Episode Details

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Today's topics:

Shenzhou 23 crew to Tiangong - China has named the three-person Shenzhou 23 crew and is preparing a near-term launch to the Tiangong space station. The mission underscores Tiangong’s routine operations and China’s growing cadence in human spaceflight.

Hong Kong’s first astronaut milestone - Shenzhou 23 includes Lai Ka-ying, set to become the first astronaut from Hong Kong, highlighting expanding regional representation within China’s astronaut corps. Reports also point to preparations that could enable China’s first year-long stay in orbit.

Coreless sub-Neptune exoplanet interiors - A new theoretical study argues that many sub-Neptunes—the most common planets found by exoplanet surveys—may lack Earth-like layered interiors. Instead, hydrogen, silicates, and iron could mix into a single fluid under extreme pressures and temperatures, reshaping expectations for planet structure and magnetic fields.

Phobos solar transit seen on Mars - NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day features video from the Perseverance rover showing Mars’s moon Phobos crossing the Sun. The striking transit is both a public outreach moment and a scientific datapoint for refining Phobos’s orbit and Mars system dynamics.

Blue micromoon and planet conjunction - Skywatching highlights include a late-May “blue moon” that is also a micromoon, plus an early-June Venus–Jupiter conjunction visible after sunset. These calendar-timed events offer easy, no-telescope ways for the public to connect with current astronomy.

Episode Transcript

Shenzhou 23 crew to Tiangong
China is set for another crew rotation to the Tiangong space station, with the China Manned Space Agency naming the Shenzhou 23 crew: Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan, and Lai Ka-ying. The mission is slated to launch on a Long March 2F from Jiuquan, with a reported liftoff time of 15:08 UTC on May 24. Once in orbit, Shenzhou 23 will rendezvous and dock with Tiangong for a planned stay of about six months, reinforcing how China’s station has moved from assembly to steady, repeatable operations.

Hong Kong’s first astronaut milestone
One of the most notable elements of Shenzhou 23 is the crew makeup and what it signals about long-duration ambitions. Lai Ka-ying is expected to become the first astronaut from Hong Kong to fly, serving as a payload specialist—an attention-grabbing milestone that expands the program’s social footprint as well as its technical one. At the same time, reporting around this rotation suggests the mission architecture may support China’s first year-long stint in orbit by having one astronaut overlap across consecutive crews, a step that matters for learning how the human body and mind hold up during extended time in microgravity.

Coreless sub-Neptune exoplanet interiors
On the science side, a new theoretical analysis is challenging the default mental picture many of us carry for planets: neat layers, with a co