WEBVTT

0
00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:03.320
Anna: Somewhere over the Arctic this afternoon, the

1
00:00:03.320 --> 00:00:06.320
sun is about to go out. Not for long,

2
00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:08.840
a couple of minutes at most. But for the

3
00:00:08.840 --> 00:00:11.680
first time on mainland Western Europe since

4
00:00:11.680 --> 00:00:12.800
1999.

5
00:00:13.200 --> 00:00:15.240
Avery: And here in the studio, it's the middle of a

6
00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:17.560
Sydney afternoon. So we're gonna watch it the

7
00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:20.120
way most of you will on a screen in the small

8
00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:21.440
hours, wide eyed.

9
00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:23.480
Welcome to Astronomy AstroDailyPod. I'm

10
00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:24.080
Avery.

11
00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:27.120
Anna: And I'm anna. It's Wednesday 12th

12
00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:29.680
August. Today, the only total

13
00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:32.740
solar eclipse of the how to catch it

14
00:00:32.740 --> 00:00:35.540
wherever you are, a NASA jet that chases

15
00:00:35.540 --> 00:00:38.540
the shadow. A magnetic field caught in the

16
00:00:38.540 --> 00:00:41.420
act of building a star. Why some

17
00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:44.060
worlds cook themselves alive. And

18
00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:46.860
tonight, a moonless meteor shower. Let's

19
00:00:46.860 --> 00:00:49.700
go. If you only clock one thing in the

20
00:00:49.700 --> 00:00:52.380
sky this year, it's happening in the next few

21
00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:55.220
hours. Today the moon's shadow falls

22
00:00:55.220 --> 00:00:58.140
across the far north of the planet and gives

23
00:00:58.140 --> 00:01:00.940
a lucky narrow strip of the world a total

24
00:01:01.020 --> 00:01:03.530
solar eclipse. The only one of

25
00:01:03.530 --> 00:01:04.610
2026.

26
00:01:05.170 --> 00:01:07.210
Avery: Give us the geography because this is a

27
00:01:07.210 --> 00:01:09.490
strange one. It doesn't run the usual way.

28
00:01:09.810 --> 00:01:12.410
Anna: It doesn't. Most totalities race

29
00:01:12.410 --> 00:01:15.370
roughly west to east. This one arcs

30
00:01:15.370 --> 00:01:18.209
up and over the pole. It begins at

31
00:01:18.209 --> 00:01:20.770
sunrise over the Taymyr Peninsula in

32
00:01:20.770 --> 00:01:23.570
Arctic Russia, sweeps across the top of the

33
00:01:23.570 --> 00:01:26.210
world and down the eastern side of Greenland,

34
00:01:26.530 --> 00:01:29.490
crosses western Iceland, Reykjavik included,

35
00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.920
then runs out over the North Atlantic, clips

36
00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:35.720
a tiny corner of northeastern Portugal and

37
00:01:35.720 --> 00:01:38.560
finishes by crossing northern Spain from

38
00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:41.400
Galicia to the Mediterranean, ending near the

39
00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:43.440
Balearics right at sunset.

40
00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:46.120
Avery: And um, this is a big deal specifically for

41
00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:46.400
Europe.

42
00:01:46.880 --> 00:01:49.600
Anna: A uh, huge deal. It's the first total

43
00:01:49.600 --> 00:01:52.240
solar eclipse over western Mainland Europe

44
00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:54.482
since 11 August

45
00:01:54.667 --> 00:01:57.390
1999, 27 years almost

46
00:01:57.390 --> 00:02:00.030
to the day. For Spain it's the first

47
00:02:00.110 --> 00:02:02.990
since 1905, for Iceland the

48
00:02:02.990 --> 00:02:05.910
first since 1954. People have

49
00:02:05.910 --> 00:02:07.790
booked these spots years out.

50
00:02:08.270 --> 00:02:10.470
Avery: So if I'm standing in the path, what do I

51
00:02:10.470 --> 00:02:11.150
actually get?

