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This episode of SpaceTime explores fascinating new discoveries and urgent updates from the cosmos.First, astronomers have identified a vast molecular gas and dust cloud named Eos, located just 300 light years away from Earth. This remarkable finding, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, marks the first detection of a molecular cloud using far ultraviolet emissions of molecular hydrogen. Eos, which is composed primarily of hydrogen, presents unique opportunities for studying the interstellar medium and the processes of star formation. We discuss the implications of this discovery and how it could reshape our understanding of molecular clouds across the galaxy. Jupiter's Polar Cyclones Under the Microscope
Next, we delve into the latest revelations from NASA's Juno mission, which is providing new insights into Jupiter's ferocious polar cyclones and the volcanic activity on its moon Io. With fresh observations, scientists are uncovering the dynamics of Jupiter's atmosphere and the subsurface temperature profile of Io, shedding light on the gas giant's extreme weather patterns and the moon's geological activity. Out of Control Russian Spacecraft
Finally, we discuss the impending re-entry of the Venera 8 spacecraft, a remnant of the Soviet era, which is expected to crash back to Earth on May 10. Launched in 1972, this spacecraft has been tumbling in low Earth orbit for over five decades. We examine the risks associated with its uncontrolled descent and the potential impact it may have upon re-entry. www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (https://www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com/)
✍️ Episode References
Nature Astronomy
https://www.nature.com/natureastronomy/ (https://www.nature.com/natureastronomy/)
NASA Juno Mission
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-space-astronomy--2458531/support (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-space-astronomy--2458531/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss) .
00:00 This is space Time Series 28, episode 54 for broadcast on the 5th May, 2025
00:48 Astronomers have discovered a vast invisible molecular, gas and dust cloud near Earth
12:40 Two key experiments are needed to help us understand the origin of Jupiter
15:42 A failed Soviet spacecraft designed to land on Venus is about to crash on Earth
19:00 New study claims people who use cannabis have higher risk of heart attack
21:12 New study claims ghost lanterns in South Carolina may be caused by earthquakes
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/26973179?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 This is Spacetime Series 28, episode 54
00:00:04 --> 00:00:06 for broadcast on the 5th of May,
00:00:06 --> 00:00:10 2025. Coming up on Spaceime, discovery
00:00:10 --> 00:00:12 of a vast molecular gas and dust cloud
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 right next door to our solar system,
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 Jupiter's giant polar cyclones under the
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 microscope, and the sky is falling. An
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 out of control Russian spacecraft about
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 to crash back to Earth. All that and
00:00:25 --> 00:00:29 more coming up on Spaceime.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:34 Welcome to Spaceime with Stuart
00:00:34 --> 00:00:41 [Music]
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 Garry. Astronomers have discovered a
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 vast invisible molecular gas and dust
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 cloud right near our solar system. This
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 massive potentially star forming body
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 reported in the journal Nature Astronomy
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 is one of the largest single structures
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 in the sky and among the closest ever to
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 be detected near the sun and earth. The
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 vast ball of hydrogen long invisible to
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 scientists was revealed by looking for
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 its main constituent molecular hydrogen.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 This discovery marks the first time that
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 a molecular cloud has been detected
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 using light emitted in the far
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 ultraviolet realm of the electromagnetic
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 spectrum and it opens the way for
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 further explorations using the same
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 approach. Astronomers have named this
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 molecular hydrogen cloud AOS after the
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 Greek goddess of mythology who was the
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 personification of dawn. The study's
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 lead author, Blexley Burkhard from
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 Rutgers University, says the discovery
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 opens up new possibilities for studying
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 the molecular universe. Molecular clouds
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 are composed of gas and dust with the
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 most common molecule being hydrogen, the
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 fundamental building block of stars and
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 planets and essential for life as we
00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 know it. But they also contain other
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 molecules such as carbon monoxide.
