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Anna: Picture the emptiest m place you can imagine.

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No stars, no dust, not a

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single atom. Now switch off the light

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and empty space still isn't

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empty. It seethes with particles that

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flicker into being and vanish again faster

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than any clock can catch them. For 90

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years, that's been a prediction on a

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chalkboard. This week, a dead star

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with an absurd magnetic field may have let

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us see it by bending starlight through the

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vacuum itself. G' day and welcome

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to Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm avery. It's Friday 7th

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August 2026, and there is a lot of very good

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sky ahead of us.

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Anna: There is coming up, NASA

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rummages through the parts bin of a canceled

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space station to help build a moon base.

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Avery: Blue Origin finally says what blew up its big

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rocket back in May. And a plucky little robot

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fights the stop spinning long enough to

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rescue a beloved NASA telescope.

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Anna: And we finish where the whole world is

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looking next week, the total solar eclipse on

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the 12th paired with the best Perseids in

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years, both hemispheres and the eye safety

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rules that are absolutely non negotiable.

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But, uh, we start with the physics of nothing

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at all. Avery, want to set the scene?

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Avery: Gladly. This is a genuine

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fundamental physics lead and it's about a

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lovely Australian thread running through it.

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Anna: So on Wednesday, the journal Nature published

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a result that's been decades in the making. A

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team led by Rachel Stewart used NASA's

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IXPE X ray telescope, that's

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the Imaging X Ray Polarimetry Explorer,

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to stare at a magnetar with the catchy name

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1E

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1547.0 to

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5408. And they think

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they've caught empty space, behaving

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exactly as quantum theory says it should.

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Avery: Lets define the star first because magnetars

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are ridiculous objects.

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Anna: They really are. A magnetar is a

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neutron star, the collapsed core of a

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massive dead star. A whole sun's

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worth of mass crammed into a ball the size

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of a city. But this particular

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flavor has the strongest magnetic field

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known anywhere in the universe. We're talking

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a field around a thousand trillion times

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stronger than Earth's. Roughly a, uh,

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trillion times stronger than the beefiest

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permanent magnet ever built in a lab.

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Avery: And that monstrous field is the whole point

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because of a prediction from 1936.

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Anna: Right. This goes back to Werner Heisenberg

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and his colleagues, one of the founders of

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quantum mechanics. Quantum theory says the

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vacuum isn't truly empty. It's a

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boiling sea of virtual particles,

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electrons and their antimatter twins,

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positrons popping in and out of

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existence and vanishing before you can ever

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measure them directly.

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Avery: Which sounds like philosophy until you add a

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magnetic field.

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Anna: Exactly. Turn on a strong enough

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field and those flickering virtual particles

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line up. And when they line up, the

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empty vacuum starts to behave like a

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piece of glass, or better, like a crystal.

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It gains a grain. Light traveling

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one way through it moves slightly differently

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than light traveling another way. Physicists

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call it vacuum birefringence.

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Avery: Birefringence being the same trick a crystal

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of calcite plays. Split a light ray in two.

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Anna: The very same. The vacuum becomes a

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prism made of nothing. The catch has

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always been that you need a field so

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absurdly strong to make the effect visible

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that no laboratory on Earth can get

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anywhere near it. Only a magnetar will

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do. So we've had to wait for the universe

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to build the experiment for us.

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Avery: Enter ixpe. And, um, here's where it turns

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into a proper international relay, with

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Australia holding one of the batons.

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Anna: This is my favorite part.

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IXPE measures the polarization of

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X rays. The direction the light waves are

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wiggling. That's the fingerprint you need to

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catch birefringence. But the team didn't

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stop at one telescope. They ran

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IXPE together with NASA's

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NICER instrument on the space station and

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crucially, the Parkes radio telescope in

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central New South Wales.

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Avery: Merjang the dish, our dish,

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doing frontier quantum physics from a paddock

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outside of Parkes.

