Aug. 21, 2026

NASA Finds the Crater a SpaceX Rocket Left on the Moon

NASA Finds the Crater a SpaceX Rocket Left on the Moon

Anna and Avery cover how NASA, working with South Korea's Danuri orbiter, pinpointed and imaged the exact crater left by a SpaceX Falcon 9 stage that struck the Moon on August 5th. Plus: the private rescue mission for NASA's ailing Swift telescope has officially failed, astronomers may have caught dark matter bending a black hole's jet, and Rocket Lab launches its ninth radar satellite for Japan's iQPS. Full show notes: Today's episode — S05E173, Friday August 21, 2026: Main story: NASA finds the crater a SpaceX rocket left on the Moon. A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon's surface on August 5, 2026, at 19.4759°N, 266.7138°E. South Korea's Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (Danuri) imaged the impact site within hours using its LUTI camera, confirming the predicted location to within 0.6 miles and passing refined coordinates to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team. LRO's Narrow-Angle Camera imaged the site on August 11–12, revealing a crater roughly 60 feet wide and less than 10 feet deep, with dark rays of space-weathered material excavated from about 1.5 feet down and brighter rays of fresh, unweathered material from deeper still. NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (Planetary Defense program) refined the original impact prediction using data from independent astronomers. Swift telescope rescue mission fails. NASA's Swift Observatory, losing altitude faster than expected due to heightened solar activity, was the target of a $30 million rescue attempt by Arizona-based Katalyst Space Technologies. Their LINK spacecraft launched July 3 on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket but suffered an attitude-control failure roughly three weeks later, spinning uncontrollably before it could dock with and boost Swift. NASA confirmed the mission's failure on August 19; Swift is now expected to reenter the atmosphere uncontrolled before the end of 2026. LINK will still attempt a proximity flyby to gather data for future servicing missions. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman: "This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting." Dark matter may be magnifying a black hole's jet. A team led by Silke Britzen at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, combining data from the VLBA, the Fermi gamma-ray telescope, and NASA's Swift X-ray instrument, found that the plasma jet from blazar PKS 2233-148 shows an unexpected deviation consistent with gravitational lensing by an unseen dark matter clump — a potential first detection of dark matter substructure lensing a blazar jet. The result could also help confirm blazars as sources of high-energy cosmic neutrinos. Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, July 31. Rocket Lab launches a new radar satellite for Japan. Rocket Lab launched SUSANOO-II, a synthetic aperture radar Earth-observation satellite, for Tokyo-based iQPS on an Electron rocket from New Zealand (mission: "The Lightning God Defends"). It's Rocket Lab's ninth launch for iQPS, part of a planned 36-satellite constellation, and marks the company's 14th flight of 2026 and 93rd Electron mission overall. Tonight's sky: the Moon is a waxing gibbous, about 63% illuminated. With a telescope, find the Ring Nebula (M57) in Lyra — look for bright star Vega overhead, then the small parallelogram of stars just below it. Mark your calendars for a 96%-partial lunar eclipse on August 27–28, nearly total — full viewing details to come. Links & sources: - NASA Science — NASA's LRO Images Falcon 9 Crater on Moon, Learns New Details - Universe Today — NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Images Falcon 9 Crater on Moon, With Some Help From a Korean Spacecraft - Space.com — Private mission to save NASA's Swift space telescope fails - Live Science — 'This is not the outcome we were working towards': $30 million mission to save NASA's Swift telescope fails - Space.com — Dark matter could magnify the jets of a ravenously feeding supermassive black hole - Space.com — Rocket Lab launches private Japanese Earth-observing satellite to orbit - Space.com — Night sky August 2026: what you can see tonight - TheSkyLive — Moon Phase on August 21, 2026 Follow us: search astrodailypod on your favorite platform · astronomydaily.io

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Anna: Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's Astronomy

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AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm avery. It's Friday, August 21st,

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series five, episode 173.