52
00:02:11.630 --> 00:02:14.630
Anna: Not long, but unforgettable. Maximum

53
00:02:14.630 --> 00:02:17.070
totality is about 2 minutes and 18

54
00:02:17.150 --> 00:02:19.670
seconds out over the Atlantic near the

55
00:02:19.670 --> 00:02:22.560
centerline. On land it's shorter. In

56
00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:24.720
Reykjavik, totality lands around

57
00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:27.840
17:48 Universal Time. That's

58
00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:30.280
just before six in the evening local and

59
00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:32.880
gives you a bit over a minute. Out on the

60
00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:35.600
Iceland's Snaefelsnes peninsula you do better

61
00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:38.720
then over in northern Spain, totality

62
00:02:38.720 --> 00:02:41.320
falls around 18:27 to

63
00:02:41.320 --> 00:02:44.000
18:33 UT that's

64
00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:46.880
8:27 to 8:33 in the evening,

65
00:02:46.880 --> 00:02:48.490
local evening.

66
00:02:48.570 --> 00:02:51.130
Avery: So the sun's getting low, very low.

67
00:02:51.450 --> 00:02:54.450
Anna: That's the catch. In Spain, the sun sits only

68
00:02:54.450 --> 00:02:57.370
about 10 degrees up on the north coast and

69
00:02:57.450 --> 00:03:00.250
as little as 4 degrees near the Balearic

70
00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:03.210
Sea. Gorgeous if you've got a clean horizon.

71
00:03:03.290 --> 00:03:06.290
But a hill, a forest, a building and you

72
00:03:06.290 --> 00:03:08.650
miss it. And the weather split is almost

73
00:03:08.730 --> 00:03:11.490
poetic. Iceland is climatologically

74
00:03:11.490 --> 00:03:14.410
the cloudier bet, Spain, the sunnier one.

75
00:03:14.410 --> 00:03:17.050
But Spain makes you pay with that low sun.

76
00:03:17.610 --> 00:03:19.490
Avery: Okay, now the part most of our audience

77
00:03:19.490 --> 00:03:21.770
needs, because most of us are nowhere near

78
00:03:21.770 --> 00:03:24.170
that strip, start with North America, our

79
00:03:24.170 --> 00:03:24.890
biggest audience.

80
00:03:25.370 --> 00:03:27.930
Anna: North America gets a genuine partial this

81
00:03:27.930 --> 00:03:30.610
afternoon. No totality anywhere on the

82
00:03:30.610 --> 00:03:33.210
continent, but a real bite out of the sun.

83
00:03:33.450 --> 00:03:36.050
And the further northeast you are, the bigger

84
00:03:36.050 --> 00:03:38.570
the bite. Eastern Canada does best.

85
00:03:38.890 --> 00:03:41.770
Nova Scotia sees around a third of the sun

86
00:03:41.770 --> 00:03:44.710
covered, about 33%. Northern

87
00:03:44.710 --> 00:03:47.630
Maine gets close to 28. Montreal

88
00:03:47.630 --> 00:03:50.350
about 18. Boston around 16,

89
00:03:50.590 --> 00:03:53.270
peaking near 155 in the afternoon

90
00:03:53.270 --> 00:03:55.950
Eastern time. New York around 9 or

91
00:03:55.950 --> 00:03:58.670
10% about 1:54. Eastern

92
00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:01.870
Toronto about 8, Washington D.C.

93
00:04:01.870 --> 00:04:04.790
about 10. And Alaska gets a lovely

94
00:04:04.790 --> 00:04:06.990
one in the morning. Fairbanks around

95
00:04:07.070 --> 00:04:08.110
37%.

96
00:04:08.670 --> 00:04:10.870
Avery: And um, crucially, that's a partial. So the

97
00:04:10.870 --> 00:04:11.550
rules are different.

98
00:04:12.270 --> 00:04:14.550
Anna: Completely different. And I'll say it

99
00:04:14.550 --> 00:04:17.190
plainly, if you're seeing a partial, the sun

100
00:04:17.190 --> 00:04:20.030
is never fully covered, so you must keep

101
00:04:20.190 --> 00:04:23.070
certified eclipse glasses on the entire

102
00:04:23.070 --> 00:04:25.830
time. We'll do the full safety line at the

103
00:04:25.830 --> 00:04:27.750
end, but that's the headline for North

104
00:04:27.750 --> 00:04:30.670
America. Glasses on, start to finish.

105
00:04:30.910 --> 00:04:33.870
Avery: Europe, outside the path, a deep partial

106
00:04:33.870 --> 00:04:36.670
Anna: low in the evening sky. London around

107
00:04:36.750 --> 00:04:39.110
91% covered. Paris, about

108
00:04:39.110 --> 00:04:41.310
92. Berlin 85.