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 Molecular clouds are often detected
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 using conventional methods such as radio
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 and infrared astronomy. This can easily
00:02:05 --> 00:02:06 pick up the chemical signatures for
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 carbon monoxide. But for this work,
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 scientists employed a different
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 approach. Burkard says it's the first
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 ever molecular cloud discovered by
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 looking for far ultraviolet emissions of
00:02:17 --> 00:02:19 molecular hydrogen directly. And the
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 data showed glowing hydrogen molecules
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 detected by fluoresence in the far
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 ultraviolet. The cloud is literally
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 glowing in the dark. EOS poses no danger
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 to Earth in the solar system, but its
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 proximity does present some unique
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 opportunities for astronomers to study
00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 the properties of a structure within the
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 interstellar medium. The interstellar
00:02:40 --> 00:02:41 medium made up of gas and dust that
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 fills the space between the stars within
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 the galaxy serves as the raw material
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 for new star formation. Burkart points
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 out that when astronomers look through
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 their telescopes, they can catch whole
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 star systems in the act of forming, but
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 they really don't know in much detail
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 what's going on. That's why this new
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 discovery of EOS is so exciting. It
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 allows astronomers to directly measure
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 how molecular clouds are forming and
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 disassociating and how a galaxy begins
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 to transform interstellar dust and gas
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 into stars and planets. Aos, the
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 crescent-shaped gas cloud is located
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 about 300 lighty years away from Earth.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 It sits on the edge of what's known as
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 the local bubble. A huge gas field
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 cavity in space that encompasses our
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 entire solar system. Astronomers
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 estimate that AOS is vast in projection
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 across the sky and it has at least 3
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 times the mass of the sun. But it's not
00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 going to last long, at least not in
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 cosmic time. Computer simulations say
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 it'll probably evaporate within the next
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 6 million years. But it's a fascinating
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 discovery because it shows that the use
00:03:46 --> 00:03:47 of the far ultraviolet fluorescent
00:03:48 --> 00:03:49 emission technique could rewrite
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 science's understanding of the
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 interstellar medium, uncovering hidden
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 clouds across the galaxy and even out to
00:03:56 --> 00:03:57 the furthest detectable limits of the
00:03:57 --> 00:04:01 cosmic dawn. EOS was revealed in data
00:04:01 --> 00:04:02 collected by a far ultraviolet
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 fluoresence imaging spectrograph on the
00:04:04 --> 00:04:08 Korean STSAT1 satellite. Now a far
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 ultraviolet spectrograph breaks down the
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 far ultraviolet light being emitted by
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 material into its component wavelengths
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 just as a regular prism does with
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 visible light creating a spectrum which
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 astronomers can then analyze. EOS is
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 dominated by molecular hydrogen gas, but
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 is mostly carbon monoxide dark, meaning
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 it doesn't contain much of the material
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 and doesn't emit the characteristic
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 signatures detected by conventional
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 approaches. And that explains why EOS
00:04:34 --> 00:04:38 has eluded discovery for so long. This
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 is spaceime. Still to come, Jupiter's
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 giant polar cyclones under the
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 microscope and an outofcrol Russian
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 spacecraft crashing back to Earth this
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 week. All that and more still to come.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 on
00:04:53 --> 00:04:54 Spaceime. Hey there, Spacetime
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00:06:38 --> 00:06:43 [Music]
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 New data from NASA's Juno mission is
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 shedding fresh light on the fierce winds
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 and cyclones which are raging in the far
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 north of the gas giant Jupiter. And it's
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 also been examining the extreme volcanic
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 actions witnessed on its fiery moon Io.
