
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 invisible phenomenon. Layers of detection
00:09:57 --> 00:09:58 on detection.
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 Anna: And when the team tested their model against
00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 real data from ligo, the Laser
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 Interferometer Gravitational Wave
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 Observatory, one signal stood out.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 One black hole merger event occurred to carry
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 exactly the kind of distortion their model
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 predicted for a dark matter environment.
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 Avery: Now, important caveat, this is one signal,
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 one candidate. It needs to be replicated,
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 scrutinized and tested against alternative
00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 explanations before anyone declares victory.
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 But the methodology is sound, the physics is
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 elegant, and the possibility that we are
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 holding in our hands the first direct
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 fingerprint of dark matter is genuinely
00:10:38 --> 00:10:39 extraordinary.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 Anna: The paper appeared in Physical Review Letters
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 this week. A, uh, prestigious venue that
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 doesn't publish lightly. We'll be watching
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 this story very closely, alright?
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 Avery: From the very small and invisible to the very
00:10:52 --> 00:10:54 large and imminent. NASA's Nancy
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 Grace Roman space telescope has been in
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 development for years. And this week we got
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 the news that it's not just on track, it's
00:11:01 --> 00:11:02 ahead of schedule.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 Anna: NASA announced that Roman is now targeting
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 launch as early as September 2026,
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 a full eight months ahead of its original May
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 27 deadline. And crucially, it's under
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 budget. In a space program landscape where
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 overruns are practically expected, that's
00:11:20 --> 00:11:21 a genuine achievement.
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 Avery: So what is Roman and, um, why should we be
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 excited? In short, it's the widest field
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 infrared telescope ever launched, where
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 James Webb is designed to stare deeply at
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 individual targets with extraordinary
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 precision. Roman is designed to survey
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 enormous swaths of the sky. Think of Webb
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 as a powerful telephoto lens and Roman as
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 an astonishing wide angle camera for the
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 entire cosmos.
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 Anna: And the numbers are staggering. Over its
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 five year primary mission, Roman is expected
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 to discover tens of thousands of new
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 exoplanets, catalog battle billions of
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 galaxies and observe tens of billions of
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 individual stars. NASA administrator
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 Jared Isaacman put it simply. What would take
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 the Hubble Space Telescope 2000 years
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 to survey Roman can do in a single
00:12:11 --> 00:12:12 year.
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 Avery: Its primary scientific goals are dark energy
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 and dark matter, probing the accelerating
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 expansion of the universe and mapping the
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 invisible mass that shapes cosmic structure.
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 But given the sheer scale of what it will
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 observe, astronomers expect Roman to deliver
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 surprises that nobody has even thought to
00:12:29 --> 00:12:30 predict yet.
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 Anna: Roman will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 Heavy rocket to the Sun, Earth L2
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 Lagrange Point, about a million and a half
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 kilometers from Earth, in the same cosmic
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 neighborhood as James Webb. September
00:12:44 --> 00:12:45 can't come soon enough.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 Avery: And our final highlight this week takes us to
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 a quieter but potentially very consequential
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 development. A new computer chip that could
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 fundamentally change how deep space missions
00:12:56 --> 00:12:56 operate.
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 Anna: NASA has been testing a uh, next generation
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 radiation hardened space computer chip
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 designed to give spacecraft the ability to
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 make intelligent decisions independently
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 without waiting for instructions from Earth.
00:13:10 --> 00:13:12 Avery: And that matters more than it might sound
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 right now. Deep space probes are
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 fundamentally reactive. They carry out pre
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 programmed instructions and when something
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 unexpected happens, they wait for guidance
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 from ground control at the distance of
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 Saturn. That's a one and a half hour round
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 trip for a radio signal at the outer planets.
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 It can be three to five hours for a mission
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 to the nearest star. We're talking years.
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 Anna: A spacecraft with genuine onboard
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 intelligence could detect an anomaly, assess
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 it, and respond, all without waiting for
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 a human to weigh in from millions of
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 kilometers away. Or it could
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 autonomously identify scientifically
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 interesting targets and choose to observe
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 them in real time, rather than waiting for a
00:13:55 --> 00:13:56 pre planned observation sequence.
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 Avery: The chip being tested is described as showing
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 performance that opens up real possibilities
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 for autonomous operations. Radiation
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 hardening is the critical piece here. Deep
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 space is a, uh, punishing environment for
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 electronics and chips that work perfectly in
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 a lab can fail catastrophically when hit by
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 cosmic rays. Getting that balance right
00:14:17 --> 00:14:18 is genuinely hard engineering.
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 Anna: We're still in the testing phase, but this is
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 the kind of foundational technology that a,
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 uh, decade from now we'll look back on as the
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 point where the next generation of truly
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 independent robotic explorers became
00:14:31 --> 00:14:32 possible.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 Avery: And that is your weekend wrap for Saturday,
00:14:35 --> 00:14:36 May 23rd.
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 What a week to be following space news.
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 Anna: Starship V3 in the air. New Glenn
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 cleared to fly again. Cosmic web
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 photographed for the first time, hints of
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 dark matter and gravitational waves, Roman
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 almost on the pad, and AI chips that could
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 give our spacecraft minds of their own.
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 Avery: The universe keeps delivering, and so do we.
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 Astronomy Daily is available wherever you get
00:15:00 --> 00:15:03 your podcasts, and you can find us online at
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 astronomydaily IO.
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 Anna: Follow us on social media at. Ah, astrodaily
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 Pod for daily updates, breaking space
00:15:11 --> 00:15:13 news, and the occasional stunning image that
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 will make you feel very small in the best way
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 possible. And please check out our sponsor's
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 special deal that will give you the best
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 online protection for less money. Win win, I
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 would say. Link is in the show Notes.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 Avery: We'll be back on Monday with the latest from
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 the Cosmos. Until then, keep looking up.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:33 Anna: Clear skies, everyone.
00:15:44 --> 00:15:45 Avery: The stories the
00:15:45 --> 00:15:57 tongue.