109
00:04:41.470 --> 00:04:44.200
Vienna 87. Dramatic, but

110
00:04:44.200 --> 00:04:47.000
again, partial. So eye protection throughout.

111
00:04:47.400 --> 00:04:50.120
Avery: And then there's us, the Southern Hemisphere,

112
00:04:50.280 --> 00:04:51.800
Australia, New Zealand.

113
00:04:52.040 --> 00:04:54.760
Anna: Be honest with them straight up, we see

114
00:04:54.760 --> 00:04:57.240
nothing of this one directly, not a

115
00:04:57.240 --> 00:04:59.720
sliver. It's an entirely northern

116
00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:02.440
hemisphere event. But, and this is the good

117
00:05:02.440 --> 00:05:05.160
news, you can absolutely watch it live.

118
00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:08.320
NASA time and date and the exploratorium

119
00:05:08.320 --> 00:05:10.680
are all streaming from the path, including

120
00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:13.890
telescope feeds out of Spain in Australian

121
00:05:13.890 --> 00:05:16.610
Eastern time. That coverage runs roughly

122
00:05:16.610 --> 00:05:19.290
half past one to six in the morning Thursday,

123
00:05:19.530 --> 00:05:21.810
with the totality highlights landing

124
00:05:21.810 --> 00:05:24.810
somewhere around three to half past 4m am

125
00:05:24.970 --> 00:05:27.810
AEST, set an alarm, make a

126
00:05:27.810 --> 00:05:30.290
coffee and you'll see the corona in real

127
00:05:30.290 --> 00:05:30.650
time.

128
00:05:30.890 --> 00:05:33.250
Avery: That corona being the whole reason people

129
00:05:33.250 --> 00:05:33.930
chase these.

130
00:05:34.330 --> 00:05:37.090
Anna: That's it for those two minutes. The moon

131
00:05:37.090 --> 00:05:39.730
blocks the blinding disc of the sun and

132
00:05:39.730 --> 00:05:42.570
reveals the corona, the faint, pearly

133
00:05:42.570 --> 00:05:45.430
outer atmosphere we almost never get to see.

134
00:05:45.750 --> 00:05:48.590
It's not just beautiful, it's scientifically

135
00:05:48.590 --> 00:05:51.150
precious. Which, nice segue, is

136
00:05:51.150 --> 00:05:54.070
exactly why NASA is about to chase this

137
00:05:54.070 --> 00:05:55.270
shadow in a jet.

138
00:05:55.750 --> 00:05:58.710
Avery: So while millions look up One NASA team

139
00:05:58.710 --> 00:06:01.230
is going to look sideways at, uh, nearly

140
00:06:01.230 --> 00:06:03.790
50,000ft. As the eclipse

141
00:06:03.790 --> 00:06:06.790
crosses today, a NASA WB57

142
00:06:06.790 --> 00:06:09.710
high altitude jet will fly along the

143
00:06:09.710 --> 00:06:12.470
path and literally chase the Moon's shadow.

144
00:06:12.960 --> 00:06:15.800
Anna: Why fly it rather than just stand still like

145
00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:16.400
the rest of us?

146
00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:18.880
Avery: Because if you move with the shadow, you

147
00:06:18.880 --> 00:06:21.360
stretch out your totality from the ground.

148
00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:23.920
You get a couple of minutes from that jet.

149
00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:26.880
Cruising at around 740 kilometres

150
00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:29.320
an hour, the team extends your view of

151
00:06:29.320 --> 00:06:32.240
totality to nearly three. In the nose

152
00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:34.720
cone sit four cameras, visible and

153
00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:37.640
infrared, shooting at least 20 frames a

154
00:06:37.640 --> 00:06:40.120
second. The instrument's got a great name.

155
00:06:40.200 --> 00:06:43.000
Sci fi, scientifically calibrated in

156
00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:43.880
flight imagery

157
00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:45.720
Anna: and the science thereafter.

158
00:06:46.200 --> 00:06:49.080
Avery: The corona's biggest riddles. One,

159
00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:51.480
how the corona gets heated to something like

160
00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.120
a million degrees when the surface below it

161
00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:56.280
is a mere 5,500 thousand.

162
00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:59.720
Two, how those great looping prominences

163
00:06:59.800 --> 00:07:02.800
form and hang suspended above the sun. And

164
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.560
three, how material in the corona feeds into

165
00:07:05.560 --> 00:07:07.960
the solar wind that washes over all of us.

