**Full show notes:**
Today's episode — S05E167, Friday August 14, 2026:
**Main story: JWST finds the earliest known "black hole star."** Astronomers led by Rohan Naidu (University of Hawai'i) and Jorryt Matthee (ISTA) identified MoM-BH*-1 — a young black hole wrapped in a dense gas envelope so thick it radiates almost like a star, appearing over 100,000 times the Sun's radius. Light from the object left it roughly 13 billion years ago, just 660 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery, from the "Mirage or Miracle" JWST survey, may explain how supermassive black holes grow fast enough to match observations of the early universe, and may be linked to the population of mysterious "little red dots" Webb has found since 2024.
**The Perseid meteor shower's spectacular peak.** The Perseids peaked overnight on August 12–13, just hours after this week's total solar eclipse, with dark, moonless skies delivering hundreds of visible meteors per hour at the best sites. Debris from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle remains active through roughly August 24.
**Astranis unveils Perceptor.** A new satellite line built to monitor activity in geostationary orbit, using electric propulsion for repeated multi-angle flybys of other spacecraft. Astranis CEO John Gedmark cited past close approaches by Russian and Chinese spacecraft near U.S. satellites as motivation. No launch date announced yet.
**Astronaut Mike Fincke retires after 30 years.** Fincke flew four missions across four spacecraft types — Soyuz (twice), Space Shuttle Endeavour, and SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour — commanded the ISS twice, and capped his career with Crew-11, a mission cut short in January after a frightening in-orbit medical incident.
**Links & sources:**
- [EurekAlert — Mirage or miracle? JWST finds earliest known 'black hole star' at cosmic dawn](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139484)
- [phys.org — Mirage or miracle? JWST finds earliest known black hole star](https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mirage-miracle-jwst-earliest-black.html)
- [Scientific American — JWST images illuminate 'black hole stars' at cosmic dawn](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jwst-images-illuminate-black-hole-stars-at-cosmic-dawn/)
- [ERC — Earliest known black hole star found at cosmic dawn](https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/earliest-known-black-hole-star-found-cosmic-dawn)
- [Space.com — Perseid meteor shower peak photos](https://www.space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/the-perseid-meteor-shower-peak-was-spectacular-here-are-our-favorite-photos-aug-2026)
- [Space.com — Astranis Perceptor satellites for geostationary orbit awareness](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/astranis-perceptor-satellites-geostationary-orbit-space-situational-awareness)
- [Spaceflight Now — Mike Fincke, a 30-year astronaut, retires from NASA](https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/08/12/mike-fincke-a-30-year-astronaut-with-experience-across-four-human-rated-spacecraft-retires-from-nasa/)
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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.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 Avery: And I'm Avery. And no Anna. Uh, I still
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 haven't slept. Except now. It's not the
00:00:10 --> 00:00:12 eclipse's fault. It's the meteor shower's
00:00:12 --> 00:00:12 fault.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Anna: The Perseids really picked a big week to
00:00:16 --> 00:00:17 peek.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 Avery: It's Friday, August 14th. Series 5
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 Episode 167 so after
00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 yesterday's total solar eclipse special,
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 you'd think this guy would take a night off.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:27 It did not.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:29 Anna: It really didn't.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 Today's main storey is a big one for anyone
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 who was fascinated by yesterday's black hole
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 storey. Astronomers using Jane's Webb have
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 found what they're calling a black hole star.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 And it might solve a 50 year old mystery
00:00:43 --> 00:00:46 about how supermassive black holes get so
00:00:46 --> 00:00:47 big so fast.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 Avery: Which incredible timing because yesterday we
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 told you about three supermassive black holes
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 sharing one galaxy. Today's storey is
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 basically, here's how black holes like that
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 get so mass in the first place.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 Anna: Then we've got three more. The Perseid meteor
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 shower's spectacular peak overnight, a
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 new satellite designed to keep watch over
00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 what other countries are doing in
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 geostationary orbit, and a very
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 well earned retirement. Veteran astronaut
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 Mike Finke is hanging up his flight suit
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 after 30 years at NASA.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 Avery: Lots to get through. Let's get into it.
