Mercury’s Sulphur Secrets, Jupiter’s Slimmer Profile, and NASA’s Launch Tower Setback

[00:00:00] This is Space Time Series 29 Episode 57, for broadcast on the 13th of May 2026. Coming up on Space Time, how the strange magmas on Mercury shaped the planet differently to the Earth, confirmation of a slimmer Jupiter, and work on NASA's Launch Tower 2 at the Kennedy Space Center has been formally halted. All that and more coming up on Space Time. Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary

[00:00:30] A new study has found that sulfur-rich magmas on the planet Mercury have reshaped the tortured world's interior evolution and crustal formation very differently compared to that on Earth. Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun.

[00:00:58] It's a small rocky world about which scientists still know very little. Two missions to the planet have revealed that Mercury is covered by an iron-poor and sulfur-rich crust. Importantly, it's also reduced. That's a chemical state in which the substances have gained electrons. In fact, it's the most reduced planet in the solar system. One of the study's authors, Rajiv Desgupta, from the Rice Space Institute, says Mercury's surface looks completely different to that of the Earth.

[00:01:25] So scientists couldn't study its magmatic evolution using assumptions built on our understanding of the Earth. But a key to better understanding this distant world might come from a meteorite called Indrak, which crashed to the ground in Azerbaijan back in 1891. Indrak looks very similar to the chemical composition of Mercury. And so the authors realised they could use it to study how Mercury's unique chemical make-up shaped the planet. That's because Indrak is as chemically reduced as the rocks on Mercury.

[00:01:55] In fact, there's speculation that it may well have originated there. So Desgupta and colleagues developed a model melt composition of Indrak to cook their own Mercury rocks in a high-pressure, high-temperature oven. The process is really fairly simple. Mix Indrak's chemical ingredients together in a small glass vial, change the settings in the facility to match the conditions on Mercury, add the chemicals, and cook. This process of cooking a rock can show what happens chemically inside Mercury.

[00:02:24] By using the temperature, pressure, and chemical constraints derived both from spacecraft observations and from computer simulations, the authors were able to create what they believe are Mercury-like conditions in order to understand how magmas form and evolve there. They found that sulfur lowers the temperature at which these reduced melted rocks begin to crystallize. That means sulfur-rich magmas on Mercury may stay molten at lower temperatures and similar magmas here on Earth.

[00:02:51] Mercury's unique chemical composition, its low iron content, high sulfur content, and the chemically reduced state it's in, is the reason for this significantly decreased crystallization temperature. Sulfur is, I guess you'd call it a promiscuous element. It likes to be bound to other elements, usually iron. Iron-rich planets like Mars and the Earth have most of their sulfur bound to iron. But Mercury's low iron content means its sulfur needed to find a different binding partner.

[00:03:20] Specifically, it could bind to major rock-forming elements like magnesium and calcium. On Earth, these rock-forming elements would typically bind to oxygen, resulting in a stable structure called a silicate network made up of silicon, oxygen, and rock-forming elements. When sulfur replaces oxygen, however, that network becomes weaker and crystallizes at lower temperatures. The research suggests that sulfur occupies a similar structural position on Mercury as oxygen does on Earth,

[00:03:48] and that fundamentally changes how the planet's mantle solidified. There are still many questions about Mercury which remain to be answered, and the joint European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, BepiColombo mission, will hope to answer those when it arrives at Mercury later this year. This report from ESA TV. With a thin crust of rock surrounding a dense iron core, there's more to Mercury than there first appears.

[00:04:16] Temperatures on the heavily cratered surface range from around 450 degrees Celsius down to minus 180, and there are signs of past volcanic activity. Mercury has been visited twice, first in 1974 by NASA's Mariner 10 probe, and some 40 years later by Messenger, which spent four years in orbit. Messenger mapped the surface and even discovered strong evidence for water ice in shaded craters.

[00:04:43] But the mission also raised new questions about this mysterious planet, questions that BepiColombo orbiters will be trying to answer. The big step forward for BepiColombo is the fact that we have two spacecraft, the European Space Agency spacecraft, which is designed to look at the surface of the planet and to study the planet in detail. And the second spacecraft is designed to look at the environment.

