Mars May Still Be Volcanically Active, New Evidence Suggests

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_03] This is Space Time Series 29, Episode 134, for broadcasts on the 9th of November, 2026. Coming up on Space Time, are volcanoes still active on the red planet Mars? NASA's Swift Space Telescope destroyed, and China to put a man on the moon before 2030. All that and more coming up on Space Time.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_02] Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_03] Could the red planet Mars still be volcanically active? The European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has detected signs of what looks like volcanic activity on the Martian surface.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_03] The findings, reported in the journal Science Advances, are based on evidence of gas seeping up from Martian volcanic rifts. Fresh fissures along the Alba Mons region entered active spots under the surface, where gases from inside the planet appear to be making their way up into the atmosphere. The study's lead author, Alexander Trokhamovsky, from the Space Research Institute, says the discovery suggests Mars isn't geologically dead deep inside, but merely sleeping.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_03] Trokhamovsky and colleagues think the release of hydrogen chloride comes from hot magma beneath the surface. And the readings aren't new. Trace Gas Orbiter first detected hydrogen chloride gas in the Martian atmosphere back in 2021. On Earth, this gas is commonly found escaping from magmatic vents, leading researchers to wonder whether the same thing is happening on Mars.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_03] At the very least, these findings suggest Mars has retained enough internal heat to support volcanic activity until very recently, and possibly still does. It was early summer in the northern Martian hemisphere when the authors noticed spikes of hydrogen chloride where it shouldn't have been and during an odd season. This gas varies seasonally on Mars, usually reaching its maximum extent in the northern hemisphere winter, then mostly disappearing during the summer.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_03] Most of this variability is thought to be linked to Martian dust and water cycles. Yet there was one exception to this pattern, always in the same season and at the same place, above volcanic fissures on the flanks of the Alba Mons volcano in the early summer. Mars has the largest volcanoes in the solar system, but it's not known how active these are likely to be.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_03] Orbital imagery shows some volcanoes appear to have been active within the last few million years, and seismometers have detected Marsquakes. Both of these facts point to the possibility, at least, of Mars being volcanically active. However, no new lava flows or eruptions for that matter have ever been observed. The new findings are based on a combination of atmospheric and geological analysis.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_03] First came the detection of hydrogen chloride by infrared spectrometers aboard Trace Gas Orbiter by its atmospheric chemistry suite, which were strongly localized and at a time just after the frosts of winter supplement. Then, a closer look of the Albemons region, using Trace Gas Orbiter's camera, showed what looked like fresh and narrow fissures, in some cases hundreds of metres long, and associated with colour changes on the surface.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_03] Put together, the evidence suggests that magmatic gases may have been rising through these fissures, just like fumaroles in volcanic regions on Earth. Blocked by the ice during winter's frozen temperatures on Mars, where it gets down to minus 120 degrees Celsius, the fissures would channel and release the chloride gas as the ice sublimates in early summer. The discoloration detected around the fissures could be caused by deposits left behind as gases escape from below the surface.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_03] The authors suggest that this seepage is connected with a dormant magma chamber under the Martian surface. If these hydrothermal systems are active, they could contain the ingredients and the energy needed for microorganisms to develop, as well as a shield for microorganisms from the hostile and changing environment above the surface. It's a fascinating idea. This is Space Time. Still to come, NASA's Swift Space Telescope destroyed,

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_03] and China to put a man on the moon before 2030. All that and more still to come on Space Time. NASA's Swift Gamma Ray Space Telescope has re-entered Earth's atmosphere in a fiery uncontrolled descent burning up in the skies above the Pacific Ocean.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_03] The United States Space Force says the 1,450 kg spacecraft hit the upper atmosphere over Indonesia's northern Sumatra. No ground damage or injuries have been reported. Any surviving fragments would have hit the surface somewhere between 20.6 degrees south latitude and 20.6 degrees north. Swift was launched on a two-year primary mission in 2004 to explore gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_03] Because of the mission's planned short duration, the spacecraft wasn't equipped with its own booster rockets. However, it kept operating successfully for almost 22 years. But the minibus-sized observatory has been experiencing increasing orbital decay in recent years due to growing space weather activity. And as the atmospheric drag increased, NASA organized a last-ditch rescue mission to try and boost the spacecraft back up to its original 600 km high orbit.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_03] The agency contracted Catalyst Space to launch its three-armed robotic spacecraft to intercept and latch onto Swift and then boost it up to its original orbital altitude. But the rescue craft itself experienced problems shortly after release from its Pegasus launch vehicle in July. And by the time it stabilized itself, it no longer had enough fuel to carry out its primary mission. And it wound up crashing back to Earth in September.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_03] The demise of Swift takes nothing away from the spectacular success of the mission, which is explained in this report by NASA TV.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02] They occur approximately once per day. Brief, intense, powerful explosions of gamma-ray radiation of the likes not seen since the Big Bang. They're called gamma-ray bursts, and scientists are somewhat mystified as to their cause. Do they signal the birth of a black hole in a massive stellar explosion? Are they the product of two colliding neutron stars? Or is there something else that prompts this intriguing phenomenon?

