S26E67: Profound new discoveries about mysterious Fast Radio Bursts & Other Astronomy News

This is Spacetime Series twenty six, Episode sixty seven. We're broadcast on the fifth of June twenty twenty three. Coming up on Spacetime, profound new discoveries about the mysteries of fast radio bursts. South Korea joins the space race, launching its own satellite on its own rocket. Meanwhile, north of the border, it's crash and burn for North Korea's latest attempt to launch a spy satellite. All that and more coming up on Spacetime. Welcome to Spacetime with Stewart Garry. Astronomers have discovered one of the mysteries of fast radio bursts. It seems these enigmatic blasts from deep space have reversible magnetic fields. The groundbreaking detection, reported in the journal Science, will have profound implications for the ongoing international effort. They determine exactly what fast radio bursts are and how they're triggered. All we really know is that fast radio bursts, or furbs, as they're commonly called, a sudden massive blasts of radio energy coming from distant parts of the cosmos, usually billions of light years away. In fact, they released more energy in just a single second than our Sun does in an entire year. The first fast radio burst was discovered back in two thousand and seven in data from the Parks Radio telescope in the central west of New South Wales. Now that astronomers know what they're looking for, they detect literally hundreds of them every day all over the sky, and usually in the spiral arms of ancient galaxies. The first bursts were all singular events, occurring once at a specific location and they're never again, and that suggested that they must have been caused by some sort of cataclysmic event, such as the super nervor explosion of a massive star. But astronomers are now detecting fast radio bursts that appear to be repeating from the same location, and that suggests a very different origin. Right now, the leading contenders highly magnetized neutron stars known as magnetars. However, things like feeding black holes and even glitching neutron stars haven't been ruled out just yet now. Alternatively, it could all mean that there are two separate courses for these mysterious deep space blasts, or it could simply be that all fast radio burststre repeaters, just with some being a lot more active than others. As for the new magnetic field discovery Well. It's based on seventeen months of observations of a repeating fast radio burst cataloged as twenty nineteen zero five twenty B, that was made by the csiros Parks Radio Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Greenbank Radio Telescope in West Virginia. The authors found that FIB twenty nineteen zero five B is surrounded by dense plasma. It's not only highly magnetized, but also extremely turbulent, and the direction of that magnetic field changed twice during the observing period. It's a phenomenon never observed before. The status. Lead author she Da from the University of Western Sydney says the findings bring astronomers a little bit closer to eventually solving the enigma of fast radio bursts. In the process, hoping to uncover new insights into some of the most extreme environments in the universe, and because fast radio bursts originating distant galaxies, that makes them unique tools a range of astrophysical events such as the missing matter between galaxies, the expansion of the universe, and astrophysics in dense and highly magnetized environments. Twenty nineteen zero five twenty B is not only a rare, repeating fast radio burst, but more importantly, it can be detected over a wide range of radio frequencies, and this enables astronomers to use the most advanced radio instruments, such as Parks's Ultra wideband receiver in order to carry up detailed studies. The high sensitivity of the ultra wideband receiver allows astronomers to observe the object at much higher frequencies and thereby collect large amounts of data. And that's important because this fast radio burst tumultuous magnetic field was only seen at very high frequencies above three thousand megahertz, which the Parks dish is uniquely suited to detect. Over the course of the study, the author's detected more than one hundred bursts coming from FRB twenty nineteen zero five twenty B, and they successfully detected polarized emission in thirteen of them. Now significantly, these polarized bursts revealed the direction of the magnetic field around the source had changed twice during this short period of time. The change in the direction of the magnetic field put some strong constraints on the origin of the FRB. It requires that the source of the FRB is moving relative to a large scale magnetic field. One possibility is that the FIB sources in the binary system with a start, which is a strong stellar wind with a strong magnetic field. So as the FIB orbits around the start, it moves in and out of the stellar wind, which could explain the observations. That says the team, and now planning to conduct further observations in order to better understand there's objects nature. We have been observing this FRB twenty nineteen four five twenty B, so this is so