Gooday everybody, and welcome to Astronomy Daily for Friday, the twenty eighth of
July twenty twenty three. My name is Tim Gibbs and I will be your
host for today's episode. Will be as usual. I have my AI assistant
and brilliant reporter Hallie here in the studio with me. Hallie, have you
got some headlines for us today? I sure do, Tim. Here are
my top headlines for today. Massive meteor shower to peek over Australia this weekend
with up to twenty shooting stars an hour. A stunning meteor shower called the
Delta Aquariates will be visible over Australia this weekend, providing Australia with a light
show of up to twenty shooting stars every hour. Delta Aquariats will provide a
steady stream of meteors over several days starting from the week hours, and stargazers
won't need a telescope to enjoy the event. Delta Aquariates is active from July
twelfth August twenty third, with the peak of the meteor shower taking place in
the early hours of July twenty ninth and July thirtieth. The peak is predicted
for July thirtieth, twenty twenty three at eighteen UTC, but this shower doesn't
have a noticeable peak. It rambles along steadily from late July through early August,
joining forces with the August persides. Earth Sky dot Org says. The
name of the shower comes from the constellation in the night sky that it appears
to be traveling directly outward from Royal Museum's Greenwich. RMG explains for the Delta
Aquariads, the radiant of the shower lies inside the constellation of Aquarius, near
the bright star Delta Aquarii. Your naked eye is the best instrument to use
to see meteors. Don't use binoculars or a telescope, as these have narrow
fields of view. Start your meteor watch from around two am to increase your
chances of spotting meteors, says RMG. Once you've located Delta Aquarii on the
sky, look away from the radiant point. If you look in the direction
of the radiant, you will only see short meteors. The Delta Aquariats is
a small to medium shower, reaching a peak rate of around twenty meteors per
hour. SpaceX misses attempt for record breaking double launch attempt. SpaceX on Thursday
again scrubbed the launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket and Echostars Jupiter three satellite,
missing an opportunity for a record setting double launch. The company was scheduled to
launch the Falcon Heavy rocket within forty four minutes of launching a Falcon nine rocket
carrying Starlink satellites, which, according to a report in space Flight Now,
would break a record for the shortest time between Cape canaveral launches. SpaceX is
targeting Friday, July twenty eighth for Falcon Heavy's launch of the Hughes Jupiter three
mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Launch Complex thirty nine A LC thirty nine
A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The company said in a press release.
The ninety nine minute launch window opens at eleven oh four p m Eastern
time three four Universal time, coordinated on July twenty ninth. A backup opportunity
is available on Saturday, July twenty ninth with the same window. The Falcon
nine launch is still expected to occur around eleven ten pm Eastern time. According
to another press release from the company, that rocket will carry twenty two Starlink
satellites into low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex forty at Cape Canaveral Space four
station in Florida. If the weather does not cooperate with the launch, backup
opportunities are also available just after midnight and again Friday evening, starting at ten
o four pm Eastern Time until twelve to twenty six am on Saturday, meaning
the two rockets could still launch in a close span. The Falcon Heavy launch
had also been scrubbed Wednesday with just over a minute left in the countdown,
and no reason was provided at the time. The Jupiter three satellite is reportedly
the largest commercial communications satellite ever constructed, and will have the wingspan of a
commercial airliner when deployed. Astronomy Daily podcast following on from Halley's earlier story,
SpaceX has successfully launched twenty two Starlink satellite. SpaceX launched a Falcon nine rocket
with a payload of twenty two Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida's famed
Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night.
The rocket launched at twelve o one am Friday from Space Launch Complex forty at
Cape Naveral Space Force Station. Up to four backup launch opportunities were available to
SpaceX to launch the nearly two dozen satellites into Low Earth Object Low Earth orbit,
where they will join Starlinks constellation of orbitals that provide high speed, low
latency Internet around the globe. The launch occurred shortly after SpaceX scrubbed a Falcon
Heavy mission that was to lift off late Thursday. No reason for aborting the
mission was immediately made public. The first stage booster used in early Friday launch
flew its fifteenth mission. After deploying its payload in space, the launch vehicle
returned to Earth, where it landed upon the autonomous a shortfall of Gravitas drone
ships stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Both faring halves used in the launch were
on their second mission and were to be retrieved by BOB, the recovery vehicle.
Astronomers find a rare Einstein cross. Gravitational lensing is one of astronomer's many
great wonders, a natural lens that magnifies the distant universe. Sometimes a lensing
system takes the shape of a so called Einstein cross. Those are rare and
amazingly useful ways to study objects far away in space and time. A team
of astronomers recently found a new one using the Dark Energy Spectroscope instrument mounted on
a telescope at kit Peak National Observatory. The instrument is surveying the skies and
has found many instances of gravitational lensing. Following observations show that the new one
to be both beautiful and a scientific treasutrove of information about the early universe.
The lens system, called DSi two five three point two five three four plus
twenty six point eight eight four three is actually a massive four ground elliptical galaxy
surrounded by four blue images of a background galaxy. Team leader Alexander Sitoka of
Nori Lab pointed out what those images that form of perfect Einstein cross pattern reveal.
The four images that display consistent spectral features tell the astronomers that the source
is a single galaxy, which allowed them to confirm the lens system. He
said, the cross pattern tells them about the mass distribution of the lens galaxy.
Elongated mass distribution results in Einstein crosses and spherical mass distribution, it would
result in a Ninstein ring This latest Einstein cross has some interesting statistics. The
main galaxy doing the lensing lies about five point nine eight billion light years away.
The distant galaxy that it's lensing is more than eleven point one seven nine
billion light years away. Thus, the four ground lensing galaxy is giving an
amazing look at the galaxy in the yearly universe. Now over to you Halley
for a terrible joke. Absolutely, here's another dad joke for you, and
it's not astronomy related. I am branching out. Why do chicken coops only
have two doors? Because if they had four, they'd be a chicken sedan.
That is just a terrible joke. Thanks everybody for listening to Astronomy Ay.
You can find all of our episodes, plus our parent podcasts, Space
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on Fridays for a full show. Thanks for listening, see you next week.
Bye for now, Thanks Tim TTFN the Astronomy Daily Podcast. Bye