SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 39
*Unveiling the Einasto Supercluster: A Cosmic Behemoth
Astronomers have unveiled one of the most massive superclusters ever observed, a colossal structure named the Einasto Supercluster. Comprising thousands of galaxies and a mass of 20 followed by 15 zeros in stars, this supercluster is a testament to the pioneering work of Jan Oort, whose 95th birthday coincides with the discovery. The Einasto Supercluster, stretching 360 million light-years across, provides new insights into the large-scale structure of the universe, challenging our understanding of galactic evolution and the gravitational forces at play in these vast cosmic metropolises.
*Humans Alter Asteroid's Path and Shape
In a groundbreaking mission, humans have altered the shape and orbit of an asteroid. NASA's DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid moon Dimorphos, not only knocking it off course but also reshaping its entire structure. This kinetic impact demonstration confirms our capability to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids and marks a significant milestone in planetary defense strategies. The aftermath of the collision has been meticulously analyzed, revealing a reshaped Dimorphos with a shorter orbital period and a new, elongated form.
*Hubble's New Glimpse into Jupiter's Stormy Atmosphere
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured stunning new images of Jupiter, offering a fresh perspective on the gas giant's turbulent weather systems. The iconic Great Red Spot, a storm large enough to engulf Earth, is showcased alongside other atmospheric phenomena. Despite its gradual shrinkage and color changes, the Great Red Spot still rages with high-speed winds, interacting with smaller vortices that may be influencing its longevity. Hubble's detailed observations continue to unravel the mysteries of Jupiter's dynamic climate and the forces shaping its grand tempests.
For more SpaceTime and to support the show, visit our website at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com where you can access our universal listen link, find show notes, and learn how to become a patron. Listen to SpaceTime on your favorite podcast app with our universal listen link: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/listen and access show links via https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ. Support the show: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-with-stuart-gary--2458531/support. For more space and astronomy podcasts, visit our HQ at https://bitesz.com.
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This is Space Time Series 27 Episode 39, for broadcast on the
00:00:04
29th of March 2024. Coming up on Space Time, introducing the
00:00:09
Ernesto Supercluster, a new heavyweight contender for the
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universe, how humans changed the shape and orbit of an asteroid,
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and Hubble's latest images of Jupiter tracking its stormy
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weather. All that and more coming up on Space Time.
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Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
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Thank you Astronomers studying some of the largest known
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structures in the universe have discovered one of the most
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massive superclusters ever seen. The findings reported in the
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Astrophysical Journal suggest this giant structure comprises
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thousands of galaxies made up of some 26 quadrillion stars.
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Now that's a 26 followed by 15 zeros. The supercluster has been
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named the Ernesto Supercluster in honour of Jan Ernesto, a
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pioneering astronomer who helped discover the large-scale
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structure of the universe and who celebrated his 95th birthday
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on February 23rd.
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The large-scale structure of the universe is the gigantic cosmic
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web composed of vast empty voids surrounded by thin filaments
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connecting nodes of galaxies, galaxy clusters and
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superclusters. Superclusters are sort of akin to vast
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metropolitan cities in space, representing the largest and
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most massive collections of clusters of galaxies in the
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universe.
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The Ernesto Supercluster is located some 3 billion light
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years away and is something like 360 light years wide. The study
00:01:54
's authors, led by astronomers from the Tartu Observatory,
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discovered the Ernesto Supercluster while observing
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some 662 galactic superclusters.
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They determined that the typical mass for a supercluster is an
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astonishing 6 million billion times that of our Sun, with an
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average size of some 200 million light-years. Now, to put that in
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perspective, these superclusters are approximately 2 times
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larger than our own Milky Way galaxy.
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The authors'findings not only expand science's understanding
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of these vast structures, but they also pave the way, shedding
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new light on the ongoing mystery of their formation. For example,
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the clusters of galaxies that reside inside a supercluster are
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heavier than the clusters of galaxies outside a supercluster.
