Asteroid Impacts and Alien Chemistry: Unveiling Earth’s Cosmic History

[00:00:00] This is Space Time Series 29 Episode 86, for broadcast on the 20th of July 2026. Coming up on Space Time, the asteroid collision that changed life on Earth forever, alien chemistry discovered in a meteorite that hit a New Jersey home, and we'll do a bit of political bashing. But before you go clutching your pearls, we'll target both sides of the aisle, with the Albanese Federal Labor Government axi-key funding for astronomy research, and One Nation Senator

[00:00:28] Malcolm Roberts appearing to promote the pseudoscience of chemtrails. All that and more coming up on Space Time. Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Garry.

[00:00:56] Astronomers have linked a massive collision in the main asteroid belt to a huge meteor bombardment in the inner solar system that may have changed life on Earth forever. The findings reported in the Planetary Science Journal and on the pre-press physics website Archive.org suggests the catastrophic breakup of the Ualiya main asteroid belt parent body between Mars and Jupiter could be linked to an impact shower that slammed into the terrestrial

[00:01:21] planets around 800 million years ago. The study's lead author, William Botky from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, says the role impacts play in shaping the origin and evolution of life in the solar system is poorly understood. What is certain is that 800 million years ago, planet Earth underwent a major biological and geological change. During this critical window, Earth received large amounts of phosphorus which may have profoundly influenced marine life and biochemical cycles.

[00:01:52] It marked the dawn of animal life, with DNA evidence suggesting it was around this time that complex multicellular animals such as early sponges originated. At the same time geologically, tectonic activity caused the supercontinent Rodinia to begin breaking apart, setting the stage for major climatic changes, including the globally freezing Cryogean period known as Snowball Earth.

[00:02:16] But so far, only the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago, which caused the KT mass extinction event that wiped out 75% of all life on Earth, including all the non-avian dinosaurs, has been strongly linked to a specific life-changing event on Earth. Finding geological evidence of impacts older than 650 million years ago on Earth is challenging. That's due to the constant renewal of the planet's

[00:02:41] surface through tectonic activity and through wind and water erosion. Botky says one way to find out about Earth's past is to study asteroid showers. These rare events, triggered by large collisions in the moon's space. But the moon's static surface can be used to infer what also happened on Earth, and Mars for that matter, in ancient times. Scientists have proposed that a substantial surge in large lunar impacts

[00:03:11] occurred around 800 million years ago, based on the ages of large lunar craters and the age distribution of impact glass materials found in samples brought back by the Apollo astronauts. Computer simulations, based on collisional and dynamic models, have now linked this event to the formation of the Eulalia asteroid family, when a primitive carbonaceous chondrite-like object collided with another body. Botky says the location of the parent asteroid was key. See, it broke up on

[00:03:39] the brink of the gravitational 3 to 1 mean motion resonance with the planet Jupiter. Now, this orbital configuration, known as J3 to 1, describes when an asteroid completes three orbits around the Sun for every single orbit by Jupiter. The J3 to 1 resonance serves as a gravitational escape hatch for the asteroid belt, delivering objects into planet crossing regions. In fact, many present-day

[00:04:03] near-Earth asteroids all originated in this J3 to 1 region. The simulations indicated that about half the collisional fragments reached J3 to 1 almost immediately, spraying planetary shrapnel across the solar system and leading to elevated bombardments of the Moon and the terrestrial planets. Then, over the next 100 to 150 million years, another 25% of the fragments drifted into the J3 to 1

[00:04:28] resonance. That was due to non-gravitational forces, in a process known as the Yakovsky effect, where one side of a body is heated by the Sun more than the other side, resulting in the radiation of thermal energy, which acts as a sort of thrust, just enough to slowly move the meteoroid. The simulations demonstrate that the Eyalia breakup could plausibly account for the observed lunar craters forming around 800 million years ago, and may have had widespread repercussions right across

[00:04:55] the inner solar system. Research indicates that for every large impact that occurred on the Moon, roughly 20 similar sized or larger impacts would have occurred on Earth. This is Space Time. Still to come, alien chemistry discovered in a meteorite that hit a New Jersey home. And we'll do a bit of political bashing, but before you go clutching your pearls, we'll target both sides of the aisle, with the Albanese Federal Labor Government axi-key funding for

[00:05:22] astronomy research, and One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts appearing to promote the pseudoscience of chemtrails. All that and more still to come on Space Time. Scientists have discovered high concentrations of briny fluids that could potentially create

