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This is Space Time Series 27 Episode 31, for broadcast on the
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11th of March 2024. Coming up on Space Time, The oldest dead
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galaxy ever seen, raising new questions about galactic
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evolution. SpaceX looking at March 14 for the next Starship
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test launch. And the Optimus satellite launches, marking a
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new era for Australia and satellite servicing. All that
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and more coming up. I'm Space Time.
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Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
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Astronomers have found a galaxy that suddenly stopped forming
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new stars more than 13 billion years ago. The study's authors,
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using the Webb Space Telescope, spotted the dead galaxy at a
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time when the universe was just 700 million years old, making it
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the oldest such galaxy ever observed. The galaxy appears to
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have lived fast and died young.
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Star formation happened quickly and then stopped almost just as
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quickly. And that's totally unexpected for a time so early
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in the evolution of the universe. The study's authors
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say it's still unclear whether the galaxy's quenched state is
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temporary or permanent, or for that matter, what caused it to
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stop forming stars in the first place.
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The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, could be
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important to help astronomers understand how and why galaxies
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stop forming new stars, and whether the factors affecting
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star formation have changed over the years.
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The study's lead author, Tobias Looser, from the Kavli Institute
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For Cosmology, says the first few hundred million years of the
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universe was a very active phase, with lots of gas clouds
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collapsing to form new stars. He says galaxies need a rich supply
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of gas to form stars, and the early universe was like an
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all-you-can-eat buffet.
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See, it's normally only much later in the evolution of the
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universe that we start to see galaxies stop forming new stars,
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whether that's due to a black hole... Or something else like a
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gravitational perturbation. Astronomers believe star
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formation can be slowed or stopped by different factors,
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all of which will starve a galaxy of the gas it needs to
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form new stars.
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Internal factors, such as a supermassive black hole, or some
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sort of feedback from star formation, can push gas out of a
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galaxy, causing star formation to stop rapidly. Alternatively,
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gas can simply be consumed very quickly by star formation
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without being promptly replenished by fresh gas from
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the surrounding galaxy.
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That results in galaxy starvation. But the authors
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aren't sure if any of these scenarios can explain the Webb
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observations. Until now, to understand the early universe,
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astronomers have relied on models, well, let's face it,
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they're based on what we see in the modern day universe today.
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But now that astronomers are seeing so much further back in
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space-time thanks to Webb, and they've observed that star
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formation was quenched so rapidly in this galaxy, models
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based on the modern universe will need to be revised. The
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authors determined that the galaxy did experience a short
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and intense period of star formation over somewhere between
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30 and 90 million years.
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But between 10 and 20 million years before that point in time,
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when it was observed by Webb, star formation had suddenly
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stopped. Luce says it seems that everything happened faster and
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more dramatically in the early universe, and that might include
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galaxies moving from a star formation phase to a dormant or
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quenched phase.
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Astronomers have previously observed dead galaxies in the
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early universe, but this galaxy is the oldest so far, just 700
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million years after the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years
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ago. In addition to being the oldest, this galaxy is also
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relatively low in mass.
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It's about the same size as the Small Magellanic Cloud, a
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satellite dwarf galaxy orbiting our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
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Although it's worth pointing out that the Small Magellanic Cloud
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is still forming new stars.
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Other quenched galaxies in the early universe have always been
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far more massive, but Webb's improved sensitivity allows
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smaller and fainter galaxies to be observed and analysed.
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Studies authors say although it appears to be dead at the time
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of the observation, the It's possible that in the 13.1
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billion years since, this galaxy may have come back to life and
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started forming new stars again.
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The team are now looking for other galaxies just like this
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one in the early universe, which will help place constraints on
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how and why galaxies stop forming new stars. It could be a
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case that galaxies in the early universe die and then burst back
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into life, but the study's authors will need more
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observations to help them figure that one out.