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 The new findings presented at the
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 European Geosciences Union General
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 Assembly in Vienna are based on fresh
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 observations peering below the Jovian
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 atmosphere's cloud tops and updated
00:07:07 --> 00:07:11 scans of Io's crust. Not only has the
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 new data helped develop a model to
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 better understand the fastmoving jet
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 streams which encircled Jupiter's cloud
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 fu north pole, it's also revealed for
00:07:20 --> 00:07:21 the first time the subsurface
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 temperature profile of Io, providing
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 fresh insights into the moon's inner
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 structure and volcanic activity.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 The study's lead author, Scott Bolton
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 from the Southwest Research Institute in
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 San Antonio, Texas, says everything
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 about Jupiter's extreme. The planet's
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 home to gigantic polar cyclones bigger
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 than continental Australia. Fierce jet
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 streams faster than anything seen on
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 Earth, and the most volcanic world in
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 our solar system, Io. And it also has
00:07:48 --> 00:07:50 powerful auroral activity, and the
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 harshest of all, radiation belts. While
00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 Juno's microwave radiometer was designed
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 to peer beneath Jupiter's cloud tops,
00:07:58 --> 00:07:59 mission managers have also trained the
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 instrument on Io, combining its data
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 with that of Juno's Jovian infrared
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 auroral mapper to provide a far deeper
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 insight. And when they combine the
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 microwave and infrared data on Io, they
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 saw evidence of still warm magma that
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 hadn't yet solidified below the moon's
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 crust. And not just in one spot. In
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 fact, the data suggest about 10% of Io's
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 crust has these remnants of slowly
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 cooling lava just below the surface. The
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 results may help provide fresh insights
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 into how the moon renews its surface so
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 quickly, as well as how heat moves from
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 its deep interior up to the surface. The
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 infrared data alone shows that the most
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 energetic eruption in Io's known
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 history, which was identified during
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 Juno's December 27th IO flyby last year,
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 was still spewing lava and ash as
00:08:46 --> 00:08:48 recently as March the 2nd. And Juno's
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 mission scientists believe it's probably
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 still active today. In fact, that should
00:08:53 --> 00:08:54 be confirmed later this week when the
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 spacecraft's current IO flyby takes
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 place. That's when Juno will swoop to
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 within 89 kilometers of the moon's
00:09:01 --> 00:09:05 volcanic surface. On its 53rd orbit back
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 in February 2023, Juno began radio
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 occultation experiments to explore the
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 gas giant's atmospheric temperature
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 structure. Now, this involves the
00:09:14 --> 00:09:15 transmission of a radio signal from
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 Earth to Juno and back again, passing
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 through Jupiter's atmosphere on both
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 legs of the journey. As the planet's
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 atmospheric layers bend those radio
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 waves, astronomers can precisely measure
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 the effects of this refraction, and they
00:09:28 --> 00:09:30 can derive detailed information about
00:09:30 --> 00:09:31 the temperature and density of the
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 atmosphere. The process works so well
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 and provides so much data that Juno has
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 now completed 26 radio occultation
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 soundings. Among the most compelling
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 discoveries so far was the first ever
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 temperature measurement of Jupiter's
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 north pole stratospheric cap which
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 revealed that the region's some 11° C
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 cooler than the surrounding area and
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 it's encircled by winds exceeding 160
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 kmh. The new findings also focused on
00:09:58 --> 00:09:59 the cyclones that haunt Jupiter's
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 northern latitudes. Years of data from
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 both the Juno Cam visible light imager
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 and the infrared auroral mapper have
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 allowed Juno scientists to observe
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 long-term movements in Jupiter's massive
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 northern polar cyclone and the eight
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 daughter cyclones that encircle it.
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 Unlike tropical cyclones, hurricanes,
00:10:17 --> 00:10:19 and typhoons here on Earth, which
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 typically occur in isolation and at
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 lower latitudes, Jupiters are confined
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 to the polar regions. By tracking the
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 cyclones movements across multiple
00:10:28 --> 00:10:29 orbits, scientists were able to observe
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 that each storm gradually drifts towards
00:10:32 --> 00:10:35 the pole. That's due to a process called
00:10:35 --> 00:10:37 beta drift. The interaction between the
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 corololis effect and the cyclone
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 circular wind patterns. It's similar to
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 how hurricans, typhoons, and tropical
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 cyclones on Earth migrate. Earth
00:10:46 --> 00:10:47 cyclones break up before reaching the
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 poles due to the lack of warm moist air
00:10:50 --> 00:10:51 needed to fuel them as well as the
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 weakening of the corololis effect near
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 the poles. What's more, Jupiter cyclones
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 tend to cluster while approaching the
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 pole and their motion slows as they
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 begin interacting with neighboring
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 cyclones. The study's co-author, Juno
00:11:05 --> 00:11:06 investigator Yoha Caspia from the
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 Viceman Institute of Science in Israel
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 says these competing forces result in
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 the cyclones bouncing off one another in
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 a manner reminiscent of springs in a
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 mechanical system. The interaction not
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 only stabilizes the entire configuration
00:11:20 --> 00:11:21 but also causes the cyclones to
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 oscillate around their central positions
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 as they slowly drift westward clockwise
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 around the Jovian poles. This new
00:11:29 --> 00:11:30 atmospheric model helps explain the
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 motion of cyclones not only on Jupiter
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 but potentially also on other planets
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 including the Earth. One of the great
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 things about Juno is its extremely
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 elongated orbit which is designed to
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 avoid as much of Jupiter's intense
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 radiation belts as possible. Now, this
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 everchanging orbit means scientists get
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 a new vantage point during each flyby,
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 thereby increasing the cascade of
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 discoveries being made about the solar
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 systems largest planet and its multitude
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 of moons. This backgrounder from mission
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 principal investigator Scott Bolton from
00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 the Southwest Research Institute in San
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 Antonio, Texas. The main goals of Juno
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 are to study the origin of Jupiter and
00:12:09 --> 00:12:13 it represents giant planets as we know
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 uh around our star as around other stars
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 and uh it holds a lot of key secrets on
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 how we formed the solar system where
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 Jupiter came from and also the rest of
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 the solar system. There's a couple of
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 unique things about Juno. Uh we're solar
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 powered. We're the first ones to go out
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 that far to to Jupiter's distance. uh
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 solar powered. Jupiter's five times the
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 distance from the sun as the Earth. So,
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 uh the amount of sunlight is 25 times
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 less. So, we're very efficient and we're
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 pushing the envelope on uh on solar
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 power there. When we get to Jupiter, we
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 go into a polar orbit. It's the first
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 time a spacecraft's gone into polar
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 orbit at Jupiter. Um we go into a very
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 close polar orbit. So, not only are we
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 over the poles, but we're getting closer
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 to Jupiter in our orbit than any other
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 spacecraft has gone uh orbiting Jupiter.
