2026: The year in space... And at sea?!
The Supermassive Podcast
Izzie Clarke
4.6 • 556 Ratings
🗓️ 11 February 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What are the biggest space missions of 2026? And what are the best stargazing opportunities this year? The Supermassive Team - Izzie Clarke, Dr Becky Smethurst, Dr Robert Massey and Richard Hollingham - share their astronomical excitement for the year ahead and ponder if they should charter a boat for the August eclipse.
Thank you to listeners Anne Edgeworth and Karolina who inspired this episode.
To support the show, join The Supermassive Club for ad-free listening, forum access, and extra content from the team.
If you have a question for the team - or have a boat we can borrow! - get in touch via podcast@ras.ac.uk or on Instagram, @SupermassivePod.
The Supermassive Podcast is a Boffin Media production. The producers are Izzie Clarke and Richard Hollingham.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, science journalist Izzy Clark, astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smethurst, the Society's deputy director, Dr Robert Massey, and producer, editor, Silent Lurker, Richard Hollingham. |
| 0:19.6 | I'm really not comfortable with this silent lurker business. I think you find it was a super massive lurker as well. Really not comfortable with this at all. Also, I love how we just didn't explain last episode. You know, we had that question last episode about like, what's an asteroid? What's a comet? What's a meteor? We should have explained, like, I'm the astrophysicist, Roberts the astronomer. |
| 0:39.6 | Rich is like the rocket scientist. |
| 0:43.1 | And I'm here for the vibes, okay? |
| 0:48.2 | And then, yeah, we should have explained the difference between those three different things |
| 0:51.1 | because obviously they get confused. |
| 0:52.2 | Anyway, these bonus episodes, |
| 0:54.4 | right, we usually tackle your questions that you've sent in. But if you listen to last episode, |
| 0:59.3 | you'll notice we're a little bit questioned out after that. So we thought it would be fun to take |
| 1:04.1 | the opportunity to look at the year ahead and chat about some of the biggest space events happening |
| 1:08.5 | in 2026. So yeah, before we dive into that, |
| 1:11.5 | I just want to say thank you again to everyone that supports this show. I realize it's not |
| 1:15.7 | possible for everyone, but it really helps us keep making the show if you join the Supermassive |
| 1:19.3 | Club for a small monthly fee. Not only do you get ad-free episodes, but there are a few forums |
| 1:24.1 | on there. And it's where me and a few other of the members chat about stargazing, book recommendations, and more. |
| 1:31.1 | So go to supermassive. Dot Supportingcast.com to join. |
| 1:35.5 | Or there's a link in our episode description. |
| 1:38.2 | Right. Admin over. |
| 1:39.2 | Let's get on to talking about this year. |
| 1:42.0 | And it is something that a few of you asked about. So listener |
| 1:45.0 | Karolina, for example, wants to know what are the space missions we're most excited for this year. |
| 1:51.3 | Good question, Karolina. Okay, for me, it's got to be the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. |
... |
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