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This is Space Time. Still to come, SpaceX looking at March 14
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for their next Starship test flight, and Australian-based
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Space Machines Company say their Optimus satellite servicing
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vehicle has safely reached orbit and is operational. All that and
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more still to come on Space Time.
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SpaceX is looking at March 14th as the likely earliest date for
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the third launch attempt of the Company's massive new Starship
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Super Heavy rocket. The Starship Super Heavy is the world's
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biggest and most powerful rocket.
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It stands some 121 metres in height and generates some 16.7
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million pounds, that's 74.3 meganewtons of thrust, almost
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double that of the world's second most powerful rocket,
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NASA's SLS or Space Launch System Orion moon rocket. The
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new test flight from SpaceX's Starbase launch complex at Boca
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Chica in Texas will try to achieve orbital altitude before
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splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
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And that's different from the previous two launch attempts,
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both of which were aiming for a Pacific Ocean splashdown north
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of Hawaii. SpaceX were forced to issue a self-destruct order to
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blow up the launch vehicle during the first test flight
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back in April 2023, after the Starship upper stage failed to
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separate from the Super Heavy core stage four minutes into the
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flight.
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Several of the Super Heavy's Raptor engines failed to light
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up during the flight, possibly due to damage caused by debris
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thrown up by the rocket's thrust blasting the launch pad into
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bits.
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The lack of engines during ascent meant the rocket simply
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failed to reach the speed and altitude needed for a successful
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stage separation. Instead, it entered an uncontrolled spin
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before stage separation due to loss of thrust vector control,
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triggering the activation of the flight termination system.
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The second flight back in November last year lasted a
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little bit longer with stage separation using the hot staging
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technique successfully undertaken. The launch also saw
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the introduction of a new water deluge system as part of the
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ground support equipment at the launch pad. The good news is
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that during the climb to orbit, all 33 Raptor engines continued
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to fire for their full flight duration.
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But after hot staging separation and the initiation of the flip
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maneuver and boost back burn, several core stage booster
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engines began shutting down. That was expected, but one of
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them suddenly exploded, resulting in the destruction of
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the core stage. The failure was eventually traced to a filler
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blockage.
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That led to inadequate inlet pressure in the engine oxidizer
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turbopumps. Meanwhile, the upper stage, or Starship, continued to
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ascend to orbit, flying for a total of seven minutes until a
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leak developed in the aft section while a planned liquid
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oxygen venting was underway.
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That triggered a combustion event which interrupted
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communications between the spacecraft's flight computers,
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causing a full engine shutdown. And that triggered the
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autonomous self-destruct system to initiate. Flight termination
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happened just as Starship reached an altitude of 150km and
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a velocity of 24km per hour.
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The thing is, Starship becoming operational plays an important
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part in NASA's Artemis man-moon project. That's because a
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specially modified version of Starship, called the HLS, will
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be used as a lunar shuttle in 2026, rendezvousing and docking
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with an Orion capsule in cislunar orbit, and then
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transporting the Artemis III crew and their equipment down to
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the lunar surface and back up again.
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So, not only will SpaceX need to show that it can launch, fly and
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land Starship safely, it will need to prove that it can do so
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multiple times, as several tanker versions of Starship will
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also need to be launched in order to refuel the lunar
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version of the spacecraft in Earth orbit for its mission to
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the moon.
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For SpaceX boss Elon Musk, it's all part of a much bigger
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picture. Musk sees the Super Heavy Lift Starship as a
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colonial transport system, eventually replacing the Falcon
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9 and the Dragon capsule to carry humans not just to orbit
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or the moon, but onto Mars and beyond. Musk believes that
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mankind needs to establish a second permanent colony in
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space.
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With all humans living just on the Earth, It's a case of all
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our eggs being in the one basket. And that's where the
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Super Heavy Starship comes in. It can carry 100 people or 100
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tons into orbit in one go, and therefore will play a crucial
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role in setting up colonies on other worlds. This Space Time.
