The Sun's Hidden Power, Atmosphere on a Nearby Planet, and Starship's Five-Act Drama

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Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily and our weekend

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space and astronomy news wrap for Saturday,

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the 18th of July, 2026.

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I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm Avery. Every Saturday, we bring you

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two brand new stories, plus the four biggest

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headlines from the week that was. And

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honestly, Anna, what a week it was.

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Anna: It really was. Coming up, new research

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suggesting we may have been underestimating

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just how hard the sun can hit us. A

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planet 48 light years away that turns out to

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have air. A week of high drama at

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Starbase. A hidden black hole in the Southern

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Hemisphere's favorite star cluster,

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Landslides on Pluto. And to

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finish the most delightful space story of the

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week involving a cup of tea.

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Avery: Only on this show does that sentence make

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sense. Let's get into it.

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Our, uh, lead story this weekend is one of

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those quiet papers with very loud

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implications. New research published in the

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journal Nature suggests the most powerful

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solar storms to strike Earth may pack a

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bigger punch than scientists realized,

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because the limit we thought Nature had built

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in may never have existed at all.

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Anna: Set this up for us, Avery. What limit are we

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talking about?

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Avery: So, for decades, space weather scientists

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have observed something reassuring in the

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data. As the solar wind, that stream of

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charged particles flowing off the sun, gets

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stronger during a storm, the electrical

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currents it drives through the upper

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atmosphere increase up to a point. And then

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the response seemed to flatten out, saturate,

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as if the Earth had a ceiling on how badly it

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could react no matter how hard the sun

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pushed.

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Anna: Which would be very good news for anyone who

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owns a satellite or a power grid.

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Avery: Exactly. That assumed ceiling has been

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quietly baked into risk models for extreme

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space weather. But the new study, led by Dr.

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Nithin Cividas of NASA's Goddard Space Flight

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center, with co author Dr. Maria Wallach of

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Lancaster University, asked a deceptively

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simple. Is that saturation real

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physics, or is it an artifact of how we've

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been measuring the solar wind?

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Anna: And the answer?

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Avery: Very likely an artifact. The team analyzed

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more than a million solar wind measurements

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from spacecraft orbiting much closer to

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Earth, where the solar wind actually meets

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our magnetic field. And in that data, the

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electrical currents in the upper atmosphere

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just kept climbing as a solar wind got

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stronger. No flattening, no sealing.

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Anna: The paper's title gives away the mechanism,

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doesn't it? Regression to the mean.

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It's a statistical effect. Essentially, when

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you average noisy measurements of extreme

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events, the extremes get smoothed away.

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And that smoothing can masquerade as a

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physical limit.

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Avery: Right. The ceiling was in the maths, not the

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magnetosphere. And if there's no upper limit

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to our planet's response. Then the rare

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monsters, the so called once in a thousand

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year geomagnetic storms could hit

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satellites, gps, communic and power

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grids harder than current estimates predict.

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Anna: It's worth saying clearly this is not a

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prediction that a catastrophic storm is

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coming. Wallach herself makes the point that

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these extreme cases are rare, which is

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fortunate, but it also means we have very

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little data on them.

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Avery: And there's a timeliness to this because the

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sun is still near the peak of its roughly 11

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year activity cycle. For our listeners across

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Australia and New Zealand, that's the same

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solar activity that has delivered those

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spectacular Aurora australis displ over

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the past couple of years.

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Anna: The aurora is the beautiful face of

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space weather and this paper is a reminder

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that the same physics has a much less

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charming side. We'll come back to Aurora

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watching in our Skywatch segment a little

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later.

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Now to our weekly highlights, the four

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stories that defined the week. And if you

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only heard one episode this week, I hope it

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was Fridays because it carried what might

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just be the story of the year. For the

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first time, astronomers have detected an

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atmosphere around a rocky Earth like

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planet in the habitable zone of its

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Avery: star LHS 1140B,

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48 light years away, which in

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galactic terms is barely down the street.

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Anna: As we covered on Friday's show, the detection

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was published in the journal Science. The

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team found helium escaping from the planet's

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atmosphere and that escaping envelope is

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the fingerprint that told them an atmosphere

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is there at all. Rocky planet,

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habitable zone, confirmed atmosphere.

