Betelgeuse’s Hidden Companion Is Stirring the Red Supergiant’s Atmosphere

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02] This is Space Time Series 29 Episode 133, full broadcast on the 6th of November 2026. Coming up on Space Time, mysterious disturbances from Betelgeuse, solving the mystery of the Orion Nebula, and America's X-37B Space Shuttle continues its clandestine orbital mission. All that and more coming up on Space Time.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_00] Welcome to Space News Today with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_02] Astronomers have detected strange happenings on the mysterious companion star that lurks in the shadows of the red giant Betelgeuse. The recently discovered companion star, known as Shiwara, is smaller and far hotter than its binary partner. The new study, reported in the Astronomical Journal, used the Very Large Telescope in New Mexico and ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array in Chile, to show that Betelgeuse's atmosphere is being actively perturbed by its close-in stellar companion.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_02] The study's lead author, Lynn Matthews, from the Haystack Observatory, says because radio waves of different frequencies probe different depths within a star's atmosphere, the combined data has spilled up a layer-by-layer picture of Betelgeuse's atmosphere from just above its visible surface out to several times the star's radius. Betelgeuse is the bright red supergiant marking the shoulder of Orion and has long captivated astronomers and sky watchers alike. It's one of the 10 brightest stars in the night sky.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_02] The name Betelgeuse, meaning Hand of the Big Man, the big man being Orion the Hunter, is a twisted corruption of its original Arabic name, Iptal Yauza, although to most of our listeners it'll probably better be known as Betelgeuse. Don't say it three times. And since Betelgeuse means Hand of the Big Man, the companion star named Shiwara means Bracelet. Shiwara's existence was first proposed in 2024 to explain Betelgeuse's mysterious 2100-day brightness cycle and has since been confirmed by direct

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02] imaging and spectroscopic studies. Betelgeuse is located some 500 to 700 light years away and is some 700 times larger than our Sun. In fact, if Betelgeuse were placed where our Sun is at the centre of our solar system, its surface would extend all the way out to the orbit of Jupiter. In 2019, Betelgeuse experienced what we now call the Great Dimming Event, when it dramatically dropped in brightness, falling from 10th place down to around 20th. It was speculated that this could

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_02] have been a prelude to the star-going supernova, but it turned out to have simply been caused by a massive surface gas ejection that cooled and condensed into dust, temporarily blocking the star's light. Mind you, Betelgeuse will explode as a core-collapse supernova soon. Of course, in astronomical terms, soon could mean in a thousand years from now, or it could mean tomorrow. When it does blow up, Betelgeuse will become the second brightest object in the night sky after the

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_02] Moon, and it will be bright enough to be clearly visible in daylight. In 2019, months before the Great Dimming, a study by Matthews found that Betelgeuse's atmosphere at radio wavelengths was unusually cool, a sign researchers proposed that a shock wave triggered by convection deep within the star had disturbed gas in its outer layers, setting the stage for the massive dust-forming outburst that followed. The new observations show that the brightness temperature of the star's atmosphere

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_02] at those same wavelengths has since climbed back to more typical levels. The star's gas now measures at around 3,500 Kelvin, comparable to Betelgeuse's own surface temperature, near a radius of around 2.7 times that of the star's own size. The data also confirmed a long-suspected temperature minimum in Betelgeuse's atmosphere, a cool layer sandwiched between the star's visible surface, the photosphere, and the area above that known as the chromosphere. The authors' highest frequency ALMA measurements,

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_02] which reached closer to the star's surface than ever before, found gas temperatures dropping to roughly 2,200 Kelvin, more than a thousand degrees cooler than the photosphere itself. That chilly layer coincides with the so-called molesphere, a shell of molecular gas long inferred from infrared observations, but rarely probed so directly at radio wavelengths. Perhaps the most striking result, however, concerns Betelgeuse's

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_02] recently identified companion. Shiwara is thought to orbit deep within Betelgeuse's extended atmosphere, at a distance of only about twice the giant planet's radius. Matthew says the companion stars orbiting so close to Betelgeuse, it's like a jet boat tearing across a lake. It's likely leaving a wake in its path as the smaller star rips through the atmosphere. And as the newly spatially resolved observations of

