LandSpace Nails It: China's First Private Booster Recovery
Astronomy Daily: Latest Space NewsAugust 21, 2026x
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LandSpace Nails It: China's First Private Booster Recovery

Anna and Avery cover LandSpace becoming the first Chinese commercial company to land an orbital-class rocket booster — a big step for the country's private space sector. Plus: astronomers find a "mega-Earth" 23 times more massive than our planet that shouldn't be able to exist, a star weaving impossibly close to our galaxy's supermassive black hole that could reveal its spin within a decade, and new JWST data showing the early universe's galaxies were hiding roughly four times more mass than we thought. Full show notes: Today's episode — S05E172, Thursday August 20, 2026: Main story: China's private spaceflight sector sticks the landing. On August 19, Chinese commercial launch company LandSpace successfully recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) rocket after liftoff from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone in northwestern China — the first time any Chinese commercial company has landed an orbital-class booster. The 76.6-metre, stainless-steel, methane-fueled rocket (taller than a Falcon 9) touched down on four legs roughly 390km downrange in Gansu Province about eight minutes after liftoff, running on a single Tianque-12 engine. It's ZQ-3's second flight — the first, in December 2025, reached orbit but couldn't stick the recovery. The landing puts LandSpace among a very small club of companies with proven booster-reuse technology and marks, in the company's words, a shift "toward the engineering application phase of reusability." A "mega-Earth" that shouldn't be this dense. Astronomers led by Max Kroft (University of Wisconsin–Madison) have identified GJ 523b, a rocky exoplanet 23.5 times more massive than Earth but only 2.5 times its width — extraordinarily dense for its size. Standard planet-formation models say a planet this massive, orbiting its star every 17.75 days in a system just 170 million years old, should have pulled in a thick hydrogen-helium envelope; instead it's stayed almost entirely rocky. Found by TESS and confirmed with the WIYN 3.5-metre telescope at Kitt Peak; submitted to The Astronomical Journal, not yet peer-reviewed. The star that could reveal a black hole's spin. A newly identified star, S301, is orbiting our galaxy's central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, closer and faster than any star found before it — passing within 12 astronomical units at roughly 25,000 kilometres per second and completing a full orbit in just 8.7 years. Led by K. Abd El Dayem (Paris Observatory) with Nobel laureate Reinhard Genzel's group, researchers expect to use S301's orbit to directly measure the black hole's spin within a decade — a first for any supermassive black hole, and a real-world test of Einstein's general relativity. JWST finds the early universe's galaxies were hiding their mass. A team led by Chloe Cheng (Leiden University), using JWST's NIRSpec instrument alongside data from the VLT's LEGA-C survey, found that ancient "quiescent" galaxies contain far more faint, low-mass stars than previously accounted for — potentially raising their true mass estimates by a factor of four. The hidden stars had simply been outshone by brighter ones in the same galaxies. Published in Nature Astronomy; the finding deepens existing tension with current galaxy-formation models. Tonight's sky: the Moon is about 56% illuminated and well-placed for lunar observing — look along the sunrise terminator for the crater Theophilus and its dramatic, shadowed walls. Venus is still blazing at magnitude -4.1 low in the western sky after sunset, and Saturn continues its predawn "moon parade" in the south-southeast for early risers. Links & sources: - Spaceflight Now — LandSpace becomes first commercial Chinese company to land an orbital-class booster - Space.com — Touchdown! Private Chinese rocket aces landing on 2nd-ever flight - NASASpaceFlight.com — Zhuque-3 Completes Second Flight with Successful First-Stage Landing - Space.com — Astronomers discover a giant, rocky 'mega-Earth' 23 times more massive than our planet - Phys.org — Mega-Earth GJ 523b is 23 times as massive as our planet—but only 2.5 times as wide - Universe Today — The Fastest Star in the Milky Way Will Test Relativity - Universe Today — Whoa! The JWST's Ancient Galaxies Are Much More Massive Than Thought - Space.com — Night sky August 2026: what you can see tonight Follow us: @AstronomyDailyPod

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This episode includes AI-generated content.


00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Anna: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Astronomy

00:00:03 --> 00:00:04 Daily. I'm Anna.

