Black Hole Jets Reshape Galaxies & ALMA Sees Planets Being Born - Space News (Sep 30, 2026)

Welcome to The Automated Daily, space news edition. The podcast created by generative AI. Today, black holes are caught reshaping galaxies, ALMA is watching planets form in real time, a new space weather mission is opening a global view of Earth's auroras, and both astronauts and rovers are marking major milestones. It's September 30th, 2026, and the universe just gave us a remarkably busy day.

Black Hole Jets Reshape Galaxies

First up, astronomers have reported striking new evidence that jets from supermassive black holes can influence not just a galaxy's core, but the enormous halo of gas around it. By combining DESI optical data with LOFAR radio images, researchers found hydrogen in the circumgalactic medium glows more strongly along the direction of the jets. That means these narrow outflows are heating and ionizing gas on truly galactic scales, lending strong observational support to the idea that black holes can suppress star formation by keeping fresh gas too hot to cool and collapse.

ALMA Sees Planets Being Born

In planet formation news, ALMA has delivered what researchers are calling the equivalent of a prenatal ultrasound for a young planetary system. In the disk around a young star, astronomers can now see a forming planet, the disturbed disk around it, evidence that it is still accreting material, and gas flows interacting directly with the planet. It's one of the clearest confirmations yet that the swirls, wakes, and gaps predicted by simulations are real, and it gives scientists a rare chance to watch how giant planets grow inside their natal disks.

Crew-13 Speeds Toward ISS

On the human spaceflight side, NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission is aiming for a launch-to-docking time of about 7 hours and 50 minutes, potentially making it the fastest U.S. trip ever to the International Space Station. The crew includes NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Beyond the record attempt, the mission is another sign of how routine, precise, and internationally coordinated commercial crew flights to low Earth orbit have become.

Curiosity Marks 5000 Martian Sols

Meanwhile on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover has reached an extraordinary milestone: 5,000 sols on the Martian surface. To celebrate, the rover captured morning and evening panoramas near a ridge called Chocolatal in Gale Crater, which were combined into a postcard-like composite back on Earth. The image is more than a public outreach moment. It also captures the layered terrain Curiosity has spent years exploring as scientists piece together the story of ancient water, climate change, and possible habitability on Mars.

SMILE Reveals Global Auroras

Back near Earth, the joint China-Europe SMILE mission has entered regular science operations and released its first panoramic auroral images along with magnetic field and ion data. Its ultraviolet imager is already showing the northern aurora on a global scale, something ground observers can't easily do because of weather, daylight, and limited coverage. With its mix of imaging and in situ measurements, SMILE is designed to show how the solar wind shapes Earth's magnetosphere in real time, potentially improving space weather forecasting for satellites, communications, and power systems.

Star Formation Keeps Slowing

Finally, today's bigger cosmological backdrop is the continuing decline of star formation in the modern universe. New discussion around that trend, combined with the black hole jet results, paints a coherent picture: galaxies are losing the ability to make stars not just because gas is used up, but because energetic processes like AGN feedback can keep surrounding gas too hot and turbulent to fall back in. In other words, the universe isn't simply aging quietly. It is being actively reshaped by the flow of energy from black holes, stars, and large-scale cosmic structure.

That's all for today's space news edition of The Automated Daily. From black hole feedback to baby planets and Martian milestones, the cosmos keeps rewarding sharper eyes and better instruments. Join us next time for more stories from across the universe.

Black Hole Jets Reshape Galaxies & ALMA Sees Planets Being Born - Space News (Sep 30, 2026)

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