00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 dose of space and astronomy news. I'm
00:00:05 --> 00:00:06 Anna.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 >> And I'm Avery. It's Thursday, the 16th
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 of July, 2026, and we have a genuinely
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 lovely lineup for you today, including a
00:00:15 --> 00:00:17 story that's been 10 years in the
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 making. Or more accurately, 10 years in
00:00:19 --> 00:00:20 the hiding.
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 >> That's our lead. Astronomers have
00:00:23 --> 00:00:24 finally caught a planet that's been
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 playing hideand seek with them for over
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 a decade. And it turns out to be the
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 faintest exoplanet ever imaged from
00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 Earth. And it lives in a southern
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 constellation, which makes it feel just
00:00:36 --> 00:00:37 a little bit like ours.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 >> We've also got the completion of a
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 9-year project to build the sharpest
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 radio map of the entire sky and the
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 James Web Space Telescope catching a
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 super massive black hole in the act of
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 feeding itself. Ben, it's a double bill
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 from the outer solar system. Landslides
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 on Pluto spotted for the first time and
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 evidence that Pluto's big moon Cheron
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 once spun more than 10 times faster than
00:01:03 --> 00:01:04 it does today.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 >> And we'll wrap the news with some
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 sobering numbers. SpaceX's Starlink
00:01:09 --> 00:01:10 satellites had to dodge potential
00:01:10 --> 00:01:14 collisions more than 355
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 times in the past year. We'll unpack
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 what that means for everyone's orbit.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 plus your southern hemisphere sky
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 watching for tonight. Let's get into it.
00:01:23 --> 00:01:27 Avery, cast your mind back. In 2008,
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 astronomers directly imaged a planet
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 around the young star Beta Ptorus, one
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 of the very first exoplanets ever
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 photographed. That was Beta Pictorius B.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 A second planet C followed and ever
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 since there's been a nagging suspicion
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 that the system was hiding something
00:01:45 --> 00:01:45 more
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 >> because of the disc, right? Beta Pctorus
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 has this magnificent debris disc. It's
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 the poster child for planet formation.
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 And parts of it were warped and sculpted
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 in ways that two known planets couldn't
00:01:57 --> 00:01:58 fully explain.
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 >> Exactly. And now we know why. In a study
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 published Wednesday in the Astrophysical
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 Journal Letters, a team using the
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 European Southern Observatory's Very
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 Large Telescope in Chile has confirmed a
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 third planet, Beta Pictorius D. And
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 here's the headline stat. It's roughly
00:02:16 --> 00:02:20 100 times fainter than Beta Pictorius B,
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 which makes it the faintest exoplanet
00:02:22 --> 00:02:25 ever directly imaged from Earth. 100
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 times fainter. To put that in context
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 for everyone, direct imaging means
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 actually capturing the planet's own
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 light in a photograph next to a star
00:02:34 --> 00:02:36 that's overwhelmingly brighter. It's
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 often compared to spotting a firefly
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 next to a lighthouse. This is spotting a
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 very dim firefly. And the discovery
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 itself was serendipitous. Ben Sutliff at
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 the University of Edinburgh, who co-led
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 the study, said they were originally
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 just going back to study the known
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 planet Beta Pictorius B to see how it
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 changed over time. But in their new
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 images from the VLT's AIS instrument,
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 there was something else, a faint point
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 of light separated from planet B that
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 sent them down an entirely new path.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 >> And this is where the hideand seek comes
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 in. Once they knew what to look for,
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 they trled back through the archives and
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 there it was, lurking in more than a
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 decade of old observations from the VT
00:03:22 --> 00:03:23 sphere instrument. And even in James
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 Webb's space telescope data, the planet
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 had been photographed for years. Nobody
00:03:29 --> 00:03:30 had noticed.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 >> Co-author Jane Burkeby at Oxford put it
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 beautifully. Planet D has been playing
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 hideand seek with us for over a decade.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 And now we can say, "Found you." So,
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 what do we know about the world itself?