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And this shows that the evolution and growth of clusters
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of galaxies inside superclusters are different compared to the
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ones found outside a supercluster environment. Now,
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although superclusters contain a substantial mass, the mass is
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distributed over a considerable volume of space.
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Consequently, they're actually less dense than galaxies.
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Nevertheless, their density is still sufficient for their
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gravity to impact the motion of matter within the supercluster.
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And that's important because observations show that our
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universe is undergoing accelerated expansion due to a
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mysterious force which astronomers are calling dark
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energy.
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It implies that the space between galaxies is increasing,
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causing them to move further apart over time. But the new
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study is showing that galaxies within superclusters exhibit
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lower expansion rates than the overall expansion rate of the
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universe.
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And that's being attributed to the gravitational pull of the
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supercluster, which counteracts the overall expansion of
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space-time due to dark energy by pulling back the galaxies.
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However, it's important to point out that this gravitational pull
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still isn't large enough to make superclusters a gravitationally
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bound system.
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Eventually, the effect of dark energy in expanding the
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supercluster will overtake its gravitational pull, leaving us
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in a few trillion years'time with either a cold, dark
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universe where the nearest stars are beyond sight, or no universe
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at all where matter itself has been ripped apart at the
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subatomic level.
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This is Space Time. Still to come, how humans change the
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shape and orbit of an asteroid, and new Hubble images of Jupiter
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cracking its stormy weather. All that and more still to come on
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Space Time.
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Thank you A new study has confirmed that the asteroid moon
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Dimorphos was reshaped after it was hit by a spacecraft. NASA
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smashed their DART, or Double Asteroid Redirection Test
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Punisher Defense demonstrator spacecraft into the tiny moonlet
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back in 2022.
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As well as knocking the 170-meter-wide asteroid moon off
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course, DART also gathered information on its internal
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structure and the effects of the impact. A report in the journal
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Nature Astronomy says scientists have now used computer
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simulations to recreate the collision as closely as
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possible.
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The impact wouldn't have left much of a crater, but it could
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have reshaped the moon in its entirety, a process known as
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global deformation. Importantly, the demonstration did prove that
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a kinetic impactor could deflect a hazardous asteroid should one
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ever be on a collision course with the Earth. And for the
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record, that's not a case of if, but when.
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Now, a new study published in the Planetary Science Journal
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confirms the earlier computer simulations, showing that the
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impact changed not only the motion of the asteroid, but also
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its shape. Before the impact, Dimorphos had a roughly
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symmetrical, oblite spheroid shape, like a squashed ball that
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's wider than it is tall.
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It was in a well-defined circular orbit, at a distance of
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about 1189 meters out from its parent body, Didymos. And it
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took 11 hours 55 minutes to complete each orbit around
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Didymos. The study's lead author, DART navigation engineer
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Shantanu Naidoo from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
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Pasadena, California, says when DART hit the tiny moon, things
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got really interesting.
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Dimorphos's orbit stopped being circular. Its orbital period,
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that is the time it takes to complete each orbit, had become
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33 minutes and 15 seconds shorter. And the entire shape of
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the asteroid did change, from a relatively symmetrical object to
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a triaxial elliptoid, something more like an oblong watermelon.
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The new authors did their own computer modelling using three
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separate data sources in order to deduce what had happened to
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the asteroid after the impact. The first source was onboard
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DART itself. The spacecraft captured images as it approached
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the asteroid and then sent them back to Earth by way of NASA's
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Deep Space Network.
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These images provide a close-up measurement to the gap between
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Didymos and Dimorphos, and it also gauged the dimensions of
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both asteroids prior to the impact. The second data source
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was the Deep Space Network's Goldstone Solar System radar
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located in Basto, California.
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It bounced radio waves off both asteroids to precisely measure
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the position and velocity of Didymos relative to Dimorphos
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after the impact. Those radar observations quickly helped NASA
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conclude that DART's effect on the asteroid greatly exceeded
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minimum expectations.
