ASTRO SPACE NEWS

A DIVISION OF MID NORTH COAST ASTRONOMY (NSW)

(ASTRO) DAVE RENEKE

SPACE WRITER - MEDIA PERSONALITY - SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT ABC/COMMERCIAL RADIO - LECTURER - ASTRONOMY OUTREACH PROGRAMS - ASTRONOMY TOUR GUIDE - TELESCOPE SALES/SERVICE/LESSONS - MID NORTH COAST ASTRONOMY GROUP (Est. 2002)   Enquiries: (02) 6585 2260       Mobile: 0400 636 363        Email: davereneke@gmail.com

                                                        Why a Seestar Telescope Should Be Your First Choice

Every now and then, a piece of technology comes along that doesn't just improve what we do—it reshapes the entire experience. For us, that moment arrived when ZWO generously donated a Seestar telescope. Since then, our public night-viewing sessions have been transformed. This compact, self-contained smart telescope has become the centrepiece of every stargazing event we run, drawing crowds, sparking curiosity, and giving first-timers the thrill of capturing real astronomical images in minutes.

The Seestar range—especially the S50 and its smaller sibling, the NEW S30—has done something rare in amateur astronomy. It has removed almost every barrier that traditionally stops newcomers from getting involved. No fiddly collimation. No heavy mounts. No weeks spent learning cables, cameras, and calibration frames. Instead, you open the case, place it on its tripod, tap a few icons on your phone, and within moments you're watching deep-sky objects reveal themselves in crisp, colourful detail. For pure ease of use, nothing else in its class comes close!

What has surprised us most is how quickly people of all ages take to it. Kids, retirees, curious first-timers—everyone wants a turn. The software guides you, the focusing is automatic, and the telescope aligns itself without any drama. The result: sharp, professional-looking images of galaxies, nebulae, clusters, and the Moon, captured with minimal effort and at a cost that's genuinely accessible compared to traditional astrophotography setups.

It has changed the way we run astronomy events. Instead of struggling with big gear or racing to troubleshoot something in the dark, we're free to share the stories behind the stars. The audience gets a front-row seat to the universe without the wait, and we get to spend more time connecting people with the night sky. On a personal note, the Seestar has reignited my own passion for capturing the heavens. 

\More than once I've found myself outside at 2 a.m., watching the latest image build on the screen, amazed at what this little unit can pull out of the darkness. I've even taken it overseas to Norfolk Island on our annual Astro Tours, where it performed flawlessly—light, portable, and rugged enough to handle the travel. That combination of performance, portability, and price is why I recommend the Seestar S50—or the S30 for those who prefer an even more compact option. It suits beginners, it impresses seasoned observers, and it delivers high-quality results without the steep learning curve normally associated with astrophotography.

If you've ever dreamed of capturing your own images of the universe, or want to give someone a gift that inspires excitement long after the holidays, this is the one. The Seestar has earned its place as one of the most exciting, accessible instruments ever made for amateur astronomers. SEESTAR WEBSITE: https://www.seestar.com/  Your Australian retailer BINTEL: https://bintel.com.au

Sunday: Earth Slips Closer To The Sun Than It Will All Year

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, something quietly dramatic happens. No fireworks. No headlines. No warning sirens from space. Yet at that moment, Earth slips closer to the Sun than it will be at any other time this year. Closer by about five million kilometres.

That number alone sounds unsettling. Five million kilometres nearer to a star powerful enough to melt iron. And yet, across much of the Northern Hemisphere, people are scraping ice off windscreens, pulling coats tight, and complaining about the cold. It feels wrong. Surely being closer to the Sun should mean more heat? This is where the Universe likes to surprise us.

Earth's seasons have almost nothing to do with distance. They are ruled instead by a quiet tilt — a 23.5-degree lean that never changes as the planet orbits the Sun. In January, the Southern Hemisphere is tipped toward the Sun, soaking up longer days and more direct light. The Northern Hemisphere is tipped away, receiving weaker sunlight spread thin across the surface. Distance barely gets a vote.

Perihelion — from Greek words meaning "near" and "Sun" — marks this closest approach. Earth's path around the Sun isn't a perfect circle but a gentle oval, a stretched ellipse that pulls us in, then slowly lets us drift back out again. By July, we'll be at aphelion, the farthest point, more than five million kilometres farther away — right in the middle of a northern summer.

