Starship Set for Launch, First Black Hole Found in Omega Centauri, and X-Rays in Space
Astronomy Daily: Latest Space NewsJuly 15, 2026x
141
00:15:2414.15 MB

Starship Set for Launch, First Black Hole Found in Omega Centauri, and X-Rays in Space

Astronomy Daily — S05E141 | Wednesday 15 July 2026 Anna and Avery bring you the biggest space and astronomy news of the day: Starship Flight 13 is cleared for Thursday after the FAA closes its Flight 12 investigation and SpaceX reveals exactly what went wrong; NASA astronaut Anil Menon rides a Soyuz to the ISS on his first flight; astronomers finally find the first of Omega Centauri’s 10,000 "missing" black holes; the first-ever medical X-rays taken in space are published; four white dwarfs are found hiding within 65 light-years of Earth; and a new-moon dark-sky window opens with Comet 10P/Tempel 2 on the rise. In this episode • Starship Flight 13 — FAA closes the Flight 12 mishap investigation (July 13); root causes revealed: hot-staging ignition sequence caused a 90° booster orientation error, five Raptors failed to relight, alarm settings shut engines down early. Launch window opens Thursday July 16, 6:45pm EDT (Friday 8:45am AEST) with the first 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites and an in-space Raptor relight. • Soyuz MS-29 — NASA’s Anil Menon with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina launched from Baikonur July 14, docking three hours later for an eight-month stay. Menon and wife Anna Menon (Polaris Dawn) become a two-astronaut household; NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman attended in person. • Omega Centauri’s first stellar-mass black hole — oMEGACat BH-2, found via astrometry in 20+ years of Hubble data plus Webb observations (ApJL, July 13). Lower-than-expected mass; its companion star’s 94-year orbit makes it the longest-period black hole binary known. The cluster is naked-eye visible in southern winter skies right now. • First medical X-rays in space — RSNA publishes results from the Fram2 Crew Dragon mission: crew with 4 hours’ training produced diagnostic-quality X-rays in orbit, opening the door to space radiology and non-destructive hardware testing on Moon and Mars missions. • Four hidden white dwarfs — Warwick/Colorado Boulder team unmasks four white dwarfs within 65 light-years using Hubble near-UV spectroscopy (MNRAS). G 203-47, ~25 light-years away, is now the ninth-closest known white dwarf and closes a 27-year-old wobble mystery. • Skywatch — New Moon (July 14) dark skies, Milky Way core season for the Southern Hemisphere, Comet 10P/Tempel 2 at magnitude 7–8 brightening toward early-August perihelion, and Mars near Aldebaran pre-dawn. Resources & further reading • Starship Flight 13: spacenews.com | space.com Starship live blog • Soyuz MS-29: nasa.gov ISS blog | nasaspaceflight.com • Omega Centauri black hole: science.nasa.gov | esahubble.org (heic2610) | ApJL • Space X-rays: rsna.org/news | space.com • Hidden white dwarfs: warwick.ac.uk | phys.org | MNRAS Visit astronomydaily.io for all episodes and our constantly updating newsfeed. Follow us @AstroDailyPod. Astronomy Daily is part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network.

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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: The world's biggest rocket has a launch date,

00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 a clean bill of health from the regulators,

00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 and finally an explanation for what went

00:00:07 --> 00:00:08 wrong last time.

00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 Avery: Plus, a, uh, globular cluster hanging in your

00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 southern sky right now has just given up the

00:00:13 --> 00:00:15 first of its 10 missing black holes.

00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 And astronauts have taken the first ever

00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 medical X rays in space. With four hours of

00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 training, all that,

00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 Anna: A, uh, brand new crew on the space station,

00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 dead stars hiding next door, and the darkest

00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 skies of the month. This is Astronomy Daily.

00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 Avery: Hello and welcome to Astronomy daily. It's

00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 Wednesday the 15th of July, 2026.

00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 This is series five, episode 141.

00:00:38 --> 00:00:39 And I'm Avery.

00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 Anna: And I'm Anna. We've got a packed one today.