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 We're only 5 kilometers above the
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 cloud tops. And so we're skimming right
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 over those cloud tops. Um, and we're
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 actually dipping down beneath the
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 radiation belts, which is a very
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 important thing for us because those
00:13:13 --> 00:13:14 radiation belts at Jupiter are the most
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 hazardous region in the entire solar
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 system other than going right to the sun
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 itself. And um, and we have a vault in
00:13:21 --> 00:13:22 the middle that holds our electronics to
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 protect them from these uh, these high
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 energy particles. Um, we're basically an
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 armored tank going to Jupiter. Jupiter
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 probably formed first. It's the largest
00:13:33 --> 00:13:34 of all the planets. In fact, it's got
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 more material in it than all the rest of
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 the solar system combined. If I took
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 everything in the solar system, it could
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 all fit inside Jupiter. And in due fact,
00:13:42 --> 00:13:43 Jupiter is probably more than twice as
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 massive as the rest of the solar system
00:13:45 --> 00:13:49 put together. So after the sun formed,
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 it got the majority of the leftovers.
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 And that's why it's very interesting to
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 us if we want to go back in time and
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 understand where we came from and how
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 the planets were made. Jupiter holds
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 this secret because it's got most of the
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 leftovers after the sun formed. And so
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 we want to know that ingredient list.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 What we're really after is discovering
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 the recipe for making planets and we're
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 back at the first step of making sure we
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 have all the ingredients in that recipe.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 So there's two key experiments that we
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 have to help us understand the origin of
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 Jupiter. One is we go after the water
00:14:23 --> 00:14:24 abundance. We want to know how much
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 water is inside Jupiter, which
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 represents how much oxygen. Oxygen is
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 the third most abundant element in the
00:14:31 --> 00:14:32 universe and in the sun. So, it's a big
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 missing piece if we don't understand it.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 The other is whether Jupiter has a core
00:14:37 --> 00:14:39 of heavy elements at the center, whether
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 it's just gas all the way down. There
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 are zones and belts, different colors.
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 There's a giant red spot. We've uh been
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 observing this giant storm for over 300
00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 years. One of the fundamental questions
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 is how deep are the roots to that red
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 spot? How does it maintain itself for so
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 long? How deep are the roots to the
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 zones and belts? Are they just a surface
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 feature like a meteorological layer
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 that's very very thin or does it go down
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 deeper and maybe uh is it demonstrating
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 to us how Jupiter is structured inside?
