[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 111, for broadcast on the 13th of September 2024.
[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Coming up on SpaceTime, evidence of an unexpected population of Kuiper Belt objects.
[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_02]: A new study shows the Martian polar ice caps are not created equally.
[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And Europe's new Artemis III Service Module, which will be used for man's return to the
[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_02]: lunar surface, is now on its way to NASA. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.
[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.
[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_02]: A new study has detected an unexpected population of very distant bodies in the Kuiper Belt.
[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_02]: The findings, reported in the Planetary Science Journal of the American Astronomical Society
[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_02]: and on the pre-pressed physics website archive.org, are based on data collected
[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: by NASA's New Horizons Kuiper Belt search team using the 8.2-metre Subaru Telescope in Hawaii.
[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_02]: The Kuiper Belt is a distant ring of icy objects, frozen debris and comets which
[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_02]: circles the Sun beyond the orbit of Neptune. But these new findings mean the Kuiper Belt may
[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_02]: extend much further into deep space than formerly thought. Or alternatively, there's
[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_02]: a second separate Kuiper Belt beyond the one observationally discovered back in the 1990s.
[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It implies that the New Horizons spacecraft, which is now some 60 times further from the Sun
[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_02]: than the Earth, hasn't yet left the Kuiper Belt as earlier thought.
[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Studies lead author Wes Fraser from the National Research Council of Canada says
[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: the solar system's Kuiper Belt long appeared to be very small in comparison with many other
[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: planetary systems. But these new results suggest that idea may simply have arisen due to
[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_02]: observational bias. He says the Subaru observations searched down to fainter detection
[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02]: limits, finding a significant Kuiper Belt mass at 70 to 90 times further from the Sun than the
[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Earth. So if this new result is confirmed, it means the Kuiper Belt isn't all that small
[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and unusual after all when compared to those around other stars. One possibility is that this
[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: new population of Kuiper Belt objects could simply be a dynamically resonant population
[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: with Neptune gravitationally affecting these Kuiper Belt objects in just the right way
[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_02]: to cause their orbital period to be a precise multiple of Neptune's orbital period.
[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Alternatively however, this new population of Kuiper Belt objects may challenge some
[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_02]: aspects of current models of the solar system's formation, suggesting that the disc of
[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_02]: protoplanetary material from which the solar system was formed must have been much larger
[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_02]: than previously thought. This is space time. Still to come, the Martian polar ice caps
[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_02]: found not to have been created equally after all and the Artemis 3 service module which
[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: will help power humankind's return to the Moon's surface now on its way to NASA. All that
[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_02]: more still to come on space time. A new study has confirmed that the Martian polar ice caps
[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: are evolving very differently from each other. People who observe the bright Martian poles wax
[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_02]: and wend for centuries, but it's really only been in the last 50 years that scientists
[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_02]: discovered that they're almost comprised completely of carbon dioxide which is cycling
[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: in and out of the Martian atmosphere to the rhythm of the red planet's seasons.
[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_02]: This new study in the journal Icarus shows that exactly how this happens is a far more complex
[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_02]: interplay of processes which scientists are only now starting to gradually tease out.
[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_02]: The findings are based on observations by the high resolution imaging experiment or high rise
[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_02]: instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. It compared how the
[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_02]: two Martian poles differ in their seasonal uptake and release of carbon dioxide.
[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_02]: The study's lead author Candice Hanson from the Planetary Science Institute says the goal
[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_02]: of the study was to shed light on the processes which shape the planet's surface as well as Mars'
[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: overall climate, since Mars cycles about a quarter of its atmosphere throughout the Martian year.
[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Like Earth's 23.5 degree tilt, Mars also spins on a tilted axis, about 25 degrees,
[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: and so consequently it experiences seasons. But Mars has a much longer path around the sun.
[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It's also far more eccentric than the Earth. In other words, its orbit's far more elongated.
[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_02]: If Mars' path around the sun was a perfect circle, then all of its seasons would be equally long.
[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But its eccentricity situates Mars further from the sun during the southern hemisphere
[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_02]: autumn and winter, which is simultaneously the Martian northern hemisphere's spring and summer.
[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: That makes these seasons for each hemisphere the longest for the planet.
