SpaceTime 20231211 Series 26 Episode 148
*A new possible explanation for the Hubble tension
Ever since its creation in a big bang 13.82 billion years ago the universe has been expanding. But that rate of expansion has been an ongoing area of debate with different measurement techniques giving contradictory values and different results.
*The satellite discovered by the Lucy mission gets a name
The satellite discovered during the first asteroid encounter of NASA's Lucy mission has now been given an official name – Selam – which means peace in the Ethiopian language Amharic. The tiny moon was discovered orbiting the asteroid Dinkinesh during Lucy’s fly by last month.
*Starship’s second flight explodes in mid air
SpaceX are describing the second test flight of its Starship Superheavy rocket as a success even though both stages suffered catastrophic failures during the flight. The 121 metre tall vehicle is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built producing some 16.7 million pounds of thrust -- more than double that of the Saturn V rockets used to send Apollo astronauts to the Moon.
*The Science Report
Scientists have confirmed that 2023 will be the warmest year since records began.
Organ donations from older people may accelerate aging in younger recipients.
Australia's magic mushrooms could help breed tomorrow's 'designer shrooms.
Skeptics guide to Faith Healers
This week’s guests include:
Professor Adam Riess is a Physics Nobel Laureate at John Hopkins University
EarthCARE’s Mission and Optical Payload Manager Kotska Wallace
Dr Nick Lomb Consultant Curator of astronomy at the Powerhouse Museum's Sydney Observatory and honorary Professor with the University of Southern Queensland
And our regular guests:
Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life
Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics
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00:00:00
This is Space Time series 26 episode 148 for broadcast on the
00:00:05
11th of December 2023. Coming up on SpaceTime, a possible new
00:00:10
explanation for the Hubble tension that little Moon
00:00:14
discovered by the Lucy Mission orbiting the asteroid Dinkins
00:00:17
finally gets the name and SpaceX 's Starship second flight
00:00:22
explodes in mid air, all that and more coming up on Space
00:00:26
Time.
00:00:28
Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
00:00:47
Ever since the creation of the Big Bang 13.82 billion years
00:00:51
ago, the universe has been expanding. However, that rate of
00:00:56
expansion has been an ongoing area of debate with different
00:00:59
measurement techniques, giving contradictory values and
00:01:02
different results by knowing how fast the universe is expanding.
00:01:06
Scientists not only have a better picture of what the
00:01:09
universe is doing but also where it's going and what our ultimate
00:01:13
fate will be. At first. The discrepancy in the rate of the
00:01:17
cosmic expansion known as the Hubble Lamare constant was put
00:01:21
down to simply a lack of accuracy in the actual
00:01:24
measurements.
00:01:25
And it was assumed that as scientists received more and
00:01:28
more accurate observational data, the differences would
00:01:30
gradually disappear however, that's not what's happened.
00:01:34
Instead, the discrepancy known as Hubble tension has actually
00:01:38
gotten bigger.
00:01:39
Now, a new study reported in the monthly notices of the Royal
00:01:42
Astronomical Society is proposing a new solution to the
00:01:46
problem using an alternative theory of gravity called Mond
00:01:50
modified Newtonian dynamics.
00:01:52
Cosmologists have found that this discrepancy in the measured
00:01:55
values of the Hubble constant can easily be explained and the
00:01:58
Hubble tension disappears. Ok. So what are we actually dealing
00:02:02
with here? Well, the expansion of the universe causes the
00:02:05
Galaxies to move away from each other. And the speed at which
00:02:09
they move is proportional to the distance between them.
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In other words, the further away from us a galaxy seems to be the
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faster it's moving. For instance, if one galaxy is twice
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as far away from the earth as another galaxy, its distance
00:02:24
from us also grows twice as fast.
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It was us astronomer Edwin Hubble who first recognized this
00:02:30
connection in order to calculate just how fast the Galaxies are
00:02:34
moving away from each other, it 's therefore necessary to know
00:02:37
how far apart they are. However, to do this, you need a constant
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by which the distance can be multiplied.
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And this is what we call the Hubble La Mare constant. A
00:02:46
fundamental parameter of cosmology. Its value can be
00:02:50
determined, for example, by looking at the very distant
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regions of the universe. And this gives us a speed of almost
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244 kilometers per hour per mega parse with one mega par se
00:03:01
being a little bit more than 3 million light years.
00:03:04
Now, one way of measuring cosmic distances involves looking for
00:03:08
specific kinds of exploding stars known as type one, a
00:03:12
supernovae. These are really great cosmic distance markers.
00:03:16
Because when these stars explode, they all explode at
00:03:19
about the same mass.
