First Frenchwoman in Space Steps Outside
Anna and Avery cover Sophie Adenot becoming the first French woman ever to conduct a spacewalk — a historic EVA that ran into some antenna trouble along the way. Plus: a trillion-mile river of gas that explains why some planetary systems end up tilted, an honest update on Starship's Ship 40 as it turns out the recovery saga wasn't quite finished, and SpaceX quietly closing in on 11,000 satellites in orbit.
Full show notes:
Today's episode — S05E171, Wednesday August 19, 2026:
Main story: First Frenchwoman to spacewalk. ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot became the first French woman ever to conduct a spacewalk on August 18, working alongside NASA's Anil Menon (on his second EVA, delayed from August 13 after a carbon dioxide sensor flag on his first spacewalk August 6). The pair set out to replace one of the station's space-to-ground antennas, but the job took longer than planned — after 6 hours and 23 minutes (the station's 282nd spacewalk overall), controllers called it before the swap was fully complete. The old antenna is secured but not stowed; the new one remains on its storage platform. Another spacewalk is scheduled for next Tuesday to finish the job. France's first-ever spacewalk was performed by Jean-Loup Chrétien on Mir in 1988.
A trillion-mile river of gas explains tilted planets. Astronomers led by Maria Galloway-Sprietsma (University of Florida), with advisor Jaehan Bae and international collaborators, used the ALMA telescope in Chile to trace a gas streamer roughly 1.2 trillion miles (0.2 light-years) long feeding into the young triple-star system GW Orionis, 1,300 light-years away in Orion. The streamer's infall angle closely matches the tilt of the system's warped outer disk ring, offering a mechanism for why some planetary systems end up with misaligned or even retrograde orbits. Published August 6 in The Astronomical Journal.
Correction/update: Ship 40's journey continues. Last episode we reported Starship's Ship 40 recovery as complete after its intact splashdown and tow toward Western Australia. Fuller reporting since shows the ship was towed further and arrived, as of August 18, in sheltered waters off Christmas Island after 24 days and 400+ km adrift — with SpaceX now planning to transport it back to Starbase, Texas, for full inspection. Musk has cited the intact recovery as strengthening the case for attempting a tower catch of a returning ship as early as Flight 14.
SpaceX quietly passes 11,000 satellites. Tuesday night's Starlink 17-50 launch from Vandenberg — SpaceX's 100th mission of 2026 overall (97th Falcon 9 flight of the year) — added 24 more satellites, pushing the Starlink constellation to nearly 11,000 operational satellites. Booster B1097 flew for the 12th time, targeting a droneship landing in the Pacific.
Tonight's sky (well, tomorrow's predawn sky): Saturn is showing off a "moon parade" before dawn, its unusually narrow, shallowly tilted rings (7.5°) lining up major moons — Titan, Rhea, Tethys, Dione and, in larger scopes, Iapetus and Enceladus — almost in a straight row. This evening, catch a waxing crescent Moon.
Links & sources:
- Space.com — Watch European astronaut make history during spacewalk today
- Spaceflight Now — Astronauts remove failed antenna; run out of time to install a spare
- France 24 — Sophie Adenot set to become first French female astronaut to venture outside ISS
- Space.com — A 'river' of cosmic gas 1 trillion miles long sent planets in the Orion constellation into tilted orbits
- University of Florida News — Cosmic river of gas may have tilted a young planetary system in Orion constellation
- ALMA Observatory — ALMA Captures a Trillion-Mile Stream Feeding the Triple-Star System GW Orionis
- NASASpaceFlight.com — Ship 40 arrives at Christmas Island, plans return to Starbase
- Space.com — Starship lives! SpaceX craft arrives at Christmas Island after 24-day ocean ordeal
- Space.com — SpaceX launches its 100th mission of the year, sends Starlink satellites to orbit
- Spaceflight Now — Live coverage: SpaceX to send Starlink satellites to orbit with Tuesday night launch from California
- Space.com — Night sky August 2026: what you can see tonight
Follow us: @AstronomyDailyPod
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support.
Sponsor Details:
Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!
Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmail
Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click Here
This episode includes AI-generated content.
0
00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:03.280
Anna: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Astronomy
1
00:00:03.280 --> 00:00:04.880
AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.
2
00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.240
Avery: And I'm, um, avery. It's Wednesday, August
3
00:00:07.240 --> 00:00:09.360
19th, series five, episode
4
00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:10.320
171.
5
00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:13.120
Anna: We've got a genuinely historic one to lead
6
00:00:13.120 --> 00:00:13.760
with today.
7
00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:16.600
A spacewalk outside the space station that
8
00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:19.320
didn't go entirely to plan, but
9
00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:20.320
still made history.
10
00:00:20.880 --> 00:00:22.880
Avery: First French woman to ever walk in space.
11
00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:24.800
Then it got complicated.
12
00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:28.000
Anna: Then a trillion mile river of gas that's
13
00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:30.760
been quietly bending a baby solar system out
14
00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:33.310
of shape. An update on a storey we thought
15
00:00:33.310 --> 00:00:35.950
we'd closed last episode. And SpaceX
16
00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:38.750
quietly cruising past a satellite milestone
17
00:00:38.750 --> 00:00:40.990
that would have sounded like science fiction
18
00:00:40.990 --> 00:00:41.790
a decade ago.
19
00:00:42.190 --> 00:00:44.430
Avery: Plus tonight. Well, actually tomorrow morning
20
00:00:44.430 --> 00:00:47.070
before dawn. One of the best reasons all year
21
00:00:47.070 --> 00:00:48.430
to drag a telescope outside.
22
00:00:48.910 --> 00:00:50.990
Anna: Lots to get through. Let's get into it.
23
00:00:51.230 --> 00:00:54.190
Avery: So yesterday, August 18, ESA astronaut
24
00:00:54.190 --> 00:00:56.470
Sophie Edeno, uh, became the first French
25
00:00:56.470 --> 00:00:59.230
woman ever to conduct a spacewalk, which is
26
00:00:59.230 --> 00:01:01.470
Anna: worth sitting with for a second. France has
27
00:01:01.470 --> 00:01:04.310
had astronauts in space since the 1980s,
28
00:01:04.390 --> 00:01:07.350
and women astronauts too. But nobody from
29
00:01:07.350 --> 00:01:09.590
France had actually stepped outside and
30
00:01:09.590 --> 00:01:12.550
worked in a suit until yesterday. Jean Luc
31
00:01:12.550 --> 00:01:15.470
chretien did France's first spacewalk, all
32
00:01:15.470 --> 00:01:18.310
the way back in 1988 on Mir.
33
00:01:18.470 --> 00:01:21.390
It took almost 40 years for a French woman to
34
00:01:21.390 --> 00:01:22.150
get that chance.
35
00:01:22.470 --> 00:01:23.830
Avery: Who was she out there with?
36
00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:26.960
Anna: NASA's Anil Menon. This was actually his
37
00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:29.538
second EVA. His first back on August
38
00:01:29.622 --> 00:01:32.520
6th got a bit tense when his suit flagged an
39
00:01:32.520 --> 00:01:35.400
unexpected carbon dioxide sensor reading. It
40
00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:37.840
came back to normal. But out of caution, the
41
00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:40.280
follow up spacewalk got pushed from August
42
00:01:40.280 --> 00:01:42.840
13th to the 18th while they double checked
43
00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:43.120
everything.
44
00:01:43.600 --> 00:01:46.280
Avery: Good call, given what suits are for. So what
45
00:01:46.280 --> 00:01:47.680
were they actually out there to do?
46
00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:50.280
Anna: Replace one of the station's space to ground
47
00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:53.030
antennas. NASA calls it a scant. It's a
48
00:01:53.030 --> 00:01:55.390
critical communications link that lets
49
00:01:55.390 --> 00:01:57.510
mission control in Houston talk to the
50
00:01:57.510 --> 00:02:00.270
station at high speed. The ISS carries
51
00:02:00.270 --> 00:02:03.110
two for redundancy. You only strictly need
52
00:02:03.110 --> 00:02:05.310
one working, but managers like having a
53
00:02:05.310 --> 00:02:05.630
spare.