called repeating FRB, so we basically repeatedly emit very bright REDEO pulsars. One of the very interesting features of this type of active repeating FRB is we know that their local environment, so basically where these farbs are from are very dense and highly magnet ties. And we know this because we measured something called Faraday rotation through the polarized regio emission. And this have been puzzling astronomers because, as you just mentioned, it's really hard to actually measure and understand magnetic field in our universe because it can be complicated and it's really hard to prove and we don't really know what types of magnetized environment actually these sources are actually located in. So that's one of the biggest puzzle that we have. But interestingly, with our observations using parks and the GBT in the US, we discovered that the sign of the Faraday rotation actually changed over the course of about sixteen months. It means the direction of the magnetic field actually reversed during this period of time, which is really rare and hasn't been observed before in any farbs. So you're saying the polarity changed or simply the orientation, simply the orientation, And we know that it's really hard to actually if you think about the astronomical environment, if the source is not really moving, if the system is static, is really difficult or fully impossible to actually reverse the direction of the Maneti field. So the fact that we observe that the direction of the ninety field reversed means the source is actually moving with respect to the global ninety field. If fast radio busts magnetism, that's one of the hypotheses that are out there. Yeah, I think we still don't really know where actually the radio signal is from. Yeah, but if it is a magnetar, I think our observation suggests the magnetar has to be within, for example, like a binary system or something, So the magina has to be moving around something, and we don't know if it is a massive star or i is even like a black hole. So I think that's where the key discovery from this observation. It's a fascinating result. How did you arrive that? So a couple of years ago, astronomers at Parts install the new receiver called Ultra wide band Low receiver. So the unique feature of this system is that it covers a very wide frequency range, in particularly the high frequency range at above two biggers and above. And it turned out that polarized emission which we used to measure the Friday rotation, can only be detected from this fraB at relatively high radio frequency. So that makes Parts and the ultrawide band low receiver kind of the unique instrument for this type of study, and that leads to the discovery we presented in the paper. And from here, yeah, a really good question. I think there are two things we really want to do. One thing is to keep observing this particular fraB FRB twenty nineteen or five twenty B because this is a really special one, and if this FRB is in a binary system with either a massive star or black hole, we would expect the variation of the Friday rotation to be periodic. So if we keep the e in this source, we might be actually present direct evidence supporting the binary hypothesis. And another thing, obviously is to observe other FIBs, especially repeating ones, and potentially find new FIBs and then observe them with Autoi band low and detectorization from them and see if they also show similar features the one we just observe. Considering how long we've been studying neutron stars for now, are you shocked that we still know so little about the Yeah? I think neutron stars are full of surprises. After like almost like sixteen years of studies, I think we have already learned a lot about neutron stars and where their emission is from and what types of systems they are in. But I think there are still a lot of open questions around diutron stars, magging tars and all these objects. I think that's who because of the how extreme these systems are, and we simply don't have any environment that's even close to them on the Earth or within our solar system. So it's really very unique systems and the environment and which actually allow us to probe some of the very fundamental physics that we can't actually do on the Earth. It's fascinating, isn't it. Yeah, it is actually day from the University of Western Sydney and this spacetime still to come. It's been a busy time on the Korean peninsula, with South Korea successfully launching locally built satellites on a rocket which it also built locally. Meanwhile, north of the border, pyeong Yang has failed and it's late. It's a tempt to launch a spy satellite, and North Korea's close satellite Iran. It's unveiled it's latest long range ballistic missile. All that and more still to come on spacetime. South Korea has successfully launched its home grown Nuri rocket, placing eight satellites into orbit. This was the third launch for the forty seven meter to all Nuri, which successfully put a test satellite into orbit last year, but failed in a twenty twenty one attempt after the launch vehicle's third stage engine burn ended early Soul says it'll undertake three more launches of the