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_02] Betelgeuse shows, Shiwara's presence is producing observable effects. By measuring the subtle egg-like shape of Betelgeuse's radio-emitting atmosphere across multiple epochs, the authors found that the star became noticeably more elongated near the times when the companion was expected to be at its greatest apparent separation from Betelgeuse, and rounder when the companion's expected to be passing directly in front or behind the star as seen from Earth. This is Space Time. Still to come, solving the

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_02] mystery of the Orion Nebula and America's X-37B space shuttle still on its clandestine mission orbiting the Earth. All that and more still to come, on Space Time.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_02] 3. Astronomers may have finally solved the mystery of the Orion Nebula, the largest star-forming region near Earth. For years, this giant stellar nursery has puzzled scientists with an age paradox, namely while

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_02] some of its stars appear to be older than the molecular gas and dust clouds which created them. The new findings, reported in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, suggest the paradox was caused by the merger of two of the stars within the nebula. The Orion Nebula, which is also known as Messier or M42, is the largest star-forming region visible to the unaided eye as what appears to be

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_02] the middle star in Orion's sword. Located 1,350 light-years away and spanning some 25 light-years across, the nebula contains some 2,000 times the mass of our Sun. It's one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features in astronomy, revealing much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of molecular gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_02] disks and brown dwarfs within the nebula. They've observed intense and turbulent motions of gas, and the photoionizing effects of massive nearby stars. Some of the young stars in the nebula are surrounded by disks of gas and dust in which planets are actually forming. Radiation from the massive central star, theta-1-Orion c-1, is gradually stripping material away from these disks, giving them shapes that resemble tadpoles. The disks are losing mass so rapidly that, given the edge of the

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_02] stars, which is around a million years each, they should have disappeared long ago. The large gas shell surrounding the central star poses another puzzle. The star sets the surrounding gas in motion, causing the shell to expand at around 13 km per second. Now extrapolating backwards from the speed suggests that the shell only formed a few hundred thousand years ago. The stars are therefore much older than both the gas shell and the dust disk,

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_02] that is the tadpoles, appear to be. The study's lead author Matej Wilhelm from the Leiden University, says theta-1-Orion c-1, which is a mass of around 33.5 times that of the Sun, formed when a binary star system merged. A binary system consists of two stars that orbit a common centre of gravity. Wilhelm and colleagues suspect that a third star disrupted the system, knocking one of the stars out of its stable orbit and eventually causing the two stars to collide. If the two stars

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_02] did merge a few hundred thousand years ago, the resulting star's luminosity, that is the amount of light it emits, must have increased sharply from that point onwards. So the authors use computer simulations to show that before the collision, the two stars emitted much less radiation, allowing the surrounding dust disks to survive for most of their lifetime. Only after the merger did the star's radiation increase sharply, triggering the rapid evaporation of the disks. The rapid expansion of the

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_02] gas shell however requires an additional explanation. See, the merger alone is estimated to provide somewhere around 30 times more driving force, whereas a factor of 100 is needed to explain the observed expansion. Wilhelm and colleagues suspect that cool gas from the evaporating disks also plays a role. As this gas mixes with the hot gas inside the expanding bubble, it provides the additional driving force needed. This scenario could also account for two other unusual features of theta-1-Orion c-1,

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_02] its observed tilted magnetic field, and a slight excess of nitrogen in the star. If correct, it's the first time astronomers have witnessed the consequences of a major stellar collision in our cosmic neighbourhood. It also shows that stellar collisions may be much more common than previously thought, and that they have far-reaching consequences for their surrounding space as a result. This is space-time.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_02] Still to come, America's X-37 space shuttle still on mission, and the giant spiral galaxy M-31 Andromeda, the Crab Nebula M-1, and three meteor showers are among the highlights of the November night skies on Skywatch.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_02] The United States Space Force's X-37B space plane is now almost 14 months into its latest clandestine mission testing new quantum inertial navigation technology. The flight's goal is to develop a completely self-contained navigation alternative that eliminates dependency on GPS. Traditional inertial measurement units rely on mechanical components or mirrors that experience microscopic