54
00:02:06.110 --> 00:02:08.190
Avery: So this was meant to be a fairly routine
55
00:02:08.190 --> 00:02:08.590
swap.
56
00:02:08.910 --> 00:02:11.510
Anna: That was the plan. Six and a half hours were
57
00:02:11.510 --> 00:02:14.070
budgeted. They got the old failed antenna
58
00:02:14.070 --> 00:02:16.350
disconnected, freeing the power and data
59
00:02:16.350 --> 00:02:18.590
cables working in the locking pins,
60
00:02:18.830 --> 00:02:21.590
unbolting the whole assembly. But every one
61
00:02:21.590 --> 00:02:24.250
of those steps took longer than expected. A
62
00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:26.450
lot of it came down to just brute physical
63
00:02:26.450 --> 00:02:28.930
effort with a ratchet wrench in a pressurised
64
00:02:28.930 --> 00:02:29.370
suit.
65
00:02:29.690 --> 00:02:31.130
Avery: And, um, they ran out of time.
66
00:02:31.370 --> 00:02:33.850
Anna: They ran out of time. 6 hours
67
00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:35.610
23 minutes in the
68
00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:38.570
282nd spacewalk in Station history.
69
00:02:38.570 --> 00:02:41.010
For the record, flight controllers made the
70
00:02:41.010 --> 00:02:43.650
call not to push for the full task Though the
71
00:02:43.650 --> 00:02:46.010
failed antenna is secured near its mounting
72
00:02:46.010 --> 00:02:48.610
boom rather than fully stowed, and the
73
00:02:48.610 --> 00:02:50.850
replacement antenna is still sitting on its
74
00:02:50.850 --> 00:02:52.810
storage platform uninstalled.
75
00:02:53.220 --> 00:02:55.700
Avery: So it's a historic spacewalk with an asterisk
76
00:02:55.700 --> 00:02:57.060
on the actual job list.
77
00:02:57.460 --> 00:02:59.820
Anna: Pretty much. The good news is nothing about
78
00:02:59.820 --> 00:03:02.580
this is urgent. The working antenna is still
79
00:03:02.580 --> 00:03:04.860
doing its job, so the station isn't missing
80
00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:07.740
any communication capability. NASA's already
81
00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:10.260
got another spacewalk scheduled next Tuesday
82
00:03:10.500 --> 00:03:12.940
and controllers are figuring out whether to
83
00:03:12.940 --> 00:03:15.700
prioritise finishing this antenna swap then
84
00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:18.660
or push it to a later EVA in favour of
85
00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:19.620
other planned work.
86
00:03:19.970 --> 00:03:21.710
Avery: Uh, but the headline stands. Regardless of
87
00:03:21.710 --> 00:03:24.030
how the antenna paperwork shakes out, it
88
00:03:24.030 --> 00:03:24.310
does.
89
00:03:24.630 --> 00:03:27.150
Anna: First, French woman outside the station doing
90
00:03:27.150 --> 00:03:29.510
real hands on maintenance work in a suit
91
00:03:29.510 --> 00:03:32.310
that's basically its own spacecraft. That's
92
00:03:32.310 --> 00:03:35.190
the storey antenna or no antenna. Next
93
00:03:35.190 --> 00:03:37.790
up, a storey about why some planetary
94
00:03:37.790 --> 00:03:40.710
systems end up lopsided instead of neat
95
00:03:40.710 --> 00:03:42.230
and orderly like ours.
96
00:03:42.470 --> 00:03:45.310
Avery: Neat and orderly is relative, but sure, go
97
00:03:45.310 --> 00:03:46.400
on there.
98
00:03:46.880 --> 00:03:49.360
Anna: So there's a young triple system called
99
00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.120
GW Orionis, about 1300
100
00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:54.880
light years away in the constellation Orion.
