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00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Anna: Here we go. Hi everyone. Welcome back to
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 Astronomy AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 Avery: And I'm um, avery. It's Friday, August
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 28th. Series 5 Episode
00:00:10 --> 00:00:12 179 Today's Lead Storey
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 Anna: is one of those genuinely new dilemmas.
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 As we reported a few weeks ago, a US
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 startup just got the green light to put a
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 giant mirror in orbit and beam
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 sunlight down to Earth at night. And
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 astronomers are understandably not happy
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 about the maths on how bright that actually
00:00:30 --> 00:00:31 is.
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 Avery: Then Starship's, um, next flight quietly
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 slips a few weeks while the last one is
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 finally on its way home by ship. A hot little
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 exoplanet that's living on borrowed time and
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 the Roman Space Telescope two days from
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 launch with a budget survival storey we
00:00:46 --> 00:00:47 haven't told you yet.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:49 Anna: Let's get into it.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 Avery: Okay, this first one sounds almost too on the
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 nose. Mirrors in space aimed at Earth.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 Anna: That's exactly it. Uh, a US startup
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 called ReflectOrbital wants to put tens
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 of thousands of large mirrors into low
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 Earth orbit and use them to beam
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 reflected sunlight down to specific spots
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 on the ground on demand, even at night.
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 And back in July, the FCC actually
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 approved their first demonstration satellite.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 Avery: Approved it to do what exactly?
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 Anna: To launch and operate a satellite called
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 Earendil 1, about 600 kilometres
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 up, carrying a reflective mirror roughly
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 60ft on a side. That's just the demo.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 The company's actual business plan is a
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 constellation of more than 50
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 mirrors by 2035, with the operational
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 versions much bigger, again around
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 174ft or 54
00:01:45 --> 00:01:46 metres per side.
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 Avery: And um, the pitch is what free
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 Anna: nighttime sunlight pretty much reflect.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 Orbital's pitch is extending solar panel
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 output into the night, lighting disaster and
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 search and rescue zones without needing
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 generators, letting construction and outdoor
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 work run longer hours. Even carbon free
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 street lighting. On paper, it's a genuinely
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 interesting idea. Controllable,
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 targeted daylight wherever and whenever you
00:02:13 --> 00:02:13 need it.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:15 Avery: So where's the catch?
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 Anna: The catch is what it does to everyone
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 standing underneath it who didn't ask for it.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 And to the night sky generally. A new peer
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 reviewed study led by Miroslav Kochifai
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 and Princeton astrophysicist Gaspar Bakos
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 worked out exactly how bright one of these
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 full scale 54 metre mirrors would
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 actually look from the ground. Their number
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 about magnitude
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 -16.7, roughly 4
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 magnitudes, which works out to about 40
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 times brighter than the full moon for anyone
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 standing inside its roughly 3.4
00:02:51 --> 00:02:52 mile beam.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 Avery: 40 times the full moon. That's not reading
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 by moonlight bright. That's daylight.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 Anna: That's the point. Bacchus was making. His
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 actual quote was that it would be worse than
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 big cities like London for light pollution
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 and that you would not see any stars if you
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 were in the beam. And it's not just the
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 direct beam either. The study also modelled
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 how sunlight scatters around the atmosphere
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 around that brightest source, and found the
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 skyglow stays measurably brighter for another
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 20 to 30 kilometres beyond the edge
00:03:24 --> 00:03:25 of the beam itself.
00:03:26 --> 00:03:27 Avery: So even people who aren't the target
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 Anna: still get some of the glow right, and it
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 compounds. Space.com's reporting on the
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 study noted that if you had several hundred
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 of these mirrors with overlapping beams,
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 which is exactly what a 40 plus
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 satellite constellation would eventually
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 produce, the combined brightness could run
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 up around, uh, 10 times the full moon
00:03:49 --> 00:03:50 in the overlap zones.
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 Avery: That feels like a genuinely different scale
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 of problem to what we've talked about before
00:03:55 --> 00:03:56 with satellite constellations.
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 Anna: It is a different problem and it's worth
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 being precise about that difference. The
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 Starlink style mega constellation complaints
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 astronomers have been raising for years are
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 mostly about individual satellites showing up
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 as bright, moving streaks across long
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 exposure telescope images. Annoying,
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 sometimes ruining a specific observation, but
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 a source of light, not a source of daylight.