Nothing changes suddenly at perihelion. The Sun doesn't loom larger. The oceans don't boil. Life carries on, blissfully unaware. But behind the scenes, gravity is doing what it has done for billions of years, guiding Earth along a precise path that never misses its mark.

There's something humbling about that. While calendars tick over and daily life hums along, our planet is racing through space at over 100,000 kilometres an hour, threading an invisible curve around a star 150 million kilometres away. Perihelion is a quiet checkpoint on that endless journey — a reminder that Earth is not fixed or still, but constantly moving, constantly falling around the Sun.

It's a moment of cosmic balance. A whisper from the machinery of the Solar System. And once again, Earth passes close… then drifts safely on.

How and when to watch the Quadrantids, the first major meteor shower of 2026

The first major meteor shower of 2026 arrives in early January, as the Quadrantids peak during the night of January 3 and into the early morning hours of January 4 (depending on your time zone).

The Quadrantids are known for their bright fireball meteors — larger bursts of light and color that stand out compared to most showers. Under dark skies, observers may catch 50–100 meteors per hour, and sometimes even more during the brief peak window. Viewing 

Tips:• Best viewed after midnight and before dawn• Find a dark location away from city lights• Look towards the northern sky, but meteors can appear anywhere overhead• Give your eyes 20–30 minutes to adjust to the dark If the weather cooperates and the skies stay clear, this could be one of the most memorable sky shows of the year — a brilliant way to begin 2026. 

Famous 'Wow!' signal received by SETI from deep space was even stronger than once believed

On the night of August 15, 1977, something extraordinary happened. A radio telescope known as Big Ear, operated by Ohio State University, was quietly scanning the sky when it detected a signal so powerful and unexpected that it instantly stood out from the background noise of space. The signal lasted just 72 seconds.

NASA's planned return to the Moon under the Artemis program is far more than a symbolic 

NASA's planned return to the Moon under the Artemis program is far more than a symbolic revisit to a familiar destination. It represents a fundamental shift in how humanity explores space—and why. Under the emerging leadership vision outlined by Jared Isaacman, the return mission is being framed as the start of a permanent human foothold beyond Earth, not a one-off achievement.

The first crewed landing of the Artemis era, Artemis III, will mark the first time humans walk on the Moon since 1972. But unlike Apollo, the goal is not to arrive, collect samples, and leave. Artemis astronauts are expected to land near the Moon's south pole, a region never visited by humans and one of the most scientifically intriguing places in the inner solar system. Permanently shadowed craters there are believed to hold water ice—an invaluable resource that can be turned into drinking water, breathable oxygen, and even rocket fuel.

This return mission is designed to test whether humans can operate sustainably on another world. Astronauts will live on the lunar surface for longer periods than any previous Moon mission, relying on advanced spacesuits, surface power systems, and a new generation of lunar landers built by commercial partners. Every step, from landing precision to surface mobility, is aimed at answering one question: can we stay?

The Artemis return also marks a strategic change in how NASA works. Rather than building everything in-house, the agency is acting as architect and referee, setting goals while industry provides much of the hardware. The Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft will carry crews to lunar orbit, while privately built landers ferry them to the surface. This layered approach spreads risk and accelerates innovation, but it also means Artemis is a test of partnership as much as engineering.

What truly sets this return apart is what follows. Artemis III is intended to be the beginning of a sequence, not a climax. Subsequent missions will build toward a sustained presence, including surface habitats, power stations, and eventually a lunar outpost. The Moon becomes a training ground for Mars, allowing engineers and astronauts to practice living far from Earth, with long communication delays, limited resupply, and real consequences for failure.

In that sense, the return mission is a turning point. Apollo proved we could reach the Moon. Artemis aims to prove we can learn from it, use it, and build there. If successful, this return will be remembered not as a nostalgic echo of the past, but as the moment humanity began extending its reach permanently beyond Earth.

Japan Is Making History by Harnessing Solar Power From Space

High above Earth, where sunrise comes every 90 minutes and clouds are irrelevant, Japan is preparing to attempt something no nation has ever done before. In 2025, a small satellite named OHISAMA — the Japanese word for "the Sun" — will be launched into low Earth orbit, about 400 kilometres above the planet. It won't make headlines with astronauts or fiery launches. Its mission is quieter, but potentially far more profound.

