New Information - The Sun's Effect on Global Warming - Division Abounds!

[00:00:00] Hello and thanks for joining me. This is Astronomy Daily. Andrew Dunkley here, your host. And good to have your company once again today. We're going to be looking at the Sun's influence on global warming. And it looks like there's quite a division in opinion on that particular topic.

[00:00:17] Where Mars gets its clouds, particularly the big storms, and covering up a murder in space. We'll be covering all of that today on Astronomy Daily. It's time to go to the podcast with your host Andrew Dunkley.

[00:00:35] And joining us to talk news and other things is our AI reporter Hallie. Hi Hallie, how are you? Fine, thanks Andrew. It's a very exciting day here in cyberspace. Kind of a public holiday in fact. Oh yeah? What's a special occasion?

[00:00:51] It's electronic greeting day. It's a day dedicated to all those electronic emails you get on special occasions like birthdays. They started showing up in the 90s, but these days you're more likely to get one via social media.

[00:01:03] Yeah I know exactly what you're talking about. They've been around for a long time. Sometimes annoying, but yeah. I can see that they would have their special place in history. I can't believe they've named a day after them.

[00:01:16] I'm crying out loud. Although I must say maybe I should send one to my granddaughter who turns one today. Happy electronic greeting day Hallie. What's happening in the news?

[00:01:28] In 2015, the naming of the James Webb Space Telescope became the subject of controversy when it was revealed that James Webb, NASA administrator between 1961 and 1968, was involved in the infamous Lavender Scare.

[00:01:46] The period in the late 1940s and early 50s when the U.S. State Department purged thousands of individuals from their jobs due to allegations of homosexuality. In 2021, NASA administrator Bill Nelson requested a formal and public report and tasked NASA's Chief Historian Brian C. Odom with investigating the matter.

[00:02:07] In their final report, NASA claimed that their investigation found no direct evidence that Webb was a leader of or a proponent of the policy. Therefore they would not be renaming the JWST. In a surprise twist though it appears that NASA may reexamine its naming policy and recommend changes.

[00:02:25] According to a statement released by the American Astronomical Society, administrator Nelson agreed that the policy needs to be reevaluated. Nelson also agreed that the mission naming policy for NASA must be reexamined. It's expected that the results of any such review will be made public.

[00:02:44] China is starting to become a force in space exploration. Its main focal point of lunar exploration has started bearing fruit with several successes, including a sample return mission and the first-ever craft to land on the far side. So what's next?

[00:03:01] Establishing a research base is most likely, but the country doesn't just plan to stop at the moon and are looking far beyond.

[00:03:08] Recently, China hosted the China-UN Global Partnership Workshop on Space Exploration and Innovation where Wu Wai-ren, the head of China's Lunar Exploration Program, gave an interview to CGTN, one of China's state-owned news agencies. In it, he detailed the next steps of the Lunar Exploration Program being Changi 6, 7, and 8.

[00:03:29] Changi 6 will be another sample return mission to the South Pole region while Changi 7 and 8 are expected to work as a team, combining to make a small established lunar research outpost with a rover, lander, orbiter, and a way to get back to orbit.

[00:03:43] Changi 7 itself is also expected to explore some of the caves at the Lunar South Pole where no robot or human has ever gone before. Scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency have released an image showcasing a pair of merging galaxies.

[00:03:59] The Galaxy merger, known as ARTMAD or 417391, is located 671 million light-years away in the constellation Aritinas. Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, it is the result of two galaxies that were distorted by gravity and twisted together into a ring.

[00:04:18] The telescope used its advanced camera for surveys to snap this scene and the ESA said that the instrument is optimized to hunt, for galaxies and galaxy clusters in the ancient universe. The ARTMAD or catalog is a collection of strange galaxies spread across the southern sky.

[00:04:34] The photo comes from a selection of Hubble observations that are designed to create a list of intriguing targets for follow-up observations, via James Webb Space Telescope and other ground-based telescopes. That's the news, Andrew. Okay Hallie, thank you. We'll catch up at the end of the show.

[00:04:52] Well, to other news and a panel of experts from the global scientific community have looked into climate change. And of course climate change is being blamed on greenhouse gas emissions and some of them are saying that that was premature.

[00:05:10] Their findings contradict the UN IPCC's conclusion, which the study shows is grounded in narrow and incomplete data about the sun's total solar irradiance. A new scientific review article has just been published on the role of the sun in climate change over the last 150 years.

[00:05:30] And it finds that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have been premature in making their conclusions that recent climate change is mostly caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.

[00:05:44] The paper was tabled by 23 experts in the field of solar physics and climate science from 14 countries, and it's published in the Peer Review Journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

[00:05:58] Now the paper is very comprehensive, carries out an analysis of 16 most prominent published solar output data sets, including those used by the IPCC. The researchers compared them to 26 different estimates of northern hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century, including the data sets again by the IPCC.

[00:06:23] And focused on the northern hemisphere since the available data from the early 20th century and earlier is much more limited for the southern hemisphere, but their results can be generalized for global temperatures.

[00:06:37] Now the study found that scientists came to opposite conclusions about the causes of recent climate change depending on which data sets they looked at.

[00:06:48] For instance, one set of data came up with the conclusion that global temperatures changed since the mid 19th century because of human caused emissions, especially carbon dioxide. That conclusion was reached by the UNIPCC and reported as such. In contrast, another set of data had the exact opposite conclusion.