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Still to come, Australian-based Space Machines Company say their
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Optimus satellite servicing vehicle is safely in orbit and
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operational. And 2024 is proving to be a spectacular year for
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skywatchers, with highlights including next month's total
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solar eclipse across North America and a series of four
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supermoons in succession in August, September, October and
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November. All that and more still to come on Space Time.
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Thank Australian-based Space Machines Company say their
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Optimus satellite servicing vehicle is safely in orbit and
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operational. The spacecraft was flown into orbit aboard a Falcon
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9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California
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as part of SpaceX's Transporter 10 mission.
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Following its deployment from the Falcon 9 upper stage, the
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270kg satellite will fly to its planned orbital slot and
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undertake a full testing campaign. Optimus is the first
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Australian commercial satellite to provide life extension
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services, inspections and on-orbit assistance to existing
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orbital spacecraft.
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Space Machines Company says it plans to expand its orbital
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servicing vehicle fleet with further spacecraft launches.
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This is Space Time. Still to come! 2024 proved to be a
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spectacular year for astronomy, with highlights including next
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month's total solar eclipse in North America and a series of no
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less than four supermoons in a row between August and November.
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And later in the Science Report, the World Meteorological
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Organization says the current El Niño event is one of the five
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strongest on record. All that and more still to come on Space
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Time.
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Well, it seems 2024 is proving to be a spectacular year for sky
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watchers, with highlights including next month's total
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solar eclipse across North America on April 8th. The lunar
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eclipse, which normally comes either two weeks before or after
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it, will be a bit of a dumper this year, because it won't be a
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full lunar eclipse. Instead, the event on March 25th will be a
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penumbral lunar eclipse.
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That means the full moon will move through the faint outer
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part of Earth's shadow known as Penumbra. Macquarie University
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astrophysicist Professor Richard Grace says this type of eclipse
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is not as dramatic as the full or even partial lunar eclipse,
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but it's still worth a look. Grace says other highlights of
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2024 will include a series of four supermoons in succession on
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August 20, September 18, October 17 and November 16.
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The concept of a supermoon is in essence that the moon is close
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to the sun. To us on its orbit around the Earth. The orbit is
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not entirely circular, so sometimes it gets a bit closer,
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sometimes a bit more distant. When it's a full moon, and the
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moon is at its closest approach, it's called a supermoon, and we
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have four of those in succession this year, in August, September,
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October, and November.
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It's not that spectacular if you just look at the moon high in
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the sky, but if the moon is close to the horizon, closest to
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moonrise or moonset, and you look at it, it might look a bit
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bigger, and that's more like... More psychological effects, but
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at least if you know, then it might seem like it.
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Now, we also have a blue new moon. A blue moon means that we
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have two full moons during a month. And so blue moons happen
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occasionally, but this year we have a new moon. So we have two
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new moons happening during the month. One is on the 1st of
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December. And one on the 31st of December. Now, new moons are
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obviously very difficult to see.
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We can see Andromeda from where we are in this part of the
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world.
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Andromeda is visible from Australia. This could not be a
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problem. One could read binoculars, though, because it's
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very difficult to see with the naked eye. Rather impossible and
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have very good eyesight. And Andromeda is best visible in the
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latter half of the, latter quarter of the year, from
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October to December.
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It's the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way. It's similar,
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perhaps bigger, perhaps more massive than Our Milky Way. And
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so best visibility is, of course, when there is no moon.
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It has to be dark, otherwise you won't see it. And it's
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relatively close to the northern horizon.
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Well, as I said, it's probably slightly larger and more massive
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than the Milky Way, with lots of stars, but it's... Quite far
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away, and those stars are spread over a fairly large area, and so
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individual stars themselves don't contribute too much at the
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distance of the Earth. But together, it's like a plane,
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supposedly, at the distance of about 2.5 million light years.
