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**SpaceTime with Stuart Gary - Series 26 Episode 114 Show Notes:** - **Orbital Satellite Collision:** Another satellite collision has occurred in space, adding to the growing concern of space debris and the looming threat of the Kessler syndrome. - **Mysterious White Dwarf Supernova:** Astronomers have discovered an extraordinary remnant from a supernova explosion observed in the Far East nearly 850 years ago, marking it as one of the most unique remnants ever found. - **SpaceX's Starship Update:** Following the dramatic explosion during its inaugural orbital flight on April 20, SpaceX's Starship is on track to receive flight clearance next month. The company has addressed most of the FAA's corrective measures. - **The Science Report Highlights:** - E-cigarette Usage & Stress: A recent study indicates that young e-cig users are over twice as likely to experience chronic stress compared to non-users. - Pandemic Phone Contamination: At the pandemic's peak, 50% of cell phones tested were found to carry the SARS-CoV-2 virus. - Sexual Partners & Age: Research reveals a fluctuating average in the number of sexual partners individuals have throughout different life stages. - Skeptics Corner: Dive into a critical examination of the renowned eastern European psychic, Baba Vanga. Optimize your knowledge of space, science, and more with Stuart Gary on SpaceTime. Don't miss out on this episode's intriguing topics!
#astronomy #space #science #news #podcast #spacetime
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STUART GARY: This is SpaceTime series 26 episode 100 and 14 for
00:00:03
broadcast on the 22nd of September 2023 coming up on
00:00:08
space time satellites crash in orbit, discovery of a strange
00:00:13
white dwarf supernova and SpaceX's Starship remains
00:00:18
grounded but hopefully not for much longer. All that and more
00:00:22
coming up on space time.
00:00:26
GENERIC: Welcome to space time with Stuart Garry.
00:00:46
STUART GARY: There's been another collision between two
00:00:48
satellites in orbit creating yet another cloud of space junk
00:00:52
bringing us ever closer to a Kesler syndrome. The latest
00:00:56
incident involved a three decade old Soviet communications
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satellite thought to be either the cosmos 2143 or cosmos 2 145
00:01:05
crashing into another yet to be identified object at an altitude
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of about 1400 kilometers.
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The resulting collision has broken the Soviet satellite into
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nine major pieces and hundreds if not thousands of smaller
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debris items. Both the cosmos 2143 and 2145 were among a group
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of eight Streller one M telecommunications satellites
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launched on the same rocket back in 1991.
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This latest incident once again highlights the growing threat
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posed by disused satellites and spent rocket stages left
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uncontrolled in earth orbit. Right now, there are an
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estimated more than 2 million bits of space junk orbiting the
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earth ranging in size from spent rocket stages and disused
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satellites do nuts bolts, paint flecks and tiny bits of shrapnel
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from exploded spacecraft.
00:01:58
And remember all of this material is orbiting around the
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planet at over 28 kilometers per hour. And as more and more
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space junk continues to build up in orbit, the risk of a
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collision becomes ever greater.
00:02:11
Any one of these objects could smash into a spacecraft causing
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damage or even destruction. In fact, optics, as small as chips
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of paint have crashed into space shuttle windshields leaving
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significant craters, others such as this latest impact event have
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completely destroyed spacecraft, leaving behind even more debris
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and shrapnel.
00:02:32
Now under the worst case scenario and that's looking more
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and more likely all of this will result in a cascade effect known
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as the Kessler syndrome debris from one impact hits spacecraft
00:02:43
causing more debris clouds which then hit other spacecraft,
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triggering even more debris clouds and so on.
00:02:49
It's a scene straight out of the movie gravity and it's not all
00:02:53
that far fetched. In fact, the International Space Station is
00:02:56
regularly forced to change orbit in order to avoid space junk
00:03:00
with crew needing to seek refuge in dock capsules in an event of
00:03:04
a collision. And the need to undertake an emergency escape
00:03:07
back to earth.
00:03:09
Back in May 2021 a piece of space junk smashed a hole and
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the space station's robotic can arm two and space walking
00:03:17
astronauts have recorded other impact damage to the orbiting
00:03:20
outpost. Luckily nothing penetrating the inner hull yet.
00:03:24
And like the space shuttle incident, other returning
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spacecraft have also shown evidence of impact damage caused
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while in orbit.
00:03:32
The first major satellite collision occurred back on
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February the 10th 2009. That's when the 560 kg iridium 33
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telecommunications satellite allied with a deactivated 950 kg
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Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite.