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 This is different. It's purpose built to be
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 as bright as possible, aimed deliberately at
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 a patch of ground dark. Sky advocates like
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 John Barentine have flagged separate concerns
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 too. The effect on nocturnal wildlife that
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 navigate and hunt by natural light cycles,
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 not just on telescopes.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 Avery: What does the company say to all
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 Anna: that Reflect Orbital's position? Is that the
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 light stays contained to a defined target
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 area, that beams can be shut off instantly if
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 needed, and that they'll steer clear of
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 observatories and sensitive habitats when
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 scheduling illumination passes. Whether
00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 that's enough to satisfy critics once there
00:04:59 --> 00:05:01 are tens of thousands of these things flying
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 rather than one demo satellite, is very much
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 the open question. And it's one regulators
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 are going to have to keep answering as more
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 of these filings show up.
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 Avery: So this is really the opening chapter of a
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 much bigger fight. Not the whole storey,
00:05:16 --> 00:05:17 exactly.
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 Anna: That Arendelle Lun hasn't even flown
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 yet. It's still targeted for later this year,
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 but the FCC's already approved it. The
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 astronomy community has already got peer
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 reviewed numbers on exactly how bad the
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 full scale version would be. And the
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 company's public ambition is 40
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 to 50 of these things within a decade.
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 That's the shape of the next big fight
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 between commercial space and the people who'd
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 like to still see actual stars at night.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 Avery: A mirror in orbit and a genuinely
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 unresolved argument underneath it.
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 Anna: Watch this space. Sorry, couldn't resist that
00:05:54 --> 00:05:54 one.
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 Avery: Sticking with things in orbit. Or in this
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 case, things very much not in orbit anymore.
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 Anna: Two Starship updates today, and they bookend
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 each other nicely. First ship 40, the
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 upper stage that made that historic intact
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 splashdown after Flight 13 back on July
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 24, has finally been loaded onto a heavy
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 lift transport vessel in the Indian Ocean off
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 Christmas island and is now on its way home
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 to Starbase in South Texas.
00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 Avery: That's the one that had been floating around
00:06:24 --> 00:06:25 for weeks, right?
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 Anna: That's the one towed further than originally
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 expected, ending up sheltering off Christmas
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 island for over three weeks before this
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 loading happened. SpaceX says the trip back
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 to Texas will take several months, but the
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 reason it mattered enough to tow home at all
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 is that ship 40 is the first starship upper
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 stage ever to survive re entry and
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 splashdown intact. So engineers now
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 get to physically inspect real heat shield
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 samples and reentry damage, rather than just
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 working from telemetry data that's already
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 feeding into design changes on the next ships
00:07:01 --> 00:07:01 in line.
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 Avery: And speaking of the next ship in line, that's
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 flight 14, right?
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 Anna: And here's the update. Some of what's
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 circulating still says Flight 14 is
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 targeting around August 28th today,
00:07:14 --> 00:07:16 but that number's gone stale. Internal
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 SpaceX and FAA air traffic planning documents
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 reported earlier this week put the actual
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 no earlier than date at September 15th.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:28 Ship 41 already finished its testing
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 a single engine deorbit burn demo and
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 a full six engine static fire in the last
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 week or so. But booster 21 only
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 just rolled out to the pad for its own static
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 fire on Monday. And that's the item actually
00:07:42 --> 00:07:43 setting the pace now.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 Avery: So ship 40 finally gets home right as its
00:07:47 --> 00:07:48 sibling gears up to fly.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 Anna: Nice bit of symmetry, yes, and when Flight
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 14 does go it it's aiming for something
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 Starship hasn't done yet, a full orbital
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 flight. Deploying the newer larger Starlink
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 V3 satellites. Though the tower catch
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 attempt for the returning ship is being
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 pushed back again. Musk saying that's
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 now probably in a few months. Rather than
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 this flight, ship 41 will splash down in the
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 ocean instead. Same as ship 40 did.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 Avery: One ship finally coming home by boat, the
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 next one still a few weeks from even trying
00:08:20 --> 00:08:20 to fly.