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Anna: And there's more homegrown talent in the

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byline. Dr. Marcus Lower from

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Swinburne University in Melbourne is on the

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team alongside co lead Hoa Dinh

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T at University in Houston.

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So this is genuinely a NASA and Australia

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result.

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Avery: What did the numbers actually show?

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Anna: Extraordinary polarization in the

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soft X ray band, where you're seeing the

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star's glowing surface. The light was

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polarized at around 65%.

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And at some points in the magnetar's

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rotation, it climbed to nearly 80.

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That's enormous. And the pattern shifts

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smoothly as the star turns. According to the

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team, you can't reproduce that combination,

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the X rays and the radio behavior together

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without the vacuum itself bending the light.

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In their words, the signal requires vacuum

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birefringence to be present now,

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and I

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Avery: think this is important for our listeners.

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This is not case closed, is it?

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Anna: No, and I'm glad you flagged it. The team is

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careful. They call it the most definitive

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signal to date. Not a confirmed detection.

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And there's a genuine scientific argument

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happening in real time. Back in April,

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an independent group looked at the same

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IXPE data with a different model of the

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star's geometry and concluded it wasn't

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compelling evidence yet. So there are two

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honest readings on

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Avery: the table, which is science working

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exactly as it should.

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Anna: It is to nail it down, you'd want a

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stronger dip at the specific energy where the

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effect should bite. Or the same signature

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from a whole family of magnetars, which or

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the dream, a lab experiment on Earth

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that corroborates it. None of those is in

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hand yet. But think about what's being

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claimed that we watched the empty vacuum

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of space act on light using a

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dead star as the apparatus and a radio

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dish in the central west as one of the ears.

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Avery: The emptiest thing there is finally showing

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its grain.

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Anna: That's a lead from the very big

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physics let's come back down to the moon

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where Avery someone's been raiding the parts

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bin.

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Avery: They have. Longtime listeners will remember

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that back in the autumn NASA paused the Lunar

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Gateway, the small space station that was

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meant to orbit the moon, and pivoted to

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putting infrastructure straight onto the

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surface instead. This week we learned what

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happens to the hardware that was already

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built.

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Anna: It doesn't go in a museum.

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Avery: It goes to the moon by another route.

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NASA and Northrop Grumman announced on

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Tuesday that the guts of Halo, that's the

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habitation and logistics outpost, the crew

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module that was going to be the heart of

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Gateway, will be repurposed into three

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robotic missions called Lunar Infrastructure

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Demos Lid 1, Lid 2

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and Lid 3.

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Anna: So the power systems, the avionics, the data

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plumbing, all the expensive already flight

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Avery: ready bits get reused on the

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surface instead of in orbit. And the job

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they're being pointed at is the single

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hardest problem of living at the lunar South

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Pole. Surviving the night.

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Anna: The two week night, a uh, night

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Avery: that lasts about 14 Earth days, where the

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temperature at the pole can swing wildly and

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plunge to well below minus 200

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degrees Celsius and where your solar panels

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do precisely nothing for a fortnight. If

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you want astronauts to stay for more than one

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lunar day, you have to keep the lights and

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the heaters on through that. These demos are

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meant to prove the power, thermal and

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avionics kit that makes a persistent base

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even thinkable.

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Anna: And the reasoning behind reusing Halo is

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basically don't reinvent the wheel.

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Avery: Northrop Grumman's framing is that the

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hardware is ready to fly, so it lets NASA

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move faster and start gathering real

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performance data on the surface sooner. It

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was part of a broader moon base update too.

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Four different commercial landers all

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reaching final qualification testing at once,

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which is its own milestone.

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Anna: It's a very North American story.

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Basa, Northrop Grumman, the whole

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Artemis push. But it lands for everyone

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because the South Pole and its water ice is

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where the whole world's lunar plans are

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converging.

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Avery: Waste not, want not in space.

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Anna Speaking of things that ah, didn't go to

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plan.