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But the third and most significant source of data were
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ground telescopes all around Earth that watched and measured
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both asteroids'light curves, how the light reflecting off the
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asteroid's surfaces had changed over time. By comparing light
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curves before and after the impact, the researchers could
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learn how DART affected Dimorphos'Motion. See, as
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Dimorphos orbits, it periodically passes in front of
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and then behind Didymos.
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In these so-called mutual events, one asteroid can cast a
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shadow on the other or block out its view from Earth. In either
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case, a temporary dimming or dip in the light curve will be
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recorded by the telescopes.
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The authors can then use the timing of the precise series of
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light curve dips to work out the shape of the orbit, and because
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the models were so sensitive, they could also figure out the
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shape of the asteroids. What they found is that Dimorphos's
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orbit around Didymos is now slightly elongated or eccentric.
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Before the impact, the times these events occurred was
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regular, and that shows the circular orbit.
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But after the impact, there were very slight time differences,
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showing something was askew. In fact, the models are so precise,
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they could even show that Dimorphos rocks backwards and
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forwards as it orbits Didymos. The models were also able to
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calculate how Dimorphos's orbital period evolved.
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It seems that immediately after the impact, DART reduced the
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average distance between the two asteroids, shortening
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Dimorphos'Orbital period by 32 minutes and 42 seconds to 11
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hours, 22 minutes and 37 seconds. But over the following
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few weeks, Dimorphos'Orbital period continued to shorten as
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it lost more and more material to space, finally settling in on
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11 hours, 22 minutes and 3 seconds per orbit.
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Some 33 minutes and 15 seconds less than before the impact. Now
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these calculations are accurate to within 1.5 seconds. The study
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also confirmed that Dimorphos now has an average orbital
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distance from Didymos of about 1 metres. That's 37 metres
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closer than before the impact.
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This Space Time. Still to come, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
00:09:36
tracks Jupiter's stormy weather. And later in the Science Report,
00:09:40
a new study confirms that global life expectancy dropped by 1.6
00:09:45
years thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. All that and more
00:09:50
still to come on Space Time.
00:10:08
The giant planet Jupiter in all its banded glory has been
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revisited by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, providing new
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insights into the king of planets'ever-changing storm
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fronts. The latest Hubble image of Jupiter was taken back in
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January, and it clearly shows the gas giant's classic Great
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Red Spot, standing out prominently in Jupiter's
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atmosphere.
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Big enough to swallow the Earth, this swirling anticyclone has
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been steadily shrinking for decades. In fact, over the past
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few decades, astronomers have noticed that Jupiter's most
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iconic feature, which has raged across the surface of the solar
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system's largest planet for some 300 years, has been slowly not
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just shrinking, but also fading.
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Now, the Hubble observations confirm that the rate of
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shrinkage of this massive storm has slowed down in recent years,
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although it's still some 240 kilometres smaller than what it
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was in 2014.
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Jupiter's Great Red Spot has been observed as far back as the
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late 1800s, when it was some 41 kilometers wide. That's
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big enough to fit the Earth inside it three times. By the
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time NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft flew past the gas
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giant in 1979, the Great Red Spot had shrunk to a diameter of
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about 23 kilometers.
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And it continued shrinking with time, as Hubble images taken in
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1995 measured the spot at 21 kilometers and by 2009 it had
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shrunk to just 18 kilometers. Observations in 2012
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revealed a noticeable increase in the rate at which the spot
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was shrinking, by some 933 kilometers a year, and it was
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also changing shape from an oval to a circle.
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Now, the Great Red spots somewhere around 15
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kilometres across and decidedly pale orange in colour. But the
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storm's swirling winds still pack a punch, reaching speeds of
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more than 540 kilometres an hour around its periphery. Cyclones
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and their locally named counterparts, hurricanes and
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typhoons, usually spin around a centre of low atmospheric
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pressure.
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And the planet's rotation, such as the Earth, Jupiter or
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Neptune... Induces a Coriolis effect, which causes the cyclone
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to spin clockwise in the southern hemisphere and
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anticlockwise north of the equator. But the Great Red Spot
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is an anticyclone, and they spin in the opposite direction.