00:03:49
That collision occurred 800 kilometers over northern Siberia
00:03:53
at a relative speed of 11.7 kilometers per second or 42
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kilometers per hour, destroying both spacecraft and leaving
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behind a massive debris cloud. Then in January 2020 it used
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Russian Cosmos 204 191 spy satellite was suddenly hit by a
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piece of space junk shattering into at least 10 major
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fragments.
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But to date the worst incident, lo space with lots of deadly
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shrapnel wasn't an accident but deliberate, it happened on
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January the 11th 2007 when Beijing deliberately blew up
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that it used Feng F one sea weather satellite in an anti
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satellite missile test.
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The 750 kg satellite was hit at a speed of over eight kilometers
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per second at an altitude of more than 865 kilometers by a DF
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21 SC 19 ASAT ballistic missile launched from China's JIA
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satellite launch center, Beijing's highly irresponsible
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actions resulted in the creation of the worst space junk debris
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field in human history.
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With well over 2000 pieces of trackable sized debris had
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logged in the immediate aftermath and spacecraft was
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still being damaged or destroyed by that debris. Years later. In
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fact, on January the 22nd 2013, a Russian laser ranging
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satellite was struck by debris from the 2007 Chinese missile
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test, damaging the spacecraft and changing its orbit and spin
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rate.
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The danger caused by Beijing's actions in 2007 will remain a
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serious threat to the safe navigation of space for decades
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to come. This is space time still to come. A strange type of
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white dwarf supernova and SpaceX's Starship to remain
00:05:42
grounded for now. All that and more still to come on space
00:05:47
time.
00:06:03
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00:07:54
GENERIC: This is space time with Stewart Gary.
00:07:58
STUART GARY: It turns out a supernova explosion that sky
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watchers in the Far East observed some 850 years ago has
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produced the most unusual remnant astronomers have ever
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seen. The findings are reported in the monthly notices.
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The Royal Astronomical Society argues that the supernova was
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caused not by the explosive death of a large star but rather
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the result of two white dwarves, the stellar remnants of dead sun
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like stars merging together and creating an extremely energetic
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zombie star which has somehow survived the event.
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The object was originally identified in archival data from
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NASA's earth orbiting wide field infrared survey explorer
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observatory wise and appeared to be a planetary nebula. The blown
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off out of gasses envelope of a low mass sun like star at the
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end of its life. It was consequently classified as P 30.
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These stars our sun included, spend their lives slowly fusing
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hydrogen in their core into helium.
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Eventually, after running out of core hydrogen, they begin to
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collapse under their own gravity until core temperatures and
00:09:06
pressures increase enough for helium fusion to ignite.
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And the sudden helium fusion ignition in the core causes a
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shell of hydrogen around the core to suddenly begin burning,
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triggered increased convection which pushes the stars out of
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gas envelope further away from the core. Now, this combined
00:09:25
with the stellar contraction means the star's surface is now
00:09:28
much further away from the core.
00:09:30
And so with less available heat, the outer surface of the star
00:09:33
begins to cool, making the star appear more reddish and turning
00:09:38
the star into what we call a red giant. Now, eventually all the
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core helium will be converted into oxygen and carbon. However,
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these sun like stars are not massive enough to fuse carbon
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and oxygen into heavier elements as larger stars do.
00:09:53
And so they simply die, their outer gaseous envelopes puff
00:09:58
away as planetary nebula that exposes their white hot stellar
00:10:02
core, a white dwarf which is left to slowly cool over eons.
00:10:07
This will be the fate of our sun in around 7 billion years from
00:10:11
now.
00:10:12
And that's what astronomers originally thought P 30 was.
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However, a closest subsequent spectroscopic inspection of the
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planet she nebula revealed it wasn't a planet Tu nebula after
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all, but a supernova remnant.
00:10:25
In fact, the records eventually showed that this object happens
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to be in the exact location of a zero magnitude supernova event
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cataloged as SN 1181 which appeared in northern Cascio Pia
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on August the 6th 1181.
00:10:40
It was recorded at the time as a guest star by Japanese and
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Chinese astronomers of the day and was seen to slowly fade from
00:10:49
view over the following six months, supernovae marked the
00:10:53
explosive death of a star called collapse supernovae occur when
00:10:57
stars far more massive than the sun ran out of nuclear fuel in
00:11:01
their core and then suddenly collapse inwards under their own
00:11:04
immense gravity.