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Anna: And today we've actually got a bit of a case

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closed storey to lead with. Remember that

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SpaceX rocket stage that slammed into the

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moon a couple weeks back?

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Avery: The one everybody was speculating about

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because nobody could say exactly where it hit

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that one.

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Anna: NASA's finally got the pictures. We know

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exactly where, exactly how big, and it turns

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out an international team basically built a

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forensic investigation around it.

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Avery: Then some less happy space. The rescue

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mission for NASA's Swift telescope has

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officially failed.

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Anna: It has. And stick with us, because storey

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number three connects right back to that one

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in a pretty ironic way. Plus a fresh

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satellite launch out of New Zealand

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overnight.

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Avery: And tonight's sky has a proper deep sky

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target. If you've got a telescope handy,

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let's get into it.

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Okay, so back up for people who missed it.

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What actually happened here on August 5th?

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Anna: A, uh, spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage

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basically dead. Hardware left over from a

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launch no longer under control struck the

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Moon's surface. This kind of thing happens

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more than people realise. There's a fair bit

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of leftover rocket hardware drifting around

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out there and every so often the orbits catch

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up with it and something comes down.

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Avery: So this wasn't a, uh, SpaceX aimed for the

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moon storey.

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Anna: Not at all. It's an uncontrolled impact.

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What made it interesting was what happened

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next. Astronomers around the world had been

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tracking this stage for a while and had a

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rough prediction of where and when it would

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hit. So this became a genuine race to go

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photograph the aftermath before anyone even

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knew exactly what they'd find.

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Avery: And they found it.

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Anna: They found it. NASA's Centre for Near Earth

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Object Studies, that's the Planetary Defence

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Programme, took tracking data from

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independent astronomers and refined the

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impact prediction, then handed that off to

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the international partners flying spacecraft

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around the moon. First on the scene, so to

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speak, was South Korea's Dinuri, the Korea

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Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, which used its Luti

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camera to image the impact site within hours

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and nailed the predicted location to within

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about 6, 10 of a mile.

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Avery: That's a genuinely tight prediction for

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something falling out of the sky.

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Anna: Uncontrolled, it really is. Denuri

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then passed its refined coordinates over to

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the Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter team. And

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LRO's narrow angle camera got its own images

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on August 11th and 12th. Those are the ones

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NASA released this week with the full

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analysis.

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Avery: So what does the crater actually look like?

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Anna: It's about 60ft wide and less than

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10ft deep. Modest by lunar impact

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standards. This isn't a dramatic scar you'd

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spot from Earth. But what's genuinely useful

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about it are the rays. These streaks of

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ejected material radiating out from the

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crater. LRO caught both darker rays

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and brighter rays, and each one tells you

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something different.

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Avery: How so?

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Anna: The darker streaks are made of surface

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material that's already been sitting exposed

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to solar, wind and cosmic rays for a long

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time. What's called space weathering. And

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that was dug up from about a foot and a half

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down. The brighter streaks are fresh material

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excavated from even deeper that hasn't been

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weathered at all yet. So you're essentially

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getting a cross section of the lunar soil at

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two different depths handed to you for free

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by the impact.

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Avery: A rocket stage as an accidental science

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Anna: instrument, that's honestly the most useful

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way to think about it. It's not a mission.

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Nobody planned this experiment. But planetary

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scientists get real value out of studying

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these fresh, precisely dated impacts because

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they help calibrate how quickly the moon's

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surface weathers over time. Which matters for

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dating other craters. We can't otherwise put

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a clock on

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Avery: coordinates for the record.

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Anna: 19.4759 degrees

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north, 266.6

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7138 east, at an

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elevation of about 511 metres.

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Though next time you're looking at a full

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lunar map, that's roughly the spot where a

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piece of Falcon 9 is now permanently part of

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the moon.

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Avery: Tiny, uninvited addition to the lunar

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surface.

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Anna: It's not going anywhere.

