This weekend on Astronomy Daily: the Inouye Solar Telescope reveals whirlpools on the Sun’s surface for the first time, a Falcon 9 upper stage carves a fresh crater on the Moon, Voyager 2 pulls off a daring "Big Bang" power swap 21 billion kilometres away, and the LINK spacecraft wins its de-spin battle in the race to save NASA’s Swift. Plus your both-hemispheres guide to the 12 August total solar eclipse and the moonless Perseid peak. In this episode ● (01:20) LEAD — First-ever sighting of Kelvin–Helmholtz vortices on the Sun (Nature, 5 Aug; Inouye Solar Telescope / NSO / MPS) ● (09:00) Falcon 9 upper stage 2025-010D impacts the Moon near Einstein Crater ● (12:15) Voyager 2’s "Big Bang" power swap buys another year of interstellar science ● (15:30) LINK spins down from 9°/s to 1.47°/s — software update next in the Swift rescue ● (18:45) Skywatch: 12 Aug total solar eclipse + Perseid peak — both hemispheres, with eye-safety Links & sources ● Nature: Kuridze et al., "Ubiquitous Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities driving plasma mixing on the Sun" (5 Aug 2026) ● NSO / NSF and Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research press releases (5 Aug 2026) ● NASA/JPL Voyager blog: "NASA Engineers Help Prolong Voyager 2’s Science Mission" (4 Aug 2026) ● NASA Science Swift blog: LINK stabilisation update; ESA & NASA eclipse pages for 12 Aug 2026
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Good day and welcome to Astronomy Daily.
00:00:02 --> 00:00:03 I'm Anna
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 >> and I'm Avery. It's the weekend rap for
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 Saturday the 8th of August and this is
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 one of those rare weekends where the sky
00:00:10 --> 00:00:12 itself is the headline. We are 4 days
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 out from a total solar eclipse and the
00:00:15 --> 00:00:17 peak of the perciads landing on the very
00:00:17 --> 00:00:17 same night.
00:00:18 --> 00:00:19 >> We'll get you set for all of that in the
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 sky watch at the end. Both hemispheres,
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 proper local times, and one eye safety
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 rule none of us are allowed to skip. But
00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 we start where the whole week has
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 quietly been pointing at the sun.
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 >> Then three stories at the Find the Week.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 A rocket stage that finally hit the
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 moon. A 48-year-old spacecraft that just
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 bought itself another year of life. And
00:00:41 --> 00:00:43 the rescue mission that spent the week
00:00:43 --> 00:00:45 rescuing itself. Let's go.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 >> Here's the question that sounds simple
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 and isn't. What does the surface of the
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 sun actually look like up close? Not the
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 postcard, the fine detail right down at
00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 the scale where the physics happens.
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 This week, for the first time, we got to
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 see it. And the answer is it's covered
00:01:03 --> 00:01:05 in whirlpools.
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 >> Whirlpools on the sun.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:11 >> Tiny ones, some only about 20 km across,
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 which on the sun is almost microscopic.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:15 In a paper published Wednesday in
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 Nature, a team led by David Kureds at
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 the US National Solar Observatory in
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 Hawaii, the biggest solar telescope ever
00:01:24 --> 00:01:28 built, a 4 m mirror on Haleakala zoomed
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 in on the edges of the sun's granules.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 And where earlier telescopes saw a
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 smooth, slightly blurry boundary, Inoi
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 saw structure curling, breaking,
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 wavelike swirls forming and dissipating
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 everywhere along the magnetic
00:01:44 --> 00:01:45 boundaries.
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 >> And these have a name. They're not a
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 total surprise physically. Right.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 >> Exactly right. And that's what makes it
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 satisfying rather than baffling. They're
00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 called Kelvin Helmholtz instabilities.
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 If you've ever watched wind peel the top
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 of an ocean wave or seen those rows of
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 curling cloud that look like a breaking
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 sea in the sky, that's the same effect.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 It happens whenever two fluids slide
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 past each other at different speeds.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 Lord Kelvin and Herman Helmholtz
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 described the math back around 1870.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 >> So the physics is 150 years old. The
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 picture of it on the sun's surface is 4
00:02:22 --> 00:02:23 days old.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 >> That's the whole story in one line.
00:02:26 --> 00:02:27 We've seen these swirls in Earth's
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 clouds, in the atmospheres of Jupiter
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 and Saturn, even hinted at high up in
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 the sun's outer corona, but never before
00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 down on the visible surface, the
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 photosphere, where the solar wind and
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 all that magnetic energy actually
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 originate. The resolution simply wasn't
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 there. Inoui changed that.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 >> Walk me through why the surface is the
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 important place to catch them. Because
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 that's where the sun's magnetic field
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 tangles with its boiling convection.