101
00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:57.680
It's a favourite target for astronomers
102
00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:00.000
because it's got a genuinely strange
103
00:04:00.160 --> 00:04:03.120
warped protoplanetary disc, the ring
104
00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:05.520
of gas and dust where planets are forming,
105
00:04:05.760 --> 00:04:08.240
split into several misaligned rings
106
00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:11.200
instead of one flat disc like you'd expect.
107
00:04:11.970 --> 00:04:13.010
Avery: And now we know why.
108
00:04:13.490 --> 00:04:16.490
Anna: We've got a, uh, very strong new answer. A
109
00:04:16.490 --> 00:04:19.410
team led by Maria M. Galloway Spritsma, a
110
00:04:19.410 --> 00:04:21.890
PhD student at the University of Florida,
111
00:04:22.050 --> 00:04:24.730
working with her advisor Jehan they and
112
00:04:24.730 --> 00:04:26.970
collaborators from the Max Planck Institute
113
00:04:26.970 --> 00:04:29.810
for Astronomy, University of Galway and Queen
114
00:04:29.810 --> 00:04:32.730
Mary London University, used the ALMA
115
00:04:32.730 --> 00:04:35.450
Telescope Array in Chile to trace a
116
00:04:35.450 --> 00:04:38.170
stream of gas flowing into the system from
117
00:04:38.170 --> 00:04:38.530
outside.
118
00:04:39.520 --> 00:04:42.080
Avery: How big a stream are we talking about?
119
00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:44.640
Anna: 1.2 trillion miles long.
120
00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:47.520
That's roughly 0.2 light years, or
121
00:04:47.520 --> 00:04:50.120
12,600 astronomical
122
00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:53.000
units, feeding in from well beyond the system
123
00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.520
itself. They traced it using carbon
124
00:04:55.520 --> 00:04:58.360
monoxide, because the molecular hydrogen that
125
00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:00.680
actually makes up most of the gas is
126
00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:03.360
invisible at radio wavelengths. CO
127
00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:05.440
acts as a stand in tracer
128
00:05:05.930 --> 00:05:08.090
Avery: and this stream is what's warping the disc.
129
00:05:08.570 --> 00:05:11.250
Anna: That's the finding when the team modelled how
130
00:05:11.250 --> 00:05:14.090
the streamer's gas falls into the system. The
131
00:05:14.090 --> 00:05:16.810
angle it comes in at lines up closely with
132
00:05:16.810 --> 00:05:19.610
the tilt of the disc's outer ring, the one
133
00:05:19.610 --> 00:05:22.250
furthest out roughly 31.6
134
00:05:22.250 --> 00:05:24.850
billion miles from the centre, well beyond
135
00:05:24.850 --> 00:05:27.530
the two inner rings at, uh, 4.1 and
136
00:05:27.610 --> 00:05:30.170
17.4 billion miles. The
137
00:05:30.170 --> 00:05:32.690
streamer is essentially shoving the outer
138
00:05:32.690 --> 00:05:35.010
edge of the disc out of alignment with the
139
00:05:35.010 --> 00:05:36.490
rest of the so this
140
00:05:36.490 --> 00:05:39.170
Avery: isn't just a quirky one off storey about one
141
00:05:39.170 --> 00:05:39.930
weird system.
142
00:05:40.570 --> 00:05:43.570
Anna: That's exactly the bigger point. Bay put
143
00:05:43.570 --> 00:05:46.570
it. If these gas streamers turn out to
144
00:05:46.570 --> 00:05:48.970
be common around young stars, they'd
145
00:05:48.970 --> 00:05:51.769
naturally explain why planets don't always
146
00:05:51.850 --> 00:05:54.850
end up in neat, orderly orbits like our solar
147
00:05:54.850 --> 00:05:57.210
systems. They can come out with, in his
148
00:05:57.210 --> 00:05:59.610
words, much, much more random
149
00:05:59.610 --> 00:06:00.410
orientations.
150
00:06:01.380 --> 00:06:03.140
Avery: So this could be a piece of the puzzle for
151
00:06:03.140 --> 00:06:05.620
all those exoplanets we found with weirdly
152
00:06:05.620 --> 00:06:07.700
tilted or even backwards orbits.