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And consequently, they explode with about the same amount of
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luminosity. And because astronomers know how bright they
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are, they can determine how far away they are by their apparent
00:03:30
brightness. Using a formula called the inverse square law.
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It's a little bit like looking at a row of identical street
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lights along a road, the nearest one will be the brightest, but
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they'll look progressively fainter the further away they
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are in the same way, these type one a supernovae act like
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standard candles providing a sort of cosmic distance ladder.
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Say you look at a galaxy and if you're lucky, you'll see a type
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one, a supernova explode in that galaxy. And then you can work
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out just how far away it is. Another way of measuring cosmic
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distances across the universe is to look at the cosmic microwave
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background radiation.
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The leftover heat from the Big Bang, which provides a snapshot
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of the early universe is 300 years after creation and which
00:04:14
is now cooled to just three degrees above absolute zero.
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Here, astronomers examine the spectral signatures of different
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elements observed in the light of the electromagnetic spectrum,
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see each element and molecule has its own unique spectral
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signature. A sort of celestial fingerprint and laboratory tests
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here on earth. Let scientists know exactly where on the
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spectrum that signature usually sits.
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However, as celestial bodies move through space, their
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selector signatures shift to different positions on the
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spectrum depending how fast they're moving and therefore how
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far away they are. This Doppler shift effect is exactly the same
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as what you get.
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When an ambulance speeds past with its siren on, you'll notice
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the pitch changes as it comes towards you passes you and then
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moves off into the distance that happens because the approaching
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sound waves coming towards you are being compressed, that
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heightens the pitch we call this blue shifting and the sound
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waves you're hearing as the ambulance moves away from you
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are stretched to a lower pitch and that's called red shifting.
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And it's the same thing with spectral readings. Astronomers
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know where the elemental lines for hydrogen are on the
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spectrum.
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But if these lines are shifted towards the red or blue, then
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the object you're seeing from your viewpoint is moving away or
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towards you. And the faster it moves, the stronger the change.
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Consequently, the further away the object is the trouble is
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these two methods.
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One using the cosmic microwave background, the other using type
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one, a supernovae don't match up. In fact, the value for the
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Hubble constant is around 10% less for the cosmic microwave
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background signatures compared to the type one A s in of a
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standard candle. This report from NASA TV.
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When Hubble was launched, one of its main objectives was to
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measure the Hubble constant expansion rate of the universe.
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He was standing by for a go for release in late OK.
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Charlie flight PDRS. Ok. The telescopes released. Ok. Thank
00:06:22
you.
00:06:23
Beginning in the mid two thousands, around 2005. I
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started a project to use what are sort of the gold standard
00:06:31
tools in astronomy for measuring distances which is to use
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pulsating stars called seid variables and exploding stars
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called type one a supernova.
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And of course, the Hubble space telescope itself and to try to
00:06:44
make more precise measurements than had ever been made as a
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check on the universe, new observations from the early
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history of the universe, what's called the cosmic microwave
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background. We're beginning to make very precise predictions of
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how fast the universe ought to be expanding today.
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And so we wanted to follow up on that by making comparably
00:07:04
precise measurements. First, it was the W map cosmic microwave
00:07:08
background satellite that NASA flew in the early two thousands.
00:07:11
And then that gave way to plank, the European Space Agency
00:07:14
Satellite is even more precise.
00:07:17
So by measuring the cosmic micro background and then using a
00:07:21
model that we call the standard model of cosmology to then
00:07:25
extrapolate that to the present time they determined, ultimately
00:07:29
that the universe ought to be expanding at in funny units that
00:07:31
we use 67.4 plus or minus 0.5 kilometers per second per mega
00:07:38
par se, which roughly means the universe will double in about 10
00:07:41
billion years using the Hubble space telescope.
00:07:48
And some of these tools, the CED variables and the type one a
00:07:51
supernovae, we determined the local expansion rate to be about
00:07:55
73.0 plus or minus 1.0 kilometer per second per mega par, which
00:08:01
is the most precise local or present measurement of the
00:08:05
expansion rate.
00:08:07
But it differs from the expected value expected that is by the
00:08:12
state of the universe shortly after the Big Bang coupled with
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our understanding of the universe, this cosmological
00:08:18
model.
00:08:18
And in fact, those two now sit apart from each other by about
00:08:21
five times their mutual error bar, which is a phenomenon we
00:08:25
call now the Hubble tension to give you an analogy would be
00:08:29
like if you had a small child and you measured their height
00:08:33
when they were two years old, that would be like the cosmic
00:08:36
microwave background measurement.