00:00:04 --> 00:00:06 Avery: And I'm, um, avery. It's Thursday, August

00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 20th, series five, episode

00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 Anna: 172, and we're leading with a genuine

00:00:11 --> 00:00:12 milestone today.

00:00:13 --> 00:00:15 China's commercial space sector just proved

00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 it can land a rocket, not just launch one.

00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 Avery: Landspace sticks. The landing on Zoo Q3.

00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 First time any Chinese private company has

00:00:24 --> 00:00:25 pulled that off.

00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 Anna: Then a, uh, planet that's somehow 23 times

00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 heavier than Earth while barely being any

00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 bigger, which really shouldn't be possible.

00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 A star doing laps around our galaxy's

00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 supermassive black hole. Faster and closer

00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 than anything we've ever tracked. And new

00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 James Webb data suggesting the early universe

00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 has been hiding a huge chunk of its mass from

00:00:48 --> 00:00:49 us this whole time.

00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 Avery: Plus tonight. Good excuse to actually get the

00:00:52 --> 00:00:53 telescope out and look at some craters.

00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 Anna: Lots to get through. Let's get into it.

00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 Avery: Okay, so China and rockets. We were just

00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 talking about this two episodes ago, right?

00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 The Long March failure and the fast recovery.

00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 Anna: Right. But this is a completely different

00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 story and honestly a bigger one. Long term.

00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 That was China's state space program. Long

00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 March rockets run by the state owned main

00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 contractor. This is China's commercial

00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 sector. And specifically a company called

00:01:20 --> 00:01:21 Landspace.

00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 Avery: Which does what exactly?

00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 Anna: Landspace was founded back in 2015, one of

00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 the first wave of Chinese private launch

00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 companies. Their rocket is called Zhuque 3

00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 or ZQ3, and it's a big one.

00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 Stainless steel construction, liquid methane

00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 propulsion, standing 76.6

00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 meters tall. For comparison, a Falcon 9

00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 is about 70 meters. This thing is taller

00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 than what SpaceX flies.

00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 Avery: So already an ambitious vehicle before you

00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 even get to the landing.

00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 Anna: Exactly. And landing is the part that matters

00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 here. Zoo K3 flew for the first time back in

00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 December 2025. That flight actually

00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 reached orbit successfully, which is already

00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 a big deal for a new rocket. But the landing

00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 attempt on the first stage didn't work out.

00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 Avery: So this was the do over.

00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 Anna: This was the do over. And yesterday, August

00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 19th, they nailed it. Liftoff was from the

00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 Dongfang Commercial Space Innovation Zone in

00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 northwestern China. And about eight minutes

00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 after launch, the first stage came down on

00:02:23 --> 00:02:24 four landing legs, roughly

00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 390km downrange, out

00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 in Minquin County, Gansu Province. It

00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 came in on a single Tiem Kwei 12 engine.

00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 Touched down close to dead center on the pad.

00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 Avery: Eight minutes from launch to landing. That's

00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 a very SpaceX shaped timeline.

00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 Anna: It's the same basic playbook. Yeah. Boost,

00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 separate, flip, come back down under power.

00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 Nobody outside SpaceX had made that work on

00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 an orbital class booster with actual

00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 repeatability. Until now. There have been a

00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 couple of smaller Chinese hop tests and

00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 suborbital attempts from other companies, but

00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 landing an orbital class booster on a real

00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 orbital mission is a different tier of

00:03:04 --> 00:03:04 difficulty.

00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 Avery: What does Landspace actually get from one

00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 successful landing? Is the booster flying

00:03:09 --> 00:03:10 again next week?

00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 Anna: Not next week, no. This is very much a prove

00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 the concept flight rather than a, uh, ready

00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 for daily reuse flight. But it's the step

00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 everything else depends on. Landspace

00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 themselves are, uh, framing it as moving

00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 toward the engineering application phase of

00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 reusability. In other words, this is where

00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 you stop asking can this work at all? And

00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 start asking how do we make this routine?

00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 Avery: Any hiccups? These things usually aren't

00:03:36 --> 00:03:37 perfectly clean.

