Full show notes:
Today's episode — S05E170, Tuesday August 18, 2026:
Main story: Starship's Ship 40 makes it home. SpaceX has completed recovery of Ship 40, the Starship Flight 13 upper stage that survived an unprecedented soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24. After drifting over 400km and a difficult multi-week tow through rough seas (prediction markets had given it ~18% odds as of mid-August), recovery vessels including the Normand Ranger brought the ship in to Western Australia this week. SpaceX had already secured the imagery it needed from the heat shield and engines regardless of outcome; Ship 41 and Flight 14 (targeting ~August 20) are already in the pipeline.
A dead star shows us our Sun's future. A Yale-led team studying the Helix Nebula's white dwarf found 22 bow-shock structures in its outer halo — the first direct observation of a dead star's ejected material dispersing back into the galaxy. It's a preview of what our own Sun will undergo in roughly 5 billion years. Published August 12 in Nature.
The collision that built the Milky Way. Hubble and Gaia data revealed a previously unknown ancient dwarf galaxy, "LKH," which merged with the Milky Way 11.8 billion years ago — predating the well-known Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus merger by 1.8 billion years. Published August 17 in Nature Astronomy.
China bounces back from a rocket failure. After an August 10 Long March 7A failure destroyed a communications satellite, China launched twice within 23 hours on August 16 — a Long March 12 from Wenchang and a Long March 2C from Taiyuan — demonstrating operational resilience across two rocket types and launch sites.
Tonight's sky: the waxing crescent Moon pairs with a brilliant Venus (magnitude -4.1) low in the western sky, about 45 minutes after sunset.
Links & sources:
- NASASpaceFlight.com — While SpaceX recovers Ship 40, Ship 41 prepares for testing ahead of Flight 14
- MarineRadar — SpaceX recovers Starship from Indian Ocean after three-week tow
- CNN — Satellite imagery captures race to recover 170-foot SpaceX Starship in the Indian Ocean
- Space.com — Scientists find dead star that predicts our Sun's future
- Space.com — How an ancient collision with another galaxy transformed the Milky Way
- Space.com — China bounces back from Long March rocket explosion with back-to-back launches
- Space.com — Night sky August 2026: what you can see tonight
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This episode includes AI-generated content.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Anna: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Astronomy
00:00:03 --> 00:00:04 AstroDailyPod. I'm Anna.
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 Avery: And I'm avery. It's Tuesday, August 18th,
00:00:07 --> 00:00:09 series five, episode 170.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 Anna: And we've got a genuinely satisfying one to
00:00:13 --> 00:00:13 lead with today.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 After three weeks of, uh, will they, won't
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 they? SpaceX has actually pulled its
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 starship upper stage out of the Indian
00:00:21 --> 00:00:22 Ocean.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 Avery: Ship 40 makes it home, closing the loop on a
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 storey we've been checking in on since it
00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 splashed down back on July 24th.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 Anna: Then three more. A dead star in a
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 nearby nebula that's basically showing us our
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 own sun's obituary five billion
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 years early. New evidence that the Milky
00:00:41 --> 00:00:43 Way itself was built out of a galaxy we
00:00:43 --> 00:00:46 crashed into almost 12 billion years ago.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 And China bouncing back fast from a
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 rocket explosion with two launches in about
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 23 hours, plus a quick one for
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 Avery: anyone stepping outside tonight, there is a
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 nice pairing in the western sky right after
00:00:59 --> 00:01:00 sunset.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 Anna: Lots to get through. Let's get into it.
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 Avery: Okay, so let's actually finish this storey,
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 Anna, uh, take us back to the start, because
00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 it's been a genuine saga.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 Anna: It has. This goes back to July
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 24 and Starship's Flight 13.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 The upper stage ship 40 did something
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 no Starship upper stage had ever managed
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 before. It flipped, reignited two
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 engines, oriented itself and made a
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 controlled soft splashdown in the Indian
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 Ocean off Western Australia, completely
00:01:31 --> 00:01:31 intact.