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 >> It's a gas giant about 2.4 times the
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 mass of Jupiter, which sounds big, but
00:03:49 --> 00:03:50 is actually the lightweight of the
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 family. Planets B and C are each 10
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 Jupiter masses. Planet D sits much
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 further out from the star on a wide
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 orbit, so it's cooler and dimmer than
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 its siblings, hence the difficulty. And
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 satisfyingly, its presence helps explain
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 that odd structure in the debris disc
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 that's puzzled astronomers for years.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 >> There's also a nice milestone tucked in
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 here. This makes Beta Ptorus only the
00:04:15 --> 00:04:19 second planetary system after HR8799
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 where more than two planets have been
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 directly imaged. We're building up
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 actual family portraits of other solar
00:04:26 --> 00:04:27 systems. now
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 >> and an independent team at the
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 University of California spotted the
00:04:31 --> 00:04:33 same object in her own data at almost
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 the same time which gives the detection
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 real confidence. Now the bit our
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 audience will love Beta Ptorus is a
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 southern star. It sits in the
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 constellation Pictor the painters easel
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 just next to Brilliant Canopus and at 63
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 lighty years away it's visible from
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 Australia and New Zealand. Though right
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 now in July, it's low in our evening sky
00:04:56 --> 00:04:57 and best hunted in the pre-dawn hours
00:04:58 --> 00:04:59 later in the year.
00:04:59 --> 00:05:01 >> A planetary system with three
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 photographed worlds sitting in our
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 southern sky. Not bad at all. Next, a n
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 a project 9 years in the making has just
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 crossed the finish line. The US National
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 Science Foundation's National Radio
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 Astronomy Observatory has announced that
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 observations for the Very Large Array
00:05:20 --> 00:05:24 Sky Survey, VLAS, are complete. It's the
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 most detailed radio survey of the sky
00:05:27 --> 00:05:28 ever conducted.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 >> This is the VA in New Mexico, the iconic
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 Y-shaped array of 27 dishes from every
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 space documentary ever made.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 >> That's the one. From September 2017
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 through February this year, the array
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 repeatedly swept about 34 square
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 degrees. Essentially, the whole sky
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 visible from New Mexico. Everything
00:05:50 --> 00:05:54 north of -40° declination. That's
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 roughly 80% of the entire celestial
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 sphere mapped at a resolution of about 2
00:06:00 --> 00:06:04 1/2 arcseconds in the 2 to 4 GHz band.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:05 >> And how does that compare to what came
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 before? It's about 18 times sharper than
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 the previous benchmark all sky radio
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 survey from the 1990s. The numbers are
00:06:14 --> 00:06:18 staggering, roughly 6 1/2 observing
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 hours, half a pabyte of raw data, and
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 the processed data products are expected
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 to reach around 2 pabytes, the largest
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 data volume the VA has ever produced.
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 They use a clever on the-fly mosaicing
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 technique where the antennas sweep
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 continuously across the sky in a raster
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 pattern rather than stopping to point at
00:06:39 --> 00:06:40 each field.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 >> And crucially, they surveyed the sky
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 multiple times over those nine years,
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 which means Vlass isn't just a map, it's
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 a movie. Comparing epochs revealed a
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 dynamic radio sky sources that flare,
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 fade, or appear from nowhere. exploding
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 stars, feeding black holes, colliding
00:06:58 --> 00:06:59 neutron stars.
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 >> Which brings us to the timing. And
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 honestly, the timing is the best part of
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 the story. Just over 2 weeks ago, on
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 June 30th, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 in Chile began its decadel long legacy
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 survey of space and time, sweeping the
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 southern optical sky every few nights.
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 So for the first time in history, we
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 have a complete highresolution radio map
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 and a real-time optical transient stream
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 operating simultaneously.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 >> Though when Reuben flags something going
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 bang in the optical, astronomers can
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 immediately check what that patch of sky
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 looks like and looked like in the radio.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 The whole multi-wavelength discovery
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 machine the community has spent two
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 decades building is now switched on
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 >> and the data is public. Radio
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 astronomers, multi-wavelength folks,
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 citizen scientists, the radio sky now
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 belongs to everyone.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 >> Now to a decades old mystery that may
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 finally have its answer, Avery. How do
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 super massive black holes keep feeding?