00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 Anna: The core landing itself was clean, legs

00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 deployed, touched down where it was supposed

00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 to. Some reporting mentioned activity in the

00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 aft section of the booster after landing,

00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 which, given this is methane fueled hardware

00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 coming down hot isn't unheard of even on

00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 successful landings. SpaceX has had post

00:03:54 --> 00:03:57 landing fires on otherwise successful Falcon

00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 9 recoveries too. It doesn't take away from

00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 the fact that the vehicle landed intact and

00:04:02 --> 00:04:03 upright.

00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 Avery: So bottom line, why should our listeners care

00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 about one Chinese company landing one

00:04:08 --> 00:04:09 rocket?

00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 Anna: Because reusability is the thing that

00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 actually changes the economics of

00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 spaceflight. It's why Falcon 9 turned SpaceX

00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 from one very good rocket company into the

00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 company that now launches more than anyone

00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 else multiple times a week. China's had

00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 a state level reusable rocket effort in

00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 progress for years, but this is the first

00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 time a private Chinese company has shown it

00:04:31 --> 00:04:33 can do the hardest part. Landspace just put

00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 itself in what's genuinely a very short list

00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 of organizations on Earth that have landed an

00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 orbital class booster.

00:04:40 --> 00:04:41 Avery: A list that's about to get a

00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 Anna: little more competitive, which is good for

00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 everyone watching prices honestly.

00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 Next up, over to exoplanets and a

00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 planet that's breaking the rules just by

00:04:51 --> 00:04:51 existing.

00:04:52 --> 00:04:52 Avery: Go on.

00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 Anna: It's called GJ523B.

00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 Team led by Max Croft at the University of

00:04:59 --> 00:05:01 Wisconsin Madison, found it using NASA's

00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 TESS spacecraft, then confirmed it with

00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 follow up observations from the Wynn

00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 3.5-meter telescope at Kitt Peak in

00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 Arizona. Here's the number that makes it

00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 interesting. This planet is 23

00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 and a half times the mass of Earth.

00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 Avery: Okay, so a mini Neptune gas envelope

00:05:21 --> 00:05:21 and all.

00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 Anna: That's exactly what you'd expect. And that's

00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 exactly what it isn't. It's only about 2 1/2

00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 times Earth's width. Do that math. 23

00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 times the mass in barely 2 1/2 times the size

00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 and you get something extremely den and

00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 as far as they can tell, mostly rock. Not a

00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 puffed up gas world at all.

00:05:40 --> 00:05:41 Avery: Why is that a problem?

00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 Anna: Because planet formation models are pretty

00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 clear on this. Once a rocky core gets big

00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 enough and 23 earth masses is well past

00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 that threshold, it should have enough gravity

00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 to grab a thick hydrogen helium atmosphere

00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 from the disk of gas around its young star

00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 and balloon outward the way Neptune or Uranus

00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 did. DJ523B had

00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 every opportunity to do that. It orbits its

00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 star every 17.75 days

00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 and the whole system is only about 170

00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 million years old. Young enough that there

00:06:14 --> 00:06:15 should have still been plenty of gas around

00:06:15 --> 00:06:16 when it formed.

00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 Avery: And instead it just didn't bother.

00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 Anna: Instead it just stayed rock all the way up to

00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 23 earth masses. Croft's own quote on

00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 it was this isn't what we expected at all.

00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 Which for a planetary scientist is basically

00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 Avery: shouting, so what's the explanation?

00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 Anna: Honestly, right now they don't fully have

00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 one. Maybe it formed somewhere else closer

00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 in, in a gas poor environment and never had

00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 the chance to accrete an atmosphere. Maybe it

00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 did have one and something stripped it away

00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 early. That's the appeal of finding it. It's

00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 a genuine outlier that doesn't fit the

00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 models, which usually means there's a piece

00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 of planet formation physics we're still

00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 missing. I'll flag this result's been

00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 submitted to the Astronomical Journal, but

00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 hasn't gone through peer review yet. So

00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 consider it an exciting first look rather

00:07:03 --> 00:07:04 than a settled result.

00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 Avery: The universe's way of telling planetary

00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 scientists they're not done yet.

00:07:09 --> 00:07:10 Anna: It never is.