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And, of course, it's getting a little bit closer every day.
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Well, it is getting a bit closer every day, but we have to wait
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about 4.5 billion years before we really work with the
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Andromeda Galaxy. So there is no danger of a collision anytime
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soon.
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As a professional astronomer and astrophysicist, when you look up
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at the night sky, what does it make you feel?
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It doesn't matter whether you're a professional or amateur, I
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think. When you look up at the night sky, you're often captured
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by a sense of awe of what's out there, particularly when it's
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dark, of course, and you see all those objects, the stars, the
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galaxies, and you know what's out there, right? So I'm not
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really a planetary astronomer, but I find it...
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Cool to see the individual planets or, you know, get a pair
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of binoculars and look at the moon. That's all fantastic to
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see. I don't study it, but it's just a feeling that is far away
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and that you're only a very significant part out there in
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the universe. That's quite a... Quite a feeling I think. That's
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actually what attracted me in the first place.
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I love looking at the night sky from rural and country settings
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because you see so much more than you do from the city. The
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first thing I do is I either look for the Southern Cross or I
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look for Orion because I use those as my sort of anchor
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points. From there I can work my way across the sky.
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For me it's usually Orion. I come originally from the
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northern hemisphere so the Great Bear is more familiar than the
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Southern Cross to me. But Orion is visible from both the
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northern and southern hemisphere. So Orion, although
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to me it looks upside down, it's for me a great anchor point.
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And if you look hard at the middle star in Orion's sword,
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you can see it's fuzzy. You can see it's not a star.
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Yeah, just below the belt of Orion, or above it actually from
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the perspective of us here in the southern hemisphere, is a
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fuzzy blob that's called the Orion Nebula. It's probably the
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nearest region where stars are being formed. It's a stellar
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nursery. That's an area of research interest of my group
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actually. So that's actually the closest area that we really
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study in any detail.
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It's a spectacular region with...
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Yes, and you can see it fairly well by using a pair of
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binoculars or a small telescope. And so I recommend that people
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do so. Now don't be disappointed because on all those pictures on
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public outreach websites, you have the most spectacular
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colours, all kinds of reds, but...
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In actual fact, when you look through a piece of equipment
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like binoculars, you don't see those colours very brightly,
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because your eyes are not that sensitive to colours at night.
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Everyone wants to buy a telescope to look at the night
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sky, but you don't need that. You just need an armchair and
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binoculars and that's all.
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Well, it depends on what you want to look for, but binoculars
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are a good starting point, particularly for the moon, which
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I wouldn't really look at through a telescope, because the
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telescope only shows you a very small fraction of the sky.
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Binoculars are much better.
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The nearby planets can be done with binoculars as well. But if
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you look at these conjunctions of planets, you don't even need
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equipment. And meteor showers, you shouldn't need equipment
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because you won't be able to see them.
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What are you working on now?
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My group is working on the contents of very dense groups of
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stars, which we call star clusters. And at the moment, I'm
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working with a PhD student in India, working on ultraviolet
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observations, satellite observations, with the Indian
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UVIT satellite. To try and understand how those stars
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formed and how they will eventually evolve.
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Do you believe globular clusters are all groups of stars born at
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the same time, or are some of them the cause of other
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galaxies?
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That's a very good question, actually. The majority of
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globular clusters in Our Milky Way, and it's about 160 to 170
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or so, are groups of very old stars that formed roughly at the
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same time. Different stellar masses form at slightly
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different times, but the differences are no more than a
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few hundred thousand years.
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Well, their ages are billions of years, so for all practical
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purposes they're formed at the same time.
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A few of them, however, might be the skipped course of what we
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call dwarf galaxies, and one of them is the object Omega
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Centauri, which is often portrayed as the largest, most
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massive globular cluster in the Milky Way, but it is likely that
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it was actually the core of a dwarf galaxy that no longer has
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the disk of stars around it. And that's based on observations
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that there are.
