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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Welcome to Astronomy AstroDailyPod, your
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 daily dose of space and astronomy news
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 for Friday the uh, 13th of November
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 2026. I'm Anna.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 Avery: And I'm Avery. Friday the
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 13th and SpaceX has chosen it to try
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 something nobody has ever done fly a rocket
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 to orbit, then catch both halves of it back
00:00:21 --> 00:00:22 at the launch tower.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 Anna: Also today, Europe's Euclid telescope has
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 opened the first big slice of its sky survey
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 to everyone on Earth. And a robot about a
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 cubic metre in size has assembled a piece of
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 structure in orbit with no astronaut anywhere
00:00:36 --> 00:00:37 near it.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 Avery: Plus, Voyager 1 is days away
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 from being a full light day from home. And
00:00:43 --> 00:00:45 um, the weekend's sky has Mars and Jupiter
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 closing to just over 1 degree apart.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:49 Let's get into it.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 Anna: Our lead today is a launch eve story and
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 we want to be careful with one word from the
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 start. Starship Flight 15
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 is targeted for today, Friday
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 13th November. Targeted not
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 scheduled. Regular listeners will remember we
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 had to correct ourselves on a starship date
00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 back in September. So that's the word we use.
00:01:11 --> 00:01:11 Now
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 Avery: here's the a, ah, 75 minute window
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 opens at 4:45 in the afternoon Central
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 time at Starbase in Texas. That's
00:01:20 --> 00:01:21 5:45pm Eastern,
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 2:45pm Pacific and
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 22:45 universal time. For those
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 of us in eastern Australia, it's 9:45
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 on Saturday morning daylight time.
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 Anna: The vehicles are Booster 22 and
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 Ship 42. Both are the larger
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 Block 3 design. This is the fourth
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 flight of that version and it goes from
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 Starbase's second launch pad.
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 Avery: And um, the headline is what happens to them
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 afterwards. SpaceX says it will try to
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 catch both. The super heavy booster comes
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 back first to the tower's mechanical arms
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 roughly six and a half minutes after liftoff.
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 Anna: A booster catch is not new in itself.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 SpaceX first did that in October 2024.
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 But this would be the first catch of a Block
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 three booster and the first catch of anything
00:02:11 --> 00:02:12 at Pad two.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 Avery: The ship is the part with no precedent at
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 all. No starship upper stage has ever been
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 caught. Everyone that has survived re entry
00:02:21 --> 00:02:22 has come down in the ocean.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 Anna: So let's walk through the ship's day
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 because it is a full day. Ship
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 42 is planned to reach an orbit about
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 275 kilometres up and
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 release 26 of the newer Starlink V3
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 satellites. The same payload count Flight 14
00:02:40 --> 00:02:41 carried in September.
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 Avery: Then it stays up. The published profile
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 has it completing about 14 orbits over more
00:02:48 --> 00:02:49 than 22 hours.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 Anna: Why so long? Because of
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 geometry. The Earth turns
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 underneath the orbit and the ship has to Wait
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 until its path lines up again with the
00:03:00 --> 00:03:02 corridor that leads back to Starbase. You
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 can't come home to a tower on any orbit you
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 like. You come home on the one that passes
00:03:07 --> 00:03:08 over it.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 Avery: When that lines up, the sequence is a deorbit
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 burn, re entry, the flip from
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 belly first to tail first, a landing
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 burn and then the arms. The plant
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 catch time is about 22 hours and
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 32 minutes after liftoff.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 Anna: We did the arithmetic. If it lifts off right
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 at the opening of the window, that puts the
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 catch attempt at about 3:17 on Saturday
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 afternoon, Central Time, 21:17
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 Universal Time and 8:17 on Sunday
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 morning in Sydney. Any delay inside the
00:03:41 --> 00:03:42 window slides that along with it.
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 Avery: And think about what the ship is being asked
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 to do compared with a booster. The booster
00:03:48 --> 00:03:51 turns around a few minutes into flight. The
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 ship comes back from orbital speed something
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 like 27 kilometres an hour
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 through the full heat of reentry, and then
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 has to arrive at a point in space a few
00:04:02 --> 00:04:03 metres wide
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 Anna: with a heat shield of thousands of tiles
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 that has to work well enough for the vehicle
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 to still be steerable at the end.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 Avery: Now, the caveats, and there are three, and,
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 um, we'd ask you to hold on to all of them.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 Anna: First, the licence. The ship's path back to
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 the tower takes it over populated areas,
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 which a, uh, splashdown at sea never did.
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 That needs a modification to SpaceX's launch
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 licence from the US Federal Aviation
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 Administration. SpaceX's own
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 announcement says the date is pending
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 regulatory approval and in the reporting we
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 could check. That approval have not yet been
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 confirmed. It may well have landed by the
00:04:43 --> 00:04:44 time you hear this.