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 Anna: Okay, so first, what even is a
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 black hole star? Because that sounds like a
00:01:27 --> 00:01:27 contradiction.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 Avery: It kind of is, and that's the point.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 Picture a young, rapidly growing black hole.
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 But instead of the thin, tidy accretion disc
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 you usually picture, it's wrapped in this
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 incredibly dense, turbulent gas cocoon of
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 gas. So dense that the whole thing glows
00:01:44 --> 00:01:46 and radiates almost like a star would, even
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 though the engine at the centre is a black
00:01:48 --> 00:01:49 hole.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 Anna: So it's a black hole in a gas trench
00:01:52 --> 00:01:52 coat.
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 Avery: Basically, yes. And because that gas envelope
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 is so puffed up, the object appears
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 absolutely enormous, over a hundred thousand
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 times the size of the sun in terms of the
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 light emitting region. Even though the black
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 hole itself and its usual accretion disc
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 would normally be tiny by comparison.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 Anna: And this particular one has a name.
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 Avery: Mom. BH1 mom standing
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 for the Mirage or Miracle JWST
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 survey came out of. Which is a great name for
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 a survey. Honestly. The light we're seeing
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 left this object about 660 million
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 years after the Big Bang. That's roughly 13
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 billion years ago, which makes it the
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 earliest confirmed black hole star found so
00:02:34 --> 00:02:34 far.
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 Anna: So we're really at the edge of what Webb can
00:02:37 --> 00:02:37 see.
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 Avery: Right at the edge. This is Cosmic dawn
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 territory. The team is led by Rohan Naidu at
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 the University of Hawaii's Institute for
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 Astronomy, working with Yorit Matthy at the
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 Institute of Science and Technology, Austria.
00:02:51 --> 00:02:52 And what tipped them off was something called
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 a balmer break. A specific spectral
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 signature usually associated with stars,
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 showing up alongside signs of a genuinely
00:03:01 --> 00:03:02 supermassive black hole.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 Anna: Which shouldn't really go together.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 Avery: Exactly. That's combination is what makes
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 this object so weird and so interesting. It's
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 got a stellar looking spectral fingerprint,
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 but the mass and energy output screen. Black
00:03:15 --> 00:03:16 hole.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 Anna: Okay, so why does this matter beyond just
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 cool, a new weird object, what
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 mystery does it actually help solve?
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 Avery: So here's the 50 year old problem. We know
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 there are supermassive black holes billions
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 of times the size of the sun, sitting in
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 galaxies from a remarkably early in the
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 universe's history. The issue is there hasn't
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 been anywhere near enough time for a black
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 hole to grow that big just by slowly
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 swallowing gas at the normal rate. It's like
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 finding a fully grown oak tree three weeks
00:03:46 --> 00:03:47 after you planted the acorn.
00:03:48 --> 00:03:49 Anna: Right. We talked about a version of this
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 exact puzzle yesterday with those three black
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 Avery: holes in one galaxy, exactly the same
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 puzzle. And this black hole star might be a
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 missing piece. A black hole caught in the act
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 of growing at a wildly accelerated rate,
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 hidden inside this dense gas envelope, which
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 is actually feeding it far faster than a
00:04:09 --> 00:04:10 normal thin disc could.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 Anna: So it's not just growing, it's basically
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 bulking up and fast forward.
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 Avery: That's the idea. And there's an even bigger
00:04:18 --> 00:04:20 connection here. You might have heard of
00:04:20 --> 00:04:23 little red dots, these mysterious compact
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 red objects Webb started finding all over the
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 sky back in 2024. Nobody could
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 quite explain why they were so red, so common
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 in the early universe, and then basically
00:04:34 --> 00:04:34 absent today.
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 Anna: I remember these being a, uh, genuine head
00:04:37 --> 00:04:38 scratcher.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 Avery: Total head scratcher. And the leading theory
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 now is that little red dots and black hole
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 stars might be the same phenomenon. A
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 black hole wrapped in a hot ionised gas
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 cocoon that glows almost star like while
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 it grows, then fades from view once it's
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 eaten through its envelope. So this one
00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 object, Mom BH1, could
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 be the best example yet of the engine that's
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 been powering hundreds of these little red
00:05:04 --> 00:05:05 dots.
