Feature story: Astronomers using the ALMA array in Chile, led by Bill Dent (European Southern Observatory), have released the most detailed picture yet of the actual surface of Betelgeuse, the red supergiant marking Orion's shoulder — a corrugated, irregular surface with bright convective hot spots, some nearly 1,000°F hotter than the surrounding plasma. One hot spot in the northeastern region has persisted for more than seven years, far longer than current models predict, and its orientation lines up with the position of Betelgeuse B — a companion star imaged for the first time in July by a separate VLT/SPHERE study — raising the possibility the companion is influencing the giant star's surface. Betelgeuse is one of the closest stars to us expected to eventually go supernova (on a timescale of roughly the next 100,000 years); Dent notes the imagery builds a crucial "before" baseline for whenever that happens.
The rest of the news:
- ISS Spacewalk 98: NASA's Anil Menon and ESA's Sophie Adenot finished replacing a Space-to-Ground antenna on the station, six and a half hours outside, restoring communications redundancy that had been running on a backup since November. Adenot's spacewalk record as the first French woman to conduct an EVA is now backed by two completed outings.
- Solar flare/CME: The Sun fired an M6.9 flare from sunspot region 4513, triggering radio blackouts over Africa, Europe and the Arctic; a slow-moving CME is due to graze Earth around Friday, August 28, with an outside chance of minor geomagnetic storming — mostly a Northern Hemisphere aurora story.
- Falcon 9 reuse record: SpaceX's booster B1067 flew for the 37th time — a new single-booster reuse record — on the company's 100th Falcon 9 launch of 2026.
- Tonight's Sky: A 96%-partial lunar eclipse falls the night of August 27-28, spectacular from the Americas but invisible from Australia and the rest of Asia-Pacific (broad daylight here). Venus and Saturn remain good evening/overnight targets locally.
Links & sources:
- Space.com — The bubbling surface of doomed supergiant star Betelgeuse has been revealed like never before
- Space.com — Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse! Astronomers capture clearest image yet of famous star's elusive companion
- Space.com — "You just saved the video dish": Two astronauts complete spacewalk to replace ISS antenna
- NASA — NASA, ESA Spacewalkers Finish Installing High-Speed Antenna
- Space.com — Sun fires powerful M6.9 solar flare and CME toward Earth
- Space.com — SpaceX sets rocket-reuse record on 100th Falcon 9 launch of the year
- Space.com — Partial lunar eclipse Aug. 27-28: stages and visibility
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This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Anna: Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's edition of
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 Astronomy AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 Avery: And I'm avery. It's Wednesday, August
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 26th. Series five, episode 177.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 Anna: Today, we're pointing the show at one
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 particular star. And not for a happy
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 reason, exactly, but a genuinely fascinating
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 one. Beetlejuice Betelgeuse.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 Astronomers have just released the most
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 detailed picture yet of that star's actual
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 surface. And bubbling is the word people
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 keep reaching for. We'll spend some real time
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 on why that matters and what it's telling us
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 about how this thing eventually dies.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 Avery: Then, um, a spacewalk we left hanging
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 yesterday has a genuinely satisfying ending.
00:00:43 --> 00:00:45 The sun threw a solid punch at us overnight.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 SpaceX quietly broke a reuse record on its
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 way to its 100th launch of the year. And
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 there's a near total lunar eclipse just two
00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 nights away that we aren't talking about a
00:00:56 --> 00:00:57 lot, but it is important.
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 Anna: Also, quick continuity note. Roman
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 Space Telescope is now mated to its Falcon
00:01:03 --> 00:01:05 Heavy and sitting on pad 39A,
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 four days out from Sunday's launch. Nothing
00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 new to add today. We'll be all over at this
00:01:11 --> 00:01:11 weekend.
00:01:11 --> 00:01:12 Avery: Let's get started.
00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 First up, set the scene for us. What did
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 astronomers actually just release?
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 Anna: The most detailed picture yet of the actual
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 surface of Betelgeuse, the red supergiant
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 that marks Orion's shoulder, captured with
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 the ALMA Array in Chile. That huge network of
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 radio dishes up on the Atacama Plateau.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 A team led by Bill Dent at the European
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 Southern Observatory put it together, and the
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 images show something genuinely strange. A,
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 uh, corrugated, irregular surface with bright
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 hot spots pushing through, like the star's
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 outer layers are actively bubbling.
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 Avery: Bubbling like what, exactly? Boiling water?
00:01:50 --> 00:01:51 Lava.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 Anna: Something else closer to boiling, actually.
