Starship's Ship 40 Makes It Home

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Anna: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Astronomy

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AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm avery. It's Tuesday, August 18th,

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series five, episode 170.

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Anna: And we've got a genuinely satisfying one to

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lead with today.

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After three weeks of, uh, will they, won't

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they? SpaceX has actually pulled its

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starship upper stage out of the Indian

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Ocean.

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Avery: Ship 40 makes it home, closing the loop on a

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storey we've been checking in on since it

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splashed down back on July 24th.

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Anna: Then three more. A dead star in a

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nearby nebula that's basically showing us our

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own sun's obituary five billion

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years early. New evidence that the Milky

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Way itself was built out of a galaxy we

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crashed into almost 12 billion years ago.

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And China bouncing back fast from a

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rocket explosion with two launches in about

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23 hours, plus a quick one for

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Avery: anyone stepping outside tonight, there is a

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nice pairing in the western sky right after

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sunset.

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Anna: Lots to get through. Let's get into it.

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Avery: Okay, so let's actually finish this storey,

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Anna, uh, take us back to the start, because

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it's been a genuine saga.

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Anna: It has. This goes back to July

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24 and Starship's Flight 13.

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The upper stage ship 40 did something

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no Starship upper stage had ever managed

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before. It flipped, reignited two

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engines, oriented itself and made a

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controlled soft splashdown in the Indian

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Ocean off Western Australia, completely

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intact.

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Avery: Which nobody was really planning for. Usually

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these things topple over and break apart on

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impact.

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Anna: Right? That was the original good news

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storey. SpaceX got an intact upper

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stage sitting on the water and decided that

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was too good an opportunity to just scuttle

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it. They sent recovery vessels out, the

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Normand Ranger, the Go Australis, a

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ship called Skimmer Tide, and started trying

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to lasso a, uh, 170 foot

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stainless steel rocket that had drifted more

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than 400 kilometres from where it landed.

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Avery: And that's when it got complicated.

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Anna: Very complicated. The tow back toward shore

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started in early August, but the seas

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didn't cooperate. Conditions kept

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deteriorating. The convoy could only creep

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along at 1 to 3 knots. And on

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August 8th, Elon Musk gave us the line we led

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an episode with a couple of weeks ago. Ship

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recovery is not looking good right now.

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Avery: And, um, prediction markets had it down

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around an 18% chance of actually making it to

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shore.

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Anna: That's right where it sat for a while. But

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here's the actual news today. It worked.

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Over the past few days, the Normand Rangers

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convoy got ship 40 secured, built up

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speed and towed it all the way in toward

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Dampier in Western Australia. As of this

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week, SpaceX has recovered

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Avery: the ship three weeks adrift and they actually

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brought it home.

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Anna: Three weeks, more than 400 kilometres of

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drift, rough seas that nearly sank the whole

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recovery effort, and an intact

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170 foot Starship upper stage

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sitting on a dock instead of on the seafloor.

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That's a first.

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Avery: What do they actually get out of having the

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physical vehicle back versus just the imagery

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they'd already collected?

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Anna: That's the interesting part. SpaceX had

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already said the mission's main objective was

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done regardless of outcome because they got

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close up satellite and drone imagery of the

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heat SH and engine sections while ship

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40 was still floating. That inspection showed

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the thermal protection system mostly held up

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despite higher than expected aerodynamic

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pressure during ascent. Though there was some

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tile loss and damage around the aft rim that

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happened earlier in flight.

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Avery: So having the actual hardware back is a bonus

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on top of an already successful data run.

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Anna: Exactly. Now engineers can do hands

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on forensic inspection instead of just

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working from photos, which is a much richer

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way to validate what held and what didn't for

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the next generation of ships.

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Avery: And the programme hasn't exactly been

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standing still waiting for this to resolve.

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Anna: Not even slightly. Jip41

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has already been through cryogenic testing

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and engine installation and it's expected to

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roll out to the Massey's test site for static

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fire testing as early as this week.

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Booster 21's finished its own cryo campaign

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and is having engines installed for its

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static fire and Flight 14. The

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next full test flight is currently targeting

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around August 20th. So just a couple of days

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from now.

