Cloudy with a Chance of Water: The Mysteries of WISE 0855 Unveiled
The coldest brown dwarf we know has weather. JWST watched water clouds thicken and thin on WISE 0855, a sunless world seven and a half light-years away — plus a star slowly eating a brown dwarf, ten minutes of X-rays after a half-second burst, a Soviet satellite breaking up over Western Australia, NASA's lunar cave hunt, and Mercury's best evening show of the year for the south. Stories Weather on a World Without a Sun Miles et al. used JWST NIRSpec to take a spectrum of WISE 0855 every 15 minutes for 11 hours. Carbon monoxide and phosphine rise and fall together as convection dredges deep gas upward, while patchy water clouds thicken and thin higher up — the first variable water clouds seen outside the Solar System. Source: University of Arizona release, 9 Oct 2026; arXiv:2609.20664 The Star That Eats Slowly ZTF J0440+2325: a red dwarf drawing gas from a 25-Jupiter-mass brown dwarf on an 87-minute orbit — the first confirmed stable mass transfer from a substellar object onto a star. Householder, Burdge et al., Nature Astronomy, 5 Oct 2026. Source: Nature Astronomy (2026); arXiv:2603.17039 Ten Minutes After Half a Second Einstein Probe caught ~560 s of soft X-rays after the 0.37 s GRB 250704B, at redshift 0.661 with no supernova — pointing to a compact-object merger and possibly a newborn magnetar. Science Bulletin, 2026. Source: DOI 10.1016/j.scib.2026.08.021; arXiv:2601.14137 A Dead Satellite Comes Apart Soviet weather satellite Meteor 2-7 (launched 1981) fragmented on 5 Oct at ~850 km, detected by LeoLabs' Western Australian radar. Cause unknown. Source: EarthSky, 9 Oct 2026; Space.com Quick hit: NASA Goes Caving on the Moon NASA's PRISM picks for the Moon Base program include GIMLI, which will probe the Marius Hills Pit for a lava tube, plus LEMS-SP and DISCO. Source: NASA RELEASE26-080, 30 Sept 2026 Skywatch Mercury at greatest eastern elongation — 24° up at sunset from Sydney vs 10° LA, 7.5° NY, 3° London. Crescent Moon near Venus and Mercury, Venus heading to inferior conjunction on the 24th, pre-dawn Mars and Jupiter for the north (Mars through the Beehive), Orionids 21–22 Oct. Source: Computed with PyEphem Sources · https://astrobiology.com/2026/10/09/first-detection-of-variable-water-clouds-outside-of-our-solar-system/ · https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20664 · https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/175765 · https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17039 · https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2601.14137 · https://earthsky.org/?p=560313 · https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/a-dead-soviet-satellite-just-broke-apart-in-orbit-again-experts-say-its-part-of-a-worrying-trend · https://nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-adds-new-science-investigations-for-moon-base Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss) . Sponsor Details: Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN . To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit You'll be glad you did! Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail (https://www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail) Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support) This episode includes AI-generated content. Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/35722903?utm_source=youtube
