Black Hole Jets Reshape Galaxies & ALMA Sees Planets Being Born - Space News (Sep 30, 2026)

Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Prezi: Create AI presentations fast - https://try.prezi.com/automated_daily - Lindy is your ultimate AI assistant that proactively manages your inbox - https://try.lindy.ai/tad - Discover the Future of AI Audio with ElevenLabs - https://try.elevenlabs.io/tad Support The Automated Daily directly: Buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/theautomateddaily Today's topics: Black Hole Jets Reshape Galaxies - Astronomers have found some of the strongest evidence yet that supermassive black hole jets can heat and ionize gas across an entire galaxy halo. The discovery sharpens our understanding of AGN feedback and how galaxies stop forming stars. ALMA Sees Planets Being Born - New ALMA observations have delivered an unprecedented view of planets forming inside a protoplanetary disk. The data directly show disk swirls, gas flows, and an accreting protoplanet, confirming long-standing planet formation theories. Crew-13 Speeds Toward ISS - NASA and SpaceX are preparing Crew-13 for what could become the fastest U.S. trip ever to the International Space Station. The mission highlights improving orbital operations and the growing maturity of commercial crew transportation. Curiosity Marks 5000 Martian Sols - NASA's Curiosity rover has reached its 5,000th Martian day and celebrated with a dramatic composite panorama from Gale Crater. The milestone underscores the rover's long scientific legacy and the value of sustained Mars exploration. SMILE Reveals Global Auroras - The China-Europe SMILE mission has released its first panoramic auroral images and early space environment data. These observations promise a powerful new way to study space weather and the solar wind's impact on Earth's magnetosphere. Star Formation Keeps Slowing - New discussion around the declining cosmic star formation rate shows the modern universe is much quieter than it once was. Combined with new black hole feedback results, the trend helps explain why fewer galaxies are making new stars today. Episode Transcript Black Hole Jets Reshape Galaxies First up, astronomers have reported striking new evidence that jets from supermassive black holes can influence not just a galaxy's core, but the enormous halo of gas around it. By combining DESI optical data with LOFAR radio images, researchers found hydrogen in the circumgalactic medium glows more strongly along the direction of the jets. That means these narrow outflows are heating and ionizing gas on truly galactic scales, lending strong observational support to the idea that black holes can suppress star formation by keeping fresh gas too hot to cool and collapse. ALMA Sees Planets Being Born In planet formation news, ALMA has delivered what researchers are calling the equivalent of a prenatal ultrasound for a young planetary system. In the disk around a young star, astronomers can now see a forming planet, the disturbed disk around it, evidence that it is still accreting material, and gas flows interacting directly with the planet. It's one of the clearest confirmations yet that the swirls, wakes, and gaps predicted by simulations are real, and it gives scientists a rare chance to watch how giant planets grow inside their natal disks. Crew-13 Speeds Toward ISS On the human spaceflight side, NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission is aiming for a launch-to-docking time of about 7 hours and 50 minutes, potentially making it the fastest U.S. trip ever to the International Space Station. The crew includes NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Beyond the record attempt, the mission is another sign of how routine, precise, and internationally coordinated commercial crew flights to low Earth orbit have become. Curiosity Marks 5000 Martian Sols Meanwhile on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover has reached an extraordinary milestone: 5,000 sols on the Martian surface. To celebrate, the rover...