00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 Two big spaceflight stories, two genuinely

00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 lovely deep sky discoveries, a, uh, first in

00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 space medicine, and a sky watching window you

00:00:51 --> 00:00:53 do not want to waste. Shall we get into it?

00:00:53 --> 00:00:54 Avery: Let's do it.

00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 Anna: So Avery, on Monday we previewed Starship

00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 Flight 13 and told you it was penciled in for

00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 today, Wednesday the 15th. Well,

00:01:03 --> 00:01:04 the pencil has moved.

00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 Avery: It has. SpaceX is now targeting Thursday

00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 July 16th with a 90 minute launch

00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 window opening at 6:45 in the evening

00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 Eastern time, which for us here in Australia

00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 is Friday morning, 8:45am on the

00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 east Coast. So set your alarms for Friday

00:01:22 --> 00:01:23 breakfast viewing.

00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 Anna: But honestly, the launch date isn't even the

00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 biggest news in this story because on Monday

00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 the Federal Aviation Administration formally

00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 closed its investigation into what went wrong

00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 on Flight 12. And for the first time we got

00:01:36 --> 00:01:37 the full picture.

00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 Avery: And um, it's fascinating. Remember, Flight 12

00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 back in May was the debut of the big version

00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 three vehicle. And it mostly went well,

00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 except the super heavy booster never made its

00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 controlled splashdown in the Gulf. It just

00:01:52 --> 00:01:53 didn't get there.

00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 Anna: And now we know why. It comes down to

00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 hot staging. That maneuver where the upper

00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 stage lights its engines while it's still

00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 attached to the booster. SpaceX changed the

00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 ignition sequence of ship's engines on this

00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 flight and that change pushed the Booster

00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 into a 90 degree orientation error

00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 right after separation.

00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 Avery: So the booster comes out of staging pointing

00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 the wrong way. And then to make matters

00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 worse, when it tries its boost back burn,

00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 five of its 33 raptor engines fail to

00:02:23 --> 00:02:24 relight.

00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 Anna: The FAA's report boiled it down to two

00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 root causes heat effects on propulsion

00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 components during ascent. And I love this

00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 phrase, erroneous engine alarm settings.

00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 Essentially the alarm thresholds were tuned

00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 wrong for the multi engine flight

00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 environment. Though engines were being shut

00:02:43 --> 00:02:44 down that could have kept burning.

00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 Avery: And SpaceX's fixed list covers all of it A,

00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 uh, modified startup sequence for ship,

00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 hardware updates on the booster and retuned

00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 engine alarms and abort settings. The FAA has

00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 accepted the corrective actions, so the

00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 regulatory road is clear.

00:03:00 --> 00:03:02 Anna: Which brings us to what Flight 13 actually

00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 has to do. It's essentially a rerun of

00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 Flight 12's objectives, but this time with

00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 real cargo. 20 functional Starlink

00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 V3 satellites, the first of their kind ever

00:03:14 --> 00:03:14 to fly.

00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 Avery: And these aren't the mass simulators from

00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 Flight 12. These are working satellites.

00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 They'll deploy solar arrays and antennas and

00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 attempt to connect with a ground station in

00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 South Africa and and with other starlinks.

00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 Six of them even carry cameras to inspect

00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 ship's heat shield from the outside.

00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 Anna: The catch being it's a suborbital flight, so

00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 those satellites get about 20 minutes of

00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 glory before they re enter and burn up. It's

00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 a test, not a delivery.

00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 Avery: There's also an in space Raptor relight on

00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 the checklist, which matters enormously for

00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 the lunar Lander version of Starship that

00:03:48 --> 00:03:51 NASA's Artemis program is counting on. And if

00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 all of this goes to plan, Flight 14 could

00:03:54 --> 00:03:57 see SpaceX attempt a first V3 catch

00:03:57 --> 00:03:57 back at the

00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 Anna: tower Friday morning, Australian time.

00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 We'll have the full wrap on Saturday's show.

00:04:02 --> 00:04:03 Either way.

00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 Avery: From a rocket that's about to launch to one

00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 that just did. On Tuesday. A Soyuz

00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 2 1A lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome

00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 in Kazakhstan carrying NASA astronaut Anil

00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov

00:04:17 --> 00:04:18 and Anna Kikina.