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That's because they're created around an area not of low
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pressure, but of high atmospheric pressure. Over the
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past few years, astronomers have observed the Great Red Spot
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interacting with a series of smaller vortices, causing chunks
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of red clouds to flake off, further shrinking the storm in
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the process.
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Before 2019, the Great Red Spot was only hit by these smaller
00:12:50
storms a couple of times a year. But more recently it's been
00:12:53
pummeled by as many as two dozen storms in a year. Still the
00:12:57
Great Red Spot remains at least six to seven times as big as
00:13:00
these smaller anticyclones that are colliding with it.
00:13:03
But even these smaller storms are still ten times bigger than
00:13:07
the biggest hurricanes ever seen on Earth. Some are even
00:13:10
physically bigger than the planet Mars. A recent study
00:13:13
reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets
00:13:16
claims these interactions are only superficial and that the
00:13:20
Great Red Spot is actually gaining power from these smaller
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storms at the expense of their rotational energy.
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Images of these storms taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft in orbit
00:13:29
around Jupiter show that the smaller anticyclones pass
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through the high-speed peripheral ring around the Great
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Red Spot before circling around it.
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These smaller storms create some degree of chaos in what is
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already a turbulent dynamic situation, temporarily changing
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the red spot's 90-day oscillation in longitude and
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tearing streams of red clouds from the main oval. But
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scientists insist it's only affecting a few kilometres of
00:13:54
the surface and doesn't have any significant impact on the
00:13:57
overall 200-kilometre depth of the Great Red Spot as a whole.
00:14:01
Of course, scientists still aren't sure what's causing the
00:14:04
Great Red Spot to shrink, or for that matter, how it formed in
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the first place. But they believe these smaller
00:14:10
anticyclones may even be maintaining the Great Red
00:14:13
Tempest for now.
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Another small red anticyclone has been detected in the far
00:14:19
north. The storm actively appears in the opposite
00:14:22
hemisphere, where a pair of storms, a deep red cyclone and a
00:14:26
reddish anticyclone, appear next to each other.
00:14:29
These storms are rotating in opposite directions, indicating
00:14:32
an alternating pattern of high and low pressure systems. For
00:14:36
the cyclone, there's an upwelling on the edges with the
00:14:38
clouds descending in the middle, resulting in a clearing in the
00:14:42
atmospheric haze. This report... From NASA TV.
00:14:46
The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, takes the
00:14:51
spotlight in these new images from NASA's Hubble Space
00:14:54
Telescope that capture both sides of the planet.
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Big enough to swallow Earth, the classic Great Red Spot storm
00:15:02
stands out prominently in Jupiter's atmosphere. To its
00:15:06
lower right, at a more southerly latitude, is a feature sometimes
00:15:10
dubbed Red Spot Junior. This giant storm, called an
00:15:14
anticyclone, was the result of other storms merging in 1998 and
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2000, and it first appeared red in 2006.
00:15:23
The source of its red color is unknown. But may involve a range
00:15:27
of chemical compounds, sulfur, phosphorus, or organic material.
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Staying in their lanes but moving in opposite directions,
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Red Spot Jr. Passes the Great Red Spot about every two years.
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Hubble also captured Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io.
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Only slightly larger than Earth 's moon, Io is the most
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volcanically active body in the solar system. Hubble's
00:15:51
sensitivity to blue and violet wavelengths clearly reveals
00:15:55
interesting surface features. Hubble monitors Jupiter and the
00:15:59
other outer solar system planets every year under the Outer
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Planet Atmospheres Legacy Program, or OPAL.
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These large worlds are shrouded in clouds and hazes stirred up
00:16:11
by violent winds, causing a kaleidoscope of ever-changing
00:16:15
weather patterns for Hubble to investigate.
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This Space Time.
00:16:35
And time now to take another brief look at some of the other
00:16:37
stories making news in science this week with the Science
00:16:40
Report.
00:16:41
A new study has shown that global life expectancy dropped
00:16:44
by 1.6 years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that's reversing
00:16:49
previous trends, which were looking at longer life
00:16:52
expectancies for homo sapiens.