00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 Avery: Alright, this next one is genuinely one of my

00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 favorite kinds of stories. Extreme physics,

00:07:16 --> 00:07:17 extreme numbers.

00:07:18 --> 00:07:19 Anna: You're going to like this. Then there's a

00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 star newly cataloged as S301

00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 that's been found orbiting Sagittarius A,

00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 the supermassive black hole at the center of

00:07:28 --> 00:07:29 our own galaxy.

00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 Avery: We've talked about the S stars before, right?

00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 The ones that whip around Sagittarius A on

00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 tight orbits we have.

00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 Anna: And S301 just took the crown from all

00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 of them. It gets within 12 astronomical

00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 units of the black hole at closest approach.

00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 That's closer than any star ever tracked

00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 around. Sagittarius A, moving at, uh, roughly

00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 25 kilometers per second. And

00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 it completes one full orbit in just

00:07:54 --> 00:07:55 8.7 years.

00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 Avery: 8.7 years to loop around the

00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 supermassive black hole. For comparison,

00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 Jupiter takes about 12 years just to go

00:08:04 --> 00:08:05 around our sun, right?

00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 Anna: And Sagittarius a is about 4

00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 million times the mass of our Sun. So The

00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 Physics Environment S301 is living in

00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 is nothing like anything in our solar system.

00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 This was found by a team led by K. Abdel

00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 Diam at the Paris Observatory, working with

00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 Felix Meng and Stephan Gillison at the Max

00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 Planck Institute, Juana Sorno at Paris

00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 psl and the broader collaboration is directed

00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 by Reinhard Genzel, Nobel Laureate for his

00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 work proving Sagittarius A is a

00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 supermassive black hole in the first place.

00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 Avery: So why does one extreme star matter

00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 beyond just being a cool record breaker?

00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 Anna: Because an orbit this tight and this precise

00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 becomes a physics instrument. General

00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 relativity predicts that a, uh, spinning

00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 massive object drags spacetime around with

00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 it. It's called the lens theoring effect,

00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 or frame dragging. We've measured tiny

00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 versions of this effect around Earth with

00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 satellites. Nobody has ever directly

00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 measured it around a, uh, supermassive black

00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 hole because you need a star orbiting close

00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 enough, fast enough and predictably enough

00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 to detect the tiny relativistic wobble it

00:09:15 --> 00:09:15 causes.

00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 Avery: And S301 threads that needle.

00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 Anna: That's the hope. The team thinks that with

00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 continued observation, they could measure

00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 Sagittarius A's actual SP

00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 within a decade. That would be the first

00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 direct spin measurement of any supermassive

00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 black hole anywhere. Not modeled,

00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 not inferred from surrounding gas.

00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 Measured from watching a star get pushed

00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 around by the black hole, literally dragging

00:09:42 --> 00:09:43 space itself.

00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 Avery: A, uh, decade's a long wait, but that's a

00:09:46 --> 00:09:47 hell of a payoff.

00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 Anna: Worth the patience.

00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 Alright, moving on to our last story before

00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 we get to tonight's sky. And this one's a

00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 quiet result that could have a pretty loud

00:09:56 --> 00:09:57 effect on cosmology.

00:09:58 --> 00:09:59 Avery: How loud are we talking?

00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 Anna: Up to four times loud. A team led by

00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 Chloe Chang at Leiden University looked at

00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 nine quiescent galaxies, meaning galaxies

00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 that have basically stopped forming new

00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 stars. Sitting at a redshift of about

00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 0.7, they used James Webb's

00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 NIR SPECT instrument, combined with data from

00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 the Very Large Telescope's LEGA survey to

00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 look really closely at the actual population

00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 of star stars inside these galaxies

00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 and found something we'd been missing. A lot

00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 of something. Turns out these galaxies

00:10:32 --> 00:10:35 contain far more faint, low mass stars

00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 than anyone had accounted for. They'd simply

00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 been outshone and hidden by the smaller

00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 number of bright stars in the same galaxies.

00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 Once you properly count the dim ones, the

00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 true stellar mass of these galaxies goes up

00:10:49 --> 00:10:50 by something like a factor

00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 Avery: of four, four or times the mass.

00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 Just hiding in plain sight.

00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 Anna: Hiding in Plain sight. And it wasn't random.