00:11:05
That sudden contraction triggers an immense explosion leaving
00:11:09
behind either a super dense object called a neutron star or
00:11:13
an even more exotic even denser object called a stellar mass
00:11:16
black hole. However, when astronomers looked at P 30 more
00:11:20
closely, they found no neutron star and no evidence of a black
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hole. Either the other type of supernovae are known as
00:11:28
thermonuclear supernova.
00:11:30
These usually involve a white dwarf star and a close binary
00:11:34
system with another star, the white dwarf gradually draws
00:11:37
material off its companion star. This material builds up on its
00:11:42
surface eventually passing a threshold known as the
00:11:45
Chandrasekhar limit at which point it triggers a
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thermonuclear supernova explosion which totally destroys
00:11:52
the white dwarf.
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All that's left is a supernova remnant. The trouble is,
00:11:58
although pa 30 didn't contain a neutron star or evidence of a
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black hole, it did contain a central star, a white dwarf.
00:12:07
And that raises the question, how could the white dwarf have
00:12:10
survived the thermonuclear supernova event? Further
00:12:13
examination of the white dwarf showed it was really strange.
00:12:17
Its surface temperature was some 200 Kelvin.
00:12:20
It shines at some 130 times the luminosity of the sun and it's
00:12:25
fading quite rapidly by about 1.7 magnitudes over the past
00:12:29
century but most remarkably of all, it produces an
00:12:33
unprecedented speedy stellar wind. So what peculiar type of
00:12:38
supernova might explain this object? Further observations of
00:12:43
pa 30 have now revealed much more detail than either infrared
00:12:47
or visible light.
00:12:48
Broadband images could containing more information to
00:12:51
help complete the picture. Despite the supernova's distance
00:12:54
of some 8000 light years, the image shows intriguing radial
00:12:58
filaments presumably being produced as the fierce stellar
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wind erodes away small clumps of lower velocity gass ejected by
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the explosion.
00:13:07
Scientists now think this is a rare type one A X supernova, a
00:13:12
low luminosity event. While normal type one, a supernovae
00:13:16
result in the catastrophic destruction of the white dwarf
00:13:19
star, less luminous type one A X supernovae result in the
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exploding star somehow surviving.
00:13:27
And this would explain why the remnant nebula doesn't produce
00:13:30
the amount of radio waves or x-rays expected for a young
00:13:33
supernova remnant. Theorists are coming up with various scenarios
00:13:37
to try and explain one ax supernovae. Some of these
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predict the existence of a matter detonating companion
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star.
00:13:44
However, in the case of this star, detailed observations by
00:13:48
NASA's test observatory indicate it is a single in fact, right
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now, there's only one model which matches the observations
00:13:55
of P A 30 it's with central star that would involve a collision
00:14:00
between two white dwarves, one of which consists of nearly all
00:14:03
carbon and oxygen and the other oxygen and neon Jonathan Nally,
00:14:08
the editor of Australian Sky and Telescope Magazine says, future
00:14:12
observations of the intriguing remnant and the zombie star at
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its core should shed more light on this very rare and peculiar
00:14:19
type of supernova explosion.
00:14:22
One of the.
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JONATHAN NALLY: Interesting aspects of this story is that
00:14:24
this all began with a discovery by an amateur astronomer, a
00:14:26
person by the name of Dana Patrick, who had already made a
00:14:29
name for themselves by discovering almost 30 planetary
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nebulae by looking at pictures of space.
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Now, a planetary nebula is usually a circular looking gas
00:14:39
cloud that's puffed off by certain kinds of stars as they
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get towards the end of their lives. So despite the name, it's
00:14:45
got nothing to do with planets just when you look at one of
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these things through a Telescope, a small Telescope,
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but it looks like a distant planet because it's not point
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like like a star, it's sort of a circular shape and it's a bit
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fuzzy.
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So that's how they originally got their name. So he discovered
00:14:58
29 planetary nebulae and he thought he'd found his 30th
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because he spotted another one of these round fuzzy gas cloud
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things. But it out to be something different.
00:15:07
It's actually a supernova remnant, a roundish supernova
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remnant, the gas cloud left over after a stellar explosion. And
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this particular one that's about 7.5 1000 light years from earth
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seems to be in the right position in the sky.
00:15:20
To match with a supernova that was spotted by Chinese and
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Japanese astronomers way back in the year 1181 about 850 years
00:15:28
ago. So that's quite amazing. And as you said, at the
00:15:32
beginning, you know, white dwarves and supernovae, they
00:15:34
don't normally go together. This is an unusual supernova remnant.