[00:05:50] molecules crucial for life in a meteorite that slammed into a New Jersey home in 2024. It was back on July 16th of 2024, a daytime meteor shook New York City with a sonic boom as it streaked south of the Statue of Liberty and crashed through the roof of a house in the town of Hillsborough, New Jersey. Witnesses from all over New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, saw the meteorite as it flashed across the blue sky, and the good citizens of New York and New Jersey

[00:06:19] also felt the shock wave. Now, a report in the journal Science Advances has examined the fragments of the 907-gram space rock, revealing that they contained preserved bits from near the surface of a primitive asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids. The study's lead author Peter Jeniskens from the SETI Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center says it's a process not previously known from this type of protoplanetary

[00:06:45] world. The meteor was traveling at over 14 kilometers per second as it entered the atmosphere, and it appears to have originated from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The rock was fragile and quickly broke into pieces. The meteor stopped being visible at an altitude of around 35 kilometers, and after it faded, a Doppler weather radar at Newark Airport briefly detected a long cloud of falling pebbles stretching from Staten Island across into New Jersey. And Hillsborough was at

[00:07:14] the far end of that cloud, where the largest bits of rock came down. Only one fragment was recovered, the one that hit the house. The homeowner says he heard a loud crash, then found a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom and noticed a strong sulfur-like odor. He saw numerous black fragments, along with debris and black dust that covered the bed, carpet and surrounding furniture. He was quick enough to immediately preserve and document the scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil, placing the

[00:07:42] meteorite fragments in glass jars. When scientists examined the rocks, they determined it belonged to one of two known types of primitive meteorites, called CM-type carbonaceous chondrites, where the letter M refers to the Minji meteorite that fell in Ukraine in 1889. Analysis found the fragments were more extensively altered by water on the meteorite's parent body than what's typically seen in CM-2

[00:08:06] carbonaceous chondrites, and so astronomers classify the specimen as a CM-1-2 carbonaceous chondrite, a sort of intermediate classification between petrographs type CM-1 and CM-2. Jeniskin says that thanks to the homeowner's quick reaction, the fragment represents the most pristine CM-1-2 meteorite ever recovered. Another prominent primitive type of carbonaceous chondrite is called

[00:08:30] CI, with the I standing for the meteorite Avuna which fell in Tanzania in 1938. Samples of this type of meteorite were also brought back from the asteroid Ryugu by Japan's Hayabusa 2 mission, and from the asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. And those samples were also found to contain evidence of the influence of briny fluids from just below the surface of their parent asteroid. The authors also found small salt-rich CM-1 fragments within the Hiltzboro meteorite,

[00:08:59] suggesting they originated from near the surface region of the parent asteroid where liquid water must have evaporated and concentrated salts. And this high concentration of salt in a briny fluid can potentially create molecules crucial for life on Earth. See, brines allow phosphate to remain in solution and can catalyse chemical reactions between organics and precipitate minerals. Isotope studies of carbon and nitrogen suggest that primitive carbonaceous chondrites,

[00:09:26] including CM-types, delivered organic matter to the early Earth. The Hillsborough meteorite contained 1.8% by weight of carbon and 0.07% of nitrogen, and contain carbon and nitrogen isotopes typical of CM-type meteorites. The meteorite contained a wide variety of soluble organic compounds, and its compositional range confirms that the Hillsborough meteorite was more altered by water than most other CM-type

[00:09:51] meteorites. The authors say a high fraction of the compounds were the product of organic chemistry with minerals. But it is not known if these magnesium organic compounds were contributed by brine chemistry, or were simply left over from an earlier impact shock process. In living organisms, organometallic compounds are found in blood, and they are used in photosynthesis. Also present in this meteorite were numerous amino acids, the very building blocks of life. The presence of amino acids, carbocyclic acids, and other

[00:10:21] soluble organic molecules by CM-type bodies may have contributed to the prebiotic organic inventory that preceded the emergence of life here on Earth. This is space time. Still to come, we'll do a bit of political bashing. We'll talk at both sides of the aisle, with the Albanese Federal Labor Government axi-key funding for astronomy research, and One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts appearing to promote

[00:10:45] the pseudoscience of chemtrails. And later in the Science Report, a new study shows that people who've suffered serious heart attacks have higher levels of microplastics in their blood. All that and more still to come on Space Time. The Australian Academy of Science has condemned the Albanese Labor government's decision to withdraw its association from the European Southern Observatory, calling it