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That combination has never been ticked off

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before on any world anywhere,

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and the

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Avery: researchers believe the planet probably holds

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a substantial amount of water too. With the

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greenhouse atmosphere you have conditions

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that could plausibly support liquid water at

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Anna: the surface, with the lead author being very

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careful, as we stressed on Friday, to

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say nobody is claiming this planet has life.

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What they're claiming is a the first

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rocky temperate world where we can even ask

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the question with real data.

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Avery: Every generation of astronomers gets one or

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two first time in history moments. This week

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we got one. If you missed the full story,

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it's Friday's episode. So

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5e143.

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In your feed right now, highlight number

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two and it's less a story than a soap

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opera. Starship Flight 13

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gave us a full five act drama this week.

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Anna: Walk us through it, Avery. Because we covered

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a new twist Almost

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Avery: every day, Act 1 Monday we

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previewed the flight with SpaceX, aiming for

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midweek and the first functional Starlink V3

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satellites. Real working satellites this

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time, not the mass simulators of earlier

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flights. Act 2 Tuesday, the

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launch slipped to ah, Thursday after a

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successful 33 engine static fire.

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Act 3 Wednesday, the FAA

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formally closed its flight 12 mishap

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investigation, clearing the path. Act

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4 Thursday, the countdown reached

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zero

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Anna: and then stopped there the abort at

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T0. As we reported on Friday's show,

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some of the super heavy booster's Raptor

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engines failed to ignite and the vehicle's

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computers called an automatic abort. Just as

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the engines lit, Elon Musk said two

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Raptors would be removed and replaced.

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Avery: Which brings us to Act 5 and um, this part's

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new. Since yesterday's episode, SpaceX has

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restacked the two stages at Starbase. And

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Flight 13 is now scheduled for Monday

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evening, July 20th, US time, which

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Anna: means Tuesday morning for most of our

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Australian and New Zealand listeners. And it

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means we should have the results for you on

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Tuesday's show. The story that ate this week

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is about to headline next week, too.

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Avery: Third time lucky? We'll find out Monday.

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Anna: Highlight number three takes us to the

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Southern Hemisphere's crown jewel, Omega

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Centauri, the biggest and brightest globular

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cluster in the entire sky. As we covered

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on Wednesday's show, astronomers have found

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the first confirmed stellar mass black hole

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hiding among its 10 million stars.

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Avery: Found not by seeing it, you can't see it,

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but, uh, by watching stars move

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precisely.

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Anna: Using years of Hubble and James Webb

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astrometry, the painstaking measurement of

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stellar positions, the team tracked stars

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being swung around by something massive and

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invisible. The motions point to a stellar

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mass black hole, the first of its kind

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confirmed in the cluster.

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Avery: And what made Wednesday's episode special for

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our audience is that this isn't some faint

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smudge in a telescope catalog. Uh, Omega

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Centauri is a naked eye object from Australia

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and New Zealand. At this time of year, you

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can walk outside on a clear July evening,

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look up and see the fuzzy star

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Anna: that holds this black Hallie million

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suns packed into a ball you can cover with

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your thumbnail. And now we know at least one

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of them left a black hole behind. It's riding

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high in our winter sky right now. And we'll

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tell you exactly where to look.

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In the Skywatch segment, our final highlight

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Avery: is the double bill from Thursday's two

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discoveries from the Pluto system 10 years

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after New Horizons flew past. Proving that

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flyby is still the gift that keeps on giving.

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Anna: First, Pluto itself. Researchers combing

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through New Horizons imagery found evidence

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of landslides down steep crater walls,

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the first ever identified on Pluto. And

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some are enormous large enough, as we said on

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Thursday, to bury entire cities on Earth.

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Avery: Landslides on a world where the bedrock is

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water ice and the surface temperature sits

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around minus 230 degrees

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Celsius. Even in deep freeze,

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Pluto's geology is alive enough to move

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mountainsides.

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Anna: And then part two of the double bill. Pluto's

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giant moon Charon, where scientists showed

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that its network of tectonic fractures

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preserves a record of its ancient space spin

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down as, uh, Charon's rotation slowed over

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billions of years, locking one face

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permanently toward Pluto, the stresses

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cracked its crust in patterns we can still

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read today.