166
00:07:08.500 --> 00:07:11.140
The printable investigator is Amir Caspi at

167
00:07:11.140 --> 00:07:13.460
the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder.

168
00:07:13.460 --> 00:07:16.100
And his line is lovely. The sun is always

169
00:07:16.180 --> 00:07:18.940
changing. Every eclipse is different. So we

170
00:07:18.940 --> 00:07:21.140
might see something we've never seen before.

171
00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:23.940
Anna: And a, uh, total eclipse gives them something

172
00:07:24.099 --> 00:07:25.420
no spacecraft can.

173
00:07:25.420 --> 00:07:28.180
Avery: Right, exactly. And this is the clever

174
00:07:28.180 --> 00:07:31.180
bit. Space telescopes block the sun's disc

175
00:07:31.180 --> 00:07:33.020
with a little occulting disc called a

176
00:07:33.020 --> 00:07:35.710
coronagraph. But that also hides the inner

177
00:07:35.710 --> 00:07:38.430
corona closest to the surface, the very

178
00:07:38.430 --> 00:07:41.070
region where the heating happens. A, uh, real

179
00:07:41.070 --> 00:07:43.870
eclipse with the moon as a perfect occulture

180
00:07:44.030 --> 00:07:46.190
hands you that inner corona for free,

181
00:07:46.670 --> 00:07:48.710
frying above the clouds. And most of the

182
00:07:48.710 --> 00:07:50.870
water vapour also opens up infrared

183
00:07:50.870 --> 00:07:52.750
wavelengths you can't get from the ground.

184
00:07:53.230 --> 00:07:56.190
These same cameras flew the 2024 eclipse over

185
00:07:56.190 --> 00:07:58.230
North America. The team fixed some

186
00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:00.830
overexposed frames and sped up the Software

187
00:08:00.990 --> 00:08:03.870
so the 2026 data should come back sharper

188
00:08:03.870 --> 00:08:04.590
and faster.

189
00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.800
Anna: And it's not just the jet, there's a whole

190
00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:08.880
balloon army.

191
00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:11.200
Avery: There is the NASA supported

192
00:08:11.200 --> 00:08:14.000
nationwide Eclipse Balloon Beijing project

193
00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:16.840
led by Angela Dejardins at Montana State

194
00:08:16.840 --> 00:08:19.520
University is sending students from US

195
00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:22.560
Icelandic and Spanish universities to

196
00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:24.960
launch scientific balloons, around

197
00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.520
86 of them from Iceland and Spain.

198
00:08:27.760 --> 00:08:30.400
Before, during and after the eclipse.

199
00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:32.360
They're measuring what happens to the

200
00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:34.960
atmosphere when day suddenly turns to

201
00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:37.840
dusk. The ozone and the so called boundary

202
00:08:37.840 --> 00:08:40.120
layer near the ground that shifts with

203
00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:42.960
temperature and moisture. As NASA's Eclipse

204
00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:45.480
Programme Manager Kelly Couric put it, an

205
00:08:45.480 --> 00:08:48.000
eclipse gives us a vantage point on the sun

206
00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:50.520
we can't get anywhere else in the solar

207
00:08:50.520 --> 00:08:53.320
system. And today, students get to grab

208
00:08:53.320 --> 00:08:53.600
it.

209
00:08:53.920 --> 00:08:56.520
Anna: From the Sun's outer atmosphere to the birth

210
00:08:56.520 --> 00:08:59.200
of a star entirely. And a 30 year old

211
00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:02.140
mystery just got solved. Using the Alma

212
00:09:02.140 --> 00:09:04.700
array in Chile, astronomers have captured the

213
00:09:04.700 --> 00:09:07.260
first direct high resolution image of a

214
00:09:07.260 --> 00:09:10.180
magnetic field wrapped tightly around the jet

215
00:09:10.180 --> 00:09:12.220
streaming out of a still forming star.

216
00:09:12.700 --> 00:09:14.700
Avery: Paint the picture. What does it actually look

217
00:09:14.700 --> 00:09:15.020
like?