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It's not producing lots of radio waves or x rays as you might
00:15:41
expect.
00:15:42
And it has the outflow gas has tremendous speed about 16
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kilometers per second, which is about five per cent of the speed
00:15:48
of light. So how did this thing originally occur? Well,
00:15:51
astronomers think that maybe what happened was two white
00:15:54
dwarf stars collided and set off a big explosion.
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This big gas cloud went out and everything and that's what's
00:16:00
resulted in this supernova that they saw 850 years ago and this
00:16:04
remnant gas that's still around now that this amateur astronomer
00:16:08
has discovered.
00:16:09
So look, there's a lot of things still to be found out there and
00:16:11
sometimes people stumble across things and there's no
00:16:14
explanation initially for them because they think you scratch
00:16:17
their head. How on earth could this have happened? And then
00:16:19
someone comes up with an explanation, like maybe two
00:16:21
white dwarf stars collided and that's why we ended up with this
00:16:24
initial explosion that's left behind one white dwarf.
00:16:27
At least you see this is the interesting thing too that when
00:16:29
these strange kind of stellar remnants were proposed a long
00:16:34
time ago as hypothetical things. And then they started
00:16:37
discovering them, people probably just assumed, well,
00:16:39
they'd be on their own.
00:16:40
You know, you get solo neutron stars or solo white dwarfs. And
00:16:43
now we're discovering that you can have two of them smashing
00:16:46
into each other. So I was just actually thinking that, you
00:16:49
know, we, we live in a really quiet part of the galaxy. We
00:16:52
live in a very quiet neighborhood, at least in our
00:16:56
solar system.
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STUART GARY: Are a long way away too.
00:16:59
JONATHAN NALLY: They're a long way away. And we don't have, we
00:17:01
don't have a binary star system that we're orbiting around. It's
00:17:03
just one single star.
00:17:05
In fact, the majority of star systems out there are double
00:17:08
star systems or war so much an oddity, but it's in a minority,
00:17:14
I suppose you would say. So, you know, that raises the question
00:17:17
then is because we're in such a benign environment. Is that why
00:17:21
we've been able to live on a planet that's survived for so
00:17:23
long and long enough for so called intelligent life to
00:17:27
develop?
00:17:27
STUART GARY: That's Jonathan Nally, the editor of Australian
00:17:30
Sky and Telescope Magazine and this is space time still to come
00:17:36
SpaceX's Starship to remain grounded. But could it flight be
00:17:40
on the carts next month? And later in the science report, new
00:17:44
study shows the average number of sexual partners people have
00:17:48
tends to change as they age all that and more still to come on
00:17:52
space time.
00:18:09
SpaceX says it could regain flight approval for Starship
00:18:13
next month after completing most of the corrective actions
00:18:16
ordered by the Federal Aviation administration in the wake of
00:18:19
the spectacular explosion which ended its first orbital test
00:18:23
flight attempt on April 20th.
00:18:25
The 63 steps needed for another test flight included both
00:18:29
redesigns of starships booster hardware to prevent leaks and
00:18:33
fires and a redesign of the launch pad to increase its
00:18:36
robustness and prevent bits of concrete flying out like deadly
00:18:40
projectiles into the landscape.
00:18:42
Starships first orbital test flight from SpaceX's star base
00:18:46
in Boca Chica, Texas experienced multiple first stage engine
00:18:50
failures as the world's largest rocket slowly climbed into the
00:18:53
skies above the Gulf Of Mexico.
00:18:56
All those problems were then compounded when the upper stage
00:19:00
of Starship failed to separate from the super heavy booster
00:19:03
stage. And that triggered mission managers to issue their
00:19:06
self-destruct order four minutes into the flight, destroying the
00:19:09
spacecraft.
00:19:11
The FAA then grounded Starship and launched a full
00:19:14
investigation into the flight saying SpaceX needed to
00:19:17
implement all 63 corrective actions then apply for a license
00:19:20
modification from the FAA that will address all safety,
00:19:24
environmental and other applicable regulatory
00:19:26
requirements.
00:19:27
Prior to the next Starship launch, SpaceX says it's now
00:19:31
addressed 57 of the actions that were required before the launch
00:19:35
of orbital test flight. Two says the remaining issues will be
00:19:40
fixed over the next week or so and the new starships already
00:19:43
standing on the launch pad. Starship consists of two stages.