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Multiple chemical compositions of stars inside of that object.
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Let's call it the cluster. And that is an unlikely result of
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stellar evolution. We need to have multiple episodes of star
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formation to form different chemical compositions, and most
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likely, therefore, that object is the core of a galaxy.
00:19:14
It's all in the metallicity.
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Different metallicities, yes.
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What are you looking forward to the most this year?
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As I mentioned earlier, I like deep-sky objects. It's cool to
00:19:23
look at planets and the moon, but my research really is on
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much more distant objects. And there's a couple of them that we
00:19:30
can see this year. We talked about the Nucleus as a galaxy
00:19:33
visible during the winter, high up overhead. Of course, the
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Milky Way has a central dark area known as the Emo in the sky
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by Aboriginal people.
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Best visible in June, high up in the sky at that time. And we
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talked about the Andromeda Galaxy, which is an object that
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I'm quite favorable of. But then, toward the end of the
00:19:52
year, we might have a spectacular object, but it's not
00:19:54
clear yet. In January last year, 2023, an object was discovered
00:19:59
that is likely to become a comet. And that comet... It has
00:20:03
the cryptic name C-2026A3, also known as Cuchin San Atlas.
00:20:08
It will have its closest approach to Earth on the 13th of
00:20:11
October at 71 million kilometers, but it will be best
00:20:14
visible if it develops a tail, and we don't know that yet.
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About a week later, because the moon intervenes in the meantime.
00:20:20
So late October, if that comet really develops a spectacular
00:20:24
tail, that should be quite a spectacle to look for on the
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sky.
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That's Professor Richard DeGrasse from Macquarie
00:20:30
University. And this is Space Time.
00:20:47
Time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making
00:20:49
news in science this week with the Science Report.
00:20:53
The World Meteorological Organization says this current
00:20:56
El Niño event is one of the five strongest on record. Scientists
00:21:01
say the event peaked in December and has been gradually weakening
00:21:04
ever since. However, they say it will continue to influence
00:21:08
global climate over the coming months.
00:21:11
Meteorologists say a combination of El Niño and climate change
00:21:15
has led to record temperatures on land and extreme events,
00:21:19
while ocean temperatures have also hit record highs.
00:21:22
Scientists say there's a 60% chance of El Niño persisting
00:21:26
until May and an 80% chance of neutral conditions, neither El
00:21:30
Niño or La Niña, in April to June. But they are also warning
00:21:35
that there is a chance of a La Niña event later in the year,
00:21:38
but the odds are currently uncertain.
00:21:42
An early stage clinical trial has shown that a combination of
00:21:45
two antibodies which target and boost the immune system are
00:21:48
showing promising results against hard-to-treat solid
00:21:51
tumors. The findings reported in the journal Cancer say the drugs
00:21:56
known as CS1002 and CS1003 were trialed in patients with
00:22:02
multiple types of cancer including melanoma, lung cancer
00:22:05
and liver cancer.
00:22:07
The trials, which were split into three parts, found that in
00:22:10
61 patients who received the drug in their third stage, 37.7%
00:22:16
had a positive response. The study also found that the drugs
00:22:20
had a manageable safety profile. The authors say this early stage
00:22:24
trial supports the idea of further assessment of the
00:22:27
combination of different drugs for the treatment of solid
00:22:30
tumors.
00:22:32
New biosensing technology has made it possible to create gene
00:22:36
testing strips that rival conventional lab-based testing
00:22:40
quality. A report in the journal Nature Communications claims the
00:22:44
test can easily detect specific gene sequences in a sample, but
00:22:48
unlike PCR, it can be done at room temperatures, using a test
00:22:52
that looks exactly like the well-known rat COVID test.
00:22:55
The authors say the test could transform human and animal
00:22:58
infection control, as well as quarantine and biodiversity
00:23:02
conservation efforts.