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_02] With its launch into low-Earth orbit in November 2004, scientists have a dedicated tool with which to probe the gamma-ray burst mystery.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_01] Before Swift launched, to give you an example, the satellite that actually saw the long burst, it took them eight hours to go and look at that burst. Swift can do this in, you know, less than a minute.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_02] Named after the bird able to quickly snatch insects as it flies, the Swift Observatory is agile, quickly pointing its instruments at gamma-ray bursts and relaying burst locations to the ground within seconds.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_01] Swift can see usually, I mean, on average, 100 bursts per year. The number of bursts that actually exist in the universe that we think are actually happening in the universe is, of course, much higher. We think we actually see only maybe like one in a thousand.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_02] This quick response is achieved by a complement of three onboard instruments. The largest, the Burst Alert Telescope, or BAT, can view approximately a sixth of the entire sky at one time. The X-ray and the ultraviolet optical telescopes enable high-precision X-ray and optical positions and spectra to be determined. Swift burst alerts allow both space-based and ground-based telescopes around the world

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_02] to observe a burst afterglow immediately after its detection.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01] Swift doesn't just look at gamma-ray bursts, and that's all they do. They study a very large array of science, which has come as an added bonus, really, to the mission. They've basically, for example, they detected the first X-ray flash coming from a star that was just about to explode.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_03] And in that report from NASA TV, we heard from Swift program scientist Elina Harris. This is Space Time. Still to come, China releases details of its first man-moon program, confirming that it expects to have Tarkonauts walking on the lunar surface before 2030. And later in the science report, a new study shows that patients with female doctors do better in hospitals. All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_03] China has released details of its planned man-moon program, confirming that it expects to have Tarkonauts walking on the lunar surface before 2030. Beijing says its plan calls for two rocket launchers, both using the nation's new Long March 10A rocket. One launcher will carry a Menjoo crew module, the other a Lan Yu lunar lander. The two vehicles will then rendezvous and dock in lunar orbit, where two Tarkonauts will transfer to the lander from the Menjoo capsule

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_03] and ascend down to the lunar surface near the South Pole. Once on the ground, the crew will plant the Chinese flag and undertake scientific operations before ascending back to orbit and transferring back to the Menjoo capsule for the return journey to Earth. The Long March 10A is a 93-meter tall three-stage superheavalift rocket comprising a core stage and two boosters. All three use the same common design, with a 5-meter wide fuselage

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_03] equipped with seven kerosene and liquid oxygen-burning YF-100K engines. The stack can lift 70 tons into low Earth orbit and 27 tons into a translunar injection orbit. The 14-ton Menjoo, or dream vessel in Mandarin, is designed to be used for both low Earth orbit missions carrying up to seven Tarkonauts and for deep space missions to the Moon, with that version carrying four Tarkonauts and equipped with increased radiation protection and an improved heat shield capacity

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_03] needed for the faster atmospheric re-entry speeds on lunar return missions. The Menjoo spacecraft itself comprises a crew module and an expendable service module, which is equipped with propulsion, solar power and life support systems. The 26-toned Lianyu lunar lander, Lianyu being Mandarin for embracing the Moon, will transfer the two Tarkonauts from the Menjoo in lunar orbit and take them down to the surface and back up to orbit again.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_03] It consists of a propulsion stage and a landing at a sense stage. Unlike the Apollo lunar module, Lianyu will jettison its propulsion stage prior to landing. Beijing says development is progressing across all three major systems, along March 10, the Menjoo and the Lianyu. Key tests on the escape system, lunar lander demonstrations and rocket validation tests have already been completed. The maiden flight of the Long March 10 carrying an unmanned Menjoo spacecraft

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_03] will be loaded with cargo on a resupply mission to China's Tiangong Space Station sometime next year. That will provide final validation for the new vehicles. Then in 2028, a beefed-up version of the Long March 10 carrying an unmanned Lianyu lunar lander will perform a lunar descent and ascent test, checking out the lander's propulsion and guidance systems. Finally, in early 2029, a full-scale unmanned dress rehearsal mission complete with dual Long March 10 launch vehicles

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_03] and both the Menjoo and Lianyu vehicles will be undertaken, including demonstrating rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. And that will be followed by the highly historic manned mission. This is Space Time.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_03] And time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with a science report. A new study has shown that both death and re-hospitalization rates among hospitalized patients are lower when those patients have a female rather than a male doctor. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at outcomes for nearly a million adult inpatients in Toronto, Canada, finding people treated by female doctors were less likely to die within 30 days and less likely to end up back in hospital

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_03] compared to those treated by male doctors. Now, the differences were modest, but the pattern held up under statistical testing. For patients with a female doctor, 12.3% died within 30 days compared to 13.7% for those with a male doctor. And 18.6% of patients with a female doctor ended up back in hospital compared to 18.9% of those with a male doctor. Now, the reasons for the differences are still unexplained and the study's authors are now suggesting

