Astronomy Daily · S05E161 · “The Colour of Empty Space” · Friday 7 August 2026. Hosts: Anna & Avery. astronomydaily.io · @AstroDailyPod
① Vacuum birefringence: reading a magnetar ● NASA’s IXPE, with NICER and the Parkes/Murriyang radio telescope (NSW), measured the polarised X-rays of magnetar 1E 1547.0−5408. ● Result: soft X-ray polarisation ~65% at 2 keV, rising to nearly 80% at some rotation phases — the strongest signal yet of vacuum birefringence, a QED effect predicted by Heisenberg in 1936. ● The team calls it the “most definitive signal to date,” not a confirmed detection; an April 2026 analysis disputes it under different geometry. Co-leads: Rachael Stewart; Hoa Dinh Thi (Rice); with Marcus Lower (Swinburne). ●
Source: Stewart et al., Nature, 5 Aug 2026 (DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-10859-z); NASA IXPE release.
② Gateway HALO hardware → Lunar Infrastructure Demos ● NASA and Northrop Grumman are repurposing the HALO module’s power, data and avionics into three surface missions — LID-1, LID-2, LID-3. ● Goal: “survive-the-night” power and thermal tech for the lunar South Pole, where night lasts ~14 Earth days and temperatures plunge below −200 °C. ● Part of a wider Moon-base update in which four commercial landers reached final qualification testing at once. ●
Source: NASA & Northrop Grumman releases, 4 Aug 2026; Spaceflight Now.
③ New Glenn: the cause is a valve ● Blue Origin traced the 28 May New Glenn booster explosion (during a pad hot-fire at Cape Canaveral) to the main oxygen valve on one of the seven BE-4 engines. ● Fix: small, retrofittable valve modifications; return to flight still targeted by year’s end. The BE-4 also powers ULA’s Vulcan. ●
Source: Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, 5 Aug 2026; SpaceNews.
④ LINK’s de-spin: the fight to save Swift ● Katalyst Space’s LINK robot — tasked with boosting NASA’s ageing Swift observatory before re-entry — hit a multi-axis tumble when two of three reaction wheels failed. ● Using gimballed electric-propulsion thrusters, the team cut the spin from ~9°/s to ~1.47°/s on under 100 g of propellant. A flight-software update is next; rendezvous slips to ~end of August. ●
Source: NASA Swift blog, 6 Aug 2026; Katalyst mission updates.
⑤ Skywatch: eclipse + Perseids ● 12 Aug total solar eclipse — totality across Greenland, Iceland, northern Spain; afternoon partial for eastern Canada and the NE United States (>10% only NE of the NYC–Rochester line; ~50% in Atlantic Canada). NASA live from 1:15 pm EDT. ● Perseid peak the night of 12–13 Aug under a New Moon — up to ~100/hr from dark rural sites. ● Southern Hemisphere: eclipse not visible; Perseids barely clear the horizon. Sydney: pre-dawn planet line-up + Venus + winter Milky Way. ●
EYE SAFETY: use only ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses for every partial phase; never combine them with a camera, telescope or binoculars.
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