[00:05:11] And so having two spacecraft will enable us to do a great deal of new science compared to the previous missions. Protected by multi-layered insulation, hand-stitched thermal blankets and a radiator to dissipate heat, ESA's Mercury planetary orbiter carries 11 science instruments. It will focus on studying the surface and internal composition of the planet.

[00:05:37] We will provide the 3D images of the entire surface of Mercury. And then there will be a global mapping with a spectrograph for the composition. And it means that we will provide the composition within the spectral range covered by our instruments of the entire surface of Mercury. A primary objective of the Japanese Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter's five instruments

[00:06:06] will be to study the planet's magnetic field. The combined data from the orbiters will enable scientists to build up a picture of the magnetic bubble or magnetosphere surrounding the planet and the influence of charged particles from the sun known as the solar wind. With BepiColombo, with a two-satellite approach, we have one satellite, the MMO, sitting in the solar wind, and the other one is inside the magnetosphere. So we can see what is coming towards the magnetosphere

[00:06:35] and what is driving changes within the magnetosphere. And in that report from ESA TV, we heard from BepiColombo mission scientists, Emma Bunce from the University of Lister, Gabriel Kremeniz, and Daniel Hayner from the Technical University of Braunschweig. This is Space Time. Still to come, confirmation of a slightly slimmer Jupiter. And NASA formally orders a halt to all work on Launch Tower 2 at the Kennedy Space Center. All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:07:18] Well, as we reported earlier, a new study has now revised science's understanding of the size of the solar system's largest planet, the gas giant Jupiter, finding it some 8 kilometres narrow at the equator and 24 kilometres flatter at the poles. The new confirmation, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, measured Jupiter's dimensions with unprecedented precision. For more than 50 years, astronomers thought they knew the size and shape of Jupiter

[00:07:45] based on six measurements made by NASA's Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft. The study's lead author, Eli Galenti, from Israel's Weissman Institute, says these original measurements were based on radio signals sent from the spacecraft back to Earth. Galenti says those missions provided a foundation, but now scientists can use data from as many as 26 measurements made thanks to NASA's Juno spacecraft. Just by knowing the distance to Jupiter and watching how it rotates

[00:08:12] allows scientists to figure out roughly its shape and size. But making really accurate measurements calls for far more sophisticated methods. Launched in 2011 and orbiting Jupiter since 2016, Juno has been sending streams of raw data back to Earth. When NASA extended the mission in 2021, the spacecraft was able to keep studying Jupiter and its moons more closely, and Juno's new expanded path placed the spacecraft in an orbit that allowed it to pass behind Jupiter from Earth's point of view,

[00:08:41] something its earlier orbit couldn't do. And Juno passing behind Jupiter provides an opportunity for new science objectives. When the spacecraft passes behind the planet, its radio communication signal is blocked and bent by Jupiter's atmosphere. Juno's principal investigator, Scott Bolton from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, says this enables a more accurate measurement of Jupiter's size. The Juno team at the Weissman Institute seized on the new opportunity

[00:09:09] and tracked how the radio signals bent as they passed through Jupiter's atmosphere. This allowed the authors to translate this information into detailed maps of Jupiter's temperature and density, producing the clearest picture yet of the giant planet's size and shape. The new findings show the king of planets is far more flattened at the poles compared to previous estimates. And Galanti says those few kilometres matter because shifting the radius by just a little lets models of Jupiter's interior fit both the gravity data

[00:09:39] and atmospheric measurements far better. This implication was then tested using models for the interior density structure of Jupiter to show that the refined shape helps bridge the gap between the models and the measurements. The study also has broader implications for understanding the structure of gas planets in general. That's because Jupiter serves as a standard reference for the study of gas giants both within our solar system and beyond. And the earlier measurements didn't account for Jupiter's powerful winds.

[00:10:08] By including these extreme winds in their calculations, the authors cleared up some long-standing discrepancies in earlier measurements. It's difficult to see what's happening beneath those swirling clouds of Jupiter. But the radio data is giving scientists a window into the depth of Jupiter's zonal winds and powerful hurricanes. And the work on the winds ties in with a recent study of Jupiter's vast polar cyclones. That research used Juno's measurements of these cyclones' motions to predict how deep into the interior they extend.

