S27E114: Ceres' Origin Debate, Galactic Dark Matter Mystery Solved, and China's Space Plane Returns

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: This is SpaceTime's series 27, episode 114, for broadcasts on the 20th of September 2024. Coming up on SpaceTime, did the dwarf planet series originate in the asteroid belt?

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_00]: A galactic mystery about dark matter and stars finally resolved, and Chinas secretive spaceplane returns to Earth.

[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_00]: All that and more coming up, on SpaceTime.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: A new study has raised fresh questions about the origins of the dwarf planet series,

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_00]: a largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The new findings reported in the

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Journal of Geophysical Research Planets, challenges earlier observations, which suggested that

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: the 960-kilometer wide-frosan rocky world may have formed in the outer reaches of the solar system,

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_00]: and then migrated inwards to its present orbital position. The dwarf planet series is an

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_00]: usually inhabitant of the main asteroid belt. It's not only the largest body by far in the

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_00]: belt, but unlike its more simple fellow inhabitants, it's also characterized by an extremely

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_00]: complex and varied geology. Years ago, NASA's Dawn spacecraft discovered widespread

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: ammonium deposits on the surface of series. At the time, some researchers assumed that this

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: frozen ammonium played a role in the formation of the dwarf planet itself. And that's where

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: got interesting. You see, ammonium is only stable in the outer solar system where it's a lot colder

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00]: than it is where the asteroid belt is. And so that would indicate series origins was far from the

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00]: asteroid belt. However, new findings from the Consus Crater and now raising fresh ideas about series

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_00]: origin. At 450 million years, Consus Crater isn't particularly old by geological standards,

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_00]: but it's one of the oldest surviving crater structures on series. GeetaWitz Deepx

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: evasion, a gift scientist access to processes that took place in the series in terrier many billions

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: of years ago. And thus, it becomes a kind of window into the dwarf planet's past.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Series appears to have been the scene of the unique cry of organism until fairly recently,

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's probably still occurring there. Now this is all based on data obtained by NASA's

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Dawn spacecraft when it's studied series between 2015 and 2018. Light-colored whiteies salt deposits

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_00]: can be found in several impact creators on the dwarf planet. And deposits in the Consus Crater

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_00]: could indicate ammonium rich material that had reached the surface from the depths of the dwarf

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_00]: planet, geeta series volcanism. More precisely, researchers believe that the deposits

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: other remains of a brine that seaped up to the surface from a liquid layer between the mantle

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: on the crust over many billions of years. Images and measured data from the Consus Crater,

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_00]: which scientists have now analysed in fire-graded detail than ever before, showed M2 that is

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: yellowish in color. Now the presence of ammonium therefore doesn't necessarily indicate an

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00]: origin in the outer solar system. In fact, series could well have formed exactly where it's

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: orbiting today. Consus Crater is located in series 7 Hemisphere, with a diameter of around 64

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: kilometers, it's not one of the dwarf planets particularly large impact creators. Images taken

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_00]: by Dawn scientific camera system, shows a confidential crater wall that rises about 4.5

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: kilometers above the crater floor. This wall has been partially eroded inwards. And it

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_00]: encloses a smaller crater, covering an area we've about 15 by 11 kilometers that dominates the

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: eastern half of the Consus Crater floor. The yellowish bright material is found in isolated speckles

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: exclusively on the edge of the smaller crater and to an area slightly east of it. The new

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: data analysis from the Dawn camera system, as well as the VAR spectroscopic reading,

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: suggested that the yellowish bright material in Consus Crater is rich in ammonium.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, in traces this compound which differs from ammonia by additional hydrogen ion

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: is almost only present on the surface of series in the form of ammonium rich minerals.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Now in the past, scientists believed that these minerals could only have formed

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_00]: for contact with ammonium ice in the cold outer edges of the solar system where frozen

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: ammonium is stable over long periods of time. See, in closer proximity to the head of the sun,

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: this ammonium evaporates quickly. And all this suggests that series must therefore

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: have formed at the edge of the solar system and only later migrated to its present location.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_00]: However, the new data shows a connection between ammonium and the salty brine

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: from series interior. Now, the authors of the new study suggest that the dwarf planet's origin

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00]: doesn't necessarily have to be in the outer solar system.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Series could have been native to the asteroid. After all,

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: the authors are assuming that the components of ammonium were already contained in series

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: original building blocks. As ammonium doesn't combine with the typical sorts of minerals found

