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This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Good day and welcome to Astronomy
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 Avery: And I'm Avery. And if you only listen to us
00:00:07 --> 00:00:08 once this year, make it the next
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 Anna: two days, because tomorrow, the 12th of
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 August, the moon does something it hasn't
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 done over mainland Europe since
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 1999. It slides
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 completely in front of the sun, the one and
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 only total solar eclipse of
00:00:23 --> 00:00:24 2026.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 Avery: And then, once the sun goes down, the same
00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 new Moon that made that eclipse possible
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 steps out of the way entirely. Hands us the
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 darkest Perseid meteor peak in about 20
00:00:35 --> 00:00:35 years.
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 Anna: One new moon, two headline events
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 roughly 24 hours apart. We'll set the
00:00:41 --> 00:00:44 whole thing up for you. Northern and southern
00:00:44 --> 00:00:45 skies both, Plus a
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 Avery: rough morning for one Chinese rocket, a, uh,
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 quieter question mark hanging over another,
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 and Japan quietly finishing off its own
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 answer to gps. Let's get into it.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 Anna: So let's talk about tomorrow properly,
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 because this is a genuinely rare one. Uh, a
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 total solar eclipse happens somewhere on
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 Earth roughly 18 months or so. But the
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 last time totality touched down anywhere on
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 the planet was April 2024 over
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 North America. That's more than two years
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 ago. Tomorrow ends that drought,
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 and the geography of this one is strange and
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 beautiful. Most total eclipses
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 race roughly west to east across the middle
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 of the globe. This one goes over the top of
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 the world. The Moon's shadow first touches
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 down in the far north of Siberia, then
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 arcs up and over the North Pole, drops
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 down onto eastern Greenland, crosses the west
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 coast of Iceland, including Reykjavik,
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 and finishes across northern Spain and just
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 clips the northwestern corner of Portugal.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 Totality itself is brief. At most
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 about 2 minutes and 18 seconds right on
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 the centre line. Blink and you miss it by
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 eclipse standards. But the setting more than
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 makes up for it, because in Spain, the sun
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 is hanging low in the west, close to the
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 horizon. In the last light before sunset,
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 imagine the sun's corona flaring out over
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 a Spanish skyline at dusk. That's
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 the image people have been planning trips
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 around for years now before anyone
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 in the Southern Hemisphere gets their hopes
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 up. Let me be straight with you, because we
00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 always are on this show. This eclipse is a
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 Northern Hemisphere event full stop.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 Totality is only over Greenland,
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 Iceland, northern Spain and that little bit
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 of Portugal. A much wider slice of the world
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 gets a partial eclipse. Parts of North
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 America, especially eastern Canada and
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 the northeastern United States, will see the
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 sun take a bite low in the sky near sunset.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 But here in Australia, we see nothing at
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 all. So southern listeners, stay with us.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 Your night is coming later in the show, and
00:02:57 --> 00:02:58 it's a good one.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 Here's the scale that gets me though, add up
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 everyone who falls under at least a partial
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 shadow tomorrow across Europe, North Africa,
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 northern Asia and much of North America.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 And you're talking on the order of, um, a
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 billion people who can in principle
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 look up and see the moon and sun overlap.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 One event, a billion potential witnesses.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 And it's not just a spectacle, it's a working
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 day for scientists. Those couple of minutes
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 of totality are one of the only times we can
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 study the sun's corona, that faint outer
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 atmosphere directly from the ground.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 Space agencies and observatories along the
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 track are gearing up. The European Space
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 Agency, for instance, is running a live
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 broadcast from the Havalambra Observatory in
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 Spain, stitching together telescope feeds and
00:03:48 --> 00:03:51 drone footage so that even if you're nowhere
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 near the path, you can watch totality as it
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 happens. The ever reality is the
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 weather, of course. It always is with
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 eclipses. Greenland is remote and cold,
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 but the air coming off the ice sheet actually
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 tends to clear the skies, so the odds there
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 aren't bad. Iceland is Iceland. It
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 could be crystal clear or socked in with
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 cloud, sometimes within the same hour.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 And Spain has the best of both worlds for
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 most travellers. Reliable late summer skies
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 and the roads, airports and towns to actually
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 get people into the path. That's why the bulk
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 of eclipse chasers are converging on Spain
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 and Iceland tonight, watching forecasts
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 like hawks. We'll give you the exact viewing
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 times for the path and for North America, um,
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 in the sky watch at the end. For now, the
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 headline is simply, After 27
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 years, totality is coming home to Europe.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 And whatever the sky is doing where you are
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 tomorrow. It is worth a look, it really
00:04:52 --> 00:04:52 is.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 Avery: And from something rising to something that
00:04:55 --> 00:04:56 came down the hard way.