00:19:48
There's a 70 m long 9 m wide, 230 ton super heavy booster
00:19:53
stage which is equipped with 33 liquid methane and oxygen fueled
00:19:57
raptor rocket engines attached to the top of this is a 50 m
00:20:02
tall 9 m diameter upper stage powered by six raptor rocket
00:20:06
engines.
00:20:07
SpaceX by Elon Musk sees Starship as an interplanetary
00:20:11
colonial transport system designed to establish and supply
00:20:15
human settlements on the moon. Mars and across the solar
00:20:18
system, the reusable spacecraft is equipped with a belly heat
00:20:22
shield, its own retractable vertical landing gear and can be
00:20:26
refilled in space using unmanned tanker versions of Starship.
00:20:30
While one version of Starship will carry up to 100 people.
00:20:33
Another version will be equipped with a massive payload bait for
00:20:36
the deployment of satellites further into the future.
00:20:40
Starship may also host point to point flights around the earth
00:20:44
allowing you to reach any destination on the planet in
00:20:46
under 90 minutes. SpaceX's first mission for NASA using Starship
00:20:51
will provide the human landing system or HLS a reasonable
00:20:56
shuttle for NASA to transport people or up to 100 tons of
00:20:59
cargo between an orbiting Orion capsule or the lunar gateway
00:21:03
space station down to the lunar surface and back up again.
00:21:07
SpaceX's ultimate plans will eventually see Starship
00:21:11
replacing the company's existing dragon spacecraft and its Falcon
00:21:15
nine and Falcon heavy launch systems.
00:21:17
Elon Musk says if everything goes to plan, he could try a
00:21:21
second orbital test flight next month. This is space time and
00:21:42
time had to take another brief look at some of the other
00:21:44
stories making news in science. This week. With the science
00:21:47
report, a new study has found that young people using E
00:21:51
cigarettes are more than twice as likely to report chronic
00:21:54
stress as those who don't.
00:21:57
The findings reported to the European Respiratory Society's
00:22:00
International Congress are based on a yet to be peer reviewed
00:22:03
study which surveyed 905 people aged between 15 and 30.
00:22:08
Finding that although young people who vaped were more
00:22:11
likely to be physically active, they're also more likely to
00:22:14
report experiencing extreme chronic stress. However, the
00:22:18
study couldn't determine whether the stress caused an increase in
00:22:21
vaping or whether vaping increased the level of stress.
00:22:27
Scientists have found that almost half of all cell phones
00:22:30
tested during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic were
00:22:33
contaminated with the SARS COVID two virus. The findings reported
00:22:38
in the journal of infection and public health are based on a
00:22:41
systematic review undertaken by Bond University.
00:22:44
Looking at 15 studies from 10 countries that examine mobile
00:22:48
phones for SARS COVID. Two contamination in hospital
00:22:51
settings between 2019 and 2023 of 511 phones tested 231 or 45
00:22:59
per cent tested positive for the presence of SARS COV two A virus
00:23:03
which causes COVID-19. In 1 2022 study in France, all 19 out of
00:23:09
19 phones tested were found to be contaminated with the virus.
00:23:14
A new study suggests that as people age, the average number
00:23:18
of sexual partners, they have changes and that's led to some
00:23:22
surprising results. The findings by the University Of East Anglia
00:23:27
Kings College, London and the University College London
00:23:30
surveyed some 5164 people in Britain aged 18 and over during
00:23:35
last year's monkeypox outbreak.
00:23:38
Scientists wanted to understand how sexual behaviors changed
00:23:41
with age so that mathematical models of sexually transmitted
00:23:44
infections could be made more accurate. Participants were
00:23:48
asked for their gender, their sexual identity and how many
00:23:51
sexual partners they had both in the last three weeks.
00:23:54
And in the last three months before this study, many models
00:23:58
about sexually transmitted diseases simply assume that
00:24:02
everyone over a certain age say 40 to 65 stopped being sexually
00:24:06
active or at least stopped having multiple sexual partners.
00:24:10
The key findings of this study reported in the journal PLOS one
00:24:13
show that most people surveyed at either zero or one sexual
00:24:17
partner at any age.
00:24:18
In the preceding three weeks, about 65 per cent of
00:24:22
heterosexual women reported having one partner in the last
00:24:25
three weeks consistently until they reached the age of 50.