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: in series matter, it gradually accumulated in a thick layer of brine that extended between

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: the dwarf planet's metal and crust. Cryovocanic activity caused by the ammonium rich brine

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: caused it to rise towards the surface repeatedly over the course of billions of years.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And the ammonium it contained gradually seaved into the large-scale phylasilicates of series

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_00]: crust. Phylasilicates, which are characterized by a layer of crystal structure, are also widespread

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: here on earth in geology like clay soils. The study's lead author and Drase Nathaniel is from

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Acts by Institute, says the minerals in series crust possibly absorb the ammonium over many

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: billions of years, kind of like a sponge. He says there's much the suggest that the concentration

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: of ammonium is greater in deep layers of the crust than what it is near the surface.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: A few places on the surface of series were conspicuous patches of the yellow-ish

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: bright material can be found outside, kind of Scraeta, are also located within deep craters.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00]: He says the impact that created the small eastern crater only 250 million years ago is also

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_00]: likely to have exposed material from deep within the dwarf planet, especially ammonium rich layers

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_00]: in conspicrater. And the yellow-ish bright speckles to the east of the smaller crater could be

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: minerals that were simply ejected debris as a result of that impact. This is space-time.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Still to come, a galactic mystery about dark matter and stars finally solved

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: and China's secretive space plane returns to Earth. All that are more still to come,

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_00]: on space-time. Astronomers have overturned a long-standing idea that stars and dark matter

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: interact with each other in inexplicable ways. The old hypothesis emerged to explain a phenomenon

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: that had puzzled astronomers from more than a quarter of a century that is that the density

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_00]: of matter in different galaxies appears to be decreasing at the same rate from their centers

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: to their outer edges. And this was perplexing because galaxies are fairly diverse, with many

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: different types, ages, shapes and sizes, and many different populations of stars. So why would they all

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: have the same density structure? The state-easely north of Carred Cain in Astro 3D

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Researcher from Aquarium University says this home virginity suggests that dark matter and stars

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: must somehow compensate for each other in order to produce such regular mass gradients.

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: The trouble is no one could explain how this would be happening. If dark matter and stars

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: could interact in this way, astronomers would need to change their understanding of how galaxies

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: form an evolve. The trouble is that they couldn't find an alternative reason to explain what

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: they were seeing. That isn't all now. Decaining colleagues found that the similarity in density

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: might not be due to galaxies themselves but simply how astronomers are measuring and modeling them.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Using the European Southern Observatories' VLT or very large telescope in Chile, they observed

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_00]: 22 middle-age galaxies in extraordinary detail, looking back some 4 billion years in the past

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: due to their great distance. A new study reported in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Society says this enabled the team to create more complex models that better captured

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: the diversity of galaxies across the universe. The Cain says in the past it seems people simply

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: built simple models but are too many simplifications and too many assumptions.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: She says galaxies are more complicated than that. The Cain and colleagues then ran their

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_00]: models on the ASTAR supercomputer at Swinburne University using the equivalent of around 8,000

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: hours of desktop computing time. She says the project used MUSE the multi-unit spectroscopic

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: explorer on the VLT to analyze galaxies from the magpie or middle-age's galaxy properties

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: in integral fields spectroscopic survey. There was observations going back to about the 90s

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and it showed that the structure of these galaxies are always the same. Obviously when you look

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_02]: at a galaxy and you see the stars, they're not all the same structure in this star. You can have

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: stars that have very galaxies that have stars that are very centrally clustered in the center of the

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: galaxy or one bit or more. The galaxies are a bit different. All galaxies are a bit different. When

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: you look at them exactly but then when you look at the total structure like the total mass

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_02]: then they were all the same. That means that the dark matter must be responding to the stars

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_02]: so that you've got some kind of dark matter distribution and the stars are distributed

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: another way but together they always make this same structure. Why would the dark matter do that?

