Vampire star devours brown dwarf & Einstein Probe reveals neutron phase - Space News (Oct 8, 2026)

Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Discover the Future of AI Audio with ElevenLabs - https://try.elevenlabs.io/tad - Invest Like the Pros with StockMVP - https://www.stock-mvp.com/?via=ron - KrispCall: Agentic Cloud Telephony - https://try.krispcall.com/tad Support The Automated Daily directly: Buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/theautomateddaily Today's topics: Vampire star devours brown dwarf - Astronomers have observed a low-mass 'vampire' star in the system ZTF J0440+2325 steadily siphoning material from a close-orbiting brown dwarf. It is the first time this kind of mass transfer has been seen at such low masses, offering a new window into compact binary evolution. Einstein Probe reveals neutron phase - China's Einstein Probe captured nearly ten minutes of soft X-ray emission after a short gamma-ray burst. The signal reveals a hidden phase of neutron star mergers that may point to a short-lived hypermassive neutron star remnant. Webb finds atmosphere on lava world - The James Webb Space Telescope found strong evidence that the lava world HD 3167 b retains an atmosphere despite its molten surface. The result challenges ideas about atmospheric loss on ultra-hot rocky exoplanets and offers clues about early Earth and Venus. Three CMEs bring aurora chances - Three coronal mass ejections from sunspot region AR4549 are heading toward Earth, with NOAA forecasting up to G2 geomagnetic storm levels. Northern lights may be visible across northern North America between October 8 and 11. Draconid meteors peak under dark skies - The Draconid meteor shower from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner peaks on October 8 and 9 under dark skies ahead of the new moon. The Draconids are best seen in the early evening, and no telescope is needed. Perseverance finds new Martian strata - NASA's Perseverance rover has identified unexpected geological layers at the Margin region of Jezero Crater. The strata suggest a more complex history of lake and river activity on ancient Mars and help refine the search for past habitability. Crew-12 returns, Crew-13 arrives fast - SpaceX Crew-12 heads home after nearly eight months on the International Space Station, while ESA's Sophie Adenot sets a European record of 200 consecutive days in space. Crew-13 arrived in a record 7 hours and 55 minutes, led by Jessica Watkins, the first Black woman to command an orbital crew. Nuri rocket deploys fifteen satellites - South Korea's homegrown Nuri rocket completed its fifth flight, deploying five NEONSAT Earth-observation microsatellites and ten CubeSats. The NEONSAT constellation will support national safety and disaster response monitoring of the Korean Peninsula. Episode Transcript Vampire star devours brown dwarf Let's start with that cosmic vampire. Astronomers searching data from the Zwicky Transient Facility were looking for black widow pulsars. Instead, they found a very low-mass star, about eighty-five times the mass of Jupiter, locked in a tight orbit with a brown dwarf of roughly twenty-five Jupiter masses. The two complete an orbit in only about eighty-seven minutes, and the whole system could fit inside our Sun. The star is steadily pulling material off the brown dwarf, about one hundred-thousandth of Earth's mass each year. Over hundreds of thousands to billions of years, that slow feeding could strip the brown dwarf down to something closer to a giant planet. It is the first detailed look at this kind of feeding near the boundary between stars and planets. Einstein Probe reveals neutron phase From slow feeding to sudden collisions. China's Einstein Probe has revealed a previously hidden phase of neutron star mergers. After a short gamma-ray burst, which normally lasts less than two seconds, the spacecraft caught nearly ten minutes of soft X-ray emission. That lingering glow may come from a hypermassive neutron star that briefly survives the crash, held up by rapid spin or powerful magnetic fields before it collapses. The finding matters for two reasons. It helps astronomers match light signals to gravitational-wave detections, and it may indicate how many heavy elements, like gold, these mergers produce. It also shows that even well-studied events can hide surprises until we watch them in the right way. Webb finds atmosphere on lava world Next, a world that sounds impossible. HD 3167 b is a rocky lava planet about 154 light-years away in Pisces. It orbits its star once every Earth day, close enough that its dayside is probably a global magma ocean. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a team led by Brandon Park Coy at the University of Chicago found that the dayside is cooler than expected. That suggests an atmosphere is carrying heat around the planet. Scientists expected worlds this hot to lose their air, or keep only a thin haze of rock vapor. Instead, this planet may hold heavier gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide or water. It is the coolest lava world yet with signs of an atmosphere, and it coul