00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 Anna: And this was the express service, A two orbit

00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 fast rendezvous. They docked with the

00:04:23 --> 00:04:25 International Space Station's Pritchell

00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 module just over three hours after liftoff.

00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 Compare that to the two day chases of the old

00:04:30 --> 00:04:30 days.

00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 Avery: The 3O joins Expedition

00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 7475 for a roughly an eight

00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 month stay coming home in April 2027.

00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 It's the second flight for both Dubrov and

00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 Kikina, but the very first for Menin. And his

00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 backstory is wonderful, it really is.

00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 Anna: He's a physician, a former Air Force flight

00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 surgeon who flew over a hundred sorties and

00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 F15s, worked as a first responder after the

00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 Haiti and Nepal earthquakes, and was actually

00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 SpaceX's first ever flight surgeon before

00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 NASA selected him as an astronaut in 2021.

00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 Avery: And here's the bit I love. His wife, Anna

00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 Menon, has already been to space. She flew on

00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 the Polaris dawn mission in 2024, the one

00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 with the first commercial spacewalk. So

00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 they're now officially a two astronaut

00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 Anna: household with two kids who presumably win

00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 every what do your parents do? Conversation

00:05:18 --> 00:05:19 at school. Forever.

00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 Avery: Forever. And there was a diplomatic first

00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 at the launch, too. NASA administrator Jared

00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 Isaacman was at Baikonur in person, meeting

00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov face to face

00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 for the first time. Isaacman and Menon are

00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 close friends. Annamin flew on Isaacman's own

00:05:36 --> 00:05:37 Polaris dawn mission.

00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 Anna: As for the work, Menon's eight months are

00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 heavy on the science that suits a doctor.

00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 They'll be refining in space production of

00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 semiconductor crystals. And this ties

00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 beautifully into our next but one story

00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 performing ultrasound using augmented reality

00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 and AI techniques that could remove the need

00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 for medical support from Earth on deep space

00:05:56 --> 00:05:57 missions.

00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 Avery: A doctor testing the Future of Space

00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 Medicine launched the same week the first

00:06:02 --> 00:06:03 space X rays are published.

00:06:04 --> 00:06:05 Anna: Hold that thought now, Avery.

00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 If you step outside tonight, anywhere in

00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 Australia or New Zealand, and look up at the

00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 constellation Centaurus riding high in our

00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 winter sky, there's a soft, fuzzy star you

00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 can see with your naked eye from a dark

00:06:17 --> 00:06:17 sight.

00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 Avery: That's Omega Centauri, the greatest

00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 globular cluster in the sky. 10 million

00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 stars packed into a ball about 18

00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 light years away. And an object that has

00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 puzzled astronomers for decades because,

00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 according to the models, it should be teeming

00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 with black holes. Around 10 stellar

00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 mass black holes left behind by exploded

00:06:39 --> 00:06:39 stars.

00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 Anna: And until this week, astronomers had found

00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 none of them. Evidence for an intermediate

00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 mass black hole lurking at the center? Yes.

00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 But that missing population of 10 smaller

00:06:50 --> 00:06:51 ones? Silence.

00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 Avery: Until now. In a paper published Monday in the

00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team led by

00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 Matthew Whitaker at the University of Utah

00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 announced the first first stellar mass black

00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 hole ever detected in Omega Centauri. It's

00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 been dubbed Omega Cat BH2, and

00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 Anna: the way they found it is the real star of

00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 this story. Not X rays, not radio emission

00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 astronomy measuring the positions of stars

00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 so precisely over such a long time that you

00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 can watch one being swung around by something

00:07:20 --> 00:07:20 invisible.

00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 Avery: They sifted through nearly 20 years of

00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 Hubble archival data observations running

00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 from 2003 to 2023, and

00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 added recent James Webb data to sharpen the

00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 measure. It was a star with about

00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 78% the mass of our sun, orbiting

00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 something massive and utterly dark.

00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 Anna: The team said, uh, the precision comes down

00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 to a fraction of a pixel on Hubble and Webb's

00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 detectors. It simply would not have been

00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 possible without both telescopes working

00:07:47 --> 00:07:47 together.