153
00:06:08.260 --> 00:06:10.860
Anna: Exactly that puzzle. The results were
154
00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:13.260
published August 6th in the Astronomical
155
00:06:13.260 --> 00:06:15.820
Journal, and the team's next step is a
156
00:06:15.820 --> 00:06:18.780
systematic survey of young stars to see just
157
00:06:18.780 --> 00:06:21.220
how common these streamers actually are.
158
00:06:21.780 --> 00:06:24.540
Avery: From, um. Why is this one system so messy
159
00:06:24.540 --> 00:06:27.350
to maybe messy is just normal
160
00:06:27.750 --> 00:06:28.430
Cosmic
161
00:06:28.430 --> 00:06:30.950
Anna: order might be the exception, not the rule.
162
00:06:31.430 --> 00:06:33.110
Avery: Quick follow up now, and a bit of a
163
00:06:33.110 --> 00:06:34.670
correction to how we left things last
164
00:06:34.670 --> 00:06:36.550
episode. Let's say we have some new
165
00:06:36.550 --> 00:06:37.910
information, right?
166
00:06:37.990 --> 00:06:40.870
Anna: On Tuesday's Show we said SpaceX had
167
00:06:40.870 --> 00:06:43.590
completed recovery of Starship's ship 40,
168
00:06:43.830 --> 00:06:45.950
which splashed down intact in the Indian
169
00:06:45.950 --> 00:06:48.390
Ocean and got towed towards Western
170
00:06:48.390 --> 00:06:51.150
Australia. Turns out that wasn't
171
00:06:51.150 --> 00:06:52.310
quite the end of the storey.
172
00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:55.320
Avery: What have we got wrong? Or let's say, what's
173
00:06:55.320 --> 00:06:55.800
changed?
174
00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:58.800
Anna: Nothing we said was fabricated. The ship
175
00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:01.440
really was secured and under control, which
176
00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:04.040
is the initial reporting we had captured. But
177
00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:06.600
the fuller picture that's emerged since is
178
00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:09.200
that ship 40 wasn't parked at a mainland
179
00:07:09.200 --> 00:07:11.760
Australian port. It's been under a much
180
00:07:11.760 --> 00:07:14.600
longer tow and as of yesterday, August
181
00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:17.480
18, it arrived in sheltered waters off
182
00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:20.160
Christmas island, the Australian territory,
183
00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:21.960
out in the eastern Indian Ocean.
184
00:07:22.650 --> 00:07:24.250
Avery: After how long a drift? Total?
185
00:07:24.970 --> 00:07:27.930
Anna: 24 days and more than 400 kilometres
186
00:07:27.930 --> 00:07:30.438
of drift, all told, since that July
187
00:07:30.542 --> 00:07:32.650
24th splashdown on Flight 13.
188
00:07:33.450 --> 00:07:35.650
Avery: So why stop at Christmas island instead of
189
00:07:35.650 --> 00:07:37.210
going straight to a mainland port?
190
00:07:37.690 --> 00:07:40.250
Anna: Sheltered water. It gives SpaceX's
191
00:07:40.250 --> 00:07:42.530
engineers, who are now travelling out to the
192
00:07:42.530 --> 00:07:45.450
site, a calm place to do a closer inspection
193
00:07:45.690 --> 00:07:48.170
and stabilise the vehicle for the next leg of
194
00:07:48.170 --> 00:07:50.610
the journey, which is transporting it all the
195
00:07:50.610 --> 00:07:53.210
way back to Starbase in Texas for full
196
00:07:53.210 --> 00:07:56.030
teardown and analysis. Exactly how
197
00:07:56.030 --> 00:07:58.910
they'll move a 171 foot stainless steel
198
00:07:58.910 --> 00:08:01.750
rocket that far hasn't been detailed yet.
199
00:08:02.230 --> 00:08:04.070
Avery: And Musk's take on all this?