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 So our microwave experiment tell us a
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 lot about this deep uh underneath the
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 clouds uh dynamics and the composition.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:17 two of the other questions which is
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 what's inside of Jupiter magnetic and
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 gravity fields and the way we measure
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 the gravity field is through something
00:15:24 --> 00:15:25 called a Doppler shift. So what's
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 happening is as that spacecraft flies by
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 Jupiter very very close and we watch how
00:15:30 --> 00:15:34 the Jupiter's pushes and pulls on its
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 velocity. So we model it as if all of
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 the mass in Jupiter's in one point and
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 then we look at how the spacecraft has
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 behaved differently in its trajectory
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 from that assumption and then we're able
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 to back that out and uh be able to say
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 how the mass is distributed inside the
00:15:52 --> 00:15:53 planet. In fact you can even say how the
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 planet is rotating inside whether it's a
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 solid body or a series of concentric
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 cylinders. Also partway down through
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 Jupiter uh the m the hydrogen actually
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 becomes metallic. It's under such great
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 pressure. This is a very strange
00:16:08 --> 00:16:09 substance very different than what we
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 have here on the earth. The hydrogen
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 starts behaving like a fluid a little
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 bit like mercury in your uh old
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 thermometers and it conducts and
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 somewhere in that layer is the magnetic
00:16:21 --> 00:16:22 field is created. That's probably the
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 source region. So we're very interested
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26 in understanding the magnetic field.
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 Jupiter's magnetic field is tilted about
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 10 degrees with respect to its rotation
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 axis. So on the end of one of Juno's
00:16:33 --> 00:16:37 solar arrays are magnetometers. It's in
00:16:37 --> 00:16:38 fact got a magnetometer boom and that's
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 one of one solar array looks a little
00:16:40 --> 00:16:41 bit different than the other. And that's
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 the reason another of our objectives is
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 to study the polar magnetosphere because
00:16:46 --> 00:16:47 we're going over the poles. We're
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 perfectly suited to study the great
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 aurora, the most the strongest aurora in
00:16:52 --> 00:16:53 the entire solar system. In fact,
00:16:54 --> 00:16:55 Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 and the brightest aurora. We have a
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 number of instruments that go over right
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 over those magnetic field lines and see
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 the particles coming down and causing
00:17:04 --> 00:17:06 that aurora. And then when we learn
00:17:06 --> 00:17:08 about Jupiter's polar magnetosphere and
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 aurora, we'll be able to compare it to
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 Earth's. That's Scott Bolton, the
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 mission's chief investigator from the
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 Southwest Research Institute in San
00:17:16 --> 00:17:17 Antonio,
00:17:17 --> 00:17:21 Texas. This is Spaceime. Still to come,
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 an outofc control Russian spacecraft
00:17:23 --> 00:17:25 about to crash back to Earth in the next
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 few days. And later in the science
00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 report, a new study warns that
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 83.7% of the world's coral reef area is
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 now being impacted by heat stress. All
00:17:35 --> 00:17:51 that and more still to come on
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 [Music]
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 Spaceime. A failed Soviet era spacecraft
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 designed to land on the planet Venus is
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 about to crash back on Earth. The
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 Vaniraa 8 or Cosmos 482 spacecraft is
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere
00:18:06 --> 00:18:08 on an uncontrolled tumbling flight path
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 on May the 10th. Launched way back in
00:18:11 --> 00:18:15 March 1972, the Cosmos 482 failed to
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 escape low Earth orbit. That was due to
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 flight systems programming errors which
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 caused premature stage separation that
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 prevented the probe from escaping Earth
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 orbit, leaving it doomed to spend the
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 last 53 years circling the planet. Now,
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 shortly after being placed in its
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 parking orbit, the spacecraft split into
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 four sections, two of which re-entered
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 Earth's atmosphere within a month. These
00:18:37 --> 00:18:41 included a group of four 13.6 kg, 38 cm
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 wide spherical titanium alloy fuel
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 tanks. They eventually crashed back to
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 the ground within 16 km of each other
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 near Ash Burton in southern New Zealand.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 And six years later in 1978, another
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 piece of space debris suspected of being
00:18:55 --> 00:18:56 another spherical fuel tank from the
00:18:56 --> 00:18:59 Cosmos 482 was discovered half buried in
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 the ground just outside the southern New
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 Zealand town of Effton. Now the two
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 remaining sections, the descent landing
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 module and the propulsion unit were
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 circling the planet in a 210 by 9 km
00:19:11 --> 00:19:14 orbit at an inclination of
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 51.7°. And slowly over the last half
00:19:17 --> 00:19:20 century that orbit has been degrading.
