Atmosphere Found on Rocky Exoplanet, Starship Drama Unfolds, and Meteorite Treasure Trove

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Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily

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dose of the latest space and astronomy news.

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I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm avery. It's Friday the 17th

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of July, 2026, and honestly,

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if you only listen to one episode of this

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show all month, make it this one.

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Anna: No pressure then, but Avery's not

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exaggerating. Today we're leading with a

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genuine milestone in the search for life

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beyond Earth. The first atmosphere ever

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detected on a rocky temperate planet

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sitting in the habitable zone of.

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Avery: We've also got last night's starship drama.

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And there was drama, just not the kind

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anyone had scripted. Plus, the meteorite

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that smashed through a New Jersey bedroom

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ceiling and turned out to be carrying the

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chemical ingredients of life itself.

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Anna: And later, the earliest evidence yet of a

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galaxy building itself from the inside out.

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Some gloriously strange metallic waves on

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Mars. And as always, we'll close with what to

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look for in tonight's southern skies. And

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trust me, tonight you'll actually want to

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step outside, buckle um in.

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Avery: Let's get into it.

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Anna: Avery.

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Every so often a result comes along that

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future textbooks will point back to. This

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might be one of those. Astronomers have

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detected an atmosphere around a rocky

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temperate planet called LHS 1140

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b. And that makes it the first rocky world in

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a habitable zone anywhere beyond our solar

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system confirmed to have air.

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Avery: Lets set, uh, the scene, because context is

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everything here. LHS 1140

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B sits about 48 light years away,

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orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star.

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It's what we call a super Earth. Roughly five

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and a half times the mass of our planet. And

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crucially, it orbits inside the habitable

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zone. That's the region where temperatures

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allow liquid water to exist on a planet's

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surface.

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Anna: Now, detecting atmospheres on exoplanets

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isn't new. We've been doing it for more than

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two decades. But until now, essentially

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every confirmed atmosphere belonged to big

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gas, bloated giants, hot Jupiters,

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planets. Nothing like our own. Small,

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rocky planets are so much dimmer and smaller

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than their stars that teasing out an

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atmospheric signal has been fiendishly

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difficult.

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Avery: Which is what makes this such a big deal. The

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team led by Colin Cherubim, who did this work

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as a PhD student at Harvard, found a

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signature of helium escaping from the

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planet's atmosphere. The result has just been

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published in the journal Science.

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Anna: Helium might sound like an odd headline.

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Gas. Nobody is imagining alien birthday

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balloons. But it tells us something profound.

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This planet has held onto an atmosphere

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despite orbiting a red dwarf. And red

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dwarfs are famously nasty neighbors. They

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blast their planets with X rays and

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ultraviolet Radiation that tends to strip

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atmospheres entirely.

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Avery: The modeling suggests

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LHS1140B

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is far enough from its star that it's managed

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to keep a good chunk of the primordial helium

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it gathered when it formed. And the

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researchers think there's more to this world

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than helium. Its density suggests

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it's rocky, likely with an iron core.

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And it probably holds a lot of water, too.

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Anna: And here's the tantalizing bit. If the

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atmosphere provides even a modest greenhouse

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effect, and we now know there is an

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atmosphere, then conditions on this planet

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could plausibly support liquid water. A

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rocky planet, an atmosphere, the right

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temperature. That's the trifecta, uh,

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astrobiologists have been chasing for 30

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years now.

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Avery: The discipline. The lead author has been very

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clear that nobody is claiming this planet has

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life. What they are claiming, and it's

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remarkable enough, is the first direct

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evidence that a rocky habitable zone planet

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can hold an atmosphere at all. That's a

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foundational question answered.

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Anna: There's also a lovely thought buried in this

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work. Researchers suspect that the very early

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Earth might have gone through a phase with a

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primordial atmosphere a bit like this one.

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So in studying

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HLS1140B, we

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might be looking at an echo of our own

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planet's infancy.

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Avery: Expect a stampede of follow up observations.

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Astronomers will want to know what else is in

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that atmosphere and whether there's water.

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LHS1140B just

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became one of the most important addresses in

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the galaxy.

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Anna: 48 light years away, a small world is

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holding its breath. Well, holding its

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atmosphere. And for the first time, we can

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say that with evidence from a world

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Avery: with air to a rocket that never left the

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ground.

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Regular listeners know we've been tracking

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Starship Flight 13 all week, and last

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night was supposed to be the night.

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Anna: Quick refresher for anyone just joining the

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Ark. Flight 13 is the second outing for

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Starship's version 3 hardware. And its

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headline task is deploying 20 real

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Starlink V3 satellites. Actual

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functioning spacecraft, not the mass

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simulators of earlier flights.

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Avery: So Thursday evening, Texas time, the

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countdown ran all the way down. The Raptor

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engines on the super heavy booster began

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igniting. And then everything stopped.