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 Anna: That's a big claim for one object.
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 Avery: It is. And to be fair to the sceptics in the
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 room, the mirage half of Mirage
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 Remerical is doing some work in that title.
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 This is still a hotly debated interpretation.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 The whole result rests on reading a fairly
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 subtle spectral signature correctly and this
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 kind of thing has been published as a
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 preprint and argued over for more than a year
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 before this. Not everyone agrees black hole
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 stars are definitely the answer to the little
00:05:33 --> 00:05:33 red dot puzzle.
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 Anna: Yet. So healthy scepticism, but a uh,
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 genuinely exciting candidate.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 Avery: Right? And Matthew actually leaned into that
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 tension directly. His quote was far
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 from a mirage. This might well be a cosmic
00:05:47 --> 00:05:47 miracle.
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 Anna: I love an astronomer with a sense of drama.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 Avery: Nadia's take was a bit more measured but
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 still pretty thrilled. He said something like
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 we're getting really close to figuring out
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 how these black hole stars form. His current
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 best guess is that they might start from
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 mergers of supermassive stars. Stars
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 weighing tens of thousands of suns inside
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 dense globular star clusters in the early
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 universe built up through repeated stellar
00:06:14 --> 00:06:15 collisions.
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 Anna: So giant stars collide and merge,
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 eventually collapse toward a black hole. And
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 the whole mess is still wrapped in gas as it
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 does it. So it glows like this hybrid black
00:06:26 --> 00:06:27 hole starfing.
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 Avery: That's the working model. And it would also
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 explain some genuinely weird properties
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 astronomers have noticed in old globular
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 clusters closer to home. Like unusual
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 chemical patterns that have never quite made
00:06:39 --> 00:06:40 sense.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 Anna: Though this one distant 13 billion
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 year old object might help explain both how
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 the biggest black holes in the universe got
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 so big and some local mysteries sitting in
00:06:51 --> 00:06:52 our own galactic backyard.
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 Avery: That's the hope. Webb's going to keep hunting
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 for more of these. Mambh Star 1 being the
00:06:58 --> 00:07:00 earliest confirmed one just means it's the
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 current record holder, not the last one we'll
00:07:02 --> 00:07:03 find.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 Anna: Which tying it back to yesterday. If black
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 hole stars like this really are the growth
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 hack behind those triple black hole systems
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 we talked about, that's two huge storeys in
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 two days that are actually two chapters of
00:07:16 --> 00:07:17 the same bigger picture.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 Avery: The early universe was apparently just an
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 absolute black hole buffet.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 Anna: A fitting way to put it. Great segment to
00:07:25 --> 00:07:26 follow yesterday's.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 Avery: Okay, storey two. And this is the one that's
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 actually responsible for my sleep
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 deprivation. The Perseid meteor shower
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 peaked overnight between August 12th and
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 13th, just hours after yesterday's total
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 solar eclipse wrapped up an
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 Anna: eclipse and a uh, meteor shower peak within
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 about a day of each other. That's a genuinely
00:07:46 --> 00:07:47 rare double bill.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:50 Avery: It really is. And the conditions could not
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 have been better. This happened right around
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 the August New Moon. So skies were nice and
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 dark. No moonlight washing out the fainter
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 meteors. Observers in good locations were
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 reporting hundreds of shooting stars visible
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 to the naked eye across the peak night
00:08:06 --> 00:08:06 remind people
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 Anna: what they're actually looking at when they
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 Avery: see a Perseid So the Perseids are
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 debris from Comet 109P Swift
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 Tuttle. Mostly tiny dust and sand sized
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 particles that Earth ploughs through every
00:08:19 --> 00:08:21 year around this time. They're travelling at
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 about 37 miles a second when they hit the
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 atmosphere which is why they burn up in these
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 Anna: bright fast streaks, small pieces
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 of comet dust dying dramatically. Very
00:08:32 --> 00:08:33 poetic.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 Avery: Genuinely is. And the astrophotography from
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 this year's peak has been stunning. I saw
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 shots combining Perseid streaks with the
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and the
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 Pleiades cluster all in the same frame. Frame
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 Photographers were out shooting from Iran,
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 Israel, Texas, Spain, Turkey,
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 China. Genuinely a uh, global event.