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 Avery: Second, the ship catch is conditional.
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 SpaceX describes it as, uh, dependent on
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 health checks before reentry. If the
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 vehicle isn't healthy, the catch doesn't
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 happen. That is a sensible rule when
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 the alternative is flying a damaged vehicle
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 at your only block three line launch tower.
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 Anna: And third, this is a test flight.
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 Flight 14 reached orbit in September and
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 deployed its satellites. But the mission was
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 cut short at about three hours. A day
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 in orbit is new for this vehicle on its own
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 before anyone catches anything.
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 Avery: So a realistic list of outcomes is
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 long. Both caught, booster caught,
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 and the ship waved off. A scrub
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 and another try. All of those would be
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 ordinary results for a programme at this
00:05:33 --> 00:05:34 stage.
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 Anna: Why does it matter if they do pull it off?
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 Because it would be the first time both
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 stages of an orbital rocket have come back to
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 the launch site intact. The space shuttle
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 brought its orbiter and its boosters home,
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 but threw away the big tank every time.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 Falcon 9 lands its first stage and discards
00:05:53 --> 00:05:53 the second.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 Avery: And the whole economic argument for starship,
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 including the lunar lander version NASA is
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 counting on for Artemis, rests on doing this.
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 Routinely refuelling a moon lander in
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 orbit takes many tanker flights. That only
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 makes sense if the tankers come back
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 Anna: for timing. Australia gets the friendly end
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 of this one launch at breakfast on Saturday.
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 And if all goes to plan, a uh, catch attempt
00:06:18 --> 00:06:19 at breakfast on Sunday,
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 Avery: we'll have whatever happens in tomorrow's
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 weekend wrap for today targeted
00:06:25 --> 00:06:26 pending approval.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 And watch that word Conditional
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 Anna: Story two and it closes a thread from
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 yesterday's episode the European Space
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 Agency's Euclid Space Telescope had its
00:06:37 --> 00:06:40 first major public data release pencilled in
00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 for Thursday 12th November. The
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 archive that serves Euclid data in the United
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 States at UH Caltech's IPAC now lists
00:06:48 --> 00:06:49 that release as out
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 Avery: the name is a mouthful. Data release
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 one foundation let's unpack what's
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 in it about 1 square
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 degrees of Euclid's main wide survey. That's
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 roughly 1/7 of the sky area the mission is
00:07:04 --> 00:07:05 planning to cover in total
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 Anna: and in volume, about 1.8
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 petabytes. Raw data,
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 calibrated images, catalogues and
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 spectra plus Euclid's deep field
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 Avery: for scale. The previous public Release back
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 in March 2025 covered 63
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 square degrees and about 26 million
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 galaxies. This is around 30
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 times the area it replaces that earlier
00:07:31 --> 00:07:32 release outright.
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 Anna: Now, an honest note on what this is not
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 the word foundation is doing real work.
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 ESA split this release in two back in June.
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 What's out now is the images, the catalogues
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 and the spectra. The higher level products
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 built for Euclid's actual purpose, measuring
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 how galaxies cluster and how their shapes are
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 subtly distorted by dark matter, follow in
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 the complete release in the middle of 2027.
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 Avery: So there are no dark energy results today,
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 and nobody should expect headlines about the
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 fate of the universe this week. Euclid
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 was built to test whether dark energy changes
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 over time. The question we followed all year
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 through the supernova results. That answer is
00:08:15 --> 00:08:16 still at least months away.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 Anna: It also arrived three weeks later than
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 first planned. The original date was
00:08:22 --> 00:08:23 21 October.
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 Avery: What it does do is hand the raw material
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 to everyone. Any astronomer, any
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 student, anywhere can now go looking.
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 And at this scale, the rare things start to
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 turn up. Strong gravitational lenses,
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 ring galaxies made by collisions,
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 discs around young stars seen edge on.
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 Anna: ESA is leaning into that. There's a
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 hackathon from the 23rd to the 26th of
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 November, where teams compete to find the
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 strangest objects in the data with
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 the finds going into a published catalogue.
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 Avery: When we prepared this episode, ESA's own
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 public announcement and images had not
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 appeared. Ah, as it was still early morning
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 in Europe. If they have by the time you
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 listen, the pictures will be worth your time
00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 and will pick up anything notable tomorrow.
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 Anna: And uh, a reminder that Euclid's sky is very
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 much a southern sky too. One of its three
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 deep fields sits far in the south and the
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 ground based surveys that supply colours for
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 Euclid's southern galaxies are run from
00:09:28 --> 00:09:28 Chile.