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Several engines failed to start, and the

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vehicle's automated systems triggered a

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launch abort at T0.

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Anna: Which, let's be clear, is the system doing

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exactly what it's designed to do. An abort at

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ignition is undramatic by design. The

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vehicle is safe, the pad is safe, and

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everyone gets to try again.

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Avery: Elon Musk weighed in shortly Afterwards,

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confirming that some engines didn't start and

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the automatic abort kicked in. And the fix is

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already defined. Two Raptor engines will be

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removed and replaced with the most likely new

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launch window early next week.

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Anna: And it's worth remembering the stakes riding

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on this one. The FAA only closed out its

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Flight 12 mishap investigation last week.

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That flight lost the booster during its

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landing burn and dropped an engine on ascent.

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Flight 13 carries the fixes for all of

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that, plus that first real payload

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deployment.

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Avery: And the bigger picture. SpaceX has filed

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plans for a next Gener Starlink

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constellation of up to 100,000 V3

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satellites. A network that only works if

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Starship becomes a reliable, high cadence

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workhorse. Every one of these test flights is

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a stepping stone toward that and toward

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NASA's Artemis lunar landings, which depend

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on Starship too.

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Anna: So, a, uh, frustrating night at Starbase, but

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a recoverable one. Two engines out. Two

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engines in and we go again. We'll bring you

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the launch, the actual launch. Fingers

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crossed, as soon as it happens.

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Now for my favorite story of the day. Cast

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your mind back to 16th July,

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2024. Two years ago this week, a

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daytime fireball streaked across the skies of

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the US East Coast. A sonic boom rattled

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New York City. And in the town of

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Hillsborough, New Jersey, a rock from space

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punched straight through the roof of a house

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and into a bedroom.

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Avery: Imagine coming home to that, a hole in your

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ceiling and sitting there among the

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insulation, a stone reeking of sulfur.

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That was quite recently in interplanetary

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space.

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Anna: And here's where the homeowner becomes the

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hero of the story. Rather than putting it on

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the mantelpiece, they acted fast, gathering

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the fragments, sealing them in glass jars and

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quickly contacting the American Meteor

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Society. That speed mattered enormously

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because meteorites start reacting with

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Earth's moist atmosphere the moment they

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land.

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Avery: Two years of laboratory work later, the

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results have just been published in Science

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Advances, and the Hillsborough meteorite has

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turned out to be a, uh, genuine treasure.

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It's a carbonaceous chondrite, the carbon

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rich family of meteorites that preserves

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primitive material from before the planets

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even finished forming. More than 4 1/2

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billion years old.

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Anna: But it gets rarer. CM M type

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meteorites are usually classed as CM M1 or

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CM M2, depending on how much ancient

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water altered them while they were still part

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of their parent. Hillsborough sits

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right in between a cm um 1,

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2. And it's only the second meteorite of

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that intermediate type ever seen falling to

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Earth. Thanks to that quick thinking

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homeowner, it's the most pristine example we

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have.

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Avery: And the chemistry inside is the real

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prize. The analysis found amino, uh,

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acids, the building blocks of proteins, along

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with carboxylic acids and a whole inventory

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of organic compounds. Researchers at

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NASA Goddard's astrobiology lab concluded

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these molecules likely formed inside the

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parent AstroDailyPod along by briny,

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salty fluids.

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Anna: Salty is the operative word. The team

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found tiny salt rich fragments suggesting

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this rock came from near the surface of its

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parent asteroid, where liquid water

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evaporated and concentrated salts,

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essentially an asteroid with brine deposits.

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They're now comparing those salts directly

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with the samples returned from asteroids

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Ryugu and Bennu.

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Avery: And the big picture takeaway this

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strengthens the idea that meteorites just

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like this one delivered organic molecules,

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the raw ingredients for life's chemistry, to

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the early Earth. The stuff of

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biology arriving by special

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Anna: delivery fragments are now being curated at

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the American Museum of Natural History in New

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York City. And one of the scientists made the

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point that if a meteorite ever visits your

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house, you're not unlucky. You've been handed

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a treasure. So maybe check your roof

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insurance policy.

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Avery: All the same, yesterday we looked at how

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supermassive black holes feed themselves

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today. A related question from the other

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how do galaxies build their centers in the

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first place? Astronomers at Durham University

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have just found the earliest example of that

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construction in action.

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Anna: Using the James Webb Space Telescope, the

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Durham led team studied a galaxy as it

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appeared more than 9 billion years ago, when

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the universe was well under half its current

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age. And at its center they found something

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never before seen at that distancea nuclear

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Avery: disk, a nuclear disk being

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and I love that astronomy makes this sound

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more alarming than it is a compact,

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dense rotating disk of stars right at a

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galaxy's core. They're common in mature

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galaxies near us today, but nobody had ever

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caught one this far back in cosmic history.

