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Hide and Seek - The Faintest Planet Ever Imaged, Pluto's Landslides & Starlink's 355,000 Dodges
Episode 142
Thursday, 16 July, 2026
Anna and Avery kick off with a decade-long game of cosmic hide-and-seek that has finally ended: Beta Pictoris d, the faintest exoplanet ever directly imaged from Earth, found lurking in more than ten years of archival images — and orbiting a star in the southern constellation Pictor. Then it's the completion of VLASS, the sharpest radio map of the whole sky ever made, arriving just as the Rubin Observatory's optical survey switches on. The James Webb Space Telescope has caught a supermassive black hole feeding itself in the Centaurus Cluster — the missing link in a decades-old mystery. A Pluto system double bill follows: the first landslides ever identified on Pluto, and evidence written in Charon's mountains that the big moon once spun more than ten times faster than it does today — both delivered by New Horizons data from 2015. Finally, SpaceX's latest FCC filing reveals Starlink satellites made over 355,000 collision-avoidance manoeuvres in the past year — nearly one dodge per satellite per week — and experts are warning about where the trend leads. Plus dark-sky Southern Hemisphere stargazing and a Starship Flight 13 launch reminder. Chapters • 00:00 — Intro & billboard • 01:30 — Beta Pictoris d: the faintest exoplanet ever imaged from Earth • 05:30 — VLASS complete: the sharpest radio map of the sky • 08:45 — JWST reveals how supermassive black holes feed • 12:15 — Pluto has landslides (Pluto double, part 1) • 15:00 — Charon's slowing spin (Pluto double, part 2) • 17:45 — Starlink's 355,000 collision dodges in a year • 20:45 — Southern Hemisphere skywatch + Starship Flight 13 reminder • 22:30 — Outro Story sources • Beta Pictoris d: ESO release eso2609 (eso.org) · The Astrophysical Journal Letters · space.com · phys.org • VLASS completion: NRAO release (public.nrao.edu/news/vlass-observations-complete) · phys.org • JWST / NGC 4696: Université de Montréal · The Astrophysical Journal Letters · phys.org / EurekAlert • Pluto landslides: Icarus (Discenza et al. 2026) · phys.org · Discover Magazine · Science News • Charon despinning: Nature Communications (Chen et al. 2026, DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-75069-7) · phys.org · Gizmodo • Starlink manoeuvres: SpaceX semiannual FCC constellation status report, via space.com Boilerplate Astronomy Daily is part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network. Show notes, links and the full back catalogue at astronomydaily.io. Follow @AstroDailyPod on X, Instagram, TikTok and Tumblr. New episodes every day.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support.Sponsor Details:Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click HereThis episode includes AI-generated content.