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 Nearly every large galaxy hosts one of
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 these monsters. Millions or billions of
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 times the mass of the sun. When they
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 feed, they blast out enormous energy,
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 powerful jets that heat the gas around
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 them. And that's the paradox. That
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 heating should cut off the black hole's
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 own fuel supply. So why don't they
00:08:19 --> 00:08:20 starve?
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 >> The leading idea has been a kind of
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 cosmic recycling loop. The heated gas
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 eventually cools back down, condenses
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 into long, thin streamers called
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 filaments and rains back towards the
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 center, self-regulating. But actually
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 seeing the connection filament to black
00:08:37 --> 00:08:40 hole has eluded astronomers for decades
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 >> until now. An international team led by
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 Julia Havlassa Laurando at the
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 University of Montreal pointed the James
00:08:47 --> 00:08:51 Webb Space Telescope at NGC 4696,
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 the giant elliptical galaxy at the heart
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 of the Centurus cluster about 145
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 million lighty years away. Their results
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 were published this week in the
00:09:00 --> 00:09:02 astrophysical journal Letters.
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 >> And Centurus, we should note, is a
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 southern constellation. This galaxy
00:09:06 --> 00:09:08 cluster rides high in our winter sky
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 right now, though you'll need a decent
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 telescope for the galaxy itself.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 >> Right. Now, Hubble had previously
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 photographed a curious S-shaped swirl of
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 gas near this galaxy's central black
00:09:19 --> 00:09:20 hole. But Hubble could only show where
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 the gas sat, not how it moved. So the
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 team gave Web's NISP instrument nearly 8
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 hours on the target and mapped the
00:09:28 --> 00:09:30 motion of the gas deep inside the black
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 hole sphere of influence, resolving
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 features just 30 light years across in a
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 galaxy hundreds of thousands of
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 light-years wide. And the swirl turned
00:09:40 --> 00:09:41 out to be
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 >> a spinning disc of gas wrapped around
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 the black hole nearly 800 lightyears
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 across with material whipping around at
00:09:50 --> 00:09:53 up to 600 km per second. And here's the
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 money shot. That disc is physically
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 connected to one of the huge infalling
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 filaments stretching out into the
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 galaxy. They watched gas flowing along
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 the filament pouring into the disc and
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 from the disc falling onto the black
00:10:08 --> 00:10:09 hole.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 >> The missing link caught on camera. Heat
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 the gas. The gas cools into filaments.
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 The filaments feed the disc. The disc
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 feeds the black hole. The black hole
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 heats the gas. Round and round it goes.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 >> Pavlocondo said web is revealing that
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 black holes might be the ultimate cosmic
00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 recyclers. And because this feeding loop
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 shapes when galaxies can and can't form
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 stars, understanding it is really
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 understanding how galaxies, including
00:10:34 --> 00:10:35 ours, grow up.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 >> Anna, time for a double bill from the
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 outer solar system. Two stories, one
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 spacecraft, and a dwarf planet that
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 keeps on giving. First, scientists have
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 detected landslides on Pluto for the
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 very first time.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 >> This is New Horizon's data, isn't it?
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 That flyby was 11 years ago this week.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 >> It is. And that's the delightful part. A
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 paper in the journal Icorus, which has
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 been making headlines this week, reports
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 that an international team went back
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 through the highresolution images from
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 New Horizon's Lori camera. Pictures
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 showing Pluto's surface at about 300 m
00:11:11 --> 00:11:15 per pixel and found six large landslides
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 inside three impact craters near Sputnik
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 Planita, that famous heart-shaped
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 nitrogen ice plane. How do you recognize
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 a landslide on a world made of ice?
00:11:25 --> 00:11:26 >> Same fingerprints as Earth.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 Crescent-shaped collapse scars near the
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 crater rims, huge displaced blocks of
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 ice, and debris fanning out across the
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 crater floors. The team measured them.