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 Avery: Which nobody was really planning for. Usually
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 these things topple over and break apart on
00:01:37 --> 00:01:37 impact.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 Anna: Right? That was the original good news
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 storey. SpaceX got an intact upper
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 stage sitting on the water and decided that
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 was too good an opportunity to just scuttle
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 it. They sent recovery vessels out, the
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 Normand Ranger, the Go Australis, a
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 ship called Skimmer Tide, and started trying
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 to lasso a, uh, 170 foot
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 stainless steel rocket that had drifted more
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 than 400 kilometres from where it landed.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 Avery: And that's when it got complicated.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 Anna: Very complicated. The tow back toward shore
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 started in early August, but the seas
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 didn't cooperate. Conditions kept
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 deteriorating. The convoy could only creep
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 along at 1 to 3 knots. And on
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 August 8th, Elon Musk gave us the line we led
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 an episode with a couple of weeks ago. Ship
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 recovery is not looking good right now.
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 Avery: And, um, prediction markets had it down
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 around an 18% chance of actually making it to
00:02:32 --> 00:02:33 shore.
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 Anna: That's right where it sat for a while. But
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 here's the actual news today. It worked.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 Over the past few days, the Normand Rangers
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 convoy got ship 40 secured, built up
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 speed and towed it all the way in toward
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 Dampier in Western Australia. As of this
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 week, SpaceX has recovered
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 Avery: the ship three weeks adrift and they actually
00:02:54 --> 00:02:55 brought it home.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 Anna: Three weeks, more than 400 kilometres of
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 drift, rough seas that nearly sank the whole
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 recovery effort, and an intact
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 170 foot Starship upper stage
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 sitting on a dock instead of on the seafloor.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:10 That's a first.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 Avery: What do they actually get out of having the
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 physical vehicle back versus just the imagery
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 they'd already collected?
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 Anna: That's the interesting part. SpaceX had
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 already said the mission's main objective was
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 done regardless of outcome because they got
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 close up satellite and drone imagery of the
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 heat SH and engine sections while ship
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 40 was still floating. That inspection showed
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 the thermal protection system mostly held up
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 despite higher than expected aerodynamic
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 pressure during ascent. Though there was some
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 tile loss and damage around the aft rim that
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 happened earlier in flight.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 Avery: So having the actual hardware back is a bonus
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 on top of an already successful data run.
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 Anna: Exactly. Now engineers can do hands
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 on forensic inspection instead of just
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 working from photos, which is a much richer
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 way to validate what held and what didn't for
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 the next generation of ships.
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 Avery: And the programme hasn't exactly been
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 standing still waiting for this to resolve.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 Anna: Not even slightly. Jip41
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 has already been through cryogenic testing
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 and engine installation and it's expected to
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 roll out to the Massey's test site for static
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 fire testing as early as this week.
00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 Booster 21's finished its own cryo campaign
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 and is having engines installed for its
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 static fire and Flight 14. The
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 next full test flight is currently targeting
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 around August 20th. So just a couple of days
00:04:32 --> 00:04:33 from now.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 Avery: So this whole saga wraps up almost exactly as
00:04:36 --> 00:04:37 the next chapter is about
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 Anna: to start, which is very on brand for
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 this programme. At the moment there's
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 basically no gap between close one storey and
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 open the next one. But Gregor has also been
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 busy in the background. SpaceX ran 22
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 separate Raptor 3 engine firings there over
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 the last two weeks, including one that ran,
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 ah, a full 140 seconds, matching
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 a complete ascent burn.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 Avery: That's a lot of engines getting put through
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 their paces. For a rocket that's supposedly
00:05:04 --> 00:05:04 still in
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 Anna: a testing phase, it's the clearest sign yet
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 that they're trying to get the cadence up.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 Anyway, ship 40's home after three weeks
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 of is it lost at sea? It isn't.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 Good outcome and one less loose thread for us
00:05:18 --> 00:05:19 to keep tracking.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 Avery: We can finally stop saying still unresolved
00:05:22 --> 00:05:22 about this one.
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 Anna: Next storey is, uh, a bit more melancholy,
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 but in a genuinely beautiful way.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 Astronomers have gotten the clearest look yet
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 at what happens to A star like our sun after
00:05:33 --> 00:05:34 it dies.