00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 Avery: And BH2 turns out to be a rule

00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 breaker. Its mass is lower than expected, and

00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 the star that orbits it takes 94 years

00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 to go around, which Makes this the widest,

00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 longest period stellar mass black hole binary

00:08:02 --> 00:08:02 ever found.

00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 Anna: One black hole down, roughly

00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 9 to go.

00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 But the astronomers suspect this first

00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 detection opens the floodgates. Now they

00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 know exactly what signature to look for.

00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 Avery: And for our southern listeners, that cluster

00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 is up there right now in your July evening

00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 sky. Ten million stars, an

00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 intermediate mass black hole at the middle,

00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 and at least one newly unmasked stellar mass

00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 black hole. Go out and look at it tonight.

00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 You'll never see it the same way again. Okay,

00:08:33 --> 00:08:33 Anna.

00:08:33 --> 00:08:36 Space uh, medicine. As promised, the

00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 Radiological Society of North America has

00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 just published results confirming a genuine

00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 first diagnostic X ray images taken

00:08:43 --> 00:08:44 in orbit.

00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 Anna: And the mission behind it was Fram 2, the

00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 private SpaceX crew Dragon flight from

00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 March 2025. The first crew ever

00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 to fly a polar orbit. Four first time

00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 astronauts, none of them medical experts.

00:08:58 --> 00:09:01 Three and a half days in space before launch.

00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 Avery: They got just four hours of training on a

00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 commercial off the shelf portable X ray

00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 system. Then in orbit with no guidance from

00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 ground control, they X rayed a calibration

00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 phantom. A smartwatch, a hand, a

00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 forearm, an abdomen, a pelvis and a

00:09:17 --> 00:09:17 chest.

00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 Anna: And here's the result that matters. Back on

00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 Earth, three independent medical experts

00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 compared the in flight images with X rays

00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 taken before launch. The ground images were

00:09:28 --> 00:09:30 better quality, but the space images were

00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 good enough to diagnose injuries like broken

00:09:33 --> 00:09:33 bones.

00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 Avery: Which is a conceit Buster, as Dr. Shaina

00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 Gifford of the Mayo Clinic put it. The

00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 assumption has always been that because

00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 everything in space is constantly moving,

00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 getting a diagnostic image in orbit was just

00:09:46 --> 00:09:47 too technically challenging.

00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 Anna: Not anymore. And the applications go well

00:09:50 --> 00:09:53 beyond broken bones. That smartwatch X

00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 ray was the proof of concept for non

00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 destructive testing. Inspecting spacecraft,

00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 hardware, satellites, even spacesuits for

00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 hidden damage without taking anything apart.

00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 Avery: And think about where humanity is headed. A

00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 lunar outpost is days from a hospital. Mars

00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 is months. If you're going to break an arm

00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 240 miles from the nearest radiology

00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 department, you want the radiology department

00:10:17 --> 00:10:18 to come with you.

00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 Anna: The device even survived the trip home.

00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 Superficial scuffs on the exterior internals.

00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 Fine. As Dr. Gifford put it, the sky

00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 is not the limit when it comes to X rays in

00:10:29 --> 00:10:30 space.

00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 Now for a story about the neighbors we never

00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 knew we had. Astronomers at the University

00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 of Warwick and the University of Colorado

00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 Boulder have found four white dwarfs hiding

00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 within 65 light years of Earth.

00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 Avery: Which sounds impossible, doesn't it? We've

00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 been surveying the solar neighborhood in

00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 exhaustive detail for decades. How do you

00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 miss four entire dead Stars on your own

00:10:53 --> 00:10:54 street.

00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 Anna: Because they had accomplices. Each of these

00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 four white dwarfs orbits a, ah, red dwarf

00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 companion, a, uh, bigger, brighter star whose

00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 glare completely drowned them out in visible

00:11:05 --> 00:11:07 light. To every survey, these looked like

00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 perfectly ordinary single stars.

00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 Avery: The giveaway was the wobble. Each red dwarf

00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 showed a substantial radio wobble, the

00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 telltale sign of a massive unseen companion

00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 tugging on it. So the team went hunting with

00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 the Hubble Space Telescope's imaging

00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 spectrograph in near ultraviolet light, where

00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 white dwarfs shine and red dwarfs fade.