00:19:20 --> 00:19:21 It's now reached a point where it's
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 skipping on the upper atmosphere and
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 will soon slow down enough to begin
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 re-entry. And that's where things get
00:19:28 --> 00:19:31 dangerous. See, the 495 kg spacecraft
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 was heavily engineered, designed to
00:19:34 --> 00:19:35 withstand the high temperatures and
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 extreme pressures of landing on the
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 hostile world of Venus. It's therefore
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 expected to easily survive its re-entry
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 into Earth's atmosphere, it should
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 remain mostly intact. Now, because of
00:19:47 --> 00:19:48 the uncontrolled nature of its flight
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 path and the constantly changing
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 atmospheric conditions, scientists can't
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 be sure exactly where or when it will
00:19:54 --> 00:19:57 re-enter. The best they can tell us is
00:19:57 --> 00:19:58 that it could crash down anywhere,
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, or
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 Australia. Although, given the vast
00:20:03 --> 00:20:05 amounts of ocean covering the Earth, a
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 watery demise is the most likely. The
00:20:08 --> 00:20:09 bottom line is we'll only know for sure
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 exactly where and when it hits when we
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 get those first reports of a bright,
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 slowmoving fireball streaking across the
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 skies. This is
00:20:20 --> 00:20:34 [Music]
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 spaceime. And time now for a brief look
00:20:37 --> 00:20:38 at some of the other stories making news
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41 in science this week with a science
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 report. The worsening crisis being faced
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 by the world's coal reefs has been put
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 into focus with the release of a new
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 study showing that over 80% of them have
00:20:50 --> 00:20:52 now been hit by bleaching levels of heat
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 since 2023.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:56 The findings by the United States
00:20:56 --> 00:20:57 National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 Administration, Noah, says the most
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 recent coral reef watch report shows
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 that some 83.7% of the world's coral
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 reef area has now been impacted by heat
00:21:06 --> 00:21:08 stress capable of causing coral
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11 bleaching in the last 2 years. The
00:21:11 --> 00:21:13 report also says mass coral bleaching
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 has already been documented in at least
00:21:15 --> 00:21:16 83 countries and territories since
00:21:16 --> 00:21:18 January the 1st,
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 2023. Noah says the ongoing bleaching
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 event is the biggest ever recorded.
00:21:24 --> 00:21:26 A new study claims people who use
00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 cannabis have a far higher risk of
00:21:28 --> 00:21:30 having a heart attack, even among
00:21:30 --> 00:21:32 younger, otherwise healthy adults. The
00:21:32 --> 00:21:34 findings presented at the American
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 College of Cardiy's annual scientific
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 session covered over 4.6 million people
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 aged under 50. It showed that over a
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 three-year period, cannabis users had
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 more than a six-fold increased risk of
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 heart attack, a four-fold increased risk
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 of eskeemic stroke, a two-fold increased
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 risk of heart failure, and a three-fold
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 increased risk of cardiovascular death,
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 heart attack, or stroke. The findings
00:21:57 --> 00:22:00 are based on data pulled together by
00:22:00 --> 00:22:02 researchers from 12 previous studies,
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 finding that for these studies, active
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 cannabis users were at least one and a
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 half times as likely to suffer a heart
00:22:08 --> 00:22:10 attack.
00:22:10 --> 00:22:12 New research has raised fresh questions
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 about the evolutionary history of some
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 of our most unique mammals. Up until
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 now, the expected understanding about
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 akidnas and platypus, arguably the most
00:22:21 --> 00:22:22 unique animals on the planet, was that
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 they were both descended from a
00:22:24 --> 00:22:26 land-based ancestor. And while the
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 platypus eventually became semi-aquatic,
00:22:29 --> 00:22:32 akidnas stayed on the land, or so the