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_02] drift over time, gradually introducing navigation errors. But the X-37B's new quantum system bypasses this using atom interferometry. This involves ultra-cold rubidium atoms or something similar, trapped and cooled by fine-tuned lasers to near absolute zero. That allows them to reach a stage where they behave like waves rather than particles. Laser pulses then split each atom into a quantum superpositioning state, simultaneously travelling along two different paths before recombining.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02] When the paths recombine, they form an interference pattern resembling overlapping ripples on water. Because the atoms are perfectly identical and immutable, any tiny rotation or micro-acceleration shifts the wave pattern detected, allowing the spacecraft to plot its position continuously without drift or external reference signals. The unmanned X-37B space plane launched on its current mission,

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_02] designated OVT-8, back in August last year from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. As well as testing quantum navigation in flight, it also tested laser communication systems, flew with an expanded service module hosting a number of classified experiments for the US Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defence Innovation Unit. The latest update on this classified mission comes

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02] as new images have been released exposing China's own highly secretive version of the X-37B. And just like Russia's Buran space shuttle was a copy of the more famous American shuttles, Beijing's version of the X-37B, called the Shenglong or Divine Dragon, appears to be an almost carbon copy of its American counterpart, even down to the compact shuttle-like body, delta wings, twin vertical tail fins and central payload bay with hatches that open in orbit. It even includes a rear-mounted service

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_02] module complete with solar arrays. This is Space Time. And time now to turn our eyes to the skies and check out the celestial sphere for November on Skywatch. High in the northern skies of November, you'll find the constellation Pegasus, the Mesopotamian and Etruscan mythical winged horse, who was born from the blood of Medusa the Gorgon after she was slain by Perseus. The brightest star

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_02] in Pegasus is the orange supergiant Epsilon Pegasi, located some 690 light years away. It's estimated to have about 185 times the sun's radius and 12 times its mass. Epsilon Pegasi, together with the stars Markab, Al-Janeb, Shahid and Alpha Andromeda forms the asterism or pattern of stars known as the Great Square of Pegasus. A bunch of bright naked ice stars shaped like a square. One of the stars in this

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_02] constellation is 51 Pegasi. 51 Pegasi is a sun-like star located 51 light years away. On October 6 1995, astronomers announced the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting the star. It was the first ever confirmed detection of a planet orbiting another star. The planet has around half the mass of Jupiter and is thought to be a gas giant. But it wasn't what scientists were expecting. The planet orbits the

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02] star in just four Earth days. That's much closer than Mercury's 88-day orbit around the sun. Because it orbits so close to the star, 51 Pegasi b as it's called, experiences temperatures estimated to be around 1200 degrees Celsius. Now at the time of its discovery, this close distance was not compatible with theories of planetary formation and resulted in a lot of discussion among scientists about the idea of planetary migration. However, since its discovery, numerous other so-called hot Jupiters

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_02] have been detected, pretty much confirming planetary migration to be real. By the way, a light year? Well that's the distance a photon can travel in a year at the speed of light, which is some 300,000 kilometers per second in a vacuum and the ultimate speed limit of the universe. Also visible in Pegasus is the M15 or NGC 7078 globular cluster, which is located around 33,600 light years away. Globular

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_02] clusters are tight balls containing thousands of stars, which are all originally formed at the same time out of the same molecular gas and dust cloud. M15 is estimated to be around 12 billion years old, making it one of the oldest known globular clusters. And it contains around 100,000 stars, making it one of the most densely packed globular clusters in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Its cores undergone a contraction known as core collapse, and it has a central density cusp with an enormous

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02] number of stars orbiting very rapidly around what appears to be a central black hole. M15 also contains at least 112 variable stars, eight pulsars including one double neutron star system, and the first ever planetary nebula found in a globular cluster. Now if you're in or near the northern hemisphere and away from city lights, you'll notice a fuzzy patch of light right next to Pegasus.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_02] This is the giant spiral galaxy, M31 Andromeda. Andromeda is the biggest galaxy in our local galactic group. Located some 2.5 million light years away, Andromeda consists of more than a trillion stars, around twice the number found in the Milky Way. And it's huge, some 220,000 light years across. Based on current estimates, Andromeda appears to have more older stars than the Milky Way.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_02] It also has far less new star production going on than our galaxy. And the rate of supernovae in the Milky Way is also about double that in Andromeda. Andromeda is surrounded by a large massive halo of hot gas and plasma, estimated to contain at least half the mass of the stars in the galaxy. This nearly invisible halo stretches about a million light years from its host galaxy. That's almost halfway towards the Milky Way. Using a good pair of binoculars or a backyard telescope,