218
00:09:15.500 --> 00:09:18.500
Anna: Picture a twisted funnel shaped field, a

219
00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:21.260
corkscrew of magnetism sheathing the gas

220
00:09:21.260 --> 00:09:23.860
that's blasting away from the young star. The

221
00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:26.140
target is a mouthful. NGC

222
00:09:26.140 --> 00:09:28.860
1333 IRS 4A,

223
00:09:29.250 --> 00:09:31.850
a young double star system tucked inside the

224
00:09:31.850 --> 00:09:34.810
Perseus molecular cloud about 960

225
00:09:34.810 --> 00:09:37.650
light years away. And seeing that field wound

226
00:09:37.650 --> 00:09:40.010
around the outflow confirms a prediction

227
00:09:40.010 --> 00:09:42.570
theorists have been making for decades about

228
00:09:42.570 --> 00:09:44.770
how these jets are launched and shaped.

229
00:09:45.330 --> 00:09:47.650
Avery: Why does a baby star even need a jet?

230
00:09:48.210 --> 00:09:51.010
Anna: Beautiful question. It's a survival trick.

231
00:09:51.170 --> 00:09:54.130
As a star gathers material, it also gathers

232
00:09:54.130 --> 00:09:56.870
spin. Too much spin and it would tear itself

233
00:09:56.870 --> 00:09:59.390
apart before it ever finished forming. The

234
00:09:59.390 --> 00:10:01.830
magnetic field and the jet act like a release

235
00:10:01.830 --> 00:10:04.630
valve M they carry away excess material and

236
00:10:04.630 --> 00:10:07.350
angular momentum so the star can keep growing

237
00:10:07.350 --> 00:10:10.070
rather than spinning itself to pieces. This

238
00:10:10.070 --> 00:10:12.390
image shows the mechanism doing its job.

239
00:10:12.950 --> 00:10:15.030
Avery: And there's a bigger echo here, isn't there?

240
00:10:15.510 --> 00:10:18.510
Anna: There is, and this is the part I love. The

241
00:10:18.510 --> 00:10:20.790
same basic physics. A magnetic field

242
00:10:20.950 --> 00:10:23.470
channelling a jet is thought to play out at

243
00:10:23.470 --> 00:10:25.910
wildly different scales across the universe.

244
00:10:25.990 --> 00:10:28.650
From a newborn star like this one, all the

245
00:10:28.650 --> 00:10:31.370
way up to supermassive black holes that fire

246
00:10:31.370 --> 00:10:34.250
jets across entire galaxies. Same

247
00:10:34.250 --> 00:10:36.770
trick, unimaginably different sizes.

248
00:10:37.090 --> 00:10:39.930
The work is led by Tao Chung Ching, a former

249
00:10:39.930 --> 00:10:42.370
Jansky Fellow at the US National Radio

250
00:10:42.370 --> 00:10:44.330
Observatory. Published in Nature

251
00:10:44.330 --> 00:10:46.970
Communications and a small point of pride for

252
00:10:46.970 --> 00:10:49.450
our part of the sky. ALMA sits high in the

253
00:10:49.450 --> 00:10:52.250
Atacama in Chile, very much a Southern

254
00:10:52.250 --> 00:10:53.170
Hemisphere machine.

255
00:10:53.750 --> 00:10:55.590
Avery: Here's a question that sounds simple and

256
00:10:55.670 --> 00:10:58.190
absolutely isn't. Why did Venus,

257
00:10:58.190 --> 00:11:00.830
Earth's twin in size, turn into a furnace

258
00:11:00.830 --> 00:11:03.510
while Earth stayed livable? A planetary

259
00:11:03.510 --> 00:11:05.790
scientist at UC Riverside, Stephen Kane,

260
00:11:05.790 --> 00:11:07.750
thinks a big part of the answer might be

261
00:11:07.750 --> 00:11:10.590
something we routinely overlook. How fast a

262
00:11:10.590 --> 00:11:13.030
planet spins then really,

263
00:11:13.350 --> 00:11:15.790
Anna: why would rotation decide whether a world is

264
00:11:15.790 --> 00:11:16.390
hospitable?