Once in orbit, OHISAMA will unfurl its solar panels and begin collecting unfiltered sunlight — energy that never switches off, unaffected by night, weather, or seasons. Instead of storing that power onboard, the satellite will convert the electricity into microwaves and transmit it directly back to Earth.

The beam will be aimed at a receiving station near Suwa, Japan. If all goes to plan — with orbital timing, alignment and beam precision working perfectly — roughly one kilowatt of power will reach the ground. That's enough to boil a kettle, power a television, or run a small office. By modern energy standards, it's modest. But history rarely announces itself with volume.

What matters is that this would be the first successful transmission of usable solar power from space to Earth. A demonstration that a long-imagined idea can finally move from theory to reality. The concept of space-based solar power dates back to the 1960s, when engineers first realised that sunlight in orbit is constant and intense — roughly ten times stronger than what reaches Earth's surface. Capture it in space, beam it down, and the planet's energy problems suddenly look very different.

For decades, the idea remained impractical. Launch costs were enormous. Solar panels were heavy and inefficient. Beam-control technology lacked precision. Safety concerns lingered. The dream stayed on paper.

OHISAMA is deliberately small because it is designed to answer the hardest questions first. Can energy be transmitted accurately from orbit? Can the beam be controlled safely through the atmosphere? Can such a system survive the harsh realities of space? If the answers are yes, the future becomes strikingly clear.

Scaled-up versions would not be single satellites, but kilometre-wide orbital power stations, delivering continuous energy day and night, rain or shine. No fuel. No emissions. No dependence on geography. Any location with a receiver could draw clean power from above — cities, islands, remote regions, even disaster zones.

There are still formidable challenges ahead. Launching and assembling space power stations remains expensive. Long-term safety must be proven beyond doubt. International agreements will matter. This is not an overnight solution. But every revolution begins with a test. In 2025, when a faint microwave beam touches down in Suwa carrying energy collected in orbit, it will mark a subtle but historic shift — the moment humanity begins to see space not just as something to explore, but as something that can power the world.

The Sun has always powered Earth. Japan is about to show we can collect it — from space itself.

The $4.3 billion space telescope Trump tried to cancel is now complete

 For a telescope that nearly didn't exist, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived in remarkably good shape. After years of political brinkmanship, budget skirmishes, pandemic delays, and multiple attempts at cancellation under the first Donald Trump administration, the $4.3-billion observatory is now fully assembled, tested, and quietly waiting for launch as soon as late 2026. In an era where big science projects often stumble dramatically, Roman's story is notable not for chaos — but for how little of it there was. That alone makes it unusual.

Roman, named after NASA's first chief astronomer, was completed inside a vast clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Its core has survived violent acoustic tests, rocket-level shaking, and the thermal extremes of a vacuum chamber designed to mimic space itself. On November 25, engineers joined its inner and outer sections, formally declaring the observatory complete. For NASA, that's a rare sentence to say out loud without crossing fingers.

Part of Roman's smooth path comes from what it is not. Unlike the James Webb Space Telescope — a mechanical origami nightmare with more than 300 single points of failure — Roman avoids elaborate deployments. There will be no multi-stage sunshield ballet, no segmented mirrors unfolding a million miles from Earth. A protective aperture door opens. Solar arrays deploy. The telescope gets to work. Engineers describe the risks as "normal aerospace risks," which in NASA language is about as close to calm as it gets.

Roman's primary mirror is 2.4 metres across, the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope. Conveniently, it didn't even need to be built. The mirror was donated by the US National Reconnaissance Office, originally intended for a spy satellite that was never flown. The gift removed one of the riskiest steps in telescope construction, though it required a larger spacecraft and a heavier rocket — likely a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. If Webb is about seeing deeper than ever before, Roman is about seeing more.

Its Wide Field Instrument contains 18 infrared detectors, each 4,096 by 4,096 pixels, forming a 300-megapixel camera — the largest infrared focal plane ever assembled. By comparison, Hubble's near-infrared camera uses a single 1,024-pixel detector. The difference is transformative. Roman can match the sharpness of Hubble's famous Ultra Deep Field, but across an area of sky at least 100 times larger.

In practical terms, Roman will survey in months what would take Hubble centuries. One planned program will cover in nine months what Hubble would need up to 2,000 years to complete. Another will map the equivalent of 3,455 full moons in just three weeks, then repeatedly revisit part of that region to track motion and change.