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_02] you'll see dark dust lanes in Andromeda's spiral arms, and you'll see its bright central galactic core. Now over time, Andromeda will become a lot clearer. That's because it's getting closer. You see, the Milky Way and Andromeda are expected to collide in about 3.7 to 4.5 billion years from now. The two spirals eventually merging to form a new giant elliptical galaxy.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_02] What that means for the future of the Earth, the Sun and our solar system is a matter of great ongoing debate. The gravitational tidal perturbations from the encounter could rip our solar system apart, or even fling us out into intergalactic space. At this stage, only time will tell. Looking to the east and slightly south of Pegasus, you'll see the ancient constellation of Cetus, the Great Whale Sea Monster. The brightest star in the constellation

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_02] is Beta Seti or Denebcatos, an orange giant located 96 light years away. The name Denebcatos means the whale's tail. Another one of the stars in Cetus is Mira, the first variable star ever discovered. Located some 420 light years away, Mira pulsates in brightness over a period of 332 days, changing in diameter from around 400 to 500

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_02] times the diameter of our Sun. Also visible is Alpha Seti, traditionally called Menka the nose. It's a red-hued giant star some 220 light years away. It's actually a double star, with a secondary 93 seti being a blue-white star some 440 light years away. Gamma seti or the head of the whale is another double star. The primary is a yellow star 82 light years from Earth, while the secondary is a blue star.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_02] Also in Cetus, located some 11.9 light years away, is the yellow dwarf star Tau seti, the nearest sun-like star to the Earth other than the Sun. Astronomers describe stars in terms of spectrotypes. It's a classification system based on temperature and other characteristics. The hottest, most massive and most luminous stars are known as spectrotype O blue stars. That's followed by spectrotype B blue-white stars, then spectrotype A white stars,

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_02] spectrotype F whitish yellow stars, then comes spectrotype G yellow stars, that's where our Sun fits in. Slightly cooler are spectrotype K orange stars, and then the coolest and least massive stars known, are spectrotype M red stars. Each spectral classification can then further be subdivided, using a numeric digit to represent temperature, with zero being the hottest and nine the coolest. And then you add a Roman numeral to represent luminosity.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_02] So at the end of all that, our Sun is classified as a G2V, or if you prefer G25, yellow dwarf star. Also included in the stellar classification system are spectrotypes LT and Y, which are assigned to failed stars known as brown dwarves, some of which were actually born as spectrotype M red stars, but then became brown dwarves after losing some of their mass. Brown dwarves fit in a unique category

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02] between the largest planets, which are about 13 times the mass of Jupiter, and the smallest spectrotype M red stars, which can be 75 to 80 times the mass of Jupiter, or 0.08 solar masses. South of Cetus, you'll see the brilliant star Achenar, which means the river's end, as it marks the end of the river Aridinus. Achenar is a binary system, which make up the star Alpha Aridinus, which is the brightest

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_02] star or point of light lying at the southern tip of the constellation Aridinus. The two components of Alpha Aridinus are designated Alpha Aridinus A and Alpha Aridinus B, and located some 139 light years away. Of the 10 apparent brightest stars in our night sky, Alpha Aridinus is the hottest and bluest in colour. That's due to Achenar being a spectrotype B main sequence star. Achenar also has an unusually

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_02] rapid rotational velocity, causing it to be quite oblate in shape. The second star in the system is a smaller spectrotype A white star, and orbits the primary star at a distance of around 12 astronomical units. An astronomical unit is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, which is about 150 million kilometres or just over 8.3 light minutes. Follow Ayridinus towards the east, and you'll see

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02] the magnificent constellation Orion the Hunter, a familiar signpost for southern summer skies. To the west of Orion is the constellation Taurus the Bull, and located in Taurus is M1 the Crab Nebula. It's the remnant of a star which Chinese astronomers saw explode as a supernova on July the 4th in the year 1054. They recorded the sudden appearance of a new star on their sky charts at the exact position