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 Anna: One photographer's quote stuck with me,
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 something like I've got the Pleiades,
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 Andromeda Galaxy and Milky Way with the
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 Perseids basically describing an entire deep
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 sky greatest hits tour in one photo.
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 Avery: Exactly that kind of night. And if you miss
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 the exact peak, don't panic. Swift Tuttle's
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 debris trail stays active through about
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 August 24th. So you'll still catch meteors
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 most nights this week just at a lower rate
00:09:20 --> 00:09:21 than peak.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 Anna: So there's still time to get outside, find
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 some dark sky and Give your eyes 20 minutes
00:09:26 --> 00:09:27 or so to adjust.
00:09:28 --> 00:09:30 Avery: No telescope needed for this one either.
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 Binoculars and telescopes are actually the
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 wrong tool. Just your eyes and a wide patch
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 Anna: of sky after the eclipse. And now this.
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 This has genuinely been one of the best weeks
00:09:40 --> 00:09:41 of the year to just look up.
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 Avery: Best week of the year. No notes.
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 Anna: Storey 3 is a change of pace. This one's
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 about keeping an eye on things a little
00:09:49 --> 00:09:52 closer to Earth in geostationary orbit.
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 San Francisco based Astronis announced a new
00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 line of spacecraft yesterday called
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 Perceptor. And its whole job is to monitor
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 what other satellites are doing up there.
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 Avery: So basically a satellite whose job is
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 Anna: to watch other satellites pretty
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 much geostationary orbit sits about
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 22 miles up
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 and it's genuinely valuable real estate.
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 That's where a lot of communications,
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 military and early warning satellites live.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 Because at uh, that altitude a uh, satellite
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 orbits in sync with Earth's rotation and
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 basically hovers over the same spot.
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 Avery: Which also makes it a spot worth watching
00:10:29 --> 00:10:30 closely.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 Anna: Exactly. And that's the pitch here. Perceptor
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 is built on astronauts existing microgeo
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 satellite platform. So it's smaller than a
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 uh, typical GEO spacecraft and it's loaded
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 with sensors to assess other satellites and
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 the environment around them. It uses electric
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 propulsion which means it can reposition
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 itself dozens of times over its mission life
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 doing Multi angle flybys to actually
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 inspect other satellites up close.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 Avery: Inspect in what sense though? Friendly
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 satellites? Hostile ones? Both.
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 Anna: Both, honestly. The company's framing it
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 partly as a diagnostic tool flying past a
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 friendly satellite to help troubleshoot an
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 anomaly it's having, and partly as a security
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 tool for keeping tabs on what other nations
00:11:15 --> 00:11:16 satellites are up to nearby.
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 Avery: And I'm, um, guessing that second part is the
00:11:19 --> 00:11:20 real driver here.
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23 Anna: It's definitely front and centre in how
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 they're pitching it. Astrana CEO John
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 Gedmark put it pretty bluntly. There are
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 blind spots that will be used against us, if
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 not eliminated. And the announcement
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 specifically points to a couple of past
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 incidents. A Russian spacecraft that
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 approached within about 100 miles of an
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 American spy satellite back in 2020,
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 and reports of Chinese reconnaissance
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 activity near suspected US Space Force
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 satellites in 2023.
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 Avery: So this is very much a response to. Other
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 countries are already doing this kind of
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 close approach and we've had limited
00:11:58 --> 00:11:59 visibility into it.
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 Anna: That's the argument. Astranis already
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 operates five satellites in GEO
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 supporting US military operations,
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 remote connectivity and GPS related
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 capabilities. So this isn't a totally new
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 business for them. It's an extension into
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 space domain awareness.
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 Avery: Specifically, no launch date yet, I take
00:12:20 --> 00:12:20 it.
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 Anna: No firm date announced yet, but worth
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 watching, because if Perceptor works as
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 advertised, it's a pretty significant shift
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 in how much visibility commercial oper,
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 not just government agencies, will have into
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 what's happening in that orbital
00:12:36 --> 00:12:36 neighbourhood.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 Avery: Satellites watching satellites watching
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 satellites. The future is a bit like a
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 Anna: hall of mirrors, a very expensive
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 hall of mirrors. 22 miles up,
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 last storey today, and
00:12:50 --> 00:12:51 Avery: it's a nice one to close on.