new rocket system by twenty twenty seven. The flight was launched from the Naruspace Center on South Korea's southern coast. As South Korea nurse, getting into space is hard. Its first two attempts in two thousand and nine and twenty ten both east Russian technology and both ended in failure. In twenty thirteen, South Korea did succeed in achieving orbit, but again it was with the help of Russian technology on the launch's first stage. Then last June, South Korea became only the seventh nation in the world to successfully launch a oneton payload on a rocket they built, and with this latest launch means not only was the rocket home built, but so too with the satellites. Meanwhile, north of the border, Pyongyang has failed in its latest attempt to launch a spy satellite, with the rocket and its secretive payload crashing into the sea in a fiery ball of flame. Was still for Pyongyang, the South Korean military was able to retrieve some of the highly classified wreckage in what must be considered a potential intelligence bonanza. The North Korean rocket blasted off to the usual bluster of anti Western speeches and triumphant fanfares, with North Korean leader Kim Jong on watching on. Before the launch, the communist dictator claimed that the satellite would be vital to monitoring the military movements of the United States and its allies. The launch triggered immediate air raid warnings in both South Korea and Japan. All appeared to be going nominally as the rocket named Kalima one after a mystery or winged horse shot into the sky. From what we can tell from the North Korean visions applied to Western media outlets, Talima one appears to be powered by a Soviet era ID two fifty liquid field rocket engine similar to that fitted to North Korea's Horseong fifteen into continental ballistic missiles, and that would mean its orbital satellite payload called Malayong, which means telescoping Korean, would be somewhere between two hundred and three hundred kilograms in mass. However, as the rocket continued to climb, things suddenly turned bad. It seems the second stage failed to ignite, and that caused the rocket at its satellite payload to plunge back to the surface, splashing down and the Yellow Sea. South Korea's military later released images showing salvaged rocket debris recovered from the crest site, some two hundred kilometers off the coast. Pyongyang has built a range of nuclear capable missiles developed during what North Korea claimed was a peaceful scientific space program. Remember, the same technology which put satellites into orbit can also carry nuclear weapons to the other side of the world. Pyongyang began testing ballistic missiles that it called satellite launches back in twenty twelve and twenty sixteen as part of a joint nuclear weapons for search deal with Iran. Pyongyang had launched at least five satellites since nineteen ninety eight, three of which failed, two of which appear to have made it into warbit sould, Tokyo, and Washington have all slammed the launch, which violates a raft of view and resolutions barring Pyongyang from any test using ballistic missile technology. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Ki Terrist has called on Pyongyang to cease further launchers and returned to the negotiating table. This is spacetime still to come. He Ran unveils its latest long range ballistic missile and later in the science report claims that artificial intelligence could pose a human extinction level events. All that and more still to come on spacetime. Iran has unveiled its latest long range ballistic missile. Tehran says it's a new k Bar missile will have a range of over two thousand kilometers carrying at fifteen hundred kilogram warhead. The thirteen meter long missile is based on the earlier korem Shah missile, which was originally developed by North Korea as the Horseng ten, and like it's pyeong Yang twin, the k Bar is specifically designed to carry a thermennuclear war head. Interestingly, the same missile was previously called the korem Sha four, and it differs from the original korem Shah in its use of hypergolic fuels, which can be stored in tanks for years, thereby shortening launched preparation time to just twelve minutes. Also, the new propellant requires smaller tanks, thereby reducing the murder section of the missile about thirteen meters with a warhead, adding in additional four meters to the missile's length. Intelligence reports suggests the airframe for the new missile. It's constructed out of stronger composite materials, and midface navigation systems have been included, which enable it to correct its course once outside the atmosphere. That way, it's not reliant on terminal guidance, which can be disrupted by electronic warfare systems. The new missiles unveiling in test launch came as Tehran's nuclear non proliferation treaty talks hit another stalemate, with the Islamic Republic continuing to refuse to follow its original twenty fifteen Vienna agreement. Back in February, Bloomberg News reporter that International Atomic Energy inspectors in Iran had discovered uranium enriched to eighty four percent purity. That discovery came as Israeli intelligence