00:08:37
And then you used a model of how children grow to predict how
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tall they ought to end up at adulthood. And that would give
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you a height and then you would actually measure when they grew
00:08:47
up how tall they were. And so that's the comparison we're
00:08:50
making the present state of the measurement versus what is a
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very precise measurement in a younger universe.
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And then a model like the growth curve of a child to predict how
00:09:01
tall they will be. Except unlike a child, we've seen many
00:09:04
children grow. We have a very good understanding of that
00:09:06
growth curve, but we've only ever seen one universe and it's
00:09:09
full of stuff whose nature we don't deeply understand.
00:09:12
And so it's not crazy to think that we might be missing
00:09:16
something in that understanding in order to predict and really
00:09:22
extrapolate the state of the universe. From the beginning to
00:09:25
the present day, we have to understand components of the
00:09:28
universe, particularly two components whose nature is not
00:09:31
well understood but make up 96% of the universe.
00:09:34
And that's dark matter and dark energy, dark energy makes up
00:09:37
about 70%. And dark matter probably makes up about 25 to
00:09:42
27%. And we don't really understand at a detailed level
00:09:47
what these are exactly. We don't understand their micro physics.
00:09:50
So in order to make these predictions, we assume that they
00:09:54
are their most vanilla or plainest possible forms, we see
00:09:58
this tension then. And so one possibility, not, the only
00:10:01
possibility is that they are more complicated that there's a
00:10:04
more complex story or some other aspect even that we've been
00:10:08
missing about the universe.
00:10:12
The Hubble space telescope has more or less been working on
00:10:15
measuring the Hubble concept for its entire lifetime about 30
00:10:19
years. So the original goal when it was launched was to measure
00:10:22
it to 10% uncertainty. And I think that was successfully
00:10:25
accomplished in the early two thousands.
00:10:28
We're now on sort of what I would say is the second
00:10:30
generation of measurements of the Hubble concept that are
00:10:32
targeting closer to percent level precision. And I think
00:10:36
Hubble, especially with its new instruments has absolutely come
00:10:40
through with the capabilities needed Hubble really has
00:10:44
delivered the quality and caliber of data that's necessary
00:10:47
to make these measurements.
00:10:51
And in that report from NASA TV, we heard from Professor Adam
00:10:54
Rees, a physics Nobel laureate with John Hopkins University.
00:10:59
Scientists have recently come up with a hypothesis that could
00:11:02
explain this tension. See the large scale cosmic structure of
00:11:06
the universe shows that it's built like a giant web with
00:11:10
filaments and nodes of Galaxies, galaxy clusters and super
00:11:14
clusters.
00:11:14
And these surround vast empty voids over the last few years.
00:11:18
There's been some evidence suggesting that the milky way
00:11:21
galaxy could be near one of these voids. One of the study's
00:11:25
authors, Pavel Kruer from the University Of Bonn says the new
00:11:29
idea is that our galaxy is located in a region of space
00:11:33
where there's relatively little matter comparable to say an air
00:11:36
bubble in a cake.
00:11:37
The density of matter is much higher around the bubble than
00:11:40
what it is inside the bubble. Gravitational forces emanate
00:11:44
from the surrounding matter which then pulls any Galaxies in
00:11:47
the bubble towards the edge of the cavity.
00:11:50
That's why they're moving away from us faster than would
00:11:52
actually be expected. So these deviations could therefore
00:11:56
simply be explained by a local under density. Another research
00:12:00
group recently measured the average speed of a large number
00:12:03
of Galaxies that are some 600 million light years away from
00:12:06
us.
00:12:06
And they found that these Galaxies are actually moving
00:12:09
away from us four times faster than what the standard model of
00:12:12
cosmology allows. And that's because the standard model
00:12:16
doesn't provide for such under densities or bubbles, they
00:12:19
should not actually exist, instead matter should be evenly
00:12:23
distributed through space. And we know from the large scale
00:12:26
structure of the universe, that 's simply not the case.
00:12:30
Our standard model of cosmology known as LAMBDA coal dark matter
00:12:34
is based on a theory of the nature of gravity first put
00:12:37
forward by Albert Einstein. However, Cooper says
00:12:40
gravitational forces may be behaving differently on certain
00:12:44
scales compared to what Einstein expected. So instead, Cooper and
00:12:49
colleagues used a modified theory of gravity in their
00:12:51
computer simulations.
00:12:53
This modified theory known as Mond or modified Newtonian
00:12:57
dynamics was first proposed four decades ago by Israeli physicist
00:13:01
Mora Milgram Mon was originally proposed to explain anomalies
00:13:05
set in the rotational speeds of Galaxies.