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_03] further work should be carried out to look into this. The newest climate model from the World Meteorological Organization predicts the current El Nino climate pattern driving hot weather will strengthen to unprecedented levels over the next three months. The WMO says they declare an El Nino event when sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific reach 0.5 degrees Celsius above average. And during the current November-January period, they say these temperatures could reach

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_03] 3.8 degrees Celsius above average, a level the WMO says is literally off the monitoring charts. A new study warns that the brains of children who eat more ultra-processed foods may be responding to food differently, ultimately putting them at higher risk of gaining weight. The findings, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are based on research involving 46 children with a healthy weight aged between 7 and 10.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_03] The authors recorded data on their diet and body fat. A month later, they performed an experiment monitoring how a section of the kids' brains linked to reward processing responded to different images of food. They found that the kids who regularly ate more ultra-processed foods were likely to have stronger responses to food in that brain region. And after a year, these kids were also more likely to have an increased body mass index and more body fat. Ultra-processed foods include sodas,

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_03] energy drinks and artificially sweetened juices, as well as potato chips, packaged cookies, candy, ice cream, frozen dinners, instant noodles, hot dogs, sausages and luncheon meats. Paleontologists have uncovered unequivocal evidence of fossilized red blood cells and amino acids of collagen from dinosaurs. The discovery, reported in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS, fundamentally reshapes our understanding of fossil preservation

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_03] and molecular longevity in deep time. The mineralized red blood cells and intact heme biomolecules were discovered in limb bones of a 115-million-year-old theropod dinosaur uncovered from a dig site in northwestern Brazil. The world is finally starting to wake up to the fact that homeopathy doesn't work, and it's just a pseudoscience whose livelihood is dependent on people's gullibility. In recent years, many countries that once financed homeopathy have now ceased,

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_03] mostly thanks to better education, evidence-based science and campaigns by the sceptical movement. The sceptics Tim Mendham says those pushing these magic cure-alls are now being forced to find new ways to sell their products by rebranding them and marketing them as dietary supplements.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_00] Homeopathy, you know, is the treatment of everything under the sun with a like-for-like solution of something and the whole process is extremely shonky. The evidence is extremely shonky, even totally shonky. It's generally regarded as 100% ineffective. It's not going to harm you necessarily, but it's certainly not going to help you, and you're paying for expensive water in the long run. In some cases, governments have been underwriting treatments with this sort of stuff. Homeopathy, I think, in the UK, France. France was quite strong, actually, for a while, but they're now sort of withdrawing

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_00] that financial support, and therefore anyone who wants to take homeopathic treatments has to pay for it themselves, which is okay. Germany has been an outlier a bit because this system was developed in Germany, so they had a certain nationalism about the treatment, but they are actually working as well. Spain has dropped it. I know in Australia it's not supported by any sort of...

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_03] the medical insurance that doctors take out doesn't cover it, so that must say something.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_00] Medical insurance that doctors take out covers none of these things. It's not even chiropractic. Other things do, but they don't cover homeopathy really because it basically has been tested and retested. There was a famous report that came out from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council which looked at every other study available and it came out with a finding that there's nothing there. It doesn't stop people trying to sell homeopathy. Yeah, your local health food store will sell homeopathic treatments. Some chemists, pharmacies will sell homeopathic treatments as well. I must admit, I went into one and had a look at it and the pharmacist said, don't bother, it doesn't work. I'm thinking,

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00] well, why are you selling it? It makes money, I suppose. So therefore, there's been a big drop-off in the sale of homeopathic treatments. There's a multi-billion dollar industry, multi-multi-billion dollar industry, but the sales have been going down quite dramatically in some cases, like 20% a year. So naturally, to try and retain their income, their cash flow, they're now rebranding some of this stuff as dietary supplements. And our dietary supplements are not like medicines. They're full under the food regulations rather than the medical regulations. So a lot more wriggle room in the food thing than in a medicine.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00] But pitching it as a dietary thing means you're looking at a more wellness market. It's a shifting of the market into areas which have a warmer and fuzzier feeling than sickness does. And that's the wellness industry, one of the cleverest words every year for marketing.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_03] I remember when the ABC began divesting itself of scientific programs and documentaries. They replaced them with wellness programs which sort of fits in very nicely with what you've just said.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I know. The wellness industry is bigger than the medical industry. It's huge. When you say big pharma, someone should talk about big wellness, big dietary, big supplement industry. That's huge. It's bigger than the pharmaceutical industry.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_03] 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, your favorite podcast download provider,

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_03] and from Space Time with Stuart Gary.com. Space Time is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both iHeart Radio and TuneIn Radio. And you can help to support our show by visiting the Space Time store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies or by becoming a Space Time patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of bonus audio content which doesn't go to air, access to our exclusive Facebook group

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[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_02] This has been another quality podcast production from Bytes.com.