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Blood Moon, Broken Records & the Hubble Mystery · Space News Today

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Last night, the moon turned red and bled
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across the sky for nearly an hour. A
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spacecraft is being prepped for the most
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daring crude mission in half a century.
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And somewhere out there, four stars are
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dancing together in a space so tight it
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would fit inside Mercury's orbit.
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>> And apparently, no aliens are coming to
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visit. Physics says so.
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>> Not even a postcard. This is Astronomy
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Daily. I'm Anna.
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>> And I'm Avery. Let's get into it.
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>> Welcome to Astronomy Daily, the podcast
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bringing you the universe's best stories
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6 days a week. It is Wednesday, March
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the 4th, 2026, and we have a genuinely
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stellar episode for you today. Pun
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absolutely intended.
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>> We have the aftermath of what many of
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you stayed up all night to see, the
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blood moon total lunar eclipse. We have
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major Artemis 2 news, a star system that
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honestly shouldn't exist, the solution
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to one of cosmologyy's biggest
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headaches, the dawn of commercial space
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astronomy, and the physics-based reality
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check on alien visitors.
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>> It's a lot. Let's not waste a second.
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>> Okay, first things first. Yesterday
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morning, or the early hours of
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yesterday, depending on where you were,
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the moon turned blood red. And I need to
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know, Anna, did you watch it? I
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absolutely did. I dragged a blanket
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outside and watched the whole thing from
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my garden. And the moment totality hit,
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this deep, rusty orange glow, stars
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suddenly visible that had been washed
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out by moonlight, it was genuinely one
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of those I love being alive on a planet
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with a moon moments.
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>> Right? For those who missed it, here's
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what happened. The moon passed
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completely through Earth's shadow.
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That's what makes it a total lunar
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eclipse. And the reason it turns red
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rather than just going dark is this
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beautiful piece of physics. Every
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sunrise and every sunset happening on
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Earth at that moment projects its orange
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and red light through our atmosphere and
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bends it onto the moon's surface. So
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what you're seeing is the light of every
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dawn and dusk on the planet all at once,
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>> which is one of the most romantic
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explanations in all of astronomy.
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Honestly,
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>> totality lasted just under an hour, 59
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minutes to be precise, and it was
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visible across the US, Canada, Mexico,
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and parts of South America in the
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morning hours, and from Australia, New
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Zealand, and Asia after sunset. So,
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pretty much anyone who wanted to see it
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had a shot.
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>> The timing was great for observers in
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the mountain and Pacific time zones in
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North America. They got totality in
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fully dark skies. Eastern time viewers
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had to contend with twilight creeping
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in, but honestly still spectacular.
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>> And here's the bittersweet part. If you
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missed this one, you're going to be
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waiting a while. This was the last total
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lunar eclipse visible from North America
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until New Year's Eve 2028.
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>> So, if you watched it, well done. You
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caught a rare treat. And if you didn't,
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mark your calendars now. New Year's Eve
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2028. Great excuse for a party. We'd
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love to hear from you. Did you get clear
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skies? Drop us a message at Astro Daily
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Pod.
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>> All right, next up, huge news for human
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space flight. NASA has confirmed that
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repairs to the Aremis 2 rocket are
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complete, and an April launch is still
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very much on the table.
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>> This is the one we've all been waiting
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for. Artemis 2 would be the first crude
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mission to fly around the moon in over
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50 years. Not a landing, not yet, but a
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crude flight that will take four
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astronauts further from Earth than any
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humans have ever been. The crew is
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Commander Reed Wisman, pilot Victor
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Glover, mission specialist Christina
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Cotch, who would become the first woman
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to travel to the moon, and Canadian
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Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
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>> The issue that needed fixing was a
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hydrogen leak that showed up during
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fueling tests. NASA took it seriously,
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worked through it methodically, and
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they're now satisfied it's resolved. The
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vehicle is back in the vehicle assembly
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building at Kennedy Space Center, and
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the teams are working towards an April
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target.
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>> No exact launch date has been confirmed
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yet. NASA is still working through its
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checklist, but the fact that repairs are
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complete and they're still talking April
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is genuinely encouraging. To put it in
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perspective, the last time humans flew
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to the moon was Apollo 17 in December
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1972.
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That's 53 years. And if Artemis 2
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launches as planned, we'll be back in
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lunar space before the spring is out.
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>> We'll keep tracking this one closely as
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the launch date firms up. Exciting
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times.
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>> Okay, I need everyone to picture
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something. Take our entire solar system
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from the sun to Mercury. That tiny
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sliver of space, roughly 77 million km.
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Now cram three stars into it. Three
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stars.
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>> That's I mean that's insane. Stars are
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enormous.
