Latest / Space News Today / JWST reads alien geology, Io is FAR more powerful than we thought, and a meteor shower peaks TONIGHT

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JWST reads alien geology, Io is FAR more powerful than we thought, and a meteor shower peaks TONIGHT · Space News Today

0:00
Hello and welcome to Astronomy Daily,
0:03
your daily guide to the universe and
0:05
everything in it. I'm Anna.
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>> And I'm Avery. It's Tuesday, the 6th of
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May, 2026, and we are coming at you with
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six incredible stories today. From a
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robotic telescope that just read the
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geology of a world 50 lighty years away
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to a meteor shower you can watch live
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online right now.
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>> That's right. And we have a stunning mix
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of planetary science, exoplanet
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discovery, cosmological simulation, and
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some very welcome skywatching news for
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our Southern Hemisphere listeners.
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>> Let's get straight into it. Story one is
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genuinely historic.
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>> For years, when astronomers pointed the
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James Webb Space Telescope at a distant
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rocky world, they were really studying
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its atmosphere, the thin shell of gas
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around a planet. Today we're talking
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about something different, something
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that has never been done before.
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>> That's right. Astronomers have now used
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JWST to directly analyze the actual
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surface of a planet beyond our solar
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system, not its atmosphere, its surface,
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the rock itself. And what they found is
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remarkable.
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>> The planet in question is called LHS
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3844b.
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It's a so-called super Earth about 30%
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larger than our own planet and it sits
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roughly 48 12 light years away orbiting
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a small cool red dwarf star.
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>> Now this planet is an extreme situation.
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It orbits its star so closely that it
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completes a full year in just 11 hours.
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11 hours Anna that's your entire working
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day and then some. And because of that
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extreme proximity, it's tidily locked,
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meaning one face permanently points
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toward the star, baking in intense heat,
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while the other side sits in permanent
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darkness. The dayside reaches
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temperatures of around 725°
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C. That is hot enough to melt lead with
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room to spare. The research team led by
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Laura Kriedberg at the Max Plank
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Institute for Astronomy in Germany used
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JWST's mid infrared instrument known as
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MIRI to measure the thermal emission
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radiating directly from the planet's
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blazing hot dayside. They observe three
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secondary eclipses moments when the
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planet slipped behind its star and use
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those measurements to build a picture of
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what the surface is made of.
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>> And the result, Dr. Kriedberg described
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it directly. We see a dark, hot, barren
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rock devoid of any atmosphere. The
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surface appears to be composed of dark
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low silica material, probably basaltt or
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other olivine rich rock. Think volcanic
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planes like those you'd find on the moon
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or on Mercury.
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>> Importantly, the team was able to rule
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out a number of things. There's no
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earthlike silicar crust, the kind that
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forms through waterdriven geological
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processes and play tectonics. There's no
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evidence of accumulated volcanic gases,
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no carbon dioxide, no sulfur dioxide.
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This is a geologically quiet, airless
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ancient world. And while that might
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sound a bit bleak, the significance here
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is huge. The published paper in Nature
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Astronomy calls this the next step in
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unveiling the nature of distant planets.
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We're no longer just detecting
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exoplanets or guessing at their
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atmospheres. We're starting to read
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their geology.
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>> Think about what that means for the
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future. With more observations like
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this, we'll be able to build up a
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geological census of rocky worlds across
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the galaxy. That knowledge feeds
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directly into our understanding of which
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worlds might be capable of supporting
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life and which are simply very
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impressive, very hot pieces of rock.
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>> A dark, hot, barren rock. But a dark,
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hot, barren rock that just made
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scientific history. Sticking with the
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theme of worlds that are frankly hostile
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to life, let's talk about Io,
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>> Jupiter's extraordinary moon, the most
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volcanically active body in the entire
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solar system. A world being continuously
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needed by the gravitational tugofwar
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between Jupiter and its larger sibling
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moons, Ganymede and Europa.