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't really have an explanation for it in the literature but it was his observation

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_00]: that was sort of popping out again and again. You guys had a closer look at the situation.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_02]: We just looked at it in a different way so previously you'd look at the total distribution

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: of mass. Looking at the stars and the dark matter all in one without trying to disentangle

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: one from the other and there were also some modeling assumptions made in there about what could

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: the gravitational field from those components look like. What we did is we said okay let's not

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_02]: assume what the gravitational field looks like. Let's just try and make a model with bit more freedom

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: in it. We use a dynamical modeling technique where we actually look at the orbits of the stars

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: that are in the galaxy and we try and combine these different stellar orbits together

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_02]: to reproduce what we see for the galaxy without imposing anything to strip on what those

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: orbits can actually be. Why looking at the orbits that literally is something about the likely

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_02]: mass of the galaxies that right? Exactly exactly because if you've got a star that if you've got an

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_02]: orbit that's particularly energetic or it's very fast or it's at a particular radius then that

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: by can only happen if you've got a certain mass. The same thing as, you know, if you look at

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_02]: the Earth going around the sun then you can tell the mass of the sun based on how the Earth is

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: moving around it. So you can tell the mass of the galaxy based on how the stars are moving

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_02]: within it and when we did the modeling in this way then the conspiracy just completely

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_02]: broke down. We actually found this huge diversity in how dark matter can be distributed

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: within galaxies and there was no conspiracy to always have the same structure pop up again and again.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: When you do this, is there a need to differentiate between what is stereonic matter in the stars

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and gas in that and what is dark matter? So we model them with different components. So we do say

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: this is the stars and this is the mass that we can attribute to the stars that we can see.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have another component that we call the dark matter but that doesn't necessarily mean

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_02]: that it's an exotic particle. It just means that it's mass that we can't attribute to the stars

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_02]: that we can see. So it could be some other form of mass that's not emitting light for us to

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_02]: know that it's there or it could be some kind of exotic particle but I think that's an ongoing

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: mystery for us to solve in the future. Was it necessary to look at the distribution of the

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: mass to see whether or not the mass of which is attributed to dark matter increases as you get

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: towards the center of the galaxy or towards the edge of the galaxy or anything like that

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_02]: that doesn't necessarily need the play or role. So we did have a model for how the dark matter

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_02]: could be distributed. So there was some very famous simulations run in the 1970s that came up with

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_02]: a distribution for dark matter in galaxies and that's called the Navarro Frank White profile.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So we it assumed that the dark matter would follow this basic distribution but that it could

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_02]: have any amounts or any within a certain section of the galaxy that could be any free fraction

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: of dark matter. So we weren't imposing that it got to kick in at any particular point in the

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_00]: galaxy or anything like that. And once you looked at those galaxies and did those calculations,

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_00]: the idea or this symmetry between dark matter and galactic mass disappeared.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Completely disappeared and we found that there's just a huge amount of variation

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: in where the dark matter is located in galaxies so in some galaxies we found that you need

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: a lot of dark matter very close to the center of the galaxy but the other galaxies the

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_02]: dark matter first far out as we had observations we couldn't find any evidence in needing

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: dark matter in that galaxy to reproduce our observation. So there was just a huge diversity

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: in that dark matter but there was no combination like necessary combination between the stars

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and the dark matter. So there was no universal structure that we were getting from our models

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_02]: that the dark matter was somehow responding to the way that the stars were distributed.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'll keep take away is that galaxies are really

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: the structure is highly variable. There's no sort of universal galaxy structure.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Well you ever did draw any conclusions at all about what role dark matter plays in

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_00]: galactic formation because that's one of the big questions is dark matter the superstructure

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: around which galaxies are formed? Yes, so we still believe that to be the case. So we think

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: that dark matter was the initial mass around which galaxies could form and so without dark matter

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_02]: providing this gravitational force then you wouldn't have galaxies forming as they do.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're not questioning at this point in this study at least the role of dark matter in

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: providing that initial gravitational attraction around which galaxies could color less but it's

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_02]: more in the evolution of these galaxies like what role is it play in continuing to shape

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_02]: galaxies as they go from very early object like you know just after the big bang to the

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of galaxies that we see today. I know that one of the great mantras of just a few years ago

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_00]: was that small irregular galaxies and satellite galaxies would have a lot more dark matter in

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: them than barionic matter but that was never proven. Will you ever to draw any conclusions along

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: those lines at all? I think what we're seeing again and again and even with results that are coming

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: from the James Webb Space Telescope is that we've made in the past a lot of assumptions about

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_02]: our dark matter is going to be prominent at this particular radius of a galaxy so we wouldn't

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_02]: be in the sense of because that's where all the stars and the barion's are. We'd only see it further

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_02]: or even for very you know looking further back into the history of the universe that this type

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_02]: of galaxy would have a lot of dark matter but that type of galaxy like you know spiral galaxy

