{"podcast":{"title":"Astronomy Daily: Latest Space News","slug":"astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676","podcast_index_feed_id":5658676,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/5648921/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.astronomydaily.io","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/3ef2bb90b641d3f09a10b0a281912ff3.jpg","author":"bitesz.com","episode_count":901,"summary":"Join hosts Anna and Avery for daily Space & Astronomy news, insights, and discoveries . Give us 20 minutes and we'll give you the Universe! For more visit, our website and sign up for the free daily newsletter and check out our continually updated newsfeed. http://astronomydaily.io . Follow us on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube and TikTok ...just search for AstroDailyPod . Enjoy! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support .","last_synced_at":"2026-09-19T16:18:05.091830+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676"},"episode":{"title":"Is Empty Space Really Empty? A 90-Year-Old Mystery Gets Its Answer (S05E168 — The Weekend Wrap)","slug":"is-empty-space-really-empty-a-90-year-old-mystery-gets-its-answer-s05e168-the-weekend-wrap","published_at":"2026-08-15T09:35:18+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/is-empty-space-really-empty-a-90-year-old-mystery-gets-its-answer-s05e168-the-weekend-wrap","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676","url":"http://www.astronomydaily.io","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/track/op3.dev/e/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74046249/is_empty_space_really_empty.mp3","summary":"Today's episode — S05E168, Saturday August 15, 2026, our \"Weekend Wrap\": **Main story: a magnetar confirms 90-year-old vacuum birefringence prediction.** A team led by Rachael Stewart (George Washington University), using NASA's IXPE spacecraft, found the strongest evidence yet that extreme magnetic fields polarize light passing through empty space — confirming a 1936 prediction by Werner Heisenberg and Hans Euler. The team studied magnetar 1E 1547-5408 and found X-rays nearly 3x more polarized than expected, in a direction matching the star's magnetic field. Published August 5 in *Nature*. **The week in review:** - **Starship:** Ship 40 (Flight 13, splashed down July 24) remains adrift in the Indian Ocean after recovery efforts stalled in rough seas; Elon Musk said August 7 that recovery is \"not looking good right now.\" Still unresolved as of this weekend — roughly 18% recovery odds per prediction markets. SpaceX has moved on to Flight 14 prep (Ship 41, targeting ~August 20). - **Eclipse:** The August 12 total solar eclipse swept a 182-mile shadow from the Arctic through Greenland, Iceland (2m18s max totality at Látrabjarg) and northern Spain. Next Spanish total eclipse: August 2, 2027. - **Black hole star:** JWST's \"Mirage or Miracle\" survey identified MoM-BH*-1, a gas-shrouded black hole glowing from just 660 million years after the Big Bang — a candidate explanation for how supermassive black holes grow so fast. - **Virgin Galactic:** Commercial flights delayed again, from Q4 2026 to February 2027; Q2 earnings (revenue $1.54M, net loss ~$55.9M) sent shares down further, with heavy cash burn guided for Q3/Q4 and a new shelf filing for capital flexibility. **Links & sources:** - [Space.com — Is empty space really empty? This magnetic star may finally solve a 90-y…","meta_description":"Today's episode — S05E168, Saturday August 15, 2026, our \"Weekend Wrap\": **Main story: a magnetar confirms 90-year-old vacuum birefringence prediction.**…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":930,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/episodes/is-empty-space-really-empty-a-90-year-old-mystery-gets-its-answer-s05e168-the-weekend-wrap/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates-5658676/is-empty-space-really-empty-a-90-year-old-mystery-gets-its-answer-s05e168-the-weekend-wrap.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}