[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Another point to remember is that Mars' southern hemisphere is also significantly
[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_02]: more elevated than the northern hemisphere, much of which is thought to have once been
[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: part of a great ocean. So ultimately the southern autumn and winter on Mars bring about
[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: most of the freezing and lowest atmospheric pressure, since so much of the atmosphere is
[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: frozen as dry ice at this time. And these are the major drivers of the differences in
[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_02]: seasonal behaviour of carbon dioxide between the two red planet hemispheres.
[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Now by contrast, the Martian northern winter is not only a lot shorter than the southern
[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_02]: winter, but also coincides with dust storm season. So as a result, the northern polar
[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: seasonal ice cap contains a much higher concentration of dust than the southern polar ice cap,
[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: making the ice less robust. And differences in the northern and southern polar terrains
[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: also impact how carbon dioxide, ice and gas escape the landscape. For example,
[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_02]: in the southern hemisphere black dust fans distribute across the landscape.
[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_02]: A layer of carbon dioxide ice builds up in the southern hemisphere's autumn,
[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: and over the course of the winter it thickens and becomes more translucent.
[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Then in the spring, the sun comes up and the light penetrates the ice layer to the bottom
[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: enough that it warms up the ground underneath the ice sheet. This warm ground then turns
[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_02]: the carbon dioxide ice into a gas, a process called sublimation. Now this gas being trapped
[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_02]: under pressure is going to look for any weak spots in the ice and then rupture through
[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_02]: it like a champagne cork. As soon as it finds a weak spot, the ice ruptures and then
[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: rushes out to the break, carving the surface of the weak spot along the way.
[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And that creates a network of gully channels that splay out across the landscape.
[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_02]: These are called araniforms because of their spider-like appearance.
[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Once the gas breaks through the ice, it blows dark dust into the atmosphere.
[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It turns out that meteorology is really important in this picture as well.
[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That's because from there the dust is blown by whatever winds happen to be present,
[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_02]: landing in a fan-shaped deposit. Geophysicist Youkifa first described this process in 2006.
[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: A few years later Hansen followed up with her own model of the northern polar ice cap,
[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: which also displays these fans in the spring. She found that the same phenomena
[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: was occurring in the north but rather than relatively flat terrain, these processes play
[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: out across sand dunes. Hansen says that when the sun comes up and begins to sublimate the
[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: crust of the dune, one at the bottom of the dune where it meets the surface,
[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_02]: and then the ice itself can crack along the slope.
[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_02]: No araniform terrains have been detected in the north because although shallow
[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_02]: furrows develop, the wind winds up smoothing the sand on the dunes.
[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_02]: This is space time. Still to come, the Artemis III service module on its way to NASA
[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_02]: to prepare for man's return to the lunar surface and later in the science report a
[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_02]: new model to come on space time. The European Space Agency's Artemis III service module,
[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_02]: destined for use on the historic mission that will return humans to the lunar surface in 2026,
[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: has commenced its journey to the Kennedy Space Center. It marks a critical milestone
[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_02]: for the third European service module, ESM3. The module was manufactured in Italy.
[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It was then assembled at the Airbus factory in Bremen, Germany with components sourced from
[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: over 20 companies across more than 10 European countries. It's now making its way to the Kennedy
[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Space Center aboard the transport ship Canopy, a journey of approximately 12 days across the
[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: North Atlantic Ocean. The European service module is an essential component of NASA's
[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Orion spacecraft. It provides power, propulsion and life support systems for the astronauts
[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_02]: during their deep space mission to the moon and back. This marks the third such
[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_02]: service module delivered by ESA and follows the successful Artemis I mission and ongoing
[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_02]: preparations for Artemis II. That will launch next year on the first mission to take astronauts
[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_02]: around the moon since the days of Apollo. The journey of ESM3 began in Turin at the
[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Thalassa Linear Space Facility where the module's structural backbone was constructed.
[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: This complex structure supports 11 kilometers of wiring, 33 thruster engines, four tanks of
[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: homes. Following its final assembly in Bremen, the module's main engine,
[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_02]: one with the legacy of nine space shuttle missions, was installed earlier this year.