That's where the speculation begins. Roman isn't just taking pictures — it's building time-lapse cinema. Astronomers expect to create genuine 3D movies of the Milky Way and distant galaxies, watching stars drift, clusters shear, and gravity subtly sculpt cosmic structures. This is statistical astronomy at industrial scale, aimed squarely at dark matter and dark energy, which together make up roughly 95 percent of the Universe.

Roman also carries a coronagraph, a high-contrast instrument designed to block starlight and reveal faint nearby worlds. It should image planets up to 100 million times fainter than their host stars, performing 100 to 1,000 times better than similar instruments on Webb or Hubble. Combined with Roman's wide-field planet-hunting surveys, scientists expect it to discover more than 100,000 exoplanets in its first five years.

Big numbers matter. Patterns only emerge when samples are enormous. Roman's data torrent may finally reveal whether dark energy is constant, evolving — or a sign that gravity itself is incomplete.

Politically, Roman's survival is almost as interesting as its science. Congress repeatedly restored funding after proposed cancellations, even with Trump back in office and renewed budget pressure in 2026. Unlike Webb, Roman stayed under a strict cost cap, ending up about $300 million over its original estimate, largely due to pandemic disruptions.

Perhaps that discipline explains why, during testing, engineers found no torn membranes, no loose screws, and no cascading surprises. For a NASA flagship mission, that borders on uncanny. If Webb taught us how the first galaxies lit up, Roman may show us how the Universe moves, breathes, and bends. It won't steal Webb's spotlight — but it may quietly redraw the map underneath it.

NASA's Voyager Spacecraft Found A 30,000-50,000 Kelvin "Wall" At The Edge Of Our Solar System

When Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 reached the edge of our solar system, they discovered something unexpected: a region where temperatures rise to 30,000–50,000 degrees Kelvin, far hotter than the visible surface of the Sun.

This region lies at the heliopause, the boundary where the Sun's outward-flowing solar wind meets the thin material drifting between the stars. It is not a solid wall, but a narrow zone where two streams of particles collide—charged particles flowing from the Sun at hundreds of kilometres per second and particles moving through interstellar space. When these streams meet, their motion is converted into heat, creating an extremely hot but very sparse cloud of plasma.

In space, temperature does not mean heat in the everyday sense. It measures how fast particles are moving, not how warm something feels. Near the heliopause, individual atoms are moving at enormous speeds, which gives a very high temperature reading. But there are so few particles that they cannot transfer heat. A thermometer placed there would still read close to absolute zero. It is like a handful of fast-moving bullets in a vast empty room—each carries a lot of energy, but there are too few to warm the space around them.

Voyager's instruments detected these conditions directly. Measurements showed plasma temperatures of 30,000–50,000 K just before the spacecraft crossed the boundary, and other detectors recorded a sharp increase in cosmic rays from outside the solar system, confirming the transition into interstellar space.

This hot boundary helps define where our solar system ends and true interstellar space begins. It also reveals how the Sun creates a vast protective bubble that shields Earth and the other planets from much of the galaxy's radiation. The heliopause lies about 18 billion kilometres from the Sun. Voyager 1 crossed it in 2012 and Voyager 2 in 2018, and both spacecraft—launched in the 1970s—are still sending back data from beyond our solar system.

How Long Will The Footprints On The Moon Last? 

In July 1969, when Buzz Aldrin pressed his boot into the Moon's dusty surface, he didn't just leave a footprint. He left a quiet rebuttal to every doubter who would ever claim it didn't happen.

More than half a century later, that footprint is still there. Not a softened outline. Not a blurred memory. The same crisp impression Aldrin photographed beside the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. On Earth, a footprint lasts minutes before wind, rain, or the next passer-by wipes it away. On the Moon, time plays by very different rules.

The Moon has no atmosphere. That means no wind to scatter dust, no rain to wash it smooth, no rivers, no waves, and no weather of any kind. It is a world locked in near-permanent stillness. Once something disturbs the surface, it tends to stay disturbed. Geological activity is minimal. There are moonquakes, but they are weak and infrequent. Erosion, as we understand it on Earth, simply doesn't exist.

So how long will those footprints last? The honest answer is astonishing: potentially millions of years. The only real threat comes from micrometeorites — tiny grains of space debris that pepper the lunar surface at high speed. Over immense spans of time, these microscopic impacts will gradually soften edges and blur shapes. But "gradually" is the key word. At the current rate, the Apollo footprints could remain recognisable longer than human civilisation has existed so far.