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>> Io has over 400 volcanic features called
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pater. essentially giant depressions
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filled with lava leaks. Scientists have
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been measuring the heat output of these
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features for decades. And a new study
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released just yesterday suggests we've
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been getting it dramatically wrong.
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>> The paper now available as a preprint on
4:41
archive uses data from Juno's infrared
4:44
instrument, the gyram, to look at Io's
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pater in a completely new way. And it
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turns out previous measurements were
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only seeing part of the picture.
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>> For a long time, scientists measured
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Io's volcanic heat output using what's
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called the Mband of infrared. And the
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Mband is excellent at picking up the
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really hot bright spots at the active
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edges of lava lakes where fresh uncooled
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magma is churning. What it misses is the
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vast cooler, older crust that forms
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across the rest of the lava lake
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surface.
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>> And that crust, it turns out, is
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enormous. It's much much more massive
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than those hot peripheral rings. So
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while it's cooler in temperature, its
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sheer scale means it contributes a
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staggering amount of total thermal
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output. The team used Gyram's updated
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data which can detect those lower
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temperatures to build a revised picture.
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For one wellstudied patera alone, known
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simply as P63, the old estimate was
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around 7 GW of thermal output. Some
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models put it at 20. The new gym data 80
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gawatt from a single lava lake.
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>> To put that in perspective, the entire
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output of the UK's electricity grid is
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around 40 gaw. One volcanic depression
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on Io is putting out double that.
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>> And that's just one of the 400 pere. The
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study only looked at 32 of them. The
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implications for Io's total heat budget
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are significant. We may have been
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underestimating this moon's thermal fury
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by an order of magnitude. And the study
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also found something intriguing about
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the crust itself. Using thermal cooling
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models, the team estimated that a crust
6:26
at 200 Kelvin would be roughly 13 years
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old, meaning these lakes resurface on
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time scales of about a decade. So the
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geology of Io is incredibly dynamic,
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constantly renewing itself.
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>> Io never stopped surprising us. And now,
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thanks to Juno, we're starting to truly
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understand just how powerful this
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extraordinary little moon is.
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>> Now, we're going to zoom out, way, way
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out, from one single moon to, well, the
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entire universe.
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>> An international team of astrophysicists
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led by researchers at Durham University
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in the UK and Leiden University in the
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Netherlands has just released one of the
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largest cosmological data sets ever
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assembled. We're talking about 2 and 12
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pabytes of data.
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>> 2 and 12 pabytes. That is equivalent to
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roughly half a million highde movies.
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All now freely available to researchers
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anywhere in the world.
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>> This is the Flamingo Project, a suite of
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largecale computer simulations that
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model how matter has evolved across the
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universe, right from the Big Bang
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through to the present day. The
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simulations were run on the Cosma 8
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supercomputer at Durham, which is part
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of the D-Rack National Higherformance
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Computing Facility in the UK. And what
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makes Flamingo special is its scope.
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Many detailed simulations focus on small
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regions of space. You get great detail
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on individual galaxy formation, but you
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can't see the big picture. Other
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simulations capture vast cosmic volumes,
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but lose resolution at the small scale.
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Flamingo does both. Its simulations
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stretch across billions of light years,
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allowing researchers to study rare,
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massive structures like galaxy clusters
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while still capturing the physics of
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individual galaxy formation. The cosmic
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web, that vast network of filaments and
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nodes along which galaxies are
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distributed is reproduced across these
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volumes in extraordinary detail. The
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data includes 22 full hydrodnamical
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simulations, galaxy and halo cataloges,
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all sky maps, and particle data. Because
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the data set is so vast, the Flamingo
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team also built a custom web-based
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system so researchers can access just
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the data they need without having to
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download the entire archive.
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>> Matushaler of Leen University summed up
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the ambition well. Open access to data
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sets of this scale can significantly
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accelerate scientific progress. Since
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flamingo simulations were first
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introduced in 2023, they've already been
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used in dozens of studies. Now the full
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data set is public. The scientific
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community can do so much more.