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Anna: Yes, some closure on a big bang from

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earlier this year. Cast your mind back to

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28 May. Blue Origin was running a

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routine engine test of a new Glenn booster on

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the pad at Cape Canaveral and it exploded

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spectacularly. It destroyed the rocket

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and did serious damage to the launch complex

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and until

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Avery: this week we didn't officially know why.

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Anna: Now we do. On Tuesday, Blue

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Origin's chief executive Dave Limp gave the

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first real update on the investigation. The

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culprit? The main oxygen valve on one of the

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rocket's seven BE4 engines. They

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traced it there, then confirmed it by

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recovering and inspecting the hardware.

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Avery: One valve on one of seven

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engines, One valve.

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Anna: That's the thing about rockets, they're

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thousands of parts that all have to behave

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and any one of them can ruin your day. The

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valve controls the flow of liquid oxygen into

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the engine and something about it initiated

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the anomaly. Limp said they've run extensive

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component level and engine hot fire tests to

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understand the failure mode and the fix is

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Avery: a redesign everything situation or a

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tweak.

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Anna: Encouragingly, a tweak. They're making small

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modifications to the valve that can be

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retrofitted to engines that already exist

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rather than starting from scratch. Blimp's

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line was simply the path forward is clear

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with updated hardware coming in the near term

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and a return to flight still targeted before

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the end of the year.

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Avery: There's a wider ripple here too. The BE4

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doesn't only fly on New Glenn.

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Anna: Good point. The same engine powers United

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Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket. So the

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industry will be watching how this valve

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story plays out beyond Blue Origin. But

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the headline for today is a good one. They

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found it, they understand it and they think

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it's fixable. That's how you turn a very bad

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day into a flying rocket again.

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Avery: From M, a rocket that needs to fly again to a

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robot that just needs to stop spinning. This

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one's a nail biter.

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Anna: Nothing unusual in that though.

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Avery: In space it genuinely is. We've

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been following this since the launch scrubs

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back at the start of July. So let me bring

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everyone up to speed. NASA's Neil Gerald

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Swift Observatory, a much loved telescope

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that's been catching gamma ray bursts since

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2004 is slowly sinking.

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Its orbit is decaying and without a boost it

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will re enter and burn up later this year.

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Anna: And the cavalry is a robot.

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Avery: The cavalry is a robot called Link, built by

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a company called Catalyst Space out of

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Flagstaff, Arizona. They're billing it as

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America's first commercial space robot.

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Designed, built and launched in under a year.

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And its job is to fly up, grab Swift

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and gently boost it to a higher, safer

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orbit. It launched on 3 July on an air

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launched Pegasus rocket.

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Anna: So what went wrong?

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Avery: During commissioning, Link got into trouble.

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It ended up in a multi axis tumble, spinning

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at about 9 degrees per second, which caused

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it to drop in and out of communication. And

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the cause was nasty. Two of its three

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reaction wheels, the spinning disks a

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spacecraft uses to point itself while, were

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knocked out by a fault in the power system

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upstream of them.

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Anna: Losing your steering while you're tumbling,

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that's the stuff of nightmares.

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Avery: It is. But here's the clever bit. With the

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reaction wheels down, the team improvised.

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They used Lynx electric propulsion thrusters,

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the gentle ion drive meant for the long

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cruise to Swift, mounted on a gimbal and

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fired them to cancel the spin. And it's

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working. They've brought the Tumble down from

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9 degrees per second to 4, and now to

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about 1 and a half. All of it using less than

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a hundred grams of propellant. So they're not

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eating into the fuel they need for the rescue

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itself.

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Anna: A hundred grams, That's a small chocolate

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bar's worth of fuel to tame a tumbling

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spacecraft.

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Avery: Beautifully economical. And the next step is

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a big flight software upload in the coming

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days. New control code written specifically

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for the wounded spacecraft, which should hand

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full pointing control back to the team. After

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that, Link can start. The slow orbital dance

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to line up with Swift Rendezvous has slipped

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to around the end of August.