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_02] of the Crab Nebula. The supernova appeared brighter than the planet Venus for weeks on end, before finally fading completely from view after almost two years. The Crab Nebula is located some 7,000 light years away. It's expanding at a rate of over 5 million kilometres per hour. At the heart of the nebula is a rapidly spinning neutron star or pulsar, rotating some 30 times every second. It's emitting radiation in all

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_02] wavelengths from gamma rays and X-rays through ultraviolet, optical and infrared, and on into radio waves. Observations indicate the pulsar's spin rate is slowing down, and it will fall to just half its current rotational rate in the next thousand years. November is also a great time to check out the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, one of the nearest and most spectacular open star clusters to Earth.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_02] Also known as M45, the Pleiades are located in the constellation Taurus. Now depending on whose measurements you prefer, the Pleiades are located somewhere between 118 and 137 parsecs away, a parsec being 3.26 light years. The Pleiades are composed of mostly hot blue-white stars. Amazingly, different cultures in vastly different parts of the world all describe the Pleiades as Seven Sisters or Seven

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_02] Women, possibly some sort of ancient throwback to very early human civilisation. Just like October, November also sees three meteor showers. There's the November Orionids, as well as the Torids and the Leonids. Although peaking in late October, the Orionids continue to sprinkle down during the start of November, and are usually at their best in the wee small hours before

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_02] dawn. They're generated by the debris trail left behind by the comet Halley, and appear to radiate out from the direction of the constellation Orion the Hunter, hence their name. The Torids are generated by the comet Enki, and as their name suggests, they appear to radiate out from the constellation Taurus the Bull. Now Enki and the Torids are believed to be the remnants of a much larger comet which disintegrated sometime in the past 20,000 to 30,000 years, breaking into several pieces,

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_02] and releasing material by normal cometary activity, and maybe occasionally through close encounters with the gravitational tidal force of the Earth and other planets. In fact, the cometary stream of material from the Torids is the largest in the inner solar system. And being so spread out, the Earth takes several weeks to pass through it all. That means there's an extended period of meteor activity compared to the much smaller periods of activity for other meteor showers. Interactions with the giant gas planet

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_02] Jupiter have also caused the Torids to be segmented into separate northern and southern streams. The southern Torids usually last from around September 25th to around November 25th, the northern Torids go from October 12th to around December 2nd. The Torids are usually quite diffuse, only producing about 7 meteors per hour. However, they're composed of far more massive material, think of pebbles instead of dust grains, and so they tend to produce a higher percentage of very

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02] bright meteors known as fireballs, produced by the larger meteoroids burning through the atmosphere. The southern Torids should be putting on their best show just after midnight around now. The third meteor shower in November are the Leonids which peak around November 18th. They usually produce around 15 meteors an hour, but have been known to occasionally produce some spectacular meteor storms,

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_02] with showers in 1999, 2001 and 2002 producing around 3000 Leonid meteors per hour. But one of the best had to have been the Leonid's meteor shower of 1966, which generated literally thousands of meteors per minute falling like illuminated rain. The Leonids are usually picked up after midnight, with peaks occurring just before dawn. Produced by debris from the comet Temple Tuttle,

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_02] the Leonids radiate out from the constellation Leo the Lion. And they're a fast-moving stream, encountering the path of the Earth at 72 kilometers per second. Larger Leonids, which are about 10 millimeters across, can have a mass of half a gram and are known to generate really bright meteors. It's been calculated that the annual Leonid's meteor shower can deposit 12 to 13 tons of particles across the planet.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02] Jonathan Nally from Sky and Telescope magazine joins us now for the rest of our tour of the November night skies.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_01] G'day Stuart. Yeah, well it's almost summer for those of us here in the southern hemisphere. It's winter of course for our friends in the northern hemisphere, but for me this is the best part of year for stargazers. Down here where it's getting warmer of course, we've got warm nights, we've got good weather and lots of fantastic things to see in the sky because some of the best constellations are visible towards the end of the year, bringing lots of bright stars and lots of really good deep sky objects, which is the thing that backyard astronomers really like. So the mid-evening sky in November begins with the Milky Way. It's low in the west, not right down on the horizon, but fairly low in the west. The Milky Way of course is just our galaxy seen from the inside,