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 Avery: A catalogue, as we like to say on this show,
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 is a detection limit, not a
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 census. This one just moved the limit a long
00:09:36 --> 00:09:37 way.
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 Anna: Story three is a small piece of
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 hardware with a large idea behind it.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 A robotic builder designed at Caltech
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 has assembled part of a structure in orbit
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 and the team says that is a uh, first.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 Avery: The project is called astra, the autonomous
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 in space tensioned reflector assembly.
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 It's funded by darpa, the US Defence Research
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 Agency under a programme on building large
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 structures in space. DARPA and Caltech
00:10:05 --> 00:10:06 announced the result last week.
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 Anna: The reason anyone wants this is a
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 hard limit in spaceflight. Everything we've
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 ever put in orbit either fit inside a rocket
00:10:15 --> 00:10:18 fairing or was folded up to fit like the
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 James Webb Space Telescope's mirror and
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 sunshield. Folding gets you a long way.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 It doesn't get you a uh, hundred metre
00:10:26 --> 00:10:26 antenna.
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 Avery: The third option is to launch a box of
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 parts and build the thing where it will be
00:10:32 --> 00:10:35 used. DARPA's programme manager
00:10:35 --> 00:10:37 compared the Caltech approach to construction
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 toys. Drutz joined at nodes
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 one section at a time.
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 Anna: Astra is about a cubic metre. It rode
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 to orbit on the 30th of March aboard uh, a
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 SpaceX rideshare flight hosted on a
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 momentous space tug. Inside were
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 two truss sections called bays already
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 built on the ground, plus a robotic arm and
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 dispensers full of struts and joints.
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 Avery: In orbit it pushed out the two pre built
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 bays and then the arm picked up loose parts
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 and assembled a third. That third bay is the
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 milestone project lead Sergio
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 Pellegrino put it this. This is the first
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 time that a structure has been autonomously
00:11:17 --> 00:11:18 constructed in space.
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 Anna: Now the caveats, because the headline is
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 bigger than the hardware, the goal was a
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 reflector antenna 1.4 metres across,
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 needing 11 bays. They have built one
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 in space. The mission ends in December
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 and the team says finishing the whole truss
00:11:36 --> 00:11:37 is unlikely
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 Avery: and autonomous has a specific meaning
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 here. No astronaut touched it, but
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 engineers on the ground sent the commands and
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 checked the results in photographs. When
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 something went wrong, they reproduce the
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 fault on a twin of the robot kept in the lab
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 at Caltech before sending a fix.
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 Anna: Which is rather how you'd expect a first
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 attempt to go. Astronauts have assembled
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 structures by hand in orbit since the 1980s
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 and the space station was put together with a
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 great deal of human help. This is the
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 robot doing the joining itself.
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 Avery: The reason astronomers should care is at
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 the far end of this road. The
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 size of a space telescope's mirror or a radio
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 dish is set by what you can fold.
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 If you can build in place, that limit
00:12:26 --> 00:12:27 goes away,
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 Anna: one bay out of 11. But it's
00:12:30 --> 00:12:31 the first one.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 Avery: Quick hits and we start with a number.
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 On Wednesday 18 November at
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 10:16 in the morning Universal Time,
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 NASA's Voyager 1 is expected to reach
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 one light day from Earth. That's
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 9:16 that evening in Sydney and 2:16 in the
00:12:48 --> 00:12:49 morning Pacific Time.
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 Anna: One light day is about
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 25.9 billion kilometres.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 A radio signal will take 24 hours to get
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 there and a reply, another 24 to
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 come back. It has taken Voyager
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 just over 49 years to travel what
00:13:06 --> 00:13:07 light covers in a day.
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 Avery: No other human made object has has been that
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 far. And nothing
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 changes at the spacecraft when it crosses.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 It's a milestone for us, not for
00:13:19 --> 00:13:20 Voyager.
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 Anna: Second, a date for next week. The
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 European and Japanese BepiColombo mission
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 is due to be captured into orbit around
00:13:27 --> 00:13:30 Mercury on Saturday 21st November,
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 eight years after launch. We'll have a proper
00:13:34 --> 00:13:35 preview before then.
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 Avery: And third, ESA's HERA spacecraft,
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 now with the asteroid pair Didymos. And
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 Dimorphos, has its first detailed images
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 of Dimorphos due on the 25th.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 That's the little moon NASA's DART spacecraft
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 struck in 2022. So those pictures are the
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 first close look at the scar
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 Anna: time for Skywatch.