[00:10:38] Overall, an improved understanding of Jupiter's winds enabled scientists to better understand the relationship between the planet's atmosphere and its deep interior. This is space-time. Still to come, NASA's issued a formal stop work order on construction of its second mobile launch tower. And later in the science report, warnings the deadly H5N1 strand of bird flu has found new ways to infect humans. All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:11:22] NASA has issued a formal stop work order on construction of its second mobile launch tower at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The move comes in the wake of the agency's decision to continue with the existing Space Launch System SLS rocket in only its current Block 1 form, rather than proceed with the larger Block 1B and Block 2 versions. The second mobile launch tower would have been needed to handle the taller SLS Block 1B and Block 2, which would have used the bigger four-engine exploration upper stage

[00:11:51] rather than the single-engine interim cryogenic propulsion stage, which is used on the SLS Block 1. The interim cryogenic repulsion stage, which was only ever intended for use on the Artemis 1, 2 and 3 missions, was based on the second stage of the now-retired Delta IV rocket, and so production has been shut down. The original plans called for Artemis 4 onwards to use the more powerful, specially developed exploration upper stage. But with that program cancelled, allegedly to standardise the SLS design,

[00:12:20] NASA will now instead switch to a two-engine Centaur 5 upper stage based on that currently used on the United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket. As well as being two metres taller, and fitted with repositioned umbilicals for the exploration upper stage, the second mobile launch tower is also structurally stiffer and more than three metres wider in order to handle the bigger loads, which were planned for the now-defunct Block 1B and Block 2 versions. NASA says it'll now start stripping parts off the second launch tower for use as spares on Tower 1.

[00:12:50] The agency says the second mobile launch tower was too heavy, it was years late, and it was pushing close to a billion US dollars in costs. This is space time. And time now to take another brief look

[00:13:18] at some of the other stories making news and science this week with a science report. A new study has shown how the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu can spread between dairy cattle and humans using several different paths, not just through exposure to contaminated milk. The findings, reported in the journal PLOS Biology, are based on air, farm water and milk samples from 14 dairy farms, which all tested positive for H5N1 across two regions of California.

[00:13:46] The authors detected the virus in the air from the exhaled breath of infected cows in milking sheds, as well as in wastewater from those sheds, and they also found many cows that tested positive for H5N1 despite not showing any symptoms. The findings highlight the sheer amount of the virus now circulating on infected farms, and the range of ways in which H5N1 infection can spread between cows and people. The authors say providing cleaner air in milking sheds and ensuring any milk from infected animals

[00:14:15] is properly disposed of could cut the risk of this deadly bird flu spreading. Scientists have used data from the Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health Program, together with measurements of vision and eye health both before and after spaceflight, to determine which astronauts are most likely to develop spaceflight-associated neuroocular syndrome. The condition includes changes in both long and short-sightedness, the loss of the eye's round shape at the back, the development of wrinkles or lines at the very back of the eye,

[00:14:44] and optic disc edema, where the spot at the back of the eye where the optic nerve connects swells up. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found body mass index was the strongest predictor of whether an astronaut will experience this problem, and those carrying more weight were at greater risk. Now this may be because weightlessness changes the amount of pressure in the eye, and these effects are therefore more pronounced among people who are heavier. A new study claims celebrity worship

[00:15:13] says a lot about a person's self-worth. In today's celebrity and influencer-driven culture, psychologists are increasingly interested in why people form strong emotional connections with certain famous figures. The new research reported in the journal Personality and Individual Differences suggests that celebrity admiration is closely linked to how clearly people understand themselves. The study, led by scientists from Flinders University, suggests that people who feel less certain about who they are

[00:15:42] may be looking at celebrities to try and help find their own identity. There are new warnings out today about streaming scams, which is sending malicious programs hidden inside infected data. With the details, we're joined by technology editor Alex Sahar of Royt from techadvice.life. The latest scam is to do with live streaming. Now, streaming has obviously become a common way for any of us to stay connected, whether it's graduation ceremonies or community events, having funerals, there's also virtual events, and milestones.