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 Picture the granules, those bright cells
00:02:58 --> 00:03:02 of hot plasma rising, cooling, sinking
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 like a pot of porridge on the boil. At
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 the edges, flows crash into each other
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 and the magnetic field lines get
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 squeezed together. Bundle field lines
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 tighter and the field gets stronger. The
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 stronger field resists the plasma flow.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 And that sudden change in speed is
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 exactly the shear you need to set a
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 Kelvin Helmholtz vortex spinning.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 >> And they didn't just eyeball it and
00:03:26 --> 00:03:27 declare victory.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 >> No, this is the part I like. They ran
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 the same magnetic region through a
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 state-of-the-art physics simulation. A
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 model called Morram built purely from
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 the laws of physics. No fudging. And the
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 simulated sun grew the same swirls in
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 the same places with the same shapes.
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 observation and theory shaking hands.
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 The Max Plank team called the agreement
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 remarkable, and that's the word that
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 earns this a nature paper. Not we saw
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 something odd, but we saw it. We
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 understand why. And the model agrees.
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 >> So, why should someone with feet firmly
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 on the ground care about micro whirlples
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 93 million miles away?
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 >> Two reasons, and they're both big. The
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 first is one of the great unsolved
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 puzzles in solar physics. The corona
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 problem. The sun's surface is around
00:04:18 --> 00:04:20 6°.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 Its outer atmosphere, the corona, is
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 millions of degrees, hundreds of times
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 hotter, further away from the heat
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 source. That should be impossible. Like
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 standing back from a campfire and
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 getting warmer, something is carrying
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 energy upward and dumping it into the
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 corona. And these ubiquitous little
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 vortices are a very good candidate for
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 part of that pipeline. And the second
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 reason is the one that reaches down and
00:04:47 --> 00:04:48 touches us.
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 >> Base weather. Those same swirls could
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 feed the buildup of magnetic energy that
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 the sun eventually releases as flares
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 and coronal mass ejections. The blasts
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 of charged particles that when they're
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 aimed our way can knock satellites
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 about, degrade GPS and stress power
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 grids. The next step is to turn pattern
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 recognition algorithms loose on long
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 runs of enoya data to measure how much
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 energy these instabilities actually
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 shift. Nail that number and you sharpen
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 the models that forecast solar storms,
00:05:23 --> 00:05:24 >> which is a lovely place to be starting
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 an eclipse week. Honestly, everyone's
00:05:26 --> 00:05:27 about to point their attention at the
00:05:28 --> 00:05:29 sun anyway.
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 >> It really is. For decades, this was a
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 prediction on a chalkboard. This week,
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 it became a picture. The sun's surface
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 isn't a smooth glowing ball. It's a sea
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 and it's full of breaking waves.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 >> From the sun to the moon. And to a story
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 this show first flagged back in the
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 autumn. Early Wednesday morning, a spent
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage slammed into
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 the far western edge of the moon near
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 Einstein crater at around 2 in the
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 morning, US Eastern time.
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 >> This is the one astronomer Bill Gray had
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 been tracking since April.
00:06:03 --> 00:06:09 >> The very one. Catalog number 2025-010D,
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 roughly four tons of hollow metal about
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 12 meters long. It launched in January
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 last year, carrying two commercial lunar
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 landers, Fireflies Blue Ghost and Ice
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 Bas's Resilience under NASA's commercial
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 lunar program. Its job done. It was left
00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 drifting. And for 19 months, sunlight
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 and gravity nudged it around cis lunar
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 space until the numbers lined up on a
00:06:31 --> 00:06:32 collision course.
00:06:32 --> 00:06:36 >> And it hit at genuinely startling speed.
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 >> About 5 m an hour, seven times the
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 speed of sound, releasing energy like
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 roughly 3 tons of TNT. The catch for sky
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 watchers, it came down on sunlit ground,
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 so any flash was washed out by daylight.
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 Nobody on Earth got the fireworks.
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 >> So, how do we actually confirm it
00:06:56 --> 00:06:58 happened and see the scar
00:06:58 --> 00:07:00 >> from orbit? And this is where it gets
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 good. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 spacecraft are retasking to photograph
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 the site because we know almost exactly
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 where and when it struck. We get a rare
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 before and after. a fresh crater
00:07:14 --> 00:07:16 expected somewhere between 18 and 30
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 meters wide appearing on a patch of moon
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 we already had mapped. I'll be honest,
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 those highresolution images aren't in
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 hand yet. They depend on lighting and
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 orbital geometry over the coming weeks,
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 but the impact itself is confirmed.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 >> And there's a bigger point sitting
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 underneath the spectacle.