00:11:35 --> 00:11:39 These slides descend 1 12 to over 2 km
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 run out as far as 14 1/2 km, and the
00:11:42 --> 00:11:46 largest covers around the 130 km.
00:11:46 --> 00:11:47 >> And landslides are everywhere else,
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 aren't they? Earth, Mars, series,
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 asteroids. Even Pluto's moon, Sharon,
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 showed evidence years ago. Pluto itself
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 was the odd one out,
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 >> which was genuinely puzzling because
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 Pluto has steep crater walls and rugged
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 icy terrain. All the right ingredients.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 Now, the gap is filled, and it tells us
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 gravity-driven slope processes are
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 actively reshaping Pluto's frozen
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 surface, even under gravity a fraction
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 of ours. What triggered them is still
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 open. Possibilities range from tectonic
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 activity to meteoroid impacts.
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 >> A world we visited for a few hours in
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 2015 still handing us firsts a decade
00:12:25 --> 00:12:26 later.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 >> And it's not done because part two of
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 our Pluto double is about the other half
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 of that famous pair.
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 >> Jiren Pluto's enormous moon so big
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 relative to Pluto that the two really
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 form a double world. And a study
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 published Tuesday in Nature
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 Communications says Sharon's mountains
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 have preserved a memory of a wilder
00:12:47 --> 00:12:47 youth.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 >> What kind of memory?
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 >> A record of despinning across the solar
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 system. Tidal forces gradually slow a
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 body's rotation. And as the spin slows,
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 the body's shape relaxes, stressing and
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 cracking the surface. It's long been
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 theorized for Sharon, but clear
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 geological evidence was missing. So
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 Hanzang Chin and colleagues at ETH Zoric
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 and UCLA examined the orientations and
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 types of tectonic features, mountain
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 ranges and faults in Oz Terra, Sharon's
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 northern rugged highlands. Again, using
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 New Horizon's flyby data,
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 >> and the tectonic pattern fits the
00:13:26 --> 00:13:27 despinning story
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 >> beautifully. Their modeling suggests
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 Sharon's rotation period was once around
00:13:32 --> 00:13:35 14.3 hours and it has since slowed to
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 today's roughly 153 hours, locked in
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 step with its orbit around Pluto. That's
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 more than a 10-fold slowdown, and the
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 stresses from that transformation are
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 etched into the mountains we
00:13:47 --> 00:13:48 photographed in 2015.
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 >> Chen said the study drastically changed
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 her understanding of Cheron's geological
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 history. And there's a bonus finding,
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 isn't there, about how Cheron was born.
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 Yes, the way despinning and global
00:14:00 --> 00:14:03 contraction evolved together favors
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 what's called a cold start for Sharon,
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 which is a real clue to the early
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 thermal history of icy moons across the
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 outer solar system. So, between Pluto's
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 landslides and Sharon's slowing spin,
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 one 11-year-old data set gave us two
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 papers in a week. Not a bad return on a
00:14:20 --> 00:14:21 flyby.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 >> Our final story today, Anna, comes with
00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 some genuinely eyewidening numbers.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 SpaceX has filed its latest semiannual
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 constellation status report with the US
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 Federal Communications Commission. And
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 according to coverage of the filing,
00:14:36 --> 00:14:42 Starling satellites performed 27
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 collision avoidance maneuvers between
00:14:44 --> 00:14:48 December 2025 and May 2026.
00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 >> 207
00:14:50 --> 00:14:51 in 6 months.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 >> Up nearly 60 on the previous half
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 year. Put the two periods together and
00:14:57 --> 00:15:01 the constellation made over 355
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 dodges in 12 months, more than triple
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 what it performed in all of 2024. At on
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 average, each Starling satellite now
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 swerves more than 40 times a year.
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 That's nearly a dodge a week per
00:15:15 --> 00:15:16 satellite.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 >> Let's be fair to SpaceX for a moment,
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 though. These maneuvers are the system
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 working as designed, aren't they?