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01] and if you're in the city you probably can't see the Milky Way, but if you can get out in the country or somewhere where it's dark you will see this big sort of milky band across the sky, our galaxy seen from the inside. So it's down a bit in the west, what you can see over there is constellation of Scorpius, the scorpion sticking straight up from the horizon with its tail and stinger sticking straight up. One of the few constellations that actually looks like what it's supposed to be. Another constellation famous one, Sagittarius is just next door, and Sagittarius, when you look in the direction of Sagittarius you're looking towards the center of our Milky Way

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_01] galaxy. So there's lots of stuff to see in there because you're looking right into the busy part of the galaxy. You know, like the heart of the galaxy. Looking into downtown, looking in the central business district. That's right, yeah. Next door there's, now that's a big constellation, next door there's a little constellation called Corona Australis, which means the southern crown, which has a nice little compact group of stars in a semi-circle, just like a crown or tiara. There's also a Corona Borealis in the northern part of the sky that our friends in the north can see, and it too is just like you've

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_01] got a little semi-circle of stars like a crown or tiara, but Corona Borealis is a bit bigger. Now over in the eastern part of the sky, we've got the constellation Orion finally, now up above the horizon as is Taurus. This is the sign for us in the south that summer is approaching or winter in the northern half of the planet. Our friends up in the northern half of the planet, too, they love this time of year for stargazing because you can see all this great stuff. Unfortunately though, it's cold. They really got to rag up when they go outside. I mentioned Taurus. Taurus has two very easily seen star clusters. One is a large wedge-shaped

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_01] group of stars known as the Hyades or Hyades, and the other one is the smaller Pleiades, and the Pleiades is a really good test of your eyesight and the quality of your sky, how much light pollution and everything you've got. If you've got good eyes, you can go out and have a look at this little star cluster and see how many stars you can see just with the unaided eye. What you might have to do is use what's called averted vision. Don't look directly at the stars, just sort of look out the corner of your eyes, sort of direct your eyes just a little

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_01] bit to the right or the left, and just look out the corner of your eye. That sometimes makes it easier to see because the way our eye is set up, we've got these different receptors in it, the rods and cones for bright color vision and dim black and white vision. Of course, nighttime, dim black and white. So you need to use the part of the eye that's, or you don't have to, but it makes it better sometimes if you use a slightly averted vision. Now, the middle part of the sky, it's filled with a bunch of constellations that most non-astronomers have never heard of. So they've got

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_01] the fournets, the furnace. We've got horologium, the clock, the rust, the crane, crane as in a bird, not the big thing that builds buildings. We've got Tucana, the toucan. We've got microscopium, the microscope. We've got dorado, which is a fish. We've got reticulum, which is crosshairs, which I believe these are the sort of crosshairs that you would have in a telescope or a rifle sight or something like that. And there are plenty more as well. So there are 88 constellations all up and most of them, most people have never heard of. Now, if you're trying to find the Southern Cross,

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_01] which is down in the South, you have to be pretty quick or a long way South to have a look at it this time of year, because during the evening of this time of year, the cross is upside down and either very low on the Southern horizon for some people, or it's hidden below the horizon. For others, it dips down below. It just depends on the latitude of where you're looking from. So for me here in Sydney, it's right down on the Southern horizon, the theoretical flat Southern horizon. But what I also have in the way is buildings on the other side of the street, now the houses and things, so that tends to block it out, let alone the light pollution.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01] On the other hand, if you're stargazing in the pre-dawn hours, if you're staying up late or you're getting up early, you'll be able to find the cross quite easily. It'll be lying on its left-hand side about a third of the way up from the Southern horizon. And the two pointer stars are nearby too, one of them being the famous Alpha Centauri, which is a triple star system that's the closest star system to our solar system. So by about 3am or so in the morning, the sky has changed quite a lot as the Earth has rotated and brought new constellations into view. Orion is now nice and high.