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 So yesterday was by any measure an
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 extraordinary day for launches. Four flights
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 across three countries inside about 12 hours.
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 And China opened it with a hard one to watch
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 along March 7 a. That's a state rocket
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 from the big state contractor cask,
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 lifted off from the Wenchang launch site on
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 the island of Hainan. And about 85 seconds
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 into the flight, still climbing, still on
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 that first main burn, it exploded.
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 A large fireball, a cloud of debris, and
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 effectively a total loss of the vehicle and
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 its payload. The payload was reported to be
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 a communications satellite, Zhongsheng 4B,
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 heading for a high orbit China. Space
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 authorities hadn't put out a detailed
00:05:41 --> 00:05:43 statement as of our recording, so we're
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 holding the payload detail lightly. But the
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 outcome itself isn't in doubt. The rocket was
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 lost. There's a bit of history here too. This
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 was the 18th flight of the long March 7th A
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 and awkwardly, the very first one back in
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 2020 also ended in failure.
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 So this is a rocket that's flown a lot and
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 mostly, well, having a very public bad day.
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 The bigger question is knock on effects. The
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 long March 7 family is the workhorse that
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 carries cargo up to China's Tiangong Space
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 Station. So depending on what the
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 investigation finds, some upcoming missions
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 could slip while engineers work out what went
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 wrong. Now, here's where I want to be careful
00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 because these storeys get tangled. That
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 failure is one rocket. There was a second
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 completely separate Chinese launch on the
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 manifest for the same night, and it's a
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 storey. We've been following the private
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 company Landspace and its Zhu K3.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 Different company, different launch site.
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 Jioquan, well over 2000 kilometres from
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 Wenchang and a very different goal.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 Zhu K3 is a reusable stainless steel
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 methane fueled rocket and last night's flight
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 was its second attempt to fly to orbit and
00:06:54 --> 00:06:56 then bring its first stage back for a
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 propulsive landing. Legs touchsc. The Falcon
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 9 trick. And I want to keep our facts
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 straight from last week. This would be
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 China's fourth orbital class recovery
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 attempt, not its first. China already landed
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 an orbital booster back in July when a long
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 3-10-B was caught in a net. What makes
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 ZK3 different is the method, legs
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 and engine thrust setting down on a pad
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 rather than being caught. That's the
00:07:21 --> 00:07:24 milestone Landspace is chasing as we record.
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 We don't have a confirmed result on that z k3
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 attempt. And honestly, that's worth a word.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 Landspace has form for going quiet. Its
00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 debut flight last year was scrubbed and then
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 postponed for days with barely a word before
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 it eventually flew. So the silence tonight
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 could mean the outcome just hasn't reached
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 English language press yet. Or it could mean
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 the flight quietly slipped. We're not going
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 to guess. When it's confirmed, we'll bring it
00:07:50 --> 00:07:50 to you properly.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 Anna: A, uh, rocket lost and another we're still
00:07:53 --> 00:07:54 waiting on.
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 Meanwhile, the sky above all of it is about
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 to put on a free show. The Perseids.
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 Now everyone knows the Perseids. They're the
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 reliable old friend of the northern summer.