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Alright, this next one's a tougher storey,

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an official update to a storey we've been

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following for some weeks now. And it's not a

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happy ending. NASA's Swift Observatory,

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a telescope that's been watching gamma ray

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bursts and other high energy events since

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2004, has been slowly losing

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altitude faster than expected because of

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increased solar activity puffing up the upper

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atmosphere and adding extra drag.

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Avery: So it's literally falling.

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Anna: It's literally falling. And without a rescue,

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it's going to burn up in an uncontrolled re

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entry sometime before the end of this year.

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So NASA took a bit of a gamble. They signed a

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$30 million contract with an Arizona company

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called Catalyst Space Technologies to build a

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dedicated rescue spacecraft called Link

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and try to dock with Swift and boost it back

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to a safer orbit.

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Avery: That's an extremely tight turnaround for

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building

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Anna: a spacecraft under a year designed to

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launch. Link actually got off the ground on

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July 3, riding a Northrup Grumman Pegasus

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XL rocket launch. And for about three weeks

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things were tracking toward an actual

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rendezvous attempt. And then, um, and

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then Link itself started spinning

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uncontrollably. An attitude control failure

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on the rescue spacecraft, not on Swift.

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NASA made the failure official on August

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19th. Swift's fate is now sealed.

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Uncontrolled reentry sometime before year's

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end. No more boosts coming.

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Avery: Is that just it then? Um, mission over.

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Nothing learned?

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Anna: Not quite. Link is apparently still going to

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attempt a close approach to Swift, even

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without being able to dock and boost it just

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to gather proximity operations data for

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whatever the next rescue attempt looks like.

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And NASA administrator Jared Isaacman put

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it about as honestly as you can, this

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is not the outcome we were working toward,

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but it does not change why this mission was

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worth attempting.

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Avery: Which is the very diplomatic way of saying we

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tried something hard and it didn't work, but

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we needed to try exactly that.

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Anna: Satellite servicing and rescue missions are

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still a, uh, genuinely new capability.

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Nobody's got this down to a routine yet.

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Every attempt, successful or not, is

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teaching people how to actually do it.

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Avery: Small silver lining for a telescope that's

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about to become a shooting star.

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Anna: A very expensive, very short lived

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one.

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Avery: Okay, you said this one connects back to

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Swift how?

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Anna: Because Swift's X ray instrument is actually

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part of the data behind it. One last bit of

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science out of that observatory before it

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goes. There's a blazar that's a

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supermassive black hole blasting out a jet of

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plasma pointed almost directly at us

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called PKS

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223-3148. A

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team led by Silke Britzen at the Max Planck

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Institute for Radio Astronomy has been

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watching its jet using three different

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instru. The Very Long Baseline

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array here on Earth for radio, the Fermi

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telescope for gamma rays, and Swift for X

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rays.

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Avery: Three instruments stakeout, right?

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Anna: And combining all three is what let them

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catch something odd. The jet's motion

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changed in a way that doesn't match a normal

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blazar. It made a sudden, unexpected

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deviation, almost like something invisible

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gave it a nudge partway along its path.

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Avery: And something invisible is doing a lot of

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work in that sentence.

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Anna: It is, because the team's explanation is

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that an unseen clump of dark matter

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sitting between us and the jet is

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gravitationally lensing it, bending and

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magnifying the light of the jet, just like

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the way a giant galaxy cluster can lens a

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background galaxy, just on a much smaller,

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much harder to catch scale.

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Avery: Why does that matter? Beyond cool, Dark

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matter did a thing.

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Anna: Because we still don't know what dark matter

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actually is. And one of the best tools we've

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got for finding out is looking for its

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substructure clumps of it through exactly

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this kind of subtle lensing signature. If

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this holds up, it's one of the first times

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anyone's caught a dark matter clump lensing a

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blazar jet specifically. And there's a bonus.

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Blazars are suspected sources of high energy

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cosmic neutrinos, the ghost particles that

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barely interact with anything. A confirmed

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lensing event like this could help prove

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blazars really are where some of those

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neutrinos come from.