00:23:05
A new story making the rounds acclaims that a painting dubbed
00:23:09
the Rain Woman is the world's most haunted picture. Now
00:23:13
according to believers the artist who created the painting
00:23:16
felt something strange happening in the six months before
00:23:19
painting it.
00:23:20
It was in 1996 when she first started noticing flashes of
00:23:24
light in the corner of her eye but when she turned to look
00:23:27
nothing was there. But still, she felt something was always
00:23:31
watching. Now, once completed, the arts put the painting up for
00:23:35
sale at a local art shop. It was quickly bought, but promptly
00:23:39
returned again.
00:23:40
And the same thing kept happening time after time. Tim
00:23:44
Mendham from Australian Skeptics says it could be the case of the
00:23:48
artist having psychological or physiological problems, or it
00:23:51
could just be that the whole story's untrue, even down to the
00:23:54
actual existence of the painting itself.
00:23:56
The Rain Woman is this painting. No one's quite sure exactly when
00:23:59
it was done. In fact, it was probably in the 90s, supposedly,
00:24:03
the story goes. It's a story that is transplanted, moved
00:24:07
every time it's told, but there 's very little basis to it. It's
00:24:10
supposedly an artist named Svetlana Telet.
00:24:13
Who was inspired to do this painting of a fairly, I don't
00:24:16
know, Modigliani-style look of a woman and her body standing in
00:24:20
the rain. She's got a big, broad-brimmed hat. The trouble
00:24:22
is that no-one knows anything about this artist. The only
00:24:25
thing, if you look her up, the only thing you'll find is the
00:24:27
rain woman painting and nothing else about her.
00:24:30
Who she is, where she was, etc., except there are embellishments
00:24:33
that bring up extra stories. One is that she had this flash of
00:24:36
light in the corner of her eye and she looked around and there
00:24:38
was no one there, which might mean she has a problem with her
00:24:40
eyes and her retina coming loose, which is a dangerous
00:24:43
thing, if the story is true.
00:24:45
You've got to go back to that all the time, if the story is
00:24:47
true. The painting seems to exist, but you're not quite sure
00:24:49
it's the painting that she supposedly painted. And
00:24:52
certainly you can buy it on the net, you can buy prints of it,
00:24:54
etc., but whether that's the painting that is supposed to be
00:24:57
involved in this story, you're not quite sure what...
00:25:00
She supposedly did was sold it and it kept coming back because
00:25:03
people horrible things were happening when you bought this
00:25:04
painting not the only haunted painting where that's happened
00:25:07
to him by the way we've had a number of stories about similar
00:25:09
paintings that you sell it through an op shop or sell it
00:25:11
through some sort of an antique store or something and it keeps
00:25:13
coming back the owners keep bringing it back which will
00:25:15
raise the price of the painting eventually because they want
00:25:17
this oh good haunted painting i must buy that the trouble is
00:25:20
that everything's allegedly in this story what makes this
00:25:23
painting haunted i mean it's a lady wearing a black hat the
00:25:27
anguished man is much scarier oh yeah The woman in the rain looks
00:25:30
pretty placid.
00:25:31
Yeah. Looks like she doesn't mind being in the rain. There
00:25:33
are certainly other paintings of people sort of out in the open
00:25:35
who don't look particularly happy. This is not a very
00:25:37
exciting painting. The question is, was it painted by this
00:25:40
person? Did this person exist? The retelling of a story just
00:25:44
follows in a sort of cut and paste, copy and paste.
00:25:46
The retelling without any information at all, that's sort
00:25:48
of verifiable. So we have to sort of put this one in the
00:25:51
interesting. Is it really cursed? Are the stories about
00:25:53
people, terrible things happening, are they real? This
00:25:55
is a story totally without evidence, but it creates a myth
00:25:58
and it's sort of very impressive to people. And it's really one
00:26:02
of life's interesting non-events.
00:26:04
That's Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics.
00:26:23
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