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Anna: There's a lovely echo here with our lead.

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Actually, our top story was about reading a

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magnetar with X ray telescopes. And Swift

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is itself an X ray and gamma ray observatory.

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A robot fighting to save one of the very

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instruments we use to do this kind of

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science.

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Avery: Fingers crossed for that software upload.

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We'll keep watching the dashboard.

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Anna, take us to the sky.

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Anna: With pleasure, because next Wednesday 12th

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August, as we've mentioned before, is one of

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the biggest sky days of the year. Two

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headline events in 24 hours, a total solar

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eclipse and the peak of the Perseid meteor

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shower under a beautifully dark moonless

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sky.

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Avery: Let's do the eclipse first and let's do it by

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hemisphere. The path of Totality, where the

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moon completely covers the sun, sweeps across

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northern Russia, Greenland, Iceland and

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northern Spain, clipping a tiny corner of

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Portugal for mainland Europe. It's the first

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total solar eclipse since 1999.

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If you're lucky enough to be in Spain,

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totality comes late in the day,

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Anna: low and golden for our North American

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listeners, our largest audience. You don't

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get totality this time, but the Northeast

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does get a partial. It's an afternoon event.

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The rule of thumb. You'll see more than a 10%

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bite only if you're northeast of a line

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running roughly from New York City up through

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Rock Rochester, or east of about mid

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Ontario in Canada.

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Avery: And the further into Atlantic Canada you go,

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the better it gets. Around half the sun

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covered at maximum. New England and the

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northeastern states get a smaller nibble.

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NASDAQ will stream the whole thing live from

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1:15 in the afternoon Eastern time. If your

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local sky won't play along.

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Anna: Now, the non negotiable bit. And we say this

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every single time for a reason.

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Avery: In every partial phase, you must protect your

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eyes. Use only eclipse glasses or handheld

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solar viewers certified to the ISO

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123122 safety

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standard. Ordinary sunglasses are not

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safe, no matter how dark they look. And

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never point a camera, telescope or binoculars

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at the sun while wearing eclipse glasses. The

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optics will concentrate the light and burn

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straight through the filter and into your

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eye.

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Anna: If you saved your glasses from a previous

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eclipse, check them for scratches and

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pinholes. Before you trust them in doubt,

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throw them out.

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Avery: And for the southern hemisphere, Anna. Uh,

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the honest word.

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Anna: The honest word is that here in Australia, we

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miss this one entirely. The eclipse isn't

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visible from our part of the world, and the

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Perseids are stubbornly a northern hemisphere

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shower. Their radiant point barely clears our

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northern horizon, so at best you might catch

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a stray one or two very low in the couple

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of hours before dawn on the 13th.

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Avery: But we're not left out. What Sydney can do

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next week is beautiful in its own right.

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Anna: It is. Get up before dawn and

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look for the lineup of planets stretched

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across the eastern sky. And keep an eye on

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Venus, which is climbing back into view. Add

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the winter Milky Way arching overhead from a

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dark site and you've got a genuinely lovely

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pre dawn show. No eclipse glasses

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required.

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Avery: And for our, uh, northern friends, chasing

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meteors, the Perseids peak the night of the

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12th into the pre dawn of the 13th with a

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new moon. Conditions are about as good as

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they get. From a dark rural site, you could

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see up to a hundred an hour, many of them

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bright fast and trailing. Get away from city

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lights. Give your eyes 20 minutes to adjust.

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Look up and be patient.

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Anna: That's the show. The vacuum of space

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showing its colors. A moon base built from

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spare parts. Earth. A rocket mystery solved.

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And a little robot fighting to save a

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telescope.

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Avery: All the links and sources are in your show

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notes and over at astronomydaily IO,

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where you can also grab the newsletter and

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drop us a line.

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Anna: For Avery, I'm Anna. Look after those eyes.

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Avery: Next Wednesday and until next time.

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Anna: Clear skies.

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The stories.

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Avery: Were told.