reports confirmed that Tehran now had enough enriched weapons grade uranium to build at least four crude nuclear warheads. What all that means is that Tehran was already at breakout point back in Ary and could deploy its first nuclear weapon within three months. If correct, it means that deadline has now passed. However, other sources claim the Islamic Republic still needs another six months to two years in order to perfect its trigger system in order to determine how to miniaturize the weapon for use in a missile and how to develop a useful missile reentry system. It's all part of the growing list of breaches of Tehran's twenty fifteen Vienna Nuclear non Proliferation Accords. First tensions began escalating last year after Iran decided to turn off and remove twenty seven United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency surveillance cameras designed to monitor Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program. The UN Nuclear Watchdog says the Islamic Republic began using advanced centrifugures who enrich its uranium, back in twenty nineteen, and it now has an enriched uranium stockpile eighteen times above its twenty fifteen Vienna agreements. Tehran also rica midst refusing access to International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors or disclosing the location of key nuclear weapons components suspected to be in its position. Then, in February twenty twenty one, the United Nations Nuclear Watchdog found Iranded started producing uranium metal. This material has only one use, and that is in a nuclear weapon. That discovery was followed in April twenty twenty one, when both German and Swedish intelligence agencies warned of growing efforts by Tayran to obtain nuclear weapons technology, and a report by the IAEA in May twenty twenty two found traces of enriched uranium at three secret atomic weapons research facilities. Meanwhile, the oil rich nation insists it's nuclear program is for peaceful power generation only. This space time and time out to take a brief look at some of the other stories making using science this week. With the Science Report, The World's most Powerful Tech leads of visual a confronting new warning about the potential danges of artificial intelligence, saying AI poses as great a threat to the existence of humanity as nuclear war. More than three hundred and fifty industry experts have signed the latest open letter calling for urgent controls and legislation to keep artificial intelligence contained. The Center for AI Safety says the threat of an artificial intelligence triggered extinction event should be a top global priority. The statement was signed by leading industry officials, including Open AI CEO Sam Altman, the so called godfather of AI, Jeffrey Hinton, as well as multiple leading executives and researchers from companies including Google, Microsoft, deep Mind, and Anthropic. It follows a similar warning earlier this year by SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk and Apple co founder Steve Wozniak. While they all agree that today's AI is still some way off from the sofaware sky and the terminator fame, the systems are now getting smarter than they're human creators, and they're already capable of spreading misinformation on a mass scale. In Australia, the Albanesi government is considering a ban on high risk uses of artificial intelligence and automated decision making, warning of potential homes including the creation of deep fakes and algorithmic biases. I. Meanwhile, Microsoft desisied a new warning that state sponsored Chinese hackers have infiltrated critical infrastructure networks in the United States. At its Western Allies, Microsoft highlighted Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, which is a vital US military outpost, as one of the key targets, and it warned that similar malicious activity had also been detected on mainland America. Stealthy attack by China sponsored actor Vault Typhoon has enabled long term espionage and was aimed at disrupting critical infrastructure in the event of war. Microsoft says the campaign's targeting organizations in communications, manufacturing, power and water, utilities, transportation, instruction, maritime, government, information technology, and educational sectors. Now the Microsoft statement just happened to coincide with a new advisory released by the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK governments warning that the hacking by Beijing was likely occurring globally. Microsoft says the vault typhoon attack tries to blend into normal network activity by routing traffic through compromise small office and home network equipment, including routers, firewalls, and VPN hardware. A new study is confirmed that even without nerves, plants can still sense when something's touching them and when it lets go. The findings are reported in the journal Nature, based on Washington State University experiments which demonstrated how individual plant cells responded to the touch of very fine glass rods by sending slow waves of calcium signals to other plant cells, and when that pressure was released, they sent much more rapid waves. Scientists