Space Nuts Podcast

💡 Did You Know? (3) The Pegasus XL rocket launching LINK is dropped from its carrier aircraft, Stargazer, at about 39,000 feet — roughly the cruising altitude of a commercial airliner — before its engine even ignites.

Did you know? XLSSC 122, the JWST-studied galaxy cluster, is so far away its light left when the universe was less than a quarter of its current age.

Did you know? Canadarm2 has been in continuous service on the ISS since 2001, helping capture nearly every cargo spacecraft that's visited the station.

Did you know? Swift has detected over 2,000 gamma-ray bursts since launching in 2004 — each one among the most powerful explosions in the known universe.

Did you know? The Tunguska Event in 1908 flattened over 2,000 square kilometres of Siberian forest — with no impact crater ever found.

Did you know? The Pegasus XL rocket launching LINK today is being flown for the very last time — after today, the entire Pegasus program retires.

Did you know? Andromeda XXXVI was discovered not by an algorithm, but by an amateur astronomer manually scanning public survey images.

Did you know? The term 'transcrustal magmatism' describes a process where molten rock is stored, processed, and differentiated throughout an entire planetary crust over millions of years. On Earth, this happens because of plate tectonics. The Oxford study suggests Mars achieved something similar through a different mechanism entirely — challenging the assumption that plate tectonics is a prerequisite for geological complexity.

Did you know? ESA's Juice spacecraft is primarily designed to study Jupiter's icy moons — Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. But its November 2025 encounter with interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS gave scientists an unexpected chance to test all of Juice's instruments before arrival at Jupiter in 2031. The mission team says the experience has made them more confident in the spacecraft's capabilities than ever.

Did you know? Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft has been operating in space since December 2014 — that's nearly 12 years. After returning Ryugu samples to Earth in 2020, it still had enough fuel for an extended mission. Its upcoming flyby of asteroid Torifune on July 5 will see it pass within 1 to 10 kilometres at 5.3 km/s — faster than a speeding bullet by several thousand times.

Did you know? NASA's Artemis programme has already achieved a landmark milestone — Artemis II carried four astronauts around the Moon earlier this year, the first humans to venture beyond Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. The programme is also the most ambitious and expensive NASA has undertaken since the Space Shuttle era, with a goal of establishing sustainable human presence at and around the Moon by the late 2020s.

Did you know? The Strawberry Moon gets its name from the Algonquin peoples of North America, who used it as a seasonal marker for gathering wild strawberries. Other cultures gave June's full moon very different names — including the Honey Moon (Europe), the Rose Moon, and the Mead Moon. Tonight's Strawberry Moon rises in Sagittarius, sitting near the famous Teapot asterism.

Did you know? RAD-BAARG — the bow-and-arrow radio galaxy — was first identified not by a professional astronomer, but by a volunteer citizen scientist scanning data from a Himalayan telescope site. The RAD@home Collaboratory in India has been recruiting volunteers to search for unusual radio sources in telescope data — and this discovery may be its most remarkable find yet.

DID YOU KNOW? — Hydrothermal Life Hydrothermal vents on Earth support entire ecosystems with no sunlight whatsoever — bacteria, tube worms, crabs and shrimp all powered by chemical energy. Of around 200 known impact craters on Earth, about 70 show evidence of hydrothermal systems. Only 8 show clear evidence of microbial colonisation — but Chicxulub's new 8-million-year timeline dramatically extends the window in which life could have established itself.