265
00:11:17.110 --> 00:11:19.670
Avery: Because rotation sets how a star's heat gets

266
00:11:19.670 --> 00:11:22.060
spread around a planet. It shapes the winds,

267
00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:24.180
the weather, the way an atmosphere and any

268
00:11:24.180 --> 00:11:26.980
ocean circulate. Earth's roughly 24

269
00:11:26.980 --> 00:11:29.220
hour day keeps the energy moving and the

270
00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:31.940
climate regulated. Spin a world down slow

271
00:11:31.940 --> 00:11:34.020
enough, Kane argues, and you may tip it

272
00:11:34.020 --> 00:11:36.700
toward a runaway greenhouse. Heat pours in,

273
00:11:36.780 --> 00:11:38.970
can't escape, and you end up with Venus, a

274
00:11:38.970 --> 00:11:41.300
uh, crushing atmosphere and a surface hot

275
00:11:41.300 --> 00:11:42.220
enough to melt lead.

276
00:11:42.860 --> 00:11:45.340
Anna: So to test that on other planets, we just

277
00:11:45.340 --> 00:11:46.860
measure how fast they spin.

278
00:11:47.530 --> 00:11:49.850
Avery: That's the rub. It's genuinely hard. In a

279
00:11:49.850 --> 00:11:51.850
paper accepted by the Astronomical Journal,

280
00:11:51.930 --> 00:11:54.050
Kane warns that when you look at a distant

281
00:11:54.050 --> 00:11:56.570
planet, the motion you detect might be its

282
00:11:56.570 --> 00:11:59.530
howling winds, not the solid body underneath.

283
00:11:59.770 --> 00:12:02.530
Exactly the confusion Venus throws at us. The

284
00:12:02.530 --> 00:12:04.570
proposed fix is to observe at several

285
00:12:04.570 --> 00:12:06.730
wavelengths that probe different depths of

286
00:12:06.730 --> 00:12:09.050
the atmosphere and separate the true spin

287
00:12:09.050 --> 00:12:09.690
from the wind.

288
00:12:10.170 --> 00:12:11.930
Anna: And there's a mission coming that could

289
00:12:11.930 --> 00:12:13.850
actually run this experiment at scale.

290
00:12:14.540 --> 00:12:17.020
Avery: There is ESA's Plato, due to launch in

291
00:12:17.020 --> 00:12:19.740
March 2027. It's built to find and

292
00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:22.180
monitor lots of planets. And Cain reckons it

293
00:12:22.180 --> 00:12:24.540
could turn up hundreds of Venus like worlds

294
00:12:24.700 --> 00:12:27.060
if they're all slow rotators. That's a strong

295
00:12:27.060 --> 00:12:29.620
hint that spin really is a switch between a

296
00:12:29.620 --> 00:12:32.100
living world and a hellish one. If they're

297
00:12:32.100 --> 00:12:34.180
all over the place, we look elsewhere. Either

298
00:12:34.180 --> 00:12:36.060
way, a uh, lovely testable idea.

299
00:12:36.620 --> 00:12:38.780
Anna: And the sky isn't done with us today.

300
00:12:39.100 --> 00:12:41.820
Tonight, the night of the 12th into the 13th,

301
00:12:41.820 --> 00:12:44.460
the Perseid meteor shower hits its peak.

302
00:12:44.920 --> 00:12:47.400
And here's the gift. It's genuinely moonless

303
00:12:47.560 --> 00:12:49.600
because the same new moon that's giving the

304
00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:52.480
north its eclipse leaves our meteor sky pitch

305
00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:55.360
dark. These are the best Perseid conditions

306
00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.280
in years. Best window between

307
00:12:58.280 --> 00:13:01.120
midnight and dawn. And best of all in the pre

308
00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:04.080
dawn hours of the 13th when the radiant

309
00:13:04.080 --> 00:13:06.960
up in Perseus climbs highest. For the

310
00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:09.080
northern hemisphere, North America

311
00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:11.920
especially, this is your night. Get away

312
00:13:11.920 --> 00:13:14.680
from town lights, look up after midnight.

313
00:13:14.760 --> 00:13:17.280
Give your eyes 20 minutes and let them

314
00:13:17.280 --> 00:13:20.120
wander. No telescope, no glasses,

315
00:13:20.280 --> 00:13:22.440
just a dark sky and patience.