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 >> They are. The satellites dodge
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 autonomously whenever the predicted
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 collision probability exceeds 3 in 10
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 million, an extremely conservative
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 threshold, far tighter than the industry
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 standard. Experts consistently credit
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 SpaceX with managing its traffic well
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 and being transparent with the data. The
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 concern is the trend line, not the
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 competence. because the numbers
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 compound. More satellites means more
00:15:49 --> 00:15:51 close approaches means more maneuvers
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 means more residual risk that never
00:15:54 --> 00:15:55 quite goes to zero.
00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 >> Exactly the point Hugh Lewis makes. He's
00:15:58 --> 00:15:59 the University of Birmingham
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 astronautics professor who's tracked
00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 these reports for years. Each maneuver
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 cuts the collision odds to about 1 in a
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 million, which sounds negligible, but as
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 he puts it, if you make a million
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 maneuvers with a 1 in a million
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 residual, you end up with an aggregate
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 risk across the constellation that you
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 simply can't get rid of. His blunt
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 assessment, he thinks we're heading
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 towards a situation where there will be
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 a collision involving an operational
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29 satellite in the constellation. And the
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 projections
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 >> on current growth, Starlink passes a
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 million total avoidance maneuvers by mid
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 2027. And by 2030, the constellation
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 could be making more than a million
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 maneuvers every single year. Remember
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 too, and regular listeners will, SpaceX
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 has applied to the FCC to grow Starlink
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 toward a 100 satellites, a story we
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 covered a couple of weeks back. And it's
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 not alone up there. Amazon's
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 constellation and China's Ken Fan are
00:16:59 --> 00:17:00 actively deploying as well.
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 >> The number of operational spacecraft in
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 orbit has gone from about 10 to
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 about 16 in just a year. Other
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 experts are calling for operators to
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 disclose predicted maneuver counts
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 before constellations are even approved.
00:17:15 --> 00:17:16 Though regulators know whether the
00:17:16 --> 00:17:18 satellites can actually keep up.
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 >> Low Earth orbit is a shared resource.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 And this is the traffic report. We'll
00:17:23 --> 00:17:24 keep watching the numbers because
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 everyone from astronomers to airlines to
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 your GPS depends on that neighborhood
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 staying safe.
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 >> Time now for tonight's sky watching. And
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 for our southern hemisphere friends, the
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 news is good. The moon is a waning
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 crescent rising in the small hours. So
00:17:40 --> 00:17:41 evenings this week are dark and
00:17:41 --> 00:17:42 glorious.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 >> Which means the winter Milky Way at its
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 absolute best. Face south after dinner
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 and the galactic core in Sagittarius and
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 Scorpius is almost directly overhead
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 from most of Australia and New Zealand.
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 Dust lanes, star clouds, the lot. If you
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 can get away from city lights this week,
00:18:00 --> 00:18:01 do it.
00:18:01 --> 00:18:03 >> While you're there, sweep up Omega
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 Centauri and the Southern Cross riding
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 high. And if you've got binoculars, the
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 starfields between Scorpius's tail and
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 the teapot of Sagittarius will keep you
00:18:12 --> 00:18:14 busy all evening. Saturn is climbing in
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 the east by mid evening for a late night
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 treat. And dazzling Venus still rules
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 the early evening western sky.
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 >> And one for the launch watchers.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 window opens
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 tonight, US time. That's tomorrow
00:18:29 --> 00:18:33 morning for us from about 8:45 AEST. So
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 pour a coffee and watch this space.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 We'll have the full story in Saturday's
00:18:37 --> 00:18:38 weekend rap.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 >> That's it for today's episode. Thanks
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42 for joining us. You can find show notes,
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 links to every story, and our back
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 catalog at astronomydaily.io.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 And we're astronomyaily pod on all the
00:18:50 --> 00:18:51 socials.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 >> Astronomy Daily is part of the byes.com
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 podcast network. I'm Avery
00:18:56 --> 00:18:58 >> and I'm Anna. We'll see you tomorrow.
00:18:58 --> 00:18:59 Until then,
00:18:59 --> 00:19:11 >> clear skies.
00:19:11 --> 00:19:15 Stories told.