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This is SpaceTime series 26 episode 71 for broadcast on the
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14th of June 2023. Coming up on space time, what made the
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brightest cosmic explosion of all time? So exceptional. A new
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study identifies the mechanism driving the Sun's fast winds.
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And NASA's Mars Ingenuity, helicopter goes silent all that
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and more coming up on space time.
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Welcome to space time with Stuart Garry.
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Few cosmic explosions have attracted as much attention from
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scientists as the one recorded on October 22nd last year and
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aptly named the brightest of all time or both for short, the
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event produced by the collapse of a massive star in the
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subsequent birth of a black hole was witnessed as an immensely
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bright flash of gamma rays followed by a slow fading
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afterglow of light visible across the entire
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electromagnetic spectrum.
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Since picking up the boat's signals simultaneously on their
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telescopes around the world. Astronomers have been scrambling
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to try and account for the brightness of the gamma ray
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burst and the curiously slow fed of its afterglow. The
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exceptionally long gamma ray burst is the brightest ever
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recorded and its afterglow is smashing all records at all.
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Wavelengths because this burst was so bright and nearby
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occurring just 2.4 billion light years away. Astronomers think it
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's a once in 1000 year opportunity to address some of
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the most fundamental questions regarding these explosions from
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the formation of black holes to new tests for dark matter.
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Now, astronomers reporting in the journal science advances
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have finally formulated an explanation to explain what
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happened. The authors say the initial burst which was
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cataloged as Grb 22 1009 A was angled directly towards the
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Earth and it also dragged along an unusually large amount of
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stellar material in its wake.
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The study's lead author Brendan O'Connor from George Washington
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University says the findings match other theoretical analyses
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of the afterglow which also suggest that the jet must have
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been pointed directly at the Earth. However, the slow fade of
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the afterglow is not characteristic of a narrow jet
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of gas. And knowing this made the authors suspect there must
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have been an additional reason for the intensity of the
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explosion.
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O'Connor. And colleague's mathematical models show that
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the gamma ray burst had a unique structure with the observations
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gradually revealing a narrowed jet embedded within a wider gas
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outflow where an isolated jet would normally be expected. So
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what made this gamma ray burst wider than normal?
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Well, the authors think the gamma ray burst jets need to go
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through the collapsing star in which they're formed. And what
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made the difference in this case is the amount of mixing that
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happened between the stellar material and the jet such that
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shock headed gas kept appearing in our line of sight all the way
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up to the point that any characteristic jet signature
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would have been lost in the overall emission of the
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afterglow.
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This new model helps not just to understand the boat but also
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previous brightness record holders that had astronomers
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mystified about their lack of jet signature. These gamma ray
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bursts like other gamma ray bursts need to be directed
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straight towards the Earth when they happen as it would be un
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physicals for so much energy to be expelled in all directions at
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once.
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O'Connor says an exceptional class of events appears to exist
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that are both extreme and still manage to mass the directed
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nature of their gas flow. He says future study into the
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magnetic fields of the launch of the jet and into the massive
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stars that host them should help reveal why these gamma ray
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bursts are so rare.
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One of the things that first captured my attention about GBS
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is just how explosive they are, how bright the amount of energy
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that they release in the span of just a few seconds is actually
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more than our Sun produces over its entire lifetime.
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And the reasons that we like to study Gerbes and the things we
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can learn about them have to do with star formation. So these
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long duration gamma ray bursts are caused by the collapse of
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massive stars and we can observe them due to their brightness all
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the way back to the first stars.
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So as we begin to probe these really high red shift, very
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distant gamma ray bursts, we can learn about how stars first
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formed, what environments they're forming and what type of
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elements were existing at these times and see how this star
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formation actually evolved over the history of the universe.
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Gb 22 10 oh nine A is the brightest gamma ray burst of all
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time we have detected since the 19 seventies. While we being
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space satellites, gamma ray satellites about 10 gamma
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ray bursts. And this is by far the brightest by not just a
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little bit but by 100 times, it 's a hugely different event.
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And based on the brightness and its proximity to us, we expect
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it to be a once in a century event, which means this is the
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only chance in our lifetime to study this type of explosion at
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such a nearby distance in exquisite detail and actually be
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able to follow it across the electronic spectrum.
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This explosion that we observed is going to be detectable for at
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least a year is the current estimate and it could even go on
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for longer. So right now, we're just trying to obtain the best
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data set we can at optical infrared radio and x-ray
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wavelengths.
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And once we put together this data set, we can begin to model
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the explosion properties and that will be when we really get
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to shed some light on what, how different this explosion was and
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whether there's some new physical processes that are
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going on that we need to start considering when studying gamma
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ray bursts.
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That's Brendan O'Connor from the George Washington University.