200
00:08:04.470 --> 00:08:07.230
Anna: He's framed the intact recovery as
201
00:08:07.230 --> 00:08:09.470
valuable data that would otherwise have been
202
00:08:09.470 --> 00:08:12.030
lost, and said it strengthens the case for
203
00:08:12.030 --> 00:08:14.270
attempting an actual tower catch of a
204
00:08:14.270 --> 00:08:16.870
returning ship as early as Flight 14.
205
00:08:17.510 --> 00:08:19.990
Avery: Though, uh, the saga isn't closed after all.
206
00:08:20.150 --> 00:08:22.310
Just entered a quieter chapter.
207
00:08:22.980 --> 00:08:25.380
Anna: Consider this the correction recovered and
208
00:08:25.380 --> 00:08:28.340
stable? Yes. Home free? Not yet.
209
00:08:28.660 --> 00:08:30.460
We'll flag it again if there's a real
210
00:08:30.460 --> 00:08:31.140
resolution.
211
00:08:31.860 --> 00:08:34.620
Last storey and a quick one. SpaceX
212
00:08:34.620 --> 00:08:37.460
hit a couple of milestones at once on Tuesday
213
00:08:37.540 --> 00:08:37.940
night.
214
00:08:38.180 --> 00:08:39.140
Avery: Lay it on us.
215
00:08:39.460 --> 00:08:42.180
Anna: Tuesday night's Starlink 1750
216
00:08:42.180 --> 00:08:44.620
mission lifted off from Vandenberg Space
217
00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:47.580
Force Base in California, sending up 24
218
00:08:47.580 --> 00:08:50.460
more broadband satellites. That launch was
219
00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:53.460
SpaceX's 97th Falcon 9 flight of
220
00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:56.300
the year and its 100th mission overall
221
00:08:56.300 --> 00:08:58.900
for 2026. All types of missions
222
00:08:58.900 --> 00:08:59.420
combined.
223
00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:02.620
Avery: Hundred missions with four months of the year
224
00:09:02.620 --> 00:09:03.420
still to go.
225
00:09:03.900 --> 00:09:06.620
Anna: And with those 24 new satellites, the
226
00:09:06.620 --> 00:09:09.060
Starlink Constellation is now sitting at
227
00:09:09.060 --> 00:09:12.020
nearly 11,000 operational satellites
228
00:09:12.020 --> 00:09:14.900
in orbit, a scale that genuinely didn't
229
00:09:14.900 --> 00:09:17.540
exist as a concept in spaceflight a decade
230
00:09:17.540 --> 00:09:17.820
ago.
231
00:09:18.420 --> 00:09:19.300
Avery: What about the booster?
232
00:09:19.460 --> 00:09:22.260
Anna: Anna B1097, flying for the
233
00:09:22.260 --> 00:09:24.660
12th time, targeted a landing on the drone
234
00:09:24.660 --> 00:09:26.780
ship. Of course I still love you. Out in the
235
00:09:26.780 --> 00:09:28.860
Pacific, about eight and a half minutes after
236
00:09:28.860 --> 00:09:31.820
liftoff, that booster's flown everything from
237
00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:34.620
The Twilight and Transporter 17 rideshare
238
00:09:34.620 --> 00:09:37.620
missions to Sentinel 6B and A batch of
239
00:09:37.620 --> 00:09:38.980
previous Starlink launches.
240
00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:41.660
Avery: At this point, a Starlink launch barely makes
241
00:09:41.660 --> 00:09:44.300
headlines on its own merits. But quietly
242
00:09:44.300 --> 00:09:46.940
approaching 11,000 satellites is the kind of
243
00:09:46.940 --> 00:09:48.260
number that sneaks up on you.
244
00:09:48.560 --> 00:09:50.920
Anna: It really is one of those stats that's easy
245
00:09:50.920 --> 00:09:53.040
to lose track of because the launches
246
00:09:53.040 --> 00:09:55.960
themselves have become so routine, worth
247
00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:57.280
pausing on occasionally.