00:13:08
Those anomalies eventually led to the suggestion of an
00:13:11
invisible substance called dark matter GIS were spinning around
00:13:16
faster than they should for the amount of matter, they contained
00:13:20
something else was holding them together. And that led to the
00:13:23
suggestion of some invisible substance called dark matter.
00:13:28
Mon instead suggests that the anomalies put down to extra
00:13:31
unseen mass or dark matter could just as easily be explained by
00:13:35
Newton's law of gravity breaking down when the gravitational pull
00:13:39
is very weak as is the case with the outer regions of Galaxies.
00:13:43
Now, don't get me wrong. Mo is still considered an outsider
00:13:46
theory today. But Rufus says that in his calculations, one
00:13:50
does actually predict the existence of such bubbles.
00:13:54
He says that if one were to assume that gravity actually
00:13:57
behaves according to Milgram's assumptions, then the Hubble
00:13:59
tension would disappear. There would then actually only be one
00:14:03
constant for the expansion of the universe and the observed
00:14:06
deviations would simply be due to irregularities in the
00:14:09
distribution of matter.
00:14:11
It's just the latest pebble in a growing mountain of evidence
00:14:14
supporting Mo I guess any time will tell this Space Time still
00:14:21
to come. A little Moon discovered by the Lucy Mission
00:14:24
orbiting the asteroid Dinkins has finally got a name and
00:14:27
SpaceX's Starship second flight explodes in mid air all that and
00:14:32
more still to come on Space Time.
00:14:51
The satellite discovered during the first asteroid encounter of
00:14:54
NASA's Lucy Mission is now being given an official name Salam
00:14:58
which means peace in the Ethiopian language, Marek.
00:15:02
The tiny Moon was discovered orbiting the asteroid Dinkins
00:15:05
during Lucy's flyby last month. Dinkin Esh is the Ethiopian name
00:15:10
for the Australopithecus fossil named Lucy, after which the Lucy
00:15:13
spacecrafts be named Australopithecus are considered
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to be an early branch of the Hamid family tree.
00:15:19
The same tree that Homo sapiens belong to Mission scientist
00:15:23
Raphael Marshall from the Blue Coast Observatory in nice, who
00:15:26
originally identified Danesh as a potential target for the Lucy
00:15:30
Mission says it seemed appropriate to name the
00:15:32
satellite in honor of another fossil that was called Lucy's
00:15:35
baby. The fossil Sam was discovered in the year 2000 in
00:15:40
DKA Ethiopia.
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It belonged to a three year old girl of the same
00:15:44
Australopithecus species as Lucy. Although in actual fact,
00:15:47
the baby lived some 100 years before Lucy as the Lucy
00:15:51
spacecraft was flying towards Danesh observations leading up
00:15:55
to the encounter hinted that there was something interesting
00:15:58
going on in this system.
00:16:00
And as Lucy sped past Mission managers discovered that not
00:16:03
only did Dinkins have a satellite, but that satellite
00:16:06
was a contact binary. The first contact binary satellite ever
00:16:10
observed. The Dinkins encounter was added in January as an in
00:16:14
flight test of the spacecraft systems and instruments and all
00:16:18
systems performed well.
00:16:20
The tools and techniques that were refined with the data from
00:16:23
the encounter will help Mission managers prepare the Mission's
00:16:26
main targets. The never before explored Jovian Trojan
00:16:29
asteroids. In addition to the images taken by Lucy's high
00:16:33
resolution camera at its terminal tracking cameras. Lucy
00:16:36
's other science instruments also collected data that will
00:16:39
help scientists better understand these puzzling
00:16:42
asteroids.
00:16:43
The spacecraft successfully scanned the two asteroids from a
00:16:46
variety of vantage points around closest approach, studying their
00:16:50
surface and obtaining detailed spectra. Scientists were also
00:16:54
able to detect and measure the temperature of the system for
00:16:56
about nine minutes as the spacecraft flew by on its
00:16:59
closest approach.
00:17:01
Phil Christensen from Arizona State says different size
00:17:04
particles such as sand pebbles and boulders all heat up
00:17:07
differently as the asteroid rotates. And the temperature
00:17:11
measurements will allow scientists to state of the size
00:17:13
and physical properties of the materials on the asteroid
00:17:16
surface.
00:17:17
The data will help scientists better understand the
00:17:20
composition of the asteroids allowing them to compare the
00:17:22
make up of Dinkins and Sam and understand how these two bodies
00:17:26
may be compositionally linked to other asteroids. Lucy is
00:17:30
expected to visit nine more asteroids over the next decade
00:17:33
in six separate encounters.