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: maybe not so much and then a large elliptical galaxy that would have lots of dark matter.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think what we're finding now is when we're looking at these, when we're the observations

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: that can allow us to look at these galaxies in more detail we're just finding that diversity again

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_02]: and again there doesn't seem to be a rule that governs how much dark matter is going to be

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_02]: a galaxy I think is coming more down to what particular pathway has that galaxy followed across

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_02]: its lifetime. I haven't had any interactions and that kind of thing that can actually

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: create the distribution of matter in it that we see today. Any special pleading that gravity

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_00]: may be accidentally at different distances? Yeah you know what I'm getting. Yeah yeah no

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I do yeah so that's the interesting thing with the models that we ran. We said in the

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_02]: but again we're not attributing it to anything in particular. We're not saying this has to be

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_02]: an exotic particle, we're not saying this has to be a modified theory of gravity and you

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: know it could just be stars or gas that we haven't accounted for and our models that aren't

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_02]: really amitting so much light. I think that's still a big thing that we don't know

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_02]: but at the moment we're not able to rule out sort of any of those scenarios I think it's all

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: still to be found out. Mondays still up in the air for now. Yeah definitely.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_00]: This study looked at galaxies out to what about four billion light years. Are you looking

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: at expanding on that? Yeah so I think it would be awesome to grow back further in time

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: and we've got the instruments now that are allowing us to do that. What's really cool about

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_02]: going further back in the history of the universe is that we've done this kind of study before

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_02]: with local galaxies near by neighborhood but because they're actually so close up it's hard to get

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_02]: really far out in terms of the actual galaxy itself. So we're not probing regions but a far

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_02]: out enough to understand what the dark matter is doing and when you go back further into the

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_02]: universe the images that you actually in the data that you collect these galaxies really allows

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: you to probe further out in the galaxy so we're getting about twice as far out with these

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: observations compared to local universe studies. Will you able to draw any conclusions from that

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: or are you seeing the same sort of pattern? Well that was what allowed us to really test

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: distribution of dark matter because if you're only if you can find to the very center of

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: the galaxy and you're trying to understand what the dark matter is doing then it's hard to have

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: enough data to actually draw any same conclusions whereas with this data from the MagPy survey

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: we were pushing so far out to the outer zones of these galaxies that we went guessing what

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: the dark matter was doing we were actually able to measure it. That's covered to keen an Astro 3D

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00]: researcher from Aquarium University and this is space time. Still to come China's secretive

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_00]: space plane returns to Earth and later in the science report could lowering high blood pressure

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: be as simple as eating more cruciferous vegetables or that in more still to come on space time.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_00]: China's highly secretive reusable experimental spacecraft is finally returned to Earth

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_00]: following what was a 268-day marathon orbital mission. The highly classified space plane which is

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: understood to be a rough copy of America's X37B space shuttle was launched back on the

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: 714th aboard a long march to a rocket from the Juquan satellite launch center in China.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Beijing claims the spacecraft's mission was designed to verify reusable technologies

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and to conduct space scientific experiments laying the groundwork for future peaceful space

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_00]: operations. Of course in reality the truth was somewhat different. The spacecraft appeared to be inspecting

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_00]: other spacecraft and occasionally deploying smaller spacecraft towards them for a closer inspection

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_00]: or possibly to place technology on them. The flight was the third for the reusable experimental

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_00]: spacecraft. Its first test took place back in September 2020 with the spacecraft staying in orbit

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: for just under two days. That was followed by 276-day missions starting in August 2022.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Both early emissions were also launched aboard long march to air rockets from Juquan.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Over the years there's been a fair bit of confusion as to whether the same type of spacecraft

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_00]: was used on all three missions. That's because several different designs for this vehicle have

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_00]: surfaced. Of course it would be the first time a totalitarian government is copied American space

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_00]: technology. United States pioneered the reusable space plane technology with its fleet of

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: space shuttles back in the 1970s. They remained operational for 30 years before finally being retired

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_00]: early in 2011. But not before the Kremlin copied the design and produced the almost identical

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_00]: brand. The Soviet Union however soon discovered that the space shuttle technology while very advanced

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_00]: was also very expensive to operate with each flight costing over half a billion dollars to launch.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_00]: In recent years reusable spacecraft designs have advanced somewhat and vehicles such as Boeing's

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_00]: X37B which was originally designed to travel in the cargo bay of the space shuttle,