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>> They are. And yet astronomers have just
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confirmed a system called TIC120362137
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where exactly that is happening. three
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stars, all bigger and hotter than our
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sun, packed into a volume smaller than
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Mercury's orbit around our star. And
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then, as if that weren't enough, there's
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a fourth star orbiting all three of them
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at a distance comparable to where
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Jupiter sits in our solar system.
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>> So, it's a triple star system with a
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chaperone.
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>> That's genuinely the best way I've heard
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it described. The research was published
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in Nature Communications and led by
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astronomer Tamas Borovitz at the
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University of Seed in Hungary. His team
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used data from NASA's test satellite
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originally designed to hunt for
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exoplanets alongside groundbased
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telescopes in Hungary, Arizona, the
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Czech Republic, and Slovakia. 73 spectra
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from the Fred Whipple Observatory in
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Arizona alone.
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>> How do you even spot something like
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this?
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>> It starts with dips in starlight. The
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stars eclipse each other as they orbit,
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causing tiny periodic drops in
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brightness. What initially looked like a
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simple pair of stars eclipsing every 3.3
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days turned out on closer inspection to
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be hiding a third star, too. And then
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the fourth was teased out using a clever
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algorithm that isolated each star's
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spectral fingerprints individually. This
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system is in the constellation Signis,
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the Swan, and its technical
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classification is a 3 + 1 type
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quadruple. Three inner stars in a tight
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mutual orbit with a fourth outer
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companion. The outer stars orbital
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period is just 1,046 days, the shortest
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ever recorded for this type of system.
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>> And the team was also able to model the
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systems eventual fate. Over billions of
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years, the heavyweight stars will
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exhaust their fuel, swell into giants,
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and shed their outer layers. The whole
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thing will likely end up as a pair of
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white dwarfs orbiting each other. A
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slow, quiet fade into stellar
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retirement.
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>> From cosmic chaos to cosmic peace. I
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find that oddly comforting.
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>> It's a reminder that our own son, lone,
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solitary, planetarily well behaved,
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might actually be the weird one. Most
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stars in the galaxy have at least one
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companion. Some apparently have three.
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>> Right. This next one is for the
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cosmology nerds, but we're going to make
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it make sense for everyone because it is
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genuinely important.
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>> The Hubble tension. It sounds like a
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minor bureaucratic disagreement, but
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it's actually one of the biggest
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unsolved problems in modern physics.
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>> So, here's the setup. We know the
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universe is expanding. The question is
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how fast. And when astronomers use two
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different methods to measure that
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expansion rate called the Hubble
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constant, they get two different answers
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that stubbornly refuse to agree. One
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method uses the early universe, the
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cosmic microwave background, the
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leftover light from shortly after the
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big bang. Other methods use nearby
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cosmic distance markers like Sephiid
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variable stars and type 1A supernova.
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Both methods are solid. Both have been
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refined for decades and they still don't
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match.
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>> The gap between them is only about 8 or
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9% numerically. But that small
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discrepancy is a massive headache
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because it suggests either our
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measurements are wrong or more
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excitingly there's new physics we don't
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understand yet.
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>> And now scientists are proposing a third
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completely independent method.
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Gravitational waves. When two massive
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objects like black holes or neutron
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stars spiral together and merge, they
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send ripples through the fabric of
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spaceime itself, these gravitational
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waves carry precise information about
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the distance to the event and how fast
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the universe is expanding at that point.
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>> The beautiful thing is gravitational
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wave detectors like LIGO and Virgo don't
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rely on the same assumptions as the
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other methods. So, if gravitational wave
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measurements can pin down the Hubble
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constant independently, we'll finally
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have a referee in this argument.
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>> We don't have enough events yet to be
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definitive. Gravitational wave astronomy
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is still young. But as detectors improve
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and we observe more mergers, this could
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be the key that unlocks one of
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cosmologyy's greatest mysteries.
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>> Physics still keeping us humble since
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always.
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>> A genuine milestone in the history of
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astronomy this week. The MAV telescope,
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the world's first privatelyowned
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commercial space telescope, has captured
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its first observation, and it's the
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first star. This is a big deal. MAV is
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operated by a London-based startup
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called Blue Skies Space, and it launched
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back in November aboard a Space X ride
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share mission. It's a small satellite
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about the size of a suitcase weighing
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under 19 kg. But what it can do is
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genuinely unique. BAV is designed to
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observe stars in ultraviolet light
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wavelengths that are completely blocked
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by Earth's atmosphere. So you simply
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cannot study them from the ground. The
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last dedicated ultraviolet space
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observatory was the International
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Ultraviolet Explorer which was retired
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back in 1996. So there's been a three
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decade gap in this kind of science.