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 And as always, we've run these numbers
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 ourselves. For Sydney, Los Angeles, New
00:14:00 --> 00:14:01 York and London,
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 Avery: the main event is before dawn.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 Mars and Jupiter have been closing on each
00:14:08 --> 00:14:10 other all spring or all autumn if you're in
00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 the north. And this weekend they're nearly
00:14:13 --> 00:14:13 there
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 Anna: on Saturday morning they're about 1.4
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 degrees apart. They're closest on Monday
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 morning the 16th at 1.2
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 degrees. That's a little more than two full
00:14:25 --> 00:14:28 moons side by side. Jupiter is
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 the brilliant 1 at magnitude -2.
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 Mars is the fainter, distinctly
00:14:34 --> 00:14:35 orange point right beside it.
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 Avery: By the way, you may see listings saying less
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 than 1 degree. Our calculation gives a
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 minimum of 1.19 degrees, and
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 NASA's own skywatching guide for the month
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 says 1.2, so we're comfortable with
00:14:49 --> 00:14:50 that figure.
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 Anna: Where to look depends very
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 Anna: much on where you are. An hour before
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 sunrise from Los Angeles, the pair is
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 69 degrees up, almost overhead in
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 the south southeast from New York,
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 63 degrees from London,
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 53 degrees due south
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 Avery: from Sydney. They're lower, about 30 degrees
00:15:11 --> 00:15:13 up in the north northeast, an hour before
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 sunrise. And sunrise is early 5:43,
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 so you're looking at about a quarter to five,
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 still an easy naked eyesight. Binoculars
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 will hold both planets in one view
00:15:24 --> 00:15:24 everywhere.
00:15:25 --> 00:15:28 Anna: Now, Venus, it's back as a morning
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 object after passing between us and the sun
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 last month. And it's dazzling,
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 magnitude -4.3 in a small
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 telescope, it's a big, thin Crescent,
00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 about 14% lit and 50
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 arcseconds across, with the star Spica, uh,
00:15:44 --> 00:15:45 a degree and a half away.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 Avery: The north gets the better of this one. An
00:15:49 --> 00:15:51 hour before sunrise, Venus is 15
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 to 17 degrees up from Los Angeles and New
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 York and about 14 from London.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 From Sydney, it's only 6 degrees above
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 the eastern horizon, so you need a clear,
00:16:03 --> 00:16:04 flat view.
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 Anna: And Mercury is strictly a northern target
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 this week. Low in the east southeast beneath
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 Venus. That gives Northern observers 4
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 planets in a line before dawn from
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 Sydney. Mercury is still below the horizon
00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 at that hour, so we get three.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 Avery: A, uh, safety note, and we say it every
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 episode. Venus and Mercury are close to where
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 the sun is about to rise. Stop sweeping with
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 binoculars or a telescope well before
00:16:32 --> 00:16:34 sunrise, and never look at the sun without
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 certified solar filters that meet the ISO
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 123122 international
00:16:39 --> 00:16:40 standard.
00:16:40 --> 00:16:43 Anna: The evening sky is the south's turn
00:16:43 --> 00:16:46 an hour after sunset. Saturn is 50
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 degrees up in the north from Sydney against
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 36 from Los Angeles, 30 from New
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 York and about 20 from London.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 The Moon is a waxing crescent in the west
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 tonight and Saturday, reaching first quarter
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 on Tuesday the 17th,
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 Avery: which is good news for the Leonid meteor
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 shower. Peaking on the mornings of the 17th
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 and 18th. A first quarter moon has set by
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 the small hours, so the sky is dark when
00:17:13 --> 00:17:14 it counts.
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 Anna: Expectations, though, this is
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19 Anna: a modest year, perhaps 15
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 meteors an hour under a dark sky.
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 And it favours the north again two
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 hours before sunrise. The radiant is about
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 60 degrees up from the northern cities
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 and only 12 degrees from Sydney,
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 Avery: so southern listeners will see a handful of
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 long ones skimming up from the northeastern
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 horizon. Honestly, this is a
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 northern week before dawn and a southern week
00:17:44 --> 00:17:45 after dusk.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 Some weeks it runs the other way,
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 Anna: and that's Astronomy daily for Friday
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 13th November. A rocket that
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 may be caught twice, a telescope that
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 has opened its books, and a robot that
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 has put together the first piece of something
00:18:03 --> 00:18:03 much bigger.
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 Avery: If Starship flies, we'll have the outcome in
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 tomorrow's weekend wrap, along with anything
00:18:09 --> 00:18:10 Euclid has shown us overnight.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 Anna: You can find every episode, our news feed
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 and the newsletter at astronomydaily
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 IO and we're @astrodaily pod on
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 social media. If you have a question, the
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 contact form on the site comes straight to
00:18:24 --> 00:18:24 the team.
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 Avery: Astronomy AstroDailyPod is part of the
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 bytes.com podcast network. I'm
00:18:30 --> 00:18:30 Avery.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 Anna: And I'm Anna. Clear skies and keep
00:18:33 --> 00:18:34 looking up.