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Avery: Ritson have anything to say about it?

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Anna: Her quote was we are very happy to have

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discovered as yet undetected phenomena in the

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jet as well as in the gamma ray light curve

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published in Monthly Notices of the Royal

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Astronomical Society back on July 31.

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Avery: So even mid M collapse, Swift's still out

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here doing useful science.

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Anna: Going out on a high note at least.

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Next, a quick one to close out the news.

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Rocket Lab had a launch overnight from their

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pad in New Zealand.

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Avery: What'd they send up?

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Anna: A satellite called Susanoo 2 for the

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Tokyo based company IQPS. That's

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their ninth satellite launched by Rocket Lab.

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Now it's a synthetic aperture radar

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satellite, meaning it images the ground using

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radar instead of visible light. So it can see

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straight through cloudgover and works just as

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well at night as during the day.

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Avery: Handy for a company building out a whole

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constellation of these, I'd guess.

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Anna: Exactly. This is satellite number nine toward

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a planned constellation of 36. All

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aimed at giving customers near real time high

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resolution radar imagery of pretty much

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anywhere on Earth. The mission was nicknamed

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the Lightning God. Defens lifted off on an

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electron rocket just 59ft tall and

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dropped Susanoo 2 into low Earth orbit about

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357 miles up, roughly 50

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minutes after liftoff.

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Avery: Rocket Labs keeping up a pretty relentless

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launch pace this year.

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Anna: This was their 14th flight of 2026

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alone and 93rd overall for the electron

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rocket. They're closing in on their own

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record with plenty of year left to go.

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Avery: No signs of flowing down.

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Anna: None at all.

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Avery: Alright, before we go, what should people

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actually go look at tonight?

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Anna: If you've got a telescope, even a modest 14

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inches or so pointed at the Ring Nebula.

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Tonight, look straight up after dark for

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Vega, the brilliant star practically

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overhead. And just below it, you'll spot a

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neat little parallelogram of stars marking

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the constellation Lyra. The Ring Nebula,

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catalogued as M M57, sits right

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inside that parallelogram what are

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Avery: we actually looking at with that one?

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Anna: It's the glowing ghostly remnant of a dying

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sun like star. Threw the eyepiece at decent

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magnification 100 to 150 times.

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It looks like a small pale grey smoke ring

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hanging against the starfield. If you've got

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an oxygen 3 or narrow band filter, that'll

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make it pop even more against the background.

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Avery: And for anyone without a telescope tonight,

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Anna: the Moon's the easy target. It's a waxing

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gibbous, about 63% illuminated,

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nice and bright overhead through the evening.

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And mark your calendars for next week. A

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partial lunar eclipse on the 27th and 28th

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is going to cover a full 96% of the

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Moon's face, about as close to total as a

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partial eclipse gets. We'll have full viewing

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details for that one as it gets closer, a

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teaser

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Avery: and a homework assignment in one.

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Anna: That's the job.

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And that's it for today's episode. Series

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five episode 173 in the books,

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so to speak.

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Avery: Quick recap. NASA and international

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partners pinned down exactly where a SpaceX

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rocket stage hit the moon. The rescue mission

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for NASA's Swift telescope comes up short.

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A black hole jet may be getting a boost from

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unseen dark matter. And Rocket

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Lab keeps its launch pace red hot with a new

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radar satellite for Japan.

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Anna: If you enjoyed the show, the best thing you

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can do is tell a friend. Leave us a rating

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00:11:57.100 --> 00:11:59.340
wherever you listen and follow us. Just

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search astrodaily Pod on your favourite

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platform. Bull show notes and links are

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always up at astronomydaily IO

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we'll be back

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Avery: tomorrow with the weekend wrap from across

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the universe.

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Anna: Until then, um, keep looking up.

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Avery: Clear skies everyone.

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Anna: Astronomy Day.

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Avery: Mhm Storeys we told

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Anna: love.