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 Convection. Huge cells of plasma rising
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 and falling. The same basic physics as a pot
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 on the stove. Just on a scale that's hard to
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 picture. Betelgeuse itself is enormous,
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 about 20 times the sun's mass, but
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 puffed out to roughly 800 times the
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 sun's diameter. So if you dropped it into our
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 solar system, it would swallow everything out
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 past the orbit of Jupiter. It sits around
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 600 light years away, and its atmosphere
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 runs somewhere around
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 3 degrees
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 Fahrenheit, with at least two hotspots the
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 team measured, running nearly 1 degrees
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 hotter still than the plasma around them.
00:02:34 --> 00:02:36 Avery: Thousand degrees hotter than a star that's
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 already thousands of degrees. That's a
00:02:38 --> 00:02:39 serious hotspot.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 Anna: It is. And here's the detail that actually
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 surprised the researchers. One particular
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 hotspot up in the northeastern Part of the
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 star as we see it has persisted for more than
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 seven years. Current models of how these
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 convection cells behave didn't predict
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 anything holding together that long. They're
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 supposed to churn and dissolve much faster,
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 though. Either the models need adjusting or
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 there's something else going on holding that
00:03:05 --> 00:03:06 structure in place.
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 Avery: Does that, uh, where the companion star comes
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 in. You might remember we did a storey back a
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 few weeks ago about Betelgeuse having a
00:03:13 --> 00:03:14 hidden partner.
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 Anna: Good pickup. Yes. This ties into a separate
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 but related result from earlier this year.
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 Back in July, a team led by Miguel
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 Montargis at the Observatoire de Paris
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 used the VLT in Chile, the Very Large
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 Telescope, with an instrument called sphere
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 that's built to block out a star's glare.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 Originally designed for hunting exoplanets,
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 to capture the clearest direct image yet of a
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 faint companion star now generally called
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 Betelgeuse B. It turned out to be more
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 massive than expected. Something like two to
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 three times the sun's mass, rather than the
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 roughly sun sized object earlier theories
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 predicted. What Dent's team found in the new
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 ALMA data is that the orientation of that
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 stubborn hotspot lines up with where that
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 companion should be. Which supports the idea
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 that Betelgeuse B might genuinely be
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 influencing what's happening on the giant
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 star's surface, rather than the two objects
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 just happening to share a neighbourhood.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 Avery: So a hotspot on a dying star might actually
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 be getting stirred by a smaller star orbiting
00:04:16 --> 00:04:16 it?
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 Anna: Uh, that's the working hypothesis and
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 it's not confirmed yet. But it's a satisfying
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 possible answer to something that genuinely
00:04:24 --> 00:04:24 puzzled the team.
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 Avery: Why does any of this actually matter beyond
00:04:28 --> 00:04:29 cool picture of a star?
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 Anna: Because Betelgeuse isn't just any red
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 supergiant. It's one of the closest stars to
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 us that we expect to go supernova. And when
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 it does, it'll be an extraordinary once
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 in a civilization event, visible in
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 broad daylight for weeks. The honest
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 scientific answer on timing is
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 somewhere in the next roughly 100
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 years. Which sounds unsatisfying, but the
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 point Bill Dent made is the one that actually
00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 matters. Here we don't get to choose when it
00:04:59 --> 00:05:01 happens. So the least we can do is document
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 exactly what the star looks like right now in
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 as much detail as possible. So whenever it
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 does go, we've got a real baseline for
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 comparison. His own words were that its
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 eventual fate as a supernova is exactly
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 what makes it fascinating to know what it
00:05:17 --> 00:05:18 actually looks like today.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 Avery: Building the before picture for an event none
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 of us will necessarily be around to see.
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 Anna: Maybe, maybe not. Betelgeuse has already
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 surprised astronomers once this decade with
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 that dramatic dimming back in 2019 and
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 2020 that had people genuinely wondering if
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 it was showing early warning signs. It turned
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 out to be a dust cloud the star threw off
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 itself. Not the beginning of the end, but
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 it's a reminder this star doesn't sit still.
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 Every time we get a sharper look like this
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 one, we're a little more ready for whenever
00:05:50 --> 00:05:51 the real thing happens.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 Avery: A bubbling surface, a hidden companion star,
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 and a countdown nobody can actually read.
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 Anna: That's Beetlejuice for you. Mundane physics
00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 spoiling plasma happening on an object so
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 extreme it barely fits the description.
00:06:06 --> 00:06:07 Avery: Okay, happier ending on this one.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 Yesterday we left you with a spacewalk still
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 in progress. It's done. And it went well.