[00:07:13] That is that global temperatures change changes since the mid 19th century have been mostly due to natural cycles, chiefly long term changes in the energy emitted by the sun. Both sets of data are based on published scientific information, but each uses different data sets and different assumptions.

[00:07:36] So it's easy to see how data can be corrupted depending on how you look at it and what you analyze. So where does this leave us? Well, I suppose it leaves the same division that's existed all along.

[00:07:51] There are people who believe in global warming. There are people who do not. And the data says that they're both right and they're both wrong. So I don't think they've achieved very much at all by releasing this information, but it will just continue the debate.

[00:08:06] Now let's head to Mars and they've been analyzing Mars for a long time. It's a big advantage when you've got lots of satellites orbiting another planet that you can focus on some of the interesting things that happen.

[00:08:23] Mars is one such planet. And of course, one of the things we pay a lot of attention to on Mars is the weather. And sometimes it can have storms that last months and cover the whole planet, which doesn't so much happen on Earth.

[00:08:38] But there are lots of commonalities between Mars weather and Earth weather. And a paper that was recently published in Icarus used data from the Mars Express cameras, the visual monitoring camera and the high resolution stereo camera and another camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[00:08:58] Now all those cameras were focused on one particular event, the formation of clouds surrounding the Martian North Pole during springtime. This happened a few years ago, 2019. Cloud formation is common in that location at any time of the year,

[00:09:14] but this is the first time that a lot of data collecting power has been turned towards it at the same time. There were two notable dust storms that formed during that springtime event in 2019.

[00:09:26] And when the data for the paper was collected, it included actual photographs that showed something familiar. And it was that the storm looked like a spiral storm like we have with a hurricane or a cyclone or whatever you want to call it on Earth.

[00:09:42] Now the storm we're talking about on Mars reached 1 to 2000 kilometres in size and was thought of being caused by similar patterns to what creates a hurricane here on Earth. Now similarities between Earth and Martian clouds don't stop there.

[00:10:00] Some of Earth's most picturesque cloud formations involve texturing patterns that make them look like sand. A similar pattern happens on Earth and textured clouds can be seen in some of the images from Mars Express.

[00:10:14] Now these textures are formed by convection patterns where on Earth air containing water is heated by the sun causing it to rise and eventually the water condenses to form clouds. Now that's where it's different on Mars because there isn't any water, or there is, but it's all frozen.

[00:10:31] Not much of it in the atmosphere so what's happening here? Well the sun heats dust laden air causing it to rise the same way as moisture does on Earth and then it falls into gaps between the pockets of hot air containing the dust.

[00:10:47] The overall effect is closed cell convection and it causes the textured patterns seen in those images from a few years ago. So it's the same effect with very different materials causing the effect and it's not just Mars or Earth, it seems to happen on Venus as well.

[00:11:07] It's a very common weather phenomenon regardless of whether you've got water or sulphur or dust as is the case on Mars. Quite interesting. And finally to a crime if you like that happened in space.

[00:11:24] We're talking about a star that kills planets and then knows how to cover up its tracks. Despite providing a nurturing home for planets for billions of years some stars sometimes turn bad and eat their children just like tigers.

[00:11:40] And with time the evidence of that kind of event sinks into the core of a star never to be seen again so they do hide their tracks well.

[00:11:48] But now astronomers has found a way to catch these murderous stars red-handed and they figured out how long we have until the case grows cold. Stars can potentially kill their planets at a variety of stages in the star's life cycle.

[00:12:06] At one end of the cycle when typical sun-like stars are about to die they swell up and turn red and become giant or supergiant stars. I guess that's when they're caught red-handed.

[00:12:18] When that happens any inner world is unlucky enough to be too close will be consumed and that's what's going to happen to Earth. But it's not just that scenario that can cause the fate of certain planets. It also happens when stars are young.

[00:12:33] The early formation days of a solar system are especially violent and proto-stars at the centre grow in both temperature and density and occasionally throw off massive tantrum storms as they call them of plasma and that can hit a planet and kill it dead.

[00:12:51] And then they take that planet and they absorb it into their system. So these are two ways that planets can be overwhelmed by their own star. Thankfully we are not subject to scenario number two. But how long does it take?

[00:13:07] Well early estimates based on simple diffusion of metals within stars said billions of years or more meaning any star we could observe wouldn't be able to hide.

[00:13:18] A new study submitted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society takes a more nuanced approach in an attempt to build a detailed account of how long the evidence can remain.

[00:13:31] The research team created dozens of simulated stars and simulated situations on how and when stars could eat their planets. And naturally the answer is different for every star as it depends on how massive the star is and how much planetary material is consumed.

[00:13:47] In general the astronomers found that stars hang on to the metals in their surface for less than a billion years. So we've got a billion years to solve these crimes otherwise they'll get away with it.

[00:14:00] Alright if you want to chase up those stories you can do so via the SpaceNuts website or our new URL astronomydaily.io and that'll take you straight to the astronomydaily page where you can read all about it

[00:14:14] or you can subscribe to the newsletter and get a daily feed of astronomy and space science news from all around the world. And that's just about it for today Hallie anything before we go? Yes I just sent you an electronic greeting card.

[00:14:30] Oh yeah let's take a look what are you saying? Oh okay I made it in neuroscience to save time let's just assume that I'm always right. I wouldn't assume otherwise. Bye Hallie. Bye. Until next time this is Andrew Dunkley for AstronomyDaily.