00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 Anna: And there they were, four hidden white dwarfs

00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 unmasked. Lead author Dr. Mayrey O'

00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 Brien put it beautifully. It's a reminder

00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 that even in our own cosmic neighborhood, we

00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 can still find surprises if we look in the

00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 right way at the right wavelength.

00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 Avery: The headliner of the four is a system called

00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 G203 47, only

00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 about 25 light years away, which makes its

00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 white dwarf the ninth closest known to the

00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 Sun. And finding it closed a mystery that had

00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 been open for 27 years, ever since that

00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 unexplained wobble was first spotted.

00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 Anna: But G2O3 47

00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 replaces one mystery with another. The

00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 red dwarf orbits its white dwarf every

00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 14.9 days, but rotates on

00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 its axis only once every 100 plus days.

00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 In systems like this, tides should have

00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 locked those two motions together long ago.

00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 The M way. The Moon always shows Earth the

00:12:23 --> 00:12:23 same

00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 Avery: face, so the fact that it isn't locked

00:12:26 --> 00:12:28 tells us these four binaries had very

00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 different life stories. Some went through

00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 violent, prolonged interactions that

00:12:33 --> 00:12:34 synchronized them. While

00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 G20347 seems to have

00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 had a gentler, briefer encounter.

00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 Anna: Four new entries in the local census

00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 published in the monthly notices of the Royal

00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 Astronomical Society. And a strong hint

00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 there are more dead stars hiding in plain

00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 sight around familiar stars.

00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 Avery: And so to the sky itself. Anna

00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 uh, the Moon hit New Moon on Tuesday, which

00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 means right now we're in the darkest skies of

00:13:01 --> 00:13:01 the month.

00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 Anna: And for those of us in Australia and New

00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 Zealand, mid July New Moon is as good

00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 as it gets. The Milky Way core,

00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 Sagittarius Scorpiusthat great

00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 glowing heart of the galaxy is essentially

00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 overhead in the evening. If you've been

00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 meaning to get out of the city for a proper

00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 dark sky night, this week is the week.

00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 Avery: It's also the week to hunt a Comet. Comet

00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 10P Tempel 2 is brightening as it heads

00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 towards perihelion in early August, currently

00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 sitting around magnitude 7. 8 in the evening

00:13:34 --> 00:13:34 sky.

00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 Anna: Now, that's not naked eye territory. You'll

00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 want binoculars at minimum. Ideally a

00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 telescope. Look for a soft, fuzzy,

00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 grayish patch the comet's glowing

00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 coma. And here's the nice bit for us

00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 Southern Hemisphere observers get a slightly

00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 higher altitude view than our northern

00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 friends, a

00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 Avery: dark sky, the galactic core overhead,

00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 and a comet on the rise. Sometimes the

00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 universe just hands you the itinerary.

00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 Anna: And for the early risers, Mars is currently

00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 drifting through Taurus near the red giant

00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 Aldebaran. In the pre dawn sky, two

00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 red beacons side by side. Worth a look with

00:14:14 --> 00:14:14 your morning cuppa.

00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 Avery: Uh, and that's our journey around the cosmos

00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 for today. Starship cleared and counting down

00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 to Friday morning our time, a new crew

00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 safely aboard the station, a black hole

00:14:25 --> 00:14:28 unmasked in Omega Centauri, the first

00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 X rays in orbit, four hidden white dwarfs

00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 and a dark sky waiting for you tonight.

00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 Anna: If you enjoyed the show, share it with a

00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 fellow Stargazer. It genuinely helps.

00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 All our episodes show notes and links are at

00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 astronomydaily IO and you'll find

00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 us on all the Socials astrodaily

00:14:47 --> 00:14:47 Pod.

00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 Avery: We'll be back tomorrow with more space and

00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 astronomy news. Until then, I'm Avery.

00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 Anna: And I'm Anna. Thanks for listening and as

00:14:56 --> 00:14:57 always, keep looking up.

00:14:58 --> 00:14:59 Avery: Clear skies, everyone.