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 Anna: It did. Anil Manon and Sophie Adonout
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 were outside the station for six and a half
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 hours yesterday, 8:27am, um to
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 2:57pm Eastern, finishing the job
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 they'd started back on the 18th, replacing a
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 space to ground antenna that had stopped
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 tracking NASA's data relay satellites all the
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 way back in November last year. Station's
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 been running fine on a backup since then, but
00:06:37 --> 00:06:38 redundancy matters up there.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 Avery: And, um, this time they actually finished it.
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 No, running out of time like last time.
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 Anna: Fully finished. Pulled the spare antenna out
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 of external storage, mounted it on the Z1
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 truss, stowed the old faulty one permanently
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 on the ESP3 platform and got power
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 and data hooked up and confirmed mission
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 controls. And McClane gave them the line of
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 the day once it was done, quoting an old song
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 at them. You just saved the video dish. You
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 just saved the video dish, which, if you know
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 the reference, is a genuinely good spacewalk
00:07:10 --> 00:07:11 call sign moment.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 Avery: Numbers wise, where does that leave these
00:07:14 --> 00:07:14 two?
00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 Anna: This was Manon's third career Eva. He's
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 now up to 19 hours and 20 minutes of total
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 spacewalk time. And AD announced second at 12
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 hours, 53 minutes. And it's worth restating,
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 plainly, because it's a genuine first.
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 Adenout remains the first French woman ever
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 to conduct a spacewalk. And that record is
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 now backed by two completed EVAs, not
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 one interrupted one stationwide. This was the
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 283rd spacewalk in support of the ISS,
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 the 98th flown in US suits, hence
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 Spacewalk 98 and the 6th of
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 2026, a, uh, tidy resolution
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 Avery: to a storey we've been tracking for almost
00:07:54 --> 00:07:55 two weeks now.
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 Anna: Antenna fixed, record banked on to the next
00:07:58 --> 00:07:58 one.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 Avery: Meanwhile, 150 million kilometres
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 away, the sun's Been busy too.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 Anna: It has. Sunspot Region 4513
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 has been throwing off flares for the better
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 part of a day now. Five separate M M class
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 eruptions and the biggest of the batch peaked
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 Yesterday morning at 6am U.S. eastern.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 An M M6.9 just shy of X
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 class. The strongest category there is.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:24 Avery: Did we feel anything from that one?
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 Anna: Some people did. That flare triggered R2
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 level radio blackouts, degrading high
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 frequency radio communications over parts of
00:08:33 --> 00:08:36 Africa, Europe and the Arctic for a while as
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 the burst of X rays hit our upper atmosphere.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 That part happens at the speed of light, so
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 it's already over. What's still coming is the
00:08:44 --> 00:08:44 slower moving
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 Avery: stuff, the coronal mass ejection.
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 Anna: Right. A uh, CME billowed out alongside that
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 flare and forecasters have it as a glancing
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 slow moving hit. Expected to reach Earth
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 around 6 to 7am Eastern this Friday the
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 28th, give or take about seven hours either
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 side. On top of that, there's a
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 separate high speed solar wind stream
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 forecast to arrive starting the 27th if
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 those two overlap. Space weather
00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 forecasters are calling for unsettled to
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 active geomagnetic conditions with the chance
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 of reaching minor storm levels.
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 Avery: Translate that to Will I see an aurora for
00:09:23 --> 00:09:23 people.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 Anna: Honestly, mostly a northern hemisphere
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 storey. At minor storm levels, that tends to
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 mean higher latitude places like
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 Scandinavia, Scotland. The northern US
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 States get a decent shot. Not much farther
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 south than that for us down here, minor
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 storms usually don't reach far past Tasmania
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 on a good night, and we don't have
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 confirmation this one gets that strong. We
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 wouldn't set an alarm for it. But if you're
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 somewhere genuinely far south with a dark sky
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 this Thursday or Friday night, it costs
00:09:54 --> 00:09:55 nothing to glance at the horizon.
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 Avery: A flare, a radio blackout and a maybe
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 aurora all from one cranky sunspot.
00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 Anna: The sun's allowed an active week too.
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 Avery: Sticking with things that happen so often
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 they almost stop being news. Except this
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 one's a genuine record.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 Anna: Yesterday's early morning Falcon 9 launch
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 from Cape Canaveral 5:33am
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 Eastern 10:29 More Starlink
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 satellites with SpaceX's 100th
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 Falcon 9 flight of the year. But the number
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 that actually caught our eye was on the
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 booster. B1067
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 flew for the 37th time, breaking the
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 previous record for flights on a single first
00:10:32 --> 00:10:33 stage.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 Avery: 37 trips to space and back on
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 Anna: the same piece of hardware, same booster.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 37 launches, 37 landings.