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_01] We've got Canis Major with its bright star Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. That's up nice and high. We've got Gemini and Leo and Cancer and some of these more famous constellations up in the northern half of the sky. And they'll be visible in the early morning now, but give it a few months and they'll be visible in the evening. So that's why I say the end of the year period is really tremendous because a lot of good stuff is visible this time of year. Now as far as the planets go, at the beginning of this month, we only have Saturn on show really during the hours before midnight, but it's pretty easy to spot because it's up nice and high, about halfway up from the northern horizon

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_01] as seen from the southern hemisphere. So the naked eye Saturn just looks like a bright star, but you get even a small telescope onto it, just even a little tiny one, and you will be able to see that it's not just a point of light, it is a planet. And even a small telescope will show its ring system. The rings at the moment are, they're not edge on, but they're not really side on either. So they're sort of more towards edge on than side on. So they don't look as fantastic as they often do, but give it a few years and the way our line of sight, our perspective lines up with from Earth to

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_01] Saturn changes from year to year. So as the years come, we'll get a much better view of the ring system again. So Mars and Jupiter are next. They both rise over the northeastern horizon a little before three in the morning at the beginning of the month, but getting earlier as each day goes by, so by about 1am by the end of the month. And they're fairly easy to tell apart. Jupiter is big and bright and bold. Mars is a dimmer and a sort of a ruddy orange-reddish sort of color. They're reasonably close together to start with, but they'll move even closer together as the days go

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_01] by this month, especially from around about the 12th to the 20th. And on the morning of the 17th, there'll be only three moon weeks apart. That's when they're going to be closest. So that should be really quite something to see in the night sky. And speaking of the moon, at the end of the month, on the 1st of December, as the moon is sort of making its way across the sky night after night, it will plonk itself right next to both Mars and Jupiter. So you'll have the three of them. And if that's not enough, also very close to this little trio, the whole time basically will be

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_01] a bright star called Regulus, which is the brightest star in the constellation Leo. So you'll have, so on the 1st of December, you'll have two planets, one moon and one really bright star all within a few degrees of each other. That's going to look pretty specky. I might actually even get up for that one and have a look. Now also in the morning star, we've got Venus, which is rising in the east about 45 minutes before the sun at the start of the month, which means you'll have to try and spot it mixed in with the sort of pre-dawn glow. But as each day passes, Venus will rise higher and

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_01] higher. So it means it's rising earlier and earlier before the sun and it will reach its maximum height above the horizon of about 25 degrees by the end of November. And at this stage, yes, it will have moved out of the worst of the pre-dawn glow, the sort of beautiful orange dusty sort of colors in the dawn. So this month actually is a really good time to see Venus as will December be because Venus sort of slowly make its way back down towards the horizon. So Venus, of course, is the planet that is often known as the morning star in inverted commas or the evening star in inverted commas,

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_01] depending on whether it's visible in the morning or even sometimes. It can't be both. It's one or the other. Or the UFO planet. Yeah, the UFO planet. Yeah. Because we all walk around with our heads down, looking down at the ground, worrying about things. And you look up and suddenly think, what on earth is that big bright light up there? That wasn't there yesterday. Of course it was. It had been there for weeks and weeks, but don't often notice it. So yeah, it does spark a lot of UFO type reports. And while people have been even really freaked out by things because if you convince

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01] yourself that it's following you, it looks like it's following you. It's one of those funny things, like those cardboard cutouts of figures. They arrange the eyes and the cardboard cutouts. The eyes follow you. Yeah, yeah. Well, you can trick yourself in Venus as well. I remember reading an account of someone, a woman, I think it was driving through an avenue of, sort of like an avenue of poplar trees. It gives you a sort of strobe-like effect when Venus is sort of popping in and out between the trees as you're driving along. And this woman was convinced that it was like a UFO only a few

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_01] hundred meters away, flying alongside the road following her. She drove straight to a police station to afford it. But of course, it's a planet millions and millions of kilometers away. So it's easy to be tricked. Anyway, it looks really nice in the night sky. All the morning skies, it's going to be for this month. And so that's Stuart, the night sky for November.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_02] That's senior science writer and sky and telescope contributor, Jonathan Nally. And this is Space News Today. And that's the show for now. Space News Today is available every Monday,

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[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_00] This has been another quality podcast production from Bytes.com.