Possible first moon beyond Solar System & Bennu reveals its mixed origins - Space News (Oct 25, 2026)

Support The Automated Daily directly: 15 free episodes a day, 5 editions, 3 languages, about $4 a day to produce. A coffee keeps it going: theautomateddaily.com/support Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Discover the Future of AI Audio with ElevenLabs - https://try.elevenlabs.io/tad - Prezi: Create AI presentations fast - https://try.prezi.com/automated_daily - Effortless AI design for presentations, websites, and more with Gamma - https://try.gamma.app/tad Today's topics: Possible first moon beyond Solar System - Astronomers report strong evidence of a Jupiter-mass exosatellite orbiting a brown dwarf in the CD-35 2722 system. The possible first exomoon challenges familiar definitions of moons, planets and stars. [188] Bennu reveals its mixed origins - Chemical analysis of NASA’s Bennu samples suggests the asteroid formed from inner and outer Solar System material mixed near the water-ice line. Jupiter may have controlled which ingredients reached this ancient construction zone. [62] Magnetic web covers quiet Sun - The balloon-borne Sunrise-III observatory found a network of thin magnetic threads above a quiet region of the Sun. The discovery may help explain how energy reaches and heats the solar atmosphere. [61] China expands its internet constellation - A Long March 8A launched another group of satellites for China’s Guowang broadband network. Philippine authorities also warned of risks from discarded rocket components falling into maritime areas. [47][106] Hunter’s Moon meets Saturn - The Hunter’s Moon rises around sunset on October 25, with golden Saturn appearing nearby. The full moon reaches peak illumination shortly after midnight in the eastern United States. [77] Episode Transcript Possible first moon beyond Solar System Astronomers are reporting strong evidence for what could become the first convincing detection of a natural satellite beyond our Solar System. The object lies in the CD-35 2722 system, where a brown dwarf circles a young star. The newly identified companion appears to orbit that brown dwarf. Its gravitational pull produces a small but measurable wobble in the larger object, which researchers tracked using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. The possible satellite is at least as massive as Jupiter, while its brown-dwarf host is more than thirty times Jupiter’s mass. That arrangement creates a classification problem. The companion is large enough to resemble a planet, but it does not directly orbit a star. Calling it a moon also feels strange because it is a giant gaseous body orbiting something that sits between planets and stars. For now, researchers prefer the broader term exosatellite. Additional observations are still needed, but the evidence offers a rare look at how varied planetary systems can be—and why categories based on our own Solar System may not work everywhere. [188] Bennu reveals its mixed origins Closer to home, tiny grains returned from asteroid Bennu are offering a revised account of the Solar System’s earliest years. Researchers at ETH Zurich compared isotopes in the sample and found that Bennu shares a distinctive chemical fingerprint with asteroid Ryugu and a rare class of primitive meteorit