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 The shower people actually plan barbecues
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 and camping trips around. But
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 2026 is special. And I want to
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 explain why. Because it's a lovely bit of
00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 cosmic coincidence. The peak lands
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 overnight on the 12th into the 13th,
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 the same date as the eclipse. And that is
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 not an accident. A, uh, total solar
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 eclipse can only happen at New Moon when
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 The Moon is between us and the Sun. And
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 this year that new moon falls almost
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 exactly on the Perseid peak. So
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 the very thing that darkens the sun by day
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 leaves the night sky completely moonless.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 No moonlight washing out the faint meteors.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 It's the best set of conditions the Perseids
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 have had in roughly two decades.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 The meteors themselves are debris from a
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 comet. Comet 109P,
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 Swift Tuttle, a big one on a
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 133 year orbit. Every
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 August, the Earth ploughs through the trail
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 of dust it's left behind. And those specks
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 hit our atmosphere and burn up as shooting
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 stars. When Swift Tuttle itself last
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 swung through the inner solar system in the
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 early 1990s, the Perseids
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 briefly went berserk. Hundreds of meteors
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 an hour. The comet's long gone back out
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 now, so we won't see that this year, in
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 fact, and I'll be honest, because a moon this
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 sky can raise expectations. The
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 forecasters are being measured about the raw
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 numbers this year. The textbook figure is up
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 to about a hundred meteors an hour under
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 perfect conditions. But the meteor
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 specialists are quietly expecting something
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 more like 30 to 50 an hour from a
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 genuinely dark site this time around.
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 Activity dips a little this year before
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 picking back up in 2027. There
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 is one tantalising wildcard, though.
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 Models suggest the Earth might just clip a
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 couple of older, narrow dust trails around
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 the peak one laid down almost a thousand
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 years ago. If that happens, you could get a
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 short burst of extra meteors. It's not
00:10:15 --> 00:10:18 guaranteed. The timing has hours of
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 uncertainty and even the models don't promise
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 a storm. But it's the kind of maydy that
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 gets meteor watchers out of bed. The next
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 genuine outburst that forecasters are
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 confident about isn't until 2028,
00:10:32 --> 00:10:35 and that one will favour North America. So
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 the storey of these Perseids isn't really a
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 hundred an hour. It's the darkest
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 skies in 20 years. A rare same
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 day pairing with a total eclipse and a
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 small chance of a bonus. We'll tell you
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 exactly when and where to look at the end.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 Avery: Love it. And from ancient comet dust to some
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 very modern hardware. Staying with that busy
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 launch day, because not all of it was
00:11:00 --> 00:11:00 fireballs.
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 Over In Japan, an H3 rocket lifted off
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 from the Tanegashima Space Centre carrying a
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 hefty navigation satellite. And with it,
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 Japan took a quietly strategic step. The
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 satellite is called Michibiki no. 7.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 Michibiki, meaning guiding or showing the
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 way. And it brings Japan's quasi
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 Zenith satellite system up to full strength.
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 That's a bit of a mouthful. So here's the
00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 idea. Most of us rely on America's
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 gps. It's brilliant. But in a place like
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 Japan, narrow streets, high rise
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 canyons, steep mountains, GPS
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 signals can get blocked or bounce around and
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 throw your position off. Japan's fix is
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 clever. These quasi zenith satellites fly
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 in looping orbits that, that keep at least
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 one of them almost directly overhead, near
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 the zenith over Japan and the wider Asia
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 Pacific at all times. A signal coming
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 straight down is much harder to block than
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 one coming in low across a skyline. So
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 Michibiki sharpens and reinforces GPS from
00:12:02 --> 00:12:05 directly above, getting positioning down to
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 remarkable precision. With this launch,
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 Japan has the satellites it needs to run that
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 system as a full standalone service.
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 And the strategic point is resilience. Japan
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 now has its own regional backbone that keeps
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 working even if it can't lean entirely on
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 someone else's system. In a world where
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 navigation underpins everything from farming
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 to shipping to your phone maps, quietly
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 owning your own overhead layer is a big deal.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 And there's a neat little footnote. This
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 satellite is also carrying a hosted American
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 payload, a space surveillance camera built
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 for the US Space force. So, ah, a Japanese
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 navigation satellite is quietly doubling as a
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 US space watching sensor. Which tells you how
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 closely the two allies now work together up
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 there. Not a fireball, but arguably the most
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 consequential thing that flew all day.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 Anna: From satellites that tell us exactly where we
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 are to the oldest navigation tool there
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 is the sky itself.
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 Let's get you outside. This is the practical
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 bit and we're doing both hemispheres as
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 always. Northern friends, you've got the
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 doubleheader. Southern friends, hang on. Your
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 turn is coming and it's all yours.