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_00]: as sparked renewed interest due to their smaller size, reduced operating costs and simplified

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_00]: operations. An hour-to-peers Beijing is following in Muskers footsteps,

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: coveting American technology and trying to work out exactly why the United States is using it.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: This is space time. An entire amount of take another brief look at some of the other stories

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_00]: making using science this week with the science report. A new study is shown that

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_00]: cruciferous vegetables including broccoli, cabbage kale and cauliflower have been found to lower

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: blood pressure in middle-aged and order adults in comparison to root the squash vegetables.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_00]: In a randomized controlled crossover trial, researchers from Edith Cowon University found that

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00]: consuming four serves the day off cruciferous vegetables resulted in a significant reduction

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_00]: in blood pressure compared to four daily serves of root and squash vegetables including carrots,

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00]: potato, sweet potato and pumpkin. The authors say compounds called gluca signulates which

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: are found almost exclusively in cruciferous vegetables are appearing to lower blood pressure.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Increasing vegetable intake is already widely recommended to reduce heart disease risk,

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and previous observational studies have shown that cruciferous vegetables like broccoli,

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_00]: cabbage and Brussels sprouts have stronger relationships with lower heart disease risk than other

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_00]: vegetables. However while these vegetables are consumed globally, cruciferous vegetables typically

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_00]: only make up a small portion of total vegetable intake. The study reported the journal BMC Medicine

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_00]: was conducted over a six-week period with participants completing two week dietary interventions

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_00]: separated by two week wash-out periods but they followed them all diet.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Given scientists have found that larger bumblebees tend to fly faster when faraging,

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_00]: but middle-aged bees fly longer and further. Bees at one to three weeks of age

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: were attached to a flight mill to flight in circles with a distance duration and speeds of

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: flights measured. It turns out their speeds were influenced more by body size than by age,

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_00]: but the flight distances in durations did correlate better with age. A report of the journal

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_00]: that precedes the raw society bee found that one week or bees tend to have the shortest

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: flights, typically less than 100 meters. But bees reach their peak distance in durations at two

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: weeks of age before declining a little at age three weeks. And you study a show and that dogs can

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: remember the names of objects for two years after learning them. A report in the journal biology

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_00]: letters looked at five gifted wood-learning dog families. In a previous study, six border

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_00]: colleagues from around the world who knew their toys names as reported by their families were

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_00]: taught the names of 12 new toys and had a higher than random chance of retrieving the correct

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00]: one for up to two months afterwards. Now in this new study, five of the dogs were reintroduced

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: to these toys after two years and asked the fetched them by name with most still remembering

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_00]: 60 to 75% of the names. They also say their findings can be generalized for other dogs, but

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_00]: similarities or differences in how such gifted dogs and humans form long-term memories of labels

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_00]: might help scientists understand how different abilities evolved in the human brain to help form language.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It was once described as the UFO capital of Australia, but now the Waccliffe will

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_00]: grow houses just to go down. The settlement located on the Stuart Highway near Tenet Creek in

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_00]: the Northern Territory's Outback included a bar at General Stort at Caravan Park. But over the years,

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_00]: this tiny desert oasis began to gain a reputation for UFO sightings a feature the owners

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_00]: were quick to play upon. There were reports of flashing lights around the sky to increase

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: him in new vise that were hard to explain. The owners set up murals and silver nest ants with

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_00]: those cards, keyrings and books. There was even a ledger of so-called UFO sightings and there

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_00]: were regular night tours for alien in your phoentus lists, but as Tim Mendom from Australian

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_00]: skeptics reports, eventually the UFO bubble burst. I sort of worked with well and actually

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_01]: did it's on the main highway. Yeah, the Stuart Highway. That ran through the only highway,

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_01]: they ran up through the middle of Northern Territory. In the pretty eye for laser levels, I believe.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it right? They're I stopped with a devil's marble. Yeah, so they're very cool right if we

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_00]: wait. Yeah near that oi, you go through a tenant creek and then there's the devil's

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_00]: going south that's just south of Tenet Creek. Tenet Creek's the big junction for the road to Queensland.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's the back of the highway. Exactly. It's an open-mouth. Never heard of it.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I've stayed in Tenet Creek twice, so there's one trip I went up there in across. I went

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: into the devil's marble. So somewhere around that trip I must have driven straight past my

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_01]: cliff. Well, which is probably not that heavy hill. It was a roadhouse with a bit of a