00:24:29
After which there was a steep decline in reporting no sexual
00:24:32
partners. 79 per cent of women aged 70 over who identified as
00:24:37
being heterosexual or who had had at least one male partner in
00:24:40
the last three months, had no male partners.
00:24:43
In the last three weeks of the heterosexual males surveyed 50
00:24:47
per cent reported having one partner in the past three weeks
00:24:51
and they were increasingly likely to report no partners at
00:24:54
all. As they got older, 50 per cent of men aged over 70 who
00:24:59
were heterosexual or had sex with a female in the previous
00:25:02
three months, didn't have a female partner in the past three
00:25:05
weeks.
00:25:06
That compares to just 44 per cent of men having heterosexual
00:25:09
sex who had no recent female partners when aged under 70
00:25:14
partner concurrency, which means more than one recent sexual
00:25:17
partner was uncommon in the general population. But it was
00:25:21
common among social media samples. 42 per cent of men
00:25:25
having sex with other men recruited on Facebook and
00:25:27
Instagram.
00:25:28
And 52 per cent of grinder respondents had at least two
00:25:32
sexual male partners part concurrency declined among older
00:25:36
people. But again, the least decline was among social media
00:25:39
respondents. 77 men who had sex with other men aged 70 over
00:25:44
answered the survey. 17 per cent of them reported having at least
00:25:48
one recent partner in the past three weeks.
00:25:51
And 25 per cent of gay men aged 70 over recruited via social
00:25:55
media had concurrent partners. By comparison, only two per cent
00:26:00
of straight men aged over 70 reported multiple partners. The
00:26:05
overall finding of the study was that many gay and bisexual men
00:26:09
aged over 70 continue to have a busy sex life with multiple
00:26:13
partners.
00:26:15
She's considered one of the greatest psychics in the world
00:26:19
and her predictions are closely followed by thousands of
00:26:22
devotees. But the renowned Eastern European psychic Baba
00:26:26
Weger hasn't been too accurate with the prognostications of
00:26:29
late.
00:26:30
In fact, none of her often chilling forecasts for 2023 have
00:26:33
come true. At least not yet still for many years, decades
00:26:38
even. And many fans have relied on her every word, even though
00:26:42
her forecasts seldom materialize. Tim Mendham from
00:26:46
Australian skeptics says there's probably a really good reason
00:26:49
for that.
00:26:50
TIM MENDHAM: This is Bob Avana, a mystic psychic blind woman
00:26:54
from Eastern Europe making predictions about what's going
00:26:57
to happen in the coming year. And this year it's a nuclear
00:27:00
disaster in Europe. There's toxic clouds over Asia. There's
00:27:04
a powerful solar storm that's going to disrupt the climate and
00:27:07
there's a use of a deadly biological weapon causing
00:27:10
widespread fatality. There's a Baba Vanga died 30 years ago.
00:27:14
Now, she didn't write these things down. What's happened is
00:27:16
that people are now using, making predictions, using her
00:27:19
name and they have been doing it for years. Bubba Unger predicts
00:27:23
from beyond the grave and Im talking to Baba Unger from
00:27:26
beyond the grave, she did make predictions in her life. They
00:27:29
were pretty vague and most of them didn't come. Well, I think
00:27:31
they all didn't come through.
00:27:32
But that's the nature of predictions from the psychics
00:27:34
and things. There's a wonderful story that was published
00:27:36
recently in, was an Indian publication which spoke about
00:27:40
all this wonderful prediction from Bubba and never once
00:27:42
mentioned that she was dead. So Baba is one of those many sort
00:27:45
of psychics you hear about who makes the prediction and then no
00:27:47
one bothers to follow them up unless you're a skeptic.
00:27:50
Of course, and we do, they keep track of these things and come
00:27:52
back a year later and said this didn't happen. What's your
00:27:55
excuse, mum? We'll move on to the next thing, you know, don't
00:27:58
look here, look over there. So we did a major project on
00:28:01
Australian psychics making predictions. We looked at all
00:28:03
the predictions we could find over a 20 year period in, in
00:28:06
print, in TV, radio online wherever.
00:28:10
And we found over, was it over 3000, something like that
00:28:14
prediction? Over 203 100 odd self professed psychics. And
00:28:18
their success rate was about 10 per cent, which is as good as
00:28:20
guesswork, probably worse than actually. But they ignore that.
00:28:23
They say, you know, they ignore their failure rates and they
00:28:26
just move on to the next theory and the next sucker, that's.
00:28:29
STUART GARY: Tim Ende from Australian Skeptics.
00:28:47
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