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 Avery: And, uh, we're talking about the sun's actual
00:05:36 --> 00:05:37 eventual fate here.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 Anna: Not a metaphor, not a metaphor at
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 all. This comes from the helix Nebula, about
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 650 light years away in the constellation
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 Aquarius, one of the closest and most
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 photographed planetary nebulae there is. At
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 its centre sits a white dwarf, the dense
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 leftover core of a sun like star that
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 ran out of hydrogen fuel, ballooned into a
00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 red giant and then shed its outer layers into
00:06:03 --> 00:06:03 space.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 Avery: Which 5 billion years from now is exactly
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 what's going to happen to our sun.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 Anna: Precisely. This is our own star's
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 future. Just further along the timeline, a
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 team led by Peter Van Daakum at Yale, along
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 with Roberto Abraham at the University of
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 Toronto and Imad Pasha at the
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 Dragonfly Focused Research Organisation
00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 studied the nebula's outer faint halo and
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 found something nobody directly resolved
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 before.22 distinct arc
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 shaped structures called bow shocks,
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 essentially wakes left behind as clumps of
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 the dead star's ejected material plough
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 through the surrounding interstellar gas.
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 Avery: So we're watching the star's old outer layers
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 actually being absorbed back into the galaxy?
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 Anna: That's the headline. This is the first direct
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 observation of stellar debris being broken
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 apart and returned to the interstellar medium
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 in real time. Van Daukum put it simply,
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 we are seeing material shed near the end of a
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 star's life being broken apart and returned
00:07:03 --> 00:07:04 to the galaxy.
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 Avery: How long does that process actually take?
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 Anna: Relatively fast on cosmic timescales. The
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 researchers estimate those clumps survive for
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 around 10 years before they fully
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 disperse and blend into the surrounding gas.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 The nebula's outer ring itself spans about
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 5.7 light years.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 Avery: So this is basically recycling the star's
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 guts eventually become raw material for the
00:07:28 --> 00:07:29 next generation of stars and planets.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 Anna: That's exactly the point. Every heavy element
00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 in your body that isn't hydrogen or helium
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 came from a star that did this at some point.
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 Watching it happen in real time, even in a
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 nebula that's already thousands of years into
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 the process, is about as close as we get to
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 watching that recycling loop in action. The
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 results were published Aug. 12 in Nature.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 Avery: A nice one to sit with. Not a disaster
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 storey, just the actual shape of how stars,
00:07:57 --> 00:07:57 um, end.
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 Anna: And a preview of a very, very distant
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 Tuesday 5 billion years from now.
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 Avery: Storey 3. And this one's about our home
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 galaxy's own deep history, Right?
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 Anna: New research using Hubble, backed up by data
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 from ESA's GAIA mission, has identified
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 a previously unknown collision that helped
00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 shape the Milky Way almost 11 billion years
00:08:19 --> 00:08:19 ago.
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 Avery: Previously unknown, is doing some work there.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 How do you find a collision that happened
00:08:24 --> 00:08:25 that long ago?
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 Anna: You look at the fossil record it left behind.
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 Specifically, globular clusters, these dense
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 balls of hundreds of thousands of old stars
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 that orbit the galaxy. A team led by
00:08:37 --> 00:08:40 Davide Massari at Bologna's
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory,
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 with Kiara Zerbinati from the University of
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 Bologna doing key analysis of the Hubble and
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 Gaia data, found a distinct population
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 of globular clusters that didn't match any
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 previously known building block of the Milky
00:08:55 --> 00:08:56 Way.
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 Avery: So a whole separate family of star clusters
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 just hiding in plain sight.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 Anna: Hiding in plain sight for decades, basically,
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 because until you have precise enough motion
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 and composition data, one old globular
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 cluster looks a lot like another. This third
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 population traces back to a dwarf galaxy.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 The team's calling LKH for
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 low energy Kraken Heracles, which
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 merged with the Milky Way about 11.8
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 billion years ago, just roughly 2 billion
00:09:27 --> 00:09:28 years after the Big Bang.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:30 Avery: How big was this thing?
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 Anna: Relatively speaking, modest by
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 galaxy standards, around 500 million
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 solar masses. But it brought its own globular
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 clusters along with it, which merged into the
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 Milky Way's own population. And the collision
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 likely triggered bursts of star formation and
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 contributed meaningfully to our galaxy's
00:09:49 --> 00:09:50 early chemical makeup.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 Avery: And this is a different event from the Gaia
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 sausage Enceladus merger, the one we've
00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 mentioned before as the Milky Way's biggest
00:09:57 --> 00:09:58 ancient collision.
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 Anna: Different and earlier. LKH
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 predates that Gaia Sausage Enceladus merger
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 by about 1.8 billion years. So
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 this pushes the known history of the Milky
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 Way's construction by collision back even
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 further than we'd already mapped.
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 Avery: It's a good reminder that the Milky Way isn't
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 really one continuous thing. It's more like a
00:10:20 --> 00:10:21 scrapbook of everything it swallowed.