have long known that plants can respond to touch. The new studies shows that plant cells send different signals when touches initiated and when it's ended. The author's conducted instead of eighty four experiments on twelve plants using foul crescent tobacco plants that have been specially bred to include calcium sensors. After placing pieces of these plants under a microscope, they applied a slight touched individual plant cells using a microcanter lever, essentially a tiny glass right about the size of a human air. When this happened, they saw many complex responses depending on the force and duration of the touch, but the difference between the touch and its removal was clear. Within thirty second to the applied touch to a single cell, the researchers saw slow waves of calcium ions traveling from that cell through adjacent plant cells, lasting for about three to five minutes, and removal of the touch triggered an almost instant seat of more rapid waves that dissipated within a minute. The authors believe that these waves are likely due to changes in pressure inside the cell Cunlike animal cells, which have permeable membranes, plant cells are very strong cellular walls that cannot be easily breached, so just a light touch or temporarily increase pressure in the plant's cell. Previous research is already shown they won't a pest like a caterpillar, bites into a plant leaf, it can initiate a plant's defensive response system, and that can include the release of chemicals which make the leaf suddenly taste bad or become toxic. New Zealand skeptics have followed their Australian and American counterparts and are offering a big cash prize to anyone who can scientifically prove psychic supernatural power more or clear point capabilities. Demendum from a Strange skeptic says, despite invitations to some of Kiwi's best known mystic marvels, no one's come forward yet to try and prove their abilities. In Australia, we've had a challenge for as long as we've been around, so forty odd years, to anyone who can prove a particular paranormal power. Psychics, water diviners are a lot of them a thing. So far, We've done at least a couple hundred tests and so far no one has proved their abilities under scientific condiscence. The New Zealand moves now have a similar sort of scheme. Houses is a hundred thousand I think so is this. They have now actually put out any invitation to a small coterie of people that they would love to test. One is a fellow who claims he can predict the weather and earthquakes by looking at the moon, phases of the moon and the stars, etc. And another is a psychic who can communicate with the dead. And a third one is a natural path and a herbalist who sells the homeopathic essence for being able to help people sleep. She reckons she's actually got some venture capital funding. So funnally enough, none of those three have actually said yes, I'll go for the test. But one them, the guy with the long range whether the productcess will see by my evidence proves itself. So I've done this, and they've looked at the evidence of say you haven't. There's a lot of times you're predicting things that never had. Predicting an earthquake in New Zealand is actually a pretty fair bed. They do have a fairly follows. Yeah, and the Nanana is very big. I mean, yeah, most places have earthquakes that are there are small earthquakes around the world every day, so a bit New Zealand is sort are prone to it being on the Pacific rim. But he often gets it wrong anyway, So that they said it to all, come on, let's do with us have a look at here, and he said no. The naturopath decided to go the other way, and they reckon they're doing research, although they have to reckon own planning research until COVID camera, and they talked about that the skeptics challenge didn't meet their criteria for excellence in research. It's a switch, yeah, the cominger in and what did they say? The wonderful thing was that at Great Investment Devel they developed protocols for a human clinical trial using gold standard sleep research polysomnography as well as the most internationally recognized sleep surveys. So did kind of give a real side patina to what she's doing. But as far as i't know the people she's playing gaper the money, I haven't been able to find a record of them having done that, And she doesn't actually list anything more about it on her website, so you wonder if it is happening. She said it is delayed because of COVID, so using fancy words sciency word doesn't mean she's actually got any sort of basis. Very scientifical, yeah, scientifical very much. The other guy that the psychic has refuses to comment. He's sort of part of a class that is often called by skeptic brief vampire psychics who find people who are grieving over a dead person and they will then sort of offer them help by getting put it him in touch with the dead spirit, who amazingly have the most inane comments you could ever hear. Nothing particularly interesting, nothing particularly clever, So lists of people taking money. Unfortunately. That's timendum from Australian skeptics. That's the show for now. 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