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Anna: And this one is busy. It's compact,

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rich in young stars, and showing all the

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signs of organized, orderly growth. The

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galaxy also hosts a long stellar bar,

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one of those elongated structures of stars

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that rotate as a single unit, which is

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thought to funnel gas inward and feed the

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disk's construction. The paper is out in the

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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical

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Society.

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Avery: The lead author, Zoe Leconte, called it a

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remarkable and unexpected find, one that

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will push astronomers to rethink galaxy

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evolution and the role of stellar bars in the

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early universe. It's another entry in what's

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becoming Webb's signature discovery.

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Mature looking galaxies showing up far

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earlier than anyone predicted.

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Anna: And there's a black hole connection here,

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too. Nuclear disks are Believed to act

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as reservoirs, storing gas that can

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eventually spiral down to feed a, uh,

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galaxy's central supermassive black hole.

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So finding 1,9 billion years back may

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help explain how black holes bulked up during

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the universe's most hyperactive era.

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Avery: The team's next step is follow up

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observations to map how the stars and gas

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actually move within this distant galaxy.

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Watch this space, quite literally.

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Anna: Next up, time for something purely

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gloriously visual. The European

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Space Agency has released a new image

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from its veteran Mars Express

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orbiter. And it shows what looks for all

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the world like an ocean of frozen metal

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on the Red planet.

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Avery: The scene is Keizer Crater, a huge impact

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basin about 180km across

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and a couple of kilometers deep, sitting in

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Noassus Terra, one of the oldest, most

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battered landscapes on Mars, pummeled by

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impacts for the past 4 billion years.

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Anna: And across the crater floor, waves

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dark, sinuous, almost shiny ridges

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that genuinely look carved from polished

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metal. They're sand dunes,

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enormous ones, some towering more than a

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hundred meters above the surrounding terrain.

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That's a dune taller than a 30 story

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building.

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Avery: The metallic sheen has a lovely explanation.

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Bright frost deposits clinging to the dune's

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south facing slopes, catching the light. Dark

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volcanic sand below. Glittering frost on

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top. Mars doing its best impression of a

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sculpture garden.

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Anna: The winds in this region blow predominantly

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from the west, herding the sand into those

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distinctive crests. Some standing alone,

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others merging into a continuous dune field

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stretching for kilometers. It's a reminder

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that Mars is not a static museum piece.

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It's a working windy world where landscapes

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are still being shaped today.

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Avery: The image comes from the orbiter's high

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resolution stereo camera, captured last

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October and released this week. Mars Express,

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remember, has been at Mars since 2003.

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23 years of service and still sending

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back postcards like this. We'll pop the link

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in the show notes. It's worth a proper look

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on a big screen.

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And so to the skies above us and tonight's

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Southern hemisphere friends, you get the good

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stuff. Without even staying up late, head out

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Anna: just after sunset and look to the western

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sky. There you'll find a beautifully

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thin crescent moon, only a few days

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past noon, hanging near brilliant

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Venus, with the bright star Regulus, the

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heart of Leo the lion, completing the trio.

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Avery: This is the meeting we flagged earlier in the

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week, and tonight's the night. A crescent

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moon and Venus together in twilight is one of

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the most photogenic sights in all of sky

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watching. No telescope required, though.

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Binoculars will show you Earthshine glowing

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softly on the moon's nightside.

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Anna: And because the Moon is still such a slim

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crescent, dark sky conditions continue this

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weekend from southern latitudes. The Milky

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Way core is riding gloriously high in the

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evening. Sagittarius and Scorpius

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overhead, dust lanes and star clouds on

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full display. If you can get away from city

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lights, this is prime time.

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Avery: One diary note before we go. Exactly one

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month from now, on the 12th of August, a

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total solar eclipse sweeps across the Arctic,

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Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain. It's

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a Northern Hemisphere show this time, but if

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you're one of our listeners traveling for it,

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safe journeys, pack your eclipse glasses and

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we want a full report.

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Anna: Dallas, of the eclipse chasers. But tonight's

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Moon Venus pairing is our consolation price.

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And it's a lovely one.

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Avery: And that's Astronomy Daily for Friday,

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17 July. A first atmosphere

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on a habitable zone. Rocky world starship

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stopped at zero. A bedroom meteorite

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carrying life's ingredients. A, uh, galaxy

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growing up fast. Metal waves on Mars and

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a date with the Moon and Venus tonight.

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Anna: Not a bad Friday. For all of today's stories

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and links, head to astronomydaily

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IO and find us everywhere.

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AstroDailyPod if today's

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lead story gave you goosebumps, share the

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episode with someone who needs goosebumps,

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too.

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Avery: The weekend news wrap is tomorrow, and if a

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certain rocket flies early next week, you

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know where to hear about it first. Until

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then, I'm Avery.

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Anna: And I'm Anna. Thanks for listening. And as

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always, clear skies Astronomy

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Day stories.

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Love.