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: ant park and a little bit of a motel. Yeah, but apparently there was someone on people

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_01]: have seen UFOs in the area. They didn't get my publicity from that point of view. It was a

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: light-flated roadhouse with someone coveted a local newspaper and Bingo has suddenly became

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_01]: famous around the world and he had lifts through the world's top-end sights for seeing UFOs

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and what was well was one of them. We should put out at this stage that any UFOs could have

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_00]: been high-flying aircraft because it's right on one of the main flight routes between Asia and

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_00]: South of Australia where Adelaide's located. It's also on the flight path between Darwin and

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Alice Springs. And of course, being on the Stuart Highway, you're going to have lots of road

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_00]: trains going along there with their headlights on, their rural lights on, their floodlights

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and any atmospheric disturbance all cause a light from those trucks to appear to be in the

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_01]: sky rather than on the ground. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's a whole range of reasons why people

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_01]: might be seeing UFOs or, you know, we were facing close in that area. I mean, they probably

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_01]: were seeing them all up and down the area as well. So if it is on a flight path like that,

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01]: it is on a major highway and the highway runs straight up through the area. All those reasons,

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_01]: you should be seeing UFOs all the way. It should be the UFO highway if anything. The

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_01]: not just one place. But apparently you've got a lot of interest in having them. They started

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: putting up with the aliens and things all over the place and they were just tiny little roadhouse

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: with a caravan park and a motel for the game famous. But the world guide lifts to places you

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_01]: should be as if you want to see UFOs. The fella who ran the place, he bought a back in the 80s,

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_01]: he just before it became famous. He ended up doing tours and going out UFOs spiking and all

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_01]: this sort of stuff. And he said, it's a little isolated right house in the middle of nowhere.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Pella who followed it, also did the same thing. It reminds me a lot of area 51 in the United

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_00]: States where the local roadhouse got on the UFO Badwagon and also the Roswell in New Mexico

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_01]: for the same reason. Yeah, most of the actual activity that Roswell considered about

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_01]: happened when he was well. But at the town, the close of town, as they picked up all on the

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_00]: ground, the whole town. That's where the radio station and newspaper were based out. That's

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_01]: where the air force base was. That's where the air force base was. Yeah, so yeah, this was a lot of

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_01]: town. This was one little roadhouse. And it became very popular. The trouble is that change

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_01]: hangs again. It changed him to a big petrol company who was only interested in how much petrol

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01]: they sold. They weren't that apparently the owner who didn't sold it to them said that

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_01]: they didn't see it. That interested them following up from promoting a UFO. Those sort of

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_01]: guide out of it in the notoriety. Not helped by a flood that raced through the area. It actually took

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_01]: away a lot of the infrastructure of this roadhouse. And probably became a bit of a ruin. So unfortunately,

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_01]: blackly of well is no longer the site to go to. So I want to see a ghost house and I don't

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_01]: know what happened to the UFOs that they got onto a different roadhouse or what but the UFO

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_01]: should still be there. I would say that that means the roadhouse to actually appear but apparently

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_01]: you're great site better. Thank you to a lot of people. It's very wonderful to go there.

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's Tim Minden from Australia in skeptics. And that's the show for now. Space

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_00]: time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcast iTunes,

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Stitcher, Google Podcast, Podcasts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Bite.com, SoundCloud,

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_00]: YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider and from spacetime with Stuart Gary.com.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Space Times also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and on both I-Heart Radio and Tune in Radio. And you can help to support our show by visiting

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_00]: the Space Time store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies or by becoming a space

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_00]: time patron which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show as well

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_00]: as lots of burnous audio content which doesn't go to air, access to our exclusive Facebook group

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and other rewards. Just go to spacetime with Stuart Gary.com for full details.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And if you want more space time, please check out our blog where you'll find all the stuff

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: we couldn't fit in the show as well as heaps of images, new stories, loads of videos and things

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_00]: on the way by finding just doing what I'm using. Just go to spacetime with Stuart Gary.com.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_00]: That's all one word and that's Tumblr without the E. You can also follow us through

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_00]: at Stuart Gary on Twitter, at Space Time with Stuart Gary on Instagram, through our spacetime

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_00]: YouTube channel and on Facebook just go to facebook.com forward slash space time with Stuart Gary.

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_00]: You've been listening to Space Time with Stuart Gary. This has been another quality podcast

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_01]: production from Bytes.com.