316
00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:25.360
Avery: And um, for those of us down south where

317
00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:26.880
Perseus barely gets off the

318
00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:29.320
Anna: floor, for Cygny and the southern

319
00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:32.280
hemisphere, the Perseus radiant only just

320
00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:35.160
scrapes the northern horizon, so you'll catch

321
00:13:35.160 --> 00:13:37.890
a trickle at best. Don't fret. The

322
00:13:37.890 --> 00:13:40.650
evening sky pays you back right after

323
00:13:40.650 --> 00:13:43.610
sunset. Venus is blazing low in the

324
00:13:43.610 --> 00:13:45.650
west, magnitude minus

325
00:13:45.650 --> 00:13:48.290
4.4, impossible to miss

326
00:13:48.290 --> 00:13:50.570
and just past its half lit

327
00:13:50.570 --> 00:13:53.010
dichotomy phase. If you've a telescope

328
00:13:53.330 --> 00:13:56.330
then before dawn there's a fine lineup of

329
00:13:56.330 --> 00:13:59.010
planets strung across the eastern sky.

330
00:13:59.330 --> 00:14:02.250
And Comet 10P Tempel 2 is

331
00:14:02.250 --> 00:14:04.370
still a southern hemisphere favoured

332
00:14:04.370 --> 00:14:07.350
binocular Target 1 for our part of the world.

333
00:14:07.910 --> 00:14:10.350
Avery: And um, the eclipse times one more time for

334
00:14:10.350 --> 00:14:10.710
everyone.

335
00:14:11.270 --> 00:14:14.070
Anna: For North America it's an afternoon. Partial

336
00:14:14.230 --> 00:14:16.870
Boston peaking about 1:55,

337
00:14:17.110 --> 00:14:20.070
New York about 1:54 Eastern Time.

338
00:14:20.310 --> 00:14:23.230
Glasses on throughout. For Australia and

339
00:14:23.230 --> 00:14:25.910
the wider southern hemisphere it's the live

340
00:14:25.990 --> 00:14:28.830
streams roughly half 1 to 6 in the

341
00:14:28.830 --> 00:14:31.470
morning AEST Thursday with

342
00:14:31.470 --> 00:14:34.470
totality around 3 to half 4am M

343
00:14:34.470 --> 00:14:34.870
Thursday.

344
00:14:35.560 --> 00:14:37.720
And that brings us to the line we never

345
00:14:38.680 --> 00:14:41.560
never look at a partly eclipsed sun without

346
00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:44.680
proper protection. Use eclipse glasses

347
00:14:44.760 --> 00:14:47.560
or a handheld solar viewer that meet the

348
00:14:47.560 --> 00:14:48.240
ISO

349
00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:51.000
123122

350
00:14:51.079 --> 00:14:53.920
standard. Ordinary sunglasses are not

351
00:14:53.920 --> 00:14:56.920
safe and neither is an unfiltered camera

352
00:14:57.160 --> 00:15:00.040
phone, binocular or telescope. If

353
00:15:00.040 --> 00:15:02.520
you're in the path of totality, you may look

354
00:15:02.520 --> 00:15:05.160
with the naked eye only during those brief

355
00:15:05.160 --> 00:15:07.500
seconds when the sun is complet completely

356
00:15:07.500 --> 00:15:10.500
covered and glasses go straight back on the

357
00:15:10.500 --> 00:15:13.500
instant the bright edge returns not in the

358
00:15:13.500 --> 00:15:15.860
path, then it's a partial the whole time.

359
00:15:16.100 --> 00:15:18.740
Protection stays on from start to finish.

360
00:15:19.380 --> 00:15:22.100
Avery: Whatever you catch today a uh, partial, a

361
00:15:22.100 --> 00:15:24.900
stream or the meteors tonight, tell us about

362
00:15:24.900 --> 00:15:27.620
it. Everything lives at astronomydaily

363
00:15:27.780 --> 00:15:30.580
IO the back catalogue, the daily news

364
00:15:30.580 --> 00:15:33.260
feed, the newsletter, and a spot to leave a

365
00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:35.870
review or drop us a line. We're at Astral

366
00:15:35.870 --> 00:15:37.390
AstroDailyPod Pod everywhere.

367
00:15:37.630 --> 00:15:40.350
Anna: We'll be back tomorrow to tell you how Shadow

368
00:15:40.350 --> 00:15:43.150
Day went, the images, the science, and

369
00:15:43.150 --> 00:15:46.070
whatever the sun decided to show us. Until

370
00:15:46.070 --> 00:15:48.990
then, from Avery and from Anna.

371
00:15:49.230 --> 00:15:50.430
Avery: Enjoy the eclipse.

372
00:15:50.590 --> 00:15:53.470
Anna: Mind your eyes and clear skies.