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And this is space time still to come. A new study identifies the
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mechanism driving the Sun's fast solar winds. And NASA's Mars
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Ingenuity helicopter suddenly goes silent on the red planet
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all that and more still to come on space time.
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A new study has finally worked out how the Sun generates winds
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of more than 1.6 million kilometers an hour. The findings
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reported in the journal nature show that the energy released
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from magnetic fields near the Sun's surface are powerful
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enough to drive these fast solar winds which are made up of Ron
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ice particles or plasmas that flow outwards from the Sun
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enveloping the entire solar system.
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The findings are based on new data obtained by NASA's Parker
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Solar probe which is studying the Sun in extreme detail. The
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Sun's solar wind forms a giant magnetic bubble known as the
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heliosphere.
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This protects the planets in the solar system from the barrage of
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high energy cosmic rays that are whipping around the rest of the
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galaxy. However, the solar wind also carries its own high energy
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particles as well as part of the Sun's magnetic field. And this
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crashes into the Earth's magnetosphere causing
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disturbances called space weather or geomagnetic storms.
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These storms occur when the Sun experiences more than usual
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turbulent activity, including things like solar flares and
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enormous explosions of plasma into space known as coronal mass
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ejections. These geomagnetic storms are responsible for the
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spectacular aurora light shows often seen in the Earth's polar
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regions.
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The northern and southern lights, the aurora borealis and
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aurora Strauss, but they can also do a lot of damage. They
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can knock out a city's power grid, disrupt navigation and
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communication systemss, damage or even destroy spacecraft and
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expose people in high altitude aircraft or in space to high
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doses of radiation.
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One of the study's authors, James Drake from the University
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Of Maryland says the solar wind carries lots of information
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about the Sun to the Earth. So understanding the mechanism
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behind the Sun's solar wind is important.
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Previous studies had already revealed that the Sun's magnetic
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field was somehow driving the solar wind, but researchers
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didn't really understand the underlying mechanism. Then
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earlier this year, Drake Co authored a paper which argued
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that the heating and acceleration of the solar wind
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was being driven by magnetic reconnection.
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A process that Drake had dedicated his scientific career
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to studying the authors explain that the surface of the Sun is
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covered in tiny jet lits of hot plasma and these are propelled
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upwards by magnetic reconnection which occurs when magnetic
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fields pointing in opposite directions suddenly cross
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connect that cross connection in turn triggers the release of
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massive amounts of energy.
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It's a case of two things in opposite directions, often
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winding up annihilating each other. And in the process,
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releasing massive amounts of magnetic energy. Drake says
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solar flares and coronal mass ejections on the Sun are all
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driven by that mechanism to better understand these
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processes.
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Dring colleagues use data from the Parker Solar probe to
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analyze the plasma flowing out from the corona. The Sun's
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outermost and hottest layer in April 2021 park became the first
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spacecraft to enter the Sun's corona and has been nudging ever
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closer to the Sun's surface ever since the data cited in this
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paper was taken at a distance of 13 solar radii roughly nine
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million kilometers from the Sun 's surface.
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And using this new data, Drake and colleagues were able to
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provide the first characterization of the burst of
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magnetic energy that occur in coronal holes which are openings
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in the Sun's magnetic field and the source of the solar wind.
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The authors demonstrated that the magnetic reconnection
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between open and closed magnetic fields known as the interchange
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connection is a continuous process rather than a series of
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isolated events.
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As previously thought, this led them to conclude that the rate
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of magnetic energy release which drives the outbound jet of
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heated plasma was powerful enough to overcome gravity and
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produce the Sun's solar winds by understanding these smaller
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releases of energy that are constantly occurring on the Sun.
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Researchers hope to better understand and possibly even
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predict the larger more dangerous eruptions which launch
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plasma out into space towards the Earth. In addition to the
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implications for Earth, these findings can also be applied to
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other areas of astronomy. See stellar winds from other stars
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also play a crucial role in shielding their planetary system
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from cosmic rays which can impact habitability.
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But at the same time, those stellar winds, if they're too
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powerful can also blow away a planet's atmosphere and even
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radiate its surface preventing life from forming a process
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we're seeing in action today on the red planet. Mars. This is
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space time still to come.
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NASA's Mars Ingenuity, helicopter suddenly goes silent
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on the surface of the red planet. And later in the science
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report claims that an artificial intelligent drone attacked its
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operator in order to complete its mission have been rejected
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by the US Air Force. All that are more still to come on space
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time.
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NASA's Mars Ingenuity, helicopter has suddenly gone
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silent on the surface of the red planet.