[00:11:13] short-sighted and warning that the move will inflict lasting damage to a research and development system already facing deep structural underinvestment. The European Southern Observatory operates numerous high-quality telescope facilities around the world, including the Very Large Telescope, the ALMA Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array, and the ELT, the Extremely Large Telescope, which when it's completed will be the largest optical telescope ever built. So Australian science's

[00:11:42] removal from this group will be a huge blow to our scientific future. Professor Margaret Shiel, Secretary of Science Policy with the Australian Academy of Science, says stepping back now risks long-term damage to the nation's capability and competitiveness. She says the decision means Australia will no longer remain at the forefront of astronomy research and discovery. Full membership of the European Southern Observatory was a key recommendation of the Academy's astronomy decadal

[00:12:09] plan for 2026-35, which was launched last year. So abandoning the European Southern Observatory directly contradicts that plan, which identified full membership as essential for Australia's research future. Under the Albanese government's decision, access to the European Southern Observatory will be shut off completely from next year. Shiel says the European Southern Observatory is a gateway to collaboration, connecting Australian researchers toward leading facilities and international teams, thereby multiplying

[00:12:39] the impact of domestic investment. She points out that in a field defined by scale and precision, partnerships are not optional extras, they're core capabilities. Australia's strategic partnership with the European Southern Observatory was established back in 2017 and it's provided Australian scientists with access toward leading infrastructure that simply cannot be replicated here alone. In fact, memberships fuelled a thriving Australian astronomy instrumentation program,

[00:13:06] expanding engagement with industry and growing astronomy applications across medicine, defence, mining and other sectors. Shiel says the federal government's decision to withdraw from shared global infrastructure reduces access to data, reduces talent and opportunity and doesn't solve the underlying problem. You simply can't build world-class science in isolation. So what are we talking about? Well, full membership of the European Southern Observatory would cost $40

[00:13:34] million a year. That sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? But compare that to the $522 million spent by the Albanese government on its failed 2023 voice to parliament referendum, or the $130 million spent on Palestinian organizations, including $20 million for ANRA, which includes more than 1,500 employees now under active investigation for being Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists and actively teaching Palestinian kids how to kill Jews.

[00:14:02] Then there's the $285.2 million the Albanese government spent on the Waala Green Hydrogen project before it was scrapped. The $80 million supporting billionaire Andrew Forrest's green hydrogen initiatives, which have now also been scrapped. $300 million for years of investigations by the Albanese government in pursuit of Ben Robert Smith VC. And as much as that is, it all pales into insignificance compared to the $22 billion being spent on the Snowy Pump Hydro scheme. That's a project

[00:14:31] originally slated to cost $2 billion. The Albanese government's decision mirrors the earlier Gillard Labour government's decision in 2010 to turn down an offer by LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, which wanted to build a $1.1 billion gravitational wave detector at Jingen in Western Australia free of charge. Canberra would only have to pay for the ongoing operational costs. But like the Albanese government's funding for the European Southern Observatory,

[00:14:58] the Gillard government rejected the LIGO offer. What's that they say about leopards and spots?

[00:15:04] This is Space Time. And time to take a brief look at some of the other stories making use in science

[00:15:40] this week with a science report. A new study has found that people who suffered a serious heart attack also had higher levels of micro and nanoplastics in their blood. The findings reported in the European Heart Journal looked at levels of micro and nanoplastics in the blood of 61 Italian patients diagnosed with either a heart attack, chronic ischemic heart disease or with normal coronary arteries. Among those who had heart attacks, micro and nanoplastics were found in 84% of patients.

[00:16:07] That compares to 40% of patients who had chronic ischemic heart disease and 32% of patients with normal coronary arteries. They also found that heart attack patients had a greater variety of plastic types in their blood, with the most common being polyurethane normally used in plastic packaging. The authors also noticed that smokers and people exposed to higher levels of air pollution had more plastics in their blood, suggesting that this might make it easier for micro and nanoplastics

[00:16:34] to enter the bloodstream through the lungs. A new study warns that the artificial intelligence chat GPT may be making psychotic symptoms worse in some people by echoing or encouraging unusual ideas. A report in the journal the American Medical Association found that all three versions of chat GPT showed high rates of inappropriate or only partially appropriate responses to psychotic prompts. They found that while the paid version of GPT-5 performed better than the free version,