[00:16:12] But regardless of the occasion, scammers are finding ways to take advantage. No surprise, right? And they're exploiting these live stream links and they're using these moments to catch people off guard and carry out cyber crimes. So I've seen people trying to watch boxing matches on pirate streams, and I'm telling them, well, you don't do this, but they're doing it. And all of a sudden, their internet security software, in this case, I remember it being Norton, it was popping up every few seconds that it was blocking some sort of a scam, some sort of a vulnerability.

[00:16:41] So you've got to watch out these days for fake event links to private or exclusive streams for concerts or sports or other events. You've got AID fakes, which is using celebrities or CEOs or people that you'd think like Elon Musk, for example, and they're inevitably spruiking some sort of cryptocurrency or surveys, opportunities to make money. And then, of course, you've got public funeral notices or social media posts to create fake live stream pages that might even charge you to watch. And, of course, these people are just ripping you off.

[00:17:11] And also bots are inflating the viewership of various accounts. So incredibly, you know, people are falling for this and there's a sting in the tail. I'm surprised that that's happening in this day and age. We're so careful about what we download and what we see because we're assuming almost everything's AI these days, yet it's still happening. Well, nobody's really thinking that a live stream for some event is going to be fraudulent. Now, obviously, if you're trying to catch a boxing match or some sort of a sports event and you're not paying for it

[00:17:39] through the traditional streaming service, if you don't expect there's going to be some sort of scam and you're living in some sort of fantasy world. But, you know, let's imagine some important celebrity is killed or just died of natural causes, whatever it is, and suddenly on your social media feed, you say, oh, here's a stream to watch the funeral or watch a recording of the live stream. And people don't immediately think that there's something bad about that, so they click it. But in that stream could be software that's targeting vulnerabilities for an out-of-date Chrome browser or out-of-date operating system version. And it's coming through a browser.

[00:18:09] So this is just one of the ways that people are catching regular surfers unaware and they're trying to piggyback on that and then infect you in some way and get you involved, get your computer to be doing cryptocurrency mining in the background or whatever the scams are. But it's just one of the latest things. Actually, this actually came from Gen, which is the new name for the parent company of Norton. They've got a fourth quarter threat report. So this is the biggest finding from their threat report. The dangerous thing is what if there's some sort of a vulnerability that the internet security software can't block? Well, they're always zero-day vulnerabilities, aren't they?

[00:18:39] Well, that's exactly right. And look, the site that I write for, besides my own, is called itwire.com. And there was a cPanel vulnerability, a zero-day cPanel vulnerability, and people were being advised to urgently update their cPanel software and there were hosting companies that were blocking access to cPanel. Now, the hosting company we use didn't do that and the entire IT website was wiped and up in the top left-hand corner was a notification for a cryptocurrency payment of 0.1 Bitcoin, which is about

[00:19:08] seven and a half thousand US dollars or about 10,000 Australian dollars. They wanted the receipt or some sort of proof of payment to be tweeted to a particular address that they'd given and then they had sort of, we'll help you get your site back. But these were just opportunistic scammers. I'm sure if we'd paid the money, which we didn't, nothing would have happened because it's not the traditional ransomware where everything was encrypted. The whole thing was wiped. Now, we had backups and in fact, we decided to use an AI-driven system to create a whole new site, not running on Joomla or WordPress or anything like that.

[00:19:37] And now our site is fresh and modern, looks fantastic. And we were able to rebuild it within just two or three days and download all the data. Had we tried to restore the site from backups, I mean, it was an older version of Joomla that needed updating anyway. And, you know, you don't know whether things are corrupted, but we were able and we've slowly been uploading it. So if you go and have a look at ITY.com, if you've been there before, you'll notice, oh, it looks modern and new. And we were attacked by zero day vulnerability

[00:20:07] for which there was no known fix. You had to, well, the patch came out after the zero day vulnerability had spread. So, you know, instead of writing about the news, our site became the news, but we were able to recover it very quickly far faster than the hosting company was able to allow us to download all the data because there were tens of thousands of customers all trying to download their backups at the same time. It was downloading very slowly, but we've got good people on our team and we were able to actually rise like a phoenix from the ashes. But a lot of people, if they are not prepared with backups

[00:20:36] and haven't got the latest versions of operating systems on their computers, they may lose everything. And, you know, if it can happen to us, it can happen to anybody. That's Alex Zaharov-Royt from techadvice.life and this is Space Time. And that's the show for now.

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