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 >> There is. This is only the second known
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 unintentional lunar impact by a rocket
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 stage. The first was a Chinese booster
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 back in 2022, but the traffic up there
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 is climbing fast and there's still no
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 binding rulebook for disposing of
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 hardware on these high energy paths.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 SpaceX says this stage was passivated by
00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 the book and is now working with NASA on
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 prevention. Fittingly, the international
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 meeting that produced the latest
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 recommendations for the moon was held
00:08:02 --> 00:08:03 right here in Sydney. The
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 recommendations are real. The
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 requirements aren't there yet. A new
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 crater and a nudge to write some rules
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 before the next one. Now to the most
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 distant good news story you'll hear all
00:08:15 --> 00:08:19 year. Voyager 2, launched in 1977,
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 now more than 21 billion kilometers away
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 out in interstellar space, has just been
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 given at least another full year of
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 science by engineers who can't touch it,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 can't send it apart, and have to wait
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 about 19 and a half hours just for a
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 command to arrive.
00:08:37 --> 00:08:38 >> And they've given the maneuver a
00:08:38 --> 00:08:39 wonderful name.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 >> They're calling it the Big Bang. Here's
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 the problem it solves. Voyager runs on
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 plutonium radioisotope generators that
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 turn heat from decay into electricity.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 And that supply drops by about 4 watts
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 every single year. It's a spacecraft
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 slowly running out of power. And for
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 years, the fix has been to switch
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 instruments off one by one. Without
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 action, Voyager 2 would have had to shut
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 down another of its three remaining
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 instruments before the end of this year.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 >> So why Big Bang? What's dramatic about a
00:09:13 --> 00:09:14 power swap?
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 >> Because it all had to happen at once,
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 they switched off a set of power- hungry
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 devices and swapped in lower power
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 alternatives. But the catch is that the
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 very same power also produces heat. And
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 out there, near absolute zero, if the
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 wrong component gets too cold, it
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 freezes and dies permanently. You can't
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 do it gently, one step at a time. The
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 thermal sums only balance if you throw
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 the switches simultaneously. As one of
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 the engineers put it, they couldn't
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 afford to be wrong. And it worked
00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 exactly to plan.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 >> And Voyager 1 is next in the queue.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 >> It is. The team is stepping through the
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 same process on Voyager 1 in the coming
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 weeks. And the early tests have gone
00:09:58 --> 00:10:02 smoothly. Two probes 48 years old, still
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 humanity's only instruments physically
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 out in interstellar space. kept alive by
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 people rewriting how the hardware is
00:10:10 --> 00:10:14 used from 13 billion miles back. That's
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 not a rescue that ends the story. The
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 power keeps falling, but it's another
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 year of listening to the space between
00:10:21 --> 00:10:22 the stars.
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 >> And now, our running saga of the week,
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 the rescue mission that spent the week
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 being rescued. You'll remember the
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 setup. NASA's Swift Observatory, 22
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 years old, a first responder for gamma
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 ray burst is sinking. Its orbit is
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 decaying and it can't lift itself. And
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 without help, it's likely to re-enter
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 this springhour time. Once it drops
00:10:43 --> 00:10:47 below about 300 km, enter link, built at
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 extraordinary speed to go up and give
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 Swift a boost.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 >> A commercial servicing spacecraft from
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 Catalyst Space built clean sheet in
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 about 9 months. Launched last month.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 First of its kind, a private robot
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 grabbing a government satellite that was
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 never designed to be serviced. Except
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 that during commissioning, Link itself
00:11:07 --> 00:11:11 tumbled into a multiaxis spin up to 90°
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 a second with two of its three reaction
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 wheels out of action and some loss in
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 its cold gas thrusters. The rescuer
00:11:18 --> 00:11:19 needed a rescue.
00:11:20 --> 00:11:21 >> And this week is where that turned a
00:11:22 --> 00:11:22 corner.
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 >> It genuinely did. Using thruster burns,
00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 the team has wrestled that spin all the
00:11:27 --> 00:11:32 way down from 9° a second to 1.47° 47°
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 and they're holding it steady there. The
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 D-Spin effectively is one. The mission
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 has now shifted from a stabilization
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 problem to a software one. Because so
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 much of the original attitude control
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 system is offline, they're preparing a
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 major flight software upgrade to restore
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 full control using what still works.
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 >> And only once that lands can the chase
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 actually begin,
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 >> right? software update first, then the
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 phasing maneuvers to line Link's orbit
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 up with Swift, then a rendevous and a
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 grapple with its three robotic arms
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 targeted around the end of August. If it
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 all comes off, Link slowly walks Swift
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 back up toward its old orbit over a
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 couple of months, then peels away and
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 burns up itself. It's down to the wire,
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 but a week ago, this looked close to
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 lost, and today it looks like a
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 spacecraft catching its breath before
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 the hardest part. We will absolutely
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 keep you posted as that end of August
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 window comes up. And so to the sky and
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 what a four days we're heading into. On
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 Wednesday the 12th of August, two of the
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 year's marquee events land together. A
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 total solar eclipse and the peak of the
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 Perced meteor shower.