00:16:55
The findings, reported in the Lancet Medical Journal, updates
00:16:58
estimates from the 2021 Global Burden of Disease Study, which
00:17:02
estimated that the pandemic caused global mortality rates to
00:17:06
jump among people aged over 15, rising by 22% for males and 17%
00:17:11
for females.
00:17:13
Australia had a slight 0.01% increase in deaths due to
00:17:17
COVID-19 and was one of very few countries that saw an overall
00:17:21
increase in life expectancy during the pandemic. Official
00:17:24
figures by the World Health Organization show that over 7
00:17:28
million people have now been killed by the COVID-19
00:17:31
Coronavirus since it was first detected among workers at China
00:17:35
's Wuhan Institute Of Virology back in September 2019.
00:17:40
However, the World Health Organization estimates the true
00:17:42
death toll is more likely to be around 18 million, with some 775
00:17:48
million confirmed cases globally.
00:17:51
Scientists have developed a new camera system that can produce
00:17:55
videos that replicate the colors different animals see the world
00:17:58
in. Different creatures, great and small, see different color
00:18:02
ranges, and sometimes they see different colors which humans
00:18:05
can't see, such as honeybees and birds that can see ultraviolet
00:18:08
light.
00:18:09
A report in the journal PLOS Biology says, A new camera setup
00:18:13
is designed to simultaneously record video in four colour
00:18:16
channels, blue, green, red and ultraviolet, and this data can
00:18:20
then be processed, using what we already know about how animals
00:18:23
see the world, to produce more accurate representations of
00:18:26
their views.
00:18:29
A new study has told scientists what dog owners already know.
00:18:33
Dogs learn and understand what their toys are called. The
00:18:37
findings, reported in the journal Current Biology, follow
00:18:40
earlier studies which suggested that dogs don't do well in tests
00:18:43
where they're asked to fetch an object after hearing its name.
00:18:47
But the authors wanted to look closer at what was really
00:18:49
happening in their canine brains when it came to object and name
00:18:52
recognition. So they measured the brain activity of dogs while
00:18:56
their owners identified a specific toy, for example,
00:18:59
saying, look the ball, and then presented either the correctly
00:19:03
named toy or a random incorrect one.
00:19:06
The authors say the dog's brain activity showed a different
00:19:09
pattern when the correct toy was presented compared to when an
00:19:12
incorrect object was provided. That indicates they really knew
00:19:16
what the names meant and could tell when they were being
00:19:19
tricked.
00:19:21
A recent survey has found that most children stop believing in
00:19:25
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny by the age of eight. However,
00:19:29
Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics says researchers also
00:19:32
found that once they find out that Santa and the Easter Bunny
00:19:35
aren't real, about 10% of kids will never fully trust you
00:19:39
again.
00:19:40
I certainly would have believed in Santa as a kid. When I
00:19:43
stopped believing, I'm not quite sure. Was the evidence very
00:19:45
good? Scientifically, yes. The evidence was very good for
00:19:48
Santa. He's obviously seen around all the time. At
00:19:50
Christmas time, everyone talks about him. There's, you know,
00:19:52
Santa decorations and there's Santas in shopping centres.
00:19:55
Obviously, Santa is real.
00:19:56
You have empirical evidence, but yeah. People tell Santa, bring
00:19:59
some presents, add a bit of romance and magic to a time when
00:20:02
you think there would be enough magic around. And then the
00:20:05
suggestion is that kids will generally keep on believing in
00:20:07
it on average until they're about seven or eight years old.
00:20:10
I'm not quite sure if that's the case.
00:20:12
Obviously, there's a bell curve here. Some kids... Very young
00:20:15
will sort of say, no, Santa's not real. Other kids will hang
00:20:18
on to the belief for much longer than they should. There'd be an
00:20:20
influence of older brothers and sisters and friends, et cetera,
00:20:24
or school friends who might sort of disabuse them of their belief
00:20:27
in Santa. So that would be an influence on their changing
00:20:30
beliefs as well.
