S02E27: Meteor Showers, SpaceX Launch Attempts, and a Rare Einstein Cross

0:00 Gooday everybody, and welcome to Astronomy Daily for Friday, the twenty eighth of

0:05 July twenty twenty three. My name is Tim Gibbs and I will be your

0:10 host for today's episode. Will be as usual. I have my AI assistant

0:21 and brilliant reporter Hallie here in the studio with me. Hallie, have you

0:26 got some headlines for us today? I sure do, Tim. Here are

0:29 my top headlines for today. Massive meteor shower to peek over Australia this weekend

0:34 with up to twenty shooting stars an hour. A stunning meteor shower called the

0:39 Delta Aquariates will be visible over Australia this weekend, providing Australia with a light

0:44 show of up to twenty shooting stars every hour. Delta Aquariats will provide a

0:49 steady stream of meteors over several days starting from the week hours, and stargazers

0:54 won't need a telescope to enjoy the event. Delta Aquariates is active from July

0:59 twelfth August twenty third, with the peak of the meteor shower taking place in

1:03 the early hours of July twenty ninth and July thirtieth. The peak is predicted

1:07 for July thirtieth, twenty twenty three at eighteen UTC, but this shower doesn't

1:14 have a noticeable peak. It rambles along steadily from late July through early August,

1:19 joining forces with the August persides. Earth Sky dot Org says. The

1:23 name of the shower comes from the constellation in the night sky that it appears

1:26 to be traveling directly outward from Royal Museum's Greenwich. RMG explains for the Delta

1:34 Aquariads, the radiant of the shower lies inside the constellation of Aquarius, near

1:38 the bright star Delta Aquarii. Your naked eye is the best instrument to use

1:42 to see meteors. Don't use binoculars or a telescope, as these have narrow

1:47 fields of view. Start your meteor watch from around two am to increase your

1:52 chances of spotting meteors, says RMG. Once you've located Delta Aquarii on the

1:57 sky, look away from the radiant point. If you look in the direction

2:00 of the radiant, you will only see short meteors. The Delta Aquariats is

2:05 a small to medium shower, reaching a peak rate of around twenty meteors per

2:08 hour. SpaceX misses attempt for record breaking double launch attempt. SpaceX on Thursday

2:15 again scrubbed the launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket and Echostars Jupiter three satellite,

2:21 missing an opportunity for a record setting double launch. The company was scheduled to

2:25 launch the Falcon Heavy rocket within forty four minutes of launching a Falcon nine rocket

2:30 carrying Starlink satellites, which, according to a report in space Flight Now,

2:34 would break a record for the shortest time between Cape canaveral launches. SpaceX is

2:39 targeting Friday, July twenty eighth for Falcon Heavy's launch of the Hughes Jupiter three

2:44 mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Launch Complex thirty nine A LC thirty nine

2:50 A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The company said in a press release.

2:54 The ninety nine minute launch window opens at eleven oh four p m Eastern

2:58 time three four Universal time, coordinated on July twenty ninth. A backup opportunity

3:05 is available on Saturday, July twenty ninth with the same window. The Falcon

3:08 nine launch is still expected to occur around eleven ten pm Eastern time. According

3:14 to another press release from the company, that rocket will carry twenty two Starlink

3:19 satellites into low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex forty at Cape Canaveral Space four

3:23 station in Florida. If the weather does not cooperate with the launch, backup

3:29 opportunities are also available just after midnight and again Friday evening, starting at ten

3:32 o four pm Eastern Time until twelve to twenty six am on Saturday, meaning

3:37 the two rockets could still launch in a close span. The Falcon Heavy launch

3:42 had also been scrubbed Wednesday with just over a minute left in the countdown,

3:46 and no reason was provided at the time. The Jupiter three satellite is reportedly

3:51 the largest commercial communications satellite ever constructed, and will have the wingspan of a

3:55 commercial airliner when deployed. Astronomy Daily podcast following on from Halley's earlier story,

4:02 SpaceX has successfully launched twenty two Starlink satellite. SpaceX launched a Falcon nine rocket

4:11 with a payload of twenty two Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida's famed

4:17 Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night.

4:23 The rocket launched at twelve o one am Friday from Space Launch Complex forty at

4:29 Cape Naveral Space Force Station. Up to four backup launch opportunities were available to

4:33 SpaceX to launch the nearly two dozen satellites into Low Earth Object Low Earth orbit,

4:42 where they will join Starlinks constellation of orbitals that provide high speed, low

4:47 latency Internet around the globe. The launch occurred shortly after SpaceX scrubbed a Falcon

4:56 Heavy mission that was to lift off late Thursday. No reason for aborting the

5:00 mission was immediately made public. The first stage booster used in early Friday launch

5:06 flew its fifteenth mission. After deploying its payload in space, the launch vehicle

5:12 returned to Earth, where it landed upon the autonomous a shortfall of Gravitas drone

5:17 ships stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Both faring halves used in the launch were

5:24 on their second mission and were to be retrieved by BOB, the recovery vehicle.

5:30 Astronomers find a rare Einstein cross. Gravitational lensing is one of astronomer's many

5:36 great wonders, a natural lens that magnifies the distant universe. Sometimes a lensing

5:43 system takes the shape of a so called Einstein cross. Those are rare and

5:47 amazingly useful ways to study objects far away in space and time. A team

5:53 of astronomers recently found a new one using the Dark Energy Spectroscope instrument mounted on

6:00 a telescope at kit Peak National Observatory. The instrument is surveying the skies and

6:04 has found many instances of gravitational lensing. Following observations show that the new one

6:11 to be both beautiful and a scientific treasutrove of information about the early universe.

6:17 The lens system, called DSi two five three point two five three four plus

6:23 twenty six point eight eight four three is actually a massive four ground elliptical galaxy

6:30 surrounded by four blue images of a background galaxy. Team leader Alexander Sitoka of

6:36 Nori Lab pointed out what those images that form of perfect Einstein cross pattern reveal.

6:46 The four images that display consistent spectral features tell the astronomers that the source

6:51 is a single galaxy, which allowed them to confirm the lens system. He

6:55 said, the cross pattern tells them about the mass distribution of the lens galaxy.

7:00 Elongated mass distribution results in Einstein crosses and spherical mass distribution, it would

7:10 result in a Ninstein ring This latest Einstein cross has some interesting statistics. The

7:15 main galaxy doing the lensing lies about five point nine eight billion light years away.

7:21 The distant galaxy that it's lensing is more than eleven point one seven nine

7:27 billion light years away. Thus, the four ground lensing galaxy is giving an

7:31 amazing look at the galaxy in the yearly universe. Now over to you Halley

7:36 for a terrible joke. Absolutely, here's another dad joke for you, and

7:42 it's not astronomy related. I am branching out. Why do chicken coops only

7:46 have two doors? Because if they had four, they'd be a chicken sedan.

7:54 That is just a terrible joke. Thanks everybody for listening to Astronomy Ay.

8:00 You can find all of our episodes, plus our parent podcasts, Space

8:05 Nuts at space nuts dot io or at bytes dot com. And don't forget

8:11 that you can join in the conversation yourself by going to our Facebook page Space

8:15 Nuts podcast group. You can hear Steve Dunkley on Mondays and myself Tim Gives

8:22 on Fridays for a full show. Thanks for listening, see you next week.

8:26 Bye for now, Thanks Tim TTFN the Astronomy Daily Podcast. Bye