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 Anna: That's Starship in one sentence at the
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 moment. Recovery and preparation happening in
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 parallel on two completely different
00:08:28 --> 00:08:29 timescales.
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 Avery: Alright, uh, from rockets to an actual
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 planet, one with a pretty grim forecast.
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 Anna: Meet HD 176071
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 b, a newly
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 characterised exoplanet about
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 335 light years away.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 Found by a team led by Sylvain Breton at
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 Italy's National Institute for astrophysics.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 It's roughly 2 1/2 times Earth's width,
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 about 8 1/2 times Earth's mass. And the
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 modelling suggests something like half of
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 that mass is water, half water.
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 Avery: So an um, actual ocean world, not just a
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 rocky planet with some water on it.
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 Anna: That's the read. Though Ocean
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 undersells how strange the conditions
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 probably are because this planet orbits its
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 star from just one and a half million miles
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 out, completing a ah, full year in about
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 14 hours. At that distance. We're
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 not talking gentle blue oceans, we're talking
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 a permanently baked tidally battered water
00:09:28 --> 00:09:28 world.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 Avery: How do you even find something like that?
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 Doesn't the usual method needed to cross in
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 front of its star Normally.
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 Anna: Yes. The transit method. Watching
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 starlight dim as a planet passes in front.
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 This one was found a different way.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 Retton's team compared old Kepler space
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 telescope data against newer observations
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 from TESS and used the HAARPS N
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 instrument on the Galileo National Telescope
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 to measure tiny variations in sunlight
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 reflected directly off the planet's surface.
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 Rather than waiting for a transit dip, it's a
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 nice reminder that there's still real science
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 to be squeezed out of years old archival
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 data. If you bring a new technique to
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 Avery: it and the living on borrowed
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 time part, where does that come from?
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 Anna: From exactly how close it's orbiting
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 at 1 1/2 million miles. The tidal
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 forces from star are extreme and the
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 consensus from the team is that this planet
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 is being slowly consumed. The kind of
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 fate that waits for anything hugging a star
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 this tightly. It won't happen on any
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 timescale. We'll be around to watch. But it's
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 basically doomed by geometry the moment you
00:10:38 --> 00:10:39 look at the orbit.
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 Avery: A uh, genuine ocean world discovered by a
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 clever trick with old data and already on
00:10:46 --> 00:10:47 a slow path to being swallowed.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 Anna: Space has a way of finding new categories of
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 beautiful but temporary last storey
00:10:53 --> 00:10:54 before skywatch.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 Avery: And um, it's the big one on everyone's launch
00:10:56 --> 00:10:57 calendar right now.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 Anna: The Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 two days from launch Sunday August
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 30, 7:26am, um, Eastern
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 on a Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Centre.
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 Today is actually the launch readiness review
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 happening as we record this. So we don't have
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 that outcome yet. We'll be all over it once
00:11:16 --> 00:11:17 it lands.
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 But we wanted to use today's slot on
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 something. We haven't told you how close this
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 mission came to never flying at all.
00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 Avery: I don't think I've Heard this part.
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 Anna: Most people haven't, because it happened
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 quietly in budget documents rather than
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 headlines. Back in April last year,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 leaked draughts of the Trump administration's
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 proposed 2026 NASA budget
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 showed the largest funding cut in the
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 agency's history on the table, uh, a
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 24% overall reduction, with science
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 programmes alone facing a 50% cut.
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 And buried in that proposal, no funding
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 Avery: for Roman for a mission that was already
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 what most of the way built,
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 Anna: 95% complete at that point,
00:12:02 --> 00:12:05 hardware built, tested most of the way
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 through integration, and still facing a line
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 in a federal budget proposal that would have
00:12:10 --> 00:12:12 effectively cancelled it. When the official
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 skinny budget came out weeks later, it walked
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 that back slightly. Roman got
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 $156.6 million, less
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 than half what it had the year before, but
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 not zero. Still nowhere near enough
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 certainty for a mission this far along.
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 Avery: So how did it end up two days from launch?
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 Anna: Instead, Congress rejected the deeper cuts
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 and restored NASA's funding to its previous
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 levels. That's the part that actually saved
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 it. But here's the detail we liked enough to
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 build the whole segment around. Rather than
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 just breathing a sigh of relief, Roman's own
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 management team used the scare as motivation.