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The loss of contact lasted six days before the tiny chopper
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finally re established communication, mission managers
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at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
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California believe the issue was caused by a combination of the
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challenging topography, including a ridge line between
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the perseverance rover and ingenuity which was affecting
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radio communications between the two vehicles made worse by
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perseverance being positioned in such a way that its
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communications antenna was being blocked by the rover's other
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equipment from getting a good line of sight to the chopper
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position.
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Combined with weakening batteries aboard ingenuity
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allowed brownout conditions to occur. This incident wasn't the
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first time the tiny tissue box size Rodic Copter experienced
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the blackout but it was by far the worst. A brief two day loss
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of signal happened about a year ago.
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That was also caused by the chopper's batteries not getting
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enough charge from the solar array as Jero Crater moved into
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the Martian Winter on that occasion, the reduced voltage
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reset, ingenuity's mission clock causing the helicopter systems
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to be out of sync with the perseverance rover.
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Mission managers quickly resolved the issue but they knew
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it could happen again. Still ingenuity has already well
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outperformed its original mission targets. The 1.8 kg
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robotic helicopter arrived on the red planet attached to the
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perseverance rover.
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Back in February 2021 ingenuity was only ever designed to
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undertake five or six demonstration test flights
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simply to show that humans could fly an aircraft on another
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planet.
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So the fact that it's now undertaken 51 flights is
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absolutely astounding and it's proven to be a huge help for
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mission managers, scouting ahead of perseverance, looking for the
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best route and spotting interesting rocks. Mission
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managers know ingenuity's time is running out even with the
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imminent return of the Martian Summer.
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The chopper's batteries are nearing the end of their useful
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lives and the solar array is covered in a growing film of
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dust. So brownouts are going to become more common and
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eventually they will take the life of the intrepid little
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chopper.
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This is space time and time now to take another brief look at
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some of the other stories making news in science this week with
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the science report, a United States Air Force colonel now
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claims he misspoke when he described an experiment in which
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an artificial intelligence enabled drone opted to attack
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its operator in order to complete its mission.
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The chief of AI Test and operations Colonel Tucker
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Hamilton had earlier told a royal aeronautical society
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conference that an AI enabled drone was repeatedly stopped
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from completing its task of destroying surface to air
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missile sites.
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By its human operator. Hamilton said that in the end, despite
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having been trained not to kill its operator, the drone
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destroyed the communications tower so the operator could no
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longer tell it what to do, thereby allowing it to complete
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its mission.
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Hamilton now claims that the simulation never actually took
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place and it was all just a thought experiment.
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Scientists have developed a new tool that can with 99 per cent
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accuracy identify academic papers written by the artificial
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intelligence, chatbot chat GPT. The findings published in the
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journal cell reports. Physical science involved researchers
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training at chat GPT to be a better science writer using 64
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perspective articles written in science journals which provided
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an overview of specific research topics.
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Chat GPT was then ordered to compose 128 articles based on
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these perspective pieces. The authors say Chat GPT gives
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itself away because it's so predictable using simpler
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paragraph structures than human authors, more uniform sentence
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lengths and a more consistent number of words per paragraph.
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Vocabulary apparently also differs with humans more likely
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to use words such as however, but and although while Chat GP T
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was more likely to use words others and researchers feeding
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this information into their tool, they were able to spot
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chat GPT articles with 100% accuracy and individual
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paragraphs with 92% accuracy.
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Scientists have set a new world record for the fastest ever
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industry standard optical fiber carrying the equivalent of more
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than 10 million fast home internet connections. All of
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them running at full capacity and all of this through a fiber
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cable less than the thickness of a human hair.
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The new record reported at the 46th optical fiber
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communications conference was achieved by a team of Australian
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Japanese Dutch and Italian researchers. They pushed some
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1.7 petabytes over a 67 kilometer long piece of fiber.
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The fiber which contains 19 cores that can each carry a
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signal meets the global standard for fiber size, ensuring that it
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can be adopted without massive infrastructure change and it
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uses less digital processing, thereby greatly reducing the
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power required per bit transmitted.
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Apple looks like it's about to revolutionize the world again
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with its new Vision Pro headset, the spectacular new virtual and
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augmented reality device look like a pair of ski goggles, but
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ones which will expand your virtual world. That's if you can
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afford the price with the details. We're joined by
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technology editor Alex Sahara Roy from Tech Advice dot life.
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The big news of course was Vision Pro which Apple is
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calling a spatial computer. They're not calling it a VR
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headset or an Ar headset. They didn't use the term AI they talk
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about machine learning, they didn't use the term the
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metaverse because this is different to most other
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headsets.
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It's not just enveloping you in VR that you can't sort of look
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through. Although on the meta quest too, you can actually have
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a mode where we can see outside, it's black and white and on the
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meta Quest three, that's coming soon, it will be full color to
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see through.