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Avery: So this whole saga wraps up almost exactly as

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the next chapter is about

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Anna: to start, which is very on brand for

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this programme. At the moment there's

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basically no gap between close one storey and

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open the next one. But Gregor has also been

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busy in the background. SpaceX ran 22

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separate Raptor 3 engine firings there over

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the last two weeks, including one that ran,

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ah, a full 140 seconds, matching

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a complete ascent burn.

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Avery: That's a lot of engines getting put through

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their paces. For a rocket that's supposedly

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still in

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Anna: a testing phase, it's the clearest sign yet

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that they're trying to get the cadence up.

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Anyway, ship 40's home after three weeks

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of is it lost at sea? It isn't.

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Good outcome and one less loose thread for us

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to keep tracking.

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Avery: We can finally stop saying still unresolved

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about this one.

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Anna: Next storey is, uh, a bit more melancholy,

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but in a genuinely beautiful way.

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Astronomers have gotten the clearest look yet

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at what happens to A star like our sun after

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it dies.

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Avery: And, uh, we're talking about the sun's actual

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eventual fate here.

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Anna: Not a metaphor, not a metaphor at

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all. This comes from the helix Nebula, about

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650 light years away in the constellation

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Aquarius, one of the closest and most

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photographed planetary nebulae there is. At

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its centre sits a white dwarf, the dense

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leftover core of a sun like star that

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ran out of hydrogen fuel, ballooned into a

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red giant and then shed its outer layers into

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space.

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Avery: Which 5 billion years from now is exactly

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what's going to happen to our sun.

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Anna: Precisely. This is our own star's

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future. Just further along the timeline, a

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team led by Peter Van Daakum at Yale, along

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with Roberto Abraham at the University of

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Toronto and Imad Pasha at the

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Dragonfly Focused Research Organisation

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studied the nebula's outer faint halo and

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found something nobody directly resolved

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before.22 distinct arc

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shaped structures called bow shocks,

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essentially wakes left behind as clumps of

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the dead star's ejected material plough

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through the surrounding interstellar gas.

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Avery: So we're watching the star's old outer layers

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actually being absorbed back into the galaxy?

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Anna: That's the headline. This is the first direct

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observation of stellar debris being broken

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apart and returned to the interstellar medium

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in real time. Van Daukum put it simply,

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we are seeing material shed near the end of a

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star's life being broken apart and returned

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to the galaxy.

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Avery: How long does that process actually take?

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Anna: Relatively fast on cosmic timescales. The

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researchers estimate those clumps survive for

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around 10,000 years before they fully

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disperse and blend into the surrounding gas.

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The nebula's outer ring itself spans about

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5.7 light years.

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Avery: So this is basically recycling the star's

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guts eventually become raw material for the

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next generation of stars and planets.

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Anna: That's exactly the point. Every heavy element

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in your body that isn't hydrogen or helium

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came from a star that did this at some point.

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Watching it happen in real time, even in a

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nebula that's already thousands of years into

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the process, is about as close as we get to

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watching that recycling loop in action. The

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results were published Aug. 12 in Nature.

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Avery: A nice one to sit with. Not a disaster

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storey, just the actual shape of how stars,

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um, end.

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Anna: And a preview of a very, very distant

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Tuesday 5 billion years from now.

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Avery: Storey 3. And this one's about our home

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galaxy's own deep history, Right?

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Anna: New research using Hubble, backed up by data

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from ESA's GAIA mission, has identified

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a previously unknown collision that helped

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shape the Milky Way almost 11 billion years

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ago.

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Avery: Previously unknown, is doing some work there.

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How do you find a collision that happened

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that long ago?

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Anna: You look at the fossil record it left behind.

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Specifically, globular clusters, these dense

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balls of hundreds of thousands of old stars

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that orbit the galaxy. A team led by

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Davide Massari at Bologna's

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Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory,

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with Kiara Zerbinati from the University of

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Bologna doing key analysis of the Hubble and

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Gaia data, found a distinct population

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of globular clusters that didn't match any

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previously known building block of the Milky

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Way.

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Avery: So a whole separate family of star clusters

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just hiding in plain sight.

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Anna: Hiding in plain sight for decades, basically,

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because until you have precise enough motion

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and composition data, one old globular

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cluster looks a lot like another. This third

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population traces back to a dwarf galaxy.

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The team's calling LKH for

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low energy Kraken Heracles, which

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merged with the Milky Way about 11.8

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billion years ago, just roughly 2 billion

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years after the Big Bang.

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Avery: How big was this thing?