00:17:35
After an earth gravity assist this time next year, the
00:17:38
spacecraft will return to the main asteroid belt where it will
00:17:41
encounter the asteroid Donald Johansson in April 2025 Lucy
00:17:46
will pass through the main asteroid belt and reach the
00:17:48
Mission's primary targets. The Jovian Trojan asteroids in 2027.
00:17:53
This report from NASA TV on November.
00:17:56
1st 2023 NASA'S Lucy Mission was scheduled to fly by an image its
00:18:02
first main belt asteroid Dinkins.
00:18:04
However, when the team downloaded the spacecraft
00:18:07
imagery, it made an unexpected discovery asteroid Dinkins has a
00:18:12
satellite making it a binary asteroid system. In the first
00:18:16
image from the Lucy long range reconnaissance imager. The team
00:18:20
observed the Moon rise of a satellite of its first asteroid
00:18:23
Dinkins.
00:18:24
This image was taken at 1255 eastern within a minute of
00:18:28
closest approach from a range of approximately 200 70 miles from
00:18:32
the asteroid Danes. In the Ethiopian language means you are
00:18:36
marvelous and the asteroid truly did live up to its name Lucy
00:18:41
observations in the weeks leading up to the encounter
00:18:43
suggested that Dinkins might hold some surprises.
00:18:46
Sure enough imagery from the terminal tracking camera T two
00:18:50
cam on the Lucy spacecraft shows Din Andes's satellite as the
00:18:53
team downloaded more images that had been taken before and after
00:18:56
closest approach, they were in for another surprise that
00:19:01
satellite was actually a contact binary.
00:19:04
It was two objects stuck together. This small satellite
00:19:08
has been named Salom which means peace. The team will continue to
00:19:12
study the data from this first encounter as they prepare for
00:19:15
their next rendezvous with the main belt asteroid Donald
00:19:18
Johanson in 2025.
00:19:22
This is Space Time still to come. SpaceX's Starship. Second
00:19:27
flight explodes in mid air. And later in the science report, the
00:19:31
World Meteorological Organization confirms that 2023
00:19:35
will be the hottest year since records began all that and more
00:19:39
still to come on Space Time.
00:19:57
SpaceX are describing the second test flight of its Starship
00:20:01
super heavy rocket as a success. Even though both stages suffered
00:20:05
catastrophic failures during the flight. The 121 m tall vehicle
00:20:10
is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, producing
00:20:14
some £16.7 million of thrust. That's more than double that of
00:20:18
the Saturn five Apollo Moon rockets.
00:20:21
The fully reusable Starship super heavy is designed as an
00:20:24
interplanetary colonial transport vehicle capable of
00:20:28
launching more than 100 tons of cargo and people on deep space
00:20:31
missions to the Moon Mars and beyond and eventually allowing
00:20:35
humanity to establish colonies on other worlds.
00:20:39
The second test flight was launched from SpaceX's star base
00:20:42
at Boca Chica on the southern Texas Gulf Of Mexico coastline.
00:20:46
The euphemistically described rapid unscheduled disassembly of
00:20:50
both the booster and the spacecraft stages occurred
00:20:53
shortly after completing a successful stage separation.
00:20:57
SpaceX says lessons will be learnt from the flight which
00:21:00
will improve the next launch attempt. Starships first
00:21:03
integrated flight test back in April also ended in failure with
00:21:07
a spacecraft disintegrating about four minutes after launch
00:21:11
on that occasion, the super heavy booster core stage
00:21:14
suffered multiple engine failures during the ascent and
00:21:17
failed to jettison from the Starship upper stage.
00:21:20
It seems massive distraction to the base of the launch pad
00:21:23
during lift off may have flung debris onto several of the 33
00:21:27
core stage Raptor engines, damaging them and resulting
00:21:30
their malfunction during flight this time. All 33 booster
00:21:34
engines kept firing for the full length of their flight cycle.
00:21:39
9187654321.
00:21:55
We are two plus 40 seconds into the flight. Start up 33 Raptor
00:22:01
engines, power and telemetry nominal. We've heard power and
00:22:06
telemetry nominal cut out. We're heading down range over the Gulf
00:22:09
Of Mexico and that call out tells us Starship is through the
00:22:14
period of greater stress on the way to space.
00:22:17
Now, the next major event is hot staging in just over 90 seconds
00:22:21
from now to get ready. The booster will shut down all but
00:22:24
three of the Raptor engines holding the two stages together
00:22:28
will release and the Starships second stage will ignite its
00:22:31
engines. Starship will then separate from the super heavy
00:22:34
booster and head to space.
00:22:35
And at the same time, the three engines that are still firing on
00:22:38
super heavy will flip the booster the back burn. Putting
00:22:45
the first stage on path for a flash down in the Gulf Of Mexico
00:22:48
engine. Power continues to look. Nomen on 33 Raptor engines,
00:22:52
we're about to shut down the first stage and perform staging.