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>> And the science it's doing matters
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enormously for the search for life. Not
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every star is as well behaved as our
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sun. Many stars, especially the cooler,
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more common red dwarfs, produce intense
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UV flares that could strip the
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atmospheres off nearby planets, making
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them uninhabitable regardless of their
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distance from the star. MAV will survey
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hundreds of stars to figure out which
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ones are genuinely friendly to life. The
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commercial model here is also
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interesting. Data access is provided
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through annual subscriptions to research
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teams, a sort of Netflix for UV
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astronomy data. It's a new way of
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funding space science. And if it works,
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Blue Sky Space plans a whole fleet of
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these.
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>> The first star observed was one of the
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brightest stars in the Ursa Major
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constellation. A calibration target to
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check the instrument is working
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correctly. And it is. First light
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achieved. Science operations underway.
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>> The universe has its first commercial
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telescope. I, for one, welcome our new
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private sector stargazers.
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>> And finally, our lighter closer.
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Although I'd argue there's nothing light
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about the physics involved.
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>> A new piece from the brighter side of
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news has been making the rounds this
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week and it takes a long hard look at
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why despite the vastness of the universe
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and the billions of potentially
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habitable worlds out there, no alien
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civilization has ever shown up on our
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doorstep. And the answer, it turns out,
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isn't conspiracy. It's physics.
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>> Five barriers. That's the argument. Five
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physical constraints that together make
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interstellar contact essentially
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impossible. Shall we run through them?
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>> Let's do it.
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>> Number one, distance. The nearest star
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to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4.24 lighty
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years away. The Parker Solar Probe, the
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fastest humanmade object ever built,
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would take around 6600 years to reach
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it. And that's our closest neighbor, the
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Milky Way, is 100,000 light-years
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across. Number two, the speed of light.
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This is not an engineering problem. It's
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a law of reality. Einstein's special
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relativity tells us that as you
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accelerate anything with mass toward the
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speed of light, it takes ever more
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energy for ever smaller gains in speed.
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To actually reach light speed would take
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infinite energy. Not a lot of energy,
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infinite.
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>> Number three, propulsion. Even if you
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accept a much lower target, say 1% of
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light speed, you run straight into
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what's called the rocket equation. To
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accelerate, you need fuel. But fuel has
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mass, which means you need more fuel to
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push the fuel, which adds more mass. It
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grows exponentially. The fuel required
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for even a modest interstellar trip
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would be staggering.
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>> Number four, biology. The human body
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evolved on Earth under Earth's magnetic
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field under Earth's gravity. Deep space
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is brutal. Cosmic radiation shreds DNA.
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Microgravity degrades bones and
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cardiovascular systems. And we still
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haven't solved cryogenic preservation.
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Even robots aren't immune. Radiation
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degrades electronics. And over the time
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skills involved, entropy wins.
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>> And number five, and this is my favorite
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one, timing. Our civilization has been
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broadcasting radio signals for about a
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hundred years. That creates a bubble
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roughly 100 lighty years across. The
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Milky Way is a thousand times wider than
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that. The universe is 13.8 billion years
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old. Civilizations might rise, transmit,
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and fall, all before their signals even
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reach anyone capable of receiving them.
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The physicist Richard Feineman
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apparently compared it to fireflies
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blinking on different nights in a dark
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forest. They never overlap.
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>> And what about UFOs? The piece applies
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physics to claims of craft performing
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impossible maneuvers. Instant
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acceleration to extreme speeds, sharp
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turns with no sonic signature. The
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forces involved would be tens of
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thousands of times Earth's gravity.
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Occupants would be pulped. Materials
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would fail. The physics doesn't work.
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>> Now, is this depressing? I actually
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don't think so. The piece ends on
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something beautiful. The same laws of
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physics that prevent easy interstellar
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travel also make the universe stable,
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ordered, and ultimately life friendly.
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Light speed preserves causality. Without
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it, cause and effect would unravel.
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Stable atoms permit chemistry. Stars
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forge the elements that build planets
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and people. We might be alone in our
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cosmic neighborhood, but we're made of
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the same star stuff as every galaxy in
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the observable universe. We're not
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separate from the cosmos. We're the
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universe looking at itself.
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>> I'll take that.
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>> That's Astronomy Daily for Wednesday,
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March I 4th, 2026. Blood moons, crude
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moon missions, cosmic star huddles, the
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universe's expansion mystery, the dawn
15:27
of private space telescopes, and why the
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aliens aren't coming. Honestly, one of
15:32
my favorite episodes in a while. If you
15:35
enjoyed it, please subscribe wherever
15:37
you get your podcasts. Leave us a
15:38
review. It genuinely helps us reach more
15:41
space enthusiasts. And find us on social
15:43
media at Astro Daily Pod.
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>> New episodes every weekday and Saturday.
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We'll see you tomorrow for more from the
15:52
universe.
15:52
>> Blue skies, everyone.
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Stories told
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stories told
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stories