The rippled shapes seen around those footprints tell an interesting story of their own. Lunar soil, called regolith, is nothing like Earth dirt. It's made of crushed rock and glassy fragments created by billions of years of impacts. There's no moisture to bind it together, yet the grains are sharp and angular, so they interlock when pressed. When an astronaut stepped down, the weight compressed the soil unevenly, forcing it outward in tiny ridges and waves. Those ripples aren't decorative — they're a physical record of pressure, motion, and human presence in a place that had never known either.

Sceptics sometimes scoff, asking why the flag doesn't wave or why the footprints look "too perfect." The irony is delicious. The very things they point to as suspicious are exactly what physics predicts in an airless world. No wind means no waving. No erosion means perfect preservation. The Moon isn't hiding the evidence — it's protecting it.

There's something deeply human about those marks. Astronauts later admitted they sometimes walked backward just to avoid stepping on earlier footprints, aware they were altering a surface untouched for billions of years. On Apollo 17, Gene Cernan even traced his daughter's initials into the dust, knowing they might outlast every monument on Earth.

Since 1972, no human has returned. The footprints remain undisturbed, sitting in total silence under a black sky. One day, new explorers will stand beside them again. When they do, they won't just be looking at old boot prints. They'll be standing face to face with proof of a triumph — a moment when a small, fragile species reached across space and left a mark that time itself has chosen not to erase.

In this day and age, it's staggering some still claim the Moon landing was faked. We have laser reflectors, tracked missions, and crystal-clear images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Anyone can visit the LRO website and see the Apollo landing sites—footprints, tracks, and all.

Black Hole Blasting Matter into Space at 224 Million Km/h

X-ray space telescopes caught a supermassive black hole flinging matter into space at a fifth of the speed of light. Supermassive black holes are the monsters of the universe, so it is perhaps only fitting that astronomers discovered one of these behemoths unleashing a bright x-ray flare that one of the researchers, astronomer Matteo Guainazzi, described as "almost too big to imagine" in a European Space Agency (ESA) press release.

Within hours of erupting, the blast faded, and the black hole began to whip up winds more powerful than anything we can imagine on Earth and flinging material into space at about 130 million miles per hour—a fifth of the speed of light. For comparison, plasma ejected during a coronal mass ejection from the sun typically travels at a mere three million mph.

To study the black hole, astronomers used two x-ray space telescopes: the ESA's XMM-Newton and the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, which is a collaboration between the ESA, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Lurking at the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3783, the supermassive black hole—with a mass of 30 million suns—powers the galaxy's heart, a region known as an active galactic nucleus.

According to Guainazzi's statement, tangled magnetic fields in this region may have suddenly "untwisted," generating the winds. Knowing more about active galactic nuclei, and the way that they generate such powerful jets and winds, is key to understanding how galaxies form and evolve over time, study co-author and ESA researcher fellow Camille Diez said in the press release.

The Biggest Star in the Universe 10 Billion Times Bigger Than Our Sun

Some stars shine quietly for billions of years and fade away without much fuss. Stephenson 2-18 is not one of them. This is a star that seems almost too big to exist — a cosmic rule-breaker that stretches our understanding of how the universe works.

Stephenson 2-18 is a red supergiant, one of the largest types of stars ever discovered. To call it "large" is wildly inadequate. If this monster replaced our Sun, it would balloon outward so far that it would swallow Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and even Saturn. The space where our entire solar system now peacefully orbits would instead be a churning ocean of glowing gas.

The scale is staggering. Light, the fastest thing in the universe, would take more than eight hours just to cross from one side of Stephenson 2-18 to the other. For comparison, light crosses our Sun in seconds and reaches Earth in eight minutes. Suddenly, the Sun — the engine of all life on Earth — looks almost embarrassingly small. Next to Stephenson 2-18, it would resemble a grain of dust floating beside a blazing bonfire.

But size alone doesn't tell the whole story. Stephenson 2-18 is unstable, restless, and living on borrowed time. Red supergiants are stars in their final chapter, bloated and exhausted after burning through their nuclear fuel at a furious pace. Stephenson 2-18 is shedding enormous amounts of material into space, blowing off stellar winds so vast they could one day seed future star systems.