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 First, the eclipse, the timings. The
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 moon's shadow sweeps through in the late
00:13:21 --> 00:13:24 afternoon and evening European time in
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 rough universal time. Totality begins up
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 in the high Arctic a little before 17
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 UT, reaches greatest eclipse around
00:13:32 --> 00:13:35 1746 UT and finishes
00:13:35 --> 00:13:37 over Spain and Portugal by about
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 1834 UT. On the ground,
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 that means Iceland sees totality in the late
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 afternoon. Spain sees it in the early
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 evening with the sun low and close to
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 setting. North America, you're getting a
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 partial, not totality, and it's uh, a low
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 in the sky, near sunset affair for
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 eastern Canada and the northeastern United
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 States. The further northeast you are,
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 the more of a bite you'll see further
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 west. And it fades out. And now the rule
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 we never, ever trim. A, uh, partial
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 eclipse is not safe to look at with the naked
00:14:13 --> 00:14:16 eye, not for a Second, you must
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 use certified eclipse glasses or viewers
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 that meet the ISO
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 safety standard or watch by indirect
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 projection like a simple pinhole.
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 Ordinary sunglasses, smoked glass,
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 phone cameras, none of that protects your
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 eyes. The only moment it is ever safe
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 to look directly is during total totality
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 itself. And that only happens inside
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 that narrow path in Greenland,
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 Iceland and Spain. Everywhere else
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 glass is on the whole time. Please
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 look after your eyes then after
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 dark. The Perseids for the Northern
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 hemisphere the peak is overnight on the 12th
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 into the 13th and with no moon at all,
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 conditions are as good as they get. Best
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 viewing is after midnight from roughly 2am
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 until dawn when the shower's radiant climbs
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 high. Get somewhere dark, lie back,
00:15:14 --> 00:15:17 give your eyes 20 minutes to adjust and
00:15:17 --> 00:15:19 don't stare at your phone. Realistically
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 30 to 50 an hour from a dark sight.
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 More if that dust trail wildcard comes off
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 now. Southern hemisphere, this is yours. Two
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 bits of bad news then the good stuff. You
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 can't see tomorrow's eclipse and the Perseids
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 barely clear the horizon for us because their
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 radiant sits low in the north. So don't
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 stay up chasing them from Sydney. Instead
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 look before dawn. The pre dawn eastern
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 sky right now has a lovely lineup of planets
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 strung along it. A genuine naked eye treat.
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 No equipment needed and much better placed
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 for us than for the north in M the evening.
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 Brilliant. Venus is your beacon, low in the
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 west after sunset. And for anyone with
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 binoculars, Comet 10P Tempel
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 2 is still tracking across southern skies.
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 A soft little smudge that rewards a dark
00:16:11 --> 00:16:14 sky and a bit of patience. That's a
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 southern hemisphere favoured comet, so make
00:16:17 --> 00:16:17 the most of it.
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 Avery: So wherever you are on the planet there is
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 something up there for you over the next 48
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 hours. Northern skies get the once in a
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 generation eclipse than the meteors. Southern
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 skies get the planets Venus and the comet.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 Anna: If tomorrow sparks something for you, come
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 and share it. TheNewAstronomyDaily
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 IO has our full back catalogue, a
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 news feed we keep fresh through the day,
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 listener reviews and a contact form. So if
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 you catch the eclipse or a great Perseid,
00:16:47 --> 00:16:48 tell us and sign
00:16:48 --> 00:16:50 Avery: up for the daily newsletter while you're
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 there. So the next Big sky event lands
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 straight in your inbox. You can find us on
00:16:54 --> 00:16:54 all the
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 Anna: socials astrodaily Pod that's
00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 Astronomy AstroDailyPod for Tuesday. Whatever
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 your sky's doing M tomorrow. Glasses on for
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 the sun, eyes up for the meteors from
00:17:05 --> 00:17:06 Anna and me.
00:17:06 --> 00:17:07 Avery: Thanks for listening.
00:17:07 --> 00:17:08 Anna: Clear skies.
00:17:22 --> 00:17:22 Mhm.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:28 Avery: We're told.