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Avery: A fossil record written in fractures.

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Ten years after a nine year journey and a

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nine hour flyby, the Pluto system is

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still handing us front page science. Not bad

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for a world some people try to demote out of

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the headlines.

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Anna: And now the story I've been saving all

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episode because it's brand new, it's

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historic and it's about tea.

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Avery: The finest sentence ever spoken on this

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Anna: program announced on Thursday. Seeds from

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South Africa's famous Rovioche plant are

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going to the International Space Station this

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October. They will be the first indigenous

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South African species and the first seeds

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from the African continent ever to go to

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space.

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Avery: Robios for listeners who haven't tried it,

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it's that lovely Swedish caffeine free

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red tea grown in the Cederberg region north

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of Cape Town and pretty much nowhere else on

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Earth.

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Anna: The mission is a partnership between the

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South African Robios Council, the space

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education company Max IQ Space and

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the South African Space Agency. The

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seeds travel in a sealed nanolab aboard an

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ISS resupply flight, spend at least

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six weeks exposed to microgravity and space

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radiation and return to Earth around December

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or January.

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Avery: And here's the part I love most. When they

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come back, the space flown seeds will be

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planted alongside ground control seeds.

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And the scientists doing that comparative

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study tracking germination, growth,

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resilience and yield are school students.

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Kids from the Cederberg region, the very

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region where Robios grows. Monitoring the

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plans of over 18 months.

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Anna: Kids from the birthplace of Robios running a

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real space biology experiment on their own

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hometown plant. If that doesn't launch a few

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careers in science, nothing will.

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Avery: It also joins a genuinely important research

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thread. Lettuce, peas and soybeans have

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all flown on the station as we work out how

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to grow food beyond Earth. Robios is

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hardy, drought adapted and packed with

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antioxidants. Honestly, if humanity's going

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to the moon and Mars, somebody should

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absolutely be bringing the tea.

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Anna: A story with warmth in every sense. We'll

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follow the seeds when they fly in October.

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Avery: Time for Skywatch what to look for from the

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Southern Hemisphere this week the

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Anna: Moon is returning to the evening sky as

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a waxing crescent after Tuesday's new Moon,

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low in the west after sunset and

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climbing higher each night with

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beautiful Earthshine on the unlit

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portion in these early days. It

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slit past brilliant Venus and the star

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Regulus late this week and the pairing

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is still worth a look as

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Avery: twilight fades but the Moon young and

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setting early, the evenings stay gloriously

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dark and that means the winter Milky Way. The

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galactic core in Sagittarius and Scorpius is

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virtually overhead in the mid evening from

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Australia and New Zealand. Right now from a

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dark site, it's the finest naked eye sight in

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nature.

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Anna: And while you're under it, find Omega

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Centauri, the very cluster from

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Wednesday's Black hole story. Look to

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the southwest in mid evening in the

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constellation Centaurus above the Southern

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Cross. To the naked eye it's a soft,

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fuzzy star in binoculars it

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swells into a glowing ball of ancient

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suns.

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Avery: Saturn rises late in the evening and stands

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high in the predawn sky for early risers,

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with Mars still tracking through Taurus near

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the red star Aldebaran in the dawn twilight.

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Anna: And given today's lead story, keep an

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eye on the aurora alerts. We're near

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solar maximum and one good

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coronal mass ejection can light up

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southern skies from Tasmania and the South

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Island. The Aurora australis is the

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friendly reminder of everything we discussed

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at the top of the show.

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Avery: And that's the week that was in space and

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astronomy. A sun with fewer limits than we

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thought, a rocky world with air, a rocket

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with one more chance on Monday, a black hole

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you can point at, landslides on Pluto and

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tea leaves headed for orbit.

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Anna: For all the show notes, links to every story

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and our full episode archive, visit

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astronomydaily IO and

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you'll find us across social media.

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AstroDailyPod we're back Monday

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with all the news, including, we hope, a

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starship launch.

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Avery: Until then, thanks for spending part of your

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weekend with us. I'm Avery.

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Anna: And I'm Anna. Clear skies everyone.

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Avery: Astronomy Day

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stories we told.

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Anna: You.

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Avery: Mhm.