Some astronomers think it may already be wobbling on the edge of collapse. Inside its core, nuclear reactions are stacking heavier and heavier elements, like a cosmic game of Jenga. Eventually, the structure can no longer support itself. When that happens, the result could be one of the most violent events in the universe.

One possibility is a supernova — an explosion so powerful it briefly outshines entire galaxies. In that single moment, Stephenson 2-18 could release more energy than our Sun will produce over its entire lifetime. For weeks or months, it would blaze across the Milky Way, visible across vast interstellar distances.

The other possibility is even stranger. The star may collapse directly into a black hole, with little warning and no dramatic explosion — simply vanishing, leaving behind a region of space where gravity reigns supreme and light itself cannot escape. A giant disappearing without a bang, as if the universe quietly erased one of its largest creations.

What makes Stephenson 2-18 even more fascinating is how rare such stars are. Objects this large live fast and die young. While stars like our Sun enjoy lifespans of around ten billion years, Stephenson 2-18 may burn out in just a few million. In cosmic terms, it is a mayfly — massive, brilliant, and fleeting.

Located about 19,000 light-years away, this stellar titan is safely distant from Earth. Its eventual death won't threaten our planet, but it does offer astronomers a priceless glimpse into the extremes of nature. Stars like this forge the heavy elements that eventually become planets, oceans, and even life itself. Iron in your blood and calcium in your bones were born in ancient stellar deaths not unlike the one Stephenson 2-18 is heading toward.

In the end, Stephenson 2-18 is more than just a giant star. It is a reminder that the universe doesn't just build things on a human scale — it builds them with outrageous ambition. It shows us that reality can be far stranger, bigger, and more dramatic than imagination ever dared to be.

Somewhere out there, a colossal star is burning furiously, shedding its outer layers, and edging closer to a spectacular finale. And when that final moment comes, the universe will once again remind us just how small we really are — and how astonishing the cosmos can be.

This Space Telescope's Entire Job Is to Search For Signs of Life On 20 Distant Planets

A new space telescope named Pandora is set to launch in early 2026 with a single purpose: to search for signs of life on 20 carefully chosen exoplanets. Unlike massive observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope, Pandora is a compact 716-pound spacecraft only 17 inches across. Its strength is not size, but time. It will stare at each target star system for up to 24 hours at a time, repeating these long sessions ten times per system to build the most detailed atmospheric profiles ever attempted for these particular worlds.

Pandora hunts planets using the transit method, watching for tiny dips in a star's brightness as a planet passes in front of it. Some of the star's light filters through the planet's atmosphere during each transit. The chemistry of that atmosphere changes the light in measurable ways, revealing gases such as hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and—most importantly—water vapor.

The challenge is that stars are not steady sources of light. Hot bright patches and cool dark regions on their surfaces constantly shift as the star rotates. These variations can mimic or hide the chemical signatures scientists are trying to detect. Pandora's long observing sessions are designed to map and remove this "stellar contamination," separating real atmospheric signals from misleading ones.

Selecting just 20 targets from an initial list of about 100 required careful work. The final group includes planets orbiting both hot and cool stars, worlds ranging from gas giants to smaller sub-Neptune planets, and systems already showing hints of interesting chemistry. Some show water vapor in their starlight; others reveal hydrogen escaping into space, suggesting extreme heating by their parent star.

Despite its ambitious mission, Pandora is remarkably inexpensive. While the Webb telescope cost over $10 billion, Pandora's entire project comes in at around $20 million. It is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center once NASA finalizes a date, following delays caused by a government shutdown.

Designed for a one-year mission in low-Earth orbit, Pandora may continue longer if funding allows. Its goal is simple but profound: to find out whether any of these 20 distant worlds show the chemical signs of a place where life could exist.

Quantum Entanglement and the Coming Age of Teleportation
An easy-to-grasp look at the science that may reshape human travel

THIS may be the most incredible/amazing story you have ever read: Quantum entanglement sits at the heart of some of the most fascinating work in modern physics. It's an idea so strange that even Einstein raised an eyebrow at it, famously calling it "spooky action at a distance." Yet despite the nickname, the phenomenon is very real. If two tiny particles become entangled, they behave as one system no matter how far apart they travel. Change something about one, and its partner reacts instantly—even if one is in Sydney and the other could somehow be waiting on Mars.