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But the ar that Facebook is working on isn't quite the same
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meta talks about 500 apps for its meta quest two. The Vision
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Pro not only runs hundreds of thousands of ipad and iphone
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apps, but you can also extend your Mac screen to it and it's
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got its own apps which look very similar to the ones that you're
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used to today on your iphone and ipad.
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And so even though it's unreleased to the public, it's
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got hundreds of thousands of apps ready to and you can
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position various app windows be they iphone apps, ipad, apps,
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browsers, looking at your photos, taking photos and videos
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in 3D.
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You can see all that in front of you in this canvass that can be
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as large as you like. You can also with a twist of the dial,
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you can actually block out the rest of the world and have what
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appears to be a virtual reality headset and you can have this
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giant 100 inch or larger screen in front of you with a beautiful
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mountain scene behind you.
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And it can be on a plane and can just block the rest of the world
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out. It's really quite special and you do have to look at the
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nine minute and 12 2nd video that Apple has for Vision Pro to
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truly appreciate it.
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And if you like that and you want a deeper dive, the second
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half of the two hour keynote is dedicated to Vision Pro. So it
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doesn't have controls, it's controlled by very simple hand
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gestures, unlike meta quest and vibe where you've got these
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controllers and it really does look to be like a new class of
00:19:03
computing device.
00:19:04
Tim Cook said that look at it, you look through it and it even
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does things like allow people to see your eyes because it's got a
00:19:11
screen on the inside and it's got a screen on the outside that
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is displaying what your eyes look like.
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So when people are speaking to you, then they're right next to
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you. They get a sense that you're with them and no other
00:19:20
headset does this. There's 12 cameras, there's a bunch of
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microphones. You even when you do a facetime call, when you set
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up the Vision Pro for the first time, it's doing a scan of your
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face in 3D and it's recreating a 3D avatar of your.
00:19:33
So some people were saying, oh, you must have to use your
00:19:36
iphone. But no, it's smart enough to set that little avatar
00:19:40
up. And as a version one product and they always say, don't buy
00:19:43
version one. This is very polished.
00:19:45
It's taken advantage of years of work that Apple has done in
00:19:49
augmented reality and widgets and all of the things that it's
00:19:53
good at even the Airpod Max headset with its various
00:19:56
materials and the digital crown on the air pods, Macs and on
00:19:59
your watch, all those have come together to make is arguably the
00:20:03
most Polish version one product the world has ever seen.
00:20:05
And it still won't arrive until 2024 at the earliest in the
00:20:10
first part of 2024. And at that, only in the US, it will be $3499
00:20:16
not including taxes in Australia, that's at least $5200
00:20:20
not including the GST.
00:20:21
So it's expensive. But if you were to buy all those gadgets,
00:20:23
multiple monitors and powerful Mac or ipad, try to do all that
00:20:27
stuff together and get a headset of some sort. It ended up
00:20:30
costing you more than that. So it's a version one product and
00:20:34
it's looking thus far really good.
00:20:36
Now, this was the undoubted highlight of WWW DC 2023 Apple's
00:20:40
annual developer conference, but it wasn't the only announcement,
00:20:43
what else was there?
00:20:44
It started with three Macs, the Macbook Air 15, New Mac studio
00:20:48
and the New Mac Pro. Both those two are using M two Pro Max and
00:20:53
ultra processors. And the Macbook Air 15 is exactly like
00:20:56
the Macbook Air 13, except with a 15.3 screen. We also saw
00:20:59
previews of IOS 17, ipad, Os 17, MAOs, Sonoma Watchos 10 and also
00:21:05
improvements for the homepod and Apple TV.
00:21:08
And the headline features for IOS 17 are things like being
00:21:11
able to listen to people leaving you a voice mail in real time
00:21:15
and seeing the transcription and then choosing to answer. Should
00:21:18
you wish? So that as people are leaving a message, you can
00:21:21
choose to answer.
00:21:22
I remember doing that on a nokia 17 years ago with an app that
00:21:25
turn your phone into an answering machine. Pixel users
00:21:27
have been able to do it for a while. It's finally there. Also,
00:21:29
if you get a voicemail that you're not listening to live,
00:21:32
you'll see a transcription of that voicemail very handy. If
00:21:34
you can't answer a call and you want to know if that is an
00:21:37
important message or not.
00:21:38
And look, there's stacks of other features, the ability to
00:21:40
check in improvements to messages. I mean, all sorts of
00:21:43
things, go and watch the keynote, go to Tech Advice dot
00:21:45
life. I've got the three main videos on an article there. You
00:21:49
can also find it at Apple and at Apple's YouTube page.
00:21:51
That's Alex Zahar of Rout from Tech Advice dot live and that's
00:22:11
the show for now. SpaceTime is available every Monday,
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