[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Upon arrival at the Kennedy Space Center, ESM3 will be integrated into the crew module adapter
[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and then the crew module itself. Extensive testing will then follow to ensure everything
[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_02]: is in readiness for the Artemis III mission which aims to land astronauts on the moon near
[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_02]: South Pole sometime in 2026. It will be the first time humans have returned to the lunar surface
[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: in over 50 years. This report from ESA TV. For over 50 years we've been inspired by the
[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: first humans to walk on the moon. Now the European Space Agency and NASA are working
[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: together on a modern day version of the Apollo program. Called Artemis, it will put astronauts
[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_05]: back on the lunar surface. The Apollo missions have mainly landed in the illuminated equatorial
[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_05]: area of the moon but there are much more interesting areas to be explored like the
[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_05]: poles and like the dark side of the moon. The today most visible European contribution
[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_05]: to lunar exploration programs is the ESA developed service module, the propulsion and power
[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_01]: module of the Artemis crew module. The European Service Module or ESM is the heart of the
[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Artemis spacecraft. It will provide electricity, water and air to NASA's Orion crew capsule
[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: as well as maintaining temperature for life support. Its engines will provide propulsion
[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: and navigation control for the journey to the moon and back. ESA's industrial partner Airbus
[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_01]: has already built two service modules for Orion with hardware from companies throughout Europe.
[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Artemis 3 will see a woman and a man walk on the lunar surface continuing where the Apollo
[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_04]: program left off half a century ago. We have companies in 10 countries helping to put this
[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_04]: ESM together and actually there are hundreds and thousands of people working within Airbus but
[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_04]: all in our partner companies to make this endeavor a successful mission. This joint step
[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_01]: towards revisiting the lunar surface will continue the long-standing tradition of
[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_03]: international cooperation in space. Space is one of the best examples for international
[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_03]: cooperation in terms of science and technology. Our ISS is a multinational project and we've seen
[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of projects there that really bring together the whole community in terms of
[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_03]: space and exploration and to do this work together as scientists working on the same aim
[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_01]: working for mankind. The next two flights of the Artemis program will be crewed lunar
[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_01]: missions with power, propulsion and life support also provided by the second and third European
[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_06]: service modules. The moon is really our eighth continent and it's there to be discovered.
[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Astronauts, engineers and scientists are very excited to go to the moon because it's pure
[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_06]: exploration. It's discovering terra incognita. We would go to regions that were never been
[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_06]: explored by a human neither robotically nor in person. And in that report from ESA TV we
[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: heard from Nico Detman head of development of human robotic exploration with the European
[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Space Agency as well as Andreas Hammer head of development and human robotics exploration with
[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Airbus, Klaus Peter Wilsch the chair of the aviation and space group in the German
[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Bundestag and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst. This is space time. Time now to take another
[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with the
[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_02]: science report. New research has detailed how the highly pathogenic avian flu virus H5N1
[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_02]: has spread rapidly into wildlife on South Georgia Island off the coast of mainland
[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Antarctica as well as the Falkland Islands further north. The findings reported in the
[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Journal Nature Communications claims the fragile ecosystem of the islands had been
[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_02]: free of the virus until it was first detected there during the summer of 2022-23.
[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Genetic assessment found the virus had spread from South America likely through
[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_02]: migratory birds and infected a range of local birds such as black forid albatross,
[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: skewers, kelp gulls and even two seal species. However based on their findings the authors
[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: say there's no clear evidence that the virus is adapting to be better at infecting mammals.
[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_02]: A new study has concluded that New Zealand's first animal species were likely kakapo, small
[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: wrens, bats and freshwater limpetts rather than more recent Australian immigrants like kiwi
[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_02]: birds, giant moa and takake. The findings reported in the Journal Geobios are based on detailed
[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: studies by paleontologists following some two decades of ground-breaking research at the
[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_02]: St Bethan's fossil site in central Otago. Their new paper summarises the extraordinary
[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_02]: creatures that have been discovered at the dig site since 2001 including a giant parrot,
[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_02]: two mystery mammals as well as flamingos, a three-metre crocodile, a giant horn turtle
[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and a giant bat. It also reveals that birds once thought to be the oldest representatives
[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_02]: of New Zealand fauna like kiwi and moa are in fact more recent arrivals from across the ditch
[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_02]: in Australia. A new study has confirmed that over the last decade HIV diagnoses in Australia
[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: have continued to follow a downward trend despite an isolated increase last year. The
[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_02]: findings are based on new data from the Kirby Institute at the University of New South
[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Wales which show that overall HIV diagnoses have reduced by over a third over the last decade
[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: with diagnoses dropping by almost two-thirds among Australian born gay and bisexual men.