Picture a magical pair of coins. Flip one, and the other immediately shows the same result. Not because a message rushed between them, but because, in a sense, they share the same identity. That, in a nutshell, is quantum entanglement: a silent connection built into the very structure of reality. This invisible link is now guiding scientists toward ideas that were once reserved for science-fiction writers, including the headline act—teleportation.

Teleportation today isn't about moving objects from A to B. Instead, scientists use entanglement to transfer the state or properties of one particle to another somewhere else. It's a bit like copying a document, except the original version disappears the moment the new one appears. This technique has been tested repeatedly in laboratories, between mountaintops, across cities, and even between Earth and satellites.

Turning this into a method for moving physical objects—and ultimately people—is enormously more complicated. A human being is made of unimaginable numbers of particles. Teleporting someone would require capturing the exact state of every one of those particles and sending that information elsewhere to be rebuilt perfectly. That's equivalent to mapping every grain of sand on an entire beach with flawless accuracy, then recreating that beach grain-by-grain somewhere else.

We're nowhere near that level of precision yet, but history shows that "impossible" is often just a temporary label.

Some far-reaching theories suggest that the fabric of space itself can be bent, twisted, or folded. If that's true, then distant locations might be linked through tunnels or shortcuts sometimes described as "holes." They aren't holes in the usual sense but distortions in spacetime that connect two places directly—much like folding a sheet of paper so two dots that were far apart suddenly touch.

Quantum entanglement appears in several of these theoretical models. Researchers suspect it could help detect, measure, or perhaps even stabilise these spacetime shortcuts. At the moment, these ideas live largely in mathematical equations, but they hint at a future where teleportation doesn't just transmit information. It could move physical matter—and potentially living passengers—through controlled gateways formed by the structure of the universe itself.

How the Technology Might Evolve

A realistic but forward-looking path for the development of quantum teleportation could look like this:

2025–2040

• Major progress in quantum computers.

• Routine teleportation of information between ground stations and satellites.

• First solid theoretical models describing tiny, short-lived quantum "space holes."

2040–2060

• Controlled teleportation of simple matter—atoms and small molecules.

• Spacecraft adopt quantum-linked systems for instant communication.

• Early attempts to stabilise microscopic spacetime shortcuts.

2060–2100

• Teleporting complex objects becomes possible on a laboratory scale.

• Quantum holes remain stable long enough for tiny probes to traverse.

• Global agencies explore long-range, no-rocket material transport.

22nd century and beyond

• Full object teleportation becomes practical.

• Human teleportation, if proven safe, appears in extremely restricted trials.

• Space travel shifts dramatically as teleportation hubs replace launch pads.

• A network of quantum "highways" turns the solar system into a familiar neighbourhood.                                                                                                                                              The Future in One Sentence

Quantum entanglement is the universe's built-in communication thread, and if humanity learns to master it, teleportation—of data, objects, and eventually people—could transform travel from a physical journey into a simple step between two points in space.

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'ASTRO DAVE' RENEKE - A Personal Perspective

His extensive background includes teaching astronomy at the college level, being a featured speaker at astronomy conventions across Australia, and contributing as a science correspondent for both ABC and commercial radio stations. David's weekly radio interviews, reaching around 3 million listeners, cover the latest developments in astronomy and space exploration.

As a media personality, David's presence extends to regional, national, and international TV, with appearances on prominent platforms such as Good Morning America, American MSNBC news, the BBC, and Sky News in Australia. His own radio program has earned him major Australasian awards for outstanding service.

David is recognized for his engaging and unique style of presenting astronomy and space discovery, having entertained and educated large audiences throughout Australia. In addition to his presentations, he produces educational materials for beginners and runs a popular radio program in Hastings, NSW, with a substantial following and multiple awards for his radio presentations.

In 2004, David initiated the 'Astronomy Outreach' program, touring primary and secondary schools in NSW to provide an interactive astronomy and space education experience. Sponsored by Tasco Australia, Austar, and Discovery Science channel, the program donated telescopes and grants to schools during a special tour in 2009, contributing to the promotion of astronomy education in Australia. David Reneke, a highly regarded Australian amateur astronomer and lecturer with over 50 years of experience, has established himself as a prominent figure in the field of astronomy. With affiliations to leading global astronomical institutions,

David serves as the Editor for Australia's Astro-Space News Magazine and has previously held key editorial roles with Sky & Space Magazine and Australasian Science magazine. 

Heard on over 50 stations weekly