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 story went. But a new study by the
00:22:34 --> 00:22:36 University of New South Wales reported
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 in the journal PNAS has analyzed a small
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 bone found 30 years ago and it shows
00:22:42 --> 00:22:43 that the ancestors of akidnas and
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 platypi that's the term actually evolved
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48 from a water dwelling
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 ancestor. For decades now frightening
00:22:51 --> 00:22:54 ghost lanterns in South Carolina have
00:22:54 --> 00:22:55 struck fear into the hearts of many
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58 local residents. But now, a new study
00:22:58 --> 00:23:00 reported in the journal Seismological
00:23:00 --> 00:23:02 Research Letters, claims the strange
00:23:02 --> 00:23:04 orbs, which appear along railroad tracks
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 in the area and have been known to slam
00:23:06 --> 00:23:07 doors and cause other paranormal
00:23:08 --> 00:23:09 activity, probably actually being caused
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 by earthquakes. Tim Mum from Australian
00:23:12 --> 00:23:14 Skeptics says the findings will, dare I
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 say, shake up believers who thought they
00:23:16 --> 00:23:17 were being caused by, well, at least
00:23:18 --> 00:23:19 according to the legend, the ghost of a
00:23:19 --> 00:23:21 railroad widow. This is a thing that's
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 been around for a while and people at
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 certain times of the probably the night
00:23:25 --> 00:23:27 actually see these lights that appear in
00:23:27 --> 00:23:28 the sky and then they disappear and it
00:23:28 --> 00:23:30 happens a fair amount of times and
00:23:30 --> 00:23:32 people say ah it's a spirits of the
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 ghost. Someone said it's the wife of a
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 train conductor who never came back as
00:23:37 --> 00:23:39 an accident. So she after a death is now
00:23:39 --> 00:23:40 wandering up and down the the railway
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 tracks trying to find her husband. And
00:23:42 --> 00:23:43 that's actually quite telling because
00:23:43 --> 00:23:45 it's about the railway tracks as much as
00:23:45 --> 00:23:47 anything. Uh there's a researcher who
00:23:47 --> 00:23:48 looked at these particular ones in South
00:23:48 --> 00:23:50 Carolina who said that this area where
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 these things is prone to minor
00:23:52 --> 00:23:53 earthquakes but earthquakes you know
00:23:53 --> 00:23:55 most of them you probably can't feel and
00:23:55 --> 00:23:57 they said train lines tend to follow an
00:23:57 --> 00:23:58 area which is easy to build because
00:23:58 --> 00:24:00 they're saying that earthquakes and this
00:24:00 --> 00:24:01 is true when they happen an earthquake
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 you're grinding rocks together quartz
00:24:03 --> 00:24:04 does it especially other rocks as well
00:24:04 --> 00:24:05 you're grinding them together in the
00:24:06 --> 00:24:07 same way as you'd like to bash rocks
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09 together to to start your campfire one
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 rock against another you get sparks
00:24:11 --> 00:24:12 crashing rocks together to get sparks is
00:24:12 --> 00:24:14 is real and so the researcher is
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 suggesting that this is a This might be
00:24:16 --> 00:24:17 the reason why they see light. Wouldn't
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 be a reason for seeing lights that are
00:24:19 --> 00:24:20 up there for a while. But they also
00:24:20 --> 00:24:22 suggest perhaps gas escaping gets lit by
00:24:22 --> 00:24:24 these rocks crashing together. Who
00:24:24 --> 00:24:25 knows? But suggesting that there are
00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 alternative explanations that fit in
00:24:27 --> 00:24:29 well with the evidence because no one's
00:24:29 --> 00:24:31 there hardly ever there to actually
00:24:31 --> 00:24:32 catch a photograph. It's too fleeting.
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 If it's certainly if it's sparks coming
00:24:34 --> 00:24:35 from rocks, it's extremely fleeting.
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 This is a suggestion especially in the
00:24:37 --> 00:24:39 night sky. They can't feel anything.
00:24:39 --> 00:24:40 They can't feel an earthquake that there
00:24:40 --> 00:24:42 might have been. Yeah. Ball lightning,
00:24:42 --> 00:24:43 that sort of thing. They have no idea
00:24:43 --> 00:24:44 what it is. But yeah, no idea what it
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 is. They don't give the explanation for
00:24:46 --> 00:24:47 they just got to work it out. Yeah. I
00:24:48 --> 00:24:49 mean there are there are thousands of
00:24:49 --> 00:24:51 earthquakes every day. Most of you have
00:24:51 --> 00:24:53 a feel minor ones but all over the place
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 predictors and psychics will say there
00:24:55 --> 00:24:56 will be an earthquake in California.
00:24:56 --> 00:24:59 Yep. Quite a lot every day. There's
00:24:59 --> 00:25:00 probably a better explanation than a
00:25:00 --> 00:25:02 widow walking up and down the railway
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 line with a lantern. If you
00:25:05 --> 00:25:07 car land now, but you can see the ghost
00:25:07 --> 00:25:08 land. Never mind. A few slight problems
00:25:08 --> 00:25:10 with that story. That's Tim Mindum from
00:25:10 --> 00:25:14 Australian Skeptics.
00:25:14 --> 00:25:27 [Music]
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 And that's the show for now. Spacetime
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 is available every Monday, Wednesday,
00:25:32 --> 00:25:34 and Friday through your favorite podcast
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