[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_02]: But in 2023 722 new HIV diagnoses were reported, that's up from 553 in 2022.
[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was still a lower number of annual cases compared to pre-pandemic levels.
[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: However in the past 10 years diagnoses have increased slightly among people living with
[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_02]: HIV acquired through heterosexual sex and among people born overseas. The data also shows that
[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_02]: HIV cases have remained stable among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And time now for what must be the silliest story of the week. Paranormal investigator Ron
[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Halliday has put his own spin on Eric Van Daniken's Chariots of the Gods claims that
[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_02]: aliens built the pyramids, instead claiming that two famous Scottish archaeological sites
[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_02]: on Orkney were intended as protection from nuclear war in a battle with aliens.
[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not just the north of Scotland. Halliday and colleagues think monoliths and
[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_02]: monuments dotted across the British Isles could also have been built to fend off
[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_02]: extraterrestrial terror. Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptic says as with all good
[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: UFO theories Halliday insists there's been a massive cover-up. Ancient monuments in Scotland
[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_00]: there has been a suggestion by one particular paranormal investigator that various ancient
[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_00]: monuments in Scotland have actually been put up there to protect us from nuclear war and as
[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: the indication of an ancient battle with aliens. Now the interesting thing is the two sites
[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_00]: that are named in this article are Scarabray and Mays Howe both of which in Orkney on the
[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_00]: island is north of John O'Groves not the mainland Scotland and as it happens I've been
[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_00]: to both of those places and I've got little brochures right in front of me actually about
[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Scarabray and Mays Howe and neither of them were particularly suitable to protect
[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_00]: from nuclear war or as indication of an ancient battle with aliens. Scarabray is an
[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: excavated village almost like a whole lot of little houses that were built into a dune in a
[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_00]: way there was some sort of helicy area near the water and they sort of joined up together there's
[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_00]: little paths between them but it's really almost like it's a very very big house or
[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of little houses and they're joined together. It was covered by the sand eventually
[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_00]: people left people found something else better to do somewhere better to live than in the top
[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: of Orkney where it's very cold and windy so they abandoned this place and it got
[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: covered in sand and was discovered later on and dug up no indication of anything any nuclear war
[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: about it or battle with aliens. Mays Howe is one of those hillock tombs very big one very good one
[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_00]: it's an enormous sort of dome shaped hill man-made with a tomb inside it and one of those ones that
[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: lines up with winter solstice sun dawn coming in through one hole in the building. That
[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_00]: doesn't look particularly it looks probably could look like a bit of a bunker wouldn't fit a
[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_00]: lot of people in there I must admit if you're having a nuclear war you would not going to
[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: stories that it talks about carvings of people look like they're running away from something
[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_00]: which could be true we're talking about 5 000 years ago so these things were vikings
[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a bit earlier than vikings yeah like about sort of 4 000 years yeah these are old old old
[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_00]: things ancient neolithic civilizations etc and mays howe though does actually have viking
[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_00]: writing in almost graffiti actually you can say that it was apparently a lot of people
[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_00]: coming back from the crusade Sven was here Sven was here yeah it's very close to that
[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: actually saying that someone was here and one of them said my wife is very beautiful and had a
[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_00]: picture of a dog there was a famous lion drawing there's a bird or perhaps an otter or something
[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_00]: there's different drawings and things but these were done later like you know 4 000 years later
[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_00]: definitely not of the time that mays howe was built and they are basically graffiti from
[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_00]: soldiers returning from the crusade it's a strange theory that a nuclear war obviously
[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_00]: involves aliens and that sort of stuff aliens having special technologies and things but these
[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: particular ancient monuments or ones of village show no indication at all of any of this stuff
[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_00]: no radio you fall out no nothing sand has filled these things semi-filled scarab ray obviously as
[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_00]: they say it's all covered up in these two booklets that i happen to have on these two
[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: sites none of them mention nuclear war or ancient aliens that's tim endham from austrian
[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: skeptics and that's the show for now space time is available every monday wednesday and
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