00:22:55
Main engine cut off or Miko up a stage engine and then hot stage
00:23:00
separation all proceeded seamlessly at an altitude of 148
00:23:04
kilometers.
00:23:05
Approximately two minutes and 49 seconds after liftoff just as
00:23:08
designed and acquisition of signal Houston and New Orleans
00:23:12
booster engine cut off stage separation should the first ever
00:23:20
successful for a space.
00:23:24
However, the co stage then suddenly exploded during the
00:23:27
flip back maneuver about three minutes and 20 seconds into the
00:23:30
flight. But by that stage, its primary job was already done
00:23:34
and.
00:23:35
The super heavy booster has just experienced a rapid unscheduled
00:23:39
disassembly. However, our ship is still underway with all six
00:23:46
and we just heard there ship avionics, power and teet
00:23:48
nominal, all six engines are lit.
00:23:49
Now, we did know that the the hot staging was going to be
00:23:55
incredibly dynamic. We knew that there was a chance that the
00:23:58
booster would not survive. But we're going to take that data
00:24:00
and figure out how we can make the booster better for the next
00:24:03
hot stage.
00:24:04
Yeah, that hot staging, put a lot of load on the top of the
00:24:07
booster and of course, it flipped around there. A lot of
00:24:10
dynamic stuff happening.
00:24:13
The ship is still going strong.
00:24:15
And it's doing great right now. The ship, the second stage is on
00:24:20
its way. The next major milestone for the ship will be
00:24:24
the shutdown of those engines or SECO second engine cut off,
00:24:28
which if you follow our Falcon Nine launches, familiar
00:24:31
terminology there. So far today has been incredibly successful
00:24:35
even with the r of the super heavy booster.
00:24:38
Primary objective of the booster today to get to hot staging, to
00:24:42
get ship on its way to orbit. It did that admirably.
00:24:45
Yeah, we definitely asked trajectory nominal. All right,
00:24:47
great news there. That trajectory trajectory for ship
00:24:50
is nominal. Once again, Starships, second stage firing
00:24:54
those engines.
00:24:55
And as you just heard, everything is looking good now
00:24:58
for the ship, we wanted it to survive hot staging, which is
00:25:01
did we also want to basically demonstrate that the successful
00:25:05
start up of that of those engines demonstrating controlled
00:25:09
ascent, which is what it's doing right now and eventually orbital
00:25:12
insertion.
00:25:13
Like all of that sounds great secondary objectives for ship
00:25:16
again continuing to gather engine data and about its health
00:25:20
performance.
00:25:21
Meanwhile, Starship six upper stage Raptor engines kept firing
00:25:25
as planned. But the flight came to an explosive sudden end just
00:25:29
as Starships engines were almost done firing to place the
00:25:32
spacecraft into a 240 kilometer high sub orbital flight path
00:25:36
that would have seen Starships splash down in the Pacific Ocean
00:25:39
near Hawaii 90 minutes later, chamber pressures.
00:25:43
Great news there that tells us that the chamber pressures
00:25:46
inside of the Starship. Basically the propellant
00:25:49
pressure in the ship are looking good. So they're at.
00:25:52
The pressures that we expect to try to get into our target
00:25:56
trajectory today. And we're not targeting orbit today. We're
00:26:00
targeting almost orbit today. That's very intentional as part
00:26:03
of the Mission design. The goal is to get to a thrust profile
00:26:08
similar to what we would need for orbit, but also to get to
00:26:12
the energy levels.
00:26:14
The Starship program has been closely monitored by NASA who've
00:26:17
contracted a version of Starship called the HLS to operate as a
00:26:21
reusable lunar lander for its manned Artemis Moon program to
00:26:24
return astronauts to the lunar surface. In 2025 cruise will
00:26:29
travel to lunar orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft which is
00:26:32
launched by NASA'S SLS rocket.
00:26:34
They'll then transfer to the Starship HLS and journey down to
00:26:38
the lunar surface and back again. Once the lunar gateway
00:26:41
space station is built towards the end of the decade, it'll be
00:26:44
used as a jumping off point for missions to the lunar surface.
00:26:48
Starship will then shuttle between it and the Moon
00:26:51
transporting people and supplies.
00:26:53
SpaceX also plans to eventually use Starship to replace the
00:26:57
company's existing dragon spacecraft and its current
00:27:00
Falcon Nine and Falcon heavy launch vehicles. Other versions
00:27:04
of Starship will operate as satellite delivery systems,
00:27:07
orbital Refueler tankers, cargo transports and to provide point
00:27:11
to point flights around the earth, allowing people to reach
00:27:14
any destination on the planet in just 90 minutes.