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 Mike Finke, one of NASA's most experienced
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 astronauts, has retired after exactly three
00:12:57 --> 00:12:58 30 years with the agency.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 Anna: Thirty years is a serious career.
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 Avery: It really is. Finke's a retired Air
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 Force colonel who was selected as an
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 astronaut back in 1996 as part of the
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 astronaut class nicknamed the Sardines.
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 Over his career, he became one of only 13
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 people ever to have flown to orbit on three
00:13:17 --> 00:13:20 different types of spacecraft. And by the
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 end, he'd actually flown on four separate
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 vehicles across four missions. Twice on
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 Soyuz, once on SpaceX shuttle Endeavour,
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 and once on SpaceX's Crew Dragon
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 Anna: Endeavour that spans basically the entire
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 modern era of human spaceflight. Shuttle
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 Soyuz and commercial crew, it really
00:13:39 --> 00:13:39 does.
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 Avery: He commanded the International Space station
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 twice across two different expeditions, more
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 than 15 years apart. Expedition 18
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 back in 2008, 2009, and then
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 Expedition 74 just this past December. In
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 January. He also spent time as chief of the
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 Astronaut Office's Commercial Crew Branch and
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 worked on developing the Starliner programme.
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 Anna: And his most recent mission was Crew 11.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 Right, right.
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 Avery: Launched in August of last year alongside
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 Zena Cardman, JAXA's Kimiya Yui,
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platinov.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 And that mission actually ended early in
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 January this year. Finke had a genuinely
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 scary medical incident on board. He
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 describes suddenly losing the ability to
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 speak for about 20 minutes during dinner.
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 Anna: That's frightening, especially in orbit.
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 Avery: Genuinely frightening, he said. It came on
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 completely out of the blue. M NASA brought
00:14:35 --> 00:14:36 him home early as a precaution, which is
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 obviously exactly the right call.
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 Anna: Good that he's alright and good that this
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 send off is on his own terms, definitely.
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 Avery: In his farewell statement, Finke said, After
00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 exactly 30 years, I am departing NASA,
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 but I remain deeply committed to, among
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 other things, helping prepare the next
00:14:55 --> 00:14:56 generation of explorers.
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 Anna: Which feels like the right note for someone
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 who's flown shuttle Soyuz and commercial
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 Dragon to go out on a career that's
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 basically a bridge between eras of
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 spaceflight, handing things off to whoever
00:15:09 --> 00:15:10 flies next.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 Avery: A genuinely well earned retirement. Thank
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 you for your service, Colonel Finke.
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 Anna: Okay, that's our storeys for today.
00:15:18 --> 00:15:21 Quick recap. James Webb may have found the
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 missing link in how supermassive black
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 holes grow so fast in the early
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 universe. A gas shrouded black
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 hole star called Mom
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 BH1. Glowing
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 from just 660 million years
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 after the Big Bang, the Perseid meteor
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 shower delivered a spectacular peak
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 overnight. Right on the heels of yesterday's
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 eclipse, Astranis unveiled
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 Perceptor, a new satellite built to
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 keep watch over geostationary orbit.
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 And veteran astronaut Mike Finke, uh,
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 retired from NASA after 30
00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 remarkable years and four different
00:16:02 --> 00:16:03 spacecraft.
00:16:03 --> 00:16:06 Avery: If you enjoy today's episode, the best thing
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 you can do for us is leave a rating or review
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 wherever you're listening and share the
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 episode with a fellow space nerd. You can
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 find full show notes, sources and links for
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 every storey we cover today at
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 astronomydaily.IO and find us
00:16:21 --> 00:16:24 on social media. We're AstroDailyPod
00:16:24 --> 00:16:25 pretty much everywhere.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 Anna: We'll be back tomorrow with the weekend wrap.
00:16:28 --> 00:16:29 Until then, keep looking up.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:31 Avery: Clear skies everyone.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 Anna: Astronomy Day
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 storeys. We told.