248
00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:00.000
Avery: Finally, a quick one before we go. And this
249
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:01.320
one's worth setting an early
250
00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:04.040
Anna: alarm for if you're up before dawn tomorrow
251
00:10:04.040 --> 00:10:06.560
morning. Saturn is putting on one of the best
252
00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:09.520
views of the year. Its rings are unusually
253
00:10:09.520 --> 00:10:12.520
narrow and shallowly tilted right now, only
254
00:10:12.520 --> 00:10:15.200
about 7.5 degrees relative to us,
255
00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:18.360
which lines its major moons up almost in
256
00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:20.580
a straight row extending out from the
257
00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:23.060
planet's equator. Astronomers have taken to
258
00:10:23.060 --> 00:10:25.700
calling it a moon parade. What can you
259
00:10:25.700 --> 00:10:28.580
actually pick out with a small telescope?
260
00:10:28.580 --> 00:10:31.180
Titan is easy. It's the brightest at
261
00:10:31.180 --> 00:10:34.100
magnitude 8.4. Step up
262
00:10:34.100 --> 00:10:36.780
to a 4 to 6 inch scope and you can pick out
263
00:10:36.780 --> 00:10:39.700
Rhea Thetis and Dione as well. If
264
00:10:39.700 --> 00:10:41.900
you've got an 8 to 10 inch instrument,
265
00:10:41.980 --> 00:10:44.860
IAPetus and Enceladus come into range too.
266
00:10:45.260 --> 00:10:48.060
Saturn itself sits in the south southeast in
267
00:10:48.060 --> 00:10:50.680
the hours before sunrise. Medium to high
268
00:10:50.680 --> 00:10:52.440
magnification, somewhere around
269
00:10:52.520 --> 00:10:55.440
120-200x, gives you the best
270
00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:56.840
view of the whole lineup.
271
00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:58.960
Avery: And, um, if you're out earlier tonight
272
00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:01.760
Anna: before bed, you'll catch a waxing crescent
273
00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:04.280
moon in the evening sky. Nothing dramatic,
274
00:11:04.280 --> 00:11:06.960
but a nice preview before the real show rolls
275
00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:08.040
around. Before dawn.
276
00:11:08.440 --> 00:11:10.920
Okay, that's today's episode. A history
277
00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.880
making slightly unfinished spacewalk from
278
00:11:13.880 --> 00:11:16.760
Sophie Adineau and Anil Menon, a trillion
279
00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:19.800
mile river of gas explaining why some planets
280
00:11:19.800 --> 00:11:22.530
end up tilted, an update on Starship
281
00:11:22.530 --> 00:11:24.930
ship 40 as it makes its way to Christmas
282
00:11:24.930 --> 00:11:27.730
island and SpaceX quietly closing in
283
00:11:27.730 --> 00:11:30.450
on 11,000 satellites in orbit.
284
00:11:30.690 --> 00:11:32.850
Avery: Plus Saturn's moon parade before dawn
285
00:11:32.850 --> 00:11:34.930
tomorrow. If you can drag yourself out of bed
286
00:11:34.930 --> 00:11:35.250
for it.
287
00:11:35.330 --> 00:11:37.650
Anna: If you enjoyed today's episode, the best
288
00:11:37.650 --> 00:11:40.050
thing you can do for us is leave a rating or
289
00:11:40.050 --> 00:11:42.410
review wherever you're listening and share it
290
00:11:42.410 --> 00:11:45.330
with a fellow space nerd. Full Show Notes,
291
00:11:45.330 --> 00:11:47.930
sources and links for every storey we cover
292
00:11:47.930 --> 00:11:50.690
today are @astronomydaily IO
293
00:11:51.140 --> 00:11:53.460
and you can find us on social media. We're
294
00:11:53.460 --> 00:11:56.420
astrodaily pod pretty much everywhere.
295
00:11:56.740 --> 00:11:58.540
Avery: We'll be back tomorrow with more from the
296
00:11:58.540 --> 00:12:00.980
world of space and astronomy. Until then,
297
00:12:01.140 --> 00:12:02.100
keep looking up.
298
00:12:02.420 --> 00:12:04.580
Anna: See you next time. Clear skies everyone.
299
00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:16.930
Avery: Mhm.
300
00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:17.500
Anna: Soul.