00:27:17
Now, if they can only keep the thing flying, this is Space Time
00:27:37
and time now to take a brief look at some of the other
00:27:39
stories making news in science this week. With a science
00:27:42
report, scientists have confirmed that 2023 will be the
00:27:47
warmest year since records began.
00:27:50
The findings by the World Meteorological Organisation's
00:27:52
provisional state of the global climate report shows that data
00:27:56
up to October indicates 2023 has already been about 1.4 degrees
00:28:02
above pre industrial temperatures. So far, the report
00:28:05
shows carbon dioxide levels are now 50 per cent higher than at
00:28:09
pre industrial levels. And sea level rise for 2013 to 2022 is
00:28:14
more than twice the rate recorded for 1993 to the year
00:28:18
2002.
00:28:20
Meanwhile, the Australasian Fire authorities council is warning
00:28:24
that most of Queensland New South Wales and the southern
00:28:26
part of the northern territory will be at increased risk of
00:28:30
fire this summer along with some locations in Tasmania, Victoria,
00:28:34
South Australia and Western Australia.
00:28:36
The organization which is the National Council For Fire And
00:28:39
Emergency Services says vegetation growth fueled by la
00:28:43
nina driven heavy rainfalls in recent years is combining with
00:28:46
record breaking dry conditions and temperatures this spring to
00:28:49
create higher fuel loads even in areas that were heavily burnt
00:28:53
during the 2019, 2020 black summer fire season.
00:28:58
A new study has found that organ donations from older people may
00:29:02
be accelerating the aging process. In younger recipients,
00:29:06
aging cells can become Seni a condition in which they start
00:29:10
multiplying and secrete chemicals that negatively affect
00:29:13
neighboring cells, sentence cells accumulate in older donor
00:29:17
organs and have the potential to compromise transplant outcomes.
00:29:22
Now, a report in the American journal of transplantation has
00:29:25
found that transplanting older organs can trigger sentence in
00:29:29
younger recipients.
00:29:30
Scientists observed that young and middle aged recipients that
00:29:33
received heart transplants from older donors had impaired
00:29:36
physical capacity and reduced running times and grip strength
00:29:40
and middle aged recipients who received older hearts also
00:29:43
showed increased anxiety related behavior, impaired memory and
00:29:47
poorer learning performances.
00:29:49
The authors found that these accelerated aging effects in
00:29:52
younger recipients were driven by the release of sentences
00:29:55
associated factors and mitochondrial DNA from older
00:29:59
transplants.
00:30:01
A new study suggests that Australia's magic mushrooms
00:30:04
could help breed tomorrow's designer rooms. The findings
00:30:08
reported in the journal current biology claim Australia's magic
00:30:12
mushroom population contains greater genetic diversity than
00:30:15
the rest of the world's commercially available. Shrooms.
00:30:18
Scientists say this diversity could be harnessed to breed
00:30:21
designer mushrooms as a potential mental health
00:30:24
treatment. Scientists secret the genes of 38 types of magic
00:30:28
mushrooms from Australia and 86 commercially available types.
00:30:32
Finding that while the Aussie Rooms were genetically diverse,
00:30:35
the commercially available ones were sorely lacking in
00:30:37
diversity.
00:30:38
After decades of selective breeding, the researchers say
00:30:42
some of the Aussie genetic diversity relates to the genes
00:30:45
controlling the production of psilocin, the psychedelic
00:30:47
substance with potential as the mental health treatment. This
00:30:51
means they may be able to use the Aussie mushrooms to better
00:30:54
understand and control psilocin in newly cultivated types of
00:30:58
shrooms.
00:31:00
Well, it seems spiritual pseudoscience is everywhere on
00:31:03
the social media these days with an ever growing number of faith
00:31:06
healers promising all sorts of miraculous cures and it's not
00:31:10
just a case of a fool and his money. It may well be costing
00:31:13
lives. Tim Mendham from Australian skeptics warns people
00:31:17
believing in faith healers and wacky cures are stopping vital
00:31:20
cancer treatments in the vain hope of an easy cure. Yeah, this
00:31:24
is.
00:31:25
A weird story which I had to read through the entire thing
00:31:28
which is so long, it's more anecdotal, literally ran through
00:31:31
page after page after page. Faiths have been dealt with by
00:31:33
the skeptics. A number of times actually, over the years,
00:31:36
obviously, faiths have been around a long time. People who
00:31:38
come to you and say, Zapp, I put my hand on your head and your
00:31:41
illness is gone.
00:31:42
Whatever, the ones that pull bits of chicken guts out of you,
00:31:45
aren't they? Allegedly?