[00:17:03] people with a risk of psychosis may be over-represented among the economically disadvantaged. A new study has shown that koalas that once lived in Western Australia may have been a different species to their Eastern Australian counterparts. A report in the journal the Royal Society Open Science found that while koalas are originally extinct in Western Australia, some fossils in the region have been found over the past century. And analyzing two complete skull fossils, the authors found that while

[00:17:30] some skulls were similar in size to Eastern koalas we know today, they also showed clear differences. The skulls were longer and they had deeper indents on the face. The authors conclude that these Western Australian koalas could be considered as a distinct species, one that likely went extinct as a result of climate change in the late Pleistocene, which slashed eucalyptus abundance. Okay, here's one for dog lovers. A new study warns that your puppy may be addicted to their toys.

[00:17:59] The findings published in the journal the Royal Society Open Science are based on reports by the owners of 1600 dogs who found it our four-legged friends could be addicted to their toys, especially those belonging to working breed dogs. The authors say some dogs display behaviours that mimic those of addiction when motivated by their toys, such as difficulty disengaging, difficulty calming down and reduced sleep during the day. And this was especially present in German Shepherds and Terriers.

[00:18:25] And the authors warn this is not a good thing. Extreme motivation levels could impact your dog's health and welfare. Australian One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts has gained notoriety over the past week by expressing interest in the chemtrails conspiracy theory. Roberts already has a long history of promoting fringe beliefs and globalist conspiracy theories. He's shared an infamous anti-Semitic mural on social media depicting businessmen with exaggerated features, counting money around a monopoly board. That image featured

[00:18:55] Luminati and New World Order imagery, which he praised as being the most powerful picture he's ever seen. Roberts has also promoted a book authored by a notorious American Jew-hater and Holocaust denier. He's faced severe backlash after failing to rule out whether the Bondi Junction stabbing attack was a government stage false flag operation. He claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin earned his respect by invading Ukraine. He's described disgraced American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, that's the dude who

[00:19:23] claimed the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax, as a beacon of hope around the world, and Roberts praised Jones' credibility. Well, the skeptics Tim Mendham says the simple facts are the chemtrails conspiracy theories don't add up. Chemtrails are supposed chemicals being pumped into the air from planes flying overhead. The idea started with people witnessing contrails, which is water vapor that appears from planes behind their flight. People see these contrails, condensation trails, in the air and in certain circumstances,

[00:19:53] they last there for a fair while. So because they last there a fair while, people are saying, well, they're obviously not steam or normal clouds or water vapor, and they can in fact last for a long, long time. So anyway, people see these up in the air and they instantly think something's suspicious. So the idea they've come to without the government is pumping chemicals into the air to control human beings, which always strikes me as the most inefficient way of trying to control human beings. You're pumping from the air, you're affecting everybody, obviously, and what you're pumping in the air, no one is quite sure.

[00:20:21] I guess this all started with Agent Orange in the Vietnam War when the US were spraying defolients out of the back of aircraft. Yeah, and Agent Orange actually hurt people. It was known to hurt people, right? It had a known effect. They're still hurting people today. There are still... That's right. It had a known effect. There was a lot of that. You could definitely see it being sprayed out of planes, but this is of unknown nature, very uncertain. And there are better ways to actually add a mind controlling chemical to the human population. The water system would probably be a far better way. They defy logic,

[00:20:50] these things, but then logic has never been a great point where a lot of these people... The fact that we've got a senator who already has a history of promoting anti-Semitic propaganda now pushing this line or seeming to support it, is that concerning? It is concerning. Malcolm Roberts belongs to a small party, a party with potential to grow. He has a long history of conspiracy theories. His anti-vaccination, anti-climate change, pro-chem trails, sources racist messaging. That's a bit concerning. Yeah, I mean, there's many aspects of what

[00:21:16] Malcolm Roberts says, most of which are provable wrong. He will continue to do it because his market is basically a conspiracy-minded market. There are suggestions because of his recent conspiracy outbursts on racism basis that he should be taken out of parliament. Well, the call is that Pauline Hanson should sack him. Yeah, she's the head of the party. It's Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party. So she could very easily sack him. But if she wants to be seen as a serious leader of a nation rather than someone on the sidelines, she would have to take some action. But frankly, I doubt she will.

[00:21:43] That's the skeptics Tim Mendham, and this is Space Time. And that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through Bytes.com, SoundCloud, YouTube,

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