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>> This is open science at its most
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ambitious. Virtual universes freely
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given to the world
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>> and hopefully the world will receive it
9:16
in the spirit it is given. Now, before
9:19
we move on to our next story, I'd like
9:21
to quickly remind you of our sponsor,
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NordVPN. As I keep saying, when you're
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there's nothing to lose. When you're
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ready to check it out, make sure you use
9:42
our special link, which you'll find in
9:45
the show notes. From the very large to
9:47
the very precise, our next story is
9:50
about a clever new technique that's
9:52
unlocking a whole new population of
9:54
planets that we've been struggling to
9:56
find. This one has a lovely Australian
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connection which we always enjoy. The
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study was led by Margot Thornton, a
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doctoral candidate at UNSW, the
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University of New South Wales in Sydney,
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and it tackles a real challenge in
10:11
exoplanet science.
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>> So, here's the problem. NASA's test
10:15
satellite finds planets by detecting
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tiny dips in starlight as a planet
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passes in front of its star. It's
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brilliant and it's found hundreds of
10:24
confirmed planets. But there's a class
10:26
of systems it really struggles with.
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Binary stars.
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>> Binary stars are pairs of stars in orbit
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around each other and they're very
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common. A huge fraction of stars in our
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galaxy have a companion. The
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complication is that when you have two
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stars doing their own thing, it becomes
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very hard to tease out the much smaller
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signal of a planet passing in front of
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one of them. But this new approach uses
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a different approach entirely. Instead
10:54
of looking for the planet's shadow, it
10:56
looks for the planet's gravitational
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fingerprint. As a planet orbits in a
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binary system, its gravity gently tugs
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on the stars and that changes the
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precise timing of when the two stars
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eclipse each other.
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>> It's a beautiful idea. You're not
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watching the planet at all. You're
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watching the stars dance and noticing
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when something is slightly out of step.
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>> And it works. The team applied this
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eclipse timing technique to test data
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and uncovered more than 25 new exoplanet
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candidates orbiting in binary star
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systems. Systems where traditional
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transit detection methods simply
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couldn't find them. Before this study,
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only 18 such circumbinary planets had
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ever been confirmed across all
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telescopes combined. 16 from NASA's
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retired Kepler mission, plus two found
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by TESS itself. This new method has the
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potential to dramatically expand that
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number.
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>> It's a reminder that the way we look for
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things matters as much as what we're
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looking for. Great work from the UNSW
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team showing that Australia is very much
12:02
at the frontier of exoplanet discovery.
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>> Our penultimate story takes us to the
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outer solar system to those mysterious
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underexplored giants Uranus and Neptune.
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>> We often call them the ice giants, but
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that's a bit of a misnomer. Their
12:18
interiors are not cold at all. They're
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subjected to temperatures in thousands
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of degrees and pressures millions of
12:24
times greater than anything at Earth's
12:26
sea level. It's an environment we simply
12:29
cannot recreate in a lab. And because of
12:32
that, the physics of what happens to
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materials under those conditions has
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long been the subject of theoretical
12:38
modeling. Now, a new paper published in
12:41
Nature Communications from researchers
12:43
at the Carnegie Institution has added a
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striking new entry to that catalog.
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>> They've identified a previously
12:51
unrecognized state of matter that may
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exist in these extreme environments. A
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phase they call quasi one-dimensional
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superionic. It's a mouthful, so let's
13:02
break that down.
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>> Super ionic materials are already
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fascinating. In a normal solid, both the
13:08
ions and electrons are locked in place.
13:11
In a normal liquid, both flow freely. A
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super ionic state is something in
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between. The ion lice is solid, but some
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particles flow through it like a liquid.