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 They pulled the launch timeline forward from
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 September to August 30, running double
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 shifts and weekend work to get there,
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 finishing eight months ahead of the original
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 schedule and under budget.
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 Avery: That's a genuinely unusual reaction to nearly
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 losing your funding. So sprint faster, not
00:13:05 --> 00:13:05 slower.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 Anna: Project manager Jamie Dunn put it about as
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 plainly as you can. Delivering on your
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 commitments means something, whatever you
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 think about the politics around it. That's a
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 team that came within a budget line of being
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 cancelled and answered by launching nine
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 months early. Once we've got the launch
00:13:23 --> 00:13:25 readiness review outcome and Sunday's launch
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 itself, we'll bring you the full storey for
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 today. That's the part worth knowing going in
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 Avery: a telescope that survived Washington before
00:13:33 --> 00:13:34 it even had to survive launch.
00:13:35 --> 00:13:37 Anna: Sometimes the hardest part of getting to
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 space happens entirely on the ground.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 Avery: Alright, Skywatch time, quick win on both
00:13:42 --> 00:13:43 hemispheres tonight.
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 Anna: Starting up north, that G2 geomagnetic
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 storm watch NOAA issued earlier this week for
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 Today, Friday the 28th is playing out
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 right now as we speak. The combination of
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 Tuesday's, um, M6.9 flare and a
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 high speed solar wind stream reaching Earth's
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 magnetosphere. If you're at higher latitudes,
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 northern tier US states, the uk,
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 Scandinavia and similar tonight and into the
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 weekend are worth stepping out for, weather
00:14:09 --> 00:14:10 permitting.
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 Avery: And for us in the southern hemisphere,
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 Anna: one more time, pretty much the same answer as
00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 it's been all week. A G2 level storm
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 typically doesn't push the aurora Australis
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 much past Tasmania on a good night. And
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 there's nothing in this forecast suggesting
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 it goes further than that this time either.
00:14:27 --> 00:14:28 Worth a glance at the southern horizon if
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 you're somewhere dark, but we wouldn't build
00:14:30 --> 00:14:31 plans around it.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 Avery: What's actually reliable for us down here
00:14:34 --> 00:14:34 tonight then?
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 Anna: Um, Venus and Saturn. Same pair we've been
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 pointing you to all week. Venus low in the
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 west shortly after sunset. Unmistakably
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 bright even with some light pollution around
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 Saturn. Well placed and worth finding with
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 binoculars once it's properly dark and
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 tonight the Moon's essentially full. We
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 watched most of the world's share of that
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 partial lunar eclipse pass by in broad
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 daylight here earlier today, so it'll be a
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 bright night for the Moon itself, even if
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03 it's washing out some of the fainter stuff
00:15:03 --> 00:15:04 around it.
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 Avery: Venus at dusk, Saturn after dark, a full
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 moon overhead and an aurora that's someone
00:15:09 --> 00:15:10 else's show.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 Anna: Tonight, a uh, properly full sky. Even
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 the parts of it that aren't technically ours.
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 And that's it for today's episode, series
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 five, episode 179
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 and my quick recap.
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 Avery: A uh, US startup's plan to beam sunlight
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 down from orbit using giant mirrors has
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 cleared its first FCC hurdle and the new
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 peer reviewed study says the full scale
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 version would be roughly 40 times brighter
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 than the full Moon. For anyone caught in the
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 beam. Starship's ship 40 is
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 finally on its way home from the Indian Ocean
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 by ship while Flight 14 quietly
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 slips to mid September, astronomers have
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 found a hot water rich exoplanet
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 slowly being consumed by its star, and
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 the Roman Space Telescope is two days from
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 launch after nearly losing its funding
00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 entirely last year and answering by launching
00:16:02 --> 00:16:03 nine months early.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 Anna: If you enjoyed the show, the best thing you
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 can do is tell a friend. Leave us a rating
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00:16:18 --> 00:16:19 Avery: And while you're there, head to
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00:16:30 --> 00:16:31 we post a new episode.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 Anna: We'll be back tomorrow with the weekend wrap.
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 Until then, keep looking up clear
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 skies everyone. See you then.
00:16:41 --> 00:16:42 Avery: Mhm.
00:16:45 --> 00:16:46 Anna: Love.