00:12:42 --> 00:12:43 >> Let's be straight with everyone about
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 who sees what because this one is
00:12:46 --> 00:12:47 lopsided.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 >> It is. So let's do it honestly. The
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 total eclipse, the full daytime
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 darkness, corona blazing spectacle,
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 belongs to the far north. The path of
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 totality crosses the Arctic, eastern
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 Greenland, western Iceland, and clips
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 northern Spain, and the very northeast
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 of Portugal near sunset. If you're
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 anywhere near there, you're in for one
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 of the sky's greatest sights, under two
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 and a half minutes of it. And for our
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 North American listeners, our largest
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 audience, the honest picture is a
00:13:17 --> 00:13:20 partial and only in one corner.
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 >> That's right. No part of North America
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 sees totality this time. But in the
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 afternoon on the 12th, Eastern Canada
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 and the northeastern United States get a
00:13:30 --> 00:13:32 genuine partial. In parts of Atlantic
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 Canada, roughly half the sun covered at
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 maximum, a smaller bite across New
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 England and the Northeast. Further west,
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 it fades to little or nothing. If you're
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 in that eastern window, check local
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 times for your exact town. It's an
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 afternoon event. And dig out your
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 eclipse glasses.
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 >> Which brings us to the rule we never
00:13:52 --> 00:13:53 ever skip.
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 >> The non-negotiable to look at any
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 partial phase of the sun safely. You
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 need proper solar filters that meet the
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 ISO12312-2
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 standard, certified eclipse glasses, or
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 a safe solar viewer. Ordinary sunglasses
00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 do not work no matter how dark. Only
00:14:13 --> 00:14:14 someone standing inside the path of
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 totality may remove them and only during
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 the brief total phase. Everyone seeing a
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 partial, that's all of North America and
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 most of Europe, keeps them on the entire
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 time. Damage to your eyes is painless
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 and permanent. Please don't risk it. And
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 if you're nowhere near the track, which
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 includes all of us down here in the
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 south, NASA streams the whole thing live
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 from about a quarter 1 Eastern. Now, the
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 Perciads that same night, and here the
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 news is good for the northern half of
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 the world. The peak lies the night of
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 the 12th into the 13th. And this year,
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 the peak is essentially moonless. The
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 eclipse falls on a new moon, so the sky
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 is dark and the faint meteors get their
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 moment from the midn latitudes after
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 midnight. That's potentially dozens an
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 hour under clear skies. North America,
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 Europe, this is your gift of the week.
00:15:06 --> 00:15:09 >> But the Perciads are a northern shower.
00:15:09 --> 00:15:10 The radiant barely lifts above the
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 horizon for those of us down here.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 >> It barely clears it. So from Sydney or
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 Akland, you'll catch only a stray few
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 low in the north before dawn. Though
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 here's what the southern hemisphere
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 actually gets, and it's worth setting an
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 alarm for. Before sunrise this week, the
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 morning sky is stacked. A long line of
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 planets, Saturn, Mars, Uranus, and
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 Neptune with Jupiter low, and Mercury
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 climbing strung across the pre-dawn.
00:15:37 --> 00:15:39 Venus is your brilliant evening star
00:15:39 --> 00:15:42 after sunset. And for the patient, comet
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 10p Temple 2 is rising late in the
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 evening around 9 if you've got
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 binoculars and a dark horizon.
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 >> So, nobody misses out. North gets the
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 eclipse and the meteors. South gets the
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 planet parade and a comet. And the live
00:15:57 --> 00:15:58 stream is there for all of us.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 >> Both hemispheres eyes up all week. Just
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 protect them around that sun.
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 >> That's the weekend wrap for Saturday the
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 8th of August. The sun's hidden
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 whirlpools, a fresh crater on the moon,
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 Voyager 2's extra year, and a rescue
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 mission back on its feet.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:16 >> We're back with your daily fix on
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 Monday. And all week we'll be counting
00:16:19 --> 00:16:20 down to that eclipse and perced
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 Wednesday. Find the fullback catalog,
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 the newsfeed, and the newsletter at
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 astronomyaily.io
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 and say hello at astronomyaily pod.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 >> Until Monday from Anna and me, look
00:16:32 --> 00:16:34 after those eyes and
00:16:34 --> 00:16:46 >> clear skies. [music]
00:16:46 --> 00:16:55 Stories [music] told.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 [music]