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Anna: Relatively speaking, modest by

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galaxy standards, around 500 million

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solar masses. But it brought its own globular

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clusters along with it, which merged into the

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Milky Way's own population. And the collision

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likely triggered bursts of star formation and

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contributed meaningfully to our galaxy's

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early chemical makeup.

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Avery: And this is a different event from the Gaia

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sausage Enceladus merger, the one we've

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mentioned before as the Milky Way's biggest

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ancient collision.

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Anna: Different and earlier. LKH

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predates that Gaia Sausage Enceladus merger

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by about 1.8 billion years. So

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this pushes the known history of the Milky

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Way's construction by collision back even

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further than we'd already mapped.

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Avery: It's a good reminder that the Milky Way isn't

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really one continuous thing. It's more like a

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scrapbook of everything it swallowed.

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Anna: Which is exactly the sentiment Messari

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captured. He said, our home is the Milky Way

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galaxy, but we do not know how our house was

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built. This is one more floorboard in that

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house getting identified. The findings were

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published August 18th in Nature Astronomy.

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Avery: Somewhere between the LKH merger and Gaia

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sausage Enceladus, our, uh, galaxy basically

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had two formative growth spurts back to back.

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Anna: And there's likely more of these still hiding

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in the data. This is very much an ongoing

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excavation.

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Okay, on to our last storey today and a

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quicker one. China's space programme had a

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rough moment last week, and a strong recovery

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this

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Avery: week set the scene.

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Anna: What happens on August 10th? A Long March

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7A rocket failed about 85

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seconds into flight. The Fairing and upper

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section of the vehicle bent backward and

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broke apart, destroying the rocket along with

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its payload. A communications satellite,

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Zongshang 4B. The cause is still

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under investigation, which

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Avery: is obviously a serious loss. Both a rocket

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and a comm satellite gone it is.

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Anna: And there was a real question of how quickly

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China's programme could get back to flying

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after that kind of very public failure. The

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answer turned out to be fast. On August

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16, they launched twice within about

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23 hours, using two completely different

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rockets from two different sites.

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Avery: Walk us through both.

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Anna: First up was a long March 12 from the

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Wenshang Commercial Space Launch Site,

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carrying 24 Internet satellites into low

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Earth orbit. That's the long March 12's

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seventh consecutive successful mission since

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it debuted in 2024. Then about

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23 hours later, a long March

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2C lifted off from the Taiwan Satellite

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Launch Centre roughly 1300 miles to

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the north, carrying a satellite for the

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United Arab Emirates.

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Avery: Um, and the IIC is the old reliable of the

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fleet, right?

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Anna: By a wide margin. That airframe's been flying

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since 1982. So the message

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China's sending here is pretty deliberate.

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Newer commercial rocket, decades old

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workhorse rocket, two different launch sites,

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back to back. Less than a week after a very

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Avery: public failure, a calculated show of

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operational depth rather than just look, we

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launched

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Anna: something that's exactly the read on it,

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proving the failure was contained to that.

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One rocket and one pad. Not a symptom of

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something systemic across the programme.

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Avery: A quick one before we go. If you step outside

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after sunset tonight, look low in the western

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sky.

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Anna: The waxing crescent moon, just a few days

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old, is keeping company with Venus tonight.

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And Venus is blazing away at magnitude

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-4.1, so it's genuinely hard

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to miss. About 45 minutes after sunset.

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Avery: Um, an easy, no telescope required, one for

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tonight.

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Anna: Okay, that's today's episode. Starship's ship

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40 finally makes it home after three weeks

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adrift a dead star, showing us our

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Sun's own distant future. New evidence

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the Milky Way was built out of an ancient

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galactic collision and China's fast

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recovery with back to back

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Avery: launches, plus tonight's Moon and Venus

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pairing. If you get a clear sky.

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Anna: If you enjoyed today's episode, the best

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thing you can do for us is leave a rating or

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review wherever you're listening and share it

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with a fellow space nerd. Full show notes,

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sources and links for every storey we covered

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today are at, uh, astronomydaily IO

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and you can find us on social media. We're

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astrodaily Pod pretty much everywhere.

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Avery: We'll be back tomorrow with more from the

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world of space and astronomy. Until then,

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keep looking up.

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Anna: See you then. Clear skies, everyone.

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Astronomy day.

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Avery: The storeys be told.

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Anna: Storeys.