00:20:30
But of course, as we know, as skeptics all know, Santa's true
00:20:33
and he exists and he'll bring me presents unless he becomes a
00:20:36
nasty person. But yeah, it's a bit of an issue actually for
00:20:39
skeptics. Do you promote the idea of Santa as an imaginary
00:20:42
being who will bring you presents If you're good, of
00:20:45
course that reminds you of various other imaginary beings
00:20:47
out there who might look after you if you're a good person.
00:20:50
Throughout life, you pray or be good to an omnipotent being who
00:20:53
will then bring you a sort of presence wrapped up in Christmas
00:20:56
time. So Christmas presence is obviously part of a Christian
00:20:59
tradition, you know, the three wise men, blah, blah. Saint
00:21:01
Nicholas originally was a Turkish...
00:21:04
Saint saint for animals wasn't he I'm trying to think actually
00:21:06
animals and travellers I believe animals and travellers yeah and
00:21:10
it's developed over the years in various sort of cultures or
00:21:13
various places in the world ending up with our image of the
00:21:16
Santa Claus that we know the big fat man with the red suit and
00:21:18
the black belt etc it looks surprisingly like Coca-Cola
00:21:21
Santa Claus there have been variations of that before
00:21:24
Coca-Cola we've actually getting about in our magazine.
00:21:27
But the image you see now, the jolly man with the white beard
00:21:30
and the red cheeks and all that sort of stuff is definitely one
00:21:32
that Coca-Cola has pushed very heavily and is now embedded in
00:21:36
our beliefs. If you look at sort of Dutch Santas and people's
00:21:39
Santas from 1800s, even 1700s, you'll see a very different
00:21:42
character, somewhat more sinister actually than the one
00:21:44
we had today. The question is...
00:21:45
You don't realise how recent all this stuff is. I mean, Christmas
00:21:49
trees weren't around before the Victorian era. It was Queen
00:21:52
Victoria's husband, Albert, who introduced that trend.
00:21:55
Where did he get it from? From Germany?
00:21:56
From Germany.
00:21:58
No, it was their first. But the thing is, yeah, I mean, for the
00:22:00
Santa, as we know, it's only been around since about 100
00:22:03
years, so it even left. Exactly. As we picture him today, the
00:22:06
concept of Santa has been around for a while. The question is,
00:22:09
what happens when the kids get disabused of their beliefs?
00:22:11
Do they say, oh, yeah, that was fun, you know, or do they think?
00:22:15
Horrible parents fooled me all these years. And one suggestion
00:22:18
is 10% of kids will never forgive you. Kids are very basic
00:22:21
in their justice, in their sense of truthfulness.
00:22:24
And right. And if they've been lied to, they get very upset
00:22:28
with. Perhaps as adults, we become more jaundiced and we
00:22:30
think people lie to us all the time. The kids take it very
00:22:32
seriously. They take Santa very seriously. And they say 10% of
00:22:36
kids will sort of harbor ill feelings towards you if you have
00:22:39
told them this Christmas fib. I'm not quite sure why we wish
00:22:42
Santa. I frankly think we do.
00:22:44
It's a commercial thing, isn't it?
00:22:45
It probably could be a commercial thing. But also, you
00:22:47
know, you see it everywhere, so it'd be hard.
00:22:49
It's good blackmail. You'd be good if Santa won't bring you
00:22:52
into business. That way the parents aren't guilty.
00:22:55
Oh, I feel that. That's what God does as well. You know, you have
00:22:58
to be good otherwise they'll come and punish you or not give
00:23:00
you presents.
00:23:00
I think you have this idea that some kids still believe in Santa
00:23:03
until they're 15 or 16. I found that very hard to believe.
00:23:06
I find that very hard to believe unless they're sort of just
00:23:08
milking it for everything they can get. Yeah, yeah. As long as
00:23:11
they get it.
00:23:11
They're really smart, yeah.
00:23:12
I don't think they really believe.
00:23:14
That's Tim Mindum from Australian Skeptics.
00:23:33
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