00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 Which galaxies had the most hidden mass

00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 either. The oldest galaxy in the sample,

00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 one that started forming stars less than 500

00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 million years after the Big Bang, had the

00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 largest hidden population of low mass stars.

00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 Avery: Why would older galaxies hide more mass

00:11:15 --> 00:11:16 specifically?

00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 Anna: That's the open question, and it's a

00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 genuinely important one, because it means the

00:11:21 --> 00:11:24 ratio of small stars to big stars. What

00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 astronomers call the initial mass function

00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 might not be the same constant everywhere and

00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 everywhen, the way models have generally

00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 assumed. If early galaxies

00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 systematically formed proportionally more low

00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 mass stars, every mass estimate we've made

00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 for the early universe using the standard

00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 assumption could be off.

00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 Avery: Which affects a lot more than just these nine

00:11:46 --> 00:11:47 galaxies.

00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 Anna: Right. It touches how we calculate galaxy

00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 masses across basically all of early universe

00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 cosmology. And there's a nice side effect

00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 too. More low mass stars means more

00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 potential hosts for rocky Earth sized

00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 planets in the early universe. This was

00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 published in Nature Astronomy under the very

00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 on the nose title, Hidden Mass in Early

00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 Galaxies Revealed by bottom, Heavy initial

00:12:11 --> 00:12:12 Mass Functions.

00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 Avery: The early universe just got a lot more

00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 crowded and a lot heavier in one paper.

00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 Anna: Webb keeps doing that to cosmology this year.

00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 Avery: All right, let's get people outside tonight.

00:12:23 --> 00:12:24 What are we looking at?

00:12:24 --> 00:12:26 Anna: Grab a telescope if you've got one, because

00:12:26 --> 00:12:28 tonight's, uh, a genuinely good moon night.

00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 It's about 56% illuminated right now, and

00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 if you look right along the sunrise

00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 terminator, that line between lit and

00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 shadowed, you'll find the crater Theophilus

00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 down along Mare Nectaris.

00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 Avery: What makes that one worth hunting down?

00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 Anna: Specifically, with the sun that low on it,

00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 the shadows are dramatic. You get

00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 Theophilus, sharp, heavily terraced walls,

00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 seamless standing out in real relief. Plus a

00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 big multi pointed central peak casting its

00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 own shadow. It's one of those craters that

00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 actually looks three dimensional through a

00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 scope tonight instead of just a flat circle.

00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 Avery: And um, for anyone without a telescope

00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 Anna: handy, step outside right after sunset and

00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 look west. Venus is still an absolute

00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 beacon out there at, ah, magnitude minus 4.1,

00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 easily the brightest thing in the sky besides

00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 the Moon. And if you're an early riser,

00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 Saturn's moon parade that we mentioned last

00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 episode is still running in the south

00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 southeast before dawn. Titan, Rhea,

00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 Tethys, Dion, all still lined up

00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 thanks to those unusually narrow, nearly

00:13:31 --> 00:13:32 edge on rings.

00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 Avery: Good night to actually use the equipment

00:13:35 --> 00:13:37 instead of letting it collect dust.

00:13:37 --> 00:13:38 Anna: Always is.

00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 And that's it for Today's episode. Series

00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 five, episode 172 in the

00:13:44 --> 00:13:45 books.

00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 Avery: Quick recap. Plan space makes history.

00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 Landing Z3's booster, a mega

00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 Earth that refuses to follow the rules, a

00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 star that might let us finally measure a

00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 black hole spin. Um, and James Webb showing

00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 us the early universe was heavier than we

00:14:00 --> 00:14:00 thought all along.

00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 Anna: If you enjoyed the show, the best thing you

00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 can do is tell a friend. Leave us a rating

00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 wherever you listen, and follow us on the

00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 socials at astrodaily Pod for updates between

00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 episodes. And of course, check out our

00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 website at astronomydaily IO for further

00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 details on all of these stories.

00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 Avery: We'll be back tomorrow with more from across

00:14:19 --> 00:14:20 the universe.

00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 Anna: Until then, keep looking up Clear

00:14:23 --> 00:14:24 skies, everyone.

00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 Sam mhm.