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We actually believe a super ionic phase
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exists deep inside Uranus and Neptune
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already. But this new phase is
13:30
different. The quasi one-dimensional
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part refers to the fact that in this
13:34
newly identified phase, the flowing
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particles don't move freely in all
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directions. They're constrained to flow
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along narrow one-dimensional channels
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within the material structure. It's like
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water moving through a network of pipes
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rather than flooding a room. This is
13:51
significant because the behavior of
13:53
materials in ice giant interiors governs
13:56
everything from their magnetic field
13:58
generation to their heat flow to their
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atmospheric dynamics. If we've been
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missing an entire phase of matter that
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exists in these conditions, our models
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of how Uranus and Neptune actually work
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may need revision. With new missions to
14:13
the ice giants being seriously discussed
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by both NASA and issa for the coming
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decades, this kind of foundational
14:21
physics work is exactly what's needed to
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ensure we know what questions to ask
14:25
when we get there.
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>> A new state of matter hidden inside two
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worlds just a few billion km away.
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Sometimes the most exotic physics
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doesn't require going to another galaxy,
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just the outer edge of our own solar
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system. And finally, something you can
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do something about tonight, or more
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precisely, in the pre-dawn hours of
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tomorrow morning.
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>> The Eta Aquaria meteor shower is at its
14:50
peak right now. And for our southern
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hemisphere listeners, particularly our
14:54
Australian and New Zealand friends, this
14:57
is one of the best meteor events of the
14:59
year. The Edeto Aquariads are the debris
15:02
of Hal's comet, the legendary comet that
15:04
last swept through the inner solar
15:06
system in 1986 and won't return until
15:10
2061. Every year in early May, Earth
15:13
plows through the trail of dust and rock
15:15
particles Halley has left behind across
15:18
its 76-year orbit. And those particles
15:21
burn up in our upper atmosphere as
15:23
spectacular shooting stars. What makes
15:25
the Eta Aquar special for the southern
15:27
hemisphere is geometry. The radiant, the
15:30
point in the sky the meteors appear to
15:32
stream from in the constellation
15:34
Aquarius, rises high in the sky before
15:37
dawn. From Australia and New Zealand, it
15:40
reaches a really favorable altitude,
15:42
meaning you can expect to see up to 50
15:45
meteors per hour under ideal conditions.
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>> There is a caveat this year. A waning
15:50
gibbus moon is hanging around in the sky
15:53
and it will wash out some of the fainter
15:55
meteors, but the brighter ones, the
15:57
proper fireballs, should punch through
15:59
just fine. Your best window is in the
16:02
hours before dawn, away from the moon,
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lying back on a blanket and looking up.
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>> And if clouds are in the way, or you're
16:09
deep in the city, or you simply can't
16:11
face a 4:00 a.m. alarm, there's good
16:14
news. There are free live streams of the
16:16
shower available online. One
16:18
particularly impressive option comes
16:20
from the Alma Observatory in Chile's
16:22
Atakama Desert, one of the driest,
16:25
clearest places on Earth and one of the
16:27
premier sites in world astronomy. You'll
16:30
find links in our show notes.
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>> So whether you're watching from a dark
16:33
paddock under the Milky Way or from your
16:36
lounge with a coffee at sunrise, you can
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join millions of people tonight in
16:40
witnessing the cosmic legacy of Hal's
16:43
comet. Juding stars. Every single one a
16:47
tiny piece of one of the most famous
16:50
objects in the history of human sky
16:53
watching. That never gets old. And
16:56
that's a wrap on today's Astronomy
16:59
Daily. We've read the geology of an
17:01
alien world. We've discovered Io is even
17:04
more powerful than we thought. We've
17:06
opened two and a half pabytes of virtual
17:09
universe to the world. We found new
17:11
planets around binary stars. We've
17:14
discovered new states of matter inside
17:16
ice giants. And we've told you exactly
17:18
where to watch a meteor shower tonight.
17:21
Not a bad day's work for a Tuesday. If
17:24
you enjoyed today's show, please
17:26
subscribe, leave a review, and share us
17:28
with a friend who loves space as much as
17:31
we do. You can find us at
17:33
astronomydaily.io
17:35
and on socials at astroaily pod. We're
17:38
part of the byes.com podcast network.
17:41
Until tomorrow, keep looking up.
17:44
>> This is Anna
17:45
>> and Avery.
17:46
>> Clear skies, everyone.
17:59
Stories told.