00:31:46
That's the psychic surgery.
00:31:49
Not really faith healing so much. That's, they've got a
00:31:51
physical thing that they pull out of you, but it's not you and
00:31:54
it's not a real thing. It's just to give you then it gets into
00:31:57
the area because it gives people the idea of being cured. And the
00:32:00
same thing happens with these faith healers who are religious
00:32:02
ceremonies, charismatic sort of things where people saying
00:32:05
hallelujah ring or even when they're non religious.
00:32:08
Well, it's very short placebo effect. People often think
00:32:13
they're cured and then a few days later, they're not. Now it
00:32:15
's one thing to feel good after the initial treatment. But then
00:32:19
if you're not cured, you not cure it. And therefore there
00:32:21
might be f but there's not a lot of healing involved.
00:32:23
And certainly there is a particular case, a particular
00:32:26
article that I was reading recently about a fellow who's a
00:32:28
former chiropractor who allows himself to be called a
00:32:31
neuroscientist by many of the alternative medicine platforms
00:32:34
that he appears on named Joe Dispenser, which is interesting,
00:32:38
but Joe Dispenza is a chiropractor former, but he
00:32:41
regards himself as a scientist and he likes to use all sorts of
00:32:44
scientific terms and sort of words like in one particular
00:32:48
thing he says, and this is a classic, classic sort of words
00:32:52
if you can combine a little quantum physics with a little
00:32:55
neuroscience, neuro, endocrinology and
00:32:59
psychoneuroimmunology, the mind body connection, epigenetics,
00:33:03
all of those sciences point to the finger at possibility.
00:33:06
Well, they don't, they form a lot of words, they don't
00:33:08
necessarily work word that it is a word and it doesn't mean
00:33:13
anything but it convinces people that this is not religion, this
00:33:16
is science, this is medical science and therefore it must be
00:33:19
working but it doesn't.
00:33:20
So what happens is that people believe it, they spend their
00:33:23
money on it, they give their faith to it, they stop other
00:33:26
medical treatments that they probably need, that might be
00:33:28
having some beneficial effect. And they turn to the faith and
00:33:31
you will find that most times the faith does not in the long
00:33:35
run. And you then wonder about the faith healers. Are they pure
00:33:38
shocks?
00:33:39
And classic case of James Randi, the art skeptic who recorded
00:33:44
radio transmissions between a faith healer and his wife, who
00:33:47
was at the back of the hall, who knew about a number of the
00:33:49
people in the audience and told him they were the radio
00:33:52
earpiece.
00:33:52
There is so and so in the hall, he has this particular disease
00:33:55
and he lives at so and so address and blah, blah, blah and
00:33:58
so the person of the faith, he says, I get this message from
00:34:00
God or wherever there is a bill blogs in the audience, you're
00:34:04
suffering from back pain and you live on 33 Labia Avenue,
00:34:07
whatever. Ok.
00:34:08
And the person who is stunned, the audience is stunned, how
00:34:10
would he know all this and he can cure him well, he knew it
00:34:13
because they were cheating and he didn't cure them and he was
00:34:17
found out and revealed by Randy and he lost his very lucrative
00:34:21
activities, but he's back as they always do and convincing
00:34:24
people that he can still cure them over again. And it's like
00:34:26
these things have an amazing ability to bounce back and.
00:34:30
Really thick skins. Let's face it. You've got to be a con
00:34:34
artist.
00:34:34
Yeah, they're so, I mean, you don't expect sort of morality
00:34:37
and ethics from a con artist. They're con artist, they don't
00:34:40
have it to start with. So you're not going to suddenly have a
00:34:42
road to Damascus conversion by some of them. But the trouble is
00:34:45
they're ripping people off in various ways, emotionally,
00:34:47
financially, health wise, whatever there is no cure
00:34:50
through faith healing, there's an apparent cure.
00:34:52
You might feel good for a while because you're convinced in the
00:34:54
excitement of the ceremony. But 10 times that attempt, you go
00:34:57
back and after a while, your illness reappears. Not that it
00:35:01
ever went away, but you are still aware of it.
00:35:03
And there's classic cases, sad cases of people who think
00:35:06
they're cured, give up their cancer treatment and die within
00:35:09
weeks or months of the evil of the whole thing, isn't it? That
00:35:13
is the, this is not a fun little thing, right? This is evil and
00:35:18
people taking advantage of people and killing them. This is
00:35:20
the serious end of the skeptical scale.
00:35:23
That's Tim Ham from Australian skeptics and that's the show for
00:35:42
now. SpaceTime is available every Monday, Wednesday and
00:35:46
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