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 Anna: Which is exactly the sentiment Messari
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 captured. He said, our home is the Milky Way
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 galaxy, but we do not know how our house was
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 built. This is one more floorboard in that
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 house getting identified. The findings were
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 published August 18th in Nature Astronomy.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 Avery: Somewhere between the LKH merger and Gaia
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 sausage Enceladus, our, uh, galaxy basically
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 had two formative growth spurts back to back.
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 Anna: And there's likely more of these still hiding
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 in the data. This is very much an ongoing
00:10:52 --> 00:10:53 excavation.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 Okay, on to our last storey today and a
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 quicker one. China's space programme had a
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 rough moment last week, and a strong recovery
00:11:01 --> 00:11:02 this
00:11:02 --> 00:11:03 Avery: week set the scene.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 Anna: What happens on August 10th? A Long March
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 7A rocket failed about 85
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 seconds into flight. The Fairing and upper
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 section of the vehicle bent backward and
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 broke apart, destroying the rocket along with
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 its payload. A communications satellite,
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 Zongshang 4B. The cause is still
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 under investigation, which
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 Avery: is obviously a serious loss. Both a rocket
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 and a comm satellite gone it is.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 Anna: And there was a real question of how quickly
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 China's programme could get back to flying
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 after that kind of very public failure. The
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 answer turned out to be fast. On August
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 16, they launched twice within about
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 23 hours, using two completely different
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 rockets from two different sites.
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 Avery: Walk us through both.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 Anna: First up was a long March 12 from the
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 Wenshang Commercial Space Launch Site,
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 carrying 24 Internet satellites into low
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 Earth orbit. That's the long March 12's
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 seventh consecutive successful mission since
00:12:02 --> 00:12:05 it debuted in 2024. Then about
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 23 hours later, a long March
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 2C lifted off from the Taiwan Satellite
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 Launch Centre roughly 1300 miles to
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 the north, carrying a satellite for the
00:12:15 --> 00:12:16 United Arab Emirates.
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 Avery: Um, and the IIC is the old reliable of the
00:12:19 --> 00:12:20 fleet, right?
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 Anna: By a wide margin. That airframe's been flying
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 since 1982. So the message
00:12:26 --> 00:12:28 China's sending here is pretty deliberate.
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 Newer commercial rocket, decades old
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 workhorse rocket, two different launch sites,
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 back to back. Less than a week after a very
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 Avery: public failure, a calculated show of
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 operational depth rather than just look, we
00:12:42 --> 00:12:42 launched
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 Anna: something that's exactly the read on it,
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 proving the failure was contained to that.
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 One rocket and one pad. Not a symptom of
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 something systemic across the programme.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 Avery: A quick one before we go. If you step outside
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 after sunset tonight, look low in the western
00:12:58 --> 00:12:58 sky.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 Anna: The waxing crescent moon, just a few days
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 old, is keeping company with Venus tonight.
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 And Venus is blazing away at magnitude
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 -4.1, so it's genuinely hard
00:13:10 --> 00:13:12 to miss. About 45 minutes after sunset.
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 Avery: Um, an easy, no telescope required, one for
00:13:15 --> 00:13:16 tonight.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 Anna: Okay, that's today's episode. Starship's ship
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 40 finally makes it home after three weeks
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 adrift a dead star, showing us our
00:13:24 --> 00:13:27 Sun's own distant future. New evidence
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 the Milky Way was built out of an ancient
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 galactic collision and China's fast
00:13:32 --> 00:13:33 recovery with back to back
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 Avery: launches, plus tonight's Moon and Venus
00:13:36 --> 00:13:37 pairing. If you get a clear sky.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 Anna: If you enjoyed today's episode, the best
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 thing you can do for us is leave a rating or
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 review wherever you're listening and share it
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 with a fellow space nerd. Full show notes,
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 sources and links for every storey we covered
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 today are at, uh, astronomydaily IO
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 and you can find us on social media. We're
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 astrodaily Pod pretty much everywhere.
00:13:58 --> 00:13:59 Avery: We'll be back tomorrow with more from the
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 world of space and astronomy. Until then,
00:14:02 --> 00:14:03 keep looking up.
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 Anna: See you then. Clear skies, everyone.
00:14:06 --> 00:14:07 Astronomy day.
00:14:08 --> 00:14:10 Avery: The storeys be told.
00:14:17 --> 00:14:17 Anna: Storeys.