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 This one on the drone ship. A shortfall of
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 gravitas about 8 1/2 minutes after
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 liftoff. Business as usual at this point.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 It's not alone up there either. Six different
00:10:52 --> 00:10:54 Falcon 9 boosters now have 30 or more
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 flights each with
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 B1067 leading the pack.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 For context on how routine this has become,
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 Falcon 9 alone flew
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 165 successful missions
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 in all of 2025 more than
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 every other orbital rocket family on the
00:11:11 --> 00:11:12 planet combined.
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 Avery: It's funny how 100 launches in a year
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 milestone almost gets buried under a
00:11:17 --> 00:11:18 booster's personal best.
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 Anna: That's rocket reusability working exactly as
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 advertised. It's supposed to stop being
00:11:23 --> 00:11:24 remarkable.
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 Today's the day the counter clicked over on
00:11:27 --> 00:11:28 both fronts at once.
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 Avery: Alright, uh, Skywatch and I know we corrected
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 the record on this one yesterday, so give
00:11:33 --> 00:11:34 people the honest version again,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 Anna: Bladly, because it's worth repeating clearly.
00:11:38 --> 00:11:41 The night of August 27th into the
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 28th brings a, uh, genuinely deep partial
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 lunar eclipse. 96% of the
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 moon's disc covered by Earth's shadow. About
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 as close to total as you can get without
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 crossing the line. Peak coverage lands around
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 12:12am um, US Eastern on the
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 28th, which is 4:12
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 Avery: UTC and for us that converts
00:12:02 --> 00:12:03 to
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 Anna: little after 2:00pm on the 28th
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 Sydney time. Broad daylight moon well
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 below the horizon. This one belongs to the
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 Americas. Good views coast to coast,
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 plus parts of Europe and Africa catching it
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 low near sunrise. Australia and the
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 rest of Asia Pacific are simply on the wrong
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 side of the planet when it happens. Genuinely
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 sorry again to anyone who was hoping
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 we'd walked that back. We haven't. It's
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 just not ours this time. If you've got family
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 or listeners in the Americas, it's completely
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 safe to watch with nothing more than your own
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 eyes. No filters or glasses needed. Like a
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 solar eclipse, expect the moon to turn a
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 deep coppery red as it slides through Earth's
00:12:48 --> 00:12:48 shadow.
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 Avery: And that's the same couple of nights the
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 possible aurora activity we just talked about
00:12:53 --> 00:12:54 is due to arrive.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 Anna: Same window. Yes, Thursday night into
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 Friday morning is really the stretch to watch
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 between the eclipse, uh, for one hemisphere
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 and a, uh, maybe aurora mostly for the other.
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 Tidy bit of overlap, even if neither's really
00:13:08 --> 00:13:09 for us here.
00:13:10 --> 00:13:12 Avery: So what does that leave for actual southern
00:13:12 --> 00:13:13 hemisphere eyes this week?
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 Anna: Venus is still the easy win. Bright and
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 unmistakable in the western sky shortly after
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 sunset. Hard to miss even from a light
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 polluted balcony. Saturn's well placed
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 too, rising in the east as it gets dark and
00:13:27 --> 00:13:30 worth a look through binoculars or a small
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 scope if you've got one handy. Nothing as
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 dramatic as a red moon, but a genuinely
00:13:35 --> 00:13:37 nice pair to go find tonight.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 Avery: Regardless Venus at dusk,
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 Saturn overnight, an eclipse for the other
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 side of the planet, and maybe some aurora for
00:13:45 --> 00:13:46 the far north.
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 Anna: That's the sky this week. And that's it for
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 Today's episode. Series 5 Episode
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 177 Done and
00:13:55 --> 00:13:55 Dusted.
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 Avery: Quick recap. Astronomers have released the
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 most detailed picture yet of Betelgeuse's
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 bubbling surface with a stubborn hotspot that
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 may be stirred by a newly confirmed companion
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 star. Astronauts Anil Menon and Sophie
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 Adeneau successfully finished replacing an
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 ISS antenna on their second attempt. The
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 sun fired off an M M 6.9
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 flare. With a CME due Friday and an
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 outside chance of Minor Aurora activity,
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 SpaceX broke a booster reuse record
00:14:26 --> 00:14:28 37 flights on its 100th Falcon 9
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 launch of the year. And there's a spectacular
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 near total lunar eclipse two nights from now
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 that once again isn't for us here in the
00:14:36 --> 00:14:37 Southern Hemisphere.
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 Anna: If you enjoyed the show, the best thing you
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 can do is tell a friend, leave us a rating
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00:14:52 --> 00:14:53 Avery: And while you're there, head to
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00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 Anna: We'll